By Dawn Spence, SPED Homeschool Teaching Manager

 

Homeschooling is a great path to spending time with your family and loved ones. It can be hectic at times with lots to do and it can be peaceful at times. I have been on both sides of the coin. Some years are outright crazy and stressful. What do you do when life hits you with stress, illness, or both? This is when I feel like my teaching goes out the door, which stresses me out even more. How do you homeschool when everything is insane? The word that comes to my mind this year is grace. I have found four things that have given me perspective when dealing with illnesses in our home when I am the primary caregiver and teacher.

 

Look at what you can let go of:

I am type A personality, that likes all my ducks in a row, and this year my ducks aren’t in the same pond, let alone in a row! While focusing on my non-negotiables, I have learned to ease up on some subjects. I feel more pressure with a high school student to keep him on track, but even his schooling can take some breaks within limits. I can do less math for one week and assign more the next or assign fewer problems if he is understanding the lesson. This is where I am glad that we school in the summer, as that releases some of my mom guilt and pressure. 

 

Learn to be flexible: 

If things are chaotic and I lose my bearings, my children will still look to me for some stability. The best gift I can give my kids is the lesson that life is something that can not be predicted. We might wake up and because of unforeseen circumstances, our day takes a different turn. This life skill, of being able to adapt in the situation and not crater when an illness or stress comes on, can not be taught in a textbook. Honestly, this year I have been tested in this very area and some days I do better than others. If I don’t succeed, I need to grant myself grace.

 

Pick your path:

The biggest thing I need to remember in stressful times and in the chaos is that this is my journey and my path. Comparing myself to others, especially during a crisis, just causes me more stress. I know that this is not the time to get on social media. I ‌look and see how it is going for others, which can cause a pity party or going down a rabbit-hole and still my stress is there. During this hectic time, I choose to take some time and evaluate my path. Maybe I need a 5 minute time out, a hot bath, or chocolate. Whatever I do or how I handle my situation, it’s my way, and it is not wrong.

 

Ask for help:

This one is hard for me. I was brought up to just do it. Sometimes, I need outside help. Many times when others ask what they can do to help, I feel like it is my burden alone. This is where I usually pray for help and strength and sometimes that answered prayer is help from others. When help comes, I need to accept it and let people in to help. Battling my stress and crisis on my own is not a badge of honor. Reducing my stress helps me become a better mom and teacher.

 

Stress and crisis might show up at any time, but learning how to give yourself grace and work through it is the key to mental wellness.

 

Dawn Spence is a homeschooling mother of three who left her special education teaching career to stay home and teach her own children. She is a gifted instructor who has the ability to bring out the teacher in everyone, especially showing parents how to modify curriculum to meet the specific learning needs of their child. Dawn works as the SPED Homeschool Teaching Manager, coordinating blogging content with the SPED Homeschool partners and team members.

 

 

 


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By Charl Rae Cobb

 

Denial, anger, rationalization, bargaining, depression, anxiety, and eventual acceptance. In nursing school, I learned that everyone goes through several stages during the grieving process. I was taught to help support people whose loved ones have died. What I now recognize is that every diagnosis, whether it is medical or not, brings out these emotions. Realizing it is a natural, and unfortunately, a necessary process helps our family deal with each new health challenge.

 

Whether we are dealing with the symptoms of an acute illness like a virus or an allergic reaction, a long-term condition such as an auto-immune disorder or cancer, or an unexpected change in medication, illnesses wind up disrupting our current and carefully planned academic and household schedule. Honestly, it can be upsetting, overwhelming, and confusing until I remind myself that teaching my child how to handle change is as important as teaching math and writing skills.

 

Some days I want to cry because of the unfairness and disappointment of a new medical diagnosis or medicine that we now have to deal with. At times, I am anxious or fearful that the academics will slide. Sometimes I feel emotionally and or physically exhausted. Some days I want someone else to take over the multiple roles I am responsible for in our home: teacher, cook, laundress, chauffeur, social coordinator, cheerleader, budget balancer, time manager, etc. Just so that I can be the mom and/or nurse that my child needs or I can just focus on my own health needs or those of another family member.

 

After I allow myself some private time to identify that as part of the grieving process, I find myself better prepared to move myself and my student who studies and learns from everything I do as well as say into the acceptance stage of the grieving process where we can empower ourselves with education and a can do attitude. This has become our “Step Number One“.

 

Step Two, is a chance to reassess our priorities. We like the analogy of filling a glass jar with large rocks, small rocks, sand, and water. No one can be successful in filling the jar with all the items if they try to put all the small things in first. Anyone can be successful if they put the largest rocks in, then the smaller rocks, then the sand followed by the water. Our family finds success and satisfaction when we prioritize our needs and our wants. This becomes an important life lesson that translates into financial budgeting and time management as well as health and academics. We also find this to be a powerful opportunity to teach discernment. If our child learns a healthy decision-making process so that he can continue to do so independently as an adult, then we have invested our time in a worthwhile endeavor rather than wasting it with worry.

 

Step Three is based on Step Two. If one or more of our family members need to focus on sleep, bedrest and antibiotics or other treatments to recover from a short-term illness, that becomes the priority and other things can wait. We may choose to progress slowly toward reading literature, watching documentaries, or playing games prior to resuming academics. It has been helpful to record what we did in our lesson planner retrospectively during these times. We have been pleased to see that we actually have satisfying discussions about a story we read together or a documentary we watched and were inspired to explore more about that particular topic or interest. When social distancing is due to illness, it has been helpful to maintain connections with others via FaceTime, phone calls, texting, and letter writing. It has amazed me at how much my child and his pen pals are lengthy and detailed letters to each other as well as watching their handwriting, typing, and spelling skills improve!

 

If I am the one who is ill, my child may proceed with lessons he feels more confident about. He may give me a short progress report each day or ask his dad or grandmother to help him work through a question if he did not find understanding by searching the Internet or textbook. If we are dealing with a long term health challenge or a newly diagnosed learning disability related to an illness, we tend to approach it as a health related unit study and learn what we can about the symptoms, treatment or therapy, etc. Therefore we can plan for success with physical health, social interactions, and schoolwork. Occasionally, this has led to combining nutrition and cooking lessons with biology, physics, and physiology in fun and memorable ways!

  

Every family goes through health challenges in their own unique ways. I hope that sharing our perspective might encourage someone else, as I have been encouraged by other parents who are homeschooling through medical challenges.

 

Charl’s work experiences include writing, education, healthcare, and art. She loves helping homeschoolers learn how to identify dominant learning styles and how to plan strategies for success. Respecting the individual requirements of her multi-generational household, she strives to create tasty, family-friendly meals while juggling multiple dietary requirements, provide social and educational activities that encourage those dealing with multiple special needs, and balance life in general. 

 

 

 

 

 


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by the SPED Homeschool Team

 

Learn how three long-time special needs homeschooling moms learned to balance education and medical needs in their homes by properly orienting priorities, energy, and choices.

 

Balancing Priorities

Home educating through illnesses is something our team wrote about a few years ago, just as I was going through the third of three surgeries in 2020. What I learned through that experience is that priorities are a must because there isn’t time to do everything you would like to do when illness upends your life. However, there is always time for the things you put at the top of your list as long as you focus on prioritizing them. For school work, that means numbering subjects in order of importance and then doing them in that order. For daily chores, it means doing your best to have everyone focus on the day’s top chore and being thankful if it gets done between doctor appointments planned or not, necessary breaks for cuddles, telling your kids how much you love them, and taking a much needed nap.The best advice I can give, though, is to focus on what you have to be thankful for each day. Even if it was the gift of another day of life that you get to spend with your kids because you are blessed with the opportunity to homeschool.

-Peggy Ployhar

 

Balancing Energy

The amount of school we do is in inverse proportion to the severity of what’s going on, be it illness or sensory meltdowns. We take sick days when we are really sick. When things are milder and ongoing, I try to get at least some school done. We may not do core subjects those days because I’d rather have my child at full capacity for those. We might do low-energy activities that teach the same material, like watch videos, or explore the topic in ways other than using our regular curriculum. That way, learning continues, but not at the same intensity or duration as a normal school day. Once the crisis has passed, we get back on track.

-Stephanie Buckwalter

 

Balancing Choices

Many types of illnesses have affected our family and our homeschool life over the years. The first question I try to ask myself is what am I willing to give up and what is my goal at the time. Small quick illnesses I give whoever is sick a day or two of rest and then we pick back up. The chronic illnesses are the ones that I have to ask myself what is the most important need right now. When I studied education we learned about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and basically the bottom of the pyramid is that if our basic physiological needs are not being met like sleep, food, breathing and I will add in here being well our motivation will be low resulting in low output. This is what I try to remember during illnesses: do I just want stuff done for the sake of getting it done or do I want it done well? The times when we are going through more chronic issues, I use more games, documentaries, movies that touch on what we are learning, and most important rest. Rest during an illness is one of the most important lessons we can teach our children. Our bodies need rest to heal, and it is important that we learn to listen to our bodies. Finding a place where you are comfortable letting up on school during an illness is a personal choice, but sometimes we have no choice but to stop and heal and that is okay.

-Dawn Spence

 

 

 

 

 


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SPED Homeschool Team

Every month, we ask our SPED Homeschool team to provide insight into their own personal journey with homeschooling. This month we asked a few of our team members about what they do for homeschooling when a family member is ill. Here are ways our team homeschools when…

 

When a child has a chronic illness

“Homeschooling through an illness looks differently depending on who is sick. If my daughter with chronic medical issues is ill, everyone else will continue with their day’s work. My daughter will be given time to rest and medical interventions, if necessary. If I need to be more hands-on with her, we might have a movie day and watch documentaries that pertain to our learning. I always have backup plans just in case this happens. My other two children have learned to adapt to their sister’s needs. I allow my other kiddos sick days as they come up as well. We homeschool year-round to make up for periods of sickness. If I am ill, I teach from my recliner and we make things work as well as we can. What I have learned is to give myself lots of grace and remember that I am not chained to a timeline.” – Dawn Spence 

 

When a parent has a chronic illness

“Over our years of homeschooling, we have dealt with short-term illnesses like colds, the flu, and other small health hiccups that disrupted our schedule for maybe a day or two. In those days, my kids would often lament that homeschooling was not fair because, even though they were sick, they still had to do schoolwork. I have to admit, it wasn’t always easy to keep them learning when we weren’t feeling our best, but these times taught my children that we do our best with what we have been given.

“But then sometimes prolonged illnesses affected our learning, like the lengthy battles  both my boys had in overcoming childhood depression. Many days our school lessons were not focused on our core subjects because mental healing was more important than learning to read, write, or do math. And, those days I pushed the curriculum over working on mental health, I quickly realized my son wasn’t grasping the lessons or engaging with the content. He was just physically in the room with his mind in a different place. 

“Now, entering my last year of homeschooling my youngest, I am the one battling an illness – cancer. My life has been upended with weekly doctor appointments, surgeries, and more, all while I do my best to help her keep a regular schedule. Needless to say, in planning out this year, I have taken on teaching in areas where I feel my presence will have the greatest impact. And, for the rest of her curriculum, I have prayerfully outsourced her teaching to tutors or self—paced online programs. I just can’t do everything and have the time and energy I need to devote to my healing.

“Life has seasons of health and illness and those seasons affect how we homeschool. Health issues that families face should never be used as excuses to forgo the calling to homeschool. It may just look different in each of those seasons.” – Peggy Ployhar

 

When there are multiple appointments

“Concerning homeschooling through illness, we just don’t. We are rarely sick, so when we are, we skip those days of school and don’t make them up. That is what happens in public schools. We frequently do have “bad days” where attention just isn’t there because of autism, or my son is having a poor vision day. I build in a make-up week half-way through the school year and another at the end of the school year in the same way some schools have snow days. When we have doctor appointments, I may do half-days depending on if it is just any easy check-up or a long, tough one. The long ones count as a bad day and we do not have school. We have also counted therapy as part of the curriculum because that is what would have happened if he had been in school getting services at school. We just did academics half-day on those days. Speech therapy and occupational therapy counted as language arts as he worked on wh- questions, pronoun usage, and prepositions in speech and handwriting in OT. We just did the math and either history or science on those days.” –  Lara Lee

 

When there is a pandemic

“Just ten days after it felt like the world shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic, my husband was unexpectedly hospitalized. By then, my kids were already feeling the changes in the world around them. We were having to distance from family and friends, and our many activities suddenly closed. School and learning were the only consistent things. During this time, we kept our schedule of morning nature walks and schoolwork at the table each morning. We cooked our meals together at home. We relied on neighbors and friends to bring us some toilet paper and a few groceries. I knew that my kids needed the routine even more because everything else in life at that time was chaotic.” – Melissa Schumacher

 

Check out these other SPED Homeschool Team blogs for more inspiration:

Homeschooling Organization Tips that Work

Best Homeschooling Advice for Special Education Homeschool Moms

Avoiding Burnout as a Homeschool Mom

Our Favorite Internet Resources for Homeschooling Special Ed

First Year Homeschooling Lessons

50+ Ideas for Homeschool Extracurriculars

Looking for alternative homeschooling activities when sickness has “rained out” your homeschool schedule for the day? Try one of these low-key learning activities.

 

 

 

 

 


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We all learn very quickly, that even though we may have established a routine, and are plugging along at our homeschool days, things can quickly derail us. Illness is a huge problem for many people. Illness of a child, illness of the parent, or even illness of a family member that we are responsible for can affect our schedules. We have dealt with many of these in our family, and since I’m dealing with the flu this week, I thought I would share my approach to them.


7 Tip for Homeschooling During an Illness

#1 – Keep a Balance
Do not try to be superhuman and ignore the illness! Usually our bodies are trying to tell us something when we feel bad. We need rest, we need nutrition, we need a little TLC. As caregivers, we are not always the best at taking care of ourselves, so if your body lets you know you are sick, heed the warning. The same is true for our children. Sometimes they simply need rest. 

#2 –  Allow for Rest
Prime learning does not take place when children are run down and sick. It’s easy to stay in the mindset that school has to take place every day for a certain number of hours, but it’s simply not true. Learning takes place all the time, in all good environments, but it doesn’t usually take place when the participants are sick and run down. Don’t try to muddle through and “check your boxes” for the day. You are free; allow you or your child to rest if it is needed.

#3 – Learning Happens Everywhere
Learning can happen snuggled up under a blanket on the couch. Do you know how many fabulous things my children and I have learned by turning on a kids educational program, documentary, mini-series or YouTube video? Countless! We use them all the time. If you or your child are up to it, turn on a video. Our favorites are: Sid the Science Kid, Magic School Bus, Signing Time, Rachel and the Treeschoolers, Liberty Kids, and many PBS history shows. My kids learn so much from a visual/audio learning experience.

#4 – Insert Books
If you or your child feel like it, break open the books. Read-alouds are wonderful for sick days (well, if the person reading isn’t the one who is sick). Audio books can also be used. My girls like to color or build with blocks while listening to their audiobooks.

#5 – Housework Can Take Backseat
Sometimes, you must ignore the housework completely. I’ve met a lot of homeschooling mamas that really can’t ever give themselves permission to let the housework slide. I am here to tell you…when you are ill, there is only so much energy you can exert. Sometimes, feeding the children and keeping everyone alive is all you can do!! Don’t fret! Let the kids “help” all they can and just face the housework when you are well.

#6 – Reach Out For Help
If an illness for you, your child or a loved one is extended, don’t be afraid to ask others for help. We all need to lean on others at certain times. Don’t be afraid to reach out for any help, when needed. I’ve been through some rough times with sarcoma and unexpected surgeries. One of my sweet friends set up a meal train to come every couple of days for several weeks. It was such a huge blessing. Food literally just showed up at my doorstep and I didn’t have to cook it. Sometimes asking for help with cooking, cleaning, laundry or anything can free up the time you need to keep you sane.  

#7 – Give Yourself Grace
This really has to go for every aspect of our lives. But if someone is sick, remember to give everyone grace for schooling. You are not confined to anyone else’s schedule. Sometimes the greatest lessons our children can learn are not their ABC’s or 123’s, but they are learning to care for and love each other during the best and worst of times. What you are doing while caring for them and others will not go unnoticed. They will learn to love by your example. Press on! 

 

 


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