Homeschooling in a Crisis


I'm joining in with the Schoolhouse Review 5 days of teach creatively blog hop. Today's topic is homeschooling in a crisis.

We've been homeschooling since the very beginning. Sure, we had had off days when things came up and we had to adjust our schooling. We also fostered for a number of years and had some challenging times as well but we learned ways to still get our schooling accomplished.

Learning how to ride the ups and downs of life when it came to homeschooling hadn't prepared me for what we faced in July of 2010, the death of my son Noah.


We were only a few weeks away from starting school when he died (we typically start beginning of August). Honestly, a lot of that time is a blur to me now.

I know we started our school year off in just keeping with the basics as I couldn't handle more than that for awhile. Our co-op started back up that September which helped take some of the burden off me. I learned to let go of the expectations of "typical" school as I realized what we were going through as a family was teaching my children far more than they could ever learn from a book.

No one ever wants to go through a major life crisis that brings them to their knees but I can see now how God was able to use one of the worse things we've gone through to help shape my children's character.

A year ago we were faced with yet another semi-crisis when my husband sustained a severe head injury and was off work for over 2 months. Again, we paired things back a bit as I didn't have help with the running of the house in addition to caring for my husband. While we kept to the basics for a bit until we got into a routine, my children made up for that in other areas like learning about their daddys injury, why he had to see certain doctors and the reason he needed to take it easy & heal (health lessons anyone?) They also helped me more around the house (home ec) and a whole host of other lessons they learned along they way.

Ultimately I had to keep in mind when we were in crisis mode, what is really going to matter & make a lasting difference in my children's lives? Those extra worksheets they did for history & learning how to diagram a sentence. . .or will the life lessons they learned in losing their brother that taught them compassion for others who are grieving, how to run a house when either parent becomes unable to and to realize life is out of our hands but in God's no matter what we do. . . will make a difference in their lives long after the book knowledge fades.

Some things to keep in mind if faced with a crisis in your home:

-Do what you need to do to survive- This will look different in each family. It's ok if you need to set aside your formal curriculum for awhile. Trust me, your children are still learning despite not having the math book open. Use this time to stay close as a family; read books together, play games, find something educational to watch either on tv or online. If your kids are older, let them do some things independently. I still have days where my grief hits me unexpectedly and my kids know on those days we only do what we need to.

-Let go of expectations & guilt- I can't stress this enough! It's so easy as a mom to fall into the guilt trap when things happen and we can't function 100%. Maybe God is using this time to rework things in  your life and is wanting you to just focus on the basics for awhile.

-Focus on one day at a time- Some days, it's all you can do just to put one foot in front of the other. The big picture of what you are going through may look scary and overwhelming. Remember, God is already in your tomorrow & knows what will happen. Let go of the worry and just focus on today and rejoice in what you got accomplished.

-Rely on others- I know not everyone has a support system (we really didn't outside of our co-op) but if you have those around who can help out, let them. Giving yourself a break even just for a few hours can give you a boost of strength to continue tackling whatever situation you are facing.

God uses these valley experiences for His glory, He is after all, the ultimate teacher!

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2 comments

  1. Really great post - sounds like your children are being well prepared for life!

    ReplyDelete

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