Ah yes, the age-old question. How long should homeschooling take? Ok, perhaps it’s not really an age-old question. However, it sure is a question that gets asked a lot among homeschooling families. Truth be told the answer has changed for me over the years. When we first started my answer may have been a lot different than it is now. When we first started homeschooling I was trying to bring the public school system into my homeschool.
What Does Bringing The Public School Into Your Home Mean?
Many parents are guilty of this, myself included. Now to be sure, the great thing about homeschooling is that you do what works for you. And if that means mimicking the public school system, go for it! However, I have found most parents suffer from burnout and discouragement when they try this approach. (I most certainly did.) I want you to learn from my mistakes. So, what can this look like? Of course, it’s different for every person, but I will list a few things that may hinder your joy or prevent you from finding your homeschool groove.
Don’t Allow These Things To Rob You of Your Joy
Trying to keep up with in the classroom learning. I was following my son’s local charter school on Facebook so I could keep up with whatever they were learning about in the classroom. I wanted to know if they were reading certain books, or being taught to write in full paragraphs, and so on. This just caused me to feel more inadequate. Not only did I not have the resources that the school teacher had I was missing out on the most important thing. Homeschooling is so great because you get to choose your own teaching methods, allow your child to read what interests them, and develop new skills at their own pace.
Trying to stay on the public school schedule and calendar. Again, hello major burnout! There are many ways to split up your school day, week, month, year, and so on…however I found when I was trying to stick with the public school system’s yearly or monthly calendar, it just caused me more stress. At one point we went several weeks without a break. Let’s just say we were all a little stabby at the end of that time…no bueno.
Struggling to fit it all in. Learning and gaining knowledge is a marathon, not a sprint. There are many, many years in your homeschooling journey to come that will allow you to explore what interests you and your child. Don’t feel like you need to fit it all into one year. I myself have been going through a bit of a change in my desire to learn as an adult, so just because your child doesn’t want to learn it all now, doesn’t mean they won’t form a desire to learn new things later in life.
How Long Should Homeschooling Take?
The short answer is that it depends. Many homeschooling parents are reluctant to give this a solid, black-and-white answer because there are many factors to consider.
For example how old is your child? How many children are you homeschooling? What are your state-specific laws? What is your child’s learning style? Is one of your children more independent than another? What is your schedule? The list can go on. So let’s break these down a bit more to see why parents may hesitate to answer.
Analyze These Questions When Asking How Long Homeschooling Should Take
How old is your child? Generally the younger the child the less time needs to be spent on formal learning and lessons. Play is the most important thing at a young age because children learn through play. Kindergarten lessons, however, can take as little as 20-30 minutes. As the parent you can decide if this is too much or too little for your child. In my experience, my six-year-old son has a longer attention span than his nine-year-old brother. This is how it has always been, and I don’t see it changing anytime soon. As your child gets older a few hours a day across all subjects may be sufficient, but again this varies widely.
How many children are you homeschooling? Anyone with multiple kids, or heck even one kid, knows that things do not always go as planned. And as we discussed attention spans vary. I have two very active boys. At times things take longer because they are more interested in running around and playing while I am trying to get some sort of routine going for our day. Often times I will switch back and forth between the two. One does language arts while the other one is off playing, then I do language arts with the other…this can take longer, but it also depends on the attitude of the child for that day.
What is your schedule? This year has been a bit more difficult for us. We are trying to find balance with a new schedule this year, and to be honest, it has been more difficult. Many parents homeschool their child year-round, and just 4 days a week. This is what we are doing, and it’s working out great. Last year I had my best year ever. We were doing three weeks of school and then a week break. This year it has not been possible to go back to this schedule. When we are able to I will try it out again.
What You Really Need to Know
As previously stated, it can depend greatly on your child, schedule, circumstances, curriculum and so much more. Allow yourself time to understand your child’s needs before jumping to conclusions on how long it should take you. However, my six-year-old can get his work done within an hour, while my nine-year-old can take a bit longer, between 1.5-3 hours depending on his attitude that day.
Some argue that grade level should have a bearing on how many hours. This would mean that at a fourth-grade level, my nine-year-old would be doing four hours of work a day…To me, this is a recipe for disaster. My nine-year-old and I both would be in tears if I required four hours of work when all he wanted to do was play and enjoy the rest of his day. Of course, to each his own, but in my experience this will lead to burnout.
The Bottom Line
Follow your child’s lead. Every child will be different. Quality over quantity. If your child has jumped head first down a rabbit hole on something you did not intend to teach, jump down with them, and learn alongside them. In homeschooling grade levels don’t matter as they do in public school. So who cares if it takes your child longer to get through their curriculum? As long as they are enjoying the learning process, that is what matters! (Trust me, I have a hard time taking that advice at times as well…but it’s true.)
