. . . and yes, I use the word “joys” sarcastically.
Have you ever taken a good, long, honest look at your life and wondered where exactly you got off track? Perhaps the real title of this post should be “Confessions of a Facebook-obsessed homeschool mom.”
Lately, I have been taking a good, hard look and I’m still not sure what happened. But somewhere along the way, my priorities got all jumbled up and homeschooling, my main priority, took a backseat to other things. My days became filled with trying to hurriedly get through math, because a book or product needed reviewing or I needed to blog, Facebook, tweet, work a few hours, Facebook, lesson plan for co-op, Facbook, take a nap (because I was up too late on Facebook), write a review, write another review, Facebook some more . . . I think you get the picture.
The result? Ben isn’t enjoying homeschooling as much because I’m not spending enough time with him. I was so excited this year to have moved most of his homeschooling to computer-driven curricula because “he could work more independently.” In reality, it meant I could have more time for the above. Even worse . . . he is reading less, doing less hands-on, enjoying school less, and now he wants to be on the computer all the time. Computer-driven homeschooling has driven him to be as addicted to the computer as I’ve become.
And did I mention . . . my house is a mess?
It’s a sad state of affairs. So we’re making some changes:
I have already resigned from the job that caused me to spend way too much time on Facebook (the work part didn’t take that long, but I had to log in multiple times a day, and it was just too easy to stay and hang out).
We’re going back to homeschooling more with living books. I’ve already ordered and received a box of books from My Father’s World. I love that MFW uses a unit study approach with history as the theme (Ben’s favorite subject). He wants to learn more about the World Wars, so we’re doing year 5, 1850s to Modern Times. I also picked up Homeschool in the Woods Time Travelers for The Civil War and The Industrial Revolution when I was at the MidWest convention earlier this month. Lots of hands-on stuff there! We’ll begin with our new school year in July, if we can stand the wait. For the remainder of this year, we’re going to do some nature unit studies, from Shining Dawn Books, beginning with Everchanging Erosion.
Our only computer-driven course will be Teaching Textbooks. Ben has responded very well to TT, and while he still doesn’t love math, he doesn’t complain about it too much now.
I will be reducing the amount of time I spend doing reviews with the TOS Crew next year, and other review teams. I will be a contributing writer/reviewer for Christian Homeschoolers Taking a Stand, because the mission of that website is one of great importance to me and the time commitment is more than manageable.
I am hopeful that these changes will make a huge difference for us . . . especially for Ben. I know I’m looking forward to the day when the joys of setting priorities will once again become the joys of homeschooling.
