josias strikeout: Why Even Moms Need Continuing Education

The following is a guest post by??Skyla King-Christison.

Remember back before kids?? You might have had a job that didn?t involve finding misplaced library books and relearning how to diagram a sentence just so you could show someone else how to do it. ? Well, do you also remember a funny little thing called continuing education??Maybe your boss sent you to conferences or workshops, or hired an expert to come to your workplace and give a course on-site.

Continuing education isn?t just for parents who still put on something that?s been ironed every morning.? Nope!? Even we homeschool moms can benefit from a little continuing education from time to time.? Why? Oh, honey!? There are so many reasons!

mother and son

When Things Are Going Well

Let?s start by assuming that you?re in one of those happy phases where things are clipping along somewhat blissfully. ?You found curricula that your kids actually like, you?ve got a solid support network in place, and everyone?s needs are generally being met.? If you?re in that phase, you?re probably really wondering why on earth you?d want to learn how to do anything else with your homeschooling.

Ask yourself this.? What?s the longest your children have ever liked the same thing?? I?m not talking pizza here.? I?m talking about school programs.? Mine fall hard in love with a new math program or a new learning method (say, Waldorf or Montessori), and they literally wake up asking to get on with school work.

Our kids, no matter how settled, have phases in life and in learning, and if we just settle in and get comfy in those happy phases, the next phase is going to whop us upside the head and have us considering throwing in the towel on this homeschooling business.

By participating in a little continuing teacher?s education for yourself on a semi-regular basis, you?re ready when you come down the other side of Happy Mountain.? You?ve got a few other strategies in your back pocket that you can whip out when the going gets tough.

When Things are Not Going Well

Okay, now let?s assume you?re not in a happy phase. ?Well, this is when it would be great to participate in continuing education and learn about some other options.

Maybe you began homeschooling with a particular method in mind, and now you?re seeing that it?s not quite the fit you thought it would be. ?But what if you don?t know any other way of doing things? ?Well, the odds are good you?ll be trying to force a fit between your family and particular curriculum or method that?s not meant to be, and you?ll have a mountain of power struggles and will end up filing for enthusiasm bankruptcy.

A family filing for enthusiasm bankruptcy has fallen on hard times, indeed.? But if you?ve continued learning, expanding your horizons even though you think you know what you want already, you?ll see bankruptcy coming a mile away, and you?ll pull out a new plan to hold it at bay.

What Does It Look Like?

What does continuing education for a homeschooling mom look like?? There are literally endless possibilities here.

woman at computer

Online Workshops

There are formal workshops and courses, just like that job you had before you ever changed a diaper.? Sometimes you can find free workshops available online from someone who has a product to sell and is offering a few freebie workshops to get some eyeballs on his or her product.

In-Person Workshops

There are also in-person workshops if you live in a region with a lot of homeschoolers.? Where I live, there are often moms who want to be of service to their community, so they offer a workshop on something that they feel really good about.? Or maybe they are trying to start a home based business and they use a free workshop to get some attention for their new endeavor.

Not only do you learn a new slant on home education, but you meet people in the flesh who may become a part of your support network.? That?s a double score!

Summer Camps

In addition to workshops, there are actually summer camps for homeschooling parents where you pay a fee and either you go alone for several days and receive intensive training on a specific topic, or your whole family goes and your kids take classes with same-aged peers while the adults take their own classes.? I have never found the funds to go to one of these, but I always look at them and dream of how fantastic they could be.

Books

Books are always great resources for staying on top of new trends in education or familiarizing yourself with methods that are not your primary course of action.? I would recommend starting out with a book that lays out some of your options, rather than a book about a specific method or theory, so that you can learn the vocabulary associated with different styles of education and have an idea of what you want to spend more time researching.

Home Field Advantage Cover

I wrote the book Home Field Advantage for just that purpose.? How can you learn more about trivium education if you?ve never come across the word?? By getting a feel for everything available to you, you can use your continuing education hours more wisely.

Other Moms

Meeting new moms through your local homeschooling community counts, in my opinion, as continuing education.? You know what my mom friends and I do when we meet at a playground?? Well, we do the typical kissing of scraped knees and passing out of snacks, but we also ask the big question, ?What are you using for language arts right now?? or ?Have you found a Spanish program that you like, because I?m really stuck here.?

Expanding your inner circle to include moms who don?t school exactly like you do can really come in handy when your kids turn that corner and suddenly need something different from their school time than they?ve been getting.? When you have a solid network of moms who operate from different pages in the playbook, you?ve got a wealth of information at your fingertips.

Play groups and academic clubs can be like winning the human resource lottery if you are careful to not plan only things that are drop off activities.? While the free time is nice (and in complete short supply for most of us homies), making those connections with other moms is invaluable.

So if you feel like you?re knowledge base of education doesn?t bleed far beyond the lines of what you?re already doing, a little continuing education is exactly what the doctor ordered.? You can even put on that suit you haven?t needed in years and make it an occasion!

Skyla King-Christison currently?living in a neighborhood in Utah that is populated by real, actual cowboys?with her husband and three children.

She is author of the book Home Field Advantage: A Guide to Choosing Teaching Methods for Your Homeschooling Champions, a comprehensive, indispensable guide for families teaching their children of all ages at home, and of the blog At Home with Momma Skyla.