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homeschool support for a mother with PTSD?
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I have searched with web with this question at least 20 time. What I come up with is either blogs written by people who’ve had nasty homeschooled experiences, OR information for parents to educate children with PTSD. No information or support for a mother with PTSD, who is also trying to homeschool. Which is me – I know.. What am I? Crazy? Well, yes…
Anxiety and depression are similar but, not quite the same. It’s taken me 2 years of hard work to subdue my panic attacks and find my worth. My children are young: 6, almost 4 and 2. I love Charlotte Mason and her work. My little’s love the music, art and stories. We are naturally a high-book/low-screen-time family. I’m blending some enrichment and book ideas from AO with SCM curriculum (nothing rigorous, under 2 hrs a day total). And just keep thinking that it should be working by now…. But I am SO STRESSED!!! I keep lessons short and positive. When I feel myself or my DS become disengaged or stressed we switch. I feel like a failure however, and we’ve barely begun. It has been SUCH a struggle to find our rhythm. Having the two little ones constantly interrupting is extremely triggering for me. The blogs and vlogs have so many ideas and perfect scenarios for entertaining little tot’s during lessons. It seems like a bunch of (good!) ideas for mom’s who don’t experience panic attacks, anxiety, flashbacks or waves of inadequacy and depression. —BTW I am in therapy but not on meds – unless you count wine and Bluegrass as medicine. I also use homeopathy and natural herbs.
My own “education” was so dismal that my 3 siblings – who experienced the same – think I am crazy to attempt this. They wont continue conversations with me about homeschooling or, say things like, “wow, I would never do that with my kids”. Teaching IS triggering for me because of my own traumatic childhood. But it’s also been rewarding and healing at times. Where are all the support groups?! It feels so silly to keep searching google over and over for ideas and help. The closest Charlotte Mason group is 2 – 3 hrs away.
Sorry for the vent – Any support or encouragement or similar stories?
LDyer, I’m sorry to hear that things are so hard. It sounds like your experience is different than mine but I have struggled with PTSD. If you’d like to “talk”, you can email me at manymohr (at) gmail (dot) com.
I follow this lady on Instagram and she has PTSD. Perhaps reaching out to her through email would be helpful to you. She recently posted about struggling with it when her 4th baby was born with 3 young boys.
oops here is the link
Sorry, you are struggling. Be gentle with yourself and your children. You are doing wonderful things every day;)
Most moms struggle more than you think, but they don’t talk about it much.
You are on the right track with herbs, etc. Our family is on a wellness journey. I sell essential oils, which comes with a wellness community. My YouTube channel is Oil Nerd, if you are interested. My lastest episode is called Start Small. I’m no expert on film making, and I’m not a Dr, but I’m sharing what I can.
Celebrate your daily successes and keep going:)
I don’t have PTSD but have had some traumas and dealt with anxiety and depression and a persistent sense of inadequacy, so maybe some of these things would help you. One is to choose ONE homeschooling thing that you can succeed at each day, and make sure you do that every school day. You can start with something you almost can’t fail at if necessary, such as turning on a classical music CD for 5 mins at breakfast. Once your brain starts to realize that you can succeed, you can slowly start to build on that, one thing at a time. You could apply that to other areas too, such as choosing one parenting task or one small creative thing to do each day. This can help your brain realize that it can overcome learned helplessness (for me at least that was a huge source of inadequacy feelings and depression).
I just watched a TED talk by Amy Cuddy about the effect of body positioning on confidence and other things and I’m going to try doing one of the power poses she recommends daily. That might be helpful for you too.
I have heard that EMDR is super helpful for PTSD so maybe that would be something to look into.
I hope you find some answers. You might also try posting on the Well Trained Mind forum…it’s big and busy and I know I’ve seen moms there mention having PTSD so you might get additional ideas there.
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