Homeschool Mondays – Mistakes – Under-scheduling

***Today continues a series on the mistakes we all make. If this one isn’t you, hang with me, I’ll get to you eventually.***

Last week I wrote about the over-scheduling trap that sucks families in and eats up their time. Just as detrimental to the success of your homeschool is its opposite, under-scheduling.

It’s so easy to see how you could fall into under-scheduling. There’s a lot of work to get done within a finite amount of time. With all the time we spend chasing our children back to the table to finish their work, it can feel overwhelming to think of adding anything else, especially when that something else is outside of the house. I don’t know about you, but there are days when the idea of getting people in and out of car seats wears me out before I even start to walk towards the front door.

While getting the schoolwork done and staying on schedule are great goals to have, never leaving the house in the name of slogging through your curriculum is not good for them. Do you know that stereotype of homeschool  children where they are weirdly sheltered and  can only talk to each other? (If you’ve been doing this for any amount of time you’ve probably met those kids.) Know what causes that? Weirdly sheltering them from what’s out there in the world, and not giving them the opportunities to talk to anyone but each other.

The world really isn’t a scary place to be. There are dance classes, art classes, and music lessons to take. Why not try Thai cooking or learning to speak Chinese? There is so much value in learning from other people who aren’t mom, and with people who aren’t related to them. That’s what sports teams and painting classes are all about. They’re enrichment. They’re an invaluable part of our children’s educations. No, you can’t always teach them everything at home. 

It’s a mole-man. You don’t want to raise this kid…do you?

Our children need to get out of the house and actually see other people. They need to see the light of day. If not, they’ll turn into some kind of weird mole-men…and good luck getting a cute Christmas card photo once that starts to happen.

I know that we have grown accustomed to brushing off the objection “but what about socialization?”. We’ve done it so often that we can forget how important socialization really is. The kids need to see other people who aren’t like them and learn to talk to those people. They really do. The people who bring that up are kinda right.

Which means that it’s a good idea to go find some interesting people. Know where the weirdest ones are? The museums. Seriously. You can learn stuff there too. It might make a cool field trip and you could invite other people…and then the mole man thing becomes much less likely. Plus, you could see something cool…like canopic jars. (Look them up. Gross and interesting…kids like that.)

There’s a whole world of interesting stuff out there for your family to see and experience. Why wouldn’t you take the kids to see all that stuff? Get out of the house and see what’s out there. Let the planning be a lesson in researching. The actual traveling can become a lesson in geography and map-reading skills. It’s still school…it’s just dynamic school. (That sounds way cooler than “field trips”.)

I know that the curriculum is important, and so is finishing the laundry, but this is important too. Don’t be such a slave to the routine that you don’t get out and live once in a while. Don’t be so tied to the lessons that are in the books that you neglect the lessons you can learn elsewhere. Write them into the schedule and make it a weekly or even an every-other-Friday thing if that makes it easier.  But be flexible even then. We missed the King Tut exhibit when it was in Dallas because it conflicted with our schedules…now we have to go to Cairo to see that coolness…that, my friends, is the definition of regret.

Get out of the house. See some cool stuff. Take some classes. Join a sports team. Let your kids talk to strangers, but watch them like hawks when they do. Make it a part of the routine, but be willing to jump on the opportunity when you get the chance to see King Tut.

And if you get to see him, will you take some pictures for me, please? Thanks.