Memoirs from a Homeschooling Mom by Danielle Kuznetsov It has been almost a month now that COVID19 sent everyone home for an extended weekend. Thankfully, you and I have homes and family to be with during a time that feels uncertain at best. For the last few weeks, many families have been managing the schooling needs of their kids as well as their regularly planned work/ activities. This has added to the adjustment as bringing school home requires shifts on many levels. Choosing this path is different from having it thrust on you with no preparation. To all of you in this situation, I send you my deep respect.
very well. During this time, relax knowing that everything they need to learn, you have the ability to teach or get the resources needed to meet that goal. This is a temporary situation for most of you. You will get through it and so will your kids! Take this time to reconnect. Listen deeply to what your child is saying to you. Notice behaviors and attitudes that might need changing. Are there any gaps in the overall health of your child? Play. Sleep. Eat together. On the other side of the mandated rest, we will long for the quiet and lack of RUSH that is not the norm of modern life.
I home-educated my four children for almost 20 years. We had several reasons for choosing this path, training the mind and heart out of the home environment, and I learned many invaluable lessons from these years. Each child is different and there is no one-size-fits-all in parenting. It turns out that it is true in schooling as well. Every child has an IEP (individualized education program) and the colossal task as parents is to do our best to meet the needs at hand.
A schedule that honored my needs as well as the kids’ made life easier during the years my kids were at home. Figuring out how to create what works for your family is a process, so give yourself a break. When my kids were little, I thought in terms of blocks of time. I made rest times, school times, chore times, sport times all different colors on our calendar, and moveable so my kids could see what we needed to do and when. This helped them be able to more willingly switch activities without complaining. As my kids worked through the high school years, meal times became schedule markers along with late-night shows, games, or just chatting. Keeping my kids connected to us was a high relational priority and hard work, but the benefits were
That leads me to what I want to share with you. Long before your kids ever went to school, you already had been their teacher. As parents, we are the first teachers our children ever experience. And we know our pupils
9 June 2020
