Can I Really Teach With Littles in the Home?

On certain days my preteens rush through their schoolwork so they can go off and do their own thing. On other days, they hang onto my every word. They are engaged. They ask questions and they actually act like they enjoy school. These are the days I cherish. I treasure them. That is, until one of the littles interrupt. This is beyond frustrating. I am in the middle of a lesson, things are finally starting to click with my older ones and then, bam, my baby needs attention or my three year old is crying because he wants me to fix his Lego creation. I used to ask myself, how in the world can I get school done with my older kids while needing to attend to the needs of little ones? I struggled with this until I realized that homeschooling with little ones really is not that much different than anything else. For example, when we first have kids, many of us moms have cried ourselves to sleep, (at least once) wondering how in the world we are going to keep the house clean while a destructive force is toddling around all day undoing everything that has been done merely seconds before. We have all had those days where it took three hours to do a twenty minute job thanks to unexpected distractions. Of course, now we know that these distractions are no longer unexpected. In fact, we do expect them and even though it is frustrating that it can take forever to accomplish a simple task, we understand that by having kids in the house, we need to expect the unexpected so now we just go with it.

It is the same in the homeschooling realm. We need to throw our preconceived ideas of what homeschooling needs to look like out the window and just go with what we are faced with. And, what we are faced with is quite beautiful. We are able to raise our family together! Though it might feel at times, as the Bible says, like iron sharpening iron, raising our children together, under the same roof truly is a blessing. Your older children will bond more with their younger siblings. They will know them and have at least some sort of relationship with them. Another benefit is that your older ones will be able to work on their patience rather than being separated from it and then forced to deal with it when they are adults when put into uncomfortable situations. Instead, they will be ready to work and deal with co-workers that might get under their skin because they were able to work these things out at home in their formative years.

We need to constantly remind ourselves that these indeed are the formative years. When the frustrations arise in our kids, we need to be there to help lead and guide them in the right way. Rather than allowing them to be frustrated with the crying baby or the potty training toddler, teach them how to be compassionate and loving toward them. Instead of teaching them that the most important task of the day is checking off each school subject off the list, encourage them to be willing to stop and help one of the younger ones if they need help throughout the day.This is a great lesson in putting others first, in humility and again, in patience.

Overall, young children are a blessing in the home and even though there are days that make homeschooling seem impossible, it can be done. We got through those early years of parenting when our life suddenly turned upside down and inside out and we had no clue how we were going to make it work. By God’s grace we made it through then and we will make it through now!