Today I want to encourage homeschool moms to not be too hard on yourself. Most of the time things will not go as you hope and plan, life gets in the way. Be flexible!

I guess this is a good time to remind you to prayerfully set the priorities for the education of your children. Then make decisions based on those priorities. These can change from year to year.

I found it helpful to make life skills a priority for our children. This includes such things as cleaning, cooking, yard work, mechanics, and shopping. Doing this helped me stay sane being able to have them help me with things that needed to be done, thus giving me the time freed up to spend educating them.

The other thing I encourage you to do is to make a list of the bare minimum of things that absolutely MUST be done on a school day. This will give you freedom to be flexible when the need arises, especially when the bare minimum is things the children can do on their own or with minimal input/direction from you.

I had checklists that the children each had and could see what needed to be done in order to go and do what they wanted to do. When they were very young the checklists were pictorial, thus eliminating me having to repeat the same, “Did you ____?” questions  day after day. I used these for their morning routines and progressed to their schoolwork routine. It was always too easy to forget something without a list.

By planning for hindrances ahead of time, you are thus prepared for them and not frustrated by them.

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº