Homeschooling - We Will Survive!

Picture courtesy of Inegria Greetings

I don't know about Joey, but I am feeling the pressure that half the school year is passed and we are still not finished with the 2nd quarter. Yikes!! I am actually losing sleep because we need to be done by mid-May.

So thanks to my friend Denise's, post Surviving the Homeschool Panic, I think we will survive.

"It hits every year right around now. Getting cranked up in January after Christmas is hard enough, and once you do get going again, suddenly, the end of the school year, which way back in the fall seemed a mere speck on a distant horizon, rushes toward you, filling your field of vision with catastrophe".

Some excerpts:

I know what it is. This year was going to be different. This year you were going to be perfectly ORGANIZED. This year every form was going to be turned in on time. This year you were going to plan well ahead for all kinds of wonderful, enriching field trips. This year you would do lesson planning weeks in advance and you would have all your supplies on time. This year you were going have a schedule that ran like a well-oiled machine and you would not spend entire quarters of hours searching for lost sneakers.

Well, actually for us, I think it was too many field trips that put us behind. We unofficially belong to four groups of homeschoolers. Three Catholic and one honor society group. What can I say, they offer great field trip opportunities.

And it wasn’t just the external things that were all going to go right. This year you were going to be perfectly patient and never raise your voice. This year you were going to calmly ferry the children from place to place while you played classical music CDs in the car. This year you were going to go to bed each night knowing that you had spent the day in the most productive manner possible — and your husband was going to find you in a good mood. Not like last year when he asked you if you were going to bed soon and, surrounded by stacks of paper, you gritted out through clenched teeth holding a pencil, “Do I look like I am anywhere near being ready for bed?”

This is a day-to-day struggle when someone you know and love is an opininated young lad.

January is when we really have to get a grip. Might as well, you know. It is too late to turn back now. In for a semester, in for a year.

So don’t panic. You still have nearly half the year to go. You will adjust and reassess. You really are doing a great job. And as for the perfection that eluded you — hey, there’s always next year.

Good advice!

Source:
© Copyright 2006 Catholic Exchange

Mary Kochan, Senior Editor of Catholic Exchange, was raised as a third-generation Jehovah’s Witness. She is a member of St. Theresa parish in Douglasville, Georgia, and she is homeschooling two of her grandchildren. Her tapes are available from Saint Joseph Communications.