In homeschooling, we’re living and learning all the time. There isn’t a point in the day where we say, “Alright, that’s enough learning.” We try to live our lives to the joy-fullest each day, follow Declan’s questions, Quinn’s interests, without an arbitrary “on” or “off” switch determining when that begins and ends.
I’m seeing my own habits starting to shift as I witness the seamless flow in my kids’ daily lives. I have a habit of trying to compartmentalize my life. And how that can be an escape route from getting things done if it’s not the “right” time to work on something.
I’ve got mountains of projects, including clean unfolded laundry, waiting for just the right “time in the schedule” to be put away. It feels too daunting to chip away at five or ten minutes at a time, as I’m able to go back and forth to it. My “preference” would be to just get it done all at once – to spend hours folding it, putting it away, reorganizing the kids’ drawers with the cold-weather garb, sorting through the outgrown items, etc. But really? Do I really want to spend hours doing a specific chore? No.
Then why do I resist getting things done a few minutes here or there? Does it seem like a wasted effort? Not working hard enough? It will just get “undone” anyway so why bother?
Really, it’s like a leap of faith approaching things in this way.
I have had the same struggle (no surprise), but for me it has manifested more as there’s a *right* way to do things and you have to do them the *right* way. Like, we’ve had mud that Andy tracked in after building a new path to our side door on the landing since last Saturday. I just keep walking past it because the *right* way to do it would be to get out the vaccuum and then the mop, clean the whole area and then the rest of the stairs and while you’re at it, do the whole kitchen, too (not to mention the whole rest of the house). This morning I realized, oh, I could just get a rag and clean up the major muddy area and then the rest of the floor could go on being it’s not clean enough but not so dirty as to be unlivable self. Huh. Seems similar to how your folding laundry becomes a big giant rearrange all clothing effort.
Hi,
I am a locally grown, now living abroad parent of a 5 yr old and a 1 and a half year old. I can relate completely to the pulls in multiple directions of living in the flow and wanting to “get it all done.” I would like to begin homeschooling and am wondering where to begin. Do you use a pre-packaged program? What is your advice?