Burnout: Homeschool Edition

There is a special kind of hell in homeschooling that doesn't seem to get talked about much. I'm not sure if it's because we just don't really talk about struggles in general or if it's because so many of us struggle with talking vulnerably about our experiences as homeschoolers due to the reactions we get. Mine is absolutely the latter because I very often get the response, "Well, you chose this..."

Um... yeah...but you chose your job and get to vent about that, right? Right?!? So do I get to be snarky back instead of giving you support? In the words of my sixteen-year-old...BRUH.

So we're gonna talk about it.

Burnout

According to the World Health Organization, "Burn-out is defined in ICD-11 as follows:

Burn-out is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterized by three dimensions:

• feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion

• increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job

• reduced professional efficacy.

Burn-out refers specifically to phenomena in the occupational context and should not be applied to describe experiences in other areas of life.”

If you are homeschooling well, it is a full-time job. Even unschooling, which is a hot topic of debate in the community, requires organization, planning, gathering of supplies, ensuring lessons are absorbed...I could talk about the prep work for days. But you already know that, because you are living it. Every. Single. Day.

It is exhausting. And it doesn't matter how much you love it; there are still times you find yourself in this state of burnout. So what do you do about it?

Take a Break

That is always step one. But when you are the determining factor in your child's success in the educational department, that is WAY easier said than done. It can be really difficult to actually get the space you need to take said break. School can't always stop when we need it to.

Here's the good news: Your child is not magically going to lose everything you've taught them if you take a week or two off. The superpowers that we have as homeschoolers is that learning is literally a 24/7 thing, even if you aren't doing structured curriculum.

Now for the bad news: What do you do when a week isn't long enough? What if you don't have the time or space to actually rest in the way you need to rest in order to step out of the burnout? Because it is not an overnight thing. Studies show that it can take anywhere from four weeks to three years depending on the severity. That's a daunting thing to think about. Add in some Autisum/ADHD....oh lordy....we are in for it! 😂 (I am AuDHD, and all four of my children fall into these neurodivergence categories, so I get it.)

For mild burnout, a couple of weeks off is usually pretty good to help you get yourself into a better headspace. But what you do during that break matters. You can't use that time to catch up on housework or run a bunch of errands every day or fill your space with a mile-long to-do list. That isn't a break. That is exchanging one high-demand job for another. This is a time to focus on joy, refilling your cup, and doing things that will make you feel better. HAVE FUN!

Once that break is up, it's time to look at revamping your routine.

What got you there in the first place?

Homeschooling does not equal public school

Homeschooling is not meant to mimic public school. I will admit that classroom management techniques are freaking awesome at home, though. Typical guidelines for a structured curriculum in the homeschool setting goes a little something like this:

A typical rule of thumb to follow to help determine what teaching time looks like is one minute per the kiddos' age per subject. Does that mean you are only spending 5 minutes on math with your kindergarten-aged kiddo? No. That means you don't talk to them without engaging them in some other way for more than five or six minutes at a time. They need to be engaged, which is why learning through play and helping Mom is such a great way of teaching during the younger years.

As homeschoolers, we do not need to try to spend 7 hours every day in structured teaching. There's just no need for it. One-on-one instruction time allows parents and kiddos to move through curriculum a lot faster than working with a classroom of 25 kiddos. You also do not have to adhere to the same timeline that is set out for those 25 kiddos, either. Once your kid masters something, move on! You do not have to get locked into doing another 15 worksheets if he/she clearly has a concept down.

Another little tidbit to keep in mind is that a typical school year has a 200-day calendar with 180 of those days being instructional. That means they are teaching for half of the calendar year. HALF. You can do school 3 days a week and hit 156 instructional days a year. Or, you can go five days a week for six weeks and then take an entire week off, and you will still be doing more instructional days than the school system.

But most homeschoolers have integrated learning into their lives so intensely that every single day, 7 days a week, 365 days per year, education is happening....

(Side note: I understand that this is not the case for some homeschoolers. Educational neglect DOES exist far more than it should in the homeschool community. But we are not talking about those folks in this blog. We are talking about the ones who are doing SO MUCH that they are burned out.)

...Conversations are forever happening. Cooking together is just a part of daily life. Reading together and independently is an everyday thing. So even on days when structured curriculum doesn't happen, intentional learning still exists.

So that is step one of figuring out what led to the burnout. Are you simply trying to do too much?

Planning Matters

The second piece to figuring out where the burnout could possibly be coming from is: how well are you planning? And I don't mean we are going to do XYZ on Thursday. Most of us do something along those lines. I'm talking about: when do you buy supplies? How far in advance are you planning things, even if vaguely, so that you know what spines to purchase or extra materials that are needed? Are you planning breaks? Are you getting out of the house? Are you getting out of the house too much?

I think you get the picture. Planning and working within a schedule are a HUGE contributing factor to ensuring that you are working within not just your capacity, but your kiddos'. And when those two don't line up, do you have a backup plan that allows you to pivot without added stress?

Perfect example: as I was working on writing this (because let's be real, it's probably one of the longest blogs I've ever written), we had the week from hell with school. Monday, I was plagued with a migraine. We watched a documentary on regenerative farming. Tuesday, I had quite the experience that shifted course for the entire day, and I was in migraine hangover. They did PBS Kids on the tablet. Wednesday, we were all exhausted but had capacity for flashcards and then snuggled up in bed and read for almost two hours together. A beautiful historical fiction called "How I Became a Ghost" by Tim Tingle. Thursday, we hung out with friends, and on Friday we cleaned and rested.

Not a typical school week for us. But because of excellent planning and thinking about what it looks like when those weeks eventually do happen, having predetermined backup plans in place really makes a difference.

Organization

People get cranky with me when I talk about this one. What does your house look like? And I don't mean, is it a 4-bedroom, 2-bath with a terrace? What crumbs scrunch beneath your feet while you're trying to make breakfast? How many dishes did you have to do before you could make lunch? How many times did you have to get up and go search for something you needed in the middle of a lesson and then couldn't find it because it's "home" is five books deep in a pile of 15 that is about to fall over because it's supported by the dying houseplant?

This is arguably one of the biggest pieces of the puzzle. Every single time your lesson is interrupted, you have to refocus not just yourself but your kiddo. If that interruption is 2 seconds because you can turn around and grab the pencil sitting right behind you without skipping a beat in what is being said, it's not even a blip on the radar. If you have to look through five different drawers to find one, it isn't going to be an unnoticed blip. By the time you get back, your kiddo has probably run off because who wants to sit around and wait for Mom when you don't actually have any idea when she will be back. It becomes a mess.

If that is how your entire day is structured, you are using spoons you don't need to.

Neuro-differences

I am listing this as neuro-differences because not every kiddo that has special needs is in the Autism or ADHD category. For some kiddos, it's severe depression. For others, it's anxiety and OCD. Maybe you are having to unschool for a hot minute because your kiddo came out of a really bad situation in public school, and their mental health matters more right now. All of these things impact the homeschool journey in pretty radical ways.

In these situations, you aren't just homeschooling. You are learning how to work specifically with your kids' unique system and make learning fun for them. You are attending to needs that should have a team of people attending to the needs all the time and likely don't. The support just doesn't always exist to the extent we need it to.

You are allowed to give yourself grace. I know you're already giving it to your kiddo because if you weren't, you wouldn't be here. You wouldn't be Googling how to deal with burnout at 3 am because you can't sleep again and feel like you aren't doing enough or that if you could just figure out this one little tweak, maybe everything would shift and it would all become easier.

School is allowed to look different. It HAS to look different in these situations. You are not going to ruin your child's education by working within the scope of what they are capable of. You are empowering them to have a successful future.

Curriculum

Are you fighting a curriculum that doesn't work with your kids' brains or is boring as hell? Fighting over a curriculum every single day is not worth it....AT ALL. I know so many of us pay extremely large sums of money for curricula that we need to have last the entire school year. When they aren't what you were hoping for, it can be devastating. I will likely never buy a curriculum from a very well-known company ever again because, with the $750 I spent on it, I expected FAR more than what we got. My teen was less than impressed, too. We finished it, but lesson learned.

Other times, it is not worth damaging your kiddos' love for learning because you just want to "finish this curriculum." Most of my children thrive on Math U See. I have one that just didn't. We switched mid-year because the fighting was not worth the money. Thankfully, I was dealing with fairly low-cost curricula because if I hadn't been, it may have been a very different thought process.

So what do you do when you don't have the money but you know switching would make everyone's lives easier? Ya wing it....

I'm only half kidding here. Can you take what is being taught and shift it slightly in a way that will make it work better for your kiddo? You may spend less time creating different worksheets or adjusting how it's being taught than you do fighting with them every day to get it done as is. You are allowed to not work on that single subject for a week (or more) to make the necessary changes. There is so much less struggle when the curriculum matches how your kiddo operates. Don't be afraid to ask them for input, especially if they are older! They can give you so much insight into how they want to learn.

When all else fails...

Sometimes...there is simply nothing you can do to make things better. Accepting that is not a solution. This isn't a situation where you can just "shift your attitude," and suddenly it all becomes better. Mindset does matter; do not get me wrong. Mindset can shift a whole hell of a lot. But when you have done everything you can think of and everything in your power to set up routines, find curricula that works, planning, organization, etc., etc., etc., and it still just does not make a dent in how things are going...mindset isn't going to help.

You still have options.

There are so many amazing podcasts, bloggers, and coaches that can help you dig into your specific situation. Counseling, OT, co-ops, friend groups...they can all provide valuable support when you need it. Don't be afraid to ask for it. We are designed for connection, not hyper-independence. Burnout happens when we aren't addressing our own needs on a consistent and persistent basis while having huge amounts of stimuli thrown at us. Stop trying to deal with it alone. Have a good cry. Then look at it with fresh eyes. Look at it with the help of a veteran homeschooler. They are heroes and so often are willing to help you figure it out.

Above all, build in time for yourself. You are not just a mom. You are not just a teacher. You are a powerful human being who makes an entire ecosystem run. You are the center of lives. You are the center of universes. You take care of so much and deserve to be cared for. You are a woman who inspires, directs, stimulates, and alchemizes. That takes a whole hell of a lot of work.

Rest is not earned. Rest is the thing that makes everything else continue.

With love,