One Piece of Advice to Homeschooling Moms

In 2015 I put on my vision board that I wanted to homeschool my children! At that time I was pregnant with our second daughter.

In 2020 we were all forced to bring our children home and my vision became a reality.

I pulled my three children out of traditional school, signed up for a homeschooling curriculum, got my books delivered and started the journey.

Because of my work from home business I engaged the help of a former pre-school teacher to help during the day so that I could get work done and teach the more “critical” subjects.

With a second lock down in place I found myself having to do it all on my own! And I was amazed at my success. It really goes to show that you’re able to do more than you think possible.

So I know most homeschooling moms don’t have help with the little ones all the time, but that comes to my “one” piece of advice.

It can really be broken down into many pieces but the one piece of advice starts with prioritizing what’s essential and what’s not; knowing what time you have to get the essential done and lastly knowing when to ask for and get help.

So let’s begin.

What’s Essential in Homeschooling

Children (less than 8 years old) generally need to learn a few things and most of their academic learning can take place in 3 hours or less.

The other things that are important that they rarely learn in school is what you need to focus on.

Learning to read, count, write and spell are things that we emphasize, but we don’t focus on things like Please, Thank You, I’m Sorry, I give my Word; obedience; industriousness; order; independence.

We send them to “school” so we can get more “time” and if you think about it, the day is only long because of the volume of students.

When I first embarked on homeschooling, and saw what was required of them to do in one day my first thought was why does this take a teacher in school a week?

Well the answer is quite obvious really! I have one child to teach at that level and she has maybe 30 depending on the school and 30 at varying levels of understanding, learning ability, different learning styles etc.

True I may have 3 at different levels which brings its own complications but the work load can be managed far easier than 30 at the same level.

So one can quickly realize that the time it would take to finish one lesson you can do five!

But what do you do with the extra time?

TEACH THE VIRTUES of being a good person. A good adult. A good helper, big brother, big sister. A good family member.

We spend a good part of our day doing chores! Which makes your life as a work-from-mom (if you are) a lot easier.

I don’t fold clothes. My children fold their own and yes they are all under the age of 8 (at the time of writing this post). I don’t wash dishes, they take turns, sometimes they even argue to see who’s turn it is.

Making the bed, putting away toys, books, clothes.

We have a very simple rule for clothes that they have memorized

Clothes are to be found in one of three places; In your drawer, in the dirty clothes basket, or on you!

My ONE piece of advice I’d give to a new homeschooling mom!

Focus on the person of the child, not on what they need to learn according the education department.

Raising honest, hard working children who live a life of order, trust and responsibility will far out way any advancements in Math, Science or Spelling.

Now I didn’t say don’t do these things, but just don’t send yourself crazy focusing on ONLY those things.