How To Avoid Homeschooling Burnout
You probably already know that parenting is not easy! It was tough, long before the year 2020. However, this year has taught many parents how to be more adaptable, homeschool, and how to keep your kid calm when you feel like you’re going to freak out at any given second. This year has been a bust on many different levels. If you are having a difficult time with COVID and feel like you are struggling to maintain sanity at home, we have a few tips to share from our experience.
Since we won’t be entering the new year with a solution to all our problems, let’s start it off with some excellent tips for giving ourselves an adequate dose of self-care. What does self-care look like anyway? When I hear those words, I think of a person with a mint face mask, cucumbers on their eyes, hair in a towel, wearing a white house robe and being too pampered. I’ve never actually had this happen to me, but it’s where my mind goes when I think of ‘self-care’. What does self-care look like for a homeschooling parent? You may try to lock your door and hide from your kids for a few minutes. But does that help?
For some people, self-care and self-love look like: Laying on the couch, watching a movie while your kids mess up the basement. Or cleaning and organizing all the cupboards in your kitchen. For some, it’s painting the dining room so that when you walk in the room, the burst of fresh colour helps lift your spirits. For some, it’s a bath with Epsom salt and lavender. Maybe for you, it’s taking a walk or a long run. Or locking yourself in the bathroom with a box of chocolate to soothe the anxiety you’re feeling. There’re many different ways that people medicate with Self-care and love. How do you?
Top Tips
Let’s start with the symptoms. These indicators are warning signs; please pay attention to them.
· Crying randomly
· Lack of patience with daily tasks
· Overeating or no appetite
· Overreacting
· Irrational decisions
· Crying randomly
· Lack of patience with daily tasks
· Overeating or no appetite
· Overreacting
· Irrational decisions
A few tips,
· Lower your expectation. You cannot be the parent, the teacher, the wife/husband and the other ten roles you need to play. It is ok to lower your expectations and underperform.
· Build a community. Create a small circle of strangers with whom you can share and be transparent outside of your family. Sometimes, it is hard to communicate with the ones you love and having this outlet will help you share the burden.
· Create a schedule and get the family to involve in all aspects of running the house. Please don’t do it all yourself.
· Get out of the house. Take a walk, go for a drive – something.
· Do ‘your’ thing. What is the one activity that you can do by yourself that makes you happy? Reading? Painting? – find something that gives you alone time and some mental break
On the newest episode of The Schoolio Podcast, we discuss how different self-care and love can look for many of us. Laughter being a huge one, have you ever thought of laughter as a way to remedy the blues? Have you ever heard of writing letters to yourself? Today we talk about both these interesting self-care ideas and so much more.
The laughter in this episode is contagious, so beware! And please, share with us your go-to self-care tips! We would love to hear them.
Listen to episode 11 of The Schoolio Podcast now on your favourite podcast streaming app, or listen on Spotify.
Let us offer you a slice of peace of mind. We know that right now, many kids are bored from the lack of routine that they’re experiencing. So, we have a brand new FREE mini unit about New Year’s for your sweet kids to do when they’re ‘bored’.
You can pick up your FREE Mini Unit here: https://schoolio.io/newyear/
P.S are you on the fence about homeschooling? Have the newest lockdowns made you frustrated that your child’s education has been interrupted yet again? Maybe you really aren’t a fan of virtual learning but you aren’t sure where to start, or how?
We have all the tools you need to start your homeschooling journey at: https://schoolio.io
