UPDATED - This is not HOMESCHOOLING

Day 18 (notice the calendar in the background) Shane and I working on a Monday morning.  This isnt easy even for those of us who are USED to this.
UPDATED:

As we head into a new week of "stay at home" orders it is important to remind each other that it is ok to not be handling this well. It is ok to feel stressed out and overwhelmed and sad and worried and angry. It is ok to stay in your pajamas all day. It is ok to cry and be short tempered and wish you could just have 15 minutes alone. We all need to have an abundance of grace for ourselves and everyone else right now because


everyone deals with fear/ anger/sadness/anxiety differently.


I wanted to update this posts with some realities from my world. I feel like I am a good person to share my thoughts because I have A LOT of experience with both working full time from home AND with homeschooling our kids. Shane and I are not super social, my kids are not social, we were never big shoppers, we rarely went out to eat - our daily lives have changed VERY LITTLE, so you would think that our family would be handling this just fine.

However, I AM STRUGGLING to stay focused - both with my WORK and with HOMESCHOOLING our girls.

The girls are super clingy, they are less willing to do school, and they are spending WAY more time on screens (boy do they love that!). They also get in huge fights with each other over who knows what! There are times in the day where all that is happening is Alli, Jill and Chaco are running WILD through the house chasing each other, screaming (barking), and leaving our house looking like a tornado hit. It is LOUD around here.

This extra noise is complicating the fact that my brain is not functioning properly! I struggle to think of words, my typing skills have PLUMMETED, and I just feel like my brain is in a fog the majority of the time. Things that I could easily do in February - read, do brain puzzles, answer emails, know what day of the week it is - take so much more energy now.

I have to keep reminding myself that it is OK to feel this way, we are in the middle of a CRISIS. It is ok to let the kids' school look different right now. It is ok to shut my laptop and not answer emails because I can't think straight. It is ok to do a jigsaw puzzle or yoga or read a book in the middle of the work day because I need to clear my mind.

I am reminding myself and my family - as often as I can - that this is just a blip of time, even though it feels like it is never going to end. We are resilient....we will get through this.

ORIGINAL POST:
The girls spend lots of time chatting and swinging together. This is day 16 of being isolated at home

Apparently I only create a new post when there is a crisis.  My last post was about supporting the 20 families we knew who had been affected by the CampFire.   It is hard to believe that was only 2018. What a rough few years this has been. I feel compelled to share a few thoughts on this “homeschooling” and trapped at home reality we are in right now. Those of you who know me, know that I am SUPER wordy! I tried to be brief, but it is just not possible! I apologize ahead of time for my inability to keep things short!

(Background on our family for those of you who might not know us - I taught high school math for 6 years before having Alli (now 15 years old).  I have homeschooled our children for 9 years - their entire academic lives - they are currently in 6th and 8th grade. For the last 4 years I have been employed by a homeschool charter in California. I work as a teacher and as a local coordinator for Butte County.  Shane was a high school science teacher for 13 years before quitting his job to work along with me for the last 3 years.)  


With schools closed all across the nation, I feel like people are using the term "homeschooling" very loosely.   What is happening right now, in the majority of homes, is not homeschooling. Families are in the midst of a national crisis and their children are forced to be at home. Families who CHOSE to homeschool prior to this crisis are at a major advantage over those of you who are suddenly finding yourselves forced into this.  For those of you getting work sent home from teachers who are telling you to get X, Y and Z done by this deadline, YOU have literally been thrown into the ocean with a bag of rocks and been told "GOOD LUCK!" (at least that is my interpretation of what families are going through right now!). 

Currently, I see overwhelming amounts of “free” educational websites and the worksheet/curriculum links and online classes, etc... being shared all over the internet and I feel like I felt 9 years ago when I started on this journey of taking on my kids' education.


 It was/is/still can be SUPER overwhelming.


I will be 100% honest with you, I spent the early years as a homeschooling mom, crying A LOT!  Alli really struggled to learn anything and I was homeschooling her so that I could tailor her education to her strengths, and it was REALLY, REALLY challenging.  I wanted to give up all the time. I was overwhelmed all the time. And that was with being able to go outside, go on field trips, go to the library, etc.....we were not trapped at home!



But I had made a CHOICE to homeschool.



I really, really sympathize with those of you who did NOT choose this and do not want to be in this situation right now.   I am a helper by nature, and so I am struggling with the fact that I dont know how to help people right now. Yes, I am staying home. Yes, I am checking in with my co-workers, families on my roster and others. But, it still doesn’t feel like enough to me.  I want to do more. 



So, I would like to do my best to calm down those of you feeling overwhelmed about "homeschooling” and the reality of being trapped at home right now.  I am also acknowledging that our family is quite unique so these recommendations may not even be the issues that your family is feeling overwhelmed about. I only feel it is fair to share advice in areas that I feel knowledgeable in - homeschooling, protecting relationships and keeping my kids off screens as much as possible are my top priorities right now.


  1. The number one important thing right now (and always, really) is your relationship with your children.  Read together, play games, do puzzles, watch funny shows, find amazing documentaries to watch, have flexibility in what your days look like, let your children lead.  BUILD MEMORIES TOGETHER SO THAT WHEN YOUR CHILDREN ARE GROWN AND TALK ABOUT THIS TIME OF CRISIS THEY REMEMBER YOUR LOVE, YOUR SMILE, YOUR PRESENCE. 

  1. Regarding school work  --  REALLY listen to your children right now.  Are you trying to finish the “packet” sent home by the teacher so you and the kids are in tears and screaming at each other every day?  Just stop. You are the one on the front lines of this and you need to do what is best for your family right now. If your child is willing to do a little, then do a little and leave it at that.  One year from now it is not going to matter if they finished that worksheet. Let them build legos, create funny movies together, play board games and create couch forts. Encourage them in having the freedom to create wonderful memories of their time home with their family. Children are incredibly resilient. You will be amazed at the things they will learn all by themselves when they are given freedom to explore topics that are interesting to them.  Also:


    1. Try to not get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information out there.  You will never find all the amazing things that are available and “educational”, it is endless. I recommend that you pick one or two websites you love and stick to them.  For that reason I am not even going to suggest my favorites here….I do not want to add to the feelings of overwhelm.

    1. I have had some trauma/crisis in my life. 
      1.  There was the 3 months that I stopped all school because we were busy “fixing” Alli’s eyes using Vision Therapy.  (2012)
      2. There was the 6 months I stopped doing all school because Jill was suffering from MASSIVE anxiety and was screaming and throwing tantrums for hours every day and up crying off and on all night long. (2015)
      3. There was the 3 months I suffered from a 10mm herniated disc and unable to walk/eat/sleep or do anything more than cry….. (ALSO 2015!!)
      4. There was the 6 months during/after the Campfire when our family’s life was upended and schooling was quite creative around here!!! (2018-2019)


This accounts for 18 MONTHS of reduced “learning” time in my kids’ lives


AND GUESS WHAT


after all of these events were mostly resolved, both of our kids continued to improve in their academics.   I will be honest, I have never cared much about how “at grade level” they were but I always cared that over time they were continuing to learn.  Currently in 6th and 8th grades, they are both right where they need to be for reading and their math skills continue to improve. (HA!!!  As a math teacher it cracks me up how neither of my kids inherited my math brain, oh well!!) 


  1. Regarding screen time --  
    1. We do not have a TV and our family has always had incredibly limited screen time.  Prior to this crisis, our kids had 2 hours a WEEK of screen time. That has changed since Shane saw what was coming in the beginning of March and so the 3 of them got Nintendo Lites!  They are playing Zelda together for 45 minutes at a time, 3 different times during the day. Nintendo has an amazing app that allows for Parental Controls. I have it set up so that after 2.5 hours their Nintendo’s shut off until the next day.  There is no arguing about more time, they literally shut off!  
    2. This same ability is available through GOOGLE FAMILY for phones, chromebooks, and other devices.  We have their phones set to 1 hour of screen time (I know, we are SUPER MEAN!!) and they can choose how to spend that time.  The app allows for you to disable certain apps so our kids have no google, facebook, you tube, etc….on their phones. One drawback is that after a child is 13, you lose parental control - this is INSANE to me. I got around that rule by having their birthday fall 5 years after they were actually born. That way I will have parental controls until they are 18. I can slowly loosen the reins as they get closer to 18.  (I know I am SUPER MEAN, I have been told.)
    3. Chromebooks through Google Family can have the same settings. You can limit the time spent on them and you can limit what your children can access.  So, my kids have 1 hour on their chromebooks and need to ask permission for any website they want to open. Once I approve it they can access it indefinitely, so their Mango Languages, typing programs, and Mystery Science (an educational website) are always accessible to them, but anything new they have to ask permission.



I hope that this information can help some of you to loosen the reins and make this time at home memorable for the good things you were able to do together as a family. My last parting advice is to please go easy on yourself. You can only do the best you are able to do at any given time - we all stumble. I am hoping that we can all work together to help each other continually get back up over the next few weeks which are probably going to be very, very rough. Be safe everyone.

1 comment:

  1. Jen such good advice. You are doing the best you can as life always is changing and challenging us. Lv k

    ReplyDelete