Anyone homeschooling? Need help juggling it all !!

[Attached Mama]

Looking for thoughts, support etc as a newly single (since last July) mother who has been homeschooling while trying to juggle my own career/grad school goals. It's been terribly difficult financially b/c I'm not able to work. I have dd all the time and no job skills that would pay enough to afford child care. Nor have I, in this economy, been able to find PT work that would be during the hours I could send her to public school.

So I've continued to homeschool and am living off of student loans. I'm grateful (EXTREMELY) to have custody of dd and she does see her father daily for breakfast and all day on Mondays, so again, I'm grateful that it's healthy for her.

I've strongly considered putting her into public school so I have more time to focus on volunteer work and research that would further my career goals. But so far, it just doesn't feel right. I really LOVE homeschooling. I'm just feeling burnt out b/c of lack of support, lack of friends with career goals. I suppose that will feel better once I start grad school in July and am on campus (rather than just taking a few post bacc online classes as I'm doing now) and can meet people.

It's just soooooo hard right now!! I feel like it's constant financial pressure and that my own needs are not being met.

Not sure what I'm looking for lol... But any kind thoughts are welcome :)

[rubelin]

We've homeschooled for the last 2 years while I work from home, and, though I can't say I'm handling it great, we're managing. My budget is really tight and I don't get enough time to work and the juggling of work and kids is crazy-making, but I have many friends who's kids are in public school and they have hours and hours of homework on top of school, so I figure it's actually easier and less stressful for us to keep homeschooling for now. We went through a charter this year so that we could afford some classes just to give them more social opportunities and to give me more hours to work, which has helped and next year we're planning to be part of a hybrid on-site/home school, which will increase the hours I'll have. Our homeschooling community is great, too, and we try to make it to the park day every week.

It has gotten harder for me lately since the kids visits with their dad have decreased a lot, but I just keep reminding myself that it's a journey and that I want to have a life that I value as we're on this journey so I find all the ways I can to lower stressors and to enjoy the time I have with them.

Sorry I don't have much in the way of ideas, but I do send you big hugs from another single, HSing mom

[kristandthekids]

Public school so you can volunteer more?

I'm a single mom by choice, no dad involved, and I homeschool. Oldest was in a private school I loved (and taught at) until I had my second and couldn't swing the cost for two kids. She went to public school for 1 semester and I couldn't stand it.

My career is at a plateau. I've had to turn down big jobs. My house stays cluttered. But I'm ok with that. They're little for such a short amount of time and I have my priorities.
I get them set up with their school work, I handle other things that need to be done, I check in on them, if they have questions they come to me, we go over it when they're done, when we're chilling out together we watch a documentary instead of some junk TV, they help out with chores and know dishes belong in the washer, ect. It all works out in the end.

[One_Girl]

I suggest looking into your charter school options.  In our area the public schools are mostly good, though there are a few awful teachers.  There are several really amazing charter school options that go far above and beyond what the public schools do in terms of education level and inquiry based work.  My dd is doing things with language arts, research, presentations, art, and science that some college students don't master.  The math is the same curriculum but she is doing much better with that at the school she is in now.  If charter isn't an option then trying the public school and volunteering a lot is worth a try if you are burnt out.  I homeschooled my dd for half of 1st grade last year and I really loved it.  I was nervous about sending her back and really missed homeschooling at first, but now that we have both adjusted we love the school dd goes to.

One thing that really helped me stay sane while I homeschooled was the programs at the Y.  If you have a Y in your area then I suggest that you check into the scholarship option and see if having your dd do some programs there helps to aleviate your burn out level.  They have child watch, an older kids area, and a teen area at our Y so kids can socialize while parents work out and shower.

[Attached Mama]

Thanks for the ideas ladies!

There are no charter schools in our town and I'd not be comfortable moving into the city where there is one b/c it has a huge lottery waiting list and the city schools are awful. At least my town does have decent public schools.

The YMCA is a great idea and one I'm planning on following up on. :)

To explain the volunteer work further: I am eager to do volunteer work b/c it will help my grad school internships and later job prospects. I am currently involved in a PhD lab working with a study looking at the affects of mindfulness on sub-clinical anxiety and depression and I have further opportunities, as this study is winding down, to learn to do the salivary analysis in the bio-chem lab as well as to become involved in another mindfulness study in another department. These opportunities are HUGE for my career! They have led to journal publication and excellent references as well as being huge learning experiences. I also find them hugely fulfilling b/c, while I love mothering, it is not ALL of who I am. I am also eager to finish up my Hospice training and to work with them. I wish I had just a few mornings per week free or 2 or 3 days.... and could homeschool the rest ((wishful thinking)) It's tough trying to figure out how to balance it all...

[rubelin]

just wanted to clarify, the charter we're in this year is exclusively for independent study and it covers many counties in our state. You might want to do a Google search for homeschool charters in your area, since they tend to be unknown by the general population.

Also, if you're closest Y doesn't have enough for you, check out some farther away. We were part of a one but they only had a small child watch program that would get filled up with babies, and I couldn't work out while having to watch my kids climbing the walls in the courtyard outside the gym because child watch was full. There's another one near us with a big kid club and a child watch for smaller kids (and they are a vendor for our HS charter) so I'm going to start going over there instead.

[provocativa]

I need to get on the Y thing myself.  Have you looked into childcare assistance?  It's a government program, here their office is in the same one as the foodstamps/medicaid, but it's actually a separate program.  You could get childcare for the time you are at school.  In some cases they are not exactly looking at credit hours, and may not know that much about grad studies, so you might be able to get childcare for time in a lab if you say it's thesis work.  Another thing that I do is combine my interests and volunteering and future career goals (I'm underemployed now).  So, right now I'm starting a youth art league for homeschoolers, and as it grows will get it under the umbrella of another local 503 (c) group, because I don't want to deal with forming my own board of directors, etc.  So you could create/ write a study about mindfulness in youth, and use the homeschooling community as your subjects. 

Another thing we do is zero TV unless someone is too sick to walk about.  The TV is in the garage- it's a big deal to move it.  They are bored sometimes, but when they are chilling, they read.  At the young ages of my kids, they learn more from any reading than even the most educational TV.  And no video games.  If they watch a music video- say, Shirley Temple, then they have a printout of the lyrics. 

Quality books on tape are good for younger kids.  We got a set for a present- a Smithsonian box set about nature, and it's really a good science unit. 

[Pariah]

I'm lurking here...would love to homeschool as well. I'm also a student, but I don't have loans to live off of (did that with my first degree). 

[Attached Mama]

I don't think childcare from public assistance would be helpful. She is school age and they would be very RUDE about the fact that I don't have her in school. Our local social services is awful! So demeaning! I would honestly try to avoid letting them know she's homeschooled!

I can get childcare assistance from my school however for the hours I am in school since the classes are all in the evening. I will have some flexibility with how I use that money since she will be with her father most evenings when I'm in classes - and I certainly don't intend to pay him lol.  I will also try to exchange childcare with a friend for the times when her father can't take her. Perhaps then I can enroll her 1 day per wk in an alternative school nearbye that allows homeschoolers to attend part time....

We do zero tv - we don't have one lol.  We do however do occasional, maybe once per week, carefully chosed dvd's.

Reseach is a tricky area to combine with homeschooling/mothering. The fact that I know the kids, that the study would be pooling ONLY from homeschoolers etc would make it very limited in it's scientific scope and pretty much impossible to publish anything. There would be too many confounding variables. Scientific studies have to be structured according to strict protocols.

Pariah, I am lucky to have no undergrad school loans! However, that should't make you ineligible for grad school loans. Qualification is based on income. However, if you are employed and currently paying for it, that would be an issue.

Homeschool charters seem to be largely a CA thing. I'm on the opposite coast, nothing around here. I am part of a Waldorf homeschool group. It's great for my daughter but I hate it lol. I need more ME time, not more time with a bazillion little kids!

[provocativa]

that sucks about the childcare assistance people.  here they are really nice, and don't seem to question that I am working second shift and need childcare when the kids aren't in school.  I actually only looked for second shift jobs, so that I could get childcare assistance and still homeschool.  But really, there aren't any jobs around on first shift for we Women's Studies / English majors without advanced degrees. 

[One_Girl]

The Y sometimes also offers childcare scholarships for before/after school care and daycare if you use their program.