Should I homeschool? What will I do about subjects and getting started? Starting homeschooling can bring a lot of challenges.

Here are some of the challenges we have faced in our homeschooling journey through every season and how we are surviving.

1. Challenge: Endless Fatigue

One of your children is raring to go at 6am allowing you to draw the conclusion that there isn’t enough coffee in the world. Then, suddenly one of your other children suddenly asks in their sweet dulcet tones for help with their math that you were certain they understood yesterday. On and on it goes and as the dishes are piling up and you manage to finally return to the coffee that is now cold. It’s hard to keep up the energy. There were, and still are many days we’ve had to just stop and tell ourselves, “Okay, let’s wait a minute,” and take a breather. It’s normal. Don’t pretend that you are a homeschool warrior all the time. You are a parent first and foremost, which often is hard enough on its own. Don’t feel bad and give yourself a break once in a while.

Caring for children and teaching them is first priority, and more often than we might like to admit to ourselves those two tasks can take all the energy reserves you have- and more! That’s normal. So how do you go about fixing that? Well the bad news is that there isn’t any one silver bullet, but there are some basic things that you can do that’ll help with it.

What Can Be Done

The first and foremost is finding the pace that works for you. We have a mixture of morning people and night people in our home. So we do schoolwork in the morning AND in the evenings. This helps us take a long break in the afternoon to rest, read or just recharge. Learning your family’s rhythm goes a long way in this regard. Just like there are the tides that come and go so too each individual in your family will have up times and down times.

The second thing that you can do that will help is setting limits for yourself. Know what you can, and cannot get through in a day helps immensely. For some families it seems easy for them to get it all done. Their kids might be in all the sports, all the church groups, and even be working on Plato’s Phaedo. But, you might not be them.

We certainly aren’t. We have to prioritize what we want our children to experience and learn and go from there. What doesn’t get covered will have to wait for another day, but you know? That’s okay, because you have time, and it is far more important for your child to have meaningful time than have every experience or success.

The last thing that will help with fatigue is simply creating moments, or days in which you can just rest. Sure this sounds easy or even unhelpful, but regular days of rest can mean a lot more than you might realize. Having your own holiday schedule can also help with this. Be intentional about your rest, otherwise you might never get any.

2. Challenge: Having Consistency

Being at home every day can have its up’s and down’s. Life has it’s natural ebb and flow. I know for us, consistency is a difficult one. We have many built in systems that work to help us with the basic curriculum and getting the concepts accounted for, but it’s the extras that we struggle with. No matter what your situation is, not very many of us find excitement in the repetitive or consistent tasks of everyday. For us, consistency is more like a chore. We get easily bored. Or we run into another family crisis that sends us out of the norm and out of routine.

Over the last decade we have had to establish some ways to help us stay consistent. If we have a week that is challenging, or something comes up that throws off our schedule, we always rely on the basics and our system to keep us structured. A checklist – even if it has just the bare minimum, with which we have tried to make the core subjects easily accessible and not overly complicated which are reading, writing and math.

Building consistency is building your foundation. In a sense, it’s the routine that you can fall back on. Due to this, make sure to start small. Say, perhaps read for fifteen minutes after lunch or the like. Start small and build up to where you want to be. Reminders in your phone, sticky notes on the fridge, and most importantly not giving up despite the fact that you have forgotten for the fifth time this week.

3. Challenge: Finding Curriculum

Selecting a homeschool curriculum has been one of the most daunting challenge to many homeschool families I have met-including our own. There is something intimidating about selecting the right curriculum because you don’t know if it is going to meet the right requirements, if it will mesh well with your children, or it might be straight up terrible to use. However, you can take some solace in the fact that there are many curriculums available to homeschool families nowadays.

Everyday we hear about more resources and options which really opens up the possibilities going forward. Granted, this may lead to having too many choices. Anything from Abeka to Good and Beautiful to Apologia. Not to forget the many out-of-home curriculums that exist in homeschool co-ops. (Briefly, we ourselves do not participate in a co-op, however we do know many that do and their testimonies tell that they are a worthy option to investigate). With so much out there, and with so little time to vet them all what can you do?

Being Choosy

The tricky and challenging part is finding what works for you without buying a lot of books. For us, it started with asking our friends an family what they used. Since we were homeschooled, we relied on our own experiences to start that process. However, if you are first generation homeschooler, this may be more challenging. Our suggestion is do your “homework” even if it seems impossible. Blindly choosing something because you just needed the subject can often lead to buyer’s remorse, and sometimes a waste of time. Much of what is out there has been reviewed by others who have gone before.

More than likely, you may find yourself doing a mixture of many different curriculums like we do. Because, truly it’s about what works best for you. Whatever the case, dive in. It’s challenging but with a little research and effort, you will find what works best. For us, it seems like every year we find another great curriculum and as our children age, we will be adopting those for their curriculum too.

4. Challenge: Meeting Standards/Requirements

What if I am a terrible teacher? What if I don’t get my child the right amount of math and reading and they start to fall behind their fellow classmates or children in their age group? My State requires hours of homeschool, not subjects. What do I do? There may be many of these challenges and questions you may face when starting homeschooling. I know we did. We grew up in one state, moved to another and lived there for more than ten years, and then we recently moved to another state this year.

The state we live in now requires hours, so we had to restructure the way we did our checklists to make sure our children got the right amount of hours. Initially, we found the standards of states to be confusing and unhelpful when it actual came to teaching, but those standards are there for a reason and it is on us to be sure to reach them.

Regardless of what anyone else may say, you are your child’s best teacher. You more than likely already possess the knowledge required for them to succeed. The main point here is that by knowing what your state or country requires you can better organize your homeschool curriculum. The rest is up to you and you can adapt and modify based on your children.

To meet our own state standards we made sure we had math, reading, writing, and the other core subjects covered and then record the time spent on each throughout the year for each child. We have modified it over the years. At first, it was very challenging and intimidating to figure out. Because lets be honest, with kids its hard to keep anything organized anymore.

Sometimes challenges in homeschooling are a good thing…

5. Challenge: Time Management

Remember the conversation about pacing yourself? Well depending on how you structure your year Time management can either be a nightmare or a breeze. Our own experience hasn’t been as difficult in the ways that many of our fellow homeschooling families might have. Why? It’s not because we are better at it than they are. Rather we made the early choice to never take long breaks from school with the longest being two weeks consecutively. It helps since this schedule allows us to make up for our own failures when it comes to time management.

What failures? Well, we often have either too little or too much content to get through in the week and since we do checklists, this can affect our day to day. Sometimes I find that it’s very late at night and I still haven’t gotten all the worksheets and activities organized for the week and we rush to complete them. Or I forget to print off some worksheets and my husband scrambles to get them organized during the day of for the lesson or we have to delay the lesson until it is prepared.

By giving ourselves more calendar days, it allows for more flexibility in our schooling which we might otherwise not have. Is this right for you? Maybe, maybe not, that is for you to decide. Depending on the balance of the many personalities in your family, this may prove to be beneficial or it may make it worse.

Discipline

Unlike many of the other points on this list, this one takes true discipline. There is none but your own children who will remind you, if they feel like it, that you haven’t gotten to their math yet that week. Whatever your dynamic, we find time management to be a challenge and have adopted a go-with-the-flow, it-will-be-okay kind of attitude. It doesn’t mean it’s not hard somedays, and it certainly does not mean that it is easy most days. We often have to use little segments of time throughout the week and many hours over the weekend to manage the schedule, prepping, projects and extras. Homeschooling is an extremely big time commitment. But, we have always believed that the time you commit to your children is the time you commit to your future and theirs- and that is priceless and timeless.

6. Challenge: You aren’t the “norm”

Sometimes homeschooling challenges are out of your control. Schedules are different, our expectations are different, and our routine is challenged. This often causes a monumental obstacle in the world where most families do not homeschool. Finding friends or meeting up with families to connect even on a basic level makes it a lonely trek. Add moving or starting a new job or a new church to that list, and you have your work cut out for you!

We have found that we having more flexible schedule that accommodates many other families who do not homeschool because we accomplish during the day what they have to complete at night after school lets out. If you are starting to see a theme, that is the theme of flexibility then you are on to something. Because that is one of the greatest strengths of choosing this path. This nature of homeschooling allows us to take advantage of the opportunities that help shore up many of the weaknesses in our own program.

Different?

If you are already a homeschool parent, you may have gotten that question of, what school do your kids go to? Or some other variation of it. This often times brings us face to face with the yet-to-be-defeated stigma about homeschooling and you will have no clue as to whether the person you are speaking to has a negative or positive impression of what homeschooling is. Granted, this has gotten much better over the years depending on where you live thankfully. Stand firm and know that you are doing what you believe to best for your children, and there is nothing to be ashamed of, even if that does make you different than the rest.

Over time we have had to explain less and let our children and their competency speak for itself. It doesn’t mean that it makes it any less awkward in those first meets, but it helps us explain that we are parents, we know our children best and we aim to teach them a classical and solidly founded Christian education as our main goal. Is it really that bad to be different? We don’t think so.

Sometimes the challenges in homeschooling require stepping outside your comfort zone…

7. Challenge: Finding Resources

This can often go along with curriculum, but there is a difference. Resources, whether they be books, videos, or even people that can help supplement your curriculum can be difficult to track down. I can’t begin to tell you how many long hours we have searched for resources for our children. Anything from a craft idea to organization to a worksheet. There has always been and will continue to be a challenge when it comes to resources.

Even as homeschooling has become more widely accepted and increased in numbers over the years, it still takes time and effort to find what you need as you need it. At those times we just find ourselves stuck.

Example:

As an example, we have a more advanced child in math, and finding practice sheets within the given curriculum we have is not cutting it. Which of course, in order to meet his needs we have to branch out. Which in turn leads to frustration and thoughts like, “Wouldn’t it be easier just to skip over this?” In the end, we can only do our best as we slow down the pace of the math book to find more resources, or at worst make them ourselves. Is this avoidable? In part yes, but it really depends on what you want for your own kids.

One method that helps is keeping a log of the websites and resources you use. Our own is really just all of our bookmarks, not exactly the most formal of lists, but it works for us. It can be formal or informal but the goal is to keep a running tally because you never know when you may need it again. Our own list may be sloppy but keeping it handy is helping us with our younger boys and also narrows down what has and hasn’t worked in the past. The library is also a great resource, so is internet and the people you know. We just have to keep at it. It is definitely not our strong suit. We regularly struggle with this particular challenge.

8. Challenge: Making friends

Let’s get this out of the way now. Many people will often point out how it is difficult to develop your children socially in a homeschool environment. I would personally say that this kind of view does a disservice to many homeschooling parents out there. Socialization, certainly may be more difficult, but this is only because you must be intentional about it. That is of course you are extremely extroverted and take your children everywhere. If you are like that feel free to skip this section.

If you live in a small town or a big city, making friends can easily be a challenge. For both you, and your kids. While there are co-ops and groups and other extracurricular opportunities, finding a deeper, closer friendship that finds common ground can be quite hard, especially with little kids. However, it is in those homeschooling communities that you will find many people that can walk beside you or your children. If you are like us and do not participate in these kinds of groups then you might have to be more intentional with socialization.

Friends?

Sound hard? Well, let’s put it this way. No matter where or when you go somewhere so long as there are others there your children will be getting socialized to some extent. The store, park, church, or any other place that you might go with them is a time when they have to get along with others. It can be a true challenge to find a good friend, but let’s be honest, good friends have always been difficult to find. Even for us adults.

There is something to be said about the lifestyle and environment of a homeschooler. It’s different than the public school and that may not be negative but it can definitely influence perspectives and create challenges with adults and kids alike in finding friends. It gives you the chance to teach your children what it means to be that “good” friend to others, which is half the battle.

Sometimes challenges in homeschooling can be a bigger challenge for you than the student.

9. Challenge: Too Advanced even for College Grads!

Your child knows more than you. Or least that’s how it can often feel as you watch their progress from day to day. Yeah, that can be a pain some days. Some subjects aren’t our forte and many times we find ourselves questioning the textbook because we either didn’t learn that way or we are a little rusty with the subject. Meanwhile, Johnny over here is grasping the concept faster than we can read the teacher’s manual.

Right now we are struggling to teach our eldest who is doing advanced math and enjoys math. Neither my husband or I enjoy math at all. We are terrible at it. So that’s a whole bucket of fun, we get learn and relearn math as best we can but some days it’s very challenging for us to explain a concept that we are certain is brand new to us! As we are working tirelessly to learn, we remember that our child is also learning. He is not just learning math, but how we approach things that may difficult for us. Which is just as, if not more so a lesson of great import.

Treasure it!

For you it might be English or a foreign language. Whatever the subject, remember there are resources out there, and people who can help. Friends of ours even have a friend who is a tutor and helps their children on subjects bi-weekly. It’s about using the resources you have and branching out to try the unknown to help your child succeed. We use the Math-U-See videos and lots of samples and try to work them out together and then explain it to our son. Eventually, we may have to get him more help and even enroll him in an online course. But for now, we continue to challenge ourselves as we help him in his favorite subject.

Just remember, every child can succeed greatly in some way. Discovering that they can outstrip you in something is as much a joy as it is a pain. Don’t focus on their weaknesses, you have time to build those up. Use their strengths to give them confidence which in turn can help you with the other areas in life.

10. Challenge: Finding Routine (in the mess!)

By this point it should be clear, time management, self-discipline, consistency, and the day-to-day really are the main challenges of this list. Sure there are other things that can really drag you down, but these are the things that often sink your ship before it sets out. I will not deny that it is hard, but it is worth every bit of effort that you put into it.

Routines are hard, everyone’s schedule is different. Some families are on the run and others are home all the time. You may have sports or groups, traveling or little kids. For us, there’s a new challenge in every season as the children age. For many years, the chaos was permanent and we were lucky to get through a full lesson of any subject in a day between diaper changing, cleaning up messes and visiting family. As the kids get older, we have had more time and space in the home to get work done but for a few months we struggled because of family emergencies.

It immediately throws off our routine. However, what helped us wasn’t some set of how-to’s it was the fact that we could rely on our fundamentals. We believe in what we are doing, and because of that we can persevere through all the hardship that comes with the territory. We have been able to adapt our routine and add some changes to it if an emergency comes up because we have committed ourselves to doing so.

Our routine also involves daily life. We have sports in the evenings a few nights a week, so we arrange our routine to make sure the cleaning is done earlier in the week. We found chores a challenge. As the kids got older, we were able to assign more chores to them but it still makes it hard on the day to day. Regardless of your situation, the challenges in homeschooling will always be there. But it’s about flexibility and finding your own way that will bring you success.

You can do it

If you don’t believe in it, then homeschooling will always seem like a chore that you regret choosing. It can be difficult to have that conviction at the beginning, we understand. There are many times when your kids test you more than anything else and you may just want to run and hide. It’s hard to acknowledge that they learn from everything you do, whether good or bad. I was once told that homeschooling is hard because it shows you in the most upfront way possible the weakness in your own parenting. Believe me, I feel it many days.

There are many different challenges that we might face as homeschoolers, but everyone has their own challenges in life. At least in this sense we are choosing our own path. Perhaps you have your own top ten list? Or, maybe there is something that you struggle with that isn’t on our list, feel free to comment and discuss. We would love to hear from you!