Single Working Mom Wishes to Homeschool Child

Question

I'm 14 weeks pregnant and I am seriously considering homeschooling for my child.

How can I learn more about homeschooling in general, and specifically for single moms who have to work? Are any of you single parents who have successfully homeschooled your children?

Answer 1

The most important thing you need to homeschool your child is an adult who can spend the hours of 9am-3pm with the child. This is also the requirement with the longest lead time. Some of the ways people are able to arrange this include:

• be a 2-adult family, one works for income and the other homeschools the children
• be a 2-adult family, one works days and does childcare in the evening, the other homeschools in the days and works in the evening (this is a VERY hard way to live)
• be independently wealthy so you don't need to work and can concentrate on your child
• be on social assistance so you don't need to work and can concentrate on your child (many feel the disadvantages of living on such a low income would outweigh the benefits of home schooling)
• home school your child in the daytime, and send them to a daycare in the evenings or overnight while you work (also a VERY hard way to live, and such daycare is likely to be hard to find and expensive)
• work at something your child can accompany you to, such as driving a school bus morning and afternoon, working in a small retail establishment that allows quiet school age children to spend all day there reading or doing worksheets etc, and actively teach them when you're not at work (days or evenings according to your work schedule.)
• work from home on something very interruptable so you can get 8 hours of work in during a 16 hour period of being awake, and teach your children the other half of the time. Again for some of your work time they might be doing schoolwork, but they will need active teaching every day.

Most of these require a LOT of advance planning. For most, the benefits of homeschooling are unlikely to outweigh the costs (primarily a lost salary) unless you know the benefit to your specific child is far more than it would be to most other children. It's hard to imagine you would know this now.

The actual mechanics of schooling the child - getting curriculum, getting materials, working out a schedule, obtaining permission from the local authorities, and the like - probably take only a matter of weeks or months. You can wait until your child is nearing school age to make this decision and get the wheels in motion. But being free during the day to spend the time to homeschool? That's a much bigger problem to tackle, and one it does make sense to think about now. You might start looking for a specific job, take some specific training (only certain jobs can be done as shift work), or start looking for a friend with whom you could form a 2-adult household (eg two single mothers as room-mates) in order to have more options. You might also start your own business - if the store, restaurant, or home office belongs to you, then allowing your children to be in it may or may not be practical but at least it will be your decision, not something you have to ask a boss for.

We homeschooled one of our children afternoons only in response to issues the school was not helping with. The prepping for that (Grade 7 and 8) took less than a day. Being able to change our schedules so one of us could be at the school at noon to pick up our child, collect assignments and such from teachers, and then between us put in 4 hours of teaching and supervision every day - that took about 20 years, but luckily we had already started :-)

Answer 2

I have one friend who was a single mom that worked full time & homeschooled 2 children without issue & both went to college/uni after & she is what made me consider it in the first place. I saw how great her kids were.

I don't think it's a real stretch to think you can do it if that is your real desire. My friend was truly a single mother during most of the year, and she managed.

I homeschool (I am not a single mom, however. Your situation is different.) We take no major breaks. If we go visit family on vacation we still do school, maybe just less, like an hour a day, etc. We often do things on weekends too, and we go all year around. It advances them in grade levels faster & it also allows you to create an environment where learning is the norm.

I could for sure see me working full time & being able to do it. It is helpful to be home in the day so you have the option to belong to homeschool groups. Most of your activities, meetups & coops are going to be done in day hours. So if it were possible, I'd opt for a job that left as much of the day open as I could so that I could tap into that community & support. It helps. My friend did that. She went into work at something like 2-3pm (I can't recall exactly.) Her kids are grown & have kids now.

Filing paperwork will depend on where you live. Where I live I file nothing. When I was first interested I didn't let myself get deterred by all the people that said it would be difficult, and am glad of it. It's not super easy, but I have friends with kids the same age & the stuff they do isn't super easy either (think homework, class projects, teasing, bullying, being left out, etc.) School issues can be difficult.

I was scared to start, but it has done nothing but make our lives easier in the long run & I would continue it one way or another if I found I had to go back out & get a job.