ChrisN in NY Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 I am curious to find out whether anyone gets help while homeschooling. Do you have a babysitter or mother's helper? Do you have someone who comes to clean your home? I am just wanting to count the cost before I decide to homeschool. Was getting help essential for your sanity? Any tips for mainting balance in the home? :lurk5: I've been homeschoolng for 19 years and never had any outside help. Tips? Try to develop a routine, but be flexible. Choose your priorities. Train your kids to help, whether it's playing with a sibling for a short time or helping to clean. Imo, we all live in this house and we all need to work together to complete the things that need to be done. I'll have a spotless, well-decorated home and a pretty yard when all my kids are gone. HTH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iquilt Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 I've had spotty success with babysitters to actually help me out, so we've decided the most useful help for the money is to have cleaners come and take care of the deep cleaning. We have reliable cleaners who use environmentally safe products and have been coming to help us out for awhile now. Best decision we ever made. We have it scheduled for when we are gone anyway, and we come home to a clean house! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NanceXToo Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 No, none of that, but my kids are pretty spread out in age and the two older ones at least are very helpful when it comes to keeping the house reasonably straightened up and organized. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paintedlady Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 :lol::lol::lol: I have kids. They help with chores. Some rooms get ignored and then taken care of later. I keep my sanity by going to the store by myself when I can, taking a date night with hubby, and escaping to knitting group once in a blue moon. The bolding is mine. This about sums it up for me, except the knitting group. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest CarolineUK Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 I have used cleaners, mother's helps and day care before I homeschooled. However, I'm a very independent person and decided a while ago that I didn't really need the help. We could afford help if need be, but I enjoy more being able to spend money freely on other things (books, curriculum, holidays, outings, etc). We have a large house (six bedrooms, kitchen, dining room, drawing room, sitting room and three bathrooms) and it takes quite a lot of cleaning, but I've worked out a two week schedule which gets it mostly done, apart from dusting, which I did just ignore at one time :tongue_smilie:, but now pay the boys to do once every three or four weeks (although at the moment the supervising of dusting is fairly hard work in itself). Mostly it works out, although if something happens (illness, visitors, or some other upheaval) it can cause me stress, then I need to step back and assess what's most important and focus on that. It can be done without help. It's not easy, but I'd much rather the hard work and struggle than sending them to school. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KristinaBreece Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Oh, no. My husband can't work with our kids on ANY schoolwork whatsoever. The kids end up crying and running to their rooms. :glare: That's almost exactly what happened. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosy Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 When the kids were little we had a homeschooled teen come and help out every week. She would babysit for 3-4 hours and, not only did the kids have a blast, the house was spotless when I came home. Heavenly. I could definitely use the help now, but the only person I know that I would ask lives 20 min. away, in the opposite direction of all my other errands. If I could find the right person for the right price, I would have her come in a heartbeat to clean the kitchen and bathrooms, fold laundry, and do floors. While I'm a firm believer in teaching the kids to take care of our home, the reality is that I still have to supervise them, and between school and afternoon activities I've had a hard time making time. Having someone come once a week would make it manageable for the rest of the week, I think. I can't imagine why a person would need a housekeeper more as a homeschooler than they would as a stay at home mom with young kids? If they needed one then (say for health issues or balancing work and home) they would likely need one homeschooling and if not, not I'd think? It's the same or has been for me. I could see a mother's helper being neat if you had young kids and needed one on one time with an older child or similar. I really thought about doing something like that when my boys were young so that I could concentrate on therapy with one while the other played with someone. I still do that therapy with the one though and as his twin has gotten older it's much, much easier to balance their individual needs than when they were young. At any rate, we manage just fine without either here and I do have health issues and some special circumstances with my son as well. I don't mean to be patronizing, but you may feel differently when your kids are older. I can homeschool my younger kids in under 2 hours a day easily. When the kids were little, I could get stuff done while they were playing, I could do grocery shopping any time I wanted to. They need my undivided attention much more now than when they were little. Homeschooling probably takes me 5 hours a day total--that is time when I am not able to do anything but homeschool. And we're out at least 2-3 hours most evenings. That right there is a full-time job--and most of it has been at home, living in the house and messing it up. If I was teaching 2 first graders instead of 4 kids that are all on different levels, that would easily give me an extra 4 hours a day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Truscifi Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 I had a service that came every 2 weeks when I worked full time. I dropped that when I started staying home full time, but now I work part time again. I would love to have some help but it is not in our budget. Maybe when we get our debt paid off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dawn in OH Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 I don't mean to be patronizing, but you may feel differently when your kids are older. I can homeschool my younger kids in under 2 hours a day easily. When the kids were little, I could get stuff done while they were playing, I could do grocery shopping any time I wanted to. They need my undivided attention much more now than when they were little. Homeschooling probably takes me 5 hours a day total--that is time when I am not able to do anything but homeschool. And we're out at least 2-3 hours most evenings. That right there is a full-time job--and most of it has been at home, living in the house and messing it up. If I was teaching 2 first graders instead of 4 kids that are all on different levels, that would easily give me an extra 4 hours a day. Yes, I agree. Now that the kids are getting older, the lessons take longer to teach and you need to be available for questions as well as oversee that the work is being done. The minute I leave the room, the work stops and talking or play begins. I have one daydreamer/dawdler that I must stay on top of. The next oldest is a "follower" so if the older one stops working she does too. And in my case there is two younger children to take care of in addition to school work. School work often has to be put on hold because of one of the younger children's needs. At the end of the day there is a mound of housework that didn't get done. I end up stressed and exhausted. I would love extra help if it were an option. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sun Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 I did hire a housecleaner after we started homeschooling. When DS was in school, I did it myself (with some help from DS and DH), but now that my days are spent on school, we found that the deep cleaning just wasn't getting done regularly. It was causing me a lot of stress, and since we could afford it, I decided it was better for our marriage to have a housecleaner come every week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2squared Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Do you have a babysitter or mother's helper? Do you have someone who comes to clean your home? I dream about this. No help here. Guess I am one of those lone rangers. I do get overwhelmed, but that's usually when I waste my time - like right now - or when I'm adding someone new to the mix. I should be schooling right now instead of nursing in front of the computer. My current best practice is to divide my day into flexible slots. I have slots for homekeeping and slots for child-focused activities. It goes like this (at least in my mind) 7-9: breakfast, mom chores 9-11: schooling, reading aloud 11-1: lunch, mom chores 1-3: schooling 3-6: mom & kid chores, prepping dinner 6-7:30: dinner & time with dh 7:30 - 8:30: reading aloud 8:30-9: bedtime routine If I actually work during chore time and school during kid time, things seem to stay on track. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
*Inna* Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Oh, how I wish... I'd love to have someone to take care at least the yard. Ours looks dreadful, but it's either clean house and cooked meals in addition to homeschooling and various activities or nice looking yard for me. If we could afford help, I'll be definitely hiring gardener and cleaning service. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dirty ethel rackham Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Oh and I forgot to add that I did hire a local teen to do school with dd (then 7) when my mom broke her pelvis and I was spending 2 - 3 hours a day with her at the rehab center. Mom gave me some money to do that. I ended up keeping her for 2 hours a week for the rest of the school year because my life was so stressful trying to help my mom with her various health problems. It really kept us on track in a year where she would have fallen through the cracks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrothead Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 No, no help here. I did have what I suppose was a mother's helper when dd was much younger. I hired a teen to come play with her for 4 hours one day a week so I could do the sewing. I would hire some cleaning help but we are saving every penny between now and August. After that maybe I'll hire someone during the next school year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.