Tag: Homeschooling

After Week 1 of the World Staying Inside

Wow. That one small word just sums everything up. I figured I had it pretty easy when I found out that 3 out of 4 of our boys were going to be home. Hey, why not? I went from homeschooling our oldest, ( I think that was 13 years ago… I have lost track of the time!) to homeschooling 2, then 3, then 4, and now down to 1 again., to bringing home 2– who have online classes anyways – not a problem! I don’t have to worry too much about them. Of course, I can do it! Probably can do it better than most other parents, since that is just what I have been doing all these years.

A week later, I am a little bit older and hopefully a little bit wiser. Still trying to figure out where I went wrong in my thinking. Don’t get me wrong, I am pretty sure I am having a much easier time than most, so why have I felt so much more overwhelmed this past week than expected? I think there are a few things that I did not consider.

Firstly, I am in Pesach mode.  True, I had already cleaned several of the rooms, and today I gave one room to my husband, and the older two boys have their room, leaving just my youngest’s room and the dining room and kitchen, with the latter two being done next week. But still, trying to clean for Pesach while having more people than usual who make good use of the house is a bit stressful. Do I wash all the dishes or sweep or mop? I can get 2 out of 3 of them done but not all three, unless I want to stay up later. But that is usually out of the question for I am too tired.

Secondly, my husband is working from home. Yes, I am thankful he is still working, and yes, he would occasionally spend a day working at home, but this is a bit different. The whole setup is different. Instead of him asking me to come to help with something or just to talk every few weeks, – which I never minded at all – it is now something that is done on a daily basis. I really don’t mind, don’t get me wrong.

Thirdly, it’s this whole being stuck at home business that is slowly (or not so slowly) starting to get to me. Every day I wake up and have to consciously ask myself what day it is for all my check points during the week of the various things we do, or normally go to, are now gone. Yesterday is the exact same thing as today and will be the exact same as tomorrow.  The only difference is that once a week we have Shabbos. Baruch Hashem for Shabbos.

I have also been doing extra thinking about other ways I can help my family (other than laundry and cooking and sending them to bed!) For Hashem has basically stopped the world as we know it, giving us the chance to do introspection, to find all those things that we wanted to do and to change, and He has now given us the time to do it. Our lives have gotten so busy. There are things that we would love to do and things we have wanted to change, but there was no time to do it. Now, there is.

What is my bucket list? What things really matter to me that we are not doing already? Family time. Even though we are still missing our oldest (he is working and had planned on coming home for the first half of Pesach, but now cannot 🙁 ,) there are still the rest of us. We cannot all have lunch together because of the time zone difference between one boy’s school and were we are, but we try to all sit down for supper. Just us. No phones, no computers. The real nice surprise came when I only had to tell one boy, once, to please wait until supper was finished. I did not tell anyone beforehand not to bring electronics to the table. People just did it.

I had started, several years ago, little notebooks for everyone to write down things they are grateful for. The last time we did that was almost 3 years ago.  I took them out again last week. Unfortunately, we only did them once for I don’t keep them on the table as a reminder. Hopefully, we will get a few more things written in them over the next few weeks.

The other thing that I have been trying to work on is more Torah learning and exercising for everyone. I try to read one or two short Dvar Torahs (Torah thoughts) at supper, and I sent everyone in the house, including my husband, on a bike ride yesterday. (One boy did not have a bike, so he used mine instead of me.)

I think each new thing that I have had to adjust to, on its own, would have been just fine. But, put all the things together, and now there is something new that I did not have before. So, that would explain why I need to go into hiding every day. Very grateful for an understanding husband. 😀

I had been looking at the news several times, okay, many times, a day. Not much new would happen over the course of an hour, though I found myself being compelled to keep looking. I have since stopped. Over the last few days, I have found I would only look at it once, or maybe twice, a day. Last week I was busy doing laundry (one boy had just a couple hours to pack all his clothes from the year at school before coming home – and yes, they were all needing cleaning!) to dishes to food to dishes to food to sweeping to OH! I do actually homeschool one boy for real and I do need to teach him (which that in itself is not going as normal,) to food to AHHHH!!!! to food to food, yes, and to more food. I forgot how much teenage boys eat! I love my boys! Glad they eat, however, with all this staying at home thing and limiting going out, and not being able to find food delivery options very well, the food thing really gets tight sometimes. But it is all good.

Things are not normal. Not even for the beautiful boy that I normally homeschool. I forced myself to understand that it is okay that we are starting late. I am up and working, I just do not start school with him like I should. It’s okay to not do everything. I have chosen to focus on a select few things plus some Pesach learning instead. As homeschool parents know, life skills is also learning, and right now we are doing a lot of life skills. So, we are learning, just different stuff. That is a challenge for me, but I’m working on it. I don’t like schedules, but I find I really some sort of schedule for our schooling (albeit I can be fairly loose with just one boy to teach) and I find it hard when we cannot do it.

This week, there is a feeling of some sort of routine which gives me some time to think. Imagine, a small thing that one can only see with an electron microscope paralyzing the world. How can that be? Obviously, it is Hashem’s doing. There is no other logical explanation. But, why the whole world? It’s not a city or two, or even a country or two, but the entire world. SOMETHING is happening. I am excited to see what is going to be! The entire world has basically come to a complete stop. Everyone is told to stay in their homes. Oh, when have we heard that one before? How about when we were in Mitzrayim (Egypt)? The difference is that this time it is the entire world that is told to stay indoors.

A friend told over a short Dvar Torah to me the other day. She said to make sure that every room in your house is holy so that when Moshiach comes, your entire house will be able to be transported to Israel. What better time to do that than now? Normally, I try to have in mind that I am cleaning all the chometz (leavened bread) out of me as I clean my house. I try to fix me, but honestly, I never can seem to do that for as I am cleaning my house and looking for physical chometz, I cannot focus on my spiritual chometz! I cannot think of what I need to correct while I am paying attention to the physical cleaning. This year, I found a better thing to do. I am going through the house and I am cleaning to make each room special, kodesh (holy). That I can do. I am happy that some of the rooms are done already, and it has given me the opportunity to do some organizing in some a few places that need it (like the garage!) I try to keep the areas I am working on reasonable and not overwhelming. Tonight, I am feeling accomplished. I feel good about myself. I feel like perhaps this year I will feel like I have changed somehow, even if I am not sure how. And when my children sing “Ma Nishtanah Halilah Hazeh…” perhaps the night will be different not only because we are all home by ourselves and not allowed to even daven together, but perhaps it will be different for I will feel that somehow *I* am different.

Grab opportunities. Let yourself change. When you do, you find that you are calmer and happier. And please, stay healthy and safe. Remember, Hashem has a plan for everything, and it is all good! Wishing everyone a very meaningful Pesach.

💖

The Real Life of Homeschooling

Our weekly trip to Starbucks while waiting for his brother in writing class. One of the perks to Homeschooling. 😀

Sometimes when one writes about personal thoughts and feelings and then presses the “submit” button, they wonder if perhaps the information they just posted was TMI (Too Much Information.) All sorts of thoughts go through the mind, “if I take it down now, no one would have read it yet, right?” and “I just blew it, oh well, I guess many people will think less of me now.” I felt this way when I pressed the wonderful “Publish” button on my last post.

You see, the goal of my writings are to help other people. Right now, I am focusing on homeschooling since it is a big part of our lives. With almost a dozen years now (wow!) under our belt, I feel that I do have a little bit of information to hand over. Whether one is actively homeschooling and looking for advice, information, or just seeing that one is not alone, to those who are investigating to see if homeschooling is right for them or not, it is good to be able to get “real” information.

I am not talking about what the regulations are in the area one is homeschooling, what curricula there is out there or even how to write a schedule. I am talking about the REAL information. What really can one expect when they homeschool? I don’t know about what others think, but for us, the stereotypical homeschool family has children who are obedient, do all their lessons, who listen to their elders (i.e. Mother or Father), who understand time and who are almost always never late, and are ahead of grade level.  Oh, and they don’t fight, and they get along with their siblings.

Cough

And yes, I have learned that stereotypes are not always accurate. Have I internalized that, that is the question.

In my writings, amidst the wonderful things that I do believe we have done and learned, there is something called the Real Life of Homeschooling that I try to show sometimes, and that is… we are humans, not robots; we are all unique and different, our personalities are across the entire spectrum and we (the parents) have all lived a different life and have different priorities and experiences, and we are all given different obstacles we have to overcome.

This means that like everything else we do in life, and just like everyone else in the world, we all have our ups and downs. We all have different ways of teaching, different preferences, different kinds of children. No two homeschooling families are the same, and most importantly, no matter how picture perfect a homeschool family is, there are always challenges and things that just do not go like we want. And, a little secret, I would not want to be that picture perfect family for that would be boring. I like my boys for who they are, for all that they bring into our family, and for all the different ways they challenge me and mold me and make me a better person. So, to be fair to my readers, yes, I am biased, I do like homeschooling, and so when honestly asked for advice, I may tend to lean towards others homeschooling, however, I also have to relate some of our hardships. I have to open myself up and show my wounds.

My last post was hard. Homeschooling is not always easy, but then again, nothing is. This year, after 11 years of homeschooling, we sent a boy to school. It was a very difficult decision for me to make. I thought I failed. Then, just a few months later, we were faced with another hard obstacle – we sent a second boy to school (though he is in town, Baruch Hashem!) Can you say that I thought I failed even more? Not just one, but two gone, within a few months of each other. I am now left with only half. I thought I doubly failed.  When I wrote about all the inside feelings that no one ever sees (except my wonderful husband who has been there for me – thank you so much!) how were my readers going take it?  What reactions will I receive? I honestly had no clue. I have to say that I was very happily surprised at the responses I received.

Homeschooling is definitely outside the box, and so much so that most homeschooling families find that they are usually pretty much alone, especially in the religious Jewish setting, though I read today that the number of homeschooling children in the United States doubled from an estimated 850,000 to 1.8 million in just three years (as of 2016 I believe.) We do not have a lot of the “in-person” emotional support that other families have, so we have to fill the needs and gaps online. What I learned was that I was not alone. I learned that there are others who understand my feelings. Other have gone through or going through what I am going through. I learned that I did not fail. Failing would be to see a need is not being met and not doing anything about it. Succeeding is seeing something is not going well and doing everything in your power to change things so things are better, even if it is hard to do.

Being a good parent or teacher is knowing your limitations and finding others who can take over when needed. If I do not know anything about biology or math, even as a homeschool parent, I have no issues looking for someone who does know and can help out. Why is it that I don’t have an issue taking a boy to Algebra class outside of home, even when I can teach it (and have taught it) to my boys with no issues, why is it that I have no problems hiring a Gemara Rebbe for my boys for I know that I know nothing about Gemara, but when it comes to understanding that a child has learned all he/she can learn from me and needs to learn the rest outside, I suddenly have an issue? I cannot do it all, and am not supposed to do it all (that is why two people get married, so they can work together to accomplish so much more, but that is for my other passion!) I guess it is a matter of humbling myself and seeing myself for who I really am, and that is not bad. I think we often feel that if we humbled ourselves we would see all the things not good about us, all the places where we failed, etc. Yeah, they are there, but there are a whole lot of good things in us as well. Unless we humble ourselves, we cannot see those amazing things for the light of arrogance covers it all up. Where am I doing good? What amazing things have I done? We can only see who we really are when we can shed our outer clothing.

My boys are all doing well, where ever they are, at home or school, Baruch Hashem. I am still trying to adjust emotionally and just in general. I am still trying to reorganize my day to make it more efficient for I suddenly found that I have time to do things like think (yes, I can think now!), clean, do laundry, organize, uh, and yes, even take cat naps without worrying about not getting school done (!) however, I just don’t know how to even internalize this fact so it is not really getting done (except for the cat naps, I have NO problems adding them in, not sure why. 😉 ) What does it mean to have time to clean the house and do other tasks other than teach? Believe it or not, it is really hard to figure that one out, and I really do want to do them, it is just that it has been many years since I have been able to effectively do these things regularly that it hard to understand that I have some time now for at least some of them regularly. I find myself sitting down, not sure what to do with myself or walking around like a zombie, even though I know there are tasks for me to do. My lovely husband can’t figure out why I can’t figure it out either. 🙂

I took a chance and showed my pain. This is part of the Real Life of Homeschooling. This is part of what my writings are all about. The good, the bad and the ugly, it is all there. But really, it is all good, it is all meant to be. My goals are shifting and that is fine. Life is a constant change.

To those of you who opened your wounds to help me with mine, my deepest gratitude. Thank you. I hope that some of my writings will help others as well. On and upwards to a new set of days that are as quiet as a house can get with a beautiful Mr. 7 year old! Never old, always changing. Wishing you all your own successes!

Getting Myself Ready – My Chizuk

Yes, I know that experiences cannot be equaled and in case I was not sure about it, after the past few weeks, there is definitely no doubt in my mind.  Over the past week and a half, our boys have spent many, many hours outside, in the water – ponds, creeks, etc. playing in the sand, feeling the seaweed, smelling the different smells, watching lobsters hide, seeing small schools of fish, as well as larger ones.  Not to mention watching out for poison ivy and poison oak as we hike through the neighboring forests and seeing, feeling and smelling all the wonderful things there.  Charlotte Mason definitely knew what she was talking about when she said the only science a child needs for the first 6 years should be nature study.

We have been doing Ambleside Online for 2 years now, and I could never really fit in nature walks like I should, even though I wanted too, and I thought I tried.  I am hoping these wonderful experiences will encourage me to try harder.  Really, it all boils down to having the right schedule.  I find that I can stick to a schedule pretty good if I have one (and I’m the one that makes it, which is good!)

We are told that to raise good and happy children, the relationship between the mother and the father must be a good and happy one as well.  One of the ways to attain this is to make the relationship between husband and wife a priority over the children, that way the children can see how a good relationship should be and how they should act, for seeing has more of an impact than telling.  Homeschooling is not only about the children, it is about us, the teachers as well and therefore we need to nurture ourselves and take care of ourselves first.

We are just a few short weeks from Rosh Hashanah and we have had the most amazing few weeks. We do not get to interact very often with homeschoolers – we do not really have that much in common with the ones we know who are local, and to interact with religious Jewish homeschoolers on top of that is even more of a bonus.  Don’t get me wrong, it is not that I have an issue being the “different” one, not at all, however, occasionally it is good to meet others who are different like you.

It was good for the children to be able to play with other religious Jewish homeschoolers, and it was good for me to be able to talk to not just one, but two mothers who have similar philosophies as we do.  It was so exciting to talk to mothers who have had at least double the amount of years of homeschooling behind them than I do for it gave me a chance to see where I could be as a homeschool parent – what kinds of ideas I could try to use, from “experts”.   I was also glad I was able to share some of our experiences and see that I could be of some help as well.  And, it was nice just to talk!

I once heard from a rabbi that all the spiritual connection and chizuk that we get from Rosh Hashanah through Sukkos is set so that it carries us through the dark times of winter, yes, we have a little bit of light from Chanukah, but there are no Yomim Tovim until Pesach, and our neshamas need the spiritual connection.  So too, I felt that Hashem has given me this boost of the visits of two wonderful mothers (and their children!) to help give me chizuk for the next while. I felt lucky to have such wonderful conversations with one of the mothers that came.  We took the children out in the afternoon and then they still did not have enough time together, so her son came over for a sleepover.  After the mother left, I felt not only spiritual happiness and chizuk, but I found it gave me chizuk in general to do some stuff around the house that I was trying to get done.  I tried to soak up all the chizuk and spiritual connection that I could so that it would carry me over until the next encounter.