Home education

After school green smoothie!

There are many parents who want to home school their children but for a number of different reasons are unable to. Perhaps they begin homeschooling but need to send the children to school for a while. Or they might want their children to finish up their education in a school. Perhaps the children have gone to school while mum or a family member deals with a health issue.

Luke and I have always planned on homeschooling our children right from the time I was pregnant with our firstborn. We started off homeschooling but it hasn’t been an easy road. The beginning of our home school has had a few hick ups. The pressure of being responsible for my children’s education while managing a home full of little ones has been hard on my sensitive nervous system. At the beginning of this year I made it to about week 4 of term 1 before I got very sick. My nervous system went completely out of whack. I couldn’t function for a few weeks and it took a few months to be feeling much better. During this time we made the difficult decision to send our oldest two boys to school for a while. Sometimes you have to make difficult decisions that are right for your unique circumstances. I can look back and regret it or I can be confident that we made a good, well thought out decision.

While the boys are attending school I want to keep a home schooling mentality. What I mean is I want to still continue to intentionally keep up with the things that are most important to us, the things we value the most as a family. I don’t want to throw away the vision we have as a family just because the children are attending school.

Here are some of the ways I am keeping a home schooling mentality during this time:

Keep doing devotions as a family. The first thing we used to do around the table before they would begin their book work was ‘discipleship time’. I didn’t want to stop doing this when they began school so I now read them a children’s devotion while they eat their breakfast and we read out a memory verse and pray for their day.
Home schooling them on ‘sick’ days. The boys have had a few colds and there have been a few days where they are too sick to send back to school but they have been well enough to sit on the couch or at the table doing an activity. I bring out the school books when I can and do some school work with them.
Keep seeing the children’s homeschooling friends. We’ve been blessed by meeting lots of new homeschooling families in the last few years and making some lovely new friends. I make sure we keep in regular contact with our Christian friends.
Home schooling the little ones. Just because the older two are in school doesn’t mean I can’t do some pre-school work with the younger ones. Savannah (aged 4.5) has been doing some home school book work with me a few days a week. The pressure is off because she’s not official school age yet. It’s just for fun and to keep her occupied.
Pray a lot. Every morning I get up and pray complete protection physically and spiritually for all the children. I pray that the Lord’s will will be done and he’ll guide me towards the best education and parenting decisions for all my children as individual each and every day.
Don’t feel guilty and enjoy the stage you’re at right now. Even if it is just enjoying little moments that happen throughout your day. Don’t worry about what anyone else thinks either. Be happy and be confident.
Even though the children have a different teacher doesn’t mean that you are not still in charge of their education. Keep the lines of communication open between you and your child so if they are struggling with anything they will feel comfortable telling you. Go to the parent teacher interviews and make sure what they are learning is satisfactory to you. Also add extra curricular lessons here and there if you feel like your child needs to/wants to learn something extra.

Have a great day and keep soldiering on with the great task of motherhood.