It happens. I don’t think it is even possible to get through homeschooling without ever facing the dreaded homeschool burnout. There is nothing inherently wrong with experiencing it. It just tells you that you need to change something before you do more harm than good to both yourself and your kids.

 

What is Homeschool Burnout? 

Homeschool burnout is what happens when you push to hard for too long. It can come in slowly like a sneaky rat or it can hit you like a tonne of bricks. 

The symptoms that may indicate you are suffering from this include:

• Exhaustion. You are mentally, emotionally and physically exhausted. For myself I feel it mostly in the form of mental exhaustion. I find it hard to think clearly, and find myself having to really really concentrate on what I am teaching…even if it is basic math. 
  You may be finding it hard to get out of bed in the mornings and sleep is hard to come by at night. School becomes more of a chore where you are simply going through the motions without putting much enthusiasm or love into it. 
• Lack of motivation. Nothing sounds exciting or enjoyable when it comes to school. Netflix is begging you to be their best friend and you try and justify 2 hours of it as somewhat educational. 
• You are letting the kids pass with sloppy work. This is when I know I need to change something. My kids will show me their handwriting which they have completed in 30 seconds and it is atrocious and I still say “great job”. Then they look at me like I am crazy and quickly disappear incase I regain my sanity. 
• There a lot more tears. This applies to both you and the kids. Everyone is becoming more and more frustrated with the work and each other. 
• It is taking longer for the kids to grasp concepts. You can be teaching the same thing over and over again but it is still not sticking. Everyone is trying but nothing is working. Emotions are running high and meltdowns and chocolate consumption are sky rocketing. 
• You feel like a failure. Thoughts of your inability to truely provide an adequate education for your children creep in. You question whether you made the right choice and if you are really cut out for this. Perhaps they we really better off in public school. 
• Lack of connection with your children. You are kid-ed out and touched out. This homeschooling thing leaves you in the company of your little munchkins 24/7. There is very little opportunity for you to not be the “it” person for them. No matter how much you love them and being with them every parent needs to be able to take a break at some point. 

 

How to Get Back on Track

 

Take a break

When you start feeling like this you need to take a break. You may not even notice that burnout is creeping in. My husband is often the one who notices the changes in me and lets me know that I need to slow down a bit before I hit crazy lady level. 

I promise you that if you take a break of a few days or a week that you will come back refreshed as a better parent and teacher. You children will benefit immensely from this too. I have found that when I try to push through it because “the kids just need to finish this topic” that they take longer and longer to “get” it. Case and point: Auron was in the middle of learning to tell the time. It was becoming painful and I knew I was half way to crazy lady town, but I wanted him to finish the unit before we took a break. I pushed and pushed and it just wasn’t happening. Finally I gave up feeling incredibly defeated, confident that my child would never be able to tell the time. We took a week off. On our first day back I opened the math book, 30 mins later he could tell the time. He has never had one issue telling the time since that day. 

 

Get Out in Nature

Nature has this incredible power to ground us and calm things. Sometimes we all need a bit of fresh air and oxygen. Do you think it is any surprise that the most common time for homeschool burnout to occur is in winter? 

Forget the rain and the horrible weather. Get outside and jump in puddles, climb a mountain, go on a rainy hike. There’s never bad weather only bad clothes. The beach is an incredible place to visit even in the winter. If you go hiking in a bushy place the trees will act as a great umbrella from the rain too. 

 

Do Something for You 

Take some time for you. As a parent and educator you need to take care of yourself before you can care adequately for others. 

Start your day with some meditation, prayer, journalling or something that helps you be still, quiet and reflective. It is so hard to find moments in the day where you can have some quiet time. If you don’t carve out a bit of time for it, it will never happen. Let your husband or partner know that this is something that you need and can they help you have that 30 minutes in the morning. My kids will still try and come find me to open the jar of peanut butter while I’m in the shower even though their dad is sitting right at the table with them. However if he tells them that I am having a break they will be kind enough to remember that they have two parents capable of opening peanut butter jars. 

 

Say No

As homeschoolers there are always so many awesome opportunities to participate in field trips, co-ops, book clubs etc. These are all good and worthy things to do but sometimes you need to just say no and save your sanity a bit. 

A week of having no plans and no places to be can be all that you need to reset your body and mind. Believe it or not kids kid tired of driving all over the place from one thing to another too. 

Take a week to clear your schedule and do nothing planned. If you wake up and decided “hey let’s go to the zoo” then do it, but just because you feel like it not because you had already committed to it and don’t want to let someone down. 

 

Clean Your House

A tidy house means a tidy mind. I know if my house starts getting unorganised and messy my brain starts to get messy too. I am quicker to become annoyed and the frustration levels escalate when the kids can’t find a pencil despite that fact you just bought them a 20 pack last week. Or the school boxes are so disorganised that no one can find anything. 

I am not saying that you have to live in a show home because we need to be realistic, but having a bit of a spring clean can do wonders. I am in the process of cleaning my garage because it is so trashed that you can’t even see the ground. Every time I open the door it makes me angry. The kids just tidied their rooms from top to bottom and they have enjoyed being in there so much more. 

 

Reexamine Your Schedule

Take a good look at your schedule. Do you need to change something? Write a list of what is working really well and a list of what is bringing you down. See if you can try and wiggle things around a bit so that it is working more efficiently. If you need some ideas on some different approaches to scheduling  your homeschool check out this post. 

When we first started homeschooling I tried to stick to the same school schedule as the local schools but it was a disaster. I became burnt out so fast it wasn’t funny. We eventually settled on a four day work week schedule which works really well for us and burn out is far less frequent. 

 

Take a roadtrip

Have you ever heard of roadschooling? It is pretty much homeschooling on the road. Go and visit national parks or monuments. Sometimes the best kind of education we can provide our kids is by getting out and seeing it in real life. We did a road trip through Southern Utah and the kids learnt so much more from completing their Junior Ranger programs than if they were just learning it from a book. They could touch and see exactly what they were learning about. 

 

Remember homeschooling is not a race. There is time to take a break. You are not a failure for needing to take that break. Also you are AWESOME! Hold your head high and remember that you can do this.