Anyone NOT experience burn out?

[Desert Strawberry]

I have 5 kids over 12 years. We have homeschooled from the beginning with all of them. I have no plans to ever send them to school (though plans change and I'm open to early graduation). 

 

I keep reading about burnout. I haven't experienced it yet, though some years feel longer and more trying than others. We don't do any outside academics, a few social and extracurricular things. For the most part, it's all me. I don't want to burn out. 

 

Has anyone managed to homeschool a larger family all the way through without burning out? Is burnout a given at some point?

 

We have changed things up considerably. I feel like we are doing great, and keeping it fresh. Of course, most of mine are little and we are still in the early stages yet. I want to keep moving forward and keep loving what we are doing. We have great social and emotional support. I can't imagine life being different. I love this. Are my feelings destined to change?

[fairfarmhand]

I think if you are very in tune to your family and your family's needs, you are less likely to get to the "fried, crispy" burnout stage. In other words, with diligence and careful planning, you can avoid burnout by stopping the stressors when they are small. It's the small reajdustments that you have to consistently make that help avoid burnout.

 

I think your avoidance of outside the house committments probably helps you.

 

However, you don't yet have a teen, who really come to need these things, (at least my 2 dds and most of my friend's teens have greater need for extra curriculars as they get older.) Things get more hectic with teens.

 

So, no I don't think you HAVE to experience burnout, but juggling stuff and keeping abreast of how committed you are and how you are feeling helps a ton.

 

Also, I think some of it has to do with luck of the draw. I have a really challenging child who would burn me out even if she were in school. She just makes me tired.

[Mom22ns]

Your oldest is 12, you are half way through with that one. I wouldn't say you are just in the early stages. I didn't have a large family and I didn't start from the beginning, but I never experienced burn out. I am experiencing intense sadness that homeschool is ending so soon! I've been at it a little longer than you have, but I only have one or two years left. 

 

I don't think burn out is inevitable. I do think it sounds like you are already doing everything perfectly to avoid it as much as possible. You are loving what you are doing. You are switching things up and keeping them fresh. You have great support. There is no reason for that to change. You may have a teen that is difficult that causes you to feel burn out for awhile, but it will be a stage and is nothing you can prepare for, nothing to fear and nothing that can't be overcome if it happens.

 

Keep enjoying!

[Plink]

Not yet!  Fingers and toes crossed.  

 

I'm pretty intentional about avoiding it though.  I tend to set up e-reminders/rewards to help with getting the mundane stuff done.  I wrote about my system partway through this post about surviving February.  The gist is this: I don't need motivation for the big stuff, but knowing that I get a treat like listening to a favorite podcast while doing my (extremely boring) prep work, grading, etc. helps me to look forward to the task rather than dread it.  

[Woodland Mist Academy]

So much depends on personalities, choices, life events, coping mechanisms, support networks, etc.

[Momto4inSoCal]

We are only in our second year of homeschooling but I truly love it and don't feel burn out. I have 3yo twins that sometimes make me feel burned out though  :laugh: . Both last year and this year midway I look at how my kids are doing and add supplements to any area I feel they are struggling in. We also have to take the state test so I usually go through and see if there's anything we haven't covered yet that needs to be covered. I definitely don't teach to the test but I will briefly go over topics covered on the test that aren't part of our curriculum. We will see how I feel once all 4 kids are doing school though. I never thought I would love teaching so much. I also love the re-learning aspect of it. So no burn-out here but I know we are still newbies so we will see in a couple of years. 

[Momto4inSoCal]

We are only in our second year of homeschooling but I truly love it and don't feel burn out. I have 3yo twins that sometimes make me feel burned out though  :laugh: . Both last year and this year midway I look at how my kids are doing and add supplements to any area I feel they are struggling in. We also have to take the state test so I usually go through and see if there's anything we haven't covered yet that needs to be covered. I definitely don't teach to the test but I will briefly go over topics covered on the test that aren't part of our curriculum. We will see how I feel once all 4 kids are doing school though. I never thought I would love teaching so much. I also love the re-learning aspect of it. So no burn-out here but I know we are still newbies so we will see in a couple of years. 

[G5052]

I'm nearly done (2 1/2 years to go) after homeschooling the whole way.  We started 14+ years ago.

 

I've certainly questioned that choice too many times to count, but I've persisted through all kinds of barriers and problems.

 

Frankly I think it's a matter of attitude.  I tend to look at problems as challenges that I have to fight my way through.

 

Burnout is when you're worn out and ready to give up.  I'm worn out, but not ready to give up!

[SparklyUnicorn]

I'm nearly done (2 1/2 years to go) after homeschooling the whole way.  We started 14+ years ago.

 

I've certainly questioned that choice too many times to count, but I've persisted through all kinds of barriers and problems.

 

Frankly I think it's a matter of attitude.  I tend to look at problems as challenges that I have to fight my way through.

 

Burnout is when you're worn out and ready to give up.  I'm worn out, but not ready to give up!

 

Congrats to you.  That is a huge accomplishment. 

[lllll]

..

[...................]

I think I was very very close in 2012. we had been pinching Pennies for years, making it with one car, in a very hot climate with limited resources and frankly my kids were grumpy and we all had cabin fever. Just playing outside and the weekly AWANA was NOT enough. I think I was even getting a bit depressed.

 

Now I'm all for not being TOO busy but as soon as we were able to get out to some (very carefully chosen!!) regular activities and live in a better climate where we can get out for free as well as the paid activities, it all turned around for us!

 

This past two years has been some of the best in our homeschooling.

 

But I do choose our regular scheduled activities very wisely! I try to get the best bang for the most people and not just busy for the sake is busy.

[lewelma]

I'm stable as long as I am just doing the standard homeschooling thing. The year I had burnout was the year I helped my son get up to the competitive stream in mathematics. And that won't happen again so I think I'm set for the next 7 years. ☺

 

Ruth in NZ

[KSinNS]

No burnout yet, and year 3! However, my comparison is dragging my shut-down, autistic child to school at the crack of dawn, and then having to do 3 drives to the school with littles in the van, in the dead of winter, in snowboots and hats, up a steep icy hill at 11:30 (pick up for lunch) 12:30 (drop off after lunch) and 2:15 (pick up). And I had to unload everyone to go in and get him because he would get lost and the littles might get out of the car (steep icy hill). And I couldn't get parking..... and we couldn't walk because of the short lunch schedule and after school activities. And then doing homework and listening to him cry because he didn't want to go to school. And no one ever got a nap...... Oh, and trying to figure out what the teachers wanted from the cryptic sheets that came home with him. And he couldn't tell me....

 

I think I may have been a bit burned out then :-}

[Susan in TX]

For me, the burnout didn't hit until after my oldest was in high school. And it wasn't all just about homeschooling. I think it had just as much to do with my age...hitting the big 40 and also dealing with difficult life circumstances. I struggled with it for a couple years and finally decided to put my younger school-aged kids in school (the older two had already gone to public high school). They started in the fall and by Christmas break we were all wanting to homeschool again. So that's what we did.

 

That was six years ago. I still don't love homeschooling the way I once did but I have not experienced that level of burnout since. I have now been homeschooling for 21 years and I have at least 10 left to go. I'm not sure the burnout can be totally avoided but you can get through it.

 

 

Susan in TX

 

 

[Mommy22alyns]

I'll be cautious and say, not as of yet.  Yes, sometimes I get to that point where I'm like, "OKAY!  Time to have next week off."  But I honestly have never actually wanted to put the girls on the bus.  I consider myself lucky.  I have homeschooled from the beginning, so we're in year 7.

[ALB]

I don't have a large family and am only in my fourth year of homeschooling, so my experience might not count :).  But, I also LOVE homeschooling and can't imagine ever getting tired of it.  I feel so thankful to wake up in the mornings and get to do my favorite things every day: be with my family, read great books, learn with my kids.  To me, it is the best possible job I could have.

[BlsdMama]

I had never experience burnout until this year.

 

Doing more than I could, unrealistic expectations, health issues, and one very hard child with some serious issues did me in. I was begging the husband for public school.

 

Miraculously, he had to have back surgery and stay home for ten weeks. The time off, shutting down on some commitments, allowing dome breathing room helped a LOT. The hard stuff is still there but it doesn't seem insurmountable. All this to say I don't think burnout is inevitable. Take care of yourself though and get rest, which seems so silly when you are super young and energetic.

[KrissiK]

I don't think burn-out is a given, but as a previous poster said, it can depend on personalities of your kids. I have two that are very difficult to educate. My oldest DS takes no responsibility for his education at all. He doesn't want to be educated, therefore he doesn't think he should have to be. I cannot trust him to accomplish anything on his own and I have to have my thumb on him all day long. And there are some days, like yesterday when I'm checking his math at 7:30pm. He's in 6th grade and on the waiting list for private school next year. My dd has her days. Some days she'll just be an angel and her work will be done quickly and correctly and other days she shuts down and then follows me around screaming, "you're not helping me, you hate me!" So, yes....I'm experiencing burn-out these days. We're hoping that with DS out of the homeschool picture (if he is accepted, it's a full class) next year things will be easier.

[Luckymama]

I haven't experienced burnout.

 

But

--I homeschool one kid

--we started when she was in fifth grade

--she is our youngest

--and,now for high school, I outsource the two classes that were stressing me out in middle school, English and foreign language.

[purduemeche]

Weekly date nights for mom and dad is the best budget item we ever made room for....and it is the best antidote to burnout EVER.

[stm4him]

I hit real burn out this year for the first time ever.  But I had some pretty severe circumstances leading up to it:

 

-church and marriage of our best friends down the street fell apart when I was pregnant with number 6 which was very emotionally tough

-financial crisis in 2012 causing us to miss foreclosure by a few days and causing a move to another state (trying to sell home while homeschooling with several young kiddos)

-son diagnosed with leukemia when we had just moved and newly pregnant

-oldest daughter struggled with depression because of the move and worry about her brother and we constantly bucked heads for two years after always having been close before that

-auto-immune disease hit me a year after my son's diagnosis and 5 months after baby number 7

-moved twice since then

-added child number 5 to the mix this past summer

-became pregnant with number 8 unexpectedly this fall

-oldest two have always been more difficult because of either learning struggles or meltdowns or health issues and that has worn me down at times

 

 

So it wasn't homeschooling itself or any curriculum we used that burned me out.  It was our life circumstances that did me in.  I also started homeschooling like it was a sprint instead of a marathon.  I should have slowly eased my way in and enjoyed the younger years.  Instead I filled our days with school for many years and eventually that got old and began causing me to lose the desire to learn myself.  I am not necessarily thrilled with out current curriculum but it is keeping us together in this season and this season will pass.  Who knows, it may be what keeps me from burn out for the next 18 years!

 

I also think that doing scripted lesson plans year after year and too much curriculum that I had to personally teach (since most of my life I have LOVED teaching) contributed to it.  I always chose more teacher intensive programs.  

 

When you get a chronic illness you tend to see more what really matters.  Academics still matter to me, but when I feel well I want to seek out beauty and order and relationship.....not lesson plans.  That means I'd rather curl up with a read aloud or take a nature walk or listen to some classical music and draw or whatever but I don't want to do workbooks.  But they can't sit around waiting for me to be well, either.  They have to be able to move on with their education, which also takes stress and guilt off my shoulders.  So we are currently compromising by giving them productive work to do independently (including the grading part) so that when I am well we can freely enjoy those other things without worrying that we are behind.  At least, these