Homeschooling in California

This past week has felt really tough on the homeschooling front, but I’m not real sure why.  Nothing major has happened to take up our time.  We’ve had some fun playdates, got some neat project ideas from our advisor, and yet I just feel like I’m spinning my wheels, not moving.

I did a lot of reading before making the decision and commitment to homeschool, so I’d read plenty of homeschoolers discuss the bad days.  Somehow I thought the bad days were when mom or the kids were sick, or there was some upheaval in the household.  Maybe it is.  Maybe the bla-s I’m feeling this week don’t actually qualify as bad, just, bla.

When I take a step back and look at things objectively, I think the homeschooling has been going fine.  It’s the rest of my life that’s been overwhelming.  I had a bunch of writing deadline all land on top of each other, so I had several late nights in a row.  That’s left me tired, and. . .well, bla.

Juggling work (as in a job, and working from home to boot) homeschooling, and regular life stuff is still a skill I haven’t mastered yet.  I don’t switch mental gears quickly, so it makes it hard to go back and forth from one thing to another.  I don’t feel like it’s undoable, but I’m just not doing it well yet.

Now on top of feeling overwhelmed and fractured, I’m rambling in my blog.  Sorry to take you down with me.  I do have a few thoughts on more solid posts to make, but I can’t seem to pull them into focus in my mind tonight.  But I’ll be back to coherent thought soon.

The message for tonight is, brain and/or emotional overload happen.  I’m trying to remember that it’s all just inside me.  My family says it isn’t spilling out as much as it feels.  It’s just hard to see that things are still good when everything is filtered through my own temporarily flawed perceptions.

Sometimes things really aren’t as bad as you think.

My father is in the hospital this week getting a new knee. We planned on visiting him in the evening after his surgery, so our school day involved a lot of projects revolving around Grandpa.

We worked on measurements for math, and baked some cookies to bring to him. Our art project for the day was a cute, potato stamp painting inside a get well card we made for him. The get well card was also our writing practice for the day. Even though Grandpa was too groggly for us to visit him on that first night, we enjoyed learning while also being productive and making gifts for him. This is how I sometimes imagine unschoolers operate, finding ways to learn through everyday activities that need to be done anyway.

On the flip side of that, my mother is under a lot of stress trying to communicate with the doctors, planning what therapy Grandpa will need when he gets home, and also still watching the girls two days this week. They did very little school work today, and the next Grandma day will probably be even worse because that’s the day Grandpa comes home.

However, even though there wasn’t much for Grandma to write down in out teacher planner book today, I think the girls still learned a lot. Maybe nothing that fit neatly into the categories of ‘writing’ or ‘art’, but many things in life don’t fit into categories. For example, my daughter was fascinated with how the machine that kept Grandpa’s leg moving – bending and stretching, bending and stretching, over and over again – worked. She examined it from all angles, and studied all the cords and joints. They got a little lesson on hospital etiquette, which I was proud to see they took very seriously.

And I think it’s wonderful that they also got to learn that sometimes our regular schedule gets put on hold because family is more important.

Today was a work day for me, and my mother was not available to watch my girls. I’ve taken a lot of time off lately as we got our homeschool started, and didn’t think I could take off yet another day at short notice. So my husband took the day of to stay home with the kids.

My mom was thrilled that he was going to do this. She thought it would be ‘good for him’. Her attitude bothered me a little because it implied to me that she didn’t think he appreciated what we do by homeschooling. That he somehow takes us for granted, and thinks what we do is easy, or unimportant. At home, he is very supportive. Not one has he ever criticized what I do, or don’t do. He’s never expected dinner to be on time, or cooked at all when he comes home. If there on no clean socks, he doesn’t complain, he does a load of laundry. He’s proud an impressed with what our daughter is learning.

Nevertheless, I knew he hasn’t put in all the research and background preparation that I have. So I asked him if he wanted to do his own projects today, or if he wanted me to give him a plan. He asked for the plan. I spent some time explaining what we were doing, what we’d already done, and gave him several options for activities for each subject we like to cover. I told him to pick a few, or let our daughter pick.

Even thought I thought he understood what he was getting into, I came home to an exhausted husband who happily turned the kids over to me, and retreated into his computer as soon as I was in the door. I tried not to be, but I was a little disappointed in how little school they did today. I think I’ve let go of that now – it just came as a surprise since homeschooling was originally his idea.

I didn’t think daddy needed a lesson about the homeschooling, but he got one today anyway.

I don’t think I mentioned before that in addition to writing, and homeschooling, I have a day job outside the home. Fortunately, due to a lot of dedication from my husband that I should be home as much as possible, and some sacrifice of many material things in life, I only have to work part time outside the home – about 2 ½ days a week on average.

I mention it because I’ve seen this issue come up on homeschool forums and chat boards from time to time. People wonder if it’s possible to homeschool and have an outside job at the same time. Maybe a working family wants to homeschool, but doesn’t look into it because they think they can’t do both.

Well, you can do both. Many families do. Some even work full time and homeschool, although that’s obviously exponentially harder than what I do. I am actually quite lucky in that I have wonderful extended family support. My mother watches my girls when I work, and she also oversees my daughter’s schooling on my work days. Not everyone has that option.

But even if my mom was not available, I believe we could still make this work. Again, because I’m only out of the house 2 ½ days a week, we could simply move ’school’ days to the day’s I’m home. For homeschoolers, there are not set in stone rules that say school can only happen Monday through Friday. I can happen Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday if it has to. It can happen in the evenings instead of the daytime. If the child is old enough, they can work independently most of the time, with the parents just being available for evening help the way they would help with homework if their teen was in a regular school.

What I’ve found is that families who want to homeschool can get very creative in order to make that happen. Maybe one parent works a swing or night shift while one works traditional hours. Many find a way to work from home (as I’m slowly, but surely moving toward doing.) Others just reevaluate their lives, find a way to live on less, and bring one parent home.

Finding solutions to these tricky life problems is a passion of mine. I hate that money keeps people from living their live in a way that embraces their beliefs and ideals. But it does. I hope to dig out other ideas to help bridge the money/work/homeschooling gap, and will share whatever I find here.

If you work and homeschool, and have a tip to share, plpease leave a comment. We can all use any support we can get.