My first year of homeschooling, I had only one goal: not to burnout. What I wanted most was to enjoy homeschooling, so I figured if I still loved it at the end of the year, it would have been a successful year.
It worked.
I started out planning to complete this and that and check everything off my list. But Elena wasn't soaring through the phonics book like I expected she would and Chloe had a hard time writing left to right, forget about how neat her penmanship was. So I backed up. I slowed down. I readjusted my goals. Ok, so it might take 3 months instead of 2 to get to lesson 50. Um, wrong. Try again. Ok, maybe it will take 6 months instead of 3. That's ok; we're still making progress.
I just kept slowing down and backing up until my academic goals for the year were way different than my original plan. Of course, you have to know my personality to know what a big deal this was for me. I'm a go-getter. I'm motivated. I'm driven. I will push myself to do whatever people say I can't.
Pushing myself to accomplish a lot in homeschooling means I'm exasperating my kids and wearing myself out. I didn't want that.
At the end of that first year, I was so excited to start year 2. I had avoided the all-too-common first year burnout! The year was a success!
And I am still learning to readjust my expectations. I want my children to love learning. I don't want my children to know gobs of trivia but hate learning.
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