Sticking to the schedule

I have heard it a million times "don't be a slave to the schedule." "keep it flexible." And for the most part I guess that's true. For me though I am learning that our schedule is our road map and if we don't stick to it we become wandering travelers never reaching our destination. Over the years we have had many different schedules and routines. Most of the time they were scrapped after a few months and we returned to our wandering ways. This is stressful to me because I need to feel organized and directed. So I am going to scrap the idea that we need to be "flexible" and this year try to stick to the schedule.

I need an organized home to function. If we fall off schedule the first thing that suffers is our home. This puts me in a bad mood. The next thing that suffers is our schooling, which is not acceptable. Fallowed by our moral and our kindness to each other. I have found that simply by having and sticking to the schedule we are more productive, happier, organized, and able to accomplish our goals.

Many times people hear that I have 6 kids , that my kids have never been in public school, and that we have been homeschooling for 10 years and they assume I have all the answers and must by now have this homeschooling thing down to a science. Let me be the first to say that I don't. Every year is different. As my children grow and there needs change so must our homeschooling. When the oldest were younger my home looked like a Kindergarten class, now that I have older and younger children mixed together our home has morphed into a combination of things and to the outside eye its probably confusing as to what goes on here. LOL

They are learning and growing into wonderful, beautiful young women and I am extremely happy that we chose to home school. With all the ups and downs, And let me just say the ups are high and the downs are low for sure. But we tend to find the middle ground for the most part and sail on.

I have learned more in my 10 years homeschooling than I ever did in my public school years. Homeschooling has been a wonderful experience for us all and I believe has made us a very close family. Not only are we mother and daughters, sisters, but we are all great friends. I couldn't have asked for more.