Getting Through It: Homeschooling
GUEST POST BY MADELEINE JANE
I’ll start this by saying that ice cream is good for my soul.
It seems to be linked with a lot of important moments in my life. Back in the summer of 2017, my dear roommate and I went to get ice cream on a hot, Los Angeles afternoon. We were enjoying our creamy dessert on the back patio when CJ, a 4 year old girl with big, brilliant blue eyes, came up to me and told me her first and middle name - something we happened to have in common - Jane.
A few months prior, CJ told her dad, Brian, “Dad, I’m going to find you someone to marry with.”
Fast forward to July 31st, 2019, and that same Brain - the one who shares those brilliant blue eyes with his precocious little girl - got on one knee and asked me to marry him.
So now I’m a stepmomma, but we prefer the title ‘Maji’ in our household. It’s been a whirlwind of change for me going from 28 and single, to 30 and engaged with two step kids. And, just as I was settling into my new role, 2020 hit. With this year came even more change for all of us. Including, taking on a lot of CJ’s homeschooling.
When we got the news that we would be doing distance learning I knew it would be a challenge, but being a teacher already (yoga) I decided to take the lead in helping her with her education. CJ was in Kindergarten this spring and learning how to read and write. It was a vulnerable time for us both, far from easy… but as we went along through the spring, we both discovered some things that helped us end the school year with joy, and a closer connection than ever.
Now, I want to share those with you in case it helps someone else as they find themselves in this new, homeschooling role:
When you need a break, TAKE IT. I had to learn how to tell CJ that I needed space. Even 5 minutes of alone time in my room. Do some belly breathing, burn a candle, read some poetry, whatever brings you a moment of true peace. There is no reason to stay in it and push through the frustration. What I realized is the shorter my fuse got, the less supportive I was for CJ and the more destructive that was to her ability to succeed in her lessons.
Get up and move between lessons. Movement helps to refresh both you and your child's minds and can help bring what they are learning deeper into their mind, so make sure you allow moments to get up and move around.
Get outside. When things start to turn south toward cranky-town, get your kid (or kids) outside. Kids are on tech way more these days with lessons going virtual, and one thing that tech does is pull our energy more into our heads and out of our body. This makes getting outside (bare feet if it’s not too cold) more important than ever. It can help to ground our energy and bring us and our kids back into our bodies.
Skip a lesson if you need to. You don’t have to do EVERYTHING, every day. Pick what’s important for the day, set those as the goals, and then other subjects can be bonus. Keep it balanced so they spend equal time and attention on every subject through the week.
Make it fun. Be silly, dance around as you’re quizzing them, help them memorize something by making a song up. Learning can be fun if we can remember to bring a little joy to it.
Keep conversations honest. Of course all of us had lives prior to the pandemic. So it’s important to keep prioritizing your own work and your own goals as much as possible. Our kids are used to teachers whose jobs it is to teach them for 7 hours a day. I couldn’t do that and keep up with my own goals, and that’s OK. I needed to teach my virtual yoga classes, and continue to move the projects forward that I was involved in. This required constant communication with CJ. Letting her know that she would have to try her best while I was teaching, or that I needed some uninterrupted time to get some reading or writing done. We talked about being a team, and that just like I helped her with school, I needed her help with my work by playing or working quietly.
Apologize. This spring, I got frustrated, I got upset, I raised my voice when CJ was scared of trying something new and was giving me a lot of push back. It’s not great when it happens, but if we can let ourselves be humbled by our own imperfection and apologize (without any “but” in our apology) it can go a long way in helping our children know that they are not doing anything wrong, that it is a hard time for all of us, and that it’s important to apologize when we mess up.
Celebrate! This is a big one. Celebrate the victories. ALL of them. Even the small ones…And I highly suggest doing so with a bowl of Ice cream ;).
