Work at Home Moms Articles – WAHM Articles

Once you’ve made the decision to take the plunge and homeschool your child, you have only begun to answer the myriad of questions out there concerning how and what you are going to teach. How soon do you officially start? How structured will the curriculum be? How much should you emphasize academics vs. fun activities? The list goes on.

A good place to start is to find out what the state requirements are for children the same age as your child. Those requirements aren’t necessarily going to be ideal for your child, but they give you a basis to work from. There has been a trend in schooling to push academic subjects on children at a younger and younger age. I was shocked to read about “the rigors of kindergarten” in a preschool handwriting teacher’s guide. But it’s true. Today’s kindergarteners are expected to read and write complete sentences and to keep journals. Is your child ready for those kinds of “rigors?”

The question of whether or not your child is ready for a certain amount and level of work is more complicated than it might first appear. Many times the reasons a child won’t or can’t do the work has little to do with his intellectual capacity to do so. It may have to do with developmental or other obstacles that are part of the curriculum but not necessarily related to the subject matter.

Take, for example, the scenario of a girl who makes the kindergarten cutoff age by a month now sitting down to learn her phonics. You take her step by step through each sound and letter, a little bit at a time. Through your phonics program of choice you introduce to her the principles of word decoding and sentence structure. Does your child have the ability to grasp all that? The answer in general is yes, but it depends on how you present it. Phonics is by nature a highly intellectual and structured subject. The most obvious way to go about it is to sit down at the table and go through it step by step.

And that’s where you can have problems which might cause you to believe your child simply isn’t ready for phonics yet, and what were those lawmakers thinking anyway when they decided kindergarteners had to learn how to read? But is it really the phonics that is the problem? Many parents teaching a five-year-old how to read have found that they grasp everything you throw at them with amazing speed, but many times the focus isn’t there. They have everything but the attention span.

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I work from home. I also homeschool three little inquiring minds. I’d never tell you it’s easy. But it’s the right choice for our family and we make it work.

How can you make time, and find the energy, to run a business from home when you’re also homeschooling?

Be Sure You Know Your “Why”

If you’re juggling both homeschooling and working at home, the #1 piece of advice I would offer is to know why you’re doing each. Be 100% convinced of your decisions.

There are rough days but if you know you’re doing what’s best for your children by homeschooling, and what’s best for you/your clients/your mission in the world through your business, the question isn’t, “Should I give up?” but instead, “How can I make this work better?”

It’s that certainty that will drive you to get it all done. You’ll find the time and energy to push through the challenges and succeed.

Plan Smart, Be Flexible

Have a daily plan. Scheduling to the minute doesn’t work for me, but I do schedule general blocks of time for each duty. I know generally when I’ll be focused on teaching and when I’ll be focused on business.

Never do three times what you can skip doing completely. If you’ve ever tried planning out your own school curriculum, you know it’s extremely time consuming and can make your head spin to match books to guidelines and cover everything. I have three kids. I’d have to go through that process for each of them. I don’t do it. Instead I choose curriculums that come with the plan ready to go. I take those plans and lay them out in my homeschool daily plannner as I look over each week (I use “The Well-Planned Day” and wouldn’t survive without it). I know exactly what’s required each day to complete our school year on time. It’s worth the money to know my plan is solid and I can focus my time on their learning instead of my planning. Explore your options. There are many curriculums that come with planners ready to go.

Look for areas where planning can save you time. For example, plan your meals and shop monthly. Try freezer cooking and learn to use a crockpot. You’ll save hours of “what’s for dinner?” and last minute trips to the grocery store.

Be willing to be flexible and forgiving with yourself. You’ll have to bend a bit on the days where your kids need more support or when you have a business emergency.

Guard & Leverage Your Time

Learn how to guard your time. Don’t spend hours chatting on the phone, or watching TV. We all need some down time to relax, but if you’re watching a couple hours of TV nightly, you shouldn’t be wondering where your time went…

“When people say to me: “How do you do so many things?” I often answer them, without meaning to be cruel: “How do you do so little?” It seems to me that people have vast potential. Most people can do extraordinary things if they have the confidence or take the risks. Yet most people don’t. They sit in front of the telly and treat life as if it goes on forever.” ~Philip Adams

Keep your priorities in mind when you’re deciding what to do. Make it a point to learn how to do things better and faster.

Look for places in your homeschooling and your business where you leverage your time to spend it on the most critical tasks and outsource, automate, or delegate the rest.

Get Support

Don’t try to do it all alone. That’s a recipe for quick burnout.

Ask for help. Involve your family and share the duties of housekeeping and meal time.

Get support in whatever form you need. Maybe it’s a charter school. Maybe it’s a mastermind group or business coach. Maybe it’s involving your kiddos in group classes, or having your spouse or another mom share teaching or kid care duties.

Want more? Click here to Visit Michelle’s “Juggling it All” page for free ecourses on crockpot and freezer cooking, menu planning tips, and more.

If so, you’re in good company! And I have great news about how to do both simultaneously.

Curious though.

Were you aware that doing both will be the equivalent of working two jobs? There is a lot of work for both your home school and a business you choose to operate from your home.

Oh, and when it comes to homeschooling, it really doesn’t matter if you personally create your children’s home education curriculum, enroll them in a covering school, or enroll them in a local school district’s “home studies program.” You still have to completely oversee your children’s progress and help with “home work.” (That’s one job. And hang in there with me because I have some good news for you.)

The second one is your full- or part-time business “if” you don’t have the proper business system in place before you start (or integrate aggressively if you have an existing business), as well as create passive income streams from your core business to ensure that your choice to work full- or part-time in the business will generate your expected income. And what all of that means is that you actually know how run an income-generating business on purpose (deliberately, as in it actually generates the kind of income you desire) “and” it’s a viable business at that.

Here’s the “not-so-bad” news: Don’t focus on great income opportunities based on the fact that you homeschool (i.e., “a homeschool home business” opportunity). Why? Because if your business does not include products and services created exclusively for homeschooling families or home school enrollment services for homeschooling families (thus a “homeschool home business”), there’s no market for a “homeschool home business” opportunity. It’s important to understand that the term “home school” should not be linked with the term “home business” because they’re separate and different.

The “good news” is there is a way to “home school” and run a profitable business from your home, and enjoy doing so simultaneously.

What I usually advise others to do is to create a business out of something you enjoy doing already, such as what you do for pure fun; what you do to relax; and/or what you do to make yourself happy. You already do it because it (whatever “it”) is part of who you are anyway.

What you must do is (1) decide if this will be part- or full-time income for you, (2) make a “decision” that this is going to be a “real business” (as oppose to a hobby-paying gig because consistent income just won’t happen with hobby-gigs), and (3) learn how to monetize (or make money) doing what you already love doing and currently are not being paid to do it. (Whoooaaa. That was mouth full.)

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In high school and college, I never really envisioned my life with children. I’m sure lots and lots of young women can easily picture themselves pushing strollers and warming up bottles, but those images never even crossed my mind. I was going to be a career woman. Possibly a magazine writer or television writer, where the only thing I would be warming up was my third cup of coffee in order to meet my latest deadline.

So imagine my surprise, when at age 30, I had two school-age children, both with special needs, who were now not only my kids, but my students. What twists and turns life can take! The first few years of homeschool were so overwhelming I couldn’t even begin to imagine adding a work load on top of my other responsibilities. But over time, my boys and I got into a nice groove, and I began to crave that stimulation that job and career can bring. It took more time than I hoped to pin down a stay-at-home position, but eventually it did come, and I have been a WAHM and homeschooling mom ever since.

This journey has left me bruised and battered, but oh so much wiser, and if I can help other mom’s find the balance between work and homeschool, then my adventure will be all the sweeter for it. Here are my five top tips for moms who work at home and homeschool their children.

1. It’s all in the curriculum. You can be a mom who creates all your own curriculum OR you can be a work-at-home mom, but you simply cannot do both. Finding a curriculum that lets your children work at least somewhat independently is crucial to finding balance. Computer based curriculums are good for independent work, especially if you have enough computers in your home that each child can work at his or her own computer. Our family uses the Time4Learning homeschool curriculum (www.time4learning.com) because all of the lesson planning, testing, and record-keeping are done for you on the computer. It also has the benefit of being multimedia and interactive, so my kids really enjoy their learning, and aren’t constantly grumbling about their schoolwork. Using an online curriculum can free up large amounts of time that you would normally have to spend in preparing for and overseeing homeschool lessons. If an online curriculum is not an option, spend some time investigating other types of curricula that are comprehensively designed, and don’t need as much hands-on attention.

2. Get with the program. And by program, I mean the schedule. I happen to love schedules, and don’t have any sort of bristles that stand up on my neck when I use one, but if you are a happy-go-lucky, non-scheduled sort of gal, it is time to repent. You simply won’t be able to make the working/homeschooling thing work without setting out your day into some sort of timetable. Fortunately, there are some great free tools to help you make the transition from ad hoc to planned out. A written or electronic day planner is a must. I use a free widget that sits on my desktop and reminds me at a glance what I need to get done each day. It even gives me the option of checking off those things I have completed, which is a real inspiration-booster. For homeschool scheduling, you might want to try a free tool called Homeschool Skedtrack (www.homeschoolskedtrack.com) which lets you schedule and track each child’s progress through every subject. And if you only work best under a deadline, you might just enjoy Hassle Me (www.hassleme.co.uk), which allows you to set up reminder emails which will “hassle” you at random times throughout the day until you get something finished!!

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Narration is a beautifully, simple concept that allows the child to interact with a given text on their level. If you have been homeschooling for any length of time, and been using the Charlotte Mason method, you have undoubtedly read For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay. If you are new to homeschooling or just thinking about homeschooling in a few years, I highly recommend getting this book and digesting its principles. It inspires the reader to develop an enjoyable environment at home that stimulates active, thinking and learning as a lifestyle.

Narration is the retelling of a story in ones own words. It is the natural result of enjoyable reading. With the Charlotte Mason method, a child retells a story in his own words. A very young child can draw, or tell back what he heard and an older student would write out what they heard. In doing this, they have to sort, categorize, and digest the story in such a way that their brain holds its meaning long after the initial first reading. One of the many benefits of narration, is that it eliminates the need for fill in the blank testing.

Months later, a student can recall detailed facts from important literature because they were asked to “narrate” directly after the first reading.

The deeper meanings of the text will quietly work away and seep out into their play time and other free times, all the while molding and shaping them.

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A lesson in family history is as near as your family’s cemetery. Teach your children and grandchildren about those who have come before them.

Several years ago I attended my grandfather’s funeral. Living into his late eighties, my grandfather had lived a long, eventful life, first with my father’s mother who died after more than 40 years of marriage, and then with his second wife, whom he shared his life with for more than 20 years until he died. When my grandfather died, his wife, who is now in a nursing home, forever said goodbye to her third husband and my grandfather was buried next to his first wife, the mother of his four children, in the small farming community where their children had been born and raised.

When we arrived at the burial site, I didn’t at first realize all of the family history recorded before my very eyes. My aunt, my father’s sister, had lived all of her almost 60 years in this small community, and she knew the history of each relative buried there, dating back to the early 1800′s. As we walked in between the grave stones, my aunt told me story after story of the people who were laid to rest in this quiet peaceful place–grandparents, great-grandparents, great aunts and uncles. She told me the story of how my grandmother’s mother had died when my grandmother was a small girl, and how she and her brother had been sent to live with relatives until their father remarried and they were brought back to live with his new family. My aunt showed me where my great grandparents were buried, as well as my great uncle. My grandmother was buried on the other side of the cemetery, however, with my grandfather’s family–his family had also been buried there for generations. I got goosebumps as I looked in awe at all the history before me. My grandfather was buried right next to my grandmother, where she had been patiently waiting for him for more than 20 years.

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One of the best things about home schooling is the opportunity to build the type of environment you desire for your children and your family. A great way to add a little culture into your home school is by doing a consistent art study with your child. You do not need to be an accomplished artist. Just have a willingness to learn along with your child. It is that energetic and cooperative spirit that will energize your child and inspire them to create something for themselves.

Here are a few ideas to get you and your family started. Purchase an inexpensive artists set. The one we purchases came in a wooden box with a spatula, all the basic acrylic colors, a pallet and several different types of brushes. It makes our children feel like real artists’. We use this set during certain times of the week to delineate it from standard markers and crayons. I purchased a painters pad so that their work can be kept and framed as they produce those first master pieces. Again, there is no need to spend a lot of money. Just having something special to work with really gives your child a since of wonder towards creating art.

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Whether you’re new to homeschooling or just curious about it, the idea of teaching your children at home probably seems overwhelming. There are so many questions to be answered, decisions to be made, and new ideas to grasp. My advice is to relax — every homeschooling parent was once in your shoes and soon discovered that homeschooling is not as hard as it looks. If you can read a book, you can teach your child. You will soon see, homeschooling is a way of life and not a list of things to cover.

The most recent Federal Government study concluded that about 2.2% of the K-12 students or 1.1 million students were being homeschooled in the United States as of spring 2003. In the last few years, these trends have all accelerated. Private schools of quality have gotten really expensive. The shootings at schools, the 911 and the government emphasis on the constant threat of terrorism, and the huge impact of the No Child Left Behind testing have all vastly contributed to accelerating the homeschool movement. You are not alone. Many families around the US are packing up and heading home. If they can do it, so can you.

The first step to successful homeschooling is the”why”. Why do you want to homeschool? Knowing this will take all of the confusion out of it for you. Don’t think about the pragmatic elements right now, think of the” why” and you will be on the right track. Take a weekend and dream about the type of education you want for your child and the write it down in detail. 

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A common reason for moms to homeschool their children and work from home is that the at-home lifestyle appeals to them. It sounds like an ideal situation – you’re home, the kids are at home, and everyone’s happy.

But juggling a home business with homeschooling usually doesn’t look as peaceful as it might sound. In fact, this is a more likely scenario:

You’ve planned to do a math lesson with your children at 9 am. Since you have a few minutes of peace while the kids are finishing breakfast, you decide to fit in a quick email check.

There’s an email from a prospective client, who wants a proposal from you right away, for a juicy contract. There’s still 20 minutes before you had planned to start your school day, so you start to reply.

Well, one thing leads to another… the computer is slower than usual, someone spills a bowl of cereal in the kitchen, the cat decides to throw up on the couch, and by the time your email is sent, it’s an hour later.

Still, not bad, you tell yourself, and you settle down with the kids to begin their lesson.

Halfway through the first page of math problems, you hear a new email coming in. Thinking it might be about the email you just sent, you tell the kids, “I’ll be right back.”

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You want to home school your teen but are unsure. The decision although a tough one, has been made you will need help. It is not as scary as it sounds. I will try to ease your fears. I have 2 teens that I have been schooling along with 3 younger children, so I am getting lots of practice.

If you have just begun to home school you may fear that you are not qualified to teach your teen, but that is not true. You are qualified and have actually been homeschooling your child without knowing it. Have you ever helped your teen with their homework? Do you ever read with your teen? Discuss current events? Take trips to museums, zoo, and parks, if you have, then you have been homeschooling your child.

It is normal to fear the unknown path of homeschooling but it is not a difficult path. The most important asset to obtain in helping your teen is patience. When I first began schooling, I asked a lot of questions of experienced homeschooling parents. Those are the parents I learned from and now I am in that position to help you. It is possible to home school your teen, be successful, and have fun all at the same time.

As a homeschooler you have the freedom to teach the subjects you desire and can set your own schedule as well. You can incorporate schooling into your daily activities and the teen will learn daily lessons that they would normally not learn in a traditional school environment. The best part is that there will not be needless homework assignments and late nights of working on projects. The assignments and projects will now be done during the day leaving your evenings available to enjoy your family.

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