Let me start off by saying that doing school at home is not the same thing as homeschooling.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I want you to know how much I respect and support the families which have been plunged headlong into the new “adventure” (a.k.a. what happens when something goes wrong) of educating their children. Even if your child is sitting in front of a computer screen going to a virtual classroom, you are still at home with him, her, or them, ensuring that they get what they need to succeed in life. Whether you homeschool, help your children with homework, pay for tutoring, or provide a computer so they can receive instruction, the bottom line is that we all care about the same thing.

Many people have said to me, about our homeschooling five kids on a boat, “Better you than me. If I were at home all day with my kids, I would kill them!” When they closed the schools in March, this was my first thought. So…how’s it going? Maybe you are discovering what we did 15 years ago when our own homeschool journey started: homeschooling is not so much about education as it is about navigating human relationships, loving each other when you don’t feel like it, and conflict resolution.

When your kid goes to school, you have the luxury of forgetfulness: your kid wakes up on the wrong side of the bed, you drop him/her off at school, the teacher deals with the grumpy student, and 10 hours later the bad morning is a distant memory. Not so at home. First you have to deal with the bad attitude (theirs and yours) and then you can think about instruction and learning. By the time you’ve solved all the personal problems, it’s time for lunch! (I speak only partly in jest…)

Of course, with the help of technology, not all parents are required to add curriculum planning to the perfect storm of working from home, managing a household, cooking, cleaning, and maybe recovering from an illness. So, on the one hand, you have support from your child’s school, but on the other, you have very little freedom about how/when schoolwork gets done. By now, you have probably googled “homeschool ideas” enough to know that this is a diverse subject; each homeschool is as unique as the family who chose to do it. In our local homeschool community, we have everything from unschoolers to those who buy curriculum-in-a-box.

Our family is somewhere in the middle, focusing on real-world learning experiences—hands-on and on-location learning as much as possible. Right now, our oldest three kids are in high school, and they are doing dual enrollment at the local community college, hoping to graduate at 18 or 19 with an Associates Degree which they will have gotten for FREE. The younger two are using a combination of good-old-fashioned book-learning, internet resources, and home-grown projects and games. For now, all our classroom, field trip/travel, and community-based options have disappeared, so we’re feeling the pinch, too.

But here’s the part you need to hear right now, in the middle of our quarantine mass-home-school experiment: No one cares more about your children than you do. No one—no  teacher, no policy-maker, no school counselor. This qualifies you to make decisions about their education. Is the school-at-home model giving your children continuity or creating stress and misery? Is their creativity being crushed or inspired? Are they being taught to think for themselves or to become part of a system? Maybe it’s working for you, or maybe it’s just about keeping your kids busy until school starts up again. But if it’s not, if this whole quarantine thing has you re-thinking what’s important in your life, if you are re-prioritizing, if you have the time and energy, then it’s at least worth considering homeschooling (for the short term at least).

And by homeschooling, I mean kitchen chemistry, reading aloud, geography puzzles, unit studies, chess, baking, book-making, painting, ukulele lessons, ant farms, car repair, gardening, astronomy…the universe is the limit! The internet that just made school-at-home possible has also made homeschooling accessible to all. I don’t know how many hours each day your child is required to “do school,” but even if you continue their current program, you can supplement what they’re learning online with some fun projects at home. Don’t waste this precious time with your kids: do something awesome they’ll remember for the rest of their lives!

I’ve written about homeschooling a lot on our blog, and if you’re interested, here are some links to previous posts:

FAQ: Do You Homeschool the Children?

Homeschool Lessons

FAQ: What About Socialization?

Life is School

Daily Rhythms

Bickering Birds

Into the Rabbit Hole

August in St. Augustine

What to Do (Or Not) in Washington D.C.

Have you ever tried doing yoga on a moving platform? Living on a boat requires constant, minute movements to stay balanced. I don’t even know I’m doing it, but my body is always making small adjustments to say upright. Ironically, balance poses are the biggest challenge in my yoga practice, whether on the dive platform at sunset or on solid ground. If there’s the smallest ripple in the water or shift of the wind, I have to grab onto something or risk a fall. Indoors, unless I can find a good vertical line to focus on, I tip over almost as often. It’s very humbling.

I wish I could say that my emotional balance is better than my physical, but the truth is that I tend toward mood swings, a trapeze flight of high highs and low lows. I never stay at one extreme for very long, and I’m usually at the cheerful end of the pendulum swing, but after 45 years, I still don’t have complete mastery of my emotions. Being married to a steady, quiet, unexcitable person has helped a lot. The spiritual practices of prayer and meditation have helped a lot. Reading good books has helped, as has the free counseling of good friends. Being a parent—trying to model maturity for my children—has helped. But every day, on my yoga mat or off, I have to work to keep my balance.

When times are uncertain, when everything’s up in the air, when daily changes unsettle us, how do we ground ourselves? We must seek balance or fall over. Here are four areas on which we can be working over the next few weeks and months as we prepare for whatever comes next:

1.  Physical balance. We need to get some exercise or we’ll all gain the “quarantine fifteen.” Breathing, moving—these things center you in the present. They remind you that you are still alive, that as long as you have breath, you have hope. If you can, go for a walk, take a bike ride, go kayaking. If you can’t go outside, do yoga, push-ups, T-Tapp, weights, or some other indoor workout.
2. Emotional balance. Who do you love? Who loves you? Reach out to that person. Get a pep talk when you feel bad, give a pep talk when you feel good. If no one has any pep left, share the load and suffer together—that is the literal translation of “compassion” (from the latin prefix “com,”  with, and the root “pati,” to suffer). Do something loving for the people in your immediate surroundings, even when they don’t deserve it. That’s the whole point of love. It’s a gift, not something you earn. Sometimes it’s an act of the will, and not of the heart. We can choose a loving action even without warm fuzzy feelings. Steer clear of negativity, criticism, and pessimism.
3. Spiritual balance: Who are you? What is the significance of your life? What do you believe? What can you add to the world? If life is a meaningless accident, why do you still act as if it has meaning? Do you have a soul? What happens to you if you die? These are the hard questions, questions no one can answer for you. Now is a good time to ask them and to look for answers. Without some kind of underlying philosophy, without spiritual fortitude, a crisis can be overwhelming.
4. A Balanced Schedule: Somehow, without the constructs of school, work, sports, social activities, religious services, and appointments, we must find the self-discipline to make something of this time. If we treat this as an extended vacation (or an endless happy hour), we will miss the good life lessons. Even if you are working your butt off to stay afloat, you must find some balance between work and rest or you will compromise your own health.
5. A Balanced Diet: It would be so easy to eat constantly right now. But we have to resist the urge to fill our emptiness with junk food and find things that are really satisfying to the body and soul. On our boat, we’re trying to keep up our healthy eating habits despite the temptation to bake…

However you find your balance—even if you fall over—get up on those wobbly legs, lift your hearts, breathe deeply, and don’t give up!

You may have noticed that I love English idioms, clichés, and expressions. I’ve also been known to scramble them, as in, “I didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday,” or “I killed two birds in one bush!” Well, here’s an idiom we’ve all butchered anytime we claim to have succeeded without outside assistance. It was originally used with irony; literally speaking, it is impossible to pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps. When you’re down, you’re down, and without some kind of help, you’re not getting up.

This is a humbling time. People are sick. They are lonely. They are dying without the comfort of other human beings, and their loved ones are grieving in isolation. Those caring for the sick and dying are putting their own lives on the line. Many people have lost their jobs. People who were struggling with addiction or trying to deal with an abusive relationship have lost their support systems. Children have lost the structure of school and are facing new challenges. We, the lucky ones who are merely stuck at home, are worried and care-worn. We are collectively, as a species, grieving a loss of normalcy. And it’s too early to talk about recovery.

I keep hearing another expression: “look for the silver lining.” For every ominous cloud, there is some light that escapes, but it doesn’t negate the darkness. I hope I have not trivialized what is obviously a serious crisis. My encouraging words are meant to cheer, yes, but not to make light of a heavy situation. I am merely hoping for thoughtful introspection, peace amid chaos, suffering with a purpose, and that we learn to care for each other as best we can. Mostly, I hope we don’t lose hope.

We will all have to “walk in the valley of the shadow of death,” (Psalm 23) whether now or later, whether mourning a loved one or saying good-bye ourselves. But a shadow assumes a light source, and the psalm quoted above assumes that we don’t have to walk alone through the darkness. Somewhere, in all of this, there is light, and hope, and a future. But it may not look at all like we imagined it.

We have all heard (at least during my lifetime) that how we are living is not sustainable. Our environment cannot sustain our consumption and waste, our economy cannot sustain the debts we accrue, our health cannot sustain our careless lifestyle, our systems of education and healthcare cannot continue in their current courses…and need I mention the war machine? Well, maybe we’ve finally reached a pivotal moment. Can humanity take a collective breath and think about what comes next? If we’re too eager to “return to normal” we may miss a cathartic opportunity.

Humans are resourceful. We are intelligent. We have dreams and visions that guide us toward the future. We are capable of hard work. We are sometimes motivated by something besides fear and greed. We are capable of love and rational decision-making. We are also capable of spiritual connection: if we want it, we can have a relationship with their Creator that offers forgiveness for past mistakes, peace now, and wisdom for the future. But we are also selfish, proud, and independent. And we are arrogant—thinking we can somehow lift ourselves out of the mire.

But if we can’t pull ourselves up who can?

We will have to pull each other out of the muck—lift each other up, dig each other out. Even if you believe in the power of prayer and are seeking help from a Higher Power, prayer is useful not so much as a way to get God to do what you want Him to do, as to get your heart in agreement with what He wants. And He wants us (according to pretty much any world religion I can name, but certainly the Christian faith I claim) to love each other. We are the hands and feet of God, and we have a responsibility to each other to think of someone besides ourselves. This is not the time for apathy, argument, dogma, or hypocrisy.

We must do what we can right now—stop socializing so we don’t put others at risk, refocus our care for those in our homes, reach out to hurting loved ones by phone or video, pray for those on the front lines fighting a war against an invisible enemy, give when we can to those who have lost livelihoods and may not be able to feed and care for themselves.

My heart is heavy. I’m seeing suffering I’ve never seen before, and positive self-talk assumes that my inner dialogue has something nice to say. Hope from outside is the only thing buoying my spirits. Lord knows, I don’t have the power to dig myself out by my bootstraps.

Jay and I recently read Marie Kondo’s book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. It has not yet changed our lives, but it has motivated us to lighten our load, clean out lockers, throw/give things away that we have been storing for no apparent reason, and enjoy a less-cluttered living space. Now that we’re suddenly all at home all the time, we’re continuing to tidy and clean, to see dirt and clutter that we had learned to ignore.

Since we came back to the United States last July, we have been so busy that we could barely keep up with household chores. The three oldest kids were taking in-seat college classes and working at new jobs, the youngest two were playing basketball, everyone was enjoying social activities, and in between pick-ups and drop-offs, I was trying to write a book in one-hour increments in various coffee shops around town. All that came to a screeching halt a few weeks ago, and we realized that, as my friend Amy so eloquently put it, “we have been wallowing in our own dirt.” Perhaps you too have been wallowing, and suddenly find yourself with time and motivation to clean house.

Cleaning is important right now especially—for disease prevention. Between disinfecting surfaces, wiping down things brought into homes, and vigilant hand-washing, people are more focused on cleanliness than ever before. Beyond the physical, cleaning also makes humans feel better mentally and emotionally. As we clear our space, we clear our minds. I need a clean kitchen before I can cook. I need a clean workspace before I can paint. I need a clean desk before I can write. Maybe that makes me neurotic, but there is something freeing about a tidy area. It allows me to fill the physical and creative space with something new.

And since I’m talking about deep-cleaning, I’m going to peel back another layer, look under the rug in my soul where I’m apt to sweep the dirt. No amount of obsessive cleaning can scrub away the imperfections in my own human nature. I am daily faced with the consequences of my mistakes past and present, and sometimes I suffer the negative effects of the mistakes of others. The more time I have on my hands and the fewer the distractions, the more I am aware of my own failures. The more time I spend with my family, the more I realize how imperfectly I show my love for the people closest to me.

So now is as good a time as any, while I’m cleaning all the nooks and crannies, to get my heart right with God, too. These are the words that come to mind when I need a fresh start (which, I’m sorry to report, is pretty much every day): “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit” (New King James Version of the Bible, Psalm 51, verses 10-12).

Even though I “come clean” about my faults, sometimes self-condemnation remains, like a stubborn stain. Positive self-talk leaves me feeling like I only took a swipe at the surface. I need the firm reminder that because Jesus accepted the eternal consequences for humanity’s imperfection, I’m offered a guarantee: “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (New King James version of the Bible, 1 John chapter 1, verse 9). Being forgiven frees me up to forgive others.

I don’t know where you stand—whether you were raised with religion that left a bad taste in your mouth, or with authentic faith-hope-and-love, or with no faith at all. I only know that without my belief in a caring God, without hope that pain can serve a purpose, my fears and my faults would overwhelm me right now and all the cleaning in the world wouldn’t be enough to bring me peace of mind. I pray that you too will find peace amid the chaos.

What does it mean to be a homemaker? Can you be one if you have a 9-5 outside the home? Can you be one if you have no training, if your mother wasn’t a Donna Reed or June Cleaver type? Have you found yourself suddenly surrounded by children and/or a spouse with needs you are struggling to meet? Are you trying to figure out what you’re supposed to be doing at home during an extended quarantine, when all the things on which you depend are disrupted?

Even we on the homeschool front, the ones who chose this lifestyle, are challenged right now. Just because we homeschool does not mean we were at home 24-7. In fact, usually, we find it hard to juggle curriculum and academics with all the other aspects of life: activities and sports, household chores and meal preparation, family obligations, social engagements, and making a living.

But here we are, as a nation, as a species, brought to our knees by something as small as a virus and as large as our worst fear. We are in our houses, but are we at home? What’s the difference?

I suggest that a house is a dwelling where people share space, while a home is a safe and productive environment created by people who love each other. My husband and I chose to live unconventionally—to homeschool our five kids on a sailboat—and we prepared for it by changing the way we lived over a long period of time. We learned how to live off-grid, how to work from home (wherever the home traveled), how to cook creatively and how to teach our kids what they need to know (sometimes with limited internet access), how entertain ourselves when we are isolated or bored, and how to resolve conflict peacefully.

Perhaps you are beginning to make some of the same adjustments—but you may be doing it suddenly and involuntarily, without the necessary mental, emotional, and financial preparation. Stocking up on toilet paper does not prepare you for being at home all the time with your family. The learning curve is steep, but it’s sink-or-swim, so you’d better start doggie-paddling. Here are ten ideas for making your house a home:

1. Accept the situation. We may have to accept that this is going to last a while (not a storm cloud that is going to “blow over”), which means hunkering down and toughening up. You might have to accept an old-fashioned view of family (think Little House on the Prairie) because it’s what will help everyone make it through this tough time. Or you may have to do something unconventional that takes both parents out of their comfort zones. Accept that some sacrifices will be necessary: that’s what love costs.
2. Ask for help. I start my day with prayer and a devotional reading…and coffee, lots of coffee. I do this because otherwise I am the Wicked Witch of the West. I call a friend when I’m in over my head, and I answer the cry for help when a friend needs me. I have homeschool heroes—moms who have done this before—that help me figure things out. I read books. And, of course, I use the internet, but I often find it overwhelming, so I’m choosy about my searches—I usually go looking for something specific.
3. Develop a routine. Not necessarily a rigid schedule, but an order of operations. It provides stability for the whole family and sanity for you. It should include regular mealtimes, chores, school subjects, free time, exercise, and work. Try to do the same things in the same order, accepting disruptions, but always going back to the next thing on the list. Get the family involved. Make a plan. Write it down. Tape it to the wall. And stick to it.
4. Focus on one thing each day. This is something I learned while living aboard my boat. Trying to do too much results in doing nothing well. So, Monday I do the shopping. Tuesday I do laundry. Wednesday I have an early morning Bible Study (now on Zoom). Thursday is music practice. Friday is cleaning day. You get the idea. Of course, this “one thing” is in addition to the daily routines of homeschool, work, and chores.
5. Make a meal plan/menu for the week. It helps with shopping, meal preparation, and managing expectations. Get everyone to make suggestions, learn recipes, and take turns with cooking and cleaning. My eight-year-old can make homemade tortillas by herself. Our kids are capable of so much more than we usually ask of them.
6. Create an orderly space. If your kids are home all the time, they are like tornadoes leaving messes in their wakes. Try to create a zone of peace in at least one room, a place where order exists within the chaos. Maybe it’s your private retreat, maybe it’s the living room sofa. Clean something—it will make you feel better. At the end of the day, enforce a 20-minute tidy-up. Many hands make light work.
7. Enjoy time with your kids. This is a special time—stressful, yes—but also amazing. Someone pushed the PAUSE button and we have a moment to enjoy all the things we’ve been working for. Go outside. Play a board game. Play cars. Play Barbies. Read aloud. One of the reasons we homeschooled in the beginning is because we wanted to enjoy the kids we made. Yes, being at home all the time together is hard, but it is also fun and rewarding.
8. Be creative. Weave art into your daily life: music, dance, drawing, cooking, poetry, home décor—whatever floats your boat. See if you can spruce up the academic curriculum your kids are using with kitchen chemistry, musical parodies, or homemade games.
9. Establish discipline. Without some semblance of order and mutual respect, all this advice is pointless. Your home will be in chaos. You and your spouse will be pitted against each other. Your kids will fight constantly. Making a house a home requires fortitude and teamwork. We just use good-old-fashioned rules, complete with rewards and consequences. And consistency.
10. Offer grace. To yourself, to your spouse, to your kids. I don’t know your specific situation or challenges, but we all have this in common: we need to forgive ourselves and others for mistakes and failures, pick ourselves up, and try again.