Homeschooling

There are some things in life I plan to avoid just because they make me have wrong attitudes. For instance discontentment isn't a problem unless I spend too much time shopping, so I only go to the mall when I absolutely have to or order from catalogs. Another thing I avoid is a lot of magazines and articles on homeschooling. I read some because they can be encouraging, and helpful, but on the other hand they can also be very discouraging. Seldom do I go to bed and think that I have accomplished all I should have for the day, but the area in my life where I feel most guilty is that of homeschooling. I only have two that are being "homeschooled" this year and things are going pretty good.
The latest article I read was of a family who have a rigid schedule of 7:30 am to 4:30 pm every day, with little or no housework included. I was almost crying by the end of the article because I am doing good to sit down for a full two hours of uninterrupted teaching. After I read and reread the article and sent it to a few people to give me their honest opinion, I realized that homeschool means something different to our family. The girls do need and often get uninterrupted attention from me, but they also get training in running a household.
We have an approximate starting time and ending time every day, but it includes real life too. We start formal school at around 9:30 after getting up early enough for Bible times, exercise, showers, and chores. (That means I'm awake at 5:30.) During school laundry gets changed and folded(sometimes) and dishes get done. If I waited to start housework until I was done with school then no one could get in the door. We have people in our home a lot so it would not do for the laundry to be spilling down the stairs.
I have a rough plan of goals and lessons I want to accomplish at the beginning of the year and check our progress periodically. But I have never planned every day's lessons out ahead of time. I know this works for some people but it ends up being a taskmaster for us (especially for my girls those who are driven by lists.) Our famliy works well on the lesson plans that we have. The girls know pretty much what is coming each day and about what time it will happen. Math, science and piano in the mornings and history and reading in the afternoons. The other subjects usually get in at different times (or gasp not at all.)
As our children get older they do most of their schoolwork on their own. This was a big point in the article that the children fair much better with their mom sitting down beside them. This may be true but it may not teach them to be independent learners. As an adult it still takes me twice as long to learn things as the girls. I am sure that I never "learned to learn". I depended on teachers to tell me what I needed to know and got by fine, until it was time for me to learn on my own. I know what they are learning and am able to help them along when they need the help. It's fun to work on algebra together and discuss the Crusades. It's also rewarding to know that the girls are very capable of looking up anything they need to know and think critically about the information.
Homeschooling is my full time job, but so is being a mother, cook, housekeeper, chauffuer, church member and best of all - WIFE. If I spent 9 hours a day on nothing but school, you can be sure I would have nothing left for Ray. I do only have one shot to raise my girls. I want them to see that my husband is first and foremost, not the remants of an exhausted haggered mom. When Ray comes in and says, "Let's go to lunch." I'm up and out with him. Now if this happened every day I should feel guilty, but it doesn't and the girls have learned to continue on without me. They even encourage me to go if I hesitate because they know how impotant it is for us to have a lot of time together for a healthy relationship.
Some good things I did get from this article are to focus on the girls individually, don't forget to work on memorizations, and stop feeling guilty. Homeschoolers have a great opportunity to live and work in the real world. If my children know that there is lot of hard work in every area of life they have learned a great lesson. If they know how to work and learn in every area of life they have learned even more. I pray all the time that they would have a true love for learning. The picture above is of a favorite field trip we take every year to Old Salem, North Carolina where there is a lot of playing, singing, exploring and sometimes discussions about some of the first settlers to America.