Finding Your Flow as a Homeschooler

Episode 180

In today’s episode of the Art of Homeschooling podcast, I’m sharing some ideas about finding your flow as a homeschooler. I have two suggestions for getting into the groove and feeling at ease with your homeschooling rhythm that you may not have considered before.

Homeschooling is all about the journey. There are ups and downs. And I want to give you two suggestions about how to stay the course.

“…measure your worth by your dedication to your path, not by your successes or failures.”
~from big magic by elizabeth gilbert

My first suggestion is that perhaps finding your homeschooling flow is more about you than the kids. That’s an interesting thought, isn’t it?

And, my second suggestion is that finding your homeschooling flow might be about ditching your daily lesson plans ~ occasionally or even completely. Finding your flow is really about building confidence and being flexible in an intentional way.

I just love getting down to the nitty-gritty of homeschooling and thinking outside the box sometimes!

So grab your earbuds and listen along! And check out the summary, resources, and links mentioned in the episode below.💜

What Does It Mean to Find Your Homeschooling Flow?

I often describe rhythm as the regular, repeated patterns found in your homeschooling lessons, your days, weeks, or seasons.

And when your rhythm begins to carry you through your days, they really begin to flow more effortlessly.

You can find focus and mindfulness in the present moment and tap into your intuition and creativity. It’s like finding your flow state. You’re in the zone.

Sometimes those moments of flow are so fleeting, but also so joyful when everything comes together.

Or maybe that flow state seems unattainable to you.

So here’s where my two suggestions come in, ideas for finding your homeschooling flow.

More About YOU Than the Kiddos

What if finding your rhythm is more about you than the kids? Huh! That’s interesting, isn’t it?

Sometimes we think about our rhythm and wonder why the kids can’t just get dressed and brush their teeth and be ready to jump into the day’s lessons without a fuss or needing to be reminded 100 times. Or why does the lesson always fall apart when you transition from story time to table time? Or why does everyone get grumpy just before lunch?

My suggestion is that maybe finding your flow is not so much about the kids and getting them to do what you’ve envisioned.

Perhaps, if you, as the homeschooling parent, have tapped into something meaningful in your daily rhythm ~ something for you ~ then your rhythm might flow with more ease.

As homeschoolers, we spend so much time and energy helping our kiddos find their passions and follow their interests. And this should be true for us, too!

In this episode, I share about The Country Mama and The City Mama and the ways that they are finding their flow as homeschoolers.

If you know the fable of The Country Mouse and The City Mouse, you’ll pick up on this analogy right away!

Both mamas have very full days, but they take small moments throughout the day to follow their passions and interests.

This meaningful work helps carry them through their days, flowing between their children and their work.

But I do want to tell you this about finding your flow ~ I’m not saying that you should overtax yourself by adding more and more to your plate.

What I’m suggesting instead is that you factor yourself into the equation by weaving fulfilling activities into your day and your rhythm.

How Finding Your Flow Supports Your Kiddos

You may have heard about how incredibly important modeling or imitation is for children. Especially for young children!

It’s so valuable for children to see you engaged and focused on work that is satisfying to you, whether that be indoors or outdoors, on the computer, or with your hands.

Modeling meaningful work for your children helps to build their focus, patience, and passion for the work of childhood. It will help them sustain their own play and imagination if they see you focused and creative.

And here’s a second way that finding your flow supports your children’s development. If you have your own rhythm to follow, it can lessen the tension of getting the kids to follow the rhythm that you’ve set for them. They’ll see you flowing and the sense of security and predictability will naturally spill over to them.

I also want to say that it’s so easy to lose ourselves in parenting and homeschooling. And we sometimes forget to connect with our own heart and hands.

I know I felt that way on my homeschooling journey.

This was one of the big discoveries I made at the Taproot Teacher Training with Barbara, my mentor. I found Taproot to be a time for me to reflect and make discoveries about myself, to reconnect with my own heart. Taproot will give you the opportunity to explore self-discovery and hands-on experiences that will open your eyes to your life’s purpose.

If you’d like to explore rhythm and flow more, I’d suggest checking out Episode #168: Finding Your Homeschooling Rhythm for a Peaceful Day.

Flexible Planning Means MORE Flow

What if finding your flow is all about letting go of writing out a daily lesson plan each and every day? This is interesting to think about whether you use a prepared curriculum or you’ve written your own.

With intention, you might find you can let go of some of the detailed, activity-by-activity daily planning.

What would it be like if you had the confidence to let go of those daily lesson plans a little bit and be more flexible?

This confidence comes from doing just enough preparation ~ not too much and not too little. With added confidence, the plan can become a jumping-off point that allows you to deviate from the plans as needed.

With just enough preparation, the flow of your lessons will carry you through the day without relying on that detailed plan.

It is possible to be prepared to teach without all that much planning! Crazy, I know!

Finding your flow might look like making observations about where your children are. And what the next steps in your lessons should be.

For example, it might be knowing what stories are up next in your book basket, how many pages are left in the read-aloud that you’re using as your spine for your main lesson block, or how many more animals are in your zoology block.

You might have a simple list of spelling patterns or math facts that you’re moving through. Just like you’re moving through your story material.

Batch planning is really wonderful for this!

Sitting down and writing a page of mental math problems to work through over the next week or two. Or writing a series of sentences for grammar practice. With some intentional preparation, you can be ready to flow through the material, at your child’s pace, without much planning. Just picking up each day where you left off the day before.

I’d love to mention the Taproot Teacher Training again here because it’s experiences like this that give you the confidence to find your homeschooling flow. Taproot is all about experiencing the teaching and the learning first-hand.

Finding Your Flow as a Homeschooler

Here are just a few of the benefits of authentically finding your flow as a homeschooler:

First of all, you’ll realize that rhythm is not about designing the perfect daily rhythm and then making your kids follow it. It’s more about finding a flow that works for everyone including you.
You will also gain more confidence as you become more willing to try out some things to find what works. With more confidence comes less rigidity.
And finally, you’ll get better and better at planning lightly, staying flexible, and learning, as Elizabeth Gilbert says in Big Magic, to “…measure your worth by your dedication to your path, not by your successes or failures.”

Thanks for listening to the Art of Homeschooling Podcast! You’ll find a new episode every Monday to help you find your homeschooling flow. See you next week!

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