Normal? There is no normal right now—not for anyone at any school! Even veteran homeschoolers are finding their routines disrupted by closures and “distancing” requirements.
Different? Everyone is doing something different from what they’re used to doing, so you’re not alone. And every family is doing something slightly different from what every other family is doing, so again, you’re not alone.
Survive? Yes, you will survive this, just as you survived that one vacation where everything went wrong, just as you survived when everyone in your family had the stomach flu at the same time, just as you survived all the times when the school events and the sports events and the work events all conflicted on the calendar. You found a way to survive, and even though those times may not have been pretty or popular, they created hilarious family memories and stories that are still told and retold at special moments. And this will become another one of those legendary family stories of perseverance and survival.
Once you have made the decision to homeschool (whether to get your students through this crisis or as a more permanent situation), the hardest part is already behind you! No one else could help you determine if this is the best solution for your family, but there are unlimited sources (both online and in real life) to help you with what comes next, every day.
No matter why you have chosen Emergency Homeschooling, those reasons can help you make it the best option for your family. Your priorities during this crisis will follow much the same pattern as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: your family’s mental health comes first, take care of basic life skills next, and then you can worry about the schoolwork.
Mental Health
In any emergency, your family’s needs must come first. You know the analogy about putting the oxygen mask on yourself first, before you put the masks on your children. See that your own family’s immediate needs are met, before you think about lending a helping hand to others. What is most important to you right now is that your family members can stay safe and well, and that your children can have some means to continue learning.
Restore the mental well-being of your family members by making them feel secure. Stop watching the news on TV. You may allow yourself to read selected news stories online, if the information is vital to your family, but reading also allows you to stop the flow as soon as you have acquired the important details—the bad-news reporters on TV will just keep blathering on and never stop.
Limit social media to only the people, pages, and platforms that leave you feeling encouraged, uplifted, and positive. “Unfollowing” is a handy feature for keeping them available for when you are ready to see them again—but that allows it to be your choice.
Listen to music that makes you happy. Avoid the slow, melancholy stuff that can add to depression. Trying an out-of-the-ordinary genre can help change the negative soundtrack that won’t stop playing in your head.
Nourish your souls by encouraging each family member to pursue an activity that is enjoyable and relaxing. They may only spend a few minutes on it each day, but those minutes add up over time to lower the stress level. If you have multiple enjoyable activities, alternate or rotate through them, giving each of them a chance to bless you. Drop any activities that prove less helpful than others, so you can focus on the most beneficial activities.
Life Skills
As soon as you are all breathing a little more calmly again, you can expand your focus to Life Skills (Home Ec.) by working together on meals, dishes, and laundry, teaching the skills to your children as needed, but also using those opportunities for bonding through casual conversation and Q&A related to the children’s concerns over current events. (Use age-appropriate answers and try to focus on positive elements.)
Nourish your bodies with good food, hydration, fresh air, sunshine, mild exercise (walking outdoors, if possible), and good sleep. With everyone being at home for a while, each person needs to do his part to help out, so that the chores don’t all fall to one person. Keeping up with basic home-chores can help every family member feel better about how nice their environment looks: doing the dishes, making the beds, and generally tidying up.
Schoolwork
Ultimately, parents want their children to 1) be safe, 2) maintain the skills they already have, and 3) improve those skills, if possible. This year’s learning situation will not be identical to previous years, but nothing will be, for anyone. This will definitely be different from “normal” schooling—you may be using different materials, a different manner of instruction, a different location for learning, and a different schedule.
Your school-at-home days will very likely not be what you’re used to. Some days will be smoother than others, and some days may take longer than others. Remind yourselves as often as necessary that this is a temporary situation and that you can handle it.
Nourish your minds by reading a book you’ve loved before—it will feel like a comfortable visit with old friends. Your situation may have changed, but the characters in the book haven’t—there will be no unexpected plot twists, but you might find a fresh application to your own life. It’s a small sample of “normal” that can make all the “different” feel easier to take. Encourage your children to play board games and card games as valuable practice in the basic skills of reading, math, and logic. You may even want to join in the fun!
This totally different, anti-normal situation will be okay. You are doing the best you can, the best you know how to do, and that is what really matters. So what if you can’t write as eloquently as Longfellow? No one is expecting you to do that. So what if you can’t do advanced math as well as Einstein? No one is expecting you to do that. So what if you have never traveled the globe or made an important scientific discovery? Neither had any teacher I ever had—and no one is expecting you to do that either.
The mission before you is to help your child learn. That can mean showing him how to draw letters and numbers in such a way that his Z’s won’t be mistaken for 2’s. That can mean showing him how to use graph-paper for math lessons, so his numbers stay lined up where they belong, instead of wandering all over the page in rivers of chaos. That can mean replying, “I don’t know, but let’s see if we can find out,” when his questions stump you, but were important enough to spur his curiosity in the first place.
Don’t stress yourselves by pushing too much, too far, too hard, too soon. Do what you can, when you can, because every little bit counts. Don’t underestimate the learning situations in daily life; see yourselves as learning from everything that happens. Learning is a normal activity, regardless of where or how it occurs.
Arthur Ashe said, “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” Even if everything about this school year seems to be different, strange, and unnatural, a pencil is still a pencil, and learning is still the acquiring of information or skills that we didn’t have before. Yes, this year will be very different from what you are used to doing, but different isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes, different can be very good, and since everyone is doing something different from everyone else this year, who’s to say that your version of different isn’t the best version? You can make it the best for your family.
Other titles in this series:
Guilt-Free Homeschooling is the creation of Carolyn Morrison and her daughter, Jennifer Leonhard. After serious disappointments with public school, Carolyn spent the next 11 years homeschooling her two children, from elementary to high school graduation and college admission. Refusing to force new homeschooling families to re-invent the wheel, Carolyn and Jennifer now share their encouragement, support, tips, and tricks, filling their blog with "all the answers we were looking for as a new-to-homeschooling family" and making this website a valuable resource for parents, not just a daily journal. Guilt-Free Homeschooling -- Equipping Parents for Homeschooling Success!
Speak Your Mind