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How to Work While Homeschooling
If you’re a working parent, homeschooling has likely been an impossible achievement, but this doesn’t have to be the case. With the right balance, maintaining a job while you educate your children at home is possible and can work seamlessly for your family.
Working life looks different for everyone. Some parents may work from home; others may be on the night shift and teach their children throughout the day. Some families are part of a co-op and work around that schedule, and others only work weekends.
At Euka, we understand that not every homeschooling family can have a stay-at-home parent full-time, but let us assure you that it’s still possible to educate your child how you want. Whether you work from home or travel to your job, it’s possible, especially if you follow a complete ready-made curriculum. So, let’s explore how, with balance, homeschooling is feasible for working parents.
Our Best Tips for Working When Homeschooling
Sometimes the overwhelming nature of parenting, working, and homeschooling can make it seem nearly impossible. But roll up your sleeves and read on for practical tips on how working families can successfully educate their children at home.
Communicate!
Successes in life is made relatively easier through regular and open communication. We are not only referring to verbal communication, which also includes the following:
- Homeschool Planners
- Reminder lists
- Calendars with work schedules
- Chore chart.
Communication also includes picking a time to discuss your expectations for their daily schedules, including outlining your availability and work schedule. Outline what you expect your children to achieve independently or with little adult assistance.
In addition, we recommend encouraging your children to communicate with you about their needs and concerns.
Be Prepared but Be Fluid
Being organised and prepared for the week goes a long way towards making your work and school days run smoothly. We all know that kids are unpredictable and things don’t always go according to schedule, but planning helps minimize chaos and gives you and your children goals to work towards each day.
Being prepared means, you can still be fluid in your delivery of home education. If your day changes, it’s okay for your plan to change too.
Maximise Your Flexibility
Use your time wisely and maximise the flexibility of a homeschool schedule by choosing tasks that require supervision and one-on-one interaction during non-working hours.
The other significant aspect of homeschooling is being in charge of your scheduling. As long as you meet your state government’s requirements, when and how is up to you and your family.
If you work in the afternoon, the best time to homeschool is probably in the morning. For shift workers, a later start after some sleep may work better for you and your family.
Expect the Unexpected
If you work from home, you can take regular breaks to check how your homeschoolers are doing and if they require assistance, but you should also expect the unexpected.
Changes in work deadlines, a sick child, a broken water heater, or a barking dog can all add chaos to your day. Just as you would if working within a workplace – stop, breathe, and prioritise. Sometimes days will be difficult, but so worth the effort.
Be Proactive About Interruptions
It’s easy to complain about being interrupted, but you’ll feel less frustrated if you take steps to deal with them proactively. Some suggestions that produce positive outcomes include the following:
- Parameters: Teach your children about urgent v’s non-urgent situations and what is okay and not okay to interrupt you with while working.
- ‘Ask Me Later’ book: Give each of your children a notebook and ask them to write down their questions so you can address them when your work day is over.
- Choose how to be interrupted: Let your children know how you prefer to be interrupted during your work hours, e.g. wait by the door, knock three times, or say ‘Excuse me’ and wait to be acknowledged.
- True emergencies: Ensure your children know how to recognise a genuine emergency and ignore the rules in these instances.
Surround Yourself with Community
All homeschooling families can benefit from surrounding themselves with community – grandparents, aunts and uncles, friends, a homeschooling co-op, and more. Having supportive people around you that can help you with things around the house, contribute to your child’s education, or be there when you can’t, can help you maintain the balance between work, home life, and homeschooling.
Outsource: Use a Complete Ready-Made Curriculum
Using an expert is the most beneficial way to achieve success. In school, the teacher creates and provides the lessons for students. Choosing a ready-made, grade-specific yet flexible curriculum, as we offer at Euka, takes away a huge load for parents working to provide for their families, and gives your children access to educational experts.
Your children can enjoy blended learning and tailored programs by Euka, which provides online and hands-on learning for homeschooling families based around the Australian curriculum. It doesn’t mean you no longer have input into your child’s education; tailoring the program is a wonderful way to achieve the best of both worlds.
Find the Balance with Euka
While it’s long believed that you either stay home with the children or go out to work, this is no longer the case. Homeschooling is flexible, and with all types of work opportunities, it creates an enriching balance of education and work that’s right for your family.
Working while homeschooling is a great way to combine the way you want to teach your kids with the satisfaction of a job. Though some days may be a challenge more than others, by following our suggested tips, you can ease some of the busyness that comes with being a working parent.
If you want to create balance and engage your children in worry-free learning, contact the Euka team and let’s get started! Our team is ready to go on this journey with you. Give us a call at (02) 7257 7900.
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