Balancing Working and Schooling at Home

Our family is unique in a lot of ways:

• We are a queer family.
• We are Jewish.
  
• Our child came from the foster care system.
• We are self-employed.
• We work from home.
  
• We homeschool.

The first two on the list probably aren't all that unusual. By the item you add the last few items on our list, we definitely find ourselves in the minority of the minority.

Most of the time, we don't really notice being such a minority. We are too busy doing what most families do -- balancing the conflicting demands for our time, money and attention. There's nothing unusual there, except for the fact that we are not only trying to balance our full-time work schedules and extra-curricular activities, but also the needs of our child in terms of her education.

While we work, she schools. It's a challenge sometimes.

Our biggest struggle, generally, is not finding the time to actually get "Danielle's" schoolwork done. For the most part, that's pretty easy, as she has learned that she can either do school, or do chores during business hours. What she's not allowed to do is to watch television, or do anything that even remotely looks like frivolous fun until her work is done. As a result of our own stubbornness, she's become pretty motivated to get her work done.

The real struggle comes in trying to balance our daughter's need for individualized instruction with the telephone calls that come in from our clients. Our biggest client has contracted us to provide 24/7 on-call services in the event of an emergency. Generally, he's pretty good about not calling us for frivolous things, but sometimes the interruption level can get pretty high. I'll sit down with "Danielle" to explain a reading concept or a math problem, and the phone will ring.

I cannot avoid taking calls. I have to answer them, even when I'm in the middle of doing something else. I have to answer, even when I'm tired, sick, or wishing I could do something else. It's part of the job. It's part of the contract, and that availability is what makes us our living.

But it's darn inconvenient at times, and it's a real challenge for us, because it means that one of us might start out helping "Danielle" with her work, but the other has to finish it. I'm sure that makes learning harder on "Danielle" because she's not able to depend on one of us for her school help, but that's just the way it goes. Whoever is least busy is the one who ends up helping the kid.

My sister, who homeschools her five children always seems to be much more on top of things. She's got great curriculum ideas, resources for learning materials and generally manages to make me feel like a real homeschooling dork without meaning to. I just keep reminding myself that she has a couple advantages that I don't have. One, her oldest child turns 17 this year, so she's had plenty of time to find all these great materials; and two, she's a SAHM. Having someone at home full time who doesn't have to report to work makes a big difference in being able to get things organized on the home front.

We've only been homeschooling since January, so I suspect that as we get more experienced, things will go smoother. But for now, we feel like this is the only viable educational option for our daughter. When she was placed with us almost a year ago, she couldn't read, write or do even basic mathematics. The public school's idea of how to remedy her educational deficiencies was to put an 11-year-old child in with the kindergarten and first grade students for part of the day. Obviously, it was humiliating and ineffective, and we decided that even if we couldn't be the perfect homeschooling family, at least we would do better than the public school.

That being said, I think we are doing a reasonable job. "Danielle" has advanced two whole grades since we started, and that's a big jump. She still has a long, long way to go, but she's moving in the right direction.

I wish I had all the answers on how to balance running a full-time, home-based business, but what I can say is that it can be done. Our success so far has come from the following key things:

• Support - We had a good support system that comes from our public charter school. Even though we do most of the educational stuff at home, the school provides us direction, goals, and guidance. Without these resources, I think we'd struggle a lot more.
  
  
• Commitment - We are both committed to homeschooling, and to seeing our daughter make the most of herself. At this point, there are no guarantees because she is so far behind, but we are dedicated to ensure she makes the most of her educational time.
  
  
• Flexibility - Since our business has a high level of interruptions, we have to be flexible. We have to be willing to take over for each other in the middle of assignments, and we have to be open to "Danielle's" interruptions as well. Sometimes we have to interrupt our lessons because of telephone calls. Sometimes she has to interrupt us to ask questions.
  
  
• Cooperation - Everyone in the house has to buy-in to the process, and be willing to do what it takes, especially our daughter. Although we've used a certain amount of coercion to get her to do her work at times, she's bought in to the process. She knows what she's supposed to be doing, and has learned that fighting us about homework isn't going to get her the rewards she desires.
  

Even with all those things in place, it's still not an easy road. I've wished more than once that I could quit my job to focus on "Danielle's" education, but it's just not an option. It's a tough balance to keep, but in the end, I think it will be worth it to us, and even more valuable to our child.