Is it possible for a single mom who has to work full time to homeschool her two children?

My DH is a P.E. (in nine states). Did they change it to 5 years as an EIT? It was 4 years when he did it, and for the EIT’s he mentored.

You could see about working from home remotely. My DH, when he was a consultant, didn’t do that on “regular” hours, but he did on nights and weekends. He’d just connect remotely to the office w/ his lap top. I would think, if you found the right company, you could work out a deal to work from home at least part of the time.

HS’ing them at this age takes a lot of one-on-one time from the parent/teacher. If you had a spouse, it wouldn’t be so bad, as you could share the load, or work opposite hours. While I think HS’ing is wonderful, it’s only for children and families where it works. To be honest, I think you’d been in line for severe burnout in life if you tried it.

Can you look for a different school setting?

My 7 y.o. daughter is also developmentally delayed (among other labels) and does attend public school on an IEP and has a para-pro. I would never think of HS’ing her. There’s just no way. I do HS her 9 y.o. brother.

I would just take a long, hard look at things. Unfortunately for you, you have the single aspect which makes it tough, since you’re going to have to work one way or another – wheather as an EIT or some other work.

Remember, too, that once you are a P.E. you have to continue working and getting PDH’s. So you’re looking at working a LOT in your life.

I wouldn’t recommend it, even though I think there’s nothing wrong with the homeschooling option if the person who’s doing the homeschooling stays home during the day. (If you’re talking about having whomever is caring for your child homeschool during the day, that’s a different story and yes, it can work if the person is committed enough). First of all, if you’re only spending a few hours a day with your child between the end of your work and their bed time, do you really want that time to be all about fighting battles over learning the times tables and spelling words? Odds are that the homeschooling time would also be at the end of the day when kids are tired, cranky, and least ready to learn. If you instead decide to homeschool on the three days you’re home, that might work better but still leaves the problem of what your child will be doing the rest of the time…. While you may be planning to send your child on playdates and to activities while you’re away, unless they’re hooked up with other homeschooling kids that isn’t going to work out, because the kids they’d be playing with will be at school, and activities for elementary-aged kids generally are scheduled only for when school gets out. What is your child going to do for the big part of the day that other kids are in school?

Hi,

At least in my state, kindergarten is NOT

legally required. So schooling is only

required in my state from first grade.

You can check with your state laws online

(check with your state’s education dept)

or call them.

Many people assume Kindergarten is

required, but I think in most states, it

is not. It is an option.

So you would not have to homeschool

you K child, only the 7 year old.

Also, homeschooling can be approached

from various philosophies.

One you may not heard of, is called

“unschooling”. The idea behind this is

that children will learn naturally from

living and that “schooling” itself is

more harmful than helpful to them. There

are also approaches that combine a

more traditional approach with a

more free or unschooling, approach.

You can most likely find an approach that

will work for you.

There are also, in some areas, homeschool

centers that people have started where

you can join and the children take various

classes, etc. Usually there is a fee

for this just as there would be for a private

school, however there can be financial

aid available, also. It really varies with

the group.

There are also quite a few homeschool

(and “unschool”) yahoo groups……as well

as other online support groups and

other local groups. Check your local

area online, and check out other groups

and resources, as well as private schools.

Every person is different so I would not

presume to tell you what you can or cannot

do……I would think about what is best

for your children, as well as yourself,

and make sure you also plan and allow

for yourself to have time for yourself and

for your own needs and recreation, etc,

too…this can also be done by your

doing things while your children are busy,

etc.

Homeschool laws and rules vary with each

state…..the laws should be online for your

state. In my state we go through our

local school district.

There is a lot of info and support for

homeschooling, as well as unschooling,

online……

Hope this helps, pls. check to see if

Kindergarten is even required at ALL in

your state…….you are not obligated to

send a child to ANY type of Kindergarten

or preschool type of program……or

even to file that you are homeschooling,

that would be totally your choice…..and

it depends on what would be the best

choice for you, and your children and you

probably have a lot of options.

Best wishes.

If you go to yahoo groups home page

you can go to Homeschooling or

type it in, and also check Unschooling

and there are also groups that cater to

various religions and philosophies.

Please email me if you need any help.

I homeschooled my child for grade K

only……however I was also aware it

was not legally required. You’d be surprised

at how many people assume it is.

Having your kids in daycare during the day while you are at work will not allieviate the problem you are seeing with negative influences, nor will it give them the extra attention you are seeking. Your children will also be basically alone as a majority of children their age will either be in public or private school or at home with parents or nannies.

If it is financially do-able, private schooling or even montessori would be more favorable than public schools. These schools are just like everything else, you get what you pay for. The higher the tuition the smaller the student teacher ratio.

If you have an opportunity to modify your schedule, then that would be good, but it would have to be a long term commitment. Would your company respect your decision and keep your new schedule or would they decide it isn’t working and ask you to return to a more traditional setting?

Another option would be to hire a full time nanny that would be willing to teach them at home for you (in accordance with state rules) you would be in charge, you could also participate in their education, you could keep all the records, but have someone actually implement the day to day lessons.

The cost would not be much more than full time day care for two.

Just something to consider.

I am a homeschool mom, and I have several friends who work full time and are single homeschool moms. It’s totally doable. It is more difficult than if you were married, and it does require more organization and some flexibility on your part, but it’s completely doable.

I would suggest contacting some homeschool support groups in your area. The leaders of these are generally homeschool “veterans” and can give you as much info and help as you can handle; they can also put you in touch with other moms who are facing the same situation so that you can see how they do it.

At 7 and 5, schooling only takes an hour or two – the rest of the time is discovery, play, running around, and listening to stories, which they can easily do with a nanny, a friend, or at a private daycare. Once they get older, they do require more time spent on schooling, but they are able to do more of it themselves.

Good luck!

I am an avid believer in homeschooling especially for kids who have developmental delays. I truly think home is best. That being said, I have seen several single parents/working parents attempt homeschooling and fail. The main reasons, not enough time. They leave their kids with a sitter for 9 hours a day while they work then its time for dinner, clean up, bedtime routine, off to bed, no school work accomplished. Also, where I live there are no daycares that accept school age children, most the families I know rely on other homeschool families or grandparents to provide the childcare. I am not saying it cant be done just that I havent met a family that does it successfully.

Well, it is possible but it will be very difficult. you will have hardly any time for yourself, friends, or anything outside of homeschooling and working full time. What you can do is start maybe taking 2 days off in week days and work on weekends (if you dont work on weekends already). Or maybe you could cut back an hour or two everyday and see if those hours would still qualify as full time, and then home school your kids before and after work. And yes you can send your homeschooled children to a day care center, but since they are homeschooled it might be more expensive because of most children going to public schools. Another alternative to day care could be getting a part time nanny.

So i hope this helps, and GOOD LUCK, you’ll need it!

First, let me commend you for both your concern over your sons’ education and your determination to achieve your career goals.

Anything is possible, but nothing is without price. Yes, you could homeschool and follow your chosen career path, but the price to do so would be very high, as noted by the other posters here.

I think it might be good to reframe your questions so they address a wider range of options and perhaps some different perspectives. Here are some suggestions: What are the educational options available for your sons that are consistent with your career goals? What career options do you have that would be permissive of homeschooling or your educational goals for your sons? What resources do you have that could be brought to bear on this problem? (Are there family or friends that could help out? Can you afford a private school or a private tutor? A live in “au pair” or “nanny”?

Perhaps you could think of it as you would an engineering problem: how can you design your life (or lifestyle) to distribute the load of your career and the education of your children from the available resources and provide enough margin that you don’t collapse from the weight.

It can, and has been done successfully by many single parents.

It does take extra effort, and organization as well as being very flexible.

Putting them in a day care setting however is probably no better than a conventional school setting, possible behavior problems will be no less in such a setting.

They will be tired, and ready for a break instead of home schooling when they get home after being in a day care all day.

There is not much difference between being in school all day, and coming home to do home work, or being in a daycare all day, and coming home to do “school” work.

If you think that home schooling may not work for you at this time, see if your area has a private parent participation school, these do require a parent to be active in the class room, and accompany them on field trips.

This may still require you to adjust your schedule, but it will give you that extra time with each of the children during school hours, and still have your evenings free.

Blessings, and good luck.

Dear Smiley,

I just eased over here to Home Schooling to see what’s going on. I’m so impressed with this question and the answers you got back. It started out with a few negatives then flipped to positives attitude answers. That tells me the negative answer people are quick to tell you something can’t be done (maybe). There’s no data out on this, just this one QA observation so I’m not ready to publish an opinion yet 🙂

My answer would be that people in all sorts of situations try all manner of educational programs for their kids. All these come with varying degrees of success. You sound like someone that can create a successful outcome from most any situation. I know you want someone to tell you what would be the best thing to do here but I think which ever way you decide you will make that the best. I get the feeling you care about your kids and their education so I suspect there is no option for anything less than success for you. It’s my humble opinion but I don’t think you want our opinion on the “should I” simply because we don’t live in your shoes. Someone in as nearly a perfectly matched scenario as yours might attempt it with poor results whereas you will make it workout very well. You see what I’m saying? We are a much better source of information on the “how to” because we can draw on our own experiences.

One last thing, your kids will pick up “behaviors” from other kids you’d rather they didn’t learn. They will learn to spit and say things that may or may not shock you to the core and they may display additional pressures of the social structure in the way of aggression. C’mon mom . . . you got this under control. It’s just kids . . . not the way we dream it will be, but kids being kids none the less. Day to day life in the real world includes a bit of ill tempered pushing and shoving don’t you think? Introducing them to this fact is not such a bad thing as long as you can help them through the emotional lessons that go with it.

Good luck-