Preventing homeschool parent burnout is of paramount importance if you want to homeschool successfully. Homeschooling parents are more prone to burning out due to the many hats we wear- parent, educator, partner, employer, employee, household manager, chief cook and bottle washer, and so on. We can often find ourselves stretched so thin that we break. It’s much easier to prevent this situation than address it once it happens.

Read on for my seven tried and true tips for preventing homeschool parent burnout.

1. Don’t compare your homeschool to someone else’s homeschool

Folks, comparing what you do to what someone else is doing in entirely different circumstances is hugely damaging to you and your family.

Some people school year-round. Some people school four days a week. Some people’s children have a propensity for languages and speak more than one. Some children struggle with English. Try to take inspiration and encouragement from what others are doing instead of using their accomplishments as a way to make yourself feel inadequate.

If you only take away only one nugget from this blog post, let it be this—don’t compare what you’re doing to what others are doing!

2. Keep a consistent schedule

Keeping a schedule benefits everyone. Here are the five things I have on my schedule every day and the reasons why I feel that they’re helpful:

  • Get up at the same time each day to train your body and mind to be alert when you awaken.
  • Get dressed every day to be more productive and ready to tackle the day’s tasks. This signals to your brain that it’s time to work. If I stay in my pajamas, I find that I struggle to get going.
  • Do school at roughly the same time each day. Without a schedule, school takes all day and the rest of your life is put on hold. When kids know that school has a definite start and end, they bring more energy to their tasks.
  • Eat meals at the same time every day to avoid those low-blood sugar moments.
  •  Go to bed at the same time each night, which trains your body to sleep. You will be amazed at how quickly you and your kids fall asleep once you’ve been on a regular sleep schedule.

3. Set hours for your school day

One of my children taught me a valuable lesson early on in our homeschool when she asked me to spell a word for her one evening. I suggested that she get the dictionary and look up the word herself. She responded, “Can’t you just be my mom right now and spell the word for me?”

At that moment, I decided that our school day would have a beginning and end, just as public and private schools do. While it’s true that we have teachable moments outside of our lesson plans, we also need to designate school hours. This is a help to us and our kids.

Knowing that we have only so much time to complete work helps all of us to be better managers of our time. It also allows us to be a family after school is done for the day. Our kids need us as their parents as well as their educational facilitators.

4. Scale back

Scaling back a little when times are stressful creates a buffer. Otherwise, you risk shutting down due to overwhelm. Make less complicated meals, pare school back to the basics for a few weeks or a semester, and do fewer extracurricular activities or stick to low-commitment activities so if you can’t make it, it doesn’t cause others any inconvenience.

Prioritizing your mental health is more important than pushing yourself to keep up with a busy schedule. When you get your bearings again, you can resume a fuller schedule and have the mental and physical energy to maintain it.

5. Don’t do it all yourself

The homeschooling life is a full life. By choosing to homeschool, you took on another full-time job in addition to what you were already doing. It’s all too easy as a homeschooling parent to feel overwhelmed by your responsibilities.

Just remember this: You don’t have to do everything yourself.

Get your children involved in helping to make meals as well as to clean and maintain your home. Even young children can be taught to do real jobs that are a big help to the household. WebMD has great age-related chore recommendations. Get other adult family members to assist you with your homeschooling. Grandma and Grandpa (if they are supportive of homeschooling) can also be great resources. Utilize online classes such as Outschool to do some of the instruction for you.

6. Indulge yourself in healthy ways    

When life gets tough, many of us eat comfort foods, binge watch television shows, or stay up too late. The problem with these choices is that the “comfort” we derive is relatively short-lived. Comfort foods cause us to gain weight, which isn’t comforting in the least! Binge watching television takes up valuable time that we probably don’t have to waste, and staying up late just leaves us tired, grumpy, and unmotivated.

So, what’s a parent who needs some comfort to do? Here’s what I have done to spoil myself in healthy ways:

  • I allow myself to have any fruit or vegetable that I want. If cherries are $5.99 a pound and I want them, I get them. It feels indulgent, but one pound of cherries only has 225 calories, which is about the same as a candy bar and much better for you. What’s a healthy splurge for you?
  • I binge watch shows, but usually only when I am doing something productive, such as folding laundry, cleaning the kitchen, or getting school ready for the next day. What could you do during your next TV binge?

When I stay up late, I take a relaxing bath with my favorite bath bombs and treat myself to a facial mask. Afterward, I feel rejuvenated and ready to face another day of dealing with life. How can a late night actually benefit you?

7. Get some exercise

We all know that exercise is good for our minds and our bodies. As busy homeschooling parents, we may not be making time for exercise for ourselves.

I neglected the physical care and upkeep of myself as a homeschool parent until 2009, when I woke up and realized that I needed to make my health a priority. I feel better physically and mentally today than I did twenty years ago. I wish I had made time to care for myself earlier. Just thirty minutes a day will pump you full of endorphins, which are a great antidote to stress and burnout.

Exercise doesn’t have to be hard-core, P90X boot camp stuff to be effective. Just grab the kids and get outside to move your body.

Wrapping up

Preventing homeschool parent burnout doesn’t have to be expensive, time-consuming, or require a lot of special products or equipment. It just involves a few tweaks here and there to give ourselves a bit more time or care, keeping us mentally and emotionally on better footing. I hope you feel encouraged to give these tips a try so you can have the best school year yet. Happy Homeschooling!