Tired, stressed, overworked homeschooling parent?
Some reflections on unrealistic expectations and learning to take care of myself
Nearly all the conflicts in our family stem from communication issues. We mis-communicate all the time. One trick that has helped is to PAUSE. This gives me time to work out what has been said, and how I need to reply.
Give up notions of perfection and settle for a messy, imperfect life. I gave up housework because I couldn’t do housework, dieting, homeschooling and the zillion other things that I need to do to feel okay about myself each day... Some mums need to do housework to stay sane. I need to write. You have to do what you have to do to stay sane. Don’t apologise for that.
I know that if I give any hint that my kids haven’t turned out ‘okay’ the anti-homeschooling pundits will pounce and proclaim that “see, homeschooling doesn’t work after all”. But what is ‘okay’? What do we mean and how do we really want our kids to turn out? I certainly don’t want them to feel under obligation to get straight As in all their subjects at year 12 level, or to impress the local citizenry with their skills and talents or whiz-bang personalities.
I want them to have decent relationships based on mutual respect and real tolerance (respect for diversity), abide by sane laws (not all laws are sane), do work that is meaningful and satisfying to them and gives something back to the community. To achieve this all I need to do is set an example they can emulate. So, if my children are fighting, I look to my own life. How can I reduce the stress in my life? I quickly come back to the basics:
I need more sleep.
I need to introduce a rest period - doesn’t need to be anything specific, just a time I put away all the ‘have tos’ and ‘shoulds’ and do nothing that needs to be done, except perhaps, enjoy the moment...
I need to eat well. Time for some raw veggie juice to heal and reinvigorate my stressed body, or maybe cut out the foods which I know tire me.
I generally need to de-school myself some more (after 20 years of homeschooling I STILL need to de-school myself some more!!!).
Time out.
The garden is a great place for me, and I used to drag the kids out there as much as possible - too much time inside generally leads to friction and conflict.
Fresh air is a basic daily need for human bodies.
Go for a walk, exercise.
When I took time out to take care of myself my children magically stopped fighting. Taking care of me usually meant I automatically had more time to pay attention – be really attentive – to my children. And my kids loved my giving them this time – it’s as if they actually wanted me to be a best friend, rather than ‘mum’ all the time.
It’s okay to be mum and nothing else but mum. Give up the idea that you are the teacher. Be 90% mum and 10% teacher. Use a timetable if that helps. Or forget about being the mum you want to be and accept that you are the mum you are, warts and all. We’re not a dysfunctional family but we definitely have more than our fair share of dysfunctional moments. My kids are not a bunch of geniuses, and they disappoint my parents, but I reckon they are the bees-knees. And they totally forgive me for being an imperfect and loopy parent.
Unless we look after our own emotional well being we can’t totally be available to help others, and sometimes we need to be, especially as mothers. Think about what you need - what your inner child needs to make things right with your child, your homeschooling lifestyle.
All too often school educated people feel that we must expose children to anything and everything for them to learn everything they need to learn before they ‘grow up’. This process is particularly exhausting in a home learning environment, and I stopped doing it in the early years, though tinges of guilt still rear their ugly heads and nag from time to time.
Sometimes, when there is too much to do, it is because I have taken too much on, making strict deadlines in my head that aren’t really necessary. On these occasions I find I am not prioritising very clearly, trying to get everything done now, straightaway. Realistic expectations fly out the window and I try to be superwoman!
Unrealistic expectations are at the bottom of every problem I have ever encountered in home educating my children: Unrealistic expectations of them, of me, of home education itself. Why do I have such unrealistic expectations? I do know that if I worry about getting everything done, I generally lose the plot and get very little done. If I single out and target the important things, and communicate those to the people around me, I can get on and do an acceptable job! Asking for help and accepting help, is a part of a very natural social process. It works.
Helping our children do their work models helping – giving and asking for it. Without it we’re all doomed to burn out.
Excerpt from my one of booklets, Looking Back What Would We Change, available from Always Learning Books.
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