This Isn't What I Signed up for

by Michele Thorne | More from this Blogger

22 Oct 2007 06:38 PM

Right about now is the time when many new homeschoolers start stressing, pulling out their hair, and thinking about throwing in the towel. Why? Because "this isn't how I planned it." They envisioned everything to go their way. They had everything planned out to the last minute. They knew this curriculum was perfect for their kids. They knew their children would be perfectly behaved from the start of the "school day" to the last 10 seconds. Well, you've had a month to try it out, and it's just not working the way you envisioned it. What do you do now?

1. Relax! Take a week off. Yes, you can do this, you homeschool. Do some fun (and educational if you can slip it in) things. Review what you are doing. Look at things that aren't working. Figure out why those things aren't working and come up with a plan to adjust things to fit everyone's needs.

2. Be flexible. When you start up again, be flexible with your new plans. If something isn't working again/still don't force it. Don't try to make it work and get frustrated all over again. Review and change what isn't working again.

3. Don't use a band-aid fix for anything. Everything has an underlying reason. If you just put band-aids on the problems, it doesn't fix the cause and the problems will just continue in different ways.

4. Enjoy your children. Have fun with them. Let them have fun learning. Watch them as they "get it" and their eyes get wide and the smile spreads across their face. If you don't do lesson plans, allow them to pick one thing a month to learn about during free time and learn with them.

5. Schedule family time. A lot of times families are focusing on homeschooling so much that they forget family fun time. If this happens often, put it on the calendar. Pick a day that works for you every week and use that day as family fun day.

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Learn more about Michele Thorne

Michele Thorne is an all purpose person. She is a full time single mom (her son's father is not involved in his life in any way, shape, or form) caring for her son Jonathan.

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carol pitts (168) 23 Oct 2007 08:28 AM

once a week we take the children to one of the area lakes to go hiking, this works and is educational dont know what to do when snow comes, southern ohio doesn't get a whole lot of snow but it does get cold, with all but one of the children under the age of seven this is going to be my biggest hair pulling stress filled time homeschooling, cookies and hot coco lots of science.

Michele Thorne (461) 23 Oct 2007 11:14 AM

Trust me, I know the house bound winter crazyland. That should be hitting us very soon as it's already getting below freezing at night and we already got our first snow last month. I will make another blog with ideas to help with this time.

Valorie Delp (49340) 24 Oct 2007 09:52 AM

Wow. . .I still have my windows wide open and have resisted turning on the AC several times this past week.