Lockdown Homeschooling, Samantha Griscti

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Homeschooling has been tough and I must admit I think the concept of daily worksheets being set virtually for my children to work through is a bit tedious. Trying to emulate school at home is something I want to avoid as 1) the kids love their school, and their teachers, I simply can not do it justice and 2) I feel like this time at home is the perfect opportunity to spend time with the kids and learn about what they like and embrace what they want to learn about.

I have tried to sit them down and complete the academic subjects and they just don’t enjoy it. I think that they enjoy home being home and school being school. Luckily our school is totally behind whatever we choose, all they worry about is the happiness of the kids. They understand stressed adults worrying about how to teach and how to get their children engaged in the work will just cause further stress and worry unnecessarily.

My 2 kids that are at school are 8 and 6, a term or 2 away from school not adhering to a strict curriculum is not going to do them any harm. They have many, many years of schooling ahead of them and they will likely look back at this period as a super long summer holiday. I genuinely just want them to be happy.

They are currently finding happiness in play, in gardening, in planting flowers, in helping their baby sister learn to walk, in cooking and baking, in gaming and watching films. They will not find happiness whilst their parents are trying to juggle too much. I have found that every time I have sat down to do any kind of work with them that productivity lasts about an hour (max if I’m lucky) having a 14 month is also tough as she demands so much attention at present and simply does not understand why we are not giving her more.

I in no way mean to trivialise schooling as I am a huge advocate of education and learning in general, I see the importance and have such a respect for it, however my life currently is finding the challenge impossible. Take this week for example, mid way through a ‘maths lesson’, I had to change the babies nappy, Nancy asked me a question so I naturally turned my attention to her. The next thing I knew Frank was in full hysterics at the massive shit the baby had just plopped out on the carpet, Nancy in turn couldn’t stop laughing and whilst I quickly started cleaning up said shit all focus on maths was lost. Now, I might be wrong, but I just don’t think that they have these kinds of distractions at their primary school. I seem to be creating some sort of extreme schooling, where no one learns anything except mum can’t spread herself any thinner than she already is. Anyway I am not going to argue with such clear signs, so instead of beating myself up I am changing my approach/attitude to homeschooling. I am going to allow the kids to take the lead, they can pick the parts that they want to do, they can pick subjects of interest, they can decide. As soon as I made this decision the invisible weight that I was carrying seems to have lifted, I feel happier and am, as a result not beating myself up or feeling like a failure. Who knew that a shit on a carpet would be such a massive epiphany (well it was a pretty big shit…..)