Teacher Notes – Scheduling

I’m hearing rumors the Spring is to arrive this weekend.  We are supposed to get some heat, and it is most welcome.  School has been so, so busy.  I’ve been trying to keep the kids on task and busy doing meaningful things, but I cannot be all places at all times.

By the recommendation of the Duggar family, I’ve been trying to organize our home much better.  My kids have many dreams and desires, and feel they can’t get them all done, and end up zoning out in front of the t.v.  I can relate sometimes.  I got a few scheduling and chore books from the source they recommended here, and have been reading through them the last few months.  The writers are a family which I think is the typical stereotype of a homeschooling family.  I think there is much wisdom to be gleaned from these books, but there are a few times they make me uncomfortable, especially with the headship doctrine of a husband.

Let me be clear, Knut is the head of our house.  The buck stops with him.  However, we seek to submit to each other, and seek to serve each other as the Bible instructs.  Some of the comments in this book make me uncomfortable not because I don’t believe a husband should be the head of a home, but because it borderlines on husband worship.  So if you are like me and want to glean from the wisdom that is in these books, than take some of what they say with a grain of salt.

Also, I refuse to put Ingrid on an eating schedule as they recommend.  I did that with Silje, and that works well for many people.  I definitely see the benefits from that. However, I have supply issues when I do a lot of scheduling feedings, and the best way for me to keep my supply up is to feed on demand.  I know she’ll fall into more of a schedule, and she’s already starting to get into a napping routine, but again, that’s something I’ve always try to grow into with a baby.  My goal for babies is routines, not schedules.  I don’t think they’re big enough for schedules.

Anyway, they have this neat scheduling software that I have been using the last month or so.  It honestly has been sucking up a bunch of time to get these schedules set up.  Then we try to work them out, and I have been trying to modify them, and perfect them, and make changes as necessary.  It’s so great because I can set up a schedule that fits my family.  No schedule is one-size-fits all, and with our family, no 2 days seem alike.

Now, a month into the journey of attempting to keep a schedule using this software…it’s so lovely.

This morning I got up, and without whining, the kids grabbed their chore packs after breakfast.  David did a sink load of dishes, and Silje got out the vacuum.  They both got dressed, brushed their teeth, cleaned their rooms without any prodding or yelling.  After chores, we sat and I read to them from our devotions and history, and then one of them grabbed her reader and sat down, and the other brought his reader to me and I picked up my knitting as he read to me.  They still get distracted and Silje still picks up books when she should be practicing the piano.  Overall, though, it’s been a very helpful tool for all of us.

It’s been such a great visual for them to have the schedule posted to organize their day.  They are learning that free time is attainable and earned.  Just this morning, David finished his school work without any fuss, and said “Hey Mom, I’m learning that if I do my work really good the first time without arguing, I have more free time afterward.  Arguing just means I still have to do the work, but I won’t have much free time left afterward.”  Yes.  He’s getting it.

This schedule has been enabled me to work out helping the kids with their tougher subjects one on one, without lots of interruptions, because they don’t all need me at once as often.  I’m rotating their tough subjects so that they don’t just do all their easy subjects first, and then all need me at the same time for the hard subjects just before lunchtime.

I’ve been trying to involve the kids in the schedule making as much as I can.  Silje will sometimes come up to me and say “Mommy, I want to make some cookies.”  So we look at the schedule, and see when a good time for that will be.  “Well honey, we have a lot to get done still today, but I think tomorrow during the little kids’ naptime, if you’re willing to give up your computer time I think you could do that there.”  She’s my “Miss Organization” so she loves having something on a schedule, because she knows it won’t get forgotten that way.

However, she does say the schedule makes her feel behind all the time, as she’s not one to hurry through anything.  She is easily stressed by getting behind.  That’s something we’re talking about, and helping her understand that the schedule is there to serve us, not us the schedule.  The schedule won’t beat us down.  We just have to adjust, and keep moving.  It’s a hard lesson for anyone to learn.  She struggles with perfectionism.  I remember when we started homeschooling, getting one question wrong on one math problem would bring her to tears.  If she couldn’t get 100%, she thought she was stupid and why even bother.  The concept of practice, and trying over and over is something we continue to work on.

It’s also been good because she wants to do so many big projects, and has no idea how to actually break these big projects into steps and get them done.  For the big projects, we’ve been making a list of all the steps we will need, and then doing a little bit each day.

It’s been a lot of work, and I don’t want anyone to have the illusion that we keep our schedule strict, or live by the clock.  That is so not us!  It’s just the kids have a visual reminder of what they are supposed to be doing at all times, without my nagging.  If I could just stop nagging, that would be great.  That’s my goal in this exercise.  Each day it seems we have to modify the schedule in some way.  I told them the first rule of the schedule was grace.  However, the kids love knowing what is going on, and at least what the plan is.

My big complaint about the schedule is…I can’t seem to knit as often.  I feel like my free time has become so limited, as I fill my days with what I should be doing, rather than what I feel like doing.  I know that’s just a whine, and I know I need to just grow up, but there you have it.  It’s forcing me to acknowledge how much time I do waste, and forcing me to get done what needs to get done.  It doesn’t get all done still, but more is getting done than it was before, and so I call that a win.

I do not know if we will stay on a schedule forever, or if it will eventually slip away.  For now, the schedule has a use in our house and we will keep it as long as it remains useful.  I hope that at the very least, showing the kids this type of organization will make them aware of how different people organize their day, and how we should live our lives purposefully, and not just blow around with the wind.