I was wondering how many of you work from home or work part/full time outside of the home..all the while still managing to homeschool? Or have any of you tried it? I have been approached about continuing my child therapy practice on the side (of homeschooling),,but am unsure whether it is a wise move.
I think it depends. If you can have set hours and have a time set aside to homeschool, it could certainly work. There are lots of moms that make it work. If I could find something flexible, part-time in the evenings, I'd do it!
We are business owners and I do paperwork but it isn't a problem at all for me. If you can set what hours are good for you I say go for it if that is what you want.
Be smart and realistic about how much time is required for homeschooling and your job. I have done some ebay for people and daycare while homeschooling. I personally found daycare to be especially difficult to do while homeschooling. However, maybe some may make it work. I think it also may depend on your curriculum and the ages of your children. If I could set my own hours and control over what I did, I would go for it! You can always start out small to get a feel for it and then add on if you think you can. I guess if you find yourself having to cut back that may not be that big of a deal. As I said, just be realistic about the time you will need to devote to your job and homeschooling. There are plenty of women who manage both very well.
I run a business out of my home. I set my own hours and that really helps. Yes, there are days here and there where I have to cut lessons short so I can get deadline work done (like mailing invitations like I had to today), but mostly it interferes very rarely. I hold my shows (out of house work) in the evenings or on weekend when we have nothing else going on. The most important thing is that I don't ever let anyone bully or guilt me into working on a night when I don't want to. For instance, I won't do shows on Monday nights because my Weight Watchers meetings are very important to me. I've had hosts insist that the only night they are available to have a show is a Monday. I offer to give their name to my director so she can take care of them. I will not let them dictate my schedule. Amazingly, when I tell them I am going to pass them off, they suddenly find another day that they are open.
A friend of mine is a Medical Transcriptionist, and has a couple of others working for her, and she homeschools 3 kids. She is very organized and it's working well. Another friend of mine's husband is a Chiropractor. She goes to his office 1-3 times a week and sometimes helps with advertising. She has 5 kids and homeschools! The oldest is 14, and helps in the office sometimes as well. I don't have a job, but consider it now and then. As someone said, there are many that do that, so it's definitely possible. Let us know what you decide!
I work from home...sort of. Some days, like tomorrow I go in the office to get things done...but most of the time when I am working I'm either traveling out to the middle of no where or I'm just writing up what I did in the middle of no where. I'm a farm inspecter. It is only part time but there are plenty of days that I feel stressed because I have to get online to do some work and my son is asking for help in the next room. But it is manageable. This is probably my last year of part time work though, they have been hinting at full time for a few months now and I'm just about finished with grad school so I'll have no more excuses.
Are you a PT or OT? I am a COTA and I work a weekend day here and there. I work at a SNF/geriatrics, so it is easy to tell the facility that I am available "x" number of hours on which day... I also have a home-based business that is REALLY home-based. I used to do a "party plan" business, and was successful with it, but I was running out the door to do "parties" the minute my husband got home from work, and doing home parties on weekends, etc. I also didn't like asking my friends and family to book parties or buy stuff that they didn't necessarily need. I also had to purchase catalogs and invitations, etc. With the business I am with now, I don't work weekends, and all it takes is internet access and a phone. I set my own hours which can be as few or as many as I like. Feel free to check out my website if you are interested in more info. Working from home isn't for everyone, but this business has been a perfect fit for us!
One more thing...If you DO decide to try a home-based business, I definately recommend setting your "hours of operation" before you begin. It will expand to the amount of time you give it!!
I was doing it fine, until the twins. I work two days a week (24 hours) over the weekend. We school during the week. But the twins (ages 7 months) limit my actual time schooling and we have slowed down tremendously. We will ahve to do some schooling through the summer this year.
I work outside the home, I am a unit secretary at alocal hospital, I work part time 3 days a week and homeschool my 7yo 1st grader(dd). I have an awesome support system, my sister is wonderful!!! We do alot of unit studies and use Saxon math and a variety of writing/reading sources. We love it! I cant imagine not homeschooling..
I clean houses 2 days a week! I have had calls for cleaning but I only offer my two days and if it works for them I will come by and give them an estimate. My oldest is 13 and she now helps with babysitting or if dad is home (he can work from home some mornings) I bring her to help. Right now I have 6 houses.. I am not sure I can do more though. I also get up and start early so I am home to finish school. Works well with us. Being organized and Disciplined is what is needed.. HTH Lisa
I work full time outside the home as a nursing supervisor. It is a real pain, but financially required at this time. I work 3 - 12.5 hour days per week. I school 3 days a week year around. It works for us right now, but I admit it would be nice to have a break once in a while.
Don't feel bad, we had to do math ALL summer last year in order to finish. I worked most of last year full time and it really set me back.
So, for those of you who did decide to work part time. Who watches the kids, or are they old enough? My hesitation is that we dont have many options around here, and my kids are too little to stay alone. My dh is not sure he wants me to work evenings or weekends...guess he has gotten spoiled to having me around when he is home. I'm not sure whether to push that issue, or not.
If you can set your own hours - great. But if you can't it can be really hard. I filled in at the hospital for a month last fall and I got burnt out. It was really hard. Make sure that what ever you do won't stress you out.
I work 30-40 hours per week from home. It has been hard getting on a schedule for HS, but I think I finally have it down now! We are now schooling year-round, 4 days per week, and taking about one week off per month. I don't have to report to my state, so the times/day are no biggie. And because we are schooling contiuously, we don't lose much ground...so we can always pick up where we left off pretty easily. I'm doing some light planning on a month-to-month (break-to-break) basis, and also use very easy curriculum to implement (T4L). It can be tough, but it's also the best of both worlds! I can't complain!
Thank you all for your advice. I am going to take some time to talk to my dh about it and to pray about it. I definately don't want to add stress to either my homeschooling or the therapy sessions. I wouldn't want to be in a session thinking....mmm, I should be home with the kids!
My kids are 7 years apart, so my oldest has always been my life line when it came to babysitting. My youngest is 10 now though.
We just moved and I have not re-started my business in our new area, however I have been working from home for 8 years with 2.5 of them as a homeschooler. I had to retrain my clients not to call during the first part of the day. I also had to resist the temptation to put school off for work, while DH was working. When Dh lost his job I worked during school time if the money was right. I figured there was plenty of non working days that we could use to catch up. The most important thing is to make up a sort of schedule then make sure that you keep the work appointments in that time frame. Also schedule the paperwork/bookeeping and other tasks. Or if you are intermittantly booked , do them during empty appointment slots. It is a challenge to limit the amount of hours you "work" especially away from home, and to keep the work from flowing into other areas of life in a way that costs go up. Example, eating out because an appointment ran over and you did not get home to cook. Sit down with Dh and see what tasks he can do to help free up time for working. One thing that helped us was having a couple of "power hours" each saturday morning. We did work around, in and outside the house for 3 hours straight then had lunch and then went out and played the rest of the day. This let us keep the house and yard up with only minimum work from day to day. We only had to do about 1 hour of work aday otherwise to keep beds made, toss a load of laundry in and fold it, or sweep a floor and do dishes. I figured that the power hours were worth like 7 hours of labor as the kids had to do a little job, like matching socks or cleaning a hampster cage each before cartoons.
