The ranks of homeschooling parents has grown.
If this was not a voluntary choice, here are five things Hope and I learned while homeschooling four children from birth to adulthood. If we would have been able to send our children to a relaxed, excellent, jolly, classical school , then we would have. So we ventured into homeschooling, made our share of mistakes, but somehow ended up with four well balanced, academically prepared (college graduate!) adults. We do not agree on everything, but we like each other and that is (I am told) a major accomplishment.
What does it profit a parent to gain high SAT scores and lose the affection of their children?
We somehow got both, but we would have taken adult children who can still stand us over any academic success. As my dad would have put it, we would trade anything for four adults who love the Lord God.
That does not mean practicing what a dear friend calls “false charity.” We did not let our younglings do as they wished, but we did recall they were children not small adults. If you have not seen the excellent film Won’t You Be My Neighbor or the moving A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Both give us the wisdom of Pastor Fred Rogers (the second as played by national treasure Tom Hanks). The key to Fred Rogers’ success with children was that he never forgot what it was to be a child. He talked to children as children and paced his show in a similar way. He did not manipulate children by giving them a mental sugar rush, but worked to give them what they need to reach happy adulthood.
Tip One: Two Hours or so of Formal Schooling at Home is Fine
If you find yourself “homeschooling” for a brief time, recollect that reading, working at chores, creating, crafting, are all educational. Nobody should stare at a screen all day as a child. Limit that to a few hours (counting entertainment!). With seven or eight weeks left in the term, do not fill the lives of even older children with busy week. Do encourage free reading time, making things, playing an instrument, or working out in an improvised home gym.
As a single income family on a philosopher’s pay (!) for all their childhoods, we had to make due, but this can be done. Be creative together! Cook dinner with creative recipes, using what is left in the cupboard. That is a life skill that will endure.
Tip Two: Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the best you can do.
We knew some Von Trapp family homeschoolers who worked their children through Latin, violin, and charitable work in every week. We might wish that they raised horrid children, but they did what they did and all was well. Hope and I could not do what they did. We did what we could do and our (relative) shambles was good enough.
Love your kids. Do your best. If this was not a course (homeschooling) you chose, then love will cover a multitude of pedagogical errors. Do what you can while staying sane. You are not a school. Do not try to be one. Find your own way and endure until this period ends. If you can thrive, do so. Better to thrive and miss a few lesson plans sent to you by an overeager school, than to go mad and grow angry!
Tip Three: Work and Homeschooling Balance is Hard for All
All of us have jobs. A great error is to think that a house with someone dedicated to the job of homemaking has a built in homeschool teacher. The two tasks are not the same! Like many others at this time, you are being told to do your job online (too much screen time!) AND homeschool your kids. In single parent homes in particular this can be very hard.
Give yourself slack.
Nobody gets this balance right all at once. You must be able to sustain your schedule and your kids (for this time) must be safe and engaged in the best activities you can find. Hope, a very ambitious homeschool mom, sometimes had to pop in a Disney video (streaming now) to give herself some time to rest. Dad had to put off writing a book so long that When Athens Met Jerusalem contains passages written when the children where in diapers and when some were in college! If you are in a two parent household, God forbid that one of you take on all the job. This is for all the grownups!
If in a one parent household, do not fear “failure.” A schedule helps. Can you shelter in place with an extended family? Is there a single friend who can move in for the duration? Ask at church. This may help your friend and you.
If you did not ask for this gig, find a sustainable “new normal.” Do what you can. Keep the job going, best you can, keep the kinder safe and learning best you can.
This too shall pass.
Tip Four: Read. Read. Read.
If you can get your child to read, all is well. Read. Read. And again I say read.
This may not come naturally, so begin with anything. My good friend Doug Tenapel has written many graphic novels with profound themes that can while away the hours while educating the mind and heart for any teen given to the medium. Urge your child to write. Journal this plague year. If they are too young to write, have them journal through drawings and bind them together in a book.
Read. Read. Read.
Not one hour your kid is reading is wasted educationally.
Tip Five: Go outside to work and play.
The child who reads easily will bulk at this advice, just as some who will love this will resist reading. A whole life will contain both. “Shelter in place” does NOT mean stay inside. Keep the proper distance but go outside. We have no yard, but we are gardening like mad in pots and trays. We are turning our tiny brick area into a jungle, best we can. Take a walk. Run. Shoot some hoops.
Recollect that if you are working, there is nothing wrong with older children working too. Give chores. The time spend weeding the tiny garden, painting a room, or doing the dishes is more likely to form character than any given lecture you could hear online.
Social distancing means it is hard to do the normal charitable tasks, but consider what you and your child can do. Call an older relative. Give blood yourself and take your child along to see. Bring goods (even toilet paper!) to a neighbor in need. Work and pray: that slogan survived tough times five hundred years ago and is well built for today.
Laugh as much as you can. Have jollifications when you can.
Be calm, carry on.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In