How did you wrangle younger kid when they were a baby while you were doing focused teaching for older kid? If you had only one adult covering both at a time
Alas, I don’t know how people do that! Oz did all the teaching for Grace when Rennie was a baby, and I was all in on baby care. He’d do it before work. Our third comes in a couple of months and I’m not sure how it’s going to all work. I’d be keen to see how others do it - there are obviously so many families where there are numerous children and only one homeschooling parent. Perhaps by not having kids work at too challenging a level, so that they can be more independent? Or just focusing on teaching older kids who can work more independently?
Hey! Not a perfectly boundaried definition, but the essence is: something that a kid is completely absorbed by. It's self directed, they are in a "flow" state, they are without concern for the world that exists outside their minds. E.g. imaginative play, focusing on building a sand castle, a creative project. "Other types of play" I'd consider to be e.g. adult-led activities, peer play (unless the kids can operate with minimal conflict with their own desires - if they're focused too much on others it gets them out of that immersed relaxed state). How do you think about it?
Also curious about consistency - are there any hours of the day that are always the same every single day of the week vs ones that are more flexible? Any consistent things you do once a week / on weekends? I ask in the context of developing habits for my kids and family - trying to figure out balance between being flexible and making things less ambiguous (e.g. "this hour is for mastery learning")
Yeah I get that! Meal and snack times are always the same, so that definitely imposes some degree of predictability in the day. We have regular, scheduled activities that punctuate the days - e.g. visit grandparents, swimming lesson, Scouts, on Sunday mornings we host a science school at our place for other families, that kind of thing. And we do our best to aim for the mornings being learning time - normally that is either Oz doing a project with them, a reading lesson with the youngest, and/or some computer time e.g. Matific or Beast Academy or Code Monkey at the moment. And as they get older it'll be easier to be consistent there. The flexibility for now is just something we've chosen to lean into while they're younger because they have what to us are equally important needs besides learning: helping them with big emotions, letting them play, etc. Along with a very strong desire to promote the ultimate goal of having them become enthusiastic life-long learners, which means never wanting the learning stuff to feel like a chore. I.e. not forcing stuff if it's not the right vibe in that moment. Does that make sense? How are you guys approaching this at the moment?
I've been trying to make right when we wake up consistent lesson time, and she is also in a more amenable mood right before bed (that one is hard though since bed time can vary, she is not consistent with naps)
Yeah! Prefaced with: this is being picky, and I understand most people need help with childcare so that they can work. She was lovely and great as far as au pairs go. But why it wasn’t ideal: language barrier esp for young kids. She spoke great English, but it was hard for her to understand little kid voices and accents. Which led to a lot of frustration on the part of the kid and some level of disconnection on her part, and also isn’t ideal for their language development because they weren’t getting the back and forth feedback that comes from more invested caregivers. Also choice of activities. In order for the kids to be happy with being away from us, who they are more bonded to, a lot of time was spent doing “busy work” - nothing where they’d be truly absorbed in a lovely play-state, nothing educational, just kind of pacifying to kill the time if that makes sense. The kinds of educational stuff we were doing e.g. learning to read and the math and coding and whatever didnt seem appropriate to ask her to help with.
Thanks for writing this, congrats on expecting!
How did you wrangle younger kid when they were a baby while you were doing focused teaching for older kid? If you had only one adult covering both at a time
Alas, I don’t know how people do that! Oz did all the teaching for Grace when Rennie was a baby, and I was all in on baby care. He’d do it before work. Our third comes in a couple of months and I’m not sure how it’s going to all work. I’d be keen to see how others do it - there are obviously so many families where there are numerous children and only one homeschooling parent. Perhaps by not having kids work at too challenging a level, so that they can be more independent? Or just focusing on teaching older kids who can work more independently?
Could you elaborate on what you mean by "true play" - vs other types of play?
Hey! Not a perfectly boundaried definition, but the essence is: something that a kid is completely absorbed by. It's self directed, they are in a "flow" state, they are without concern for the world that exists outside their minds. E.g. imaginative play, focusing on building a sand castle, a creative project. "Other types of play" I'd consider to be e.g. adult-led activities, peer play (unless the kids can operate with minimal conflict with their own desires - if they're focused too much on others it gets them out of that immersed relaxed state). How do you think about it?
I haven't thought about it, generally I just split it into playing by herself vs playing with us
Also curious about consistency - are there any hours of the day that are always the same every single day of the week vs ones that are more flexible? Any consistent things you do once a week / on weekends? I ask in the context of developing habits for my kids and family - trying to figure out balance between being flexible and making things less ambiguous (e.g. "this hour is for mastery learning")
Yeah I get that! Meal and snack times are always the same, so that definitely imposes some degree of predictability in the day. We have regular, scheduled activities that punctuate the days - e.g. visit grandparents, swimming lesson, Scouts, on Sunday mornings we host a science school at our place for other families, that kind of thing. And we do our best to aim for the mornings being learning time - normally that is either Oz doing a project with them, a reading lesson with the youngest, and/or some computer time e.g. Matific or Beast Academy or Code Monkey at the moment. And as they get older it'll be easier to be consistent there. The flexibility for now is just something we've chosen to lean into while they're younger because they have what to us are equally important needs besides learning: helping them with big emotions, letting them play, etc. Along with a very strong desire to promote the ultimate goal of having them become enthusiastic life-long learners, which means never wanting the learning stuff to feel like a chore. I.e. not forcing stuff if it's not the right vibe in that moment. Does that make sense? How are you guys approaching this at the moment?
I've been trying to make right when we wake up consistent lesson time, and she is also in a more amenable mood right before bed (that one is hard though since bed time can vary, she is not consistent with naps)
Could you elaborate more on why the au pair kid experience wasn't ideal, compared with the PT situation?
Yeah! Prefaced with: this is being picky, and I understand most people need help with childcare so that they can work. She was lovely and great as far as au pairs go. But why it wasn’t ideal: language barrier esp for young kids. She spoke great English, but it was hard for her to understand little kid voices and accents. Which led to a lot of frustration on the part of the kid and some level of disconnection on her part, and also isn’t ideal for their language development because they weren’t getting the back and forth feedback that comes from more invested caregivers. Also choice of activities. In order for the kids to be happy with being away from us, who they are more bonded to, a lot of time was spent doing “busy work” - nothing where they’d be truly absorbed in a lovely play-state, nothing educational, just kind of pacifying to kill the time if that makes sense. The kinds of educational stuff we were doing e.g. learning to read and the math and coding and whatever didnt seem appropriate to ask her to help with.