In 12 years of marriage, we have moved to 5 different states.  My husband has been making the climb up the corporate ladder in a retail environment, which requires a lot of flexibility for all involved.  What makes his job so challenging is that, on any given day, we don’t know what time he’ll arrive home from work, work doesn’t always stop once he walks in the door, and travel is frequent and required.  This chaotic schedule can add up to making any sort of order and family time feel impossible. 

 

One of the too-many-to-count reasons we love homeschooling is the way it makes what could feel impossible, possible.  I can only imagine how myself working outside of the home and the children being in school, daycare, and after-school care could complicate the situation even further!  Homeschooling frees up our time to be able to adjust to my husband’s sporadic… well, can I even call it a “schedule”? 

 

Here are 4 ways homeschool has helped us adjust to the chaotic schedule and unpredictable demands of my husband’s career:

 

 

My husband’s job is with a lawn and garden company, so there are certain seasons that demand more of his time.  Those seasons may mean he doesn’t get home until after what would be bedtime for the kids.  Now, I always try to maintain as much “normal” as possible, but there’s nothing that feels normal, especially for very young kids, about not seeing your dad the entire week because he leaves before you wake up and gets home after you’re in bed.  So in those seasons, we’re able to wake up a little later in the morning and stay up an hour or two past bedtime.  This way my kids get to snuggle and play with their Dad, at least a little bit, each night. 

 

Before we started to take advantage of this aspect and I was trying to stick to a tighter bedtime routine, I was noticing behaviors in the kids that I eventually realized were related to them not being able to see their dad regularly.  I remember Thursday would be like Armageddon and I started to make the connection that it was two days before the weekend, which was when they finally got to spend time with him.  It happened like clockwork each week.  Once I started to adjust our schedule so that we would all have some time together each evening, that Thursday meltdown stopped altogether!  I started to realize that it was more important to be able to see their Dad more often than to maintain a perfect, and expected bedtime routine.  Most would scoff to know my younger kids stayed up until 10 some nights, but it meant they got to see their Dad and not go to bed knowing he’d be home but not being able to stay up to see him.  It worked for our family.  

My husband’s job not only required long hours each day but, for several years, had him traveling out of town three nights a week.  Being that we had no schedules confining us, we were able to just pack up and go along with him to all sorts of places we would never have been able to visit otherwise.  Since he would be working during the day on these trips, I would research places in the area that the kids and I could visit.  We were able to see so many museums, landmarks, and parks and I would even try to find things that correlated with our lessons to add to our learning experience. 

 

Sometimes we would be visiting a historic area and I would print off worksheets and activities, as well as borrow library books on the subject before leaving for the trip.  The kids were always so thrilled to be able to tag along with Daddy and to go on our random adventures.  And, if time allowed after his work was finished, sometimes my husband was able to do one of the outings with us.  This, to me, was a huge benefit of homeschooling.  Being able to travel and see interesting places, while learning, was such a fun way to do “school”, while also helping us get in a little bonus family time.  

 

My husband’s job demands make it so that vacations are only allowed at certain points in the year.  Because of that, it wasn’t always feasible to take several weeks of vacation in the very busy summertime or during holidays.  Since we make our own schedule we can travel when his job allows.  Being that, for the majority of our married life, we’ve been 10+ hours away from family, this was a huge benefit.  We could either get ahead in school and take the whole vacation as a break or even do some schoolwork in the car on the long trips. 

 

And, just like with traveling with my husband for his job, we could find spots to stop along the way and add in an impromptu lesson and fun learning experience!  In most recent years since my husband has earned more vacation time, we have taken several week-long trips during the year.  We never have to worry about the kids falling behind in school from taking time off.  Being able to create our own schedule and add in lessons that fit into our trips has been one of my favorite benefits of homeschooling!  

Our families have pretty traditional holidays and always spend it together in our hometowns.  This means that, if we aren’t able to make it there, they don’t take those times to travel to us.  They prefer to come during less busy times of the year.  Many times I’ve thought to myself how disappointed my children would be if Grandpa and Grandma were visiting and they had to still go to school during those days.  On average they get to see their grandparents for a total of a week during the whole year (since even when we visit we have to divide our time between all of the family) so to have to spend those days at school would probably create some resistance on their end.  Being that we can either get ahead or plan to catch up after the visit, we can devote all of the time the family is with us to spend it with them.  

 

Homeschooling has benefited our family in a lot of different ways, but helping to find “our normal” in the midst of the chaotic nature of moving and my husband’s demanding work schedule has been a huge one.  I love the freedom and flexibility it provides us and that we can make our schedule work to fit in time for family.  I’m thankful that we’ve been able to create some sense of normalcy in what could very easily have felt like a world of chaos.  We do long for the days when my husband has a more predictable schedule, but in the meantime, homeschooling has been a wonderful blessing to us. 

 

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Ali Rick describes herself as ne imperfect mom sharing her journey of creating the best life possible for her family and indulging in her passions of faith, family, travel, all things DIY, natural living, and homeschooling. She blogs at Rags to Rubies.