New Year’s Resolutions: Parenting and Homeschool

With the new year comes new wishes and wants for myself in the world of parenting. The cold days of winter give us lots of time to reflect on the year ending and to plan for the new year ahead. So, with the start of the new year, I thought it would be nice to share what I’ve been thinking and reflecting on and some of my plans for the new year regarding our parenting and homeschool journey.

 Health:

Now, I know my health sounds more like a personal goal than a parenting goal, but I have been thinking about how much my health affects how I engage with my child. Simply put, when I’m not feeling my best, I’m not giving her my best. It’s tough to engage and feel up to playing when all I want to do is sit down and rest because I don’t feel well. Lately, I have not been feeling my best. I’ve already done a lot to identify the issues impacting my health and start putting some plans in place to better them. With the new year, I’m committed to continuing these efforts to be the best version of myself for my family.

More Time for Play:

I never wanted to end up in the place where I constantly have to say “no” or “not right now” when Delilah asks me to play with her, but here we are. Sometimes, the timing is just impossible, like asking me to build her train track with her while I’m making breakfast, but many other times, it’s because of the stress I’m making for myself around the housework.  It’s not a great cycle we’ve ended up in.  As a stay-at-home mom, I struggle with feeling like I have to get everything I “need” to do before I can sit down and play something with my daughter.  The tricky thing is, when you’re home all day, it’s very easy to find something else that I “need” to get done. And usually, by the time I manage to get it all done, it’s time to start making dinner and get ready for bed.

When I think about it, this issue stems from how I manage chores at home. My current system is to keep everything in my head, knowing the things I need to do and stressing about them until I get it all done. When I see something else that needs to be done, it gets added to that list, leading to a constant cycle of stress and feeling like I’m behind and have no time to play. The bright side is I do have a plan to try and work on this issue. I used to think not having a schedule for the housework gave me the freedom to fit the chores where they best fit into my day, but I’m starting to think having set days for chores will help me so I don’t feel like I need to get it all done, all the time. I’ve tried cleaning routines before, but they weren’t realistic to my life then, so I am hopeful to try again. I want to tackle this issue because play is essential for Delilah, and I hate feeling like I’m telling her no all the time. She got a couple of board games for Christmas that I’m excited to play with her because it’s something I like to do as well, and it’s something I want to keep doing as she gets older.

Planning More Hands-on Activities:

This goal is tied into the same reasoning as making more time for play.  It’s hard to plan in-depth activities involving lots of time, set up, and clean up when I’m already stressed and behind. This, coupled with everything we had going on for the holidays,  even though we tried to turn them into learning activities when possible, had us mainly sticking to her basic curriculum lessons and reading books together. When we started, I had been planning extra art or science activities paired with the weekly books we read. Recently, our extra activities have consisted of coloring pages or seasonal craft kits from the dollar tree (a lifesaver when things get hectic), but I really want to get back to how we were doing things before. Especially as we are coming into springtime and have even more opportunities to plan activities outside, I hope that working on managing my other responsibilities better will help me get out of this funk and back into the parts of being a stay-at-home mom and homeschooling parent that I love and that I’m passionate about.   

Find a Homeschool Co-op or Play Group:

It always seems like whenever you mention homeschooling, someone always brings up, “But they won’t get enough socialization, and it will make them weird,” and that always makes me wonder how much time they’ve spent around individuals who were homeschooled, or did you just see this in a movie once. I’m ranting a little bit, but as a homeschool parent, others have put so much pressure on the social aspect of school. Sometimes, it’s like they aren’t even hearing all the other things you’re really excited about, and it’s disheartening. There are so many ways for children to play and socialize with other children through family/friends, playgroups, co-ops, community sports, and volunteer activities. That being said, it’s not done without effort. When we first started talking about homeschooling and hearing the  “but what about socialization” comments, she was still really little and still in the wake of COVID-related issues, so it wasn’t something to stress about. Now that she’s approaching kindergarten, we want to actively work on it. Our biggest hurdle is that we really don’t have any family or friends in Oregon with children her age. Unfortunately, most of our family and friends with children live in other states, and seeing them once a year and making video calls are just not enough. It also hasn’t helped that most of the playgroups I’ve found have been in towns that are at least 30-40 minutes away, where it’s a larger undertaking just to be able to go each week. Especially when, up until very recently, we only had one vehicle for our family. It just wasn’t really practical for us.

I know other families and homeschool playgroups exist in a more local setting. It’s not always the easiest to find them or, in the case of co-ops, for them to have openings. However, I am committed to the goal of finding something local so that she can go and interact with other kids regularly. Luckily, I’ve found out that our local library does a weekly Storytime and Craft, so that is our starting point. We went for the first time last week, and Delilah had so much fun and is already excited to go again next week!