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Parents are figuring out how to juggle work, managing a home, caring for kids, pets and elders and now adding teacher to their routine each day. As anxiety heightens we thought hearing one perspective of a local homeschool mom may be helpful in navigating these new waters. The takeaway from her outlook is to take a deep breath {several actually throughout the day} and don’t expect to have your kids sitting down at a table learning from 8:30am-3pm. Don’t forget to take care of your needs as a parent also.

Dear new homeschoolers,

Our world has been turned upside down and anxiety is running on high. Adding into the witches cauldron a bit of panic, a roll of toilet paper, and an unavoidable new view to educating your children, you may be ready to toss out the potion and pour a glass of wine – but it’s only 9:00am.

Welcome to the world of homeschooling!

There is an entire community of us who have chosen this journey on our own – minus the panic, fear, and anxiety that is running rampant – and we are here for you {search for homeschool in Facebook}.

You didn’t choose this path. Are you hoping to wake up from a homeschooling nightmare to a school bus outside tomorrow morning? The reality will soon set in that homeschooling is your only option until we return to our regularly scheduled lives, so put on your big girl panties and get your head in the game.

Just kidding. No big girl panties required – you can do this without losing your sanity and without drinking mid-afternoon. Do you want to know the biggest secret we homeschool families keep? Once you read it, you can’t unread it. And I promise that you can feel this way too.

We actually enjoy our kids. We actually like being around them. We actually want to partake in their lives and set the most influential examples for them.

We also spent years freaking out over how to educate them ‘the right way’ before realizing that homeschooling is not hard. It is not supposed to break you (or your child). It should not mean crying, kicking, or yelling. How can this be, you may ask? How can you work, homeschool, keep up with your house, and get food on the table day after day? Buckle up, here’s the best advice you are going to get.

Throw away the schedule that is circulating all over social media. It will set you up to feel like a failure. It will lead you to giving up before you’ve even had a chance to truly begin. It will push you farther away from your child instead of bringing you closer together. A school day should never be 7 hours of scheduled 30-minute long learning activities. It doesn’t matter your child’s age or grade level, when working one-on-one, lessons can be completed faster than you can make lunch. This may sound crazy, but when thinking about a child’s attention span, it makes complete sense. Anything longer than this will not be absorbed and will cause tempers to flare – on both sides of the table.

Give respect to your children. Do not lecture them and expect them to learn. Talk with them and let them be the guide. You will be amazed at everything they know – and everything they are hungry to learn. You can look up answers together, laugh at mistakes, and find commonalities you never knew you had. Will you butt heads? Probably, but you are the grown-up, not the child… which means that you should not argue. You should ask your child to explain their reasoning. Through calm and engaging conversation, you will be able to plant the seeds your child needs to grow.

Think outside of the standard education box. You have been trained to follow the same set of rules applied to every child in a classroom… but your child is not the same as the classmates he had. You can provide so many more opportunities right now than you know. With hundreds of websites and apps offering free resources, your child can follow along as zoos offer live classes, create stop-motion videos, listen to podcasts, or email pen pals across the globe. You can keep things as simple as you need or as intricate as your child desires. There is no way to fail this journey unless you give up.

Set examples:

Do you want your kids to read without a fight? They need to see you choosing to read throughout the day.

Do you want them to pick up after themselves? Don’t yell or repeat yourself, just hold a fun conversation and start picking up with an invitation for them to help. They will catch on.

Be together sometimes and be apart often. Read books together – all ages – big kids need to be read to, too -and do it every day. It can be at bedtime or lunchtime or first thing in the morning, but read. Here’s the one you’ve been waiting for – the one recommendation that your child may struggle with the most: Let your children be alone. Do not hover. Do not interrupt. Let their whining and boredom be ignored while granting them the freedom to harvest creativity. Turn off iPads and screens, turn on background music, set a few boundaries, and then walk away. Watch your child bloom before your eyes.

Homeschooling is not rocket science. It’s generally a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of lifestyle, and one that includes cooking together, cleaning together, laughing together, and learning together. It’s filled with challenges and excitement – and moments you would miss out on if things were different in the world right now. So take a minute to breathe in the gift of time that you have just been granted. You get the chance create a deeper relationship with the human beings that you have created. Forget all the expectations you have sitting on your shoulders and just enjoy this time. The world will eventually fall back into it’s regular routines, but you have the chance to greatly change the way you have previously lived.”

Elizabeth MacDonald is a professional writer, author, blogger at Our Lucky Seven, and homeschool mom of five. Juggling life for MacDonald is a bit like balancing on a tightrope while baby wearing, flipping pancakes, and holding a conference call, but somehow everyone makes it across alive and happy.

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