When I was a new homeschool mom, creating a homeschool schedule and a homeschool routine felt a little overwhelming.
What subjects should I include?
How much could I actually accomplish?
What if I missed something, and my kids had huge holes in their education?
So I created massive color-coded homeschool schedules. I broke the day into time slots. And I plugged in math, science, spelling, history, PE, foreign language, spiritual study, reading, character development … and so much more.
I was ready. My homeschool schedule and routine was perfect. What could go wrong?
It lasted 2 weeks.
During those two weeks there were so many tears -- both from me and my kids. It was not pretty.
I had made the classic homeschool mistake of trying to overschedule and do too much.
I had made the newbie mistake of trying to make my homeschool look like a public school.
I had made the understandable mistake of wanting to make sure I covered “everything.”
And the result was a homeschool that was completely unrealistic and fell apart almost immediately.
So I went back to the drawing board. I took time to research homeschool routines and schedules. What did successful ones REALLY look like?
And what I discovered is that a homeschool schedule is built to serve a successful homeschool routine.
Let’s dig in and talk about all three of those.
ALSO -- In this video I share one of the best ways to set up your homeschool so you can be confident and successful with my Confident Homeschool Foundations Program.
Use the coupon code “Routine” to get over 50% off the regular price!
In this video, I also mention several other posts and videos that I’ve made that can be helpful when putting together a successful homeschool routine that you may find helpful.
Want to keep reading instead of watch? Scroll to read a transcript of the video.
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Transcript
Hello. My name's ToriAnn Perkey and from my homeschool to your homeschool today I want to talk about three easy mistakes to avoid when you're putting together your homeschool routine.
So routine rhythm, it's really, really important in a homeschool that you have some kind of routine patterns that you follow in your day, in your week, your month, and your year. This is how you show up as a consistent homeschool mom. This is how you are successfully accomplishing all the things that you want to accomplish is by creating routines.
But there are some easy, easy, easy mistakes that you can make that I can help you avoid if we go through this video together. So let's just dive right in because if you want your homeschool days to be successful, you're going to need routines that work and we want to help you avoid the mistakes that would make them not work. Okay?
Number one, what is the first of these three routines? You know, mistakes. What's the first one? Well, number one is expecting to fit in too much. It is so easy to put in so much in our homeschool. Language arts, math, science, history, foreign language, character development, PE, music, art, and that's just the categories, some of the categories. Technology, you know, coding, all of those things.
And then within that language arts, you want to do literature, you want to do grammar, you want to do writing, you want to make sure that they are doing punctuation. That can grow and then the math can grow and then the science can grow. And before you know it you have so much going on. Less is more, I promise.
It looks like you have to do so much in order to successfully confidently homeschool your kids. But the reality is you don't, you can do a lot less and have more success. A few things done very, very well work much better than a lot of things crammed in. So first mistake when setting up your routine is trying to have so much in it that it isn't possible to accomplish at all.
The second mistake that can happen so easily is expecting that every day will go perfectly. That every day you're going to plan the routine, you're going to know what you're going to do. It's all going to happen. It's all going to play out. No, no. Homeschool days are rarely predictable. There are always things. You're talking about a bunch of human beings all in one space, bumping into each other and doing all this stuff.
There are no perfect homeschool days. There are great homeschool days, and I've made videos about how to have good homeschool days and how to avoid bad homeschools days and how to turn bad days into good days, but there are no perfect days.
And so when you're setting up your routine, you want to set up your routine in a way that embraces the fact that you're going to have different kinds of days. And if you can do that, then you're going to be able to successfully move into a routine that actually works.
Now, the third mistake that's so easy to make is expecting that a routine once working is going to stay the same. Oh, how I wish it was true, how I wish that the perfect routine. You know, I think you could have really good routines. And I would build routines that would be working really, really, really well, and then everything would fall apart.
And what I started to notice that no matter what my routine was every four to six months, depending on how we were homeschooling, I would have to revisit the routine and sometimes completely start over. Sometimes I just would have to tweak it, but no routine lasts forever because the people who are using the routine don't stay the same. They change.
Your kids get older, your kids get bigger, they need different things, they have different ideas, they're doing different curriculum or they're doing different activities. Things change. The routine has to change. So an easy mistake is to think that once you've found it or that if you can find the right routine, it will suddenly work forever. It just doesn't work. The healthy way to look at routines is to consider what does work in your family. To embrace the change, to be open to the fact that things are going to look different, different days.
To learn about what do typical days look like and you know, how do I change good days to a bad day or bad days to good days? How do I have good days? And I've made videos on all of those. I'm gonna include links on my blog. So if you're watching this video somewhere else, head over to the blog so you can see the links of all these other videos. I've talked about how we do this so that routines are successful.
The other thing I want to recommend is I actually have a course that's all about this. It's all about setting up a successful homeschool, taking into account you and your children and all these other things so that you can create routines that will work. That will work for your family, that are individualized based on the knowledge and the principles culled from so many different areas. So I would strongly recommend that if you are struggling to build good routines or you want to build good routines from the very beginning, check it out.
It's called The Confident Homeschool Foundations Program. There will be a link up above or down below, and if you check it out and you're interested, you can actually get 50% off the retail price. If you put the word "ROUTINE" in the coupon box. “ROUTINE” if you put in “ROUTINE.”.
It'll give you 50% off the retail price so that you can create the whole foundation that you need to have a successful and confident homeschool because that's why I make these videos. That's why I talk about this stuff. I make these videos every week so that you can be a successful and confident homeschool mom.
When I started homeschooling, I spent hours researching and learning about curriculum and teaching methods.
What I didn’t realize is that the most important thing I was going to have to learn about was how my homeschool parent-child relationship was going to work.
I thought homeschooling was about books, and lessons, and knowledge. And it is.
But it’s even more about how two human beings -- a parent and a child -- are going to work together to accomplish a common goal.
And homeschooling can be tricky because you’re not just the teacher -- you’re also the mom. And that means you aren’t just teaching subjects, you’re also parenting and disciplining.
But how do you do that while you’re homeschooling? How do you decide when to parent and when to “teacher”?
How do you motivate your kid to learn (a HUGE part of homeschooling) without destroying your relationship (with yelling or bribing or begging)?
It’s all about following 3 principles:
1. Identifying Priorities
2. Setting Clear Expectations
3. Establishing Appropriate Discipline
Let’s dig in and talk about all three.
Want to keep reading instead of watch? Scroll to read a transcript of the video
Transcript
Hello, my name's ToriAnn Perkey and from my homeschool to your homeschool, today we'll talk a little bit about how you can navigate the parent-child relationship in your homeschool. Particularly if things are not going well. You know sometimes when you think about homeschool, we think a lot about the school part. We think about the fact that we're educating and we're teaching and that our kids need to learn all of this stuff and we're trying to figure all that out.
But the reality is homeschool, a huge piece of homeschool is actually this parent-child relationship. How you and the child are getting along and unfortunately sometimes things don't go the way you want them to. And it starts to tank or sour or fall apart and you're thinking, “I am not getting along with this child. We are fighting, we are struggling.” So today I want to talk about how you can navigate this a little bit so that it can be a more positive, pleasant parent child relationship, so that you can get back to doing the school part.
Now this is complicated. This is complicated because you are not just the mom, you're also the teacher. You are the disciplinarian and you're the detention teacher. You're, you're all the things that the school has as well as everything that the mom has. And one of the benefits of not homeschooling, and I say it like that because it really is true, is that you can, when your kids go away and they have trouble in this world over here and then they come home.
You are then able to commiserate with them. You're able to take their side, you're able to be their ally. But when you are the problem that they see, when you, not that you're the problem, but they see you as the problem, they see you as the frustration. You can't also commiserate. That is, you can't be both. So it is a hard place to sit and it's doable, but it is not easy. So we're going to talk a little bit how we navigate this.
The fact that we have these two roles that we're trying to inhabit at the same time because it does often sour. And one of the reasons it sours is because we are often trying to get our kids to do stuff. We're trying to force them to do things. We're trying to make them want to learn what we want them to want to learn, but we're trying to make them learn.
We're trying to say, okay, do your homework, get your schoolwork done, do this assignment, do the math, do the language, write this sentence, do your handwriting, read this book, whatever it is. That can be really tricky. We're trying to motivate our kids so that they want to learn and it often is where the battle starts to happen.
So if that resonates with you, make sure you stick around to the very end because I have a little something that I want to tell you about I think is going to help that particular piece. But first we're going to talk about some basic principles, how we navigate these two relationships. Okay.
So the first one that I want to just, the first principle that I want to share with you is to remember that the relationship always comes first. Always, always, always relationship comes first. And the reason is that if the relationship is not working, school isn't going to happen. It just isn't and so you have to have this piece working first. If this piece is working, you can start to figure out how to figure out this piece. If this isn't working, nothing's happening over there. So always putting the relationship first, even if it means shelving. Some of this, and I've talked about that in other videos, I've talked about that in the past.
Second principle is you want to set really clear expectations so that you and the child don't end up having arguments or frustrations over the fact that you simply didn't understand what the other person thought was going to happen. The reality is, any time anyone is upset, and this is across the board, whether you're talking about homeschool or marriage or family or extended family or neighbors or anything, anytime someone is upset, it's because their expectation didn't align with reality.
There was a disconnect. What they thought was going to happen doesn't align with what actually happens, and that disconnect is where the unhappiness happens. So if you can have clearer expectations, you will have less conflict and less unhappiness. And I just want to give you a really quick example of this.
This last week I had a daughter who we were trying to establish some routines in her life because she's in a place where she just needs to have a few more of those. And we had a conversation at the beginning of the week where she agreed that she was going to do certain things and I was going to do certain things. I was super, super excited. And as I watched the week progress, those things didn't happen. And I found myself getting increasingly frustrated. I was nagging, I was doing all sorts of things that were just not good parent child relationship.
And I'd got to the end of the week and I realized it was because I had not set good expectations. I had not clearly defined what I envisioned was going to happen in that week. And so she was operating under a different set of expectations and the result was the disconnect. So at the end of the week after several, I would say heated and or complicated conversations, she and I sat down. We re-discussed and got really clear on our expectations so that moving forward we can have a different type of experience and I know that it will be better because she and I are now on the same page. Okay.
Third principle I want to discuss today is that you do, in order to have your parent child relationships working, you do need to have a loving discipline system in place. Because once you've set the expectations, because children are human, there will come a time when they don't meet them. And you need to already have a plan in place for how you're going to handle that. It shouldn't be yelling, it shouldn't be threatening, it shouldn't be doing those things that are reactionary.
You want to be able to be proactive and in order to be able to do that, you have to be able to say, "So if you do not do X, Y will happen." And then be able to unemotionally apply the consequence to the choice. Because when you set clear expectations, you then have choices and if they choose something that doesn't align, then you can unemotionally apply the discipline and then they can learn.
Discipline is about teaching and learning. It is not about punishment.
All right, so those are three principles. If you can learn how to do those three things, you will successfully be much closer to navigating this challenging dynamic between parent and child as you're homeschooling. Now, this sounds like a great idea, but you're like, I do not know where to start. I know that what you're saying sounds like it makes sense, but boy, I would love a lot more help.
I want you to check out a course I've created called The Motivation Formula. It's all about how to get your kids to want to learn without begging, yelling or bribing them, and I want you to go check it out because we go into what I've just talked about in so much depth.
We go in, we dive deep talking about this parent child relationship as it relates to homeschool. And people who go through this course, quickly are able to start to apply principles that radically change the dynamic in their home. And the bonus is their kids genuinely start to want to learn because they no longer feel forced. So if that sounds like it's something that would appeal to you.
Please check up, the link will be up above or down below, you know, however it is that you're watching this video. I want to just provide that resource to you. If this is something you want to spend more time with because you know it will radically change your homeschool for the better. My name is ToriAnn Perkey and I make these videos every week so that you can be a successful and confident homeschool mom.
At some point, if you homeschool, you will fight the fundamental homeschool battle.
You’ll be trying to motivate your kids. Trying to get them to do their math … or spelling … or reading.
And instead of gleefully going along with your plan, your kid will push back. They’ll be defiant. They’ll say “no.”
OR they’ll be passive aggressive and just sit there -- staring at you with a look that says, “I DARE you to make me learn anything.”
How do I know this??
I’ve seen so many different kinds of homeschool bad attitudes in my house. Maybe I’m just “lucky,” but my sense from talking to other homeschool moms is this is something that we all have to figure out in order to keep homeschooling successfully.
So what do you do?
How do you work with an uncooperative child and actually motivate them so they WANT to learn?
How do you work with your kid when they’re being defiant?
How do you fight the homeschool battle and win?
That’s what I’m talking about today. It’s not easy … but it is possible.
And if you get a few key things in place, you’ll find that you have fewer battles and more peace in your homeschool.
Want to keep reading instead of watch? Scroll to read a transcript of the video
Transcript
Hello. My name is ToriAnn Perkey and from my homeschool to your homeschool, today we're gonna talk about how to battle a bad attitude in your homeschool. Do you have a homeschool kid who you just feel like has a bad attitude, they're grumpy, they're frustrated, and you're like, dude, just fix your attitude. This is going to get better. Well, this video then is for you. We're going to talk about how you battle those bad attitudes and help shift the energy in your home so it can be more positive.
And the first thing I want to say is you need to know, this is something every homeschool family struggles with because at some point, every kid's going to show up at some point with a bad attitude. And it happens all the time. It really, really does. And it can happen for all sorts of reasons and it can happen because you're having a bad day. It can happen because your kid's having a bad day, they're grumpy for some reason. It happens for all sorts of reasons. And so yeah, how do we battle this? How do we do this?
Well first, I just want to let you know I've seen it all, my kids, everything I'm about to tell you I have seen in my home. I've got four kids, I've been homeschooling for over 16 years. They are all teenagers. I have seen the bad attitude and what I'm about to tell you does actually make a difference. Okay? So first of all, let's talk about what bad attitudes look like. Because sometimes we just use these phrases and we don't get really clear on all the different ways a bad attitude might be showing up. Okay?
So you, a bad attitude can be a kid who's being sassy or rude. They're being disrespectful, they're talking back. That's a bad attitude. It can be a kid who is stonewalling you and just like giving you that stone cold face where they're refusing to do something and you say, I'd like you to do this. And they're just like, and they just stare at you. Like if I stare at you long enough, maybe you'll go away. That's “bad attitude”.
They might fall apart. So you ask them to do something and instead of working through it, their emotional regulation is so poor that they just, they throw a tantrum or they just start to cry and I'm not talking like tears of frustration and they're working through it. I'm talking about fall apart, can't handle it on the floor. It looks like a tantrum or maybe it just looks like a full on meltdown of other kinds.
It might also look like what I like to call “slothing,” where they just get super passive aggressive and they're doing it, but they're doing it really slow or they're doing it really sloppy. And it's this sort of like, "Well, you can make me do this, but you can't make me do it well", right. So these are all bad attitudes show up in life, lots of different ways and some are a little more subtle than others.So what do we do?
Well, first we recognize that some of this is to be expected because our children are human and they are learning how to be mature adults. And bad attitude is something that takes time to work out of your system. I know adults who still have bad attitudes who still do all of the things I just listed, right?
So it's not like we just come onto this planet knowing how to handle hard situations, knowing how to interact with people. So sometimes battling the bad attitude has as much to do with me just recognizing that it is actually going to show up and not being frustrated that it's there.
Recognizing that it is part of my children's human experience and it is also going to show up because part of this human experience is about agency and choice. It's about letting our kids make choices because one of the reasons they're on this planet is to learn how to make choices. And if we don't give them the space to do that, they don't learn. And so human beings by nature want freedom.
They want choice. That is like, embedded in the DNA of a human being. And so your child is figuring out agency and choice. And one of the ways they do that is by pushing back against the things you ask them to do. Well, if they're pushing back, there are respectful ways to do that, but those often have to be taught well. They do.
They have to be taught. They have to be learned and practiced. Meanwhile, bad attitude shows up, and bad attitude can show up in a four year old. It can show up in a 16 year old and it will look different most of the time, but it's going to show up because it's them practicing their agency in inappropriate ways. We want them practicing their agency. We just want them learning how to do it in an appropriate way. So it's recognizing that this is actually something that's supposed to happen.
Now, on top of that, it's also helpful to recognize that some kids just need more freedom and agency than others. They just, their little souls crave choice. And so if you have one of those kids, they're going to push back on everything. And often they'll do it in stronger and stronger and stronger ways. And you end up just doing this back and forth and back and forth as you're battling because this child's like, "I need to choose!" And you're saying, "I need you to do this." And so it becomes this battle, right? So recognizing that some kids need more agency and freedom can help you adjust your expectations of the bad attitude.
Okay. So with that, let's talk about a couple specific things that you can do to help make these battles less of a battle and more of a journey that you're taking together. The first one is to pick your battles, get really clear on what's important. Not everything is important. And if you pick all your battles, you won't win any of them. So decide what hill you're going to plant on. Decide which things are the most important and let other things go.
And depending on the kid you have, you may let a lot of things go that you normally would not let go. But you recognize that these things are the ones you're going to plant your flag on. That is the first thing. You gotta pick your battles and I have been amazed over the years at how many things I thought I had to hold on to that I really didn't. That didn't matter nearly as much as I thought they mattered and as I chose to let those things go, everything actually got better and not just because I was a pushover, but I was actually not fighting about everything. Okay.
The second thing is to set clear expectations. A lot of battles can actually happen because we think a kid should just know what we want them to do. And then they're frustrated because they thought they were going to get to do something different or they thought a different level of doing it was going to be okay. And so that battle happens because the expectations aren't the same.
I've talked about this in other videos and I'm going to talk about it more because it is so key to just all human interaction, but anytime you have conflict, anytime you have this going on, it's because your expectation does not match your child's expectation and any time expectation doesn't meet reality, there's going to be conflict. There's going to be unhappiness. There's going to be something negative.
So with the clearer you can get on expectations, the better off you are and then you need to have ways to follow through when they don't meet those expectations which you have shared in advance is kind of bigger than I want to go into in this whole video, but this expectations thing is sharing. Super important.
The third thing, and I just want to share today, is don't feed the monster. When your child starts to give you bad attitude and they start to push and they start to give you a hard time, it is going to trigger you. I don't care how calm you are, it's going to bug you because your agency, your human soul is not going to like it for all sorts of reasons.
And we're not going to go into all of those in this video, but you're not gonna like it and you're going to want to push back. And as you push back and they start to push back, it is going to bring up parts of you that maybe you don't like a whole lot that you don't like when they show up. Don't feed that monster. It is inside every single one of us.
Take a timeout, walk away, take a deep breath. There is almost nothing that your child is doing that requires immediate response. Almost everything can wait a little while till you've gotten to a place where you can respond and without the monster doing the talking. If you can do that, you will deescalate situations. It will not turn into this huge battle, but instead it will be something where you can actually be having rational conversations.
That's some of the ways to navigate this bad attitude that shows up, particularly when you're trying to get your kids to do stuff in your homeschool and they don't want to do it. The reality is when we're trying to get our kids to do stuff, it's because we're trying to motivate them. We're trying to tell them, you need to do this and this and this because we want them to get things done.
We want them to be motivated and in an ideal world, they'd be motivated to do those things without all of these battles, right? So if that is something that resonates with you, if you're wrestling with how do I set clear expectations? If you're wrestling with how do I motivate my kids, I want you to check out a course I've put together, it's called The Motivation Formula. There's a link up above, down below, you know, wherever you're watching this video.
And the reason is, I've gone through and I've talked in detail and really help you figure out how to manage the agency of your child while still setting expectations and asking them to do things I've talked about. How do you know what to do with a kid who really holds onto their agency? I've talked about how do you set those clear expectations so that after you get all these pieces in place, your kids will want to learn.
They'll be motivated to learn on their own without begging, without bribing, without yelling. All those things that you're doing that possibly are creating these battles that you're trying to avoid and creating the bad attitude even though you're not trying to. Sometimes the bad attitude comes from how we show up and not just how our kids are. So if that's something that sounds interesting, be sure to check it out.
It's like I said, the links up above, down below. It's called The Motivation Formula and it's a course I've put together to help you with some of these things because the reality is bad attitude shows up in every homeschool. But successful and confident homeschools, the ones where the moms are able to consistently keep going, are the ones who figure this out without it turning into world war three. And hopefully some of the things I've given you today have been helpful. If so, please know that I make these videos every week, every week, so that you can be a successful and confident homeschool mom.
It happens even to the best homeschool mom …
You’ve got your homeschool year planned out. It’s full of fun activities and awesome field trips.
You’ve got the perfect curriculum (if there is such a thing!) and the perfect school room.
And then things start to fall apart.
The kids don’t want to do that amazing activity. They fight you to do math or they groan when you pull out the science book.
And you start to think “WHY am I doing this?!?” And you’re ready to quit!
How do I know? … Because I’ve been there over and over and over again.
After 15+ years, I’ve wanted to quit homeschooling more times than I can count.
I’ve had sleepless nights wondering if I was failing my kids.
I’ve worried that we weren’t doing enough … or that I was pushing too hard (or not hard enough!)
But I found ways to push through … which is why after 15+ years, I’m STILL homeschooling.
How did I do it? That’s what I’m talking about today.
So if you’re struggling with your homeschool. If you want to quit but KNOW you have to keep going … this video is for you. ❤️
In the video I talk about creating a homeschool vision. If that’s something you need help with, check out my FREE lesson on how to create a homeschool vision!
Register below to watch my FREE CLASS
Confident Homeschool Secrets
7 Ways to Create a Homeschool That Works (and you LOVE!)
Transcript
Hello,
My name is ToriAnn Perkey and from my homeschool to your homeschool today I want to talk about what do you do if you don't want to homeschool anymore, but you know you have to keep going. Or you know, you should be homeschooling but you really, really, really don't want to homeschool anymore. What do you do? Okay, so this happens to all of us.
I've been homeschooling for over 15 years. I've got four kids. You know, we started when they were really little. Now they're all teenagers and beyond. And there have been lots of times where I think, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to keep going. But I knew deep down in my heart that I was supposed to keep going. So you know, what do you do?
There were lots of reasons why I got there. You know, maybe it's sometimes it was because my kids were driving me crazy. They didn't want to work or they were fighting all the time. Things like that. And that was really hard. Sometimes it was because I was in a bad place. I was really struggling over the course of our homeschool life. I've had lots of experiences where I personally was falling apart and I'm trying to hold together this whole homeschool thing and my house thing while this part of me over here is not working. And that was really hard.
Another reason that I found some times that I would be really struggling is I would have this dream, this picture in my head of what homeschool should look like and our reality. It was not matching the dream, and that disconnect between the two would be so difficult. I just want to throw in the towel.
So how did I do it? How did I keep going all of these years? Because 15 plus years is a long time. Well, let's talk about that. You know, what do you do? I'm going to go through six different things and I'm sure there's more. But I think all of these done, one or more of these, can help you kind of, you know, get a little bit of the fire back, a little bit of the desire back. Because I, you know, if you're supposed to still be homeschooling, we want to make it so it's not quite as hard as drudgery, as something you're dreading. Okay.
So the first thing, I talk about this all the time, is you go back to the vision, you go back to why you started in the first place and it's really important that you have this written down so you can go back and look at it just in these times. Because if you go back and you look at your vision, you'll remember why you did it in the first place. And I can't tell you how many times I referenced my vision. My vision for tailoring an education, my vision for helping my kids who had special needs, all of these different reasons. I think, okay, I can do this because it's that important to me. And if you don't have a vision, you need to write one.
I have a free lesson that you can access immediately that will help you work through the steps to write your homeschool vision. I'll leave a link down below or up above, you know, wherever you're watching this video so you can go do that. That's the first thing I recommend. Go back to the vision.
The second thing I recommend you do is assess what is not working. Are there underlying problems that need to be addressed? Is it a long term thing? Is it a short term thing? Have you just been through a major life change, a new baby, a move, something like that that's affecting how you feel about the homeschool or just how you're feeling about life in general. And homeschool seems like the thing to quick, is it, is it a long-term issue that maybe needs to be addressed?
Is it a discipline thing and you're having trouble parenting, which just is exacerbated when you're homeschooling? Is it because you have a child who is really struggling in areas that have nothing to do with academics? Maybe they have depression, maybe that they have reading or other learning issues. You know, something that you recognize as kind of a long-term journey and you need to give time to that. But because they're struggling in that way or your struggling, the overall homeschool is suffering. So is there something that needs to be addressed and if so, how can you address it?
You know, once you become really intentional about recognizing what the problem is, then you begin to say, okay, what is it I need to do to be able to fix or address or manage this issue? So that's the second thing I recommend you do. Assess what is it that's actually working and not working.
The third thing I recommend you do is, you know, review your schedule and figure out are you trying to do too much? Because when you have a really packed schedule, you feel overwhelmed and you can start dreading anything related to homeschooling because everything feels too hard. And I've made another video that's all about the benefits of simplifying your homeschool schedule and some ways to go about doing that. I will leave a link down below this video so you can check that out. If that is something that you need to maybe do is just go through your schedule and figure out is there a way to simplify it.
The next thing is asking yourself is there a way to change things up? You know, sometimes the reason we are so dreading our homeschool and we want to quit is because we've done the same thing over and over and over and we're just bored and boredom is a killer. Like it makes it so you don't want to do anything. So maybe it's time to change it up.
Even if what you were doing is something you were super committed to and it was working and it might just be time to put that aside for a while. And just go on field trips for a little bit or just watch documentaries for a while or just snuggle and do, I don't know, an entire review of all the Disney Canon. You know, whatever it is that would kind of just recharge you and your kids and kind of get you in a place where you think, yeah, we can go back and try some of those other things. Sometimes taking a break and changing it is really awesome.
Another way you can consider changing it is, maybe instead of just completely taking a break, you decide that instead of doing this kind of math, you're going to take a break and you're gonna switch it up and you're going to play math games or you are going to do math activities. And just the switch of this focus on how you're doing the subject can also make a huge, huge difference.
The last thing I recommend is, no, two more things. One is take an actual break and I kind of alluded to that just a minute ago. You know the reason we homeschool is because we can take breaks, adjust schedules, revise and change up things. So it may be that you need your fall break, significantly like, end of November all the way through to the end of the year. It may be that you need your spring break in February where you're and you might then take a second spring break in April. You might need that.
You might need to say, you know what, we're just going to not homeschool on Fridays for the near future. We're just going to have a day to play. You know, taking a real break where you have a mental downtime, you get to work on some of those other projects can make a big difference and then you can come back and be excited to start up again.
Now the final thing I recommend is take a look at your own self care. And I know self care is super like popular buzzy word. Everybody's talking about how you need to do self care. And almost to the point where I'm, I personally am kind of annoyed about hearing about it. But I am going to bring it up because the reason it has become so trendy is because it's based in fact.
If you aren't taking time for you, if you aren't making time for a little bit of recharge time, you will burnout. And burnout is a huge problem in the homeschool world. Because on top of all the normal mom and home and home running things you have to do, you also have homeschool. And many of you are also working part time or you're juggling a new baby or all of those. You have to carve out just a little bit of time for you.
Now what you do during that time, totally up to you. For some people it's doing some kind of crafting. For some people it's going to a store by yourself. For some people it's sitting down and reading. For some people it's just going into a quiet, dark closet and closing the door and just turning off your mind for a couple minutes while you listen to some quiet music.
You get to decide what your special time is, but if you aren't making that special time, then ultimately your brain and your body will start to shut down. And that's one of the reasons you're feeling the way you do is because you just are feeling like you just never get a break. So if you don't have time for that, if you legitimately look around and you say, I don't know how I would make time for that. Then it is time to assess what can I cut out? What can I simplify? What can I let go of, change my expectations, to just give myself a little bit of time for that self care.
All of these things, you know, one or more of these things will help you get a little bit of the desire back, a little bit of the fire so that you go from thinking, "I do not want to homeschool." To "You know what? I like this. This is why I'm doing this. This is a good thing. I'm happy to be here. Let's go."
I'm ToriAnn Perkey and I make these videos every week so that you can be a successful and confident homeschool mom.
It’s January -- which means it’s time for the homeschool Mid-Year Reboot.
What IS the homeschool Mid-Year Reboot, you ask?
It’s when you come back after the holidays and realize you have another four or five months before summer.And you might be feeling a little bit of homeschool burnout. OR you might be super excited to dive back in.
Regardless, it’s the PERFECT time to sit down and do a review (and possibly a reset) of your homeschool.
During your homeschool mid-year review, you may consider radically changing your curriculum or your schedule. Or you may just need to make a few updates to get things working even better.
In today’s video, I’m going to cover WHY you want to do a mid-year review and what kind of changes you might consider making.
[NOTE: In the video, I talk about reviewing your homeschool vision. CLICK HERE to access your FREE lesson on how to create a homeschool vision]
Want to keep reading instead of watch? Scroll to read a transcript of the video.
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Transcript
So here's the deal. No matter how well you planned at the beginning of the year, no matter how much work and effort you put into it, your kids have changed. Your life has changed. Things are different than they were in September or August or whenever you started. And so there's a good chance that you need to change things up because we're always experimenting in homeschooling. We're always figuring out what's gonna work and so it's, you know, it's time to do this.
I like to actually think of my year, my homeschool year, in three, four month chunks. I know that's not how everybody thinks of the school year, but I like to think of the months before December, like from September until the end of December and then another chunk that happens from January to about April and then our third chunk is the summer, which is may through August. That's kind of how I like to think about it and what's nice about that is a four month chunk is enough that you kind of know if something's working but isn't so long that you don't have time to switch things up and try something new.
Now, before you get into doing all of the things I'm going to talk about in this video, please keep in mind we are just ending the holidays. That means that you probably just did Thanksgiving, you did Christmas and those are crazy times for homeschooling. There's breaks, there's travel, there's vacation, and it's really easy to look at those, that little chunk of time and think that you're completely failing your homeschool because you didn't do anything because maybe you were so busy traveling or it's just you lost steam or things weren't working. So remember that you have to look beyond the holidays and look farther back to kind of get a sense of whether things were working before the holiday started. And then you'll know how you want to move forward.
Now the very first thing I recommend you do to do your midyear review is go review your homeschool vision. I talk about this all the time. You have to have a vision. You have to know where you're going with your homeschool and what you need to do in order to move forward. And if you don't have that vision it is really hard to know whether or not you're moving forward in the right way. So if you've already created your vision, awesome, go take a look at it. If you haven't, I want to help you out. I actually have a free lesson that you can listen to that will walk you through step by step how to create a homeschool vision. There's a link going to be below this video or up above or wherever you're watching it so that you can go watch, listen to that lesson and walk your walk. It'll walk you through the steps that you need to do to create a homeschool vision because it's really hard to do anything if you don't have that in place.
Now, once you have in fact reviewed your homeschool vision, I now recommend that you ask yourself a few questions as part of this midyear review.
Now the first question is what is actually working? We want to start with the positive. Look at your curriculum, look at your schedule, look at what you've actually accomplished and recognize and celebrate the successes and whatever's working. You want to capitalize on that and you want to keep going.
The second question you want to ask yourself is what parts of your homeschool do you actually look forward to? And this could be anything from you know, snuggling on the couch reading or going on field trips during non-busy times. It might be when you guys get to sit down and play games or it might even be that you guys have gotten super excited about a certain subject and you just want to go deeper into that subject. Homeschooling is all about the adventure, right, so you're going to look at what are you actually enjoying because if you're having fun and your kids are having fun, you are more likely to be leaning into and looking forward to homeschooling every single day. You want to do more of the things that you look forward to and less of the things that you don't.
Now we're going to go into the next question. The third question I want you to ask is what isn't working and why. Not just "Oh, the math curriculum we picked it is not working", but really dig into why isn't it working? Is it not working because you have the wrong schedule? Is it not working because you're doing it at the wrong time or is it not working because it is just not the right fit for your kid? If it isn't, that's okay. You can either resell it or you can shelve it and maybe come back to it later and move on to something else or change directions. I know that that's what we're doing with a particular math curriculum with one of my kids. We are completely changing and trying something completely new because as I've done my midyear review, I'm realizing what we were trying is not working. Other things are really working so, but the reason I was able to make the switch is because I didn't just say what's not working, but I figured out why so I knew what I was looking for in the new change.
The next question, what are you dreading? What do you dread about homeschool and why? Is it that you dread sitting on, you know, everybody says that you're supposed to sit on the couch and read with your kids, but you dread it. But because you have a two year old that's running around, pulling on the book and wreaking havoc while you're trying to read, okay, it might be time to either address that child's needs or maybe try to do it in a different way, or maybe just do something different altogether. If you look at the why of what you're dreading, you'll come up with you'll be able to have a foundation to then make different decisions and move forward.
Now, after you've asked yourself those questions, the third thing you want to do is figure out, okay, what are you going to keep as is? What do you need to adjust, keep and adjust. What do you just want to toss? What are you completely done with? And you'd say, you know what? That didn't work. No guilt, no shame. It happens to the best of us. It happens to all of us. You move forward. You're always tweaking and adjusting.
Now there's a couple of just quick things to keep in mind that I recommend as you're doing this. First of all, we almost always have too much crammed into our homeschool schedule. Simple is better. So as you are doing this review, be sure to be looking to take things out because almost always that is the answer rather than trying to put things in.
The second thing I just want you to keep in mind is that there's a good chance that things are working more than you realize. It is so easy to see all the things that aren't working. It's a lot easier to miss the things that are working and sometimes the changes are imperceptible, very, very slowly incremental. I remember when we were teaching my son to read, it felt like it wasn't working and it wasn't working and it wasn't working. And it took forever to get to the point where he was finally reading and it was because the, and it wasn't because we weren't doing the right things. It was because it just needed time and it needed incremental steps by step and we were only going to get there if we just kept going.
So keep in mind that more is actually happening than you may realize. Now, those are my three major steps. First, review your homeschool vision, and if you haven't got a homeschool vision, go check out that lesson so you can write one second, ask yourself the questions that I went through. And the third is figure out what you're going to keep, what you're going to adjust and what you're going to toss.
Now, if you're looking for a major reset and I'm talking like you know nothing's working and you want to go back to the drawing board and you're just feeling overwhelmed and maybe even like you want to quit, then please, please, please check out my free webinar. It's called confident homeschool secrets, and I go through many of the secrets that longtime homeschoolers know that really, really, really can help you be successful as a homeschool family, as a homeschool mom, as a homeschool dad, it's completely free and there is a link to sign up to watch that as well.
I am excited for you. We are headed into the second half of the year. This is when you really dig in and you get, you can make your homeschool happen and it's time to just adjust a few things so you can finish out the year super successfully. My name's ToriAnn Perkey and from my homeschool to your homeschool, happy homeschooling. I make these videos every week so that you can be a successful and confident homeschool mom.
When you’ve been homeschooling as long as I have (15 years!), you start to become reflective.
Since I sent my oldest off to college this fall (she’s doing great, BTW!), I’ve been thinking a lot about my homeschool journey so far.
(I still have three at home -- and at least 5 more years of homeschooling before they all should be off doing something!)
I’ve learned a lot. I wrote about 5 biggest things I’ve learned in a previous post.
And I’ve found myself also rejoicing in our many successes! Certainly having my oldest go to college counts as one. 🙂
But I find that I do have a few regrets. These are things that I regret not learning sooner or wish I had done.
And now that my kids are older, some are things I can’t “undo.”
So today I’m sharing my 5 Biggest Homeschool Regrets over 15 years with you in the hopes that you can learn from me … and possibly not make the same homeschooling mistakes!
If you’re struggling with homeschooling or just getting started, hopefully you’ll find a few things to do right out of the gate to make things a little better.
Want to keep reading instead of watch? Scroll to read a transcript of the video.
Register below to watch my FREE CLASS
Confident Homeschool Secrets
7 Ways to Create a Homeschool That Works (and you LOVE!)
Transcript
Hello ToriAnn Perkey here and from my homeschool to your homeschool, today I want to talk about my five biggest regrets that I have since I've been homeschooling.
I've been homeschooling for 15 years. It is hard to believe it's been that long. I started when my oldest was just three years old and now she is launched off to college and oh I've been reviewing a lot about my homeschool experience. It gives, it gives you time to pause.
And I've been thinking, what are the things I regret? What would be the things that if I could look back at younger me and say "do this differently", I would do. And I thought of a lot of different things because I think that's pretty natural. It is natural to have things that you're really happy you did and regrets. And I narrowed it down to the top five because I didn't want to overwhelm you.
So today we're going to go through those. We're going to go through the things that I wish I could go back and say to younger me and invite her to just, you know, just do things a little bit differently. Overall, I'm really, really satisfied with how our homeschool has turned out for my oldest and how it's turning out for everyone else. Which is a good thing because I plan on doing it for quite awhile in the future. But here's a few things that I regret that I may be changing up just a little bit as we go forward.
Okay. Number one, you ready? So here we go. The first is, I for a long time thought more is better. I am a collector. I'm not a hoarder, but maybe with curriculum I am. Every time I saw a new book or a new curriculum or a new idea, I would pick it up and I would read it and I would devour it.
I think, Oh, I want to put this in my homeschool. And some years I would fill our schedule with so many different ideas over the years, and some years were simpler. But over the years what I found is that the years where I was willing to go really, really simple were actually the best years.
They were the best years because I wasn't as stressed, my kids weren't as stressed and it was easier to keep track of everything because I'd kept it simple. The years where I was trying to do different kinds of curriculum and I thought I had to cover all the bases in every type of curriculum. Those are the years where I stressed myself out and I stressed my kids out.
So my first regret is I didn't learn sooner, that simple really is better. It really is going simple, taking, breaking down what needs to happen into the tiniest, like most fundamental pieces and then slowly building until you hit just that right balance. Its a much better process for us.
Okay. Number two. The second regret I have is over trusting the experts. And I know that's funny to say because I know some of you watch these videos and you see me as an expert. And it still blows my mind that I sit in that space for some of you because I really do feel like I'm figuring it out as I go along, just like the rest of you.
And I just have some things to share. But I know that I was really good at trusting the experts. I would read certain homeschool philosophies and I think that's the way to do it. And I tried to follow all of the things they said. And in some cases it worked out really well, but in other cases it didn't. And I held onto certain ideas far longer than I should have because the expert told me to.
Instead, I wish, I wish, I wish I had trusted my gut. I wish that I looked at my kid in his eyes or her eyes and said, Nope, you need something different. And I backed away from the experts and I had created a homeschool that really was designed specifically for my children. And I tried to do that, but I was still listing far too much to the experts.
So my suggestion is please trust yourself if you don't see something working, it's okay to change even if the expert says what you're doing is absolutely wrong, because in the end you are the expert on your child.
Number three. The biggest regret I have is that I got too involved and I helped too much with the learning. It was really easy. They were home, they needed help. I was there, we were doing activities, we were engaged and when they were little that was awesome, but as they got older I was still engaged.
I was still doing the activities. I was still doing everything with them and because I knew more than they did, I was often helping too much and what I found looking back is that some of my children, more than others, ended up being less independent as learners.
I needed to transition them to owning their own learning and putting them, responsible for making that learning happen, whether it was in a curriculum or whether it was searching things on their own. I needed to do that sooner. They were capable of it far sooner than I expected.
It would have been messy. It would have been yucky. It would have looked like not learning probably longer than I would have been comfortable within the moment. But it would have paid dividends later on. And now we're playing catch up with some of my kids who needed those lessons a lot earlier. And it's always easier to teach a kid a lesson sooner rather than later. So that's my third regret that I just held on to the responsibility of the learning far too long.
Okay. Number four, I didn't keep a consistent journal. I had different ways of record keeping, as sometimes I would write in the lesson plans. Sometimes I actually had like a journal, I was tracking things. Sometimes we would write a report at the end of the week. I have all kinds of things. But I didn't keep something consistently and I wish I had. I wish that I had one place I could go back and just look at all of it.
15 years is a long time. I wish I could go back and look at what we were doing at any given time. And maybe that's a dream. Maybe that's not realistic and maybe, maybe I just need to let go of the expectation that that would be possible.
But I wish I'd found an easy way to do record keeping and to do it consistently. Because if I had, I think I would love to go back. I know I would love to go back and look at my kids when they were younger and see the things we were doing and learning. And I would be able to look at the whole picture and say, wow, we really did accomplish a lot. So that's my fourth regret is that we didn't keep a consistent journal.
My fifth regret is I worried too much. Will they turn out okay? I worried and I worried and I worried and I have told myself not to worry. I have told you not to worry. We have talked about worry a lot. I still worried too much. Every year I look back and I watch my kids progressing and I think it was going to be okay.
Why was I so worried? But I keep, it is so hard to let that go. And I worry about some kids for some reasons. I worry about some of my kids for other reasons and I'm learning more and more that worry in large "doses" just doesn't serve you any great purpose. A little bit is good. And I've talked about that in the past, but any great worry, not really.
So I really think if there's a way to worry less, to trust, to trust that it will turn out okay. Whether you take it from me and from other homeschool moms who've been doing this for awhile. Whether you turn to the Lord and get answers through prayer, whether you turn to other resources, however you get answers.
Seeking the peace that comes from "it will be okay", helps your homeschool move along better. And I have wasted over the course of my homeschool experience, a lot of hours of worry both in conversation and privately that could have been better served in other ways.
Oh wow. So those are my five biggest regrets. Maybe you can take something out of this, hopefully just a little bit, and it will help move the needle for you. And that way you will have fewer regrets as you go on your homeschool journey. Now if you are watching this anywhere else besides my blog, be sure to click on the link and head on over to the blog. I have lots of other videos that talk more about these different topics as well as lots of resources to help any homeschooler at any point in their journey feel more successful and more confident.
Because that is why I make these videos every week. I'm ToriAnn Perkey, so that I can help you be a successful and confident homeschool mom. I'll see you next week.
Homeschool record keeping … you know you should do it.
But after the homeschool planning and the homeschool doing, finding the time and the energy to remember and want to record what actually happened can feel exhausting and overwhelming.
And no matter how many free homeschool record keeping templates you download, you never quite get around to really making them work.
Never fear! There is hope.
While I’ve never been perfect at documenting our homeschool, I will say that over the years, I have been fairly successful at capturing the overall picture of what we have done.
I’m really lucky to live in a state where I don’t have to submit any kind of records, so the record keeping is purely for me. But I still think keep track of what we’re doing in our homeschool is important.
So today I’m sharing 5 simple ways you can create records for your homeschool. I’ve done all of these methods during the last 15 years, and I don’t necessarily have a favorite.
But I’m so so so glad that I took the time to keep track of what we did along the way. Now that my kids are older, I love reminiscing and remembering our homeschool over the years … from when we were first starting out and I had mostly toddlers and babies, to just last year when I had everyone still at home and they were all teenagers.
Seriously … even if you are super disorganized or overwhelmed, one of these 5 ways can work for you!
Want to keep reading instead of watch? Scroll to read a transcript of the video.
Register below to watch my FREE CLASS
Confident Homeschool Secrets
7 Ways to Create a Homeschool That Works (and you LOVE!)
Transcript
Hello, this is ToriAnn Perkey, and from my homeschool to your homeschool, today I want to talk about 5 simple ways that you can record your homeschool.
So there's a lot of conversation in the homeschool world about planning, about deciding what you're going to do, getting all set up. I don't know that we spend quite as much time talking about recording. And depending on where you live, you may or may not be required to record. And if you're not required to record, then it is something that is easy to not get around to because you're so busy actually doing the homeschool thing.
And so today I want to talk about 5 simple ways to do it. And the reason I'm making this video and I'm talking about this is because recording your homeschool can be really important for a couple of reasons.
Now, first of all, you may live in a state where you do actually have to keep records and turn those in. And if that's the case, then you're going to need probably a more extensive system than something that I'm going to talk about today. But there's a lot of places where that is not required.
So why else would you record your homeschool? Well, first of all, when you record your homeschool, it gives you a place to go back and look on those days -- or even those weeks -- when you're thinking, Why am I doing this? Why am I putting myself through the stress and the struggle and the frustration and ... ? Or you're thinking, I'm failing at this. I'm not doing well. We're not making any progress.
When you're feeling like that, if you have a record, you can go back and you can look at it and you can remember the high points. You can remember that, Oh yeah, it used to be that my child couldn't read and now they can read. Or it used to be that we were struggling and struggling and struggling to learn how to do, you know, long addition. And now my kid is way past that. You know, whatever it is that you have progressed through, a record helps you remember. Because we as human beings are really bad at remembering. We think we'll remember, but we don't. So having a record helps you do that.
The other reason that you might want to keep a record is particularly as your kids get older, they're going to start to apply for things. They're going to want to be in things, and sometimes it's really, really helpful to be able to go back and see what they actually did. And because, again your memory is fallible, which means that it will be helpful if you have something to reference. But having said that, we need to keep record keeping simple, otherwise you can go crazy trying to keep up with the planning and the doing and the record keeping.
So now we're going to get into 5 simple ways to do record keeping. You ready? All right, number 1. Get a journal. Doesn't have to be fancy. It can be the cheap one that you picked up at the discount store, or it can be a nice leather bound one, whatever. And just jot down a few things as many as many times a week as you can remember to do it. You might want to set an alarm on your phone or something. And I'm not talking about pages and pages of journal entry. It could simply be the highlight of the day or one thing you noticed, one success, one thing you wish you'd done differently. So it's more of a reflective journal than otherwise.
Now you can keep a journal like that in paper form, like I said, or you can also keep it on your phone. You could put it in a Google doc, you could put it in any one of those record keeping systems that store it up in the cloud. And then you just add a little bit every single day or as often as you remember. So the first suggestion I have is to do some kind of just mini journal, mini journal. Remember, we're going to keep this simple.
Okay, number 2. The second thing that you could try is take a picture every day with cameras in our pockets and in our hands all day long. Because let's be honest with one another, we all kind of have our phones with us all the time. It's so easy to take a picture. And it doesn't have to be an Instagram worthy picture. It's a picture of whatever you happen to do that day. Maybe it's a picture of the mess after the activity was over. Maybe it's the finished art project. Maybe it's the messy hands. Maybe it's just the kids sitting on the couch reading. Or maybe it's just a selfie that you take with you and your kids as you're driving in the car.
If you take a picture, then you start to have a record of just the dailiness of homeschool and all of the things that go along with that. And then you can store those in the cloud again, or you can put them on one place on your computer, hard drive. And you can just go back through those and they can be a recollection of the memories that you've made throughout your homeschooling. So that's number two. Take a picture as often as you can, possibly every day.
All right, number 3. The third easy way to do simple record keeping is to make comments on your lesson plan. So if you have somewhere that you're keeping track of what you want to do every day, then in the margins or down-- if there's a space provided, you're just going to jot down again, How did things go today? Well, Johnny read four letters, or I was really excited because we actually had an activity where everybody had a good time. Whatever it is, you're going to just jot a few thoughts.
It's similar to number one with the journal except that it's put in the lesson plan. It's combined with the planning so you can go back and you can see not just what you did but also what you had planned to do. The bonus of this particular system is that you can often see how maybe the plan for the day didn't necessarily line up with what actually happened, but maybe it was still good day. And maybe it wasn't. And if it wasn't a good day, jot that too.
Because part of the process of record keeping is to see the good, the bad and the ugly. And if you're able to see that there were not such great days but you got through them and then you had another great day, it helps program your mind to remember there's another good day coming. So number three is to just jot a couple notes in the margin or in a space provided in your lesson planner.
Number four, the fourth way to do some easy record keeping in your homeschool is to do video or audio. So you get your phone out and you push the little record button on the audio record app that you can put on your phone and you just take a journal -- you just talk for a few minutes about the good and the bad and everything in between.
Or you take a video of some of the things that are happening during the day with you narrating in the background. Another way to handle this is to actually hand the phone over to your child or your children and say, Hey, just talk today about what happened. Give a couple of sentences. Again, we're not making this to be a movie. You're making this as a record, as a keepsake.
And one of the benefits is that audio and or video capture so much more than words. They capture personality, they capture the tone of the voice, they capture the stages that your child is in. It's kind of like a big trove of family history, all squished into that little homeschool package. And because homeschool does actually bleed into all parts of our lives, you'll actually get a capture-- You'll actually end up capturing what is going on on a regular basis just in your home.
And again, we're not doing this all the time. We're doing this whenever you remember. And if it's important to do it regularly because you do want that record, you know, set a reminder on your phone or something like that to help you remember. You just want to put five minutes into this at some point during the day. So number four is actually to use video or audio and then to store that somewhere in one place where you can find it. Okay?
Number five, the fifth way that you can do some simple record keeping in your home is to create some kind of portfolio. Now when I say portfolio, sometimes what happens is we think about the kind of portfolio that has to be turned in, which means that it will be beautifully decorated and all formatted and in order. And that is not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about the kind of portfolio where you get a binder and you just have sheet protectors or even a three hole punch and you just throw things in as they're created. This is especially fun to do when your kids are creating lots of things in art or they're sitting down and writing simple stories and as they get older they can put their papers that they write in there or you can print out pictures of things you've done. So it becomes kind of like a scrapbook.
Or even simpler -- I think of this as a portfolio, but I think of it as as a vertical portfolio rather than as a book -- is to get a bin and as people, as people in your home, as children create things to put them in the bin and you store it archaeologically. So if you want to be able to go through and see when that program happened or when that child made that art project, what's at the top will be what was created most recently. And then you go down from there and you just store things. And again, don't store everything, right? As prolific artists, prolific writers, you can't store everything. We are going to store the things that have meaning.
And anything you store, take a minute to just date and write a sentence on it about what it is. Because again, when you look at it five years from now, you think you'll remember, but you won't. So there you have it. That's the fifth one. Create some kind of portfolio, either either in a notebook or a binder or archeologically in a bin.
Five ways to do simple record keeping. Because when you keep records, you remember, and when you remember, you are able to have a better perspective. You're able to have a healthier attitude about your homeschool, and you'll also be able to look back and remember and enjoy all of the good experiences that you are slowly accumulating on your homeschool journey. I'm ToriAnn Perkey, and from my homeschool to your homeschool, I make these videos every week so that you can be a successful and confident homeschool mom.
(Note: This post was originally written in 2012 for an old blog I used to write.)
Despite what you might think, teaching handwriting to your seven year old isn’t as difficult as it might seem. (Ha!)
Just follow these eight easy steps . . .
Decide that your seven year old needs to learn how to correctly form her letters, despite her hesitancy to try anything new and hard. Determine that her resistance to handwriting is actually a product of fear–and not because she is incapable or unready. Determine that this is something you feel ready to require her to do.
Spend an afternoon looking through your boxes and shelves of curriculum for the handwriting workbooks you were given years ago. After a fruitless search, determine that you must have given away that curriculum at some point because you decided you didn’t believe in workbooks any more.
Use several days of free time to research handwriting curriculums online. Read reviews–both positive and negative–of several of the most popular. Ultimately decide that your money is better spent on other materials.
Spend another evening searching for free internet resources for handwriting. Become intrigued by a website called Amazing Handwriting Worksheet Maker and play around with what it can do late into the night. Decide that it’s usefulness is limited by the fact that you don’t want to be tethered to the computer anytime you want your daughter to do handwriting AND you don’t want to waste a ton of ink and paper printing out disposable worksheets.
Realize that you have a whiteboard with handwriting lines printed on it. Why didn’t you think of that before???
Use a Sharpie to write “permanent” letters that you want your daughter to practice. Start with dots that she can trace. Then just a starting dot. Then a blank space. Ask her to also do her work in Sharpie, so it doesn’t accidentally rub off. When she’s done, you can use rubbing alcohol and a rag to erase her work.
Duck . . . as the whiteboard comes flying at you from across the table.
Obviously, you underestimated how intensely your daughter feels about trying new things. Spend the rest of the day thinking up extra jobs for your daughter to do to work through her inability to control her temper.
Smile as your daughter settles into the new routine–trying one new letter a day–while reviewing the ones she has already learned. Praise profusely as she draws a smiley face on each letter she thinks looks the best.
Secretly pat yourself on the back for not giving up despite your daughter’s initial reactions. Realize that sometimes mom’s really do know best.
In a moment of self-reflection, ask yourself why you always have to make things so much more complicated than they actually have to be.
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Confident Homeschool Secrets
7 Ways to Create a Homeschool That Works (and you LOVE!)
Is your homeschool struggling? Do you feel like your homeschool is just not working?
Are you a perfectionist?
I certainly struggle wanting things to be perfect … in my homeschool and in the rest of my life.
I have this vision of what I want things to be. And it can be pretty hard when things don’t go according to plan.
Problem is that when perfectionism shows up in your homeschool, it can completely derail your efforts and make you miserable.
You sit down on the couch with a new read-aloud that everyone raves about -- and your kids proclaim it’s boring within two pages.
You tell your kids to get their math done -- and they spend FIVE hours doing five problems (and whine the entire time).
You plan the perfect activity -- and your kids start to fight as soon as you start to explain how to do it.
You spent the entire morning getting ready to leave for a fieldtrip -- only to have one of your kids meltdown and tell you they absolutely don’t want to go.
Solidarity, Mama … I’ve been there too!
And over the years, I’ve figured out several techniques to help banish perfectionism so that it doesn’t impact my homeschool (most of the time!)
I’ve also created a free download to help you with one of my techniques.
You can grab the Homeschool Declarations here. (It will make sense after you watch the video!)
Want to keep reading instead of watch? Scroll to read a transcript of the video.
Download these Homeschool Declarations -- positive statements that can dramatically shift how you feel about your homeschool everyday.
Transcript
Hello, this is ToriAnn Perkey, and from my homeschool to your homeschool, I want to talk about 3 key ways to banish perfectionism from your homeschool. Because man, perfectionism is going to be the death knell of your homeschool.
Why do I know this? Because I am super guilty of wanting my homeschool to be perfect. I have always just ... I have this vision that, you know, my kids will be perfectly lined up on the couch, and we'll have all the books perfectly aligned, or we'll have the perfect day where everyone will sit and do their homework exactly when I asked them, or the perfect day where we'll do this activity and everybody will love it. I am so guilty of that.
And I've also been guilty of looking around at all the things we're not doing and feeling bad because we don't have that perfect looking homeschool. You know -- we're not taking big trips across the country where we visit historical sites and and stop and read all the plaques and we get to do this big thing -- you know, we're doing big RV road trip. Or you know, I've never mummified a chicken.
AndI look at some of the big projects or the big exciting things that kids are doing in their homeschool. You know, they're building a fort in the backyard. And I think, ah, I'm failing failing my kids because we aren't doing those kinds of things -- even though we're doing other things.
I have so much trouble sometimes looking and saying, okay, that is not us. So how do we banish this perfectionism? Well, I have 3 suggestions. 3 things you can do that will help you shift your mindset just a little bit so that you can feel good about what you're doing and feel better about what you're not doing.
First of all, before I even get into those three things, I just want to remind you, there's actually no perfect way to be a perfect homeschool mom. There is no way to be a perfect homeschool mom. There just isn't. And I know this, even though I fall into this trap, I know this. I can never be a perfect homeschool mom, but there is an infinite number of ways to be a great homeschool mom. And you can figure out one of those infinite ways as long as you're willing to do a few key things.
So the first thing I want to recommend, the first key way to banish perfectionism is to write down what you're doing well, focus on the good. Focus on what you are doing, not what you aren't doing. Don't worry about what you aren't able to accomplish. Spend more time worrying about what you are able to accomplish.
You know, I may not have taken big massive road trips across the country with my children, even though I always wanted to this, that was just never in the cards. But I was really good at creating a system so that my kids could learn how to work. Or I may never have mummified a chicken, but I did build a really cool treasure hunt fort once where they had to go digging to figure out where the treasure was because we were studying tombs in ancient Egypt and pyramids. So if I look at the things I'm doing well, then I can feel less guilty about the things I'm not doing. So that's my number -- My first thing that I recommend is look at what you're doing well and write it down. When you write it down, it becomes concrete and you can look at it and looking at it makes all the difference.
The second thing is remember that your strengths and talents are different than everyone else around you. I remember when I just said that I'm really good at creating a system so that my kids can learn how to work. That's one of my strengths. That may not be one of your strengths. One of your strengths may be letting the mess and the chaos happen while kids are super excited and exploring, and there's goop climbing up the ceiling and you don't care because you're so in the moment with your kids. That's a talent that I do not have, but I honor it in you.
You may be super flexible and so excited and wake up in the morning and spontaneous and say, let's go to this thing that we want to do today. Or you may be really good at sitting on the couch and reading with your kids and snuggling and, and just making everyone feel safe. You have strengths and talents in your homeschool and when you focus on those and you remember those, your homeschool begins to really be the very best version of it. And it's what your kids need.
The third thing I recommend, the third key ingredient, the way to banish this homeschool perfectionism is to focus on growth mindset instead of fixed mindset. And this is something you may have heard of. Fixed mindset is the idea that your mind can't change. That it's fixed. If you are one way, you will always be one way and that can be really, really, really disabling because you feel like no matter how things are, that's how they're always going to be. And growth mindset is this idea that things can change, that you can change, that your mind can change, that the people around you can change.
And when you have that mindset, you recognize that you can learn and grow and continue to do things better and better. I know for a fact that some of the things that I can do now, I could not do 15 years ago when we started homeschooling. It was impossible. And if I could look at myself now and the capacity I have and the things I've learned how to do, I would be amazed. Not because I'm amazing, but because -- or different or unique or special in some way. But because I have 15 years between the beginning me and the now me. And that's because the growth mindset allows me to see how I can grow and change. So if there's something really important, something that's currently missing from your homeschool that you want to start incorporating, then if you embrace this idea that you can, you can start to learn step by step.
You can change, you can grow. It is possible. Now to make this just a little bit easier for you, I have put together a one page set of declarations. I call them Homeschool Declarations. If you don't know what declarations are, they are positive statements that you say on a regular basis. They help rewrite how your brain thinks and they're specifically aligned for that growth mindset and they're totally free. You just need to click on the link up above or down below and you can -- they're part of my Homeschool Help Center. It's totally free and you go there, you find them in that Help Center, and you can print them out. Just something you say every single day to just keep you motivated and going and help you banish perfectionism.
Because remember that you cannot be a perfect homeschool mom, but you can be an excellent homeschool mom in a completely unique way that is only you. I'm ToriAnn Perkey, and I make these videos every week so that you can be a successful and confident homeschool mom.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
When you started homeschooling, you envisioned happy blissful moments of togetherness with your children.
Snuggling on the couch. Finding the wonder in the new things you were learning.
Your kids -- happily around the table learning and growing.
You -- overlooking it all with a blissful, nurturing smile on your face.
And now you don’t know what happened. Nothing seems to be going right.
You drag yourself out of bed in the morning, dreading the coming day. You’re exhausted and ready to quit … and it’s only 10 o’clock in the morning.
There’s crying and yelling and whining.
Maybe you have a homeschooler who refuses to do their work. Maybe more than one!
Maybe you think it’s you -- that you’re failing your children.
And maybe you’re trying to decide if you should stop homeschooling completely and just send them to public school.
If so, here’s the first thing I recommend you do before you do anything else for your homeschool.
Want to keep reading instead of watch? Scroll to read a transcript of the video.
And CLICK HERE if you want to watch Confident Homeschool Secrets.
Register below to watch my FREE CLASS
Confident Homeschool Secrets
7 Ways to Create a Homeschool That Works (and you LOVE!)
Transcript
Hello, this is ToriAnn Perkey, and from my homeschool to your homeschool, I want to talk about the number one thing I recommend to do if your homeschool isn't working.
Now, when you started homeschooling, of course you had these grand visions of perfect days and blissful children sitting on the couch snuggling or doing fun science experiments.
And sometimes the reality is that when the rubber hits the road, it doesn't look like that at all. And that can be really discouraging, really frustrating.
There's tears. The kids aren't cooperating. You think you're failing. Super normal. It happens almost to everyone. So what can you do about that? What can you do so that you feel just a little bit better about your homeschool so that you can keep going?
Well, the number one thing I recommend you do is step back and take a break. Take a deep breath, stop what you're doing and reassess.
So what does that look like? That means that no matter where you are, how far you've gotten, what time of year it is, stop. Because whatever you're doing isn't working. So you need to take time where you're not pushing, pushing, pushing to figure out how to do it differently.
The reason I know this is because I went through this. I'd been homeschooling for a couple of years. My oldest was little, and she had just kind of played. And then I decided we were going to do real school. And we did real school and it fell apart so fast because of the way I was doing it with her.
And so I did the very thing I'm describing. I.we stopped. It was only ... I think the beginning of October. We'd done four weeks or so. We stopped. We stopped doing school. And I just focused on figuring out how I wanted to homeschool. And it's the best time I took. You know, whatever subjects we would have covered in that amount of time was more than made up for in the fact that I actually figured out how to homeschool in a way that was going to work.
And it turned out that our homeschool needed to look radically different than what I had originally planned. Who knew? And I needed to go learn about homeschool styles. And I learned a little bit about her personality and learning styles. I needed to learn those things so that I could create a homeschool that was going to work for her because she was so different, which is why I didn't put her in public school in the first place. But somehow in my mind I got all confused. I was like, "We got to do public school, and it's got to look like this." And I didn't know what I was doing. And so it was only when I got some education and I learned some things, I was able to figure it out. So that's what I recommend. I step back and take some time to figure it out.
Now if you are in this position, I actually have something I would love to offer you to help you. It's a free webinar. It's called Confident Homeschool Secrets. And it's specifically designed to help moms like you who are struggling with your homeschool to figure out what needs to be in place so that you can feel confident and successful. And I go through seven key areas that you can work on and structure differently so you can create a good foundation. It's totally free. You just have to click on the link up above or down below. You know, wherever you're watching this video. Go watch that webinar. It's available right now. You can start right away. And it's going to walk you through those pieces step-by-step.
I'm so excited to offer it to you because I know where you're coming from. I was there. I want you to have an opportunity to feel successful, and this is one of the best ways I know how to do that.
My name is ToriAnn Perkey, and I make these videos every week so that you can be a successful and confident homeschool mom.
