Sometimes It's Easier to Do School Than Not to Do School

“Everyone was up late and needs just a quiet day.”

“We’ve been working so hard, a day off is just what we need. “

“We missed lessons yesterday, I’m not motivated today.”

“These mild coughs could get worse if we do school.”

“Let’s just have a reading day.”

“I want to read my book … they can entertain themselves.”

“They’re playing so nicely together. I can’t interrupt THAT.”

“Do we hafta do school today?”

Do any of these sound familiar to you? They used to be all-too-familiar to me. Not only that, some of them are still tempting from time to time.

But now I know a truth: schooling consistency breeds consistency.

Listen or read more here

Sometimes it’s easier to do school than to not do school.

I get it. I look at a schedule packed with Morning Time, lessons, music lessons, soccer, parkour, co-op, and First Lego League and think a free morning is really appealing: a morning to rest, read what I want, plan, or clean (well, no, rarely that).

I want a morning where I don’t have to go anywhere or even say anything. Some music, a cup of coffee, and a stack of books. I’d be thrilled with my children around me reading their own books.

But.

That beautiful picture in my head is never the reality. Someone touches someone else. Someone is on someone else’s couch cushion. The children are more incapable of sloth than I am and must find something physical to do.

“Mommy! So-and-so …”

“Stop it!”

“That’s mine!”

“I need that one Lego.”

“That’s against the rules of the game!”

“Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells”

“SHHHHHHHHHH!” A dance party breaks out of nowhere.

And the peaceful rest is shattered.

Sometimes it’s easier to do school than to not do school.

The hard part is just getting started.

I wrote about our daily alarms before and why a scheduled routine is absolutely necessary for our school day.

Today, though, I want to fight battles with temptation. How do I make myself obey the alarm when all of the excuses are running through my head? I remind myself that:

Sometimes it’s easier to do school than to not do school.

Engaged children, learning children, children who have tasks to accomplish with structured time can be surprisingly more restful than children left to themselves. I’m not saying you have no parenting issues in the midst of a homeschool day; nor that the homeschool day is easy.

I’m saying I tend to have fewer sibling issues to sort out, different life lessons to teach, and am less frustrated and guilty at the end of the day when we just do school; when we do what we ought.

In my experience, I have found that intentionally homeschooling on the hard days means fewer hard days. I’ve learned if I don’t give in to the “let’s not” it’s easier for all of us tomorrow because the question won’t even be asked.

I’ve seen the benefits of consistency in attitude and accomplishment and would encourage you that they’re so worth doing school on the days I don’t want to. This mantra has served me well.

So, next time you’re tempted to skip a day for no real reason, remind yourself

“Sometimes it’s easier to do school than to not do school.”

For more tools like this and help with consistency in your homeschool, check out the Homeschool Consistency Bootcamp.

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Dawn

Community Manager at Your Morning Basket with Pam Barnhill

Dawn Garrett loves learning with her three children at home. Following the principles of Charlotte Mason, she and her children learn about God and His cosmos by studying the seven liberal arts in order to know Him better, imitate Him and His ways, and share about Him with others.She blogs at ladydusk and acts as Community Manager for pambarnhill.com. She is the author of I Am, I Can, I Ought, I Will: Charlotte Mason's Motto Explained for Upper Elementary Students which can be found free on her blog.

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