I’m excited, nervous and well kind of questioning my sanity at this moment in my mothering life. You see, slowly but surely all three of my kids eventually became homeschool students. The teenager is actually a full-time online charter school student, so that’s more of a high school curriculum that’s handled online through Virtual Learning Academy Charter School. My younger two kiddos, who are 12 and 10, are full-time homeschool status students here in NH which means I am ultimately their teacher.
Major Lifestyle Change
Talk about a lifestyle change. Not only am I a full-time work from home mom of 3 kids and a pug, but now I have to figure out how I can homeschool and work at the same time. It’s still a learning process, but luckily my kids have pretty amazing comprehension skills so teaching them isn’t as difficult as I had imagined.
We’re still trying to figure out this whole schedule of learning how can I homeschool and work, but I’ve decided to come up with some tips for that new parent out there looking to switch to homeschool but still has to work.
How Can I Homeschool and Work?
This is a pretty popular question among parents who are thinking about homeschooling their kids. I often wonder why we didn’t homeschool sooner, I mean the kids get extra time to dig into passions that will further push their creativity and that makes me one happy Mama. In addition to being able to have more time to use their creative side, they have more time to do things they enjoy like planning family days. I mean, well, that’s something that I enjoy anyways.
Ask Relatives to Help
Depending on the homeschool laws in your state, you may be able to ask relatives to help educate your kids or at least monitor their work progress while you’re working. Since I work from home, I can easily monitor the kids in between my work tasks. Working outside of the home would mean you’d need to find someone to help monitor the kids while you’re at work.
Alternate Shifts
If you’re a two parent household, unlike me, you could alternative shifts with your spouse. It’s easier when you have a partner to help you with this new journey in homeschooling bit if you are a single parent, the relative idea works best.
Push Independent Learning
The beauty of homeschooling is that you can easily set up a curriculum that pushes a more independent style of learning. This works best for my situation. I am a single work from home mom of three who rents a home, that means I have to make an income but I also have to educate my kids. I’m slowly working on a full-time independent learning curriculum, but for now, it’s more like half and half. Half me teaching and half them learning on their own so to speak.
Make Sacrifices
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the single mom life, or even being a parent in general, you have to make sacrifices for the best options for your family. When it comes to my children I am a huge advocate for hearing what they have to say. The only reason all three are homeschooling is that we’ve discussed how they would learn best. I watched them start to fall apart in the public school system and felt there wasn’t much progress or help with the higher-ups there so we switched. I don’t get to have as much free time to myself, but it’s worth it in the long run as I watch their positive attitudes return.
The point of the story is this; homeschooling is hard. You have to have a decent education to be able to teach your own kids something and you have to know all of the homeschool laws in your state. If you’re thinking about learning how you can homeschool and work then make sure this is a decision that’s made after much consideration. Once you’ve made the decision to homeschool your kids while you work, it’s all about learning to create a routine that works well for your kids’ education and your financial success.