working full time and homeschooling.. is it possible?

[KJoslyn78]

The title pretty much sums up what i am asking i guess. Right now i am working full time (7am - 3:30pm) and soon my husband will need to be working too (right now he stays at home with our 3 yr old, but his unemployment is ending soon). We keep talking more and more about homeschooling, and i wondered if it would work if we are both working (we would work opposite shifts/days, so one of us would always be with the kids minus maybe a 1/2 - 1 hour a day tops)

[momof2kiddos]

I hope someone chimes in on this. I want to home school my daughter now that she is getting to that age and both dh and I work full time same shift. My son goes to public school and I hate it,he loves it so I would leave him but how would I work the other?

I want to use K-12 for homeschooling so I was thinking I would have to find someone or a group somewhere that I could send my daughter that could mentor her during the times I work and then we could follow up when I get home at night.

Don't know

[Wabi Sabi]

We are seriously contemplating homeschooling our children. My dh works a typical 9-5 schedule and I work full-time as well but primarily evenings/weekends. We've had this kind of a schedule for several years now and it works well for us. I think this type of arrangement should lend itself well to us being able to homeschool but still have two incomes.

[ChristaN]

We've hsed, done ps, and done partial hs/partial ps. Right now, my kids are in school more than they are home but I am trying to get my ducks in order to bring dd#2 back home due to social concerns as well as really feeling the math is not working for her at school.

If you are working opposing shifts with you spouse, this could certainly work with your both working but you need to be aware that you are basically taking on two full-time jobs. You will be at work for whatever hours you are there and then coming home to do your second job as a teacher. I have one friend who has made this work, but it did wind up for some time with her dc kind of teaching himself b/c mom had other obligations when she got home -- cooking dinner, house stuff, etc. -- all those things that we all need to do when we are not at work.

I, too, had thought about a co-op where the parents could trade off who is teaching the kids from day to day/hour to hour such that parents could at least work pt. I just haven't been able to find enough local parents who were willing to commit to that to make it viable for us. One of my friends who hsed completely for many years said that her co-ops always fell apart b/c she felt like there were a lot of unstructured unschoolers locally who just didn't seem to fit well into keeping a scheduled program like that work. The co-op idea is very appealing but will probably depend on your local population of hsers and your contacts within that community as to whether you can make it work.

You could, of course, pay someone to take your kids while you are at work and do the hsing for you. The question then becomes whether that is financially viable and if it makes more sense to consider a private school at that point or if hsing is still the better option.

We do have a number of local hs supplements such as Options and some religious based ones where hsed kids can go for a day or two a week. That would provide some supplemental time where you could work if you can find something like that.

[Messac888]

I stay home with the kids (there's four now) and my husband works full-time, but I don't see why you couldn't homeschool and still work. I would seriously consider seeing if you can't partially work from home and, if that's not feasible, reduce your hours to about 24 each week at a maximum if finances are permitting. Homeschooling can be time-consuming but isn't consistently so, at least in our house. When the kids and I are done eating breakfast they sit at the table and finish their assigned workbook pages (only the two older kids, and the oldest has more subjects than the younger one). Usually the 5-year old dd does four pages- one phonics, one reading, one math (addition) and one extra of her choice (she has a puzzle book but sometimes chooses other workbooks). My oldest, a 7-year old ds, usually has three Bible pages, three language arts, one multiplication and one enrichment math. After they're finished we play games or I do laundry and they pick up their rooms (on a good day). We will be starting a science curriculum this fall, and we do social studies on a regular basis- by being out in society and interacting with people. (It helps that we are a multi-racial family and my mother is deaf so they are exposed to all sorts of situations purely by default.) Many of our discussions with our children involve some sort of detailed questions and answers (i.e. "What's that?" "A radio tower." "How does it work?" blah, blah...) There are ways to educate without sitting around and poring over texts all day long.

I agree that it would be a challenge but I would be more concerned about stress levels affecting your marriage more than anything. Be prepared for no- and I mean NO- time alone with the spouse for a while. If you are a well-organized person it will definitely come in handy for this adventure. You will be better at utilizing your time with your kids and, remember, you don't have to be the only one teaching them. Your spouse can do it too- or if it helps you out, you can assign them 'homework' to do while you're gone at work (include setting up for science experiments or something that can be done while you're out) and then when you get home you can do the more interactive hands-on teaching. No one said they had to learn in the morning hours- I know some people who educate in the evenings. It just works for them. The flexibility is one of the best advantages of homeschooling. And don't forget, having them help your spouse make dinner and have it ready for you when you get home can be part of home economics. Good luck!

[Madame Pomfrey]

We did this for a year when my husband was underemployed - between career positions. While it is possible, I don't wish it on anyone. We also had a teenager who could watch his brother for short periods when someone had to stay late or go in early.

I used to work 8:30-3:30 T-Th, plus 8:30-5:30 on Saturdays at the local museum. My husband went into work from 4pm to 11:30pm M-F with a half shift on Saturdays. In addition I would work all day at a bookstore on Sundays.

My advice is that if this is long term you have to make sure that one job is low commitment. I now work part-time about 15 hours per week at the bookstore. I was offfered that schedule by the museum, but I decided to completely leave because:

1) the job needed someone who spent prep time at home on lessons, exhibits, etc.
2) the job would require me to go in early or stay late at times
3) they essentially wanted more of my time instead of less so the pressure stayed high and started to stress me out. How often could I send the kids to Mom's for a week so I could teach camp, etc?

I could work more hours at the bookstore and it wouldn't matter because they don't expect any prep and they don't need me to do more - it's just available if I want it.

The stress is the difference

Warm regards,

Lucie

[Madame Pomfrey]

Originally Posted by Messac888

I agree that it would be a challenge but I would be more concerned about stress levels affecting your marriage more than anything. Be prepared for no- and I mean NO- time alone with the spouse for a while. If you are a well-organized person it will definitely come in handy for this adventure. You will be better at utilizing your time with your kids and, remember, you don't have to be the only one teaching them. Your spouse can do it too-

Just wanted to completely agree with Messac. In my earlier post I think I made it clear that this would be hard, but I don't mean to imply impossible. It CAN be done.

If you do this, you will both need to help with house, homeschooling, etc. If you have family nearby can they help? The stress, the lack of sleep, the state of my house...the fact that I never could share a dinner, or an afternoon walk, or almost anything with the man I love was the really difficult part. THOSE were the problems more than actually getting schoolwork done. The kids had a fine year.

My DH helped with everything but math. He did half the dishes and laundry. My family helped from hundreds of miles away by taking the boys for a week here or there...and we made it. Our marriage survived by threads - and we've been married for 19 years (17 then).

Having lived it, though, I still can't recommend it. Maybe it would be different for you.

Best wishes,

Lucie

[Airmid03]

We're planning to homeschool starting in the fall. dd1 will be in 1st grade. Dh and I both work full time, on mostly different days. The 2 days a week that we both work I telecommute, so we don't have any daycare issues. The grandparents are also available to watch the kids when necessary. We'll be tag teaming the school work. Our school week will be a little untraditional (something like f,s,s,m,t with w,r being my telecommuting days).

After reading the other comments, I have to say that we've been doing this schedule for 5 years and it works well for us. Maybe the difference for us is that, while we never have a full day together as a family, we have dinners and evenings together every day (and the fact that I couldn't care less what my house looks like probably doesn't hurt).

[Pinky Tuscadero]

It's super do-able if you are unschooling! The kids will learn from whatever they are doing anyway.