Juggling work with home schooling with the kids

Oh my. Where do I begin. If last year wasn’t stressful enough it feels like I’ve entered a completely new level of stress in 2021. Home schooling last year wasn’t an easy ride, but this year it feels even more full on. On top of that there appears to be so much negativity about.

From people moaning about parents using the term ‘home schooling’ instead of ‘remote learning’ – who cares what we call it as long as our children are getting some form of education? Well, I’ll tell you who! The people whose children don’t attend school and have home-schooled since day dot that’s who! For goodness sake, let’s just drop the ‘labels’ and support one another.

You can’t do right for doing wrong these days.

Then there are the people who are moaning about teachers not doing enough and that they should be providing daily live videos as though the children were in school. Seriously? While this may be feasible for some parents, what about those who work from home and don’t have any job flexibility despite the amount of people I’ve seen raving about how their employers ‘MUST‘ provide flexible employment. How does that work for call centre staff who have to be on the phone from home 9am until 5pm? Do they just tell their customers to call back when home school (sorry, my bad, ‘remote learning’) has finished?

I’m very lucky that I have a lot of flexibility when it comes to my job, but that doesn’t mean I don’t find it all a tad stressful and overwhelming. It doesn’t help when you’re trying your best to teach two children of different abilities the same thing. Of course, our children are suffering in amongst all of this too. They’re just as frustrated as us. I mean, a teacher can explain their school work with ease, but I am not, nor have I ever been a teacher. As such my teaching methods do not come close to that of their teacher which has certainly lead to them shouting at me, getting frustrated at me and we’ve had a few tears too. Both the kids and me, that is!

In addition, the girls school is also a hub school so as well as providing a video call in the morning to explain the days work and numerous ‘buddy group’ calls throughout the day, the teachers also have to teach the hub kids, provide feedback to the hub kids and the kids who are home and have submitted work and that’s not even including lesson planning. It’s a stressful time for all.

We’re living in very strange times and all we can do is try our best, but if it does get a bit overwhelming or stressful for you or your children, just stop. Take a break. Watch some TV. Have a cup of tea. Let the children run around the garden for 15 minutes and then return and try again.

How are you finding juggling work with home schooling the kids? Let me know in the comments below.