Homeschooling: Stress-free

When we're homeschooling our children we want our days to be as stress-free as possible. We want the morning meal, chores, and getting to schooling as fluent as possible.  Some of the ways of making happen is to start your day with a moment to yourself, whether in devotions or prayer. Using that moment to set your tone for the day. Often times, a stressful school day is started way before you even start school. It can be morning issues, distracting things around you or your children or unforeseen school preparation issues.

On a typical school morning we woke to a bout of low blood sugar. Something that happens on occasion, but hadn't happened for a while. It was a lot lower than normal and therefore the symptomatic problems started, very much out of our normal routine. So the stress ensued. Needless to say, we were able to get everything back to normal and we got back on track but not on schedule. The rest of the day wasn't as "peachy" as normal. But we managed.

Now not all stressful situations have to do with medical issues, but it's an example. Anything can set off a stressful attitude in us. We then need to regroup. Get away for a minute or two and take back that stress-free attitude, and re-enter into that prayer time. It can make a HUGE difference when you walk back into that room where you school.

The way our school room/area looks can help a lot with keeping a stress-free homeschool day. If you're constantly going in and out of your school area then you are not focusing and your children know it and will be more easily distracted themselves. Also, stepping over toys or other clutter will definitely not give you great presence of mind when you're trying to focus on schooling your children. I know if there are toys on the floor that I asked the kids to pick up the day before, I certainly can't concentrate on their work for the day. Checking at night, before you go to bed, which is normally after the kids go to bed, then you can know if you have to send the kids down to the school room/area to clean up before you actually start schooling. It takes you two seconds to to look and set your alarm for that allotted time earlier to give the kids enough time to go and clean up.

Another thing that can make a stressful situation in homeschooling is when you realize your child isn't getting a concept or one is harder to grasp for them. Today I had a stressful situation when my daughter became frustrated over her math work. She's been doing this same work, building upon facts, for the whole unit and today, the day before the test, she started to not "get" the work. We had a good talk out and she and I needed to separate from the situation. We came back together with the work, with fresh eyes and ideas and a much better attitude and worked the problems and she got back on track with understanding. But the way to combat that as much as possible is to look over your child's work for the next day, the night before. I made the mistake of not checking her previous days work to see the mistakes she'd made

Homeschooling our children can be stress-free. But it won't always be. Even the most organized day can have stress. We cannot predict everything. But knowing how to step away from the situation can sure help you come back with a better attitude. We are homeschooling our children, we obviously love our children and are doing our best.  You children are more than likely doing their best too. They want to please us. It's built into them. We just have to know how to combat that stress and come back smiling at our beautiful children.

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