It happens to the best of us.
Sometimes it seems to creep up out of nowhere.
Other times it builds up slowly, and we can feel the ugly effects rising up.
I’m talking about homeschool burnout.
If you’re a veteran homeschooler, you know just what I mean.
If you’re new to homeschooling and the honeymoon phase hasn’t worn off yet, congratulations, but beware! It’s coming!!
Here are a few signs that you might be experiencing burn out:
- You’re easily frustrated. A simple math problem can turn into an all out war.
- You’re convinced this teaching thing just isn’t for you.
- You can’t even remember why you decided to homeschool in the first place.
- You just can’t keep up. You’re exhausted. The house is a mess. School seems to go on forever. You can’t even remember when you last showered. Okay, maybe it’s not that bad. But you are still in your pajamas and it’s almost bedtime again.
- You’ve lost confidence in your kids and yourself.
If you’re experiencing any of these symptoms, please know that this too shall pass. You can overcome homeschool burnout! The most important thing is to realize that you’re feeling burnt out and to address it instead of pressing on and digging yourself deeper.
Here are five tips to help you along the way:
- Pray through it! Ask God to give you peace and patience. This is my most important piece of advice. Remember if God has called you to homeschool, He will see this good work through to completion!
- Remember your why! What made you decide to homeschool in the first place? Remember those fuzzy feelings you had when you first started on this journey? Remember the excitement and the anticipation? Think about those days!
- Assess what’s working/not working for your family. Ask for input. Maybe it’s time to do things differently.
- Take a break! Maybe you need a day off, maybe a week, maybe even a month! This is the beauty of homeschooling. Have some downtime. Rest, relax, rejuvenate! If you’re convinced that you just cannot take a break, then maybe a fun unit study is just what your family needs!
- Talk to a fellow homeschooling mom. Find someone you can trust and be completely honest and open with. We’ve all been there. We will love you, encourage you and support you through the good days and the bad.
Thanks for this post. I’m just coming off of a “why am I beating my head against this homeschool wall again?” sort of time. Part of the way we got through it was to stop doing “formal” schooling in our core subjects and switch to some of the elective subjects that had seemed to roll off the end of the day every day, meaning we just had not been doing them. I let my daughter do almost 2 weeks of only electives.
She did extra Spanish lessons, caught up on some art lessons that had been hanging out, worked on keyboarding games at LearningGamesforKids.com. The other thing that I realized was that she had lots of extra called practices for her concert choir and handbells in preparation for their upcoming Christmas concerts, so instead of working school around those practices we just included them in our elective school days as music education. Now that those are past and we have had a little break, we are going to push ahead with our regular homeschool work, trying to remember that fun school is still part of school and needs to be included.