So you’re staring down another school year and you’re feeling overwhelmed. Maybe it’s outright overwhelm that leaves you frozen or maybe it is buried overwhelm that you’re managing well. Either way you have these children and this house and these relationships and this body all just…needing you. Throw in school and any other outside stressors, and well, that’s a lot of need.
If this is you, I empathize. I am not you this year (sob, sniff), but it’s the season where even the veteran homeschool mom has changes on her brain, so I thought I’d just tell you my own process of school year prep. Here are my pre-school year steps: take stock, prioritize, initiate changes, organize and plan, and dive in.
1. Take Stock
You are about to start a new year and you want to do it well. Start by taking stock. Identify your overwhelm (if you have it). Take an honest look at your life, your actual life, not your fantasy one. Take an honest look at your kids. Take an honest look at your house. Take an honest look inside your own heart. Take honest assessment of your own body. Be forthright with yourself: what is working, what is not? What do you have control over, what is outside of your control? What needs your attention? Assess your stress levels. Assess your significant relationships. Assess your space and your time. Assess your hopes and your dreams (are you dreaming?). Spend time here, dreaming again.
Be honest with yourself. How do things really stand? Do you process and filter stress in a healthy way or are you carrying it all in your own body, to the detriment of your own health or the health of your relationships?
If you have a spouse: is your marriage healthy? Is communication strong? Are you safe? Have you found a rhythm that works for both of you (note: it won’t look like anyone else’s). Are your other significant relationships producing life? Step back and assess your children. Are they well? Do they have needs you might have overlooked? Do those needs get met inside your method of parenting and homeschooling, or do things need to tweak? Is your curriculum working? Is your curriculum and approach serving you and your family, or is it your master? (Note: it should never be your master.) Do you need help? Do you need support? Especially if you parent alone or mostly alone: where are you worn thin?
Take stock of your actual life with its actual needs and actual joys and actual lacks and actual abundance; be honest.
2. Prioritize (begin to make a plan)
Looking at your situation as it actually stands, sketch out where you want to go and prioritize what you need to address.
What is your goal for this year? What is your goal for the first month? What is your goal for the first week? Are there things you need to accomplish now in order to make those things happen? Are there things you need to attend in order to let those goals have your full attention?
What is most important in the short term, and can you knock it out first? Maybe you need to buy that supplement, or eliminate that substance, or cancel that subscription, or have that conversation, or let go of last year’s unfinished schooling, or organize those bins of clothes, or take a long weekend with your husband. Do it, and get the ball rolling.
Second, what is most important in the long term? Do you need to bite the bullet and switch math programs once and for all? Do you need to take a week to focus on organizing your school space so you can truly set yourself up for success? Do you need to get into marriage counseling? Do you need to get into personal counseling and deal with those things that always are there but that you don’t make space to address? Do you need to focus on some habit training for yourself and/or your children – attitudes, housekeeping, chores, putting books back on the shelf when finished, wiping the counter when done, whatever. What needs to be put first that you’ve been putting last? What needs to be put last that you’ve been putting first?
3. Make Changes
Make healthy changes where needed. Knock out the simple things first, or the big monster ones, whatever is going to set you up for freedom, joy, success. Buy the thing. Sell the thing. Quit the thing. Start the thing. Release, hold on, pray, rearrange, clean, organize, schedule. Set that child free. Draw that child closer. Release your expectations. Let go of your pet dreams. Open yourself for a fresh perspective, ask for God’s vision, and make the changes you need to make.
Do you need more margin in your days? Create it. Does your home need decluttered? Do it. Does your diet need changed? Change it. Does a conversation need to be had with a spouse or relative or friend? Have it. Do you need to shower at a different time of day? Do it. Do your children need more structure? Make it. Do you need to stop thinking about all the things and actually rest? Start today – do whatever it takes to learn to pause and just BE. Do you need to heal? Open to the journey. Do you need to learn better boundaries? You’ve got what it takes, begin learning now. Be brutal with yourself and your loves (your pet pastimes, habits, sins, whatever.). Keep the good, discard the bad, to help make the changes that need made. Be gentle with yourself also, merciful as your Heavenly Father is merciful. You can’t do it all. You won’t even do most of it. But you can do well and a single change can have a domino affect, a single choice can usher in fresh life.
4. Organize and Plan (for real)
Maybe for you organizing was a part of making changes or prioritizing, and you’ve already conquered this step. But if not, this is where you can get deliberate in forward movement. This is where the plans truly get formed. This is where to the best of your ability you get your life and brain organized. At this point I used to make weekly school schedules/charts (see ours here), buy books, build a master binder and fill in a planner. You can figure out the school space if you haven’t already. You might menu plan, or mark the calendar with all your school breaks, or schedule out the yearly medical appointments, or pre-read those books. This is where all the mental work starts to produce product, and it is pre-curser to starting the school year on the right foot. It doesn’t have to be perfect (it never will be), and it’s best if things are malleable and able to be changed. But the sense of confidence and vision that comes from organizing and/or planning your school year cannot be overstated.
I once shared part of my scheduling system here and here and here.
5. Dive In
Don’t wait until it’s perfect. Roll with the punches life throws. You have your kids and whatever resources God has given you, so get creative and just dive in. It’s going to be ok. It might even be absolutely wonderful – I hope it is.
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Two notes:
- Live with the tension. Hold all of this with an open hand. Some of the needs that surface as you think through these steps are tensions you will have to live with. Know that God will live with you in them. Some of these needs are tensions you need to address, and God will be with you as you do. Some of the areas you recognize will take Divine Creativity to navigate. Some will take Divine Mercy to carry. Some will take Divine Strength to address. Some will take Divine Help to let go or overcome. Live with the tension of both-and. May you be at peace with the process, and engage it with your whole heart. May you find the Help in your time of need. Don’t shirk, but don’t fret, either.
- Get help where and when you need it. Please. Identify the burdens that are too big to bear or areas that are “off” or unhealthy. If there is one, or if there are some, please ignore them no longer. If there is a load you cannot carry, or if your own health is compromised (physical, mental, spiritual, emotional) – GET HELP. It doesn’t matter if it’s finding someone to help you declutter a bookshelf or throwing yourself into professional counseling, whatever the need is, get help and get it now. If the help cannot come from the tools and wisdom God has already given you, then find it outside of your current paradigm. Seek, knock, find. Do not let these things ferment and build. Glorious changes await!
The post To The Homeschooling Mom: Facing Overwhelm? Start The Year Off Strong appeared first on Harmony Moore.
