I think schooling year-round would help me to at least feel less pressure when things get off the rails. I have never been able to keep it up, though, mostly because I need the break to not have to feel like I have to always have everything together. My dh tells me to leave the housekeeping to him and the kids, but that's hard for me to do because he's super busy with his work, too. Sometimes it just makes more sense for me to do it. This doesn't mean, of course, that our house is really clean. Ha!

I understand this, too. The balancing act between what we have to do (make money) and what we need to do (prioritize our children's needs) is not easy. Kudos to you for doing it! ❤️

I'm sorry, @madteaparty. I understand.

Oh, I didn't mean to imply that older children can learn completely independently. In fact, being forced to require my children to learn "independently" is a homeschool hill I'm willing to die on (meaning I'd put them in school for sure before I had to do that). It's really one of the reasons we sent our eldest to ps full time this year--I could see the possibility of her just holing up in the bedroom or basement to do her independent work while I worked with her brothers all morning every day. Something about that didn't feel good to me, even though we'd spend a couple of hours together most afternoons. For this conversation, I was just thinking about the outsourcing, part-time public schooling (which isn't an option here, unfortunately), etc., as independent learning opportunities.

Thank you for sharing how you made your situation work. I, too, could spend ALL of my time preparing, just to make the lesson better, be more familiar with the story we're reading, etc. After reading this I have decided to employ stricter parameters for my work time. I also like the idea of keeping up on the calendar with which days we really have a full school day and which ones are shorted. I mean, I generally keep up with what we do, but having a quick way to see that this week was a little light would be helpful. I also see that sometimes we have to make hard decisions about what we can and can't do. Thank you for sharing your experience.

I think this is one thing that has made it harder, too--the age spread of my children and their social needs. We do attend co-op every week, but it's a mixed blessing really because I teach there, too. I feel like I have done things similarly to the way you are--TRY to get the basics and provide opportunities for the rest. I will say that having a child go to PS has helped me see that we have mostly been very successful in what we've done up until now.

I think one thing I've realized that makes my situation much, much harder is that I have two little boys who are still in the middle of learning HOW to learn (and one is still learning HOW to read). I can see that having older, mostly independent children would make this a much more doable situation.

Thank you for your advice, @LucyStoner. I KNOW this stuff, but I need constant reminders, it seems, especially for the bolded. At this point in my life I'm living in the tension of trying to do too much (I didn't even mention my volunteer teaching at our co-op), but I do intend to not make that same mistake again. I MUST learn to not let my enthusiasm outrun my energy. LOL

Yes! I have tried to reconcile myself to this. I tell my dh all the time that I didn't start homeschooling to "merely" be "adequate," but what parent knows that lies ahead when he/she begins this journey? I am outsourcing math this year for dd13, and that has helped. DD reads almost literally all the time, so I tell myself that this makes up for a lot, and at the end of the day, I have to believe that.

Hi, all-- I'm looking for some advice or at least just commiseration. This semester we've had a lot of change in our home. My eldest, dd14, went to public high school for the first time ever (grade 9) after homeschooling since K. That has been going well for her. While I still have PLENTY of philosophical conflicts about traditional school, I recognize that this has been a good thing for her and am really glad we took the plunge (even though I certainly do miss our time all together). I'm currently homeschooling my dd13 (grade 7ish), ds8 (grade 3ish), and ds5 (grade K-ish). I am also teaching two English classes at night at our local community college. I did this when my girls were little and returned to it after a many-year hiatus. I am finding that homeschooling on top of teaching two college classes that I haven't taught in years is almost more than I can do. In addition to the fact that I spend hours each week grading essays, I find that I only have so much mental/intellectual/emotional bandwith for all the prep that both teaching and homeschooling require. This is even outside the time factor, which is significant. Another complication is that my eldest at-home child has severe anxiety and OCD, and we've had a major uptick in that lately. I am accustomed to being flexible and going with the flow due to this. However, because of the constraints on my time, what used to be okay (taking long breaks, blowing off a subject because it's too stressful right now, etc.) has gotten much more complicated. [DD is being treated for OCD, so we are aware and addressing the issue as best we can given the resources we have available locally right now.] If you work in a job that is demanding mentally or intellectually, or even one that is just demanding time-wise, how do you handle it? I have been a very hands-on homeschooler up until this point but am finding that I just don't have enough hours in my day or brain cells left over at the end of the day to do what I feel like is a good (or sometimes, even adequate) job. Sometimes it feels like it's just time to throw in the towel, and indeed I might need to do that at the end of this year for financial reasons. However, I want to do at least an adequate job this year. Any BTDT tips? I apologize in advance if I've asked this question in the past, or some version of it. It's the world I live in now, and sometimes I just need to talk about it. ? [PLEASE DON'T QUOTE AS I WILL LIKELY DELETE ONCE I GET IT OUT OF MY SYSTEM. lol]

Well, there is that. ? Heeler lovers are pretty biased towards them (and I can see why! ?), but they definitely can be a handful. I don’t think I’d ever been around a really smart dog until we got her.

My dd has a Australian Cattle Dog (heeler) and I think that breed might fit the bill. Our Evei (because I’m one of her people ?) is so smart and loyal and athletic and pretty. She is a herder so she was nippy as a puppy (& can still be that way when she’s excited), but I know I’ve never been around a smarter dog.

I'll play! (Pun intended. . . ?) Card games are just the thing for traveling. We've been enjoying Sushi Go lately. Others we've enjoyed with a similar range of ages include Mille Bornes, Dos, Hanabi, and Monopoly Deal. Some dice games we enjoy are Qwixx, Farkle, and (of course) Yahtzee. Qwirkle itself doesn't take up a lot of space, but it does require space (a tabletop or floorspace comparable to what's needed to assemble a puzzle) to play. The original game comes in a box but can be reduced to only the bag of tiles. However, I noticed there is a travel version. I love games more than my children do! ?

Praying for your dh’s work situation, @hjffkj .

So far this week I’ve managed to keep the spending at a minimum (for me ?). We spent $20 on my eldest dd’s tennis lesson. (She’s in ps and will be trying out for the tennis team next week ??. I have no idea what the cost associated with being on the team will be, should she make it. I’m a little concerned about that, honestly.) We spent $15 on my other dd’s horseback riding lesson. We ended up eating out this evening because we had an appointment out of town (therapy which costs us money but for which we used money from a medical savings acct). We have a screw in the tire of my van which we have to get fixed this evening, but if we can get it to Walmart before their automotive department closes we should be able to get it fixed under the warranty. I also stopped by the grocery store yesterday morning after taking my eldest dd to school to buy myself some antacid. That was a little over $7 out of the grocery budget. I had terrible indigestion for a couple of days this week which had me concerned about my health because it was so unusual for me. Dh has work travel the first few days this week, and after he got home, my heartburn got quickly (and mysteriously) better. I finally concluded it was anxiety! Whew. Dh and I are on the same page about our finances now more than we have ever been, which is nice. I think it’s mostly been me—I’ve been pretty clueless and lackadaisical about finances up until now. I have a question for my fellow frugalistas: do you all use a budgeting app? We’ve tried to use YNAB in the past but didn’t stick with it. We’ve downloaded the free Everdollar app but aren’t sure we love it.

Chunky Lentil and Vegetable Soup from Budget Bytes is tasty and frugal. ?

Regarding the problem of finding the right medication, I recommend genetic testing to ascertain any metabolic issues with different meds. I know this doesn't always yield a solution, but pairing that with a very knowledgeable pediatric psychiatrist helped us stabilize dd without endless trials of meds.

(((Quill)))

Budget Bytes fan here, too!

I’m jumping back in again this month. Dh and I are determined to get our finances in order. So far we have spent $139.81 of $600 for the month of October for groceries and $43.84 of $150 for household items (everything we don’t eat, wear as clothing, or use for school). I have a hunch that these numbers will be on the slim side for our family of six, but we’ll see. We haven’t really tracked our spending down to the penny in years, so I’m holding myself accountable here. Other than that, we’ve also spent from the school and miscellaneous budgets. This is a crazy busy week, so if I can just manage to hold down the fort without resorting to the drive through more than once, I’ll feel successful. ?

Echoing what Maize says here—our experience has been that therapists trained in treating OCD are hard to come by. Dd’s therapist is not local to us. I recommmend checking out the IOCDF website and the Peace of Mind Foundation.

I have a child with extreme contamination OCD. She (we—she was only 9 at the time) spent 12 weeks a few summers ago in a partial hospitalization program for it. This was a real watershed in our family’s life. She is still in therapy and also on medication to manage it. The gold standard treatment for clinical OCD is Exposure Response Prevention therapy. This means that in order to habituate the anxiety, the person with OCD must be exposed to the subject of his or her obsessive thoughts without responding with his or her compulsion. (There is also such a thing as Pure-O OCD, which is obsession without the compulsion, though if your dh is actively avoiding, he probably doesn’t have the pure-O form. ). We actually had to go out of state and basically upend our whole life for our dd’s treatment, but it was worth it. Anyway, I’m not a doctor (nor do I play one on TV ?), but I feel compelled (see what I did there? We laugh to keep from crying! ?) to chime in on this topic when I remain silent on almost all others.

Yes! Thanks for that affirmation!

You’ve brought up a great point about my second dd. I can see this as a situation that would work for her. It’s my little boys that I feel the most angst over, really. I feel a little guilty that my girls had so much time with me homeschooling and they might not. thank you for the encouragement!

I think I’ll have this tattooed on my forearm so I can read it over and over as needed. Thank you for sharing your family’s experience.