The Necessity of Reevaluation in Homeschooling

In the introductory post for this series, I listed four areas of life in which regular reevaluation is highly beneficial and today we will focus on the third area, that of homeschooling.  As anyone who home-schools knows, there are many reasons why you may need to change up your home school routine!  I think it's important to reevaluate things at least at the end of each school year, but more often than that is even better, especially if you start noticing a problem.  Now, let me start off this post by stating that this is my first official year of homeschooling.  We have just started out with our oldest child beginning first grade work this past year.  So, my advice is definitely not that of a veteran homeschooling mom, but, as someone who is dedicated to homeschooling my children and knows its importance to their spiritual growth, I will offer you what I know from my experiences so far.
 

Why Reevaluate?

There are many reasons for this, but the first one is that it is wise to do so at least annually, as I said above, whilst planning for the school year to come.  I will soon be entering this phase as I make plans for next year, as will many of you.  However, there are many valid reasons to reevaluate things more often than this.  Here are few for starters:

• Your child is not learning well using the particular publisher you have chosen for a subject (math, language, etc.).
• You and your child are constantly battling over schoolwork.
• You have gotten behind due to circumstances, which may or may not have been under your control.
• Your routine or order of subjects isn't working out well.
• You don't have a routine! (this was me for the first half of the year or so!)
• You are becoming discouraged.

Let's look at some specific things to consider in reevaluating based on each of these reasons.

1. Your child is not learning well using the particular publisher you have chosen for a subject.

If this is the case, I would definitely recommend switching your curriculum in whatever areas your students are struggling.  It is always nice to be able to actually see a product before you buy it, so ask around among your homeschooling friends to find out what they use in math, science, etc. and ask if you can look at their book to see if it might work out for your child.  Many places also have used curriculum book stores and various sales of this sort.  These are also good places to take a look at an item before purchasing.  

Also, let me just throw in here that I don't recommend constantly switching publishers just because another one might be better than what you're currently using.  It's fine to consider new curriculum and sometimes beneficial to switch, but I think it is also easy to get overwhelmed with all the options that are out there nowadays.  So, if what you're using now is working well for you and your children, I would stick with it.  Most of the books we've used this year have been great, so I'm going to use the next grade level up in each of these next year.  I'm not going to worry about looking through lots of different types of curriculum, because I think what we've got right now is working well!  As my other children officially start school, I may have to rethink this though, because what works well for my daughter may not be as good for my sons.

2. You and your child are constantly battling over schoolwork.

Well, at our house, I wouldn't exactly classify it as battling, but I do hear this a lot:  "Mom, how much longer do I have to do school?  I've been doing it for a long time already."  And often this question comes as we are still working on math, our first subject for the day!  Perhaps your child needs to have more incentive to complete their work without complaining.  At our house, we have recently discovered a fun, learning site called Always Ice Cream (this is the version for girls - there is one for boys as well).  My daughter really enjoys playing and learning on this website and it seems to be a good motivator for her.  If she does her schoolwork well during the day without complaining, then she gets rewarded with some playtime on Always Ice Cream (although she is still learning a lot of the time she is playing!).  What motivates my child may not motivate yours, so think about your individual children and see if you can come up with some ideas to use as incentives for them to get their work done, without complaining (this was key at our house!).  

3. You have gotten behind due to circumstances, which may or may not have been under your control.

Life happens!  Things come up and take us by surprise or perhaps we get behind little by little as time goes on.  This year at our house we've been working on a major addition to our home and doing a lot of the work ourselves.  I have had to spend a lot of time coordinating subcontractors and dealing with purchasing supplies and getting quotes from Lowe's.  This definitely impacted our school year, especially during the fall when we were on the first half of our project!  So, I was a little behind when we got to the midway point of the school year.  We are catching up during the second half though and it will work out fine when we finish up at the end of June.  Others of you may have dealt with unexpected illness or an accident or perhaps even losing your home to a natural disaster.  We can't predict when most of these things will come, but we certainly can get ourselves back on track after we work through or adjust to these circumstances.  One of the great things about homeschooling is the flexibility.  If a family member is diagnosed with a major illness and you don't accomplish quite as much as you desired during this school year, next year you can plan to make up for that.  If your family has to work on a major project together, such as building a home or addition, you can make plans to lessen your schoolwork during the time you'll be working on the project and then increase the amount of school time as the project winds down.  If the children are involved in the project, you can also include them in it as much as possible and this could be a major teaching opportunity as well.  I just love the flexibility of homeschooling!

4. Your routine or order of subjects isn't working out well.

Sometimes, the best laid plans just don't work out the way you expected.  Maybe your child is more alert a little later in the morning and would do better starting school at 10:00 a.m. instead of 9:00 a.m. as you had originally planned.  Perhaps your child would do better starting out with math instead of science like you thought.  Maybe your child would prefer to get all the more difficult subjects out of the way first and then do the easier ones instead of alternating them like you planned.  If something doesn't seem right about your daily school routine or subject order, try switching it up and see how it goes until you find the right fit.  Just make sure you try each new order for an adequate amount of time to get used to it and be sure whether or not it works well.  

5.  You don't have a routine!

Okay, this was definitely me at the beginning of this school year.  We were floating along getting school done on the days we were able, but it wasn't really in any specific order and it definitely wasn't happening every day.  On the days we did do school, I just picked up whatever book I felt like using first and we did that and then moved on to whatever I decided to do next.  There wasn't much preparation ahead of time or planning.  Now, I have to admit that most of my books don't require much preparation, but I wasn't doing any at all.  This went along alright for a while, but eventually I got to the point that I knew it just had to stop!  I had to get a little more organized or I was not going to get our books done for the year.  So, I reevaluated things halfway through the school year when I turned in our number of days for school from August through January to Homelife Academy and realized that I had much less than half of the required 180 school days completed for the year.  Now we have a schedule and a plan for how many lessons out of each book we need to do weekly in order to finish the books by the end of our school year.  This is a great help and although I do not have an exact order for every subject in the day, we do always start out with math since these lessons seem to take the largest chunk of time.  If you don't have a routine, I definitely recommend that you get one!  At least try to make a loosely defined one, because it is definitely possible to plan everything out too rigidly and then get overwhelmed it you aren't able to stay exactly on schedule throughout the day.

6.  You are becoming discouraged.

If this is you, I recommend that you first of all recall why you began homeschooling in the first place.  For us, it is because we feel very strongly that a godly education for our children is our responsibility as parents and that the best way we can ensure this is to teach our children at home ourselves.  It is possible that sometimes parents may truly change their minds and no longer think that homeschooling is what is best for their children, but I would like to encourage you not to make that decision simply because you are discouraged.  I think Satan can certainly use discouragement to cause us to make decisions we would not if all were going well.  

If I start to feel discouraged, I try to remember what my most important job as a parent is.  I need to do all I can to lead my children to Christ.  Ultimately it is their decision and responsibility to follow Him, but it is my responsibility to teach them as best I can.  Giving them a godly education is more important than having free time for myself or getting to do any number of activities I could enjoy, if only I had more time away from my children.  And, no, I do not sit around wishing for "more time away from my children."  My point is that if you are having a bad day or week or month with your homeschooling and the children are bickering and whining and you are simply worn out, it is quite easy to start wondering if you are making the right decision and if everyone would be better off if you just sent them to school.  When you start to feel worn down and discouraged, first of all, pray for God to give you strength and endurance!  If this is God's will for your family, then He will certainly give you the strength to persevere if you will but ask Him.  Also, remember why homeschooling is so important to you as parents.  I would encourage you to write down why you home-school somewhere you will see it often as a motivator, perhaps in the front of your school or household planner!  And, as always, remember Deuteronomy 6:5-9:

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.  These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.  You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.  You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.  You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."  (NASB, emphasis mine)

So, those are my thoughts as an amateur homeschooling mother.  I'd love to hear any bits of wisdom you have to share about dealing with any of these issues.  Leave me a comment so your experiences can benefit others!