[Tea] Mayday! How do I homeschool with toddlers?!

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Cincinnati, April 25, 2020

Hi Friend,

Homeschooling with toddlers is for seriously brave parents. Babies sleep, suckle, and ride around on your back. Toddlers, on the other hand, prefer to grab the pencil out of your 8 year old’s hand, climb onto the center of the table and track tempura paint all over the newly finished oak, and then, they empty the recently organized cupboard all at lightning speed while you explain the intricate process of finding common denominators to the 12 year old.

Search-and-destroy toddlers are delightful if you have only one and he’s the oldest and you’ve been running 10Ks and working out with weights for the past four years. They require physical energy (rather than the oh-so-scary and exhausting psychic energy of teens…don’t get me started).

What happens, though, when that toddler keeps growing and by age twelve, you’ve decided in many moments of passion to add more kids? And what do you do if at least one of them is now a toddler? Do you re-up your gym membership, right when you'd rather snuggle and share read alouds instead of swinging from playground apparatus?

The best and worst advice is “it gets better.”

Gee, thanks. But it does.

In the meantime, here are a few things that sometimes worked for our family.

Do quiet activities or those activities that involve you when the toddler naps. It is tough if you have a baby and toddler who refuse to sleep at the same time. It is equally tough to educate during the nap time if you yourself need a nap (and deserve one). Still, on the days you had a protein shake and the babies and toddlers crash, DO something you’ll feel proud of (don’t clean the toilets).
Give your toddler the prime seat. During reading time, I would let my toddlers sit next to me. The youngest got to sit the closest, theory being that the oldest had already sat next to me during the years the toddler didn’t exist. And we did repeat this explanation almost daily for years because “It’s not fair…”
Electronics. There I said it. You all know you do it. I did it. Get out your age-appropriate Netflix shows, tablets, and iPads. I'm serious. Don't hate on TV.
Remember that everything you are trying to accomplish can be taught at other times of the day or week. If your toddler is happy playing with dad at 7 p.m., that’s the perfect time to run flashcards for the times tables with your ten year old. If the toddler is happily making a mess of a banana in a high chair at 3 in the afternoon on a Saturday, grab the older children, set the timer and do a freewrite. Remember that you are at home and not everything has to happen on weekdays, in the mornings.

The main things to remember about little babies and kids under three feet tall… they may get underfoot, but they will grow up. In the meantime, there is nothing that you can’t teach any child later. I mean it. Even reading.

So if you are merely surviving right now, tempted to slide into summer, do it! It will all look different in a few short (though long) months.

The most important job of a mom at home with lots of kids is to create an environment that fosters an interest in learning and a desire to be together. Families who like each other learn better than those who don’t.

So try not to blame your babies and toddlers for being who they are.

Embrace them. Help your older children to embrace them too.

Before you know it, they’ll be packing boxes for college and breaking your heart.

Warmly,

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