homeschooling is one thing, homeschooling with toddlers or a feeding schedule of a newborn or both is quite another, adapting strategies for how you will approach homeschooling with toddlers or babies is essential to maintain consistent homeschooling.
I have been homeschooling for 6 years, and I have had 3 babies during that time, and now have 6 children in total, I have had the crawler, the preschooler and the breastfeeder all at once, and I have tried to maintain homeschooling consistently throughout.
What you need to acknowledge first and foremost, is what you are capable of, for a shorter season.
when you are in a season of change, which usually brings about a chaotic feel, such as toddlers who change the school time dynamic, newborns who don’t sleep through the night and have a feeding schedule, as well as children of different ages at the school table, you need to make short term plans.
when you are homeschooling with toddlers, I find it more efficient to plan 3 months at a time, it means I can place my efforts where I perhaps lacked in the previous months, I can swap out something, or simply look back with regulatory and be sure I am spending time where I need to be and my systems are working.
Short-term planning looks like this.
- What will my life look like for the next three months?
- what is most important for me to achieve daily to thrive during this season?
- What are the two most important things my children need from me regarding homeschooling?
- how can I sustain the two above things?
When planning your homeschooling it is IMPORTANT to account for your life season.
the questions in the list above are more lifestyle-based than strictly homeschooling-based, and that is because all the homeschool planning in the world can’t help if you aren’t pursuing a thriving lifestyle first.
lifestyle is the root system that holds the tree in strong wind, when you have a thriving lifestyle, where you can include your children in learning throughout the day then that is what will give you the most opportunity to teach consistently.
a thriving lifestyle means, your home doesn’t make you feel overwhelmed, meals are cooked daily, the house is tidy, and you have the bandwidth to talk to your children, and teach them to cook, or how to tidy a room, you can read to them, and you aren’t anxious, overwhelmed and irritable.
When you are not thriving, the whole family pays, and so will your homeschooling, that is why it is important to either, understand that at a certain season, you need to take a break from schooling, or seriously minimize it,(newborn season, sickness, stress) or you need to invest in your lifestyle so you can thrive as a homeschooler.
5 steps to Overcome Overwhelm in Motherhood
Homeschooling fits in your life, not the other way around, and so it is important to create a homeschool plan that you can adapt to in the current season.
As a mum to a large family filled with young children, I quickly concluded a few years ago, that I couldn’t achieve a whole lot homeschool-wise daily, so I adopted the term minimalist homeschooling.
I had to choose to do less, which not only helped me to thrive as a busy mum, but I realised when I had the bandwidth for other things every day, I could include my kids in those things, such as cleaning, gardening, cooking and outings, and teach them those life skills.
when we are feeling overwhelmed, often it is because we have taken on too much, and it rarely benefits us or our children.
don’t be afraid to scale back to the necessities during harder seasons.
Child training toddlers.
Now first, I have a child training series, and if you are after a much more in-depth look into child training for all ages, click the link below and join the email series.
Join the child training series here
If you want to have consistent and chaos-free homeschool time, with a toddler then you need to train that toddler for school time.
you need to teach them to either partake and listen while drawing or playing with clay or playdough quietly or you need to have a place for them to play quietly, and you need to communicate with them that that is where they will stay.
It is 100% possible to teach a toddler how to act during school time, and I have had times when it wasn’t safe for them to play outside alone, and no other children to help me with them.
Child training for homeschooling toddlers takes consistency, not allowing them to be distracting, giving them clear guidelines on what behaviour is tolerated, and setting a timer.
timers help them to understand that this code of behaviour which is hard for them to keep up, is not forever, that it is going to pass. Offer a lot of praise and encouragement when they do well, and discipline consistently when they misbehave.
If you are schooling for multiple hours each day, then you are going to have trouble doing this, for the entire time.
I schooled for about 60-90 minutes a day, and still do, and during that time, when I am fully dedicated to the older children and their school work (group lessons, reading and so on), my toddler understands that school time is happening, and what she can do.
I want to note, that not all my children’s schoolwork is done (my older boys) during this time, but the schoolwork they can do without my help is done alone.
things you can do to train a toddler.
- keep a mat or blanket with toys on it, and have them sit and play for 20 minutes quietly, up the time as they get better. (it helps to switch up the toys too)
- have an area they can stay in that is away from your school area, (safe outside, in a room, or even in a cot with toys)
- have them take part in some schooling if they want to, with colouring, drawing and stacking blocks, or using playdough.(if you make the homemade stuff, it’s salty taste will deter them from eating it) they need to be told that they are to be quiet and not climb about.
- if they are crying, refuse to listen, refuse to stop climbing on chairs, pulling on books, and are nagging for attention, put them to bed for the duration of school time. (obviously, check their needs first!)
whenever I have a toddler who is crying at my side, won’t play quietly, demands my attention and disrupts the school hour, I place them in their cot, this does not happen every day, and I find it is a great training tactic, to teach them that it is better to just play during schooltime, then cry to get your way.
Set up short one-on-one appointments
If training a toddler seems impossible to you, or you have a baby that seems to need attention every time you sit to start school, then a way to save your homeschooling and your sanity is to homeschool for short times during the day.
setting an alarm or simply having a basket ready with a student’s books so that when you realise you have a moment you can sit and get some school done, one on one, with a child under the age of 10, 20-30 minutes is plenty of time.
if you are breastfeeding, use the time when you are stuck sitting, to do a reading lesson with a child, read aloud, sit and do some maths, or read out spelling words for a test.
Adapting to what you can accomplish is crucial for consistency. and like the list at the top of this blog post, plan for what you can do, not what you think you should do.
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