Homeschool Advice Needed

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JayLynn

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I am feeling overwhelmed and I haven’t even started yet, sigh. This will be my first year homeschooling and I’m getting worried.

I started off all enthusiastic and the kids were too, but the last couple of days haven’t gone so well. I plan to start the official school year next week, but I tried out a couple trial days to see how we’d do. All I wanted the kids to do was a tiny bit of math and it was like pulling teeth. One child was crying in frusteration and the other one was so unmotivated even though math is his favorite subject. I had to keep prodding him to complete every single question.

I also am the type of person that craves quiet time and with five children home all day in our small home, things get really noisy and I go crazy! How am I going to get through the whole year? Another huge problem we have is fighting! I try my best to get the kids to stop fighting, but have had no success. They just can’t seem to get along, especially my two middle sons. Is being home together all day going to make things worse?

I’m also feeling somewhat pressured to succeed since my husband has jumped into the whole homeschooling thing with both feet and told everyone we know that this will be a long term plan, even though I’d prefer to take things slowly one year at a time. The panic is setting in, what if I fail? What if I hate it? Did I do the right thing pulling the kids out of a perfectly good school that I really didn’t have any complaints about?
 
I’m not a teacher, but I come from a family with many teachers including my mother. Teaching is not for everyone, it really is a calling. However you are really just starting and have plenty of time to get things right. It sounds like you are just scared at the moment.

I’d just approach this with humility and determination. Give yourself a chance to fail a few, maybe many times; no one ever succeeds all at once. But also don’t be afraid to say I gave it my all and I’m not cut out for this if it comes to that.

I’m sure others will have more practical advice, but it just sounded like you need some reassurance too.
 
I’m not a homeschooler, but one immediate thought is to not try to homeschool all five kids at the same time. Work with two or three at a time while the others read quietly or work on independent assignments. Then switch. Also, I really think you have to solve the fighting issue first (although I think the separation that comes from not working with all of them at the same time will help with that). Also, you might want to sit down and have a chat with the kids. If they were enthusiastic about homeschooling, ask them what they thought they would get out of it and why they wanted to do it, then have them give you examples on what THEY can do to help make it a successful process. Have them take some responsibility for making it work for everyone.
 
Consistency is very important, so develop a routine and stick to it. Build in breaks you all can enjoy and make sure you have the downtime for yourself. Once you are over the initial breaking in pattern things will go better. Do not be afraid, if God wants you to do this He will guide you through it. God bles you.
 
Curious: if you don’t have any complaints about the school, why are you homeschooling?

Would it be better to homeschool the younger ones and let the older ones continue in the school?
 
As someone who has home schooled a LOT, a bit of advice: take it slow. Don’t worry about what anyone else is saying or expecting (example: hubby). Sometimes you have to try different methods before you find one that really works for you and the kids, and what works for one of them may not work for one of the others. The beauty of it is that you can totally tailor it to meet each child’s needs. If the kids are fighting all day, take them and their school work to the park or outside and tell them if they finish it all without bickering, they get to have lots of play time. Sometimes my daughter would do her lessons outside in the mornings on nice days because she said being cooped up inside was driving her nuts and making her “edgy”, LOL! Once a month or so, try to plan a field trip for the day just to get out of the house and give the kiddos something to look forward to. Also, see if there is a home school support group where you live – we had a home school co-op in my area and it helped tremendously to be able to meet other home schoolers and do things together (plus it really helped with socialization, which is something a lot of home schoolers worry about).

Take a deep breath and know that anyone can home school! But keep in mind, even though hubby says it’s for the long haul, sometimes things change and it doesn’t work out that way. (That’s what happened in my case.) Take it one day at a time and you’ll be just fine!
 
have you read any books about hsing? Been on any forums? They do talk about de-schooling–we always hsed so I don’t know about that, but it apparently is a process to go through. We have been through other changes because my husband works different ways: sometimes at home, sometimes out of town, etc. And that transition takes three months to get everything sorted out and start feeling normal.

So wrt other aspects: we try to start with Religion which we do as a class all together. Prayers, memorization, discussion. By the time that’s over, the older ones are ready to do some work on their own and I could work with the younger ones.

We always started gradually, getting one or two subjects into our schedule at a time. It just started out that way and it worked for us, so we kept doing it that way. And the first subjects we started with were Religion and math, getting that down, then adding the others in.

Discipline and schoolwork: Discipline has to come first, because without it, schoolwork doesn’t work. Figure out what you will do with your boys when they fight and apply that every time. Examples: I give my son 10 push-ups when he argues, I have given fines, loss of “electronic” priveleges (tv, computer, etc), extra chores…

Are there certain times when they fight? Is one more the instigator than the other? At those times or with that one, you might have to use a concept I read about and have used called a time-in. When a child needs to learn good habits to replace the bad habits, you keep the child with you all the time (or at the bad times) and catch everything at the beginning and tell them the right thing to do at the beginning and have them do it. Then they learn better ways of handling it (and we learn about the complete lack of logic of kids!).

There’s more you need to learn… but I would suggest starting off with a couple os subjects and making a plan–but I am a huge planner. Others might suggest jumping in and seeing what you need to figure out, which is also a good alternative and may work better for you.

You need to cover a few contingencies: Getting the schoolwork done, while keeping up with the house! (definitely include the children in this or you will go nuts). Having time to teach while occupying the younger ones–what will the younger ones be doing? etc.

I would be happy to help if you think it would be useful, pm me. I have 4 children, 11-20, none of whom went to school til they were 16 and went part-time to community college.

Annie
 
I am not a parent, but I was homeschooled. My mom used to try to make it fun, which made learning a lot more exciting. Depending upon the age of your children, you could make up various age-appropriate games. When I was really little, my mom used to write numbers on colorful construction paper and would tell me which ones she wanted me to jump on. That is how I learned how to count early on.

If they are old enough to read, you can make up a little skit for them to do that has a historical background. For instance, when I was six or seven, my mother wrote a short play about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln; I played Lincoln and my aunt played Washington. It was alot of fun, and I was learning history and practicing reading at the same time!

Other than that, it does take a little bit of time at the beginning of the school year. I was not the easiest child to homeschool, but after a couple of weeks, I got into the routine and everything was fine.

I hope this was at least a little bit helpful! Good luck to you in this new school year!

God bless,
lovedance4ever
 
First of all, I have only homeschooled for two full years, so I am still learning myself.

I can definitely relate to the fighting. My oldest son and my daughter had to do there work in separate rooms. They fight like cats and dogs when they are together, so you may have to split your kids up. Location is not that important to me, as long as they get their work done, it doesn’t really matter to me where they are. The only time during the day when everyone was together was during prayer time.

It’s really important to keep a schedule and try to stick with it as best you can. I spend some time every weekend planning out what I will be doing with each child every day. Organization is key!

Homeschooling is definitely something you need to take one year at a time. It doesn’t work for everyone, and I hope your husband will be understanding of that. Take comfort in the fact that your kids will not be warped for life if this year doesn’t pan out the way you want it to.

As far as quiet time goes, that will be much harder to come by. I am not sure what the age ranges of your kids are. Perhaps while the toddler is taking a nap, you could get the older kids to read quietly for a while and you can slip off for some quiet time.

Hope that helps a little bit, and good luck with school this year! 🙂
 
Thank you all for your advice and words of encouragement! I think I can do this, I just have to work through the discipline issue and getting ourselves unschooled.

To answer some of the questions you guys had, my children are 9, 7, 5, 3 & 1. The boys are the 7 & 5 year olds. I do have trouble with discipline in general and it is something I am working on. My kids aren’t horrible, just very active and messy and I have made a schedule with my homeschooling and worked chores into it, so I’m hoping this will help. I haven’t made them do a whole lot of chores before now, but I realize that if we want to pull this off I will need help around the house.

The reason I decided to homeschool in the first place is because my 7 year old was acting up in class. I let him know that if he didn’t smarten up, I’d be pulling him out of school at which point he begged me to homeschool him. I figured if he wanted to do it that badly I’d give it a try. My 9 year old daughter also expressed an interest, so I decided to try them both the same year. We live in a remote area and we need to drive a distance to get the kids too and from school anyway, so I felt by keeping them home, I’d save myself some time and cost in fuel. Not to mention have to bundle up the younger children and pill them in the van early in the morning. I live in Northern Alberta so we get some days in the winter that are as cold as -40 Celsius.

There are some other homeschoolers in the area and support groups too, so I’ll be sure to look into those. I love the “make learning fun” ideas. I just have to think positively and just take one day at a time. Thanks again for all your help!!
 
Hello JayLynn,

I am so relieved to see that you are encouraged!

We’ve homeschooled for over 8 years and we have 8 children. Hmm… bunch of 8s. We also had four of our children in school for 8 years. There are hardships no matter which way you plan to educate your children. I am SOOOO glad that we live in an easy state for homeschooling! That and Daddy’s second shift work are big reasons we stay home (not to mention the money, goofy books and such).

My favorite book for getting an idea of shortcuts in teaching the most to our children is Laura Berquist’s Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum. She has great ideas for saving time and money using “real” books.

You can also Google “Robinson Curriculum” and watch Dr. Art Robinson’s video on what he did. Best advice I’ve ever been given as to the dynamics of the homeschool day. He and his wife were set to homeschool when she died leaving an eighteen month old child. He was determined for reasons of faith (not Catholic) not to put his children in the public school so he worked at home and taught his children to teach themselves.

Prayer and time will be your best “improvers”.

Have a great year!
 
I could have written a lot of your post. We have five kids 7, 6, 3, 2, and 6 months. We’re all crammed into a small house and my husband is frequently away for long stretches of time. To keep my cool I’ve hired a babysitter to come in every day for an hour or two so I can get out.

I try my best to make things fun but, honestly, I think it’s better for everyone if mommy gets more than four hours of sleep and the grammar lesson is boring. If there is an obvious, easy way to make it fun I do it but otherwise not.

One way I save time is to combine lessons. Kids at different grade levels can both be instructed at the same time on science, social studies, history, and so on. I just hold the older kid to a higher standard when it comes to writing about or retaining the information.
 
Oh, the babysitter idea is great!

I was at a homeschool convention one time where the speaker told of his ways to make the day go smoothly and I found that his best suggestion was to assign each of the oldest children an hour to “babysit”, “play with”, “play school”, “read to”, or otherwise occupy the littlest children. Great advice JUST as my littlest were getting beyond this.

My brother and his wife made sure to do their little ones’ “schooling” first, while the others cleared table or carried laundry or trash, etc. That was a giant help to me! By the time the little ones were finished with catechism and story time the older children had their books ready and some were working on worksheets or something. They have 13 children and the oldest has a vocation.

Thanks for the reminder though, I think that I could still use this strategy somehow even though our youngest is eight (another 8?).
 
I forgot:

Airforcefamily,

I’ve seen on various homeschool groups that using ereaders for reading and classic books is a God-send time, money and space-wise - especially for military families who have weight limits.

If you have several ereaders of the same kind, the books can be “shared”.

Your “name” reminded me of this.
 
Perhaps its time for some Dr. Ray Guarendi regarding discipline. I think you need to tackle that first and tackle it holistically within the household. You aren’t going to get anywhere with schooling otherwise. I can also recommend MaryAnn Budnik’s Raise Happy Children series.
 
This year we’re down to 2 kids homeschooling. 3 in conventional classrooms. Its our 22 year of homeschooling.

So… your factors are
4 kids
1 is a baby
small house
Unsteady discipline
Remote location
overly excited husband with maybe unrealistic expectations
An intimidating long-haul plan
A bad start
A panicked mother.

The number one thing a homeschool family needs to spend time learning( that’s FAMILY, not collection of home school individuals) is how to be/ work/ live together 24 hours a day.
Major factors often overlooked which trip up this goal:
Cluttered household
Cluttered discipline
cluttered schedules
cluttered expectations(!!!)

Imagine this: 2 years from now you had 4 kids (perhaps one on the way)
In a home that was simple and ordered
Kids who were generally obedient
Kids who were, if not overtly kind, at least quiet. Not sneaky and not tattles.
A family who expected that Mondays was playgroup, thursdays was reading group, friday was grocery shopping ans sunday mass ( or whatever simple, clear things you put in your schedule)
A family who expects that every afternoon affords them 60- 90 minutes of quiet/ silent time. ( choose the time your family needs. Implement then enforce if you have to. In our house, it’s called ’ cloister rule.’ I also implement cloister rule every night cleaning the kitchen after dinner. I have to or we don’t get done!)
A family who had really attained daily family prayer time(s)
Kids who improved in reading and read daily
kids who improved in math skills and drilled daily

If, in 2 years, you have been able to achieve this, youve done REMARKABLY well.

Is this different than your dream of homeschooling? Your imagination of it?

Perhaps the single biggest homeschool killer is burnout, which is a direct result of faulty homeschool imagination/ expectation.

Homeschooling not only is a way to educate your kids, it’s a very real way to become a new kind of family. All this takes time.

Do you agree that a list like this seems reasonable? Does your husband? If you can both agree to basic, reasonable expectations you can both choose tasks geared toward progress. AND when expectations are reasonable, it helps to combat our pride. Leaping tall buildings ( at least in some grand, visible, impressive way) is not part of the plan.
 
Great note Monicatholic!

Thank you for taking the time to write it down.
 
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