Home Schooling Problems:
Could Your Daily Calendar Be A Cause?

Many times for us home schooling problems have their root causes in my simply trying to do too much. I shouldn't be surprised when everyone's attitude feels the stress of being pulled in too many directions!

How about you? Are your days too full trying to do too much? Do you...

• find yourself staying up late every night correcting papers and recording work done?
• spend too many hours on the computer trying to find extra home schooling resources online to help your kids?
• not have time for yourself, to read a book, garden, or go for a walk?

How about your kids? Do they...

• have enough unstructured play time?
• resist going to their music lessons because they haven't had time to practice?
• seem to be tired a lot of the time?

I have been in these shoes, and continue to struggle with being too busy. But I have found some wisdom along the way. Here are a few wise words friends have shared with me that have really helped me a lot.

Tips:

• Think about your day in blocks of time (including evenings). Just as you look at the overall week's ebb and flow, think about each day. If you have a busy evening, make sure you and your kids have some afternoon down time.

• Make sure you leave time to deal with the leftovers. I'm not just talking about food leftovers, but the leftovers - the things you have to wrap up, put away, return to, organnize or deal with at some point - that come from virtually anything you have to schedule or accomplish. Schedule in time for this.

• Rearrange your day. For instance, if your kids are gung ho to get going in the morning on their home schooling assignments, but you want them to do their chores, how about changing their morning chores to be their afternoon chores? This simple change has helped us immensely.

• Choose to focus on less to do it better. The Robinson Home Schooling Curriculum takes this approach. With this curriculum, you focus on giving your kids the basic tools to help them learn, without encumbering them with a lot of extra subjects. Then, as they gain skills at how to learn and teach themselves, they can add on the other subjects that often tend to crowd out the basic building blocks of learning. You can read more about it at Robinson Home School Curriculum review.

These are some thoughts and simple steps to get you thinking about how your daily calendar can help rather than hinder your home schooling success.

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