When our oldest son began kindergarten, I asked a homeschooling mom of five, who I greatly admired, "What are the keys to your success in homeschooling?" She said there were three things that made their family's homeschooling successful: 1) Pray, pray, pray! 2) Consulted her husband on all major homeschooling decisions and 3) Be flexible! I remember thinking that the first two reasons she gave me for her home chooling success made a lot of sense. Both were very godly keys to home schooling. But flexibility? Was that so important? That didn't even sound very spiritual, as the first two had. 

Now, after several years of homeschooling, I have to agree with her! One of THE primary keys to successful homeschooling is flexibility. In fact, the ability to be flexible is one of the nicest side benefits of homeschooling! Being flexible helps the children's education to flow with "real life." Being flexible keeps Mom from being totally "stressed out."

I remember when my oldest son was in kindergarten. I had a schedule which I followed very strictly. If math took five minutes longer than usual, I was a nervous wreck. Now we would be behind schedule all day!! Could anything be worse!? As I became a more experienced homeschooling mom, I learned to have a very flexible schedule. I learned that if everything did not get done that day, there would always be another day. 

Just today I had to put flexibility into practice. Normally, between 7:00am and 8:30 am the children and I have breakfast and do chores. This morning the children all slept until 7:40. Since they got to bed late and since they were all sick last week, I felt it was the better part of wisdom to let them sleep. If they had to be on a school bus at 7:45, I would not have been able to allow them to sleep in. That is what I meant when I said that being flexible is one of the nice side benefits of home schooling. We had half of the time we usually had to eat and do chores. If I had not learned flexibility, I would have been uptight about the "lost" forty minutes. However, I have learned something in six years of home educating my children. We simply had toast for breakfast and did only the essential chores like feeding the animals. The rest of the chores were done in the afternoon after school.

Later in the day, during math class, my seven year old son asked, "Mommy, how much do 100 things look like? Is that a lot?" I thought it would be a great idea to get 100 dried kidney beans and SHOW him what 100 things looked like. On the other hand, I knew that I had already spent more time with him than I usually did and that it was time to move on to working with his brother. The "old home schooling me" would have decided there simply wasn't time. The "new home schooling me" went and got the beans. Yes, it made us later getting done with school, which made lunch later, which made afternoon school work later, which meant I had less time to do housework before I needed to prepare supper. The laundry did not get folded. The living room did not get cleaned. However, we had a great time counting 100 beans and putting them into a jar. We had to start over twice when we lost count. All four school age children joined us so they all learned "what 100 things look like." All four of them had looks of delight on their faces. No one who had heard the giggles and excitement would have thought my children were in school. But they were, and they learned something as we shared a fun, educational time together.

When Daddy is home for the day and suggests that we all go to the Science Center, I no longer worry that we are only on Lesson 58 in Math and it is already December. When a friend is ill or going through a heartache, I have learned that making a card or preparing a meal is more important, at that moment, than getting phonics done that day. My children are learning to reach out to others when we do this. They are learning that life does not always revolve around them. I have learned that if something is simply not working in our schooling, I can change it or drop it altogether. I have learned that if it is 60 degrees outside in the middle of a long, cold winter, school can wait until after our walk. 

There is a limit to being flexible, though. Flexibility is not saying, "Oh, you don't feel like doing grammar today? Okay, Honey, we'll just skip it." That is teaching the child to be lazy. Flexibility is not talking for an hour on the phone with a friend when we should be doing school work. That means my priorities are not in the right order. Flexibility is not staying in bed until 9:00am because I stayed up until 2:00am the night before reading. That is not taking care of my body so that I can be the best possible wife and mom. Flexibility is not changing math curriculums four times in one school year. That is giving up too easily.

If a new home schooling Mom would ask what makes homeschooling successful (and what homeschooling Mom doesn't like to be asked her opinion on something to do with home schooling?), I would say, "Pray hard. Be sure and consult your husband on major decisions. And...be flexible!!!" Hmm, I wonder where I have heard that before?

If you feel it would be an encouragement or a blessing to someone, you have the Stilwell's permission to forward this article in its entirety. They just ask that you include this note at the bottom of the article with their name and e-mail address (Jeff and Kim Stilwell, jkstilwell@juno.com) in case someone wishes to contact them. Thank you.

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