Homeschooling in Survival Mode

Homeschooling in Survival Mode ~
Written by Kari Patterson

My dad passed away three weeks ago. I wrote about him in my day-in-the-life post, how we live next door and the little boys run over every day. We helped care for him these last two years after my mom passed away.

She had Parkinson’s; he had leukemia. It’s been an intense few years.

We miss him daily and life isn’t the same without him. But I’m also finding that I’m finally coming up for air in terms of my schedule, that life has a little more space now.

I’m very aware that we were Homeschooling in Survival Mode most of this winter.

A dear homeschooling friend just went through a crisis due to her husband’s addiction. He was in rehab for 30 days, while she was on her own with four kids — two homeschooling, one toddling around getting into everything, and one six months along in her womb.

Pregnancy exhaustion + nursing + a toddler + single-parenting + homeschooling = Survival Mode

She texted our group thread asking for advice, and the flood of helpful responses inspired me in my own Survival Mode status. These caring and wise women rallied to encourage and support her.

So if you find yourself barely army-crawling through the days, wondering how on earth to homeschool through the craziness of Survival Mode, here are a few thoughts from my tribe:

5 Tips for Homeschooling in Survival Mode

1. Build stability as much as possible.

When things feel chaotic, it’s hard to learn. When we’re afraid or stressed, our capacity for comprehending new concepts or tackling coursework is extremely limited.

So I tried to keep as many regular routines as possible. Some were impossible — my little boys could no longer do their daily trips to Papa’s. I had to be away a lot caring for him, and I couldn’t take them with me.

It was hard. But we kept our consistent bedtime routine, we kept our read aloud time, we did our fun little letter worksheets, we continued all of our normal outside-home activities.

I chose to not feel guilty for leaving Dad in others’ care sometimes because it was important to keep a sense of stability and normalcy even in the midst of chaos.

2. Prioritize, and keep the must-do list short.

This is probably obvious, but some subjects can clearly wait. Do you HAVE to finish that unit on the life-cycle of frogs? I remember a seasoned homeschool mama of 9 children saying, “Just keep up on math. You can easily catch up on everything else, just keep up on math.”

And in my dozen years of homeschooling, I’ve also found that’s true. In really crazy seasons, we’ve made math and reading the only must-dos.

Tadpoles can wait.

Now, full disclosure: Sometimes the subjects that suffer are important ones. Our oldest (17) was definitely the hardest hit by this season, and he got so far behind in Pre-Calculus and Spanish he was overwhelmed and depressed and we realized there was no way he could catch up. We made the difficult decision to let him drop those two classes.

He’ll have to retake them next year, but he’s SO much happier and relieved to not feel like he’s hopelessly drowning in coursework. It is painful to feel like you’ve failed, for sure, but I’m grateful we were able to walk through this experience with him, and he gained some priceless lessons.

In the end, those lessons may be more valuable than Pre-Calc anyway.

3. Allow others to help.

Sometimes all it takes is a season of struggle for you to really find your people. I have found that in my times of weakness I’m amazed at how willing other moms are to step up and step in to help me.

But we have to let them. The day that my dad died another homeschool mama offered to take my boys to an Easter Egg hunt. It felt weird to send them off, oblivious to my sorrow, to run around and collect candy.

But I had to attend to details and they had to be gone, and I was grateful for the support, and by the time they were back around I was ready to navigate the grief with them. There are countless ways that other homeschool moms helped me through this season. But we have to let them.

4. Let the kids help.

Kids can feel powerless when life is crazy and there’s nothing they can do. Intentionally enlisting their help, in ways that are appropriate, will increase their stability and security like nothing else. 

Our teenagers helped significantly during both my parents’ final months and weeks. At 17 Dutch has now been a pallbearer twice. Heidi daily cared for two grandparents as they neared death. These are heavy things, but also good.

I was so proud of them, and I could tell that they felt good about being able to serve and make a significant contribution during a time of need. They both also spoke at Dad’s memorial, a learning and growth experience to be sure! The littles couldn’t be involved in that way, but they could “help Mommy”  with chores because Mommy was helping Papa.

5. Hold them, love them, keep them close.

While we certainly need to allow others to help, I also knew that more than ever my kids needed my nearness. There were times I could have easily given over the job of driving someone here, or being at a certain event, etc. but as much as possible, I tried to stay as close as possible.

As you know, most of the priceless, precious conversations we have with our children happen when we least expect it. We can’t schedule “Deep Conversation about Death & Eternity” into iCal. We just have to be there.

And if we stay close, as much as possible, we’ll get to be part of the most valuable part of their education: The growth that happens as they learn through daily life. I don’t want to miss that.

So dear friends, if you are homeschooling in survival mode, hang in there!

Know that you have a community right here who can rally around you as well. Drop us a line if you have questions, or just want to share what you’re going through.

We’d love to encourage you if we can.

What’s Your Homeschool Mom Personality? Take Jamie’s quiz now and receive a free personality report to help you organize your homeschool based on what your personality type needs most!