Homeschooling may not be as big of a time drain as you think

Last week I shared a bit about our return to a program outside our home. (Did you miss my mom fail moment?)

Earlier this week, I was reminded how tiring it is to get everyone out of the house at the same time - with packed lunches in tow. When all was said and done, I spent a total of ninety minutes waking up kids, packing lunches, making sure everyone had what they needed, driving to and from the program, and waiting in the car pool line. That's ninety minutes doing things FOR school but not doing any learning.

Contrast that to a homeschooling day. My kids wake up whenever they're ready so I don't spend time dragging them out of bed. When I'm making lunch, the kids can do their work so we don't lose school time just because of food prep. We don't have to drive anywhere to learn or wait in lines. And ninety minutes? We can finish a good chunk of our school day in that amount of time.

When parents are considering whether or not to homeschool, time management is often a top concern, and rightly so, but many don't consider the time drains that go along with traditional school. Because traditional schooling is the cultural norm, it's easy to accept school demands as a standard way of life.

Homeschooling reclaims that time. As an added bonus, homeschool days aren't as long as traditional school days. When comparing how time is spent in a homeschooling scenario versus a traditional school scenario, many are surprised the difference is not as large as they thought it would be.

Yes, homeschooling will absolutely require time in other ways. Yes, homeschooling is challenging for working parents who are trying to juggle work with homeschooling. But... homeschooling time demands and scheduling challenges may not seem so insurmountable when compared to an honest look at how much time you'd spend working around traditional school expectations.