Finding Balance as a Homeschool Mom

In Finding Balance in Your Homeschool Routine, I explored ways to not go crazy with our busy homeschool schedules. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed with all there is to do as a homeschool family. In this post, we’re going to take the homeschool mom out of the homeschool! Let’s explore what it means to find balance as a homeschool mom with all of our other responsibilities.

 

Finding Balance as a Homeschool Mom

Aside from being a homeschool mom, we have other roles that we need to fill within our families and communities. Those responsibilities can quickly add up! Without a bit of planning, they easily pull our focus from homeschooling. We can find ourselves burdened with too many responsibilities which can cause us to drop the ball too often.

As a homeschool mom, my main focus is to teach my children throughout this journey. Everything else comes after that. If I find that I’m not doing that job well, I need to take a close look at other responsibilities that may be interfering.

 

Finding Priorities

Finding our priorities will help us realize where most of our time and energy needs to be spent. For me, homeschool is at the top of that list. It may be different for you. Make a list of all of your responsibilities in your family and community. Brainstorm everything that comes to mind. Here are some areas to consider…

• Paid work to support the family
• Housework
• Managing kids’ activities – transportation, volunteering, organizing, scheduling
• Caring for a parent or other elder family member
• Church responsibilities
• Hobbies – Yes, those can come with responsibilities!
• Volunteer work
• Managing the household finances
• Home repairs
• Yard work
• And, of course, errands!

It can be very overwhelming once we have it all written out! However once we name those responsibilities, it’ll be much easier to see where we need to focus our energy. Rewrite these responsibilities in the order of importance from greatest to least important. The items near the top of our list will naturally change over time.

If you’re struggling to get everything done, look at the bottom of the list to see what can be delegated to someone else such as your partner or kids. Think of tasks that you can schedule during non-school hours.

For example, I do my best to never run errands during our school time. I save them for evenings and weekends, or I have my husband run an errand on his way home from work. This helps eliminate those distractions. There may even be a few things that simply get crossed off of your to-do list because you just can’t get to them right now. I’ve definitely been there, too. It’s okay to say no to a few things.

Related post – Finding Balance in Your Homeschool Routine

 

Finding a Hobby

Yes after just prioritizing all of our responsibilities, let’s talk about the importance of hobbies for homeschool moms. My hobby is near the top of my list of responsibilities because it is truly THAT important to me. It’s about time other homeschool moms make their own hobbies a priority.

Balance is all about finding time for our homeschool and family commitments, AND goals that are just our own.

Now, I do know a few moms for whom homeschooling and homemaking are perfectly satisfying. For the rest of us, I think it’s vital that we have some interest that is our own outside of our homeschool and family responsibilities. It doesn’t have to be elaborate and time consuming. It can be as simple as a library card and a long list of books that you want to read. Set aside time to do it.

Many homeschool moms want but don’t have a hobby. How do you go about finding something you enjoy? Make a list of things you want to learn. Pick one and research how to pursue it. Just start learning something new, and put it on your priority list. Yes, it really is as simple as that. It’s important for our kids to see us continuing to learn and grow in areas that interest us. Lead by example!

Related Post – Volunteering as a Family

 

Balance in NOT Just Self Care

Self care is usually thought to be ways we take time to care for ourselves. Sometimes, it’s a big once a year treat like a spa day. Other times, it’s a quiet evening at home with a bubble bath and a book. I love to treat myself to my tradition of starting a new school year. Self care is important, but it shouldn’t take the place of a hobby. Both serve their own purpose and should be somewhere on your priority list.

Finding a balance between our homeschool, family, community, and personal goals is certainly not an easy task! Writing down everything on our mental to-do lists and listing them by priority will help us determine where to best use our time and energy. We can’t do everything all the time. It’s okay to back away from or delegate some of the responsibilities… even if it’s to have a bit of time to pursue our own goals and interests.