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stress

Homeschooling Stress: Avoiding Burnout

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

Homeschooling stress is very real. There are many elements for parents to stress over. The key is to avoid burnout. You can stress through a period of time, but you can’t stress long or you are going to burn out. Finding homeschool help is a big way to avoid stress, whether it is help from family and friends, or a supportive homeschool group online.

Homeschooling Stress_ avoiding burnout

This post contains affiliate links, see my disclosure policy for more information.

Homeschooling Stress: What’s stressful about homeschooling?

EVERYTHING! Everything about homeschooling can be stressful. The stress starts from the beginning, from that moment you sit there wondering if homeschooling is right for your family.

Now you are stressing over choosing curriculum. There are so many to look through, and try to make the “right decision”.

The curriculum has been chosen, you have to plan how to get through it, or if you are lucky, you have chosen one that the planning done for you. This will save you a lot of stress.

Symptoms of Burnout:

  • Feeling tired and drained most of the time
  • Lowered immunity, frequent illnesses
  • Frequent headaches or muscle pain
  • Change in appetite or sleep habits
What Can You Do to Avoid Burnout - mom on bed - stress of homeschooling

What Can You Do to Avoid Burnout?

Sometimes, you have to step back from the curriculum, and from homeschooling. If you feel yourself getting to the point of burnout you need stop and figure out what is causing your stress.

You need to cut that, whatever it is that is causing you to be stressed and is pushing you to burnout. It could be as simple as too much curriculum work and not enough fun.

For me, there are some key times that I get close to burn out: August with the planning, February/March where I can see how much we many lessons we have finished, and how many lessons are left to “finish” along with how much time we have left of the year.

*I used quotes around finish, because we do not have to finished every lesson, and sometimes it is better for everyone to stop early.

Ways to reduce stress and burnout:

If you are feeling burnt out over the number of lessons to finish – it is okay to stop early, or to pick and choose what lessons you feel are more important.

If the curriculum is not working for your kids (or you) – find something different. Yes, it may have cost you to buy it, but health is more important. Maybe you can sell it to another homeschool family.

Too many extra-curricular activities – I have seen families burn out a lot over this one. Too many activities, too much driving here and there, too much trying to make everyone’s schedules work together.

You might want to have your child pick one activity to stick with instead. Only give them the option of ones that work for your schedule easily.

Do something you love! Go for a walk or run, grab that adult coloring book, read a new book. Do something that makes you happy, and helps you to relax. Make time for it, even if it is just 5 minutes a day.

Go to bed earlier – this makes a huge different for me. Turn the TV off, put the cellphone down, and go to bed, go to sleep a little earlier.

I love and hate the quote “You can’t pour from an empty cup”, but it’s true. You cannot take care of your family, if you are burnout.

Recommended Products for Relieving Stress

Similar posts you may be interested in:

How to Make Homeschooling Exciting

Deciding to Homeschool. Now What?

Doing School at Home

Filed Under: Homeschool, Homeschool Helps Tagged With: homeschooling, stress

How Homeschool can be Less Stressful than School

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

We did one year of public school, and that was enough for now. I’m more relaxed with my kids here at home and my being in control of their education and their overall care and wellbeing. Not worrying about how they are being treated by peers or the adults in charge. I am finding homeschool less stressful than sending my kid to public school.

is homeschooling less stressful_

How Homeschool can be Less Stressful than Public School

*This post contains affiliate links, see my disclosure policy for more information.*

One of the things I find less stressful about homeschooling compared to public school would be that I don’t have to go out in the freezing cold winter weather. -30C is no laughing matter at 8am.

Sometimes it just isn’t less stressful, you know, when you are pulling out your hair worried that you’re not doing enough each year, or any one of the other thousand worries.

Have fun, learn along with your kids, and enjoy homeschooling your kids.

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Time Management and More Sleep

The biggest most stressful thing about spending my daughter to school was having to have my eye on the clock:

  • Getting up on time
  • Getting to the bus stop on time
  • Being at the bus stop after school
  • Making sure that you’ll going to be home from any errands in time for the afternoon bus

With Homeschooling: No more rushing out the door in the morning before we’ve had a chance to really wake up, no more looking for lost homework or shoes. Kids can get all the sleep that their growing bodies need.

Sleep Fact:

  • A new study concludes that almost half of children in the United States don’t get the recommended 9 hours of sleep.
  • Experts say a lack of sleep can affect schoolwork and produce long-term health effects, such as obesity.

Homeschool Binder Pages Organization

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School Rules

Thankfully we didn’t have any foods that weren’t allowed so peanut butter sandwiches were allowed to be packed in her lunch but guess what? She didn’t want them. She wanted meals, real food, even leftovers were welcome, but only once a week because that’s all they had access to the microwave.

We don’t actually have a microwave either but we have a stove and oven to reheat great tasting leftovers or other food choices. And if we decided to have an unhealthy lunch once in awhile we can. Plus, my kids can learn how to cook their own meals.

Flip flops? Not allowed at public school, but we live in our flip flops here.

How to Choose Recipes for Your Kids

We’re Not Sick

We are hardly ever sick! There were some really bad cold and flu viruses going around this year, bad enough that extra curricular activities were being cancelled. We escaped it all! Thank you homeschooling!

We’re still out and about, a lot with other kids, and do get sick, we’re not staying completely germfree but we aren’t getting sick every week and missing learning time that can’t be made up.

When we are sick, we can still learn, we can watch documentaries, and do other things that keep the learning going.

Alphabet Letter of the Week

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No Homework or Tests

Technically there is no homework because all work is done at home, but at least I know what the work is, what they are supposed to do, and hopefully how to do it. Or at least I know why they are learning it and I can learn along with them.

It all gets done during “school” time and not during a limited family time when their dad is home from work.

We’re still early elementary so no tests here. We are learning through everyday practice of skills and life learning.

5 Ways Homeschooling can be Less Stressful

A Lack of Bullying is Less Stressful

I don’t have to worry about my kids getting bullied. Need I say more?

My kids are mean to each other sometimes and hit one another, but at the end of the day, they will fight for one another and love each other. That is what siblings do.

Is Homeschooling Less Stressful?

Homeschooling can be a lot more stressful than public school I know, but I find it less stressful because I am not trying to keep up with the public school. It’s about choosing what is right for your family and making it less stressful.

We do our own curriculum, our own reading, and we are not trying to recreate school at home. You can chose to take a break and decompress, and avoid burnout.

Homeschool is about making a choice, and part of that is stressing less:

  • no worrying about homework
  • no worrying about bullying
  • no packing lunch
  • no missing the bus

Similar posts that you may be interested in:

Why We Love Homeschooling Compared to Public School

 30 Reasons to Love Homeschooling over Public School

Thinking Tree Books in Our Homeschool

Filed Under: Homeschool, Natural Homeschooling Tagged With: homeschooling, Public School, stress

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A Little About Me

I'm Ashley, a Canadian secular homeschool mom of 3, living in Nova Scotia.

I share our adventures in homeschooling and parenting.

You can usually find us at the library surrounded by books.
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