I was just curious if you are the primary homeschooler? does your spouse do some of the educating? - does anybody have that arrangement? I bring it up because my husband and I had a little argument about another issue yesterday and that opened a whole can of worms related to our son. My husband does nothing as far as homeschooling our son. I've always been a sahm/work parttime mom for our son (age 11) so it's just understood that I do a lot of the parenting. It's always been an issue because, of course, I think my husband should do more with our son and he looks at me like I have 2 heads. I don't even know how it would look for my husband to help out. He is a good father, but sort of always needs my prompting to get interaction going with my son. Am I asking too much of my husband - he does work full time at a pretty stressful job but has regular hours and weekends off. The fact that I'm home (most of the time) does mean that I'm the primary "educator" but gosh darn it -can't he take a part in this?:?:
I am the head teacher.LOL Handsome helps in his own way. His way isn't mine. Ems has learned a lot from him that goes beyond book work. Since I try to get book work done before Handsome gets home, so we can have family time, this works for us.
I am the primary teacher. My husband helps with various lessons when he's home, just depends on what I ask him to do. For example today he did some woodworking crafts with the boys. The other day he did a reading lesson with our 5 year old because I needed to run an errand. Mostly he helps with the "extra" stuff and I do the basic stuff. He tries to come on all the field trips.
My dh is my venting board and sometimes my logical/common sense thinker He doesn't "do" school with the kids. I make up the assignments and all that. If I leave them home with him - he tries to make sure they get it done but it doesn't always happen. I think it's funny cause my dh starts making excuses for them (they really helped me out a lot today etc etc etc)..... but the stuff they do with him is "real world stuff" I would say.... sometimes not - but they work together and that's enough for me. I don't expect my dh to help with school - heck he was awful in school stuff..... I have more "book smarts" while he has more "common sense" - it's a huge joke between us but it works
I think it is very reasonable to have your dh do part of the work. But watch what you ask for. It would probably be best if you keep up with things like math and English, but then let your dh do science or art or something. Something where if he falls off, there are no long term consequences. My dh keeps claiming he wants to teach something, but everytime he tries, he fails. Like it is football season now so he will say he is going to teach something, and then math gets put aside for a couple weeks before I finally just take the book away and do it myself.
DH doesn't do anything with the schooling, except listen to DD read & ask her what she did today. It would be nice if he showed more interest in what we do, but I'm not fretting over it.
Dh handles science here. I am not big into science but he loves it. He works with sd two nights a week and then does the labs as needed at night or on the weekend. Next year I will probably do the main science (reading/worksheets)with dd (1st grade) but he will do the experiments with her and he will do whatever science sd decides she wants to do (12t grade). Dh also helps me pick out our curriculum. If I am sick he will be the substitute teacher and go over material with sd. He does not do alot of new stuff then but he will go over answers and give out new assignments. To us homeschooling is an entire family activity. I do the majority since I am the sahm but dh is still involved.
My DH's doesn't do anything directly for our homeschool....except wash the dishes for me because he knows I HATE them and since it's my least favorite household chore, he does them most of the time Obviously, he works to make the $$ used to buy the curric, $ for field trips, etc. He's supportive in that he's never asked me to give him a grand total, etc. He knows that I'll only buy what is essential and that I tend to buy things that the younger kids will hopefully re-use in the future (even if not the same way as the oldest). He honestly doesn't have a lot of free time to help me with their education but tries to give me a few moments to myself when he's off.....like an substitiute teacher, he's babysits (or in our case, I call it PARENTING :lol.
My husband isn't very involved in our homeschooling. He is in favor of it and he puts up with me bouncing ideas about planning and curriculum off him, but he isn't really that interested. Every now and then he will surprise me with an opinion, LOL. Parenting is somewhat the same way. He loves the kids and is great at things like playing video games with them, but the day to day parenting stuff is usually on my shoulders unless I ask for specific help. My oldest (7) is really wanting more of Daddy's attention lately and I have had to help arrange that. DH is happy to do it, he just doesn't think about it without it being suggested. So I have set it up so that on DH's next day off just the two of them will go out to Pizza Hut for his next Book It pizza. Little Brother and I will do something fun as well. I also have DS7 reading to Daddy every night. On days when we have done something fun or meaningful for school I make sure the boys tell or show Daddy or prompt Daddy to ask about what they did that day, but that is about as involved as he gets in school.
My husband does not help with homeschooling. Thank God! LOL! I do things my way and I like how things go. He would never want to teach anything anyway. He works full time so I don't think it would be fair to him anyway if I asked him to teach something. He does play referee between my almost teenager and I though and does a pretty darn good job too.
dh does almost nothing when it comes to the hs. It was my idea and my "baby" so to speak. He will help with math, as that is my weakness...I will call him sometimes and ask questions, because I don't want to teach it wrong. He spends a ton of time with the boys. So that part is great. They learn practical stuff, and how to work. He did offer to take vacation and do school with ds when I had the chance to go on a work trip...and I was pretty floored by that one. I ended up not getting to go, but still, he was willing to do it, and it wasn't the only option. He is kind of a stickler about school getting done. But he doesn't actually "check up" on me. He just worries that because every two weeks for two days I am sleeping, that ds is going to get behind. He is evolving and learning as we go along, and so I appreciate that. He fired me as the 'cleaning lady'...which means we will have to hire one...so that, as far as I am concerned comes under educational expenses... One small good thing about the recession, is I might actually be able to FIND a cleaning person that has an opening. Plus he (dh) is cute...that has to count for something right?
Math is my weakness too. Thank God Handsome is a human calculator and can step in during times of confusion; on my part that is. Ems seems to understand more than I do. LOL
While I'm the primary person (lesson planning..ect) he helps a lot. He does P.E., Math and helps them study for their tests a lot. It's great that he's finally gotten so involved since he wasn't against hmsing, he just wasn't sure about it in the first place. I was the one that insisted that our oldest needed it. In the end...our family is happier.
Dh tried doing Math with dd for a while, but gave up. He couldn't deal with her attitude about it (even though she's great with Math, it's her least fave subject). He's the musician in the family, so he takes care of some of the Music stuff. Not all of it, but he's helping her with Music Theory & he's trying to teach her to play guitar (which would go better if she'd practice more often). Other than that, he's not really involved. He'll do some Science stuff with the kids - he helped dd build a battery operated mouse that moves along walls (the cats had lots of fun with that) & a phone. When the kids are older, he'll teach them about cars & be involved in teaching them to use tools. Teaching them to work on cars & how to play guitar are probably the only things he'll ever do entirely on his own, though. With everything else, I'm the main teacher & he sometimes helps. Luckily, I grew up a tomboy & know how to work with tools, took shop class, etc. So, I don't have to wait for dh to get around to teaching them that stuff.
Your husband sounds just like mine.:roll: You've got a friend in me! I have to ask mine to do stuff with Jeannie. She and I were stuck in a snowstorm this weekend because he wouldn't take her somewhere earlier, so I could grocery shop before the snow. Why should she have had to schlep through the grocery store when her dad was home and could have taken her swimming or skating? He does not help with school, except to drive us to far off field trips. Oh, wait- he will correct me if he hears me say something wrong.:twisted: Lol- is that helping with school?? I have to ask him to look at her work. This has caused her to say, 'It doesn't matter, because no one sees it.', when I'd get on her to be less sloppy with her work. You'd think that comment would penetrate his coconut head, but it didn't. So, I say no- you are not expecting too much. A hs father needs to show interest at the very least.
My husband makes the money so I'm able to stay at home and school the kids. He also teaches things other than school subjects. He has taught my 8 yo son about hunting, tools, measuring and things about the woods. He has taught my daughter how a man should treat a woman and the love she is deserving of. Both kids have learned how to build things. The book work is mine to teach but I couldn't do it without a supporting husband.
My husband is extremely supportive of our homeschooling, but isn't directly involved in the day-to-day schoolwork. Mostly because he's usually at work during the day during the week when we're schooling. If he happens to be home during the week for vacation or something, I can go out to run errands and leave work for ds, and be confident that dh will make sure it gets done and help ds if he has any questions. I feel really blessed that dh takes an active interest in our kids being homeschooled. He always asks ds to see what work he did in school each day, and is always looking for opportunity to to extra fun "quizzes", etc while driving in the car, etc.
Yes it does!!!! Part of my husband's job is to make me less tense and stressed about the kids - and his cuteness actually comes into effect. I mean come on women - who can turn down a guy wearing nice fitting jeans lounging in bed watching TV?? His days off are Thursday/Friday and he works midnight to 8am Wednesday so he's off that day as well. I take 1 kid to the farmer's market with me and he stays with the other one on Saturday mornings. So he does get time with them - though sometimes I know my son just zones out on the computer.
