The Secret to Consistency: Honoring Your Homeschool Hours

Pam Barnhill [00:00:01]
Are you ready for homeschooling to feel joyful again? Do you long for support as you learn alongside your kids? Welcome to Homeschool Better Together, a podcast about building a homeschool experience that works for your family. I’m Pam Barnhill and it’s time to step out of the overwhelm and into the wonder. Let’s do this. Today, I’m gonna talk to you about one subtle mindset shift that you can make that is going to make a world of difference in your homeschool. And I’ve actually got a bonus tip for you. So be sure to stick around to the end to hear what the bonus tip is. So we’ve been talking a little bit about consistency. And last week we were talking all about how perfectionism can be the thing that destroys your consistency.

Pam Barnhill [00:00:52]:
So often we think our consistency problems might be rooted a little bit in maybe laziness or something like that, but really our consistency problems lie in perfectionism. And so you’re going to want to check out that episode if you haven’t already. This week, I want to talk about something a little bit different. We are gearing up for our homeschool consistency bootcamp around here. We’re gonna open the doors to that one on October 15, 2024. Now, if you’re watching this later, never fear. We run the consistency bootcamp a couple times a year. So if you come to pambarnehill.com/consistency, you can get on the wait list for the next time we run it.

Pam Barnhill [00:01:30]:
If you’re like, hey, this is a problem that I have. So we’re getting ready for the October 2024 run, and there are so many great kind of tips and tricks and hacks and little habit building things that we give you to do in the bootcamp to really help you do school more consistently. But at the heart of it, other than the tips and the accountability, which is also a big part of the boot camp, at the heart of the boot camp, it is all about making some fundamental mindset shifts in your brain to help you homeschool more consistently. And I’m going to share one, possibly you could even say 2 of those with you today. These are big guys. So just kind of hold on to your hat. Here’s what I want to say to you. The key, I think perhaps the biggest key to homeschooling more consistently in your homeschool is to do something we call honoring your school day.

Pam Barnhill [00:02:40]:
And all this means very simply is you look at your calendar at the beginning of the week and you go ahead and carve out time each and every day that you are labeling as your school day. And then you honor that. You honor that like you would honor a spouse or like you would honor your mother and father, or like you would honor your relationship with your children. You honor that by not infringing upon it, not stealing from it, not taking from it, by making that the most important priority in each and every day. Now you could do this in a couple of ways. I will tell you though, this is is the biggest shift that you can make when you start saying, you know what? This is the most important part of my day. This is more important than cleaning the floors. This is more important than doing the load of laundry.

Pam Barnhill [00:03:34]:
This is more important than getting dinner on the table. Yeah, I went there and said that. This is more important than calling the contractor. Now we do have a backup plan. It is not more important than grandma falling and breaking her hip and you having to like, you know, accompany her to the hospital. And there is a backup plan for when that kinds of things happens. And sometimes there’s just an emergency. But if we are really honest with ourselves, how often is a true emergency the thing that stops us from doing our homeschool day? It’s not very often.

Pam Barnhill [00:04:10]:
Most of the time, it’s not even a small emergency that keeps us from doing our homeschool day. It is our own lack of consistency and lack of honoring this school day that’s ahead of us. So let me just pause in this spot right here, because this is a place where people sometimes get a little bit bent out of shape about this whole idea of, what do you mean things aren’t more important than home schooling? There’s a million things out there that are more important than home schooling. And you know what? You’re absolutely right. But that million things, those were not the little things that were happening to me every day that were causing me not to home school. And once I got really honest with myself about the things that were stopping me from homeschooling on a consistent basis, I realized that it was not all those emergencies that were happening. There were other things going on. There were little things that did not have to take over my school day that were taking over my school day.

Pam Barnhill [00:05:09]:
There were thoughts in my head that were keeping me from doing school that were really not emergencies at all. So if immediately your first thought is, yeah. No, no, no. There are real emergencies. You’re right. There are. But I’m gonna push back. I’m gonna ask you, are real emergencies the things that are really keeping you from being consistent in your homeschool? All right.

Pam Barnhill [00:05:34]:
So now that we kind of got that off the table, let’s talk about this concept of honoring your school day. And you can do this. I really kind of do it long haul. I kind of look at the hours in my day and say, you know what? Between the hours of 10 and 2, I am going to be available to my children. Now, I have 2 teenage boys. They do tutoring. They take online classes. There are all of these things that they’re involved with.

Pam Barnhill [00:06:00]:
They need my help with a couple of subjects a day, and they need my help with morning time because, I mean, we do morning time. Right? That’s really what they need me for. So if you have more kids, if you have younger kids, if you have kids who are less involved with online classes and you’re teaching more of those classes, if you do a longer morning time, you may be needed for a longer part of your day, and you get to determine that. And you can decide ahead of time, like over the course of this month, these are the hours that we’re doing school over the course of this semester, over the course of this school year. These are the hours that we’re doing school. Or you can be a little more flexible with it. You could actually decide for the week. These are the hours that I’m available this week, and I am setting aside time that my number one priority is homeschooling.

Pam Barnhill [00:06:50]:
Or you could even do it on a day by day basis. You can look at your schedule for the next day, and you could say, you know what? We got some different things going on right now. And so these are the hours tomorrow that I am going to be available for homeschooling, that I am going to be 100% focused, and this is going to be my priority. And it can actually fluctuate through the day. And you can decide ahead of time, like, even just the day before what those hours are. So even though I’m saying set aside time to honor as your school day, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to set these times in stone forever and ever. Amen. You can determine just a day ahead of time.

Pam Barnhill [00:07:32]:
But that little mindset shift of saying, you know what? This is the time. I’m not gonna do laundry. I’m not gonna put away groceries. I am not going to try to clean out the closet or mop the floor or schedule doctor’s appointments or anything like that, then your school day will be much better. Trust me on this one. I know this from experience. If you are struggling with consistency in your homeschool, if you are struggling with getting everything done, just try this one little thing. Okay.

Pam Barnhill [00:08:04]:
So I brought up a couple of things, which might be a little shocking or disheartening to you. And that is the fact that, yes, honoring your school day means not multitasking. And this is kind of my bonus tip for you. Stop trying to multitask during your school day. Now, I know what some of you are gonna say. Hey, Pam, I multitask fine. My kids are independent. They do their own thing.

Pam Barnhill [00:08:29]:
Great. If that is working for you, and if it is not a problem for you, you will know that. You will be aware of that. And you’ll be like, hey, yeah, this is not a problem for me. If you are beating yourself up over the fact that you feel like I’m not getting far enough along, like as far as I want to be, I don’t feel like my kids are picking up on certain skills because we’re kind of hit or miss with some things, or I’m just not feeling like we’re getting enough schooling done. Then this is a place where you might want to look, and you might want to just stop doing the multitasking. And so what this means is for that 3 hours a day and I just wanna reiterate, if your oldest is 6, homeschooling about an hour and a half each day. And research shows that about 90 minutes of instruction is what they really do in a school each day.

Pam Barnhill [00:09:18]:
Kids who are going to school 7 and a half hours a day get about 90 minutes of direct instruction. And the rest of that is independent practice, busy work, all the, administrative work, moving around in the school, discipline, all of that stuff, 90 minutes of direct instruction, which is what you are giving your 6 year old each day. So I just wanted to bring that up and reiterate that. And it’s really not that much longer for a 7, 8, 9, 10 year old. And by that time, they’re getting more independent and they’re needing you less. And you have a little more free time in your day anyway. So I just wanted to bring that up. But during that window of time, then what you are doing is 100% focusing on your child and being available to them.

Pam Barnhill [00:10:04]:
So this does not mean, oh, and it just pains me to say it because people hate to hear it. Giving a 5th grader a math assignment with long division and then walking away to unload the dishwasher and, you know, put dinner in the crock pot. And then you walk back 20 minutes later, and they’ve done maybe one problem, maybe half of one problem. And they’re flopping all over the place. They’re staring out the window, and you’re getting frustrated because they’re not doing their work. There are some things that your child needs you at elbow for. They need somebody’s attention on them. They need somebody sitting there with them.

Pam Barnhill [00:10:45]:
Sometimes it’s to answer small questions that are coming up. Sometimes it is just to have somebody else present. It just makes the work go faster. This is frustrating for moms. Like, they should be able to do this, but I don’t know what makes us think that they should necessarily be able to do this really hard, difficult thing by themselves. All I know is it goes a lot easier if I’m sitting there crocheting, knitting, reading a book, something like that. And then I’m available to answer questions for them. I can see when their attention begins to wonder.

Pam Barnhill [00:11:25]:
When they’re little, I cut the lesson shorter to help build their attention span out, and I don’t let their mind wonder. But, you know, it’s, like, good for me to be there. And so I just put everything else aside. I sit, and I do the school. And that way, the math lesson really does take 40 minutes for a 5th grader, you know, 30 minutes for a 5th grader, something in that area, depending on your child and the amount of attention span that you’ve built up over the years instead of it taking 4 hours. Because I know you guys have experience with this. And if you haven’t, you probably will, where it’s, like, taking 4 hours to do a math lesson. And honestly, at that point, you really just have to let it go.

Pam Barnhill [00:12:10]:
They’re not learning. You’re just frustrated. It’s just not good at all. So sit there with them, sit there with them and be present with them. Sometimes you can piddle about the room. Sometimes you can run away and do like switch a load of laundry and come back or something like that. But for the most part, during those school hours, honor that time with them. And we can talk more about the habit of attention and building that up.

Pam Barnhill [00:12:36]:
That’s kind of like a whole different subject. But being available to your child, being there ready for that school day, that is so important. And yes, it does sometimes mean that fewer things are going to get done. I saw a meme on Facebook just last week. It’s like, oh, you mean you expect me to have a clean house and homeschool? And I don’t know. The third one was like, you know, workout or something like that. And no, you can maybe do 2. You can maybe do 2 things.

Pam Barnhill [00:13:06]:
So you can like get dinner on the table and homeschool really well that day if you’re cooking a nicer dinner. Or, you know, you might be able to homeschool and clean out the closet, but you’re probably gonna have pizza or something really quick and easy for dinner. Pick 2 at any given time that you’re going to do and do fairly well for the day. And if you’re a homeschooling mom, 5 days a week, 4 days a week, whatever your homeschool schedule is, homeschool needs to be one of those things. And so you only get to pick one other thing. And honor that school day, making that mindset shift about, hey, I get 2 things today. This is one of those things. So I’ve got one other slot of something to do fairly well, not just maintenance, keeping on track, not just making sure people eat something, you know, like, really well.

Pam Barnhill [00:14:02]:
So this is at my house, this is the difference between, like, making chili for dinner and just pouring a bunch of things in the pot, and actually, like, making a meal where like a chicken pot pie, where I make a roux or something like that. I do not do that every day of the week. Right? I save that for those days where I don’t have a lot of other stuff going on besides the homeschooling on the days where I’ve got something else that needs to be done. Maybe we’ve got some doctor’s appointments we’ve got to get to or something like that. Then I open the cans and pour in the stuff and make the chili super fast. So it’s not like you’re not feeding your family or it’s not like you’re never cleaning your house or anything like that. It’s just like you’ve got to prioritize. And one of those priorities is the homeschool day.

Pam Barnhill [00:14:48]:
And that’s what I mean by honoring your homeschool. Hopefully, I didn’t ramble too much there and really got the point across. Choose your hours. Honor your hours. Honor that school day. Don’t try to multitask. And if you have struggled with things not going well in your homeschool, things not feeling well, things being off, and attitudes are bad. And when I say attitudes are bad, I’m not just talking about your kids’ attitude.

Pam Barnhill [00:15:19]:
Sometimes it’s my attitude that’s bad. You know, all of those things, then trying not multitasking, I find a lot of times really, really makes that better. Okay. So that is it. Hopefully, something here was really, really helpful to you, and I will see you next week. That’s our show for today. Be sure to follow, subscribe, and leave a review so you never miss out on the wonder of homeschooling better together. To stay connected and learn even more about the homeschooling better together resources and to join our free community, visit hsbtpodcast.com.

Pam Barnhill [00:16:03]:
Until next week, keep stepping out of the overwhelm and into the wonder.