Calling all working (outside of the home) while homeschooling parents

[Kidlit]

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]

[LucyStoner]

I meet with clients all day on Mondays and Wednesday and then get the rest of my hours as I can from home when the kids don't need me.  This is newish for me, I used to work much more part-time.  Nothing about my work is especially demanding but there's an intellectual component to it and it can be tricky at times.  I am often educating clients on their financial policies and generally accepted accounting practices as related to fund accounting and restricted vs. unrestricted funds and providing non-profit specific information.  Mostly FASB but I have one client who needs to be GASB compliant instead.  And of course, there are errors and such to run down.  I just cleaned up a 12-month mess where no fund accounting was being done but the client needed to restrict funds across cost centers but also a dozen locations.  Fun times.  All that to say, there is some need for professional development and keeping current.  So while it's not super demanding, it isn't all autopilot brain either.  

One of my sons is in school FT but has an IEP so it's not as simple as it might be.  My younger son is part-time homeschooled and we supplement with classes and lessons.  

My advice:

You can't do it all.  Everything has an opportunity cost.  As long as the cost is not my kids, their education, my marriage or my professional rep, I'm good.  I'm not going to run myself down trying to keep up the same level of cooking and homemaking I was able to do when I worked 5-20 hours PER MONTH now that I am working 15-30+ PER WEEK.  So we have a much simpler meal schedule and I am responsible for cooking about 1/2 as much as I used to for dinner and breakfast as given way to grab and go.  I am considering hiring a cleaner again.  

Have adequate childcare, not just for the time you are at class but for your planning time too.  Do not overestimate them working independently or things that promise little parent effort.  My husband will be home Mondays starting in December so that's one solid day of not having to worry about childcare and then I have a mix of paid and trade care for my son on Wednesdays.  

Set boundaries.  I try to not take on something new without kicking something else off.  

I am with my homeschooled son all day on TThF.  That means that if a client needs to reschedule, I have to stick to MW and not try and reschedule them to Thursday.  It also means that kid stuff that falls on MW is not mine unless there's a really good reason.  So no, I can't volunteer at this event or drive that carpool etc.  Saying no is helpful.  

Edited November 11, 2018 by LucyStoner

[AK_Mom4]

I have a mostly flexible job and can get time off when needed. Now that DD17 drives, that has made things much easier. DH drops me off at the office in the morning and DD picks me up in the afternoon when she is done.  Since she does a mix - band at the public school, 3 classes at the local university and two at home - it makes sense for her to use my car to go back and forth.  She does the work for her two Home classes and her Uni homework in the afternoons either at my office or at home. 

Saying No is good, too.  DD17 and I both will be pretty busy here soon when skiing starts (we both coach) and we will be saying No to lots of the extra things going on in order to fit that into our evenings. 

[moonflower]

DH and I own and operate a small  business from home; it's a full time job in the busy season and at least a part time job all year.  I just put the kids in school last month.  I could meet their educational needs, largely (certainly as well as public school does, anyway) but the social aspect was just not happening.  It might work better if you have a built in social structure - if you go to church, or can find/make time for a co-op or something.  For us, it was basically piecemeal - take DD13 to this event, DS10 to this sports practice, DD7 to this library story time, etc.  I couldn't do it and keep up with the business and keep up with homeschooling.  For a year we tried just dropping social stuff largely and focusing on getting school done and food on the table, but the only kid that worked for at all was the once with same-age kids in the neighborhood.  

 

That said, what we did for school when we did it (I had a 7th, 4th, and K-er last year) was outsource things I couldn't do well (Latin) and focus on skills for the rest.  Reading/writing/math I insisted on daily (well, they love to read, so I just had to strew).  Anything else I let them pursue as they wished.  I bought TOPSCience kits and left them in the basement for rainy days.  I bought nature journals and binoculars and encouraged Backyard Explorations.  I bought DD13 (then 12) a Bio textbook and suggested she might want to work through some of it in preparation for 9th grade bio.  I watched nature and history documentaries while I worked in the living room, and since it was the only screen in the house, they watched with me off and on.

Do I think this would work for high school?  Probably not.  But I think it is okay for 7th, 4th, and K, separate of learning disabilities that make it harder.

[Starfish]

I used to own and manage a business while homeschooling and have taught outside classes for most of our homeschooling years.  It seemed that we were always busy and trying to get things done.  It was hard and as others have said you can't do it all.   In a nutshell, we managed by creating a monthly schedule that included heavy work days for our business which would then be lighter school days and vice versa.  I always tried to keep an overview of our calendar so we knew if the family and homeschooling were being shorted.  For my outside classes, I really have to resist my perfectionist tendencies and keep to a time limit which is reasonable. I absolutely love teaching my subject and the subject itself, so self-policing is a must.   Seriously, my timer is still my number one tool to get things done.   On a daily level, I made certain that our days started together and tried to meet the kids needs first before starting ( or continuing my early morning hours) with business responsibilities.  Late nights didn't usually happen here.  When the kids went to bed, we stayed up maybe an hour later then went to bed.  It's too easy to keep working late into the night so we tried to avoid it altogether.  Consistent routines helped all of us stay on track.  In our case, we decided that we couldn't sustain the business growth ( I still teach outside classes. ), our sanity,  and our goal to homeschool so the business had to go.   The money was nice and somewhat needed, but thankfully it wasn't necessary for daily survival.  If it had been,  then we'd have had to come up with a different  solution.    Hopefully our experience is helpful.  

 

eta:  In hindsight, I would have hired out some of the housekeeping and possibly a sitter to do some fun things with the kids.   It probably wouldn't  have kept our business going though because it was just too much overall. 

Edited November 11, 2018 by Starfish

[madteaparty]

I cry everyday. And most my kid’s classes are outsourced, and he’s very indipendent. I have no thoughts, just commiseration. Basically I’m reconciled to the fact that I’m never going to be very good at my job, and I’m sure they will let me know one of these days and that might actually be a relief. 

Edited November 11, 2018 by madteaparty

[Starfish]

17 minutes ago, madteaparty said:

I cry everyday. And most my kid’s classes are outsourced, and he’s very indipendent. I have no thoughts, just commiseration. Basically I’m reconciled to the fact that I’m never going to be very good at my job, and I’m sure they will let me know one of these days and that might actually be a relief. 

 

{{{hugs}}}

[kiwik]

I work 30 hours a week (more like 37 this month).  When I am doing normal hours I work about 3 hours at home after the kids have gone to bed six days a week then 4 mornings at the warehouse.  Usually one of those mornings as least stretches to 2pm.  School often is minimal - if I get maths, writing reading and one other thing I call it good.  I am only homeschool one of my kids and he is only just starting to recover after a year at home.  This last week for the first time hi I have given him a checklist of about half an hour school work plus an hour free reading to do at the warehouse.  Next week I hope to give him the option of doing the scratch programming he does at home.

I am tired 95% of the time but at least ds9 is bearable to live with and learning again.

[Wheres Toto]

I run a business teaching classes to homeschoolers.  I currently teach 3 classes a day, 5 days a week.  Plus a part-time job that's just twice a month for a few hours, and my 4-H club.

It's working fairly well.  My kids do most of their schoolwork while I'm teaching classes they aren't in.  They get a lot of socialization with the other kids in my classes and during the free time between classes.  We do school year round so that takes a lot of the pressure off.  

The main thing that is suffering is my house.  It's a mess.  I was never very good at housework and being out of the house more often certainly hasn't helped.  We can't afford a housekeeper but maybe some day.

[RootAnn]

16 hours ago, madteaparty said:

 I have no thoughts, just commiseration.

@hopeistheword I couldn't do all that because I've tried volunteering (substitute teaching religious education), and I found I'm stretched too thin.

@madteaparty many, many hugs.

[Bootsie]

When I was teaching night classes and homeschooling, I had to consider carefully what schedule was going to work best.  After teaching a night class, I am wide awake; trying to make it home and to bed early to be ready for homeschooling first thing the next morning did not work for me.  I was better off staying up and continuing to work some in the evenings and getting a later start the next day.  I would often save mundane tasks such as entering grades and organizing papers for the evenings when I did not have to have as fresh of a mind.  I also paid close attention to the times I knew would be busy, tiring periods at the university (midterm exam week, grading final exams and turning in grades), and tried to plan homeschooling with more independent tasks during those times (videos, independent reading, art projects, etc.)  I tried to time more teacher-time intensive learning for periods where I knew my university work load would be less.

[Hilltopmom]

I feel for you.

I wound up graduating one and putting the rest in school when I went back to work (ironically, teaching).

best of luck!

[Kidlit]

23 hours ago, StellaM said:

I just keep on keeping on. I try to do a Good Job - a really good one - on at least two subjects. I outsource a subject. I try to accept the not best job I do on the rest ? 

 

 

 

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.

[Kidlit]

23 hours ago, LucyStoner said:

You can't do it all.  Everything has an opportunity cost.  As long as the cost is not my kids, their education, my marriage or my professional rep, I'm good.  I'm not going to run myself down trying to keep up the same level of cooking and homemaking I was able to do when I worked 5-20 hours PER MONTH now that I am working 15-30+ PER WEEK.  So we have a much simpler meal schedule and I am responsible for cooking about 1/2 as much as I used to for dinner and breakfast as given way to grab and go.  I am considering hiring a cleaner again.  

Have adequate childcare, not just for the time you are at class but for your planning time too.  Do not overestimate them working independently or things that promise little parent effort.  My husband will be home Mondays starting in December so that's one solid day of not having to worry about childcare and then I have a mix of paid and trade care for my son on Wednesdays.  

Set boundaries.  I try to not take on something new without kicking something else off.  

I am with my homeschooled son all day on TThF.  That means that if a client needs to reschedule, I have to stick to MW and not try and reschedule them to Thursday.  It also means that kid stuff that falls on MW is not mine unless there's a really good reason.  So no, I can't volunteer at this event or drive that carpool etc.  Saying no is helpful.  

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

[Kidlit]

22 hours ago, AK_Mom4 said:

I have a mostly flexible job and can get time off when needed. Now that DD17 drives, that has made things much easier. DH drops me off at the office in the morning and DD picks me up in the afternoon when she is done.  Since she does a mix - band at the public school, 3 classes at the local university and two at home - it makes sense for her to use my car to go back and forth.  She does the work for her two Home classes and her Uni homework in the afternoons either at my office or at home. 

Saying No is good, too.  DD17 and I both will be pretty busy here soon when skiing starts (we both coach) and we will be saying No to lots of the extra things going on in order to fit that into our evenings. 

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.  

[Kidlit]

22 hours ago, moonflower said:

I could meet their educational needs, largely (certainly as well as public school does, anyway) but the social aspect was just not happening.  It might work better if you have a built in social structure - if you go to church, or can find/make time for a co-op or something.  For us, it was basically piecemeal - take DD13 to this event, DS10 to this sports practice, DD7 to this library story time, etc.  I couldn't do it and keep up with the business and keep up with homeschooling.  For a year we tried just dropping social stuff largely and focusing on getting school done and food on the table, but the only kid that worked for at all was the once with same-age kids in the neighborhood.  

 

That said, what we did for school when we did it (I had a 7th, 4th, and K-er last year) was outsource things I couldn't do well (Latin) and focus on skills for the rest.  Reading/writing/math I insisted on daily (well, they love to read, so I just had to strew).  Anything else I let them pursue as they wished.  I bought TOPSCience kits and left them in the basement for rainy days.  I bought nature journals and binoculars and encouraged Backyard Explorations.  I bought DD13 (then 12) a Bio textbook and suggested she might want to work through some of it in preparation for 9th grade bio.  I watched nature and history documentaries while I worked in the living room, and since it was the only screen in the house, they watched with me off and on.

Do I think this would work for high school?  Probably not.  But I think it is okay for 7th, 4th, and K, separate of learning disabilities that make it harder.

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.  

[AK_Mom4]

3 minutes ago, hopeistheword said:

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.  

Yes - this. When I had little kids, I worked exclusively from home. I had to be there to help them learn.   Juggling work and schooling was really hard during that time. 

[Wheres Toto]

Just now, hopeistheword said:

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.  

I definitely couldn't have done it when my kids were younger.  I don't give them direct supervision when I'm teaching other classes, and they are able to do a good bit of their schoolwork on their own.  At the very least, lots and lots of reading can be done when I'm not available.

[Kidlit]

21 hours ago, Starfish said:

I used to own and manage a business while homeschooling and have taught outside classes for most of our homeschooling years.  It seemed that we were always busy and trying to get things done.  It was hard and as others have said you can't do it all.   In a nutshell, we managed by creating a monthly schedule that included heavy work days for our business which would then be lighter school days and vice versa.  I always tried to keep an overview of our calendar so we knew if the family and homeschooling were being shorted.  For my outside classes, I really have to resist my perfectionist tendencies and keep to a time limit which is reasonable. I absolutely love teaching my subject and the subject itself, so self-policing is a must.   Seriously, my timer is still my number one tool to get things done.   On a daily level, I made certain that our days started together and tried to meet the kids needs first before starting ( or continuing my early morning hours) with business responsibilities.  Late nights didn't usually happen here.  When the kids went to bed, we stayed up maybe an hour later then went to bed.  It's too easy to keep working late into the night so we tried to avoid it altogether.  Consistent routines helped all of us stay on track.  In our case, we decided that we couldn't sustain the business growth ( I still teach outside classes. ), our sanity,  and our goal to homeschool so the business had to go.   The money was nice and somewhat needed, but thankfully it wasn't necessary for daily survival.  If it had been,  then we'd have had to come up with a different  solution.    Hopefully our experience is helpful.  

 

eta:  In hindsight, I would have hired out some of the housekeeping and possibly a sitter to do some fun things with the kids.   It probably wouldn't  have kept our business going though because it was just too much overall. 

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.

[Kidlit]

2 minutes ago, StellaM said:

 

It doesn't, really. Teens need as much time as littles, just in a different way. I honestly think the idea that all teens are independent learners who can just get on with it while we get on with our stuff is...not usual. I had one who was like this...but in retrospect, leaving her to it wasn't the best thing emotionally. 

If most classes are outsourced, that definitely helps. And it is easier to outsource for older kids. 

 

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.  

[Kidlit]

21 hours ago, madteaparty said:

I cry everyday. And most my kid’s classes are outsourced, and he’s very indipendent. I have no thoughts, just commiseration. Basically I’m reconciled to the fact that I’m never going to be very good at my job, and I’m sure they will let me know one of these days and that might actually be a relief. 

I'm sorry, @madteaparty.  I understand.  

[Kidlit]

19 hours ago, kiwik said:

I am tired 95% of the time but at least ds9 is bearable to live with and learning again.

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!  ❤️

[Kidlit]

6 hours ago, Where's Toto? said:

I run a business teaching classes to homeschoolers.  I currently teach 3 classes a day, 5 days a week.  Plus a part-time job that's just twice a month for a few hours, and my 4-H club.

It's working fairly well.  My kids do most of their schoolwork while I'm teaching classes they aren't in.  They get a lot of socialization with the other kids in my classes and during the free time between classes.  We do school year round so that takes a lot of the pressure off.  

The main thing that is suffering is my house.  It's a mess.  I was never very good at housework and being out of the house more often certainly hasn't helped.  We can't afford a housekeeper but maybe some day.

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!

[Kidlit]

4 hours ago, RootAnn said:

@hopeistheword I couldn't do all that because I've tried volunteering (substitute teaching religious education), and I found I'm stretched too thin.

 

One thing I have learned through all this is that I throw myself 100% into whatever I do, and there's only so much of me to go around.  Sigh.  

[Kidlit]

3 hours ago, jdahlquist said:

When I was teaching night classes and homeschooling, I had to consider carefully what schedule was going to work best.  After teaching a night class, I am wide awake; trying to make it home and to bed early to be ready for homeschooling first thing the next morning did not work for me.  I was better off staying up and continuing to work some in the evenings and getting a later start the next day.  I would often save mundane tasks such as entering grades and organizing papers for the evenings when I did not have to have as fresh of a mind.  I also paid close attention to the times I knew would be busy, tiring periods at the university (midterm exam week, grading final exams and turning in grades), and tried to plan homeschooling with more independent tasks during those times (videos, independent reading, art projects, etc.)  I tried to time more teacher-time intensive learning for periods where I knew my university work load would be less.

This is definitely a part of the dance that I'm re-learning since having not worked at the CC in so many years.  I will have a better sense of this next semester. My biggest problem this semester is that many, many nights I'm literally preparing to teach the class right up until it's time to leave home.  

 

[Kidlit]

1 hour ago, Hilltopmom said:

I feel for you.

I wound up graduating one and putting the rest in school when I went back to work (ironically, teaching).

best of luck!

I see the future and I'm afraid this might be the direction we're headed in.  It makes me very sad, especially because of my little boys.  I'm trying to look at the potential change as an opportunity instead of a loss, but it's still hard.  

[Kidlit]

Thank you all SO VERY MUCH for your input.  It has made me feel much less alone and also like I'm NOT crazy for feeling overwhelmed.  LOL

I am off to (what else? ?) grade essays.  I'm going to leave my post in its entirety for a little while longer to see if anybody else has any encouragement or words of wisdom before I at least delete part of it.  

 

[Hilltopmom]

1 hour ago, hopeistheword said:

I see the future and I'm afraid this might be the direction we're headed in.  It makes me very sad, especially because of my little boys.  I'm trying to look at the potential change as an opportunity instead of a loss, but it's still hard.  

I should add though that for the little ones at least, being in school has been really good for them and me.

They both are in schools that I work at so I get to see them & know their teachers which is great.

and the school experience itself has been much much much better than I expected ?

They both have IEPs and everyone has been wonderful, helpful, & friendly to all of us. 

Edited November 11, 2018 by Hilltopmom