How to Avoid Homeschool Workload Overwhelm

In the age of an overabundance of resources, it is easy to get overwhelmed with homeschooling.

But let me pause for a second and encourage you: Homeschooling is %110 a doable thing. Often times prospective homeschoolers fear that they won’t know what to do or how to do it. Let me encourage you that, there is so much support out there. It is a trial and error adventure because each family is unique. And if I can do it, YOU CAN!

However, a common problem and source of discouragement for many homeschoolers is having too much on their plate. 

Most homeschool families don’t overload themselves on purpose. It happens like this…

Once upon a time, the Gregor Family decided to pull their 4 children out of traditional public school and homeschool them. They began their homeschooling journey with a simple curriculum that contained everything they needed including a teacher’s guide to show Mrs. Gregor what to do every step of the way.

Mrs. Gregor and her kids spent the first few weeks getting a feel for the curriculum and their new routines. It was new, exciting and everyone was into their new lifestyle. The children especially loved the fact that school was over in only 2 1/2 hours!!! What a difference from their previous 8 hour school day followed by hours of homework each night!

Time went on and Mrs. Gregor joined some online Homeschooling mom groups. She also joined a local homeschool co-op where she and her kids could go weekly to do some of the fun extracurricular activities that they weren’t doing at home. Plus it fulfilled the social aspect that her children missed so much about public school as they made lots of new friends. Win-win for everyone!

Mrs. Gregor also started to make new friends in both the co-op and the online Facebook homeschooling group. She enjoyed hearing what other moms were doing and what curriculum they were using. She also loved hearing how other mom’s handled “that child” who hates reading and writing. Mrs. Gregor found it refreshing to learn that she wasn’t the only one with these struggles.

As she learned more about what other moms were doing, she started wanting to try those things with her family as well. Slowly she would add one thing at a time onto their current workload. First, it was cursive, which was no big deal because that only took about 15 minutes… harmless. Then she decided to add in Spanish because she found out a few of her friends were doing Foreign Language. She immediately felt like she was doing a disservice to her children by not including Foreign Language (what a failure). Now, this subject took around 45 minutes, but Mrs. Gregor didn’t think too much of the added time because after all they were still getting school done in less than half the time of public school.

She started to notice reluctance in her once eager children. But with a little coaxing and encouraging she was able to get them to finish their work each day.

Not long after, while having coffee with a good friend, she learned that her friend was having each of her kids do 20 min of xtramath each day in addition to their current math program. She also was raving about the piano teacher she had found.

Mrs. Gregor went home, signed each child up for the free xtramath account because what’s 20 more minutes a day per child? Then she discussed the option of piano lessons for all the children with her husband. They both agreed that the kids needed to learn an instrument, after all, studies show it helps math skills, right? Besides almost every other homeschooling child played an instrument except their children…

By the following week, all the children were enrolled in music lessons. Since the piano teacher didn’t have four openings in one day, Mrs. Gregor had to split-up the lessons between two days. 

A few weeks passed and this increased load started to wear on them. It started with the house. Mrs. Gregor used to be known for her tidiness, but being gone 3-4x week for piano, co-op, appointments, and errands, left little time for housework, not to mention school! With the busier schedule, she found herself trying to rush through all of the subjects just to check them off each day so that they could get on with whatever running around they had to do that day.

Every day was a battle over the computer (to do their xtramath) and over the piano! Mrs. Gregor felt like a majority of her days consisted of breaking up arguments, refereeing computer use and yelling at her kids to stay on task so they could finish their school work!!

UGH! Mrs. Gregor started to dread their homeschool day. She felt burdened by teaching the children rather than joy-filled like she did at the beginning. She grew frustrated every time she heard herself say, “Hustle! We don’t have time for this!” Everyday was a whirlwind and a gruesome race to the finish.

Something needed to change!

Okay! Please tell me I am not the only one who has been in Mrs. Gregor’s shoes!? As a matter of fact, I know that every homeschool mom has felt (or will feel) like Mrs. Gregor at some point or another. But I have encouragement for you if you feel like Mrs. Gregor! There is a solution my friend so be encouraged, don’t let a season of unnecessary busyness discourage you. Fix it and keep on trucking.

So how do you fix it?

1. Write down a list of every subject/activity you are having your kids currently doing.

Simply grab a lined sheet of paper. If necessary make a column for each child. Start listing every subject and extracurricular activity your are expecting them to accomplish daily or weekly.

2. Decide if everything is necessary

In order to decide on this part look back at your families homeschool mission statement (aka end goal for homeschooling). Don’t have one? Learn how to make one in this post.

Make sure each item is BOTH bringing you closer to your end goal AND not hindering you from the end goal. Cross off the items that aren’t necessary (this is so free-ing, you will love it)!

For example, if your end goal is to raise children who love the Lord and one of your means of achieving that is family Bible Study each night, then make sure your nights are clear. That might mean saying no to sports or other activities that compete for this precious time. 

3. Combine subjects

This is seriously a brilliant tip that I probably picked up from one of my favorite podcasts. For example, instead of doing spelling, handwriting and prayer time all separately, combine all three by having your children write in a prayer journal daily. I did this and it has been awesome! You can read this quick post about how we do it each day.

Be creative and combine subjects. It will lighten your load and your children will think it is so cool that mom stopped doing a certain subject. In reality, you aren’t stopping. You are just coming at it from a different angle. (But shhh, they don’t need to know that.) 

4. Be realistic

Alright, now look at what is left on the list. Does everything need to be done every single day? Maybe on the day that you have music lessons (if those made the list), you don’t do science. Every subject does not need to be done everyday. Stop putting that pressure on yourself and your kids. 

Example: In our home, we aim to do family worship three evenings each week. In a perfect world it would be seven, but it’s not realistic for us. I know that the weekends are always packed and that usually one night each week doesn’t work. So that leaves us just three days which is a realistic goal for our family. 

It is so much more satisfying when you set realistic goals you can actually achieve, rather than, never achieving your goals because they are unrealistic. 

5. Reevaluate when necessary

Any time at all whatsoever that you begin to feel this Mrs. Gregor type of overwhelm. Hit the breaks and repeat steps 1 through 4.

I hope this encouraged you! 

PS – If you don’t already, go follow me on Instagram for daily encouragement and a more transparent look at our life via my Instagram Stories. 

xoxo Allison