Homeschool Burnout~Avoiding the inevitable.

Yeah, Yeah, yeah, I just told you that homeschool burnout is inevitable.  Why would I a homeschool mom say that?  Because many times we expect so much of ourselves because we are so often judged and expected to have it all together.  We, ourselves, step away from the plan that God has guided us to and attempt to reach some goal that is going to cause that inevitable homeschool burnout.

Honestly, I fully believe that if you are honest with yourself, you too have done this.

I do it every year, I see this person doing this, hear about that great item, find this great item on my own and keep everything we were doing too.  Whew, how long is school supposed to last each day anyway.   Really this part of my post fits nicely with what I wrote last year about this time.  Hmm, seems that maybe January is when I start wondering about our curriculum choices and what I should be changing, ehh?

One way for me to be sure to avoid the burnout that I seem to fall for every year, is to get rid of any curriculum that is not working.  If it is just work they are doing, but are not retaining the information, then it has to go.  Otherwise, it is a thorn in our side and all we do is review the information over and over again.

Another way I avoid burnout, is to change up the lessons, schedules and so forth.  This week I brought out grammar and math drills and a unit study, and put away most of our other school.  Next week all the other comes back and we dig back in.

If a concept is not being grasped, I don’t just keep hammering away at it.  Sometime we walk away from it for a week or two and come back to see that they get it now. 

Trying to teach many children with different learning styles who are different ages, can be overwhelming.  In order to contain some of the chaos that would be created with this, I break my students into groups.  We do History, science, Bible, Geography, Read alouds and such together.  My four and five year olds are together with the three year old tagging along.  Then I “play” school with the two and three year olds.  Really for those under six or seven there is very little written work.   We do lots of file folder games, Leap Frog videos, and manipulatives. 

Mainly the best way to avoid burnout, is to accept that things won’t always work according to the plans you have laid out.  Last week I had big ideas for our days of school, however we were hit with a respiratory virus and we didn’t touch school most of the week.  We kind of have to go with the flow. 

Schedules and plans are not working if they are burning you out to stick to them.  If that is the case, then you need to tweak it.  Our schedule and homeschool plans are tweaked about every hour of every day.  I have to be ok with that.  It is how it is, and it is where God wants us. 

How do you avoid burnout?

See how the other TOS Crew members avoid burnout.

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