How you feel about spring break may not indicate whether you could homeschool or not.
Frequently, after a few days of unscheduled, all kid, crazy weather days of spring break, I hear people say they could never handle having their children home all the time. They are sure they could never homeschool. Homeschool is not one big long spring break. I promise. Here are some differences:
1- The schedule — For spring break, bed time is relaxed, alarms are turned off, breakfast is a more concrete event and screen time can become more of a free for all. Chores change to big projects. If your spring break looks like this, it generally starts out relaxing and becomes…grumpy. Homeschool does not require bells and timers, but it does require some structure. What that looks like will vary by family, but children and parents both function best with regular sleep and limited time with screens used for entertainment. Even that minor adjustment completely alters the environment.
2- The field trip — Perhaps you pack your children up and go to a museum and wonder how home-schoolers do it. We don’t go on spring break. We go when museums are empty. I seldom take all of my children to a museum. I have found that going as a homeschool group or with my whole family doesn’t work. It’s stressful, it’s crowd control, it’s rushing some people and slowing down others. I prefer taking my children to museums one-on-one. It’s fascinating what they talk about and how they spend their time. They tend not to explore the entire museum, they find what they like and spend a bulk of their time there. The conversation to and from the museum is again not crowd control or screen time, but listening to them and learning what’s going on in their minds. One child and one parent in a nearly quiet museum is completely different than the whole family on spring break. I also don’t plan something major every day of the week, or three days a week.
3-The transition — If you did decide to pull your children from public school, there is generally a transition time. Children and parents need to adjust to a new schedule, and a new concept of what learning looks like. There is an adjustment as parents learn what their ideal of homeschool compares with reality. Frequently homeschooling parents start with doing school at home, which then adjusts to what works best for this particular child and family. Parents develop their own concept of education and goals.
None of that looks like spring break…even if you want to add a little learning into your spring break. Frequently a little learning just looks like homework for your children. It is seldom a shift of philosophy or family structure. You and your child are still relying on school as their major source of education.
4- Parental expectations — spring break means something to adults as well. We have our own expectations.We do not look at it as a return to normal family life with our children all home. Perhaps we ourselves want more excitement or vacations or traveling or entertainment. Homeschool becomes a new normal.
Whether or not you homeschool is mostly a philosophical choice. There are practical considerations, but they are not based on what you have done with your children, but on what you will do. In other major family decisions, I have noticed that a need of a child brings out the amazing in the parents. We get our child to the appointments they need, we change their diets, become experts in that child. We stay up all night with sick children, we suddenly learn to love, appreciate or at least drive to the sport or art or interest they love. If homeschool is right for your child, you will become what they need. You may not become your image of the “perfect homeschool parent”. You will not have 5 perfect homeschool days a week — most school teachers will tell you they don’t have perfect school days every day either.
Britt grew up in a family of six brothers and one sister and gained a bonus sister later. She camped in the High Sierras, canoed down the Colorado, and played volleyball at Brigham Young University. She then served a mission to South Africa.
With all of her time in the gym and the mountains and South Africa, she was totally prepared to become the mother of 2 sons and soon to be 9 daughters. By totally prepared she means willing to love them and muddle through everything else in a partially sleepless state. She is mostly successful at figuring out how to keep the baby clothed, or at least diapered, though her current toddler is challenging this skill.
She feels children naturally love to learn and didn’t want to disrupt childhood curiosity with worksheets and school bells. She loves to play in the dirt, read books, go on adventures, watch her children discover new things, and mentor her children. Her oldest child is currently at a community college and her oldest son is going to high school at a public school. She loves to follow her children in their unique paths and interests.
She loves to write because, unlike the laundry and the dishes, writing stays done. Whenever someone asks her how she does it all she wonders what in the world they think she’s doing.
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