Don’t have… Not enough…
….TIME & MONEY….
When I get sad and despondent, it always seems to boil down to those two commodities, I just don’t have enough time to do it all, or I don’t have the money to get it done.
How do others do it? How does the home schooling mother of seven manage the household, educate all of her seven kids and do some crafting and other fun activities with them? And then have time left over to fulfil some of her own pleasures. And blog about it all?
Routine and structure. But surely that is not the only answer? There must be parents out there that, like me, lean a little bit more toward the unschooling principles rather than simply replicating a school environment, and by extension school rigidity in lesson plans and time allocations, at home? Besides, we do follow a rough routine…
Curriculum? Yes, I guess not having to scour the internet for resources, or reading books upon books on the subject at hand, and simply referring to set goals and exercises in a curriculum book would save a load of time and effort. It just does not feel like the way I want to go – again – why don’t I then just dump them off on a school? The whole idea for me is to make up the curriculum as we go along – according to the interest and the study level of the kids as they go along. Finding diverse ideas from all walks of life and angles of thought, also makes the subject matter so much more interesting. I’d think I’d miss out on too much of a good thing to blindly follow a curriculum book.
Setting boundaries and saying “No.” more often? Possibly the problem with time especially is that I seem to be spending all my time with the kids and use my wind-down time to research and plan. And all their play time I use cleaning up and doing household tasks. There must be a better balance to be achieved. Not sure how though….
Money. Money. Money. In a rich man’s world. Oh I get so frustrated when I find these wonderful hands-on projects and I must count pennies to get the basic materials for them. Yes I know we can make things, or similar things, living frugally, but sometimes, just sometimes I WANT to be able to buy the expensive decorative items, or the R4000 microscope…
So, to make more time I need to wake up earlier. No, seriously – how do you squeeze more time out? How do you squeeze more money out? How do they seem to do it. And so happily and so easily.
Please….. tell me the secret.