Feb 02 2009
A Home School and WAHM Mess
There will be days that you wonder how you were qualified to be a mother, much less a home schooling mother. Those are the days when it seems like your kindergartener is never going to be able to read, and the baby won’t stop crying, and Mt. Laundry seems to be laughing at you. You burn the biscuits that you so frugally made from scratch, library books are over due because you can’t find them, and your car keys have hidden themselves from you AGAIN.
The main reason for all of the commotion is that you are in a hurry. In home school, there is no need to hold your family to a rigid schedule. If you are trying to get breakfast on the table, then focus only on fixing breakfast. Don’t try to fix breakfast, plan the day’s lessons, read the newspaper, pay bills, and talk on the phone all at the same time. When you “multitask”, which has been a fashionable word in our present era, you set yourself up for failure and disappointment. Do one thing at a time, do it the very best that you can, and then move on to the next job. You will soon find that you are getting more done, with a lot less trouble, and you will be more available for your family.
Let’s look at one of my typical home school days.
I get up very early in the morning, usually as soon as my husband leaves for work. If the baby is awake, or if I accidentally wake her with my stirring around, then I will give her a bottle and rock her back to sleep. This might take a few minutes, but since I got up early, it works out well. I make my bed as soon as I get out of it, and then I don’t have to worry about it later. The rest of my bedroom might look like pigs live there, but my husband likes his bed to be ready for him as soon as he gets home from work. After the baby is back to bed, I do what I need to do for myself in the restroom, and do what I can to quickly straighten up as I’m leaving. From there, I get myself something to eat, because my own health issues warrant that I eat something as soon as I get out of bed. If I leave out this important step, I know that I will have problems with everything else that I am going to have to do later. Therefore, my own breakfast, water, and meds come first so that I can be a better mom when the kids wake up. If necessary, I next start a load of laundry. Now, I have a little bit of time to start working, which means that I will do my paid blogging first, then log into ChaCha.com, and possibly Mturk.com. While I am on my money making pursuits, the girls will begin to wake up, or if it looks like they are going to sleep the entire morning away, as little girls often do, then I will wake them up. Part of their home school work is that they will do their activities of daily living as soon as they wake up (washing, brushing, dressing, etc.), and then make their breakfast. Breakfast doesn’t have to be fancy, but they usually plan and prepare it themselves. Since I am working in between the kitchen and the living room, this makes conditions ideal for me to be able to work, and supervise their kitchen activities at the same time. Once everybody is settled down with something to eat, I can escape for a brief shower, get them started on whatever lessons I have planned for them AHEAD of time, and then get back to work. We will all work on whatever it is that we are working on, juggle the baby around among ourselves, have lunch, and then get ready for running errands and going to after school activities. Once errands and activities are over, I jokingly say that I am about to start Phase II of my day, which is getting supper ready, finishing up the laundry, cleaning the kitchen, and any baking that I need to have done for tomorrow.
Since two of my children are older, I can tweak this system even furthur by teaching the girls to help with household duties so that they get done even faster. You will be surprised how early your children can learn how to sweep the floor or put the laundry away. The goal is to get things done, even if you aren’t always the one doing each job. I even give the children credit for their work in their learning journals so that what they do will become a part of their official transcripts when they get older.
It is important to note, however, that you will still have some rotten days. For example, the stomach virus has made an appearance in my home this past week, throwing the best laid plans aside. However, because I don’t try to hold myself to other people’s standards of what a home schooling family should do, my home doesn’t fall apart. When I get behind on laundry or forget to clean the bathroom, it’s really no big deal. If the girls are too sick to do their lessons, then they can read or watch educational programming on television. If I haven’t had any sleep because the baby kept me up all night, then I can take a nap and pick up where we left off later. Your true friends won’t say anything when they come to visit you in your chaos, and you can take heart that the longer that you home school, the more organized you will become, and the common little mishaps that cause you to doubt yourself will fade away with the soap suds.
Have a Great Day!
Laurel Santiago
