How to Balance Homeschooling and Housework

Today we are joined by Zowie for a wonderful guest post on balancing homeschooling and housework.  

In order to properly balance taking care of your children at home while at the same time keep the house and cleaning chores on track you ought to prioritize a lot. A lot of people try and some of them fail, but the truth is that there is no right way. You need to find the perfect method for yourself to sync both of them and merge them into a system running on consistency and joint effort. It is rather impossible to handle both homeschooling and housework all on your own.

Depends on how old your children are you can make them help you handle certain house chores when they are on a break from driving you crazy, of course. Joking aside, in this case kids are helpful as much as  troublesome, but when you are home alone with them they are your best and most loyal helper.

In time you will realize that you can no longer do everything perfect, the way you want to. You will learn to lower your expectations because there is no other way you can manage and deal with everything. You will get used to your house being dirty, cluttered and a complete mess most of the time, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take action!

One of the best ways to find time for both homeschooling and housework is to limit your outside activities. It makes sense right? You can’t do housework and homeschooling if you are not home. And again, it is all about priorities. Getting your children to help around the house is a huge advantage- you keep them busy and instead of making a mess they are helping you clean it. 

Children up and above age of 5 can help you plenty with the housework. You can assign different chores for each kid or have them do it with you thus you are both helping them be more productive, helpful and sympathetic to your cause. With patience and lots of practice they will become pretty good in helping around the house and there you will have your number one helpers. They can help you sweep, dust, move laundry from point A to point B, empty the trash and even babysit the smaller ones.

One other thing to keep in mind is regular decluttering of unimportant and extensive junk. How can you vacuum the floor if it is constantly covered in toys. Assign 15 minutes per day for decluttering- simply pick up a box and start filling it with stuff you think belong in the trash. Have your kids do the same, make them say “good-bye” to at least one toy every week and donate them- it is one of the best ways to get rid of unimportant, useless to you and your family, items.

If you can’t organize your housework it never hurts to schedule it by writing down and assigning specific tasks to days of the week. This way you can create a sense of consistency in your housework and have it all planned and figured out. It definitely helps to put your mind and ease and lower the pressure.

Consider it with your partner to start employing professional cleaning help from time to time to aid you with the cleaning chores. Most households hardly find time to clean the carpets, the drapes or the upholstery all by themselves. Having professional cleaners tackle and deep-clean your house once every few months is of huge help. Have them handle the bigger, time-consuming cleaning chores and that leaves you to handle the rest- lesser and smaller cleaning chores.