How often do you have fun as a homeschooling parent? Do you ever allow yourself to simply relax and enjoy the process of watching your child’s learning unfold before your very eyes? From all the articles I see online about homeschool mom burnout, stress, and fear, I’m guessing many of us do not take enough time to just relax and enjoy this homeschooling journey.
As we wrap up this five day series on re-energizing our homeschool, I’d like to encourage all of us to relax and plan more homeschool fun.
Plan For Homeschool Fun
Yes, plan for fun.
Unless you are a naturally wired to be a fun mom, you might actually need to make an effort to include more fun in your homeschool planning. And, believe me, I’m speaking to myself here. I’m not naturally wired to be a fun mom.
It’s so easy to get wrapped up in units and checklists and requirements. But I think we can safely assume none of us made the decision to homeschool because we wanted to spend hours absorbed in keeping track of the minutia.
We signed up to homeschool our child out of love and a desire to see her flourish as an individual. We wanted to see her have opportunities we knew she would never have in a traditional classroom setting.
But hopefully we also decided to homeschool out of a desire for a better relationship with our child.
Parent and Child Relationships Need Fun
And I think this is often where it becomes tricky because too often we are quick to worry about the educational requirements at the expense of the relationship.
We are more apt to worry about what others think of our homeschooling accomplishments than what our child thinks of our homeschooling relationship.
And, in the process, homeschooling can become way too serious too much of the time.
I know it probably seems like there is no time to plan for fun. You already feel stretched and stressed getting through everything in the year.
Maybe that is a sure sign that you need to plan for some fun.
We’ve covered a lot of different ways to re-energize our homeschool this week. We’ve considered:
- changing our approach
- switching up our space
- investing in new materials
- practicing the art of strewing
Making positive changes in each one of these areas has the potential to add more fun to your homeschooling because making positive changes will make it easier to relax.
Changing Your Homeschool Can Lead To More Fun
So perhaps the first step is making some of those other changes. Then as you get a better handle on other areas that were not working for you and your child, you’ll feel more confident planning some fun.
With a better plan in place, you’ll feel more free to relax and enjoy the homeschooling journey with your child.
What changes are you making to re-energize your homeschool? Which day of this series was most relevant to where you are now as a homeschooling parent?
If you are planning your homeschool year, you may also want to visit my Homeschool Planning Help page.
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