Among all the other questions that surround how to start homeschooling, is another topic - is it possible for a parent to work full-time as well as homeschool? Most parents think it would be IMPOSSIBLE to both continue a full time-career and homeschool their children.

In our household, both parents work full-time out of the home, and we homeschool multiple children. Is it easy? Not always, but it’s possible and we are enjoying it.

The first thing you must do when thinking about making the switch to homeschool is forget everything you know about a traditional school. There is no possible way if you work 8-5, you can homeschool from 8-5. You must figure out how to work a homeschool schedule around your work schedule. Guess what? It’s ok to teach at 6 o’clock at night, it’s also ok to do lessons on Saturdays! You make the rules and figure out what works best for you and your kids.

What about childcare?

This topic I am going to touch on very briefly, you need to figure out what works for your family, in my opinion, a school shouldn’t be looked at as childcare anyway. Thankfully we have a great family support system that assists us in that area, but all they do is provide care, they minimally assist with any homeschooling- that is all on us as parents. So how do you handle childcare when your kids were out of school for summer? If you want to homeschool and have a career there are tons of options including hiring a private babysitter- it all just depends on what works best for your household.

What does our schedule look like?

Here is the BEST thing about homeschooling you make it work around your schedule. When my children attended public school, we had to plan around the school schedule and make our day-to-day fit into that. Now we make school fit in where it works best, this has caused WAY less stress on myself and my kids. AMEN to no more packing lunches at 6 am while getting ready for my office job.

So as far as how we plan, I only plan out one week at a time; I spend one hour on a Sunday planning our week. I plan daily, individual goals, that should only take a couple of hours to complete. My goal is 2-3 hours MAX per day on schoolwork. I will plan items my kids can complete on their own, like any online learning activities or book readings. Then I will plan a time when I need to help them with lessons. Sometimes school lessons get done on my work lunch break, other times lessons get completed when I am done with work for the day.

Using online tools does relieve the need for me, or my husband to be the “teacher” for every lesson, but this doesn’t mean we aren’t assisting. You will notice your children will require different support so it’s VERY important you are communicating with them about the plan and schedule. If my child does not understand a worksheet or assignment, they stop working on it and place it back in their folder until a parent is available to explain and assist. We recently switched our core homeschool curriculum to an easy open and go format so when it’s time to work on a lesson we open up our book and dive in with no need for pre-planning which is amazing for a working or busy parent.

So, can you do it? Can you work full-time and homeschool?

Of course, but it’s going to take work. I am not here to sugarcoat and tell you it’s easy, but it’s worth it. The idea of homeschooling our children is so important to us that we do what we must, to make it work. One of the great benefits of homeschooling is you do it your way and what works best for your family, once you have that understanding you can do anything!

Ashlee