If you're looking for the blog belonging to Mary Hood, author of "The Relaxed Home School", please visit The Relaxed Homeschooler. Their website is Archers for the Lord.

Friday, November 14, 2008

The Importance of Staying at Home

One thing I have found to be of the utmost importance in maintaining a relaxed homeschooling atmosphere, is keeping our schedules as open as possible. Nothing stresses me out more than the pressure to be getting ready and going somewhere all the time.

As much as possible, we stay home. I believe that the simplicity of this is overlooked. Children and mommies alike need lots of time and room to, well, RELAX! And if we are driven by our outside activities, relaxation often turns to frustration.

We were very fortunate to find a piano teacher that even comes to our home to give lessons. Otherwise, we have never had music lessons away from home until this year. We started violin, but as a compromise, I asked our teacher if we could do lessons twice a month instead of every week. Two lessons less a month is a big help.

If you find yourself stressed from outside activities (or little ones who seem frustrated), maybe a schedule overhaul is in order!


6 comments:

Kim M. said...

I sooooo agree with you on this! My BUSY peers do not seem to understand this but it is a treasure to me. :-)

I am considering video music curriculum sometime for my kids. I have some music background myself so that helps.

Anonymous said...

Kelly, you are so right! We also do music lessons twice a month. We have gone from weekly, to twice a month, to weekly and back again! We also give lessons and last year we also went to twice a month for that same reason--makes for a bit more peace, especially on the "off-weeks"!

Music has been a big part of our lives, so we made the decision to do the lessons, but I tried to make that the ONLY day we were out of the home (combined violin and cello lessons the same day as well as shopping--made it crazy but it was nice to only be once a week! ;)

One reason my dc didn't have piano lessons younger was that I couldn't find a piano teacher that was flexible with our schedule--but now we have two! One dd pays for her own and the teacher comes here, the other goes to the teacher but again, it's on our regular shopping day!

Sorry so long--but I wanted to share that yes--when it's right for your family, it WILL work out (even if a dd has to wait several years to get a good piano teacher who has ended up being *perfect* for her! :)

Blessings!

Trisch

Anonymous said...

Oh!!! Are you Bria's mom???? I got to your blogs through her, then I realized it. I am not homeschooled, though I still like going to school. That is how I meat all my friends.

Like your blog,
Lauren Ann

Unknown said...

This is so true! I love being at home with my children. But I admit, even though we homeschool I tend to get stuck in the old classroom mentality. How do I break out of that?

Word Warrior said...

Tammy,

The best way for me is to refresh my thinking by reading some great articles or books on the subject of relaxed learning. It reminds me to relax again and trust the natural curve of learning.

really.truly said...

I know this is an old post...and you may not get this comment, but I LOVED this post. We love staying home. Making our home a cozy, fun learning environment has been a goal of mine. Thanks for this.