In the beginning, I found that finding any sort of balance in parenthood let alone our homeschool seemed like the most ridiculous thing in the world. After many breakdowns though, I realized that we all needed time to be our own people, to do things each of us enjoyed, and to continue growing as both individuals and as a family. Sometimes that can be really hard, balance seems impossible because we feel if we are taking time for certain things we must be spending less on others. The real key is to take the time to do the things that we love and still do the needed things, balance!
In our homeschool, we try to incorporate things that everyone is interested. That means we go to lots of museums and history related field trips for me. We make sure to have a bunch of science things that we are able to do to meet my sons’ interests. For my daughter, we make sure to have lots of art projects and colouring. For the days when doing anything, we make sure to have a list of interesting documentaries that we are dying to see!
Finding balance in our homeschool doesn’t just stop with the academics though. We also need to nurture our other interests in life. Both of my children really enjoy their gymnastics and playing at the indoor park so we make sure those activities are a part of our schedule. I like to go for coffee with other homeschool moms and work on my blog so I make sure to take time to do those things. The kids and I also really enjoy when my husband is able to come along on our learning journeys with us so we try to plan museum visits on the weekends when he is able to join us.
I think that a large part of finding balance was realizing that we are never actually behind. We function in seasons in our homeschool, in the colder seasons we find ourselves working on bookwork more and in the warmer seasons, we find ourselves constantly out of the house. Since we learnt how to allow ourselves to make time for all the things we love without feeling guilty I have noticed that we are all working harder on the things we aren’t extremely fond of.
