[drc66]

I'm homeschooling my 7yr. old and not on a serious schedule. My husband thinks we should be on a schedule period. He wants us to be morning people like he is but we are not. He works the night shift so he sleeps days which has been hard for all of us to adjust to. I don't mind compromising but how do you compromise if you don't even know where to begin? Any suggestions?

[metalmama1]

Originally Posted by drc66

I'm homeschooling my 7yr. old and not on a serious schedule. My husband thinks we should be on a schedule period. He wants us to be morning people like he is but we are not. He works the night shift so he sleeps days which has been hard for all of us to adjust to. I don't mind compromising but how do you compromise if you don't even know where to begin? Any suggestions?

awww!!! great questions!!

on the one hand, there's the 'if you're not the one doing the actual home schooling, than you can admire what i do, you can secretly dislike it, but you're not allowed to make the rules for me to follow regarding the actual execution of said schooling, unless you wanna take over a class & see how it works out for ya, since i'm the one that's actually doing it' school of thought (prolly the least popular school of thought for the armchair educators out there ;D, but a valid one, nonetheless)

then there's the school of thought that you advocate; structuring school around the personalities of all involved. entire curriculums are dedicated to 'visual learners/ abstract learners', etc; to ignore a basic personality trait in order to squeeze into someone else's idea of a good mold that you & the kids would look more pleasing in... huh; i dunno.... might as well send them to school, there's plenty of that going on there

a strength of home schooling is alotta stuff, like its efficiency; you can complete an entire day of school in 4 hrs (or a ton less when they are 7!!) and you can school around schedules that are wacky & non traditional, like starting school at 4 pm when hubby rushes off to work, so the whole family is 'working' around the dad's schedule... and be done by 8 pm. that's a schedule after all

this idea might be WAY radical & wildly, desperately unpopular among some 'armchair educators' that like the idea of kids on a 'morning schedule', sitting in the kitchen chairs (or desk chairs, or however your school is configured) by 8 am, doing math till 9, reading till 10 etc.

so then we're back to school of thought # 1

why is it important to him to be doing school in the morning? is it cuz that's when 'school is done'?

every week or day, have the kids show dad the stuff they did for school that day or week. cuz maybe it's not the 'time school is happening' that concerns him as much as the 'is school happening?' fear factor making him want things a certain way.

cuz i mean; gimme a break. if i wish my doctor's office was open till midnight, well too bad!!! i'm just gonna have to work my schedule around his, knowing that he will actually prescribe me meds or fix my owies, proving that even tho his schedule is not one that i like, at least he actually IS practicing medicine, although on his schedule, not mine

[brook6]

I think the main issue for him would be quiet time/space to sleep when the rest of house is up...focus on that. Also sounds like DH is alert and ready to deal with kids when he gets home in the morning, but everyone is sleepy = no family time/fun for him

My Dad worked nights my whole school life! He would get home in time to see us off to school, do whatever and then he would sleep til 9pm when it was time for him to get ready for work. Needless to say there were rules about noise near his bedroom and he was not expected for dinner with the family [he ate dinner with us on weekends].

Maybe work out something for him/kids to do together in morning and your work the school schedule as you need to.

[metalmama1]

brook6 you are purely awesome!!!!