5 out of my 6 kids were born within 6 years, so when it comes to overwhelm in homeschool - trust me girl, I've been there.
Early on I knew that if I wanted our homeschool journey to be successful, I needed to change a few things.
- Our days must flow reasonably smoothly
- Our routine must be sustainable, long term (for the next 12 years in fact)
So I got to work, editing our homeschool rhythm and changing things that weren't working until I found our sweet spot that today feels natural, life-giving and fun. And I learned a lot about myself, routines, and mistakes that most overwhelmed homeschool mums are likely doing too.
Here's Why Homeschool Feels So Overwhelming (And What to Do Instead)
You're doing too much.
Having to leave the house with children isn't as simple as grabbing your keys and leaving. You understand the rushing, arguments with toddlers about what to wear and last minute nappy changes. When these interruptions happen multiple times a week, it's no wonder you feel overwhelmed.
You're allowing your child to lead you, when it should be the other way around.
Child-lead learning is great. But child-authority structure is not. There is a time and a place for giving our children the space to guide our days, but not when it comes to home education. Even if you're an unschooler, you as the parent are still the authority for education. Ensuring your child respects, understands and honours this will maintain peace, calm and routine in your home.
Curriculums, curriculums, curriculums.
Too many curriculums is too much. In my experience, it's impossible to 100% follow curriculums for all subjects when you have 2 or more children. Trying to do so is going to stress you out. Instead, stick to your tried and true curriculums for your core subjects, and lean heavily on family style curriculums for the others. You can even lean into natural learning without a plan by simply doing things your child is interested in to tick off the supporting subjects such as social studies, technology, sports, music etc.
Your kid isn't ready.
If you've ever tried to teach a kid to read when they aren't ready to read, you know how frustrating it can be. Education shouldn't feel like that, and child development is real. Whenever it comes to teaching something to your child, they should be able to understand it relatively quickly. Kids are incredibly smart. Much smarter than we think. So if something isn't sticking after a week or two, come back to it later and move on. When your child is ready, it will click with ease.
Your teaching style or curriculum style isn't aligned
I love the idea of natural learning, so much so I bought a natural learning curriculum when my eldest homeschooled child was in kindy. It was incredible! We both loved it so much, and it took us a total of 2 1/2 days to quit. We needed so many supplies, we constantly had to move around the house, and I couldn't imagine how I would do this for 3 more kids in the next 3 years. If you want your homeschool journey to feel natural and easy, you must make it as easy as possible.
Too much structure, not enough rhythm.
Unless you've been blessed as Type A, trying to stick to a time or lessons based schedule can feel chaotic. As soon as one lesson runs overtime, your subconscious immediately gets stressed knowing you're now running 'behind'. At the end of most days, some lessons were never finished or even started. And you lie in bed thinking about how to 'catch up' tomorrow.
And then this continues... every day of the year.
Instead of having a daily lesson plan list, I like to have a daily rhythm or flow instead. This means after x is y, and it doesn't matter what time it is, because by the end of the day, all lessons were done. Best of all there's no rush.
Do you have some tips to reducing overwhelm in homeschool? Leave a comment below and let's share!
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→ The >>>Homeschool Reset<<< teaches you what matters, and what doesn't.
