For many homeschooling families who take a summer break from school, planning for the next academic year is now in process. During our 30 years of homeschooling, I was often asked how I managed to homeschool, be a wife and mother of a large family, and take care of my home. It was a simple answer – a schedule! That was was the mechanism the Lord directed me to use for budgeting my time. It was the greatest practical blessing He gave me to enable fulfillment of the responsibilities He put into my life.
Some would say that the structure of a schedule is too confining. However, in reality the schedule gives freedom. This mom shares her experience with a schedule by describing the benefits she finds in structure versus the negative consequences of a free-spirited lifestyle:
“There will be such freedom once you implement the schedule you’ve decided is best for your family and that the Lord has led you to! It’s easy to listen to the lie from the enemy that just winging it is actually easier, that you’ll have more freedom that way, and that being proactive in your parenting, schooling, and daily life is more work. Really, I’ve found that it’s far harder to REACT all day than to PLAN your routine and rest in it. You’ll have a billion fewer decisions to make, which brings peace, enjoyment of your children, rest in the good things you’re able to teach, and a sense of accomplishment in what you’re able to do in a day.”
A schedule is one of the best ways you have to achieve homeschooling goals and feel encouraged by what you are doing. Perhaps the number-one discourager of homeschooling moms is not accomplishing school and also getting behind in other tasks. A schedule sets aside time for the priorities the Lord has placed into your life.
A schedule is a slave to help you. It is not a slave driver that you are required to obey. You use your schedules to allow you to follow the Lord’s direction for your days. However, when He brings interruptions into your schedule, that schedule helps you deal with them. You know what you can skip and what’s most crucial to your day.
A schedule helps maintain a meek and quiet spirit. There are rewards and consequences built into a schedule that allow you not to be angry with the child who doesn’t apply himself to his task. Instead, you can let the natural consequences take effect and do the work of disciplining and training. For example, math time is in the schedule but your child dawdles that time away. Therefore, he misses playtime, which is also in the schedule later in the day, in order to do his math work. In addition, a schedule should have reward-type activities that, without a schedule, a mom might tell her children they will do when they have time – but that day never arrives.
One final benefit of a schedule I want to highlight has to do with your summer break from school. I wonder how many reading this article are doing school work through the summer, not by choice, but rather because they haven’t yet completed their year’s worth of work. A schedule freed our family from that tyranny by enabling us to complete all our school work through our normal school year. Then, if we wanted to do any school in the summer, it was bonus work and not necessary-to-finish-the-year work.
I have only scratched the surface of the benefits a schedule can bring to a homeschooling mom and her family. It is my hope and prayer that you will see what a schedule can do for you and choose now to begin planning your schedule for the upcoming school year. If you need help with scheduling, our book Managers of Their Homes will give you step-by-step directions and a scheduling kit to direct you through the scheduling process. If you have used a schedule in the past but have gotten off track, may I encourage you to once again pick up your scheduling pieces and prayerfully plan your schedule.
Scheduling keeps you obediently following the Lord Jesus. Titus 2:4-5 tells you to love your husband, love your children, and be a keeper at home. For homeschooling moms, you have the added calling to homeschool your children. Your schedule helps you make sure your time usage is lined up with your calling.