Homeschooling and Work? Here’s How to Make It Work

Homeschooling and balancing work can be challenging. However, it becomes almost impossible if you include extra duties in the situation, such as managing your children’s homeschooling. Although it is not easy to focus, having a strategy can assist you in accomplishing your goals more quickly. 

Achieving balance in responsibilities is an ongoing process that calls for adaptability, persistence, and humour! Below are guidelines to assist you in carrying out your plan to homeschool while maintaining a full-time professional job.

Tips for Balancing Homeschooling and Other Responsibilities

Parenting while working is tricky all on its own. However, where the party actually starts is when homeschooling is included! As a working parent who homeschools my child, the words flexible and balanced chaos frequently come to mind.

Therefore, establishing a routine and striking a balance is crucial for every family. A little preparation and time planning may go a long way. But most importantly, create a program that suits you and your family, and always be flexible. 

To help you get started, here are some of the essential tips we’ve put across:

Setting Priorities:

To balance your busy working schedule and homeschooling, set your priorities by doing the following:

Identifying essential tasks and following a schedule. 

Even though most households have a routine, there can be potential for improvement. So look over your routine and organize it into a timetable because there could be turmoil everywhere. 

Furthermore, establish restricted hours for duties and tasks of the utmost importance. For instance, schedule time for you and your children to help them with schoolwork. However, if you work remotely or away from home, plan your school hours around that program. Also, schedule time for necessary house chores so they stay manageable.

Allocating time efficiently

Schedules work when they are adhered to. So try to maximize your productivity when you set aside time for homeschooling. Also, before resting/relaxing, be aware of what needs to be accomplished first. Use the “Do Not Disturb” options on your mobile device or computer, for example, to assist you in concentrating better. However, if you notice that your timetable could be more effective, review it again and make the necessary modifications.

Involving the Whole Family:

You can encourage participation from each member of your family towards the success of your homeschool by:

Delegating responsibilities

Every member can have a significant responsibility that integrates their strengths with the family’s requirements. Hence, everyone will benefit from routines and gentle reminders to complete their tasks. 

Consider having a family gathering to straighten things out and devise a remedy if anything is slipping between the cracks. Also, to establish a fair method to balance everything, consider whether an older kid is in charge of a small child when you are at work. 

Encouraging participation

Participation is more than simply a trendy goal. Therefore, encourage participation from each individual in your family toward the success of your homeschool. In fact, family involvement makes it easy to balance homeschooling, house chores, and other work responsibilities. 

Staying Organized:

To ensure that you remain organized, take the following into account:

Creating a schedule

Creating a list of duties will make it simpler to finish them, whether you have responsibilities that necessitate you to work remotely or away from home. Besides, your list must be as precise as possible to make it effective. 

Most importantly, consider scheduling each day’s upcoming work and homeschool deadlines. Also, rather than making a new plan every day, create weekly timetables whenever possible.

Using planning tools

Consider using planning tools to help balance homeschooling and other essential tasks if necessary. A proper planning tool will enable you to translate your objectives into results. 

Furthermore, remember that planning is the first phase towards achieving your aims. So setting goals and working toward them is crucial for any individual juggling work and homeschooling. 

Incorporating Work into Homeschooling

Suppose your life needs you to figure out how to work and homeschool simultaneously. In that case, it might be tricky if you are starting with homeschooling. It takes some juggling to incorporate work into homeschooling, although it does mean it’s impossible. 

The guidelines below can help you to incorporate work into homeschooling accordingly:

Flexible Work Schedules:

The flexibility of your job schedules will impact how you plan your daily routine for both work and homeschooling. For example, does your profession involve pace reports and 9 to 5 hours? Can you start working anytime you choose, and once you do, do you have a timer running? 

Luckily, homeschooling can accommodate whatever degree of flexibility your work offers. You can then consider suitable possibilities such as:

Remote work options

It’s a frequent misconception that to homeschool, a person must be able to live independently on one income. However, a work-from-home option has a lot to offer when homeschooling.

A good parenting role that includes working from home and homeschooling rely heavily on organization and limitations. The individuality and freedom that homeschooling offers are what make it so appealing. The flexibility of homeschooling inherently enables a person to work remotely, even though it requires a lot of planning.

Furthermore, homeschooling doesn’t have to occur within a defined period or during a specific day. Hence, you could still homeschool your kids after work, even if your remote job only allows a break of 15 minutes, as a regular office job. 

Part-time work options

Any homeschooler, including career parents, must always be organized. Even when they have the year or season scheduled, many homeschoolers consider it vital to plan every week’s activities. Choosing to work part-time can help incorporate work into homeschooling effectively. 

Similarly, part-time parents might make plans while considering their workload, timetable, and meetings for the coming week. They can also develop their children’s homeschool timetable following the established job schedule. 

Generally, when it comes to incorporating your daily homeschooling routine into working, proper prior planning will enable you to feel less stressed throughout the week. 

Integrating Work and Homeschooling:

As a parent, you can successfully integrate work and homeschooling by:

Incorporating work-related lessons into the homeschooling curriculum

Homeschooling your child has numerous benefits and drawbacks, which sometimes makes the option challenging. For many people, having to develop their work schedule is both a good and a bad thing. 

Generally, deciding on the topics and methods to educate your child during the school year may take a lot of work, leaving you feeling disoriented and overwhelmed. However, incorporating some of your work-related lessons into the homeschooling program is the best way to do this. With this, you and your children will share something to enhance your learning. 

Remember, having complete control of your child’s academic progress and the freedom to actively interact with and support their hobbies can be empowering and thrilling once you understand how.

Allowing children to observe or assist with work tasks

Involving kids in what you’re doing is a great way to educate them regarding business, which is always positive. They can participate in various methods, such as labelling catalogues, packaging orders, composing reviews, organizing shelves, proposing product concepts, and more. Nevertheless, this will vary depending on your organization and the ages of your kids.

If you are working on a laptop or computer, you may have your children sit next to you, making them feel special and accepted. You can even create a specific workstation to allow them to imitate whatever you are doing.

Finding Support and Resources

If things become exceedingly overwhelming, then you can consider other approaches within the bounds of the limits. This can be asking for assistance at work or giving your child more help with schoolwork by providing the necessary resources. Since we live in unprecedented circumstances, we strive to understand your boundaries and be gentle to you and your children. But remember, this will also come to pass. 

Overall, these are some of the best ways to find the support and resources necessary for your homeschooled kids:

Joining Homeschooling Communities:

Every homeschooling parent requires a supportive network. In short, you need to be surrounded by people who understand what you’re dealing with, know your objectives, and will be there for you in the good and bad times. Therefore, joining a supportive community will make work and homeschooling much more manageable. 

Examples of the homeschooling communities you can join include:

Online groups

Homeschooling communities frequently use online groups to plan events and exchange homeschooling advice. Therefore, as a homeschooler, you can connect with several global homeschooling websites that unite many individuals. 

Furthermore, you’ll have a more profound sense of connection by connecting with the international homeschooling communities. Besides, you can gain ideas and inspiration from those with more knowledge.

Local groups

As you start your homeschooling experience, knowing your local and regional homeschooling clubs is always a good idea. These are often neighbourhood organizations founded and run by other local homeschoolers.

As you know, homeschooling can be difficult and overwhelming. Therefore, support groups can act as a ‘tutors’ room’ where parents can discuss their issues, receive helpful counsel, and gain emotional assistance.

Utilizing Homeschooling Resources:

Some of the best resources to use when attempting to balance work and homeschooling include: 

Curriculum resources

You will not need to devote as many hours to teaching children using online curriculum resources. As a result, this will allow you to work and still have time to supervise their learning. After selecting a curriculum or course, your job may be reduced to marking tests, providing feedback on tasks and composing assignments, and keeping track of daily and monthly progression. 

In a situation where both parents must work and wish to find an effective method to homeschool kids old enough to study alone, this alternative could be a great choice.

Planning Resources

No matter how many ideas you possess, nothing will be done if you don’t take a seat and make a plan. Besides, it can still be scary even if the planning process is repeated yearly. And although it does get better, know that you’re not the only one who initially felt overwhelmed. 

Therefore, the best alternative here is the use of homeschool planning resources. Some provide examples of homeschool schedules, whereas others are tips, tricks, or resource pages. Even so, there’s no doubt that this will benefit your homeschooling endeavours.

Conclusion

It can be challenging to balance the demands of a job with the goals of homeschooling, regardless of whether you work away or from home. This is because both need a great deal of your time, focus, and dedication. Furthermore, you must plan well and balance homeschooling with other crucial tasks to make it happen. 

With these tips, you’ll discover that homeschooling and working simultaneously is manageable, especially if you have the correct attitude, timetable, and activities. Ultimately, you can balance your family commitments and work obligations in a way that allows both to coincide.

Learn more about finding support from a homeschool community, or download our FREE EBOOK to help you on your homeschool journey if you are a Homeschool Newbie!