Do you have a plan for the holidays? Does your plan involve stepping away from whatever you’re currently doing and changing it up for the holiday season or are you plagued with homeschool mom guilt that says you aren't doing enough...
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This episode discusses:
What happens in the public school systems during this time of year.
The 2 categories homeschool moms fall under during the holiday season.
How to get rid of homeschool mom guilt that says you aren’t doing enough.
How to let learning continue naturally during the holidays.
dont have time to listen? Here’s the episode all typed out:
Simply Freeing? Motherhood doesn’t feel simply freeing when you’re on autopilot in a home filled with chaos, stress and a ton of pressure. In order to survive the chaos we NEED the right strategies and mindset to embrace the simple and enjoy the few short years we have with our kids. I believe that we are called to see that we CAN rise up, get out of our head, shut out the expectations of the world and what mom life is supposed to be like and change what’s not working so that motherhood is fulfilling. Join me as we discuss all things motherhood, homeschooling, minimalism, faith and health. My mission is to help you embrace simplicity and find freedom in your motherhood. I’m Jackie from Whole9Family and this is the “Simply Freeing” Podcast.
Today I wanted to talk about a topic that is so important to me because it is something that I struggled with a lot…RESTING. What does it look like to rest around the holidays? As a homeschool mom who is super busy, how can I find a way to rest with my family and really enjoy them during this season? Do you have a plan for the holidays? Does your plan involve stepping away from whatever you’re currently doing and changing it up for the holiday season?
In the public school system, the students get restless around this time of year. They know that Thanksgiving is coming up and they check out mentally. The teachers check out too. They get their four-day break. (I’m talking specifically about New York City. I know that other parts of the country have a different schedules.) In New York City the kids get four days off for Thanksgiving and then they come back for a couple of weeks and then they’re off again from December 23 until after the new year.
The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is the time of year that you’ll see a lot of the students bringing projects home from school that they’re supposed to be working on at home. This is because the teachers have to follow a plan and they have to make sure they get a certain amount of things done. Oftentimes if the work doesn’t get done in school, the projects get sent home. If you have a child in the school system right now and you’re like “oh great another project” that’s the reason why. Just letting you know.😉
Homeschool moms, during this time of year, fall under these two categories:
The mom that is pushing through to try to get through the curriculums that they are working on because half the year is over and they have to make sure that they are where they should be. They’ve set standards and they are perfectionistic about trying to meet those standards so that their children are not behind.
The mom who may already be checked out. They they may have started slowing down already even though Thanksgiving break hasn’t actually hit yet. This is OK but the problem is that it’s not OK internally for them. They are feeling really guilty for it. They are busy but their busyness is not in a happy, joyful way. They’re busy and they’re stressed out and internally they are feeling like they are doing a disservice to their kids because they aren’t doing any formal school. (This is what plagued me for a really long time. This is the type of homeschool mom that I was.)
I wanted to bring this episode up because I think it is so important for us to plan for rest. Planning for a rest will help get rid of those feelings of guilt if you fall under the category of feeling guilty when you step away. If you haven’t reached a certain expectation that you set for yourself and you step away from that without meeting your goal, the guilt comes flooding in. We’re not used to slowing down in our culture. We’ve been conditioned to believe that hustling and hard work is what’s needed for fulfillment. I think that’s why it’s hard for many of us to rest.
If you feel that you have a lot of lingering guilt and you feel that you aren’t doing enough, here’s how you can shake those feelings:
Be really intentional and plan for rest during this season. Be OK this holiday season to let learning happen naturally. Try it out for a couple of weeks. Try it out from Thanksgiving all the way until the new year. Get away from the books. It’s not time off from school completely. We have to stop segmenting that school time is now and rest time is now. We’re taking the joy right out of learning when we start segmenting our days that way.
I want to encourage you to re-think what you are doing this holiday season as a homeschool mom. Be intentional about purposefully having slower days. Having conversations and connecting with each of your kids individually. That’s something that we’re really working on. We are taking turns taking each of our daughters out for breakfast. Jon is doing that with each of the girls. We’re asking them questions. Listening to them. Learning with them. Letting curiosity lead.
The only curriculum that I am planning to do is the brand new curriculum from Treehouse Schoolhouse called A Connected Christmas. This is totally not sponsored but it’s so beautiful and I knew right away once I saw it, that it was something my girls would love. I’ll add the link to the show notes if you want to take a look at it too. I highly recommend it. It’s just one thing that I’ve chosen to do.
In the past, I had way too much on my plate and nothing got done and all the guilt rose up because I just couldn’t do what I had planned to do. It made me a unhappy, not present mom because of it.
The holidays really don’t have to be stressful. You have a choice to rest and simplify every single thing that you are doing in your home.
If you are one of those moms that feels like you have to get everything done by a certain date or your kids will be behind and the whole year will be thrown off, you might not be experiencing the joy of homeschooling that you think you’re experiencing.
Find a way to be at peace with taking each day as it comes and learning with our kids during the season and not stressing about what they haven’t completed or what they are behind in.
If you are homeschooling in the form of virtual schooling and you’re struggling because you’re feeling frustrated and stuck because you really don’t have the freedom to make the rules in that situation, there is a reason why you are feeling frustrated and stuck. Maybe you need to break away from that and lean into the fact that there might be another way for you. The freedom that comes from making your own homeschooling rules is so amazing! You know your children better than anyone else.
I really hope that you can rest with your family during this season and that you can plan for rest as a homeschool mom and enjoy your kids and enjoy your family. The world is so stressful right now. You have a choice not to add to that stress.
If you found this episode helpful, take a screenshot and share it on Instagram. I’d love to thank you for that! The more moms that hear messages like this, the better. We are up against a culture that wants us to run ourselves into the ground, a culture that doesn’t value rest and simplicity. It bothers me so much to see so many moms during this time of year struggling, especially now with all the stress that’s happening in our world. We should not have to struggle in our homes. Homeschooling should be a joy. Homeschooling should bring freedom. So many of us are not feeling that. I hope you have a great week friends! I’ll see you next week.