Accidental Homeschooling

I have always admired the mom’s who can homeschool. The patience, dedication, and discipline these awesome parents must have. I never saw myself in their shoes, and with all school closures, me and many other parents are being pushed into that role. If you are feeling overwhelmed, unsure, and inadequate for this, I am with you, but we can all do it!

I am seeing many posts with colorful schedules on every mom group I am in. If you are that mama that can do that, awesome, but let me tell you that is NEVER going to work for me. I am all for routines, but man that schedule seemed a little excessive and impossible to truly follow. I would keep it simple, something like:

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Honestly, I am not sure why we want to stress out about tight schedules and keeping them busy the entire time they are with us. Why don’t we just enjoy this moment that we have with them? Why don’t we just do what is natural? Teach them as we play, as we adventure, as we love on each other? Like I said, I am all for routines, my kids follow routines, and do way better with them, however, they are loose so no one gets stressed out.

Also, that Amazon cart full of homeschool supplies and workbooks…girl trash it, empty it, delete it… you don’t need them. The schools have handed each of our kids work already in packets or online so chill. They will be working and keeping busy. The extra, should be fun and give you and your kids something special to do. We all have Pinterest, look up those fun arts and crafts and STEM activities. Better yet, take a bike ride, a hike, or a walk even just around your neighborhood. We were advised to practice social distancing but not locking ourselves up in our homes. The outdoor play gives us so much opportunity to teach about so much; from nature to numbers and colors to physical coordination. It will also benefit the entire family with it helping to reduce anxiety and depression, which is so needed in our current situations. This accidental homeschooling we are put in doesn’t have to be stressful and complex. It is a temporary situation, and then they will be back in school and we will once again be away from them for most of the day. Take advantage this moment, enjoy every moment, and make the best of it.

Then once we get through the day with our little treasures, lay their asses in bed, read them a story, love on them, and pop open that wine and wind down with Netflix, a book, or a bubble bath, it will be a well-deserved glass. Y’all we can survive! It’s a few weeks, while teachers have to do this with HELLA kids for 181 days.

Calm In The Chaos

The Coronavirus has caused so much craziness in our world, and it has brought so much terror and anxiety in many of us. I want to take the time out to tell everyone to STOP, BREATH, and HAVE FAITH. I understand the reasons for everyone’s concerns but let’s try and adjust our perspectives to help bring a little peace in the midst of the pandemonium.

Fear is a normal reaction to events in the world like this, however, being consumed by that fear and allowing it to make us react irrationally taking away our joy in the world is not an appropriate reaction. There is no virus that will ever be more dangerous than our mindsets. Fear causes more turmoil in an already difficult situation and will cause more negativity and worse outcomes than any virus can. We need to stop, reassess everything, and start moving in a direction of faith and positivity. We need to stop fighting over toilet paper, being afraid to talk to our neighbors and find faith that there is a higher power protecting us or faith that things are being done that need to be done to lower the spread of the virus. There are things we can’t control and that isn’t something we need to worry about, as there is nothing we can do about it, but we can control our reactions. We need to stay well informed but where we get our information matters, and if we can’t control our minds maybe we should stay away from Facebook groups that will only feed into our panic.

We can all find gratitude in all our situations:

• We get a chance to reconnect with our families. We live fast-paced lives and often only have a couple of hours a day with those we love, if we even have that. With schools closing, people working from home or having to call off, and sports events and all our kids’ extracurricular activities being canceled this is our chance to spend intentional time with them.
• Leaning on our communities for help, unifying all of us. We are all in need, some more than others, but we have a chance to be a community united and willing to help each other. Though I have witnessed people fighting over toilet paper, I have also seen people offering their services to help the elderly and immune-compromised, parent’s offering formula, diapers, wipes, and food for family’s that either can’t afford the supplies or can’t access them as shelves are being cleaned out, and people offering services to parents who are being pushed into the homeschooling world.
• Getting a chance to look within and take care of ourselves. We have time to read that book we always wanted to, spend time or call our families, or meditate/pray. To get a much needed reset that many of us don’t have a chance to do. We are all so used to having to be social, this is our time to focus on ourselves, our minds, our hearts, and our souls.   

We can all get through this!