How To Homeschool While Running Own Business
Running your own business takes up a huge chunk of your time. It can be enriching for you and your family but frustrating, too. At the same time, homeschooling is incredibly tough, even if you’re only doing it for a short while instead of for the duration of your children’s school years.
Add them both together, and you can quickly become pretty overwhelmed by the huge amount of work you have to do and get done. It varies depending on the intensity of the homeschooling, and of course, on what kind of business you run. The amount of children you’re homeschooling also comes into play. Everyone approaches these kinds of situations differently, and what matters to you may not to someone else, so you need to focus on trial and error to find what works best for you and your children. Here are a few pointers to help you get started.
Focus On What’s Important
This is doubly good advice if you’re only homeschooling your children for a small amount of time instead of for a longer one. It would help if you focused on what’s important. Sure, you’ll need to teach them other subjects too, and who’s to judge what comes over the other.
Yet, focusing on key subjects like Math, English, and Science is pretty important. The age of your child matters here too. For example, you might be focusing on the most important math concepts for pre-k or complex spelling for those in the later years of high school. Cutting through to what’s important and not going off on various tangents is a skill; it’s so easy to do your own thing, which any upcoming exams may not cover. Of course, if they’re really young, you don’t have to worry about this so much.
Homeschool While Running Own Business: Find The Gaps
Finding the gaps in your children’s knowledge is important. It’s what guides you to what they need to learn. You’ll find these pretty quickly, and they can help plan your future lessons in the future. You can ask your child what they’re struggling with or go on ahead and wait to see what they struggle with. Finding the gaps early is super important because if you miss some of the foundations, they won’t understand anything which logically follows afterward. If they have previously been educated in a school, you might be able to have a chat with the teacher and find out where these knowledge gaps are.
Consider Moving The Business Online
You’ll know that if you’re homeschooling, you’ll need to be there. Maybe not all of the time if they’re older, but for a lot of the time. So in some cases running a business while homeschooling is impossible. It’s why you should consider moving your business online. It means that you can run everything from the comfort of your own home.
There’s a lot involved. You’ll be focusing on your ranking, your keywords, on trying to get the best reviews, and ensuring everything ticks over nicely. But, you’ll be at home. So you can split your time out properly. If you run a store, you can move it online. Even if you run a consultancy or a services business, you can switch it up to online. So many people moved during the covid pandemic. You won’t confuse your customers as it’s something they’ve grown used to.
Ensure Your Productivity Soars
If you’re teaching your children, you’re not going to be spending as much time with the business. So you need to ensure that the time you do spend in the business is super productive. If you can become as productive as possible, you know that you can leave it and teach your children. If the business’s time isn’t productive, you know you’ll become stressed and worried. Make sure your home office is set up in a way that produces your best work.
When wondering how to work from home successfully, you need to take your own needs into account. Don’t just follow others’ advice you’ve seen online. You need to ensure that you can do your best work. It means finding the right chair that’s comfortable for you. Ensuring you have the right laptop and correct software. Gear everything in your favor so that your product gives you the time you need to spend with your child.
Homeschool While Running Own Business: Invest In A Great Internet Connection
Suppose you’re running your business from home while homeschooling, then you’re both going to need a brilliant internet connection. If your children are streaming videos and downloading work while you’re trying to have meetings and get stuff done, then you’re going to need a brilliant internet connection. It might be that you have a good one already, but it’s always going to be worth testing it out to see how it works when you’re both using it intensively.
If it’s bad, try using an ethernet cable or a wifi booster to help you go along. If it’s still bad, then maybe it’s time for you to get on the phone and speak to your provider. There might be something wrong or upgrade to faster internet. If you do, you don’t have to stick with your provider, so consider shopping around because you might end up with a better deal entirely.
Don’t Forget Physical Fitness
If you’re teaching your kids at home, you must look into physical fitness and ensure that they’re getting the exercise. Especially if you don’t get much yourself, it can be an excuse for you to get some exercise. This can range from a couple of light walks a day to an outright run. Think about going cycling too, or taking them out to historical sites meaning you can walk while learning. You can approach it and get it done; you need to ensure it is actually done.
It might be you signing them up to a local sports team to play and train a couple of times a week. Whatever you do, don’t neglect it. Some kids will take to it more readily than others. Others will shy away from it, and you might have a little bit more of a chore in getting them to do the actual exercise. Of course, if this is the case, you have to think a little harder. Really find out what they’d enjoy that involves some exercise and go from there.
Homeschool While Running Own Business: Consider Help
There are some great online resources you can use to help you out. But more importantly, you can easily get some paid tutors to give you a hand, and some of them don’t charge too much. These are usually college students who have specialized in a certain subject. Their proximity to what your child is studying will be far better than your own, and they’ll be able to impart your recent experience upon them. It would help if you vetted them properly to ensure they’re up to the task. Make sure you ask to see some qualifications.
Also, please don’t leave them with your child on their own. It’s just good practice. But it does mean you can focus on your business while your child gets expert help elsewhere for a couple of hours a week. You could be smart about it too and have the tutor teach them and their friends at the same time because that social interaction is significant for a child, and they won’t get it as much being homeschooled by you.
