I've really been struggling with focus lately. Not just with homeschooling... my own school work has suffered. Really the only thing I've managed to keep somewhat focused on is housework, and only because I'm tired of living in a mess (I swear my dh and kids would live like rodents without me.) and it's much easier if I do some every day. I keep telling myself that it really isn't a big deal that we had an extended vaca, and honestly I think it was good for both of my children. Ds really needed some down time after ps (which I didn't give him) and lately dd had been fighting me as well. Thanks to tax money, both got laptops recently, so the last few weeks have been lots of computer learning, especially for dd. With warmer weather here (30's to 40's instead of teens and 20's), I am refocusing myself. I've heard people talk about the winter blahs here before, is it fairly common? How do you beat it, and how long does it last? I guess what I'm really asking here...is do you have weeks where you feel like you are barely getting anything done? I know that's really a very 'school at home' attitude... the kids learn constantly about lots of things. The learning doesn't stop because I didn't haul out the chalkboard. With us all still newbies, I live with this sort of.. odd fear that I'm going to really fail this if I don't act like some sort of Militant Mom. Meghan
It has been really nice here lately in the south, 60's and even 70's :love: The winter blahs are gone, but now all we want to do is be outside on these beautiful days. I think we have gone to spring fever instead :lol: To answer your question, we are not getting done nearly what we should be
For me, I don't associate it so much with winter as I do with 3rd quarter burnout. We are really active year round, so it doesn't seem that we are any more confined over the winter--although as soon as the weather nears 50 we are outside constantly. Anyway, for me, it is the 3rd quarter that I feel like I'm in a rut and get a bit lax. It's the time of year that I know we should be more than half-way done with a course and I can see that we are going to be doing school into June. It happens to all of us. Sometimes it means I have to take a planning day to get myself back on track with school. Realizing my frame of mind needs reset is half the battle. Others may not feel the need to focus on completing a certain amount of school work, and that's great if it works for them. We are very relaxed here, but for my own sake I've found I need to keep on task or I could make excuses to miss 80% of our school days! :lol: If you are feeling like you are in a slump, take a day or more to refocus and set a date to start back up again in the schedule you would like for your family. And don't beat yourself up about it. Like I said, it happens to me every single year at this time....and I'd like to think I'm normal.
Slumps are normal, declaring nice weather days(as opposed to snow days!) is normal, and feeling inadequate when you do that is normal. we've had some 80 degree days here and instead of having "spring break" all at once, we space them out to enjoy the days that are nice, and work on the days that aren't. Feeling like you aren't getting things done is a ps holdover. I'm in my 4th year of hsing and I still have days where I feel guilty about it. As to fighting the winter blahs, I don't know how to beat it. I'm still trying to figure that out! I think you are perfectly normal. I could tell you not to worry about it, but as a newbie, you're going to worry,we all did (and do). Just know you're not the only one!
I agree with everyone else. We generally don't have winter blues as our winters are fairly short and mild by comparison, but we do get burned out around this time every year. We take a somewhat scheduled week off and do absolutely nothing, and by the next week we are refreshed and really able to get back to work. I say somewhat scheduled because I don't have the exact week picked out each year, I just leave time so that somewhere around Feb/early March we can take that week when it becomes necessary. We also do a 6-wks on, 1-wk off schedule, with a shorter summer break. I've found that helps us a great deal.
Thank you guys!! It always helps just knowing I'm not the only one struggling with this! You all are right- I don't think I realized how much I'm a trained monkey when it comes to lecture-lesson-worksheet type school. It almost feels like if there isn't a paper trail, then nothing happened. Which is ridiculous- there's always learning going on. I am going to take your advice and revise my schedule. We have just done 2 days of school and, except for a ridiculous amount of whining and complaining, felt pretty productive. Looking over my notes, we really haven't fallen as far behind as it felt like we had. That was a pleasant shock! I do need to reassess priorities though, and come up with some sort of end goal before summer hits beyond "we will plow through xyz book!". That just isn't working.. and makes me feel overwhelmed and unproductive.
3rd quarter burnout here, too. My youngest (dd6) has been having a terrible time getting her jobs done the last couple of days. Not only that, but she makes it hard for everyone else! Today she kept causing trouble, annoying the older two, making messes (on purpose), and acting like she was soooo sleepy she couldn't keep her eyes open when it was her turn for jobs. She got a stern talking to, a trip to the time-out corner, and finally got to rest on her bed (although she really wasn't tired after all). One of the things that lil' stinker did was spill water on her worksheets 'on accident'. Well it ruined her big brother's worksheets, too, since they were both sitting at the table together. I know it was not accidental because she did it yesterday, too. And we have a "no drinks at the table rule". Grrr! I have seen behaviour like this before. So tomarrow she will have some different things to do to shake things up. She must need a break so we'll do something fun instead of the usual jobs.
