Category Archives for Tips & Tricks

But I think we do a disservice to anyone who is learning about homeschooling to not tell the entire truth about homeschooling.

Because if you’re trying to decide about homeschooling …

If you’re trying to decide if homeschooling will be worth it -- what the benefits are ...

And you’re trying to figure out what the advantages and disadvantages of homeschooling are -- you need someone to tell you both the good and the bad.

After 16 years homeschooling, I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on what I think makes homeschooling easier than public school AND what makes it harder.

I’ve also spent a lot of time trying to decide why I kept going -- even when there were tears (theirs and mine!), even when I was exhausted, and even when I thought I was absolutely failing.

And the reality is that sometimes it was because I’m stubborn.

But most of the time, it was because I could see the long view -- my children were actually growing up to be wonderful people. They were learning and “becoming.”

And I wanted to be part of the journey. Even if that meant I had to keep doing the “hard.”

In today’s video, I’m covering four hard truths I’ve learned about homeschooling during the past 16 years.

Because no matter where you are in the journey -- starting out or quite a ways down the dusty path -- just being aware of what makes homeschooling “hard” can also make it easier!

Want to keep reading instead of watch? Scroll to read a transcript of the video.

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.

Homeschool Mistakes I Made

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.

A successful homeschool routine takes into account 3 simple principles:

1. Planning the “right” amount to do
2. Embracing the mess
3. Allowing things to change

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.

• How to Have a Really Good Homeschool Day
• What to Say in the Middle of a Really Hard Homeschool Day 
• A Typical Homeschool Day: What Does It Look Like? 
• 3 Key Ways to Banish Perfectionism from Your Homeschool

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.

Routine Rhythm

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?

#1 Trying to do too much

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.

#2 Expecting Perfection

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.

#3 Insisting the Routine Stay the Same

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.

There is a Video for that

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.

Become a Confident Homeschool Mom

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.

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

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.

Every family struggles with bad attitudes 

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?

What does a bad attitude look like?

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?

Recognize this is part of the human experience

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.

It’s about agency and choice

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.

Practicing their agency appropriately

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.

Some kids need more choice

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.

#1 Pick your battles

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.

#2 Set clear expectations

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.

#3 Don’t feed the monster

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.

It’s really about motivation

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.

The phone is ringing. 

The entire neighborhood is at your house. 

You’re trying to teach while also serve another family in need -- or just maintain your sanity.

Hard homeschool days come to every homeschool family. Days where you just want to throw in the towel and quit homeschooling!

Not every day, of course. Some days are wonderful and blissful and magical. Days where your kids and you are having a blast -- learning and growing together.

I’ve had many people tell me -- and I’ve found it true myself -- that you get one of those lovely days about 1 in 10. And believe me, these are the days that keep me going!

On top of that, many days can be “pretty good.” My kids are fairly compliant, stuff gets done, and nobody had a meltdown. We’ve gotten to the point (after 15 years) where we get a lot of “pretty good” days. (Want to know how we’ve done it? Check out my webinar “Confident Homeschool Secrets”)

But for the days that are trending toward disaster, what can you do?

How can you make homeschooling easier when you can sense where everything is headed?

Today I’m discussing 5 things you can do and say in the middle of a hard homeschool day. No - things won’t magically become “magical,” but you can reverse the trajectory and get your family headed back in the right direction.

Want to keep reading instead of watch? Scroll to read a transcript of the video.

What to say in the middle of a hard homeschool day

Hello ToriAnn Perkey here, from my homeschool to your homeschool, today I want to talk about what you can say to yourself in the middle of a really hard homeschool day. I don't know about you, but there are days where everything just feels like it's crashing in. The kids aren't listening. I'm having a bad day. The phone's ringing off the hook. Kids are coming to, the additional kids are coming to the door you know.  I'm hearing about stuff that's not working and everybody's grumpy and fighting and some days are just hard.

And if you're going to successfully homeschool, learning how to get through the hard days to the good days is definitely worth the effort, but you got to figure out how to get through the good days. Now, I've made another video on how to actually have a good day, and so if you haven't seen that video, be sure to check down below. I'm going to put a link to that video as well, but today I want to talk about what to say to yourself in the middle of a hard homeschool day.

5 things you can say to yourself

Actually have five different things, five different types of things you can say to yourself to just get you through the day. Put yourself in bed so you can get up the next day.

1. Say "This is simple, this is easy, this is fun"

Okay. So the first one, the first thing that you can say to yourself is, this is simple. This is easy. This is fun. Now this is all about training your brain to look at whatever is currently happening in a different light. Don't get me wrong, there are days where it doesn't feel simple, easy, or fun. But if I say it to myself enough, sometimes my brain shifts and I wait. Okay, okay, I can figure this out. So this is almost like a, like a Jedi mind trick that you're going to play with your brain to help you figure out how to do this. And so this is simple. This is easy. This is fun. Something to just perk yourself up in the middle of the day.

2. Give yourself a timeout

Okay. Number two, what's the second thing you can say to yourself? I need a timeout. Sometimes it is okay for you as the mom to pull yourself out of the situation. Go to your closet and just take a deep breath. I have spent many a homeschool day with part of the day in my closet. Now of course, you don't abandon your children. You either put them in front of something that they can watch or you put the older one in front of the younger ones. Whatever you can do.

Maybe you even just put everybody in a crib or a bed and you say, we're taking a time out and you go put yourself in a timeout. You take the time to figure out how you can reset and recharge. Sometimes when the days are really hard, that's what you need to do. You need to take just a minute to pull yourself out of the situation, get some perspective, let the emotions fall, you know, let the emotions kind of drain out of you just a little bit so you can come back into it with a fresh pair of eyes and possibly a slightly happier heart.

3. Ask what does my child need right now

Okay, so the third thing, what's the third thing you can say? What do we really need right now? What does my child need right now and not what do they in the moment like they need, they maybe need to get their math done. No, I'm talking about what do they really need? Do they need a hug? Do they need some food? Do they need a nap? I don't know what your kid needs.

But often when things are really falling apart, it's because the needs aren't being met. So stepping back and saying, what do they really need? And maybe adjusting your plan for the day because you recognize that what your kid really needs is to sit on the couch and snuggle with you and feel better about themselves. Or maybe they need a conversation or maybe they just need a walk around the block. Whatever it is, will help you have, just help you reset. So that's the third thing.

4. Take the long view

Fourth, remember that you're on a journey. Take the long view. Sometimes we're having a really hard day because we're so worried and afraid that we're not getting everything done and we forget that it's really easy to underestimate how much you can accomplish in 10 years. And over estimate how much you can accomplish in a day. Less is more with homeschooling, so you might not get a whole lot done on a single day, but if you're showing up every day over the course of your child's education, you're going to accomplish a lot. So the next thing you can say to yourself is, I'm taking the long view. I'm looking down the road, I'm just gonna do one little piece today. We don't have to do it all today.

5. This too shall pass

Finally, and this is what I say to myself when things really just hit the fan and everything else, there just doesn't seem to be any other answer. This too shall pass. Sometimes we don't change things. Sometimes we gracefully make it through things and sometimes we don't make it through gracefully. We just make it through, right? This too shall pass. When I remember that nothing is permanent, nothing lasts forever and I always have tomorrow. It helps me get through the end of a really hard homeschool day.

Now if you are new to homeschooling or you are struggling, be sure to check out my free homeschool help center. It's down below full of different activities. Resources, helps to help you have a good homeschool, things like this, as well as other things in there. Specifically, there are additional declarations, phrases that you can say to yourself to help you pump yourself up so you can have a good homeschool day. Be sure to check it out. That's down below. My name is ToriAnn Perkey, and I make these videos every week so that you can be a successful and confident homeschool mom.

Don’t forget to check out my Confident Homeschool Foundations Program.

Use the coupon code “PickPerfect” to get over 50% off the regular price!

Are screens bad for you no matter what?

I don’t know a single mom (homeschool or not) who hasn’t thought about these questions!

We ask them at park day. 

We ask them at co-op. 

We ask them to our husbands. 

And we ask them at night when we are staring at the ceiling trying to figure out what to do about the glowing squares in our homes.

I do NOT profess to have all the answers. My oldest is currently 19, my youngest is 13 … and the screen landscape has changed so much since I began parenting.

We are the first generation of moms who are trying to figure this out. And it seems like every few years there is something posted that contradicts the “findings” of the previous study.

>> Screens and social media are TERRIBLE and will ruin your kids.

>> Kids who use screens are going to be fine!

But over the years, I’ve developed a set of questions to determine how much screen time is too much.

These questions help you, as a parent, identify the symptoms of too much screen time. Because “experts” don’t know your family and your kids -- which is unique.

I believe that screens can be good -- when used in moderation. But I also believe each kid (and each family) is different, so you must come up with your own guidelines rather than depend solely on outside sources.

As a result, I’ve developed 3 questions you can ask yourself to determine if your kids (and you!) are getting too much screen time.

These questions will help you set screen time rules for your kids that feel like they make sense and actually can work.

You may find yourself limiting screen time for your kids. OR you may find yourself giving a little bit more.

That’s the beauty of these questions … they let you craft the screen time guidelines that work best for YOUR family.

Want to keep reading instead of watch? Scroll to read a transcript of the video.

Hello ToriAnn Perkey here and from my homeschool to your homeschool today, I want to talk about screen time. 

Ooh, this is a tricky topic. How much screen time is too much screen time. Oh, I wish there was an easy answer and it feels like every time I'm turning around there's a different answer. And I have been wrestling personally with this question since my kids were little and now they are teenagers. It seems like there is never a good answer to how much screen time is too much screen time.

3 Signs Your Kids Have Too Much Screen Time

So if you have struggled with this like I have. Today, I have just three simple answers, three questions you can ask yourself to determine whether or not your kids are getting too much screen time. Now before we get into that, I just want to remind you that this is a debate that's been raging for a long time, long before computers, long before phones.

But the question is getting harder and harder to answer because the amount of screen time that's available and readily accessible continues to grow and grow and grow until it feels like a parent that you just have no way of knowing how do I figure this out? The articles in the media, I'm reading study after study, one study will say, this is why screen time is so bad or this is why we need to be worried about this. And then the next one will come back and will say, no, no, no, actually that study was done incorrectly. This is the one we should pay attention to.

So my goal today is to give you principles, principles that you can apply regardless of the noise. As people, as scientists and people out there are debating how much screen time is too much screen time. Because the answer to that seems to be constantly changing everywhere else.

#1 Their personality changes.

So here is the first question to ask yourself and this is the first sign if you can't give a good answer to this question. When they get off, what is their behavior like? So if your kid has been doing screens, whether it's a little bit or a lot, what is their behavior like? Do they get off with a cheerful attitude? Are they pleasant? Are they willing to then engage in other things? Or do they whine, complain, get angry, maybe they're rude to you, disrespectful.

If you're seeing consistent negative behavior when your child gets off, even if it's not immediate, like in the next little while, that's a sign that for them the screens are too much. Whatever amount there is, and this is not about what scientists say, this is how your child reacts and it's important to remember every kid's brain is going to react differently to screens.

Just like every adult brain reacts differently to screens. It just impacts our brains differently. And so your child is going to be telling you by their behavior whether or not they've had too much and that might be cumulative, that might be a one time episode. But if you're seeing lots of negative behavior, that means that the screen time, however much it was, was too much for them.

#2 They lose their creativity. 

Okay. Second question. Question to ask yourself, what am I noticing? And again, it's going to lead to a sign. Is my child being creative or do they lack creativity? Particularly creativity that I used to see. So children, little children will naturally be very, very creative and as they get older that creativity tends to start moving to different directions. But everyone is naturally creative and your children are no exception. So if they get off screens or it's a day and they say, Oh, I could do this or this, or I could watch screens, then you know it's probably okay.

But if all they think about is their screen time, if all they think about is getting on the screen to do the next thing, then maybe there is a problem. If it's consuming their thoughts, if they seem obsessed, if they don't seem to be able to come up with anything else to do, they wander around bored and there's nothing in their world. They're getting too much screen time.

If you dial it back, what you'll start to see, particularly if you do a detox period, what you'll start to see is they will start to be creative again. They'll start to discover other things to do because the brain doesn't want to just be empty. The brain wants to do something, so it will start to find other things to do because it's not doing screens.

Okay, so with this, I want to put in a little tiny caveat. Sometimes particularly as your children get older, their creativity is on screens. So they are using digital art. They might be doing something with video, they might be designing a game. This gets a little bit trickier because they are being creative but they're being creative on the screen so it still applies. But you want to be careful if they're obsessed about watching recreational screens and recreational or are consuming screens is where they're just passively taking it in. That's one thing.

If they are being productive and they want to actually accomplish something and they're looking towards a goal and they're making things happen. And well that's a little bit more on the creativity side and then you're going to be looking for these other two signs that I'm giving you. The one I've already given you, the one I'm about to talk to. Does this productivity actually lead to positive results or negative results? So I just wanted to put that out there.

#3 They choose screens over relationships

Okay, so third sign. What is the third thing that you can be looking for? The third question you can be asking yourself to determine, is my kid getting too much screen time? And the third one is are they prioritizing screens over relationships? This is, this is when you look at how do they treat their siblings, particularly if they have to share or if a sibling gets in the way of something they're doing on the screen time.

How do they handle when someone tries to talk to them and they have to disengage from the screen in long enough to have that conversation. Do they have a positive attitude? Are they willing to stop what they're doing in order to have that, have that face to face conversation. Or are they consistently, again, grumpy, frustrated or they just go in the zone and they completely ignore everyone around them and then almost feel angry when you pull them out? If that's the case, probably too much screen time.

But if they have a good attitude, if they're willing to share, if, if the screen is actually becoming a cooperative, collaborative experience where everyone's gathered around watching the latest, you know, YouTube clip that's making everyone laugh, then maybe the screen time is doing good things too and only you can figure that out. 

So three questions, quick recap.

1. Behavior when they get off, how are they behaving? 

2. Question, are they being creative? And the side note there, are they being productive, are they producing good things and putting good things in the world? 

3. And the third one is how are they prioritizing prioritizing their relationships? How do they treat the people around them?

If you can answer that, those three things are going well, then you probably are doing okay with how much screen time you're, how much screen time you're providing.

Now this is the part that gets a little tricky and I have to do this self-assessment. How are you doing on these three questions? If you're kind of grumpy when someone interrupts you or you have to get off. If maybe you can't think of anything else to do except scroll social media and check out the latest feed and maybe sometimes you find yourself completely ignoring the people in your world because you're in your own little world. Then maybe, just maybe, you have too much screen time and that is a subject for a whole nother video. Just wanted to put out there now, don't forget I have a, actually I didn't tell you about this yet.

One of the ways that you can also figure out how much screen time you want to have in your family is to create a vision for you, your family and your homeschool vision is super, super important. It's how you dig in and successfully figure out what it is you want your homeschool to look like. And I have a free class that you've, a free training that you can listen to. It'll walk you through how to do that. You just click the link below and check that out. It's totally free. It'll help you set your vision, which is one of the steps that helps you figure out how much screen time you want to have.

I'm ToriAnn Perkey and I make these videos, videos about all kinds of homeschool topics to help you be a successful and confident homeschool mom.

It doesn’t have anything to do with homeschool field trips or activities.

It doesn’t have anything to do with your kids or your schoolroom or how organized you are.

Instead, it has EVERYTHING to do with what YOU are doing when you look around.

Are you comparing to others … and then beating yourself up for how your homeschool is failing?

Do you see the perfect pictures of happy kids doing their schoolwork and then remember how your kids fought you to even pick up a pencil?

Do you read about major art projects with multi-day hands-on help and wish you had done more than just put on a Netflix documentary?

Mama - you can’t DO that to yourself!

Homeschooling is about you and your family -- NOT what everyone else is doing

And the fastest way to homeschool burnout or to feel like you want to quit homeschooling is to compare your worst to another mom’s best!

So today I’m talking about HOW to stop comparing … and instead how to start enjoying your homeschool.

In the video, I explain the importance of having a homeschool vision. If you need help, be sure to check out my FREE lesson on creating your homeschool vision.

Hello.

My name is ToriAnn Perkey and from my homeschool to your homeschool. Today I want to talk about one way to help you have a successful homeschool. 

How to Stop Comparing in Your Homeschool

I want to talk about not comparing. I want to talk about this thing that we do. Every homeschool mom does it, and when comparing happens, we feel fear. We feel concern, worry, even overwhelm. It is not doing your homeschool any good. So we are gonna talk about why you need to stop.

Social Media

You see, it is so easy to compare in the homeschool world. You can look around on Facebook, on Instagram, on Pinterest, and you see all the things that other homeschool moms are doing. You see the activities they're doing. You see the books that they're reading. You see the beautiful, wonderful, exciting, homeschool moments because those are the ones that we take pictures of and we post.

Their Best to Your Worst

We don't post things that aren't working. We mostly post the things that do. That's why we celebrate. On top of that, you're going to park days, you're going to your homeschool co-op, you're going to your homeschool whatever. You're interacting with other homeschool moms and they're talking about what their kids are doing. They're talking about the 14 year old kid who is graduating from high school and is starting to work on their associates degree. They're talking about their four year old that just started to read Shakespeare or Harry Potter or whatever, and it is so easy to compare their best to your worst.

You're thinking, Oh my goodness, your kid is graduating from high school and my teenager, I can't even get them out of bed and I'm covered in Cheerios because I've got a baby on my hip and we're trying to teach this kid to read that’s struggling to read. And you know, all we did today that was noteworthy at all is maybe my kid drew some stick figures.

I’m FAILING

That's how it happens, right? You're hearing these cool things and that's what's going through your head. I'm failing, I'm failing and failing because we're having this experience and everyone else is having this experience and that comparison, that back and forth that is what's killing your homeschool. And it's not what you have to do. You don't have to sit there and do this comparison because the reason you chose to homeschool is because you wanted to create a homeschool for your kids.

The Whole Story

You're not homeschooling all those other kids. You're homeschooling your kid and you don't know the whole story. You know your whole story. You know the good, the bad, the ugly, you know the warts that show up all the time. But you don't know the story. You don't know if that 14 year old who's graduating and is going on is dying inside because they're struggling with anxiety or depression or they feel like they have this perfectionist need to excel.

You don't know that. You don't know that that four year old who maybe is just on a rockstar trajectory with their reading is struggling to just learn how to count. Or struggling, how to, you know, write or struggling with anger and they're constantly getting in trouble. You know, the mom's not talking about those things. She's just talking about what her kids are doing well. One, because she doesn't want to air her dirty laundry. And also because we do want to celebrate our successes and not just all of the things that are going badly.

And so you just don't know the whole story. And the reality is it doesn't matter. We can celebrate successes, but in the end you are in charge of your homeschool. You are in charge of your kids, which means that you are going to create an experience for them.

Have a VISION

And the number one way you avoid comparing and turn that off in, in a way that is helpful is you make sure that you've got a vision for your homeschool that you reference regularly and that everything else that you're creating is structured around that vision. And I talk about this a lot because it is so important.

If you have not yet written a vision for your homeschool, I have a free lesson you can, access it immediately and it walks you through. It's, it doesn't take very long and it walks you through how to create a vision for your homeschool that works for you and your kids. And I'm going to put a link down below, up, above wherever you're watching this video. So that you can go in and create a vision and then you're going to have a homeschool that works for you. It's going to take you on your homeschools journey to the destination you want for your unique child. Stop the comparing and create a space where your kids can thrive without worrying about what everyone else is doing.

Caveat

Now I'm going to put in a caveat. It is helpful to know what else other people are doing because sometimes you can recognize that there's something going wrong that you need to fix. Or you'll learn about a new resource or a new way of doing something that can be super helpful or it can also just be great to know, yeah, you know what? We're all in this together. So it's not that you want to shut yourself out and not be listening to what anybody else is doing. You're just looking at it from a fact finding and celebrating standpoint rather than a look, we're failing, standpoint.

And your vision is how you start that and it's recognizing that you are creating a homeschool for your kids and your family and not anybody else's. And if you can do that, the success in your homeschool will go way, way up. I'm ToriAnn Perkey, and I make these videos every week so that you can be a successful and confident homeschool mom.