Homeschooling When Your Heart Isn’t in It: It’s OK Not to Homeschool

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We were supposed to start Ptolemy on Monday, not sit in a funeral home trying to decide if we wanted the white casket or the brown casket to bury our twenty-one month old son. I remember because for a few confused and panicked hours, I clung to Ptolemy, to what I was supposed to do, to what I had planned to do, to the one thing I knew how to do when I was forced to leave the hospital without my baby boy.

But of course we didn’t do anything with Ptolemy on Monday, or for many Mondays after. For that first week, my children were only fed because someone else was there to feed them. Homeschooling was the last thing on my mind. Our family needed time to heal. My son needed time to process the bad thoughts that left him rocking himself during the day for fear of reliving that night in his thoughts as soon as the sun went down. Elianna needed time to repeat what happened to me over and over and over. Nisa needed to know that her parents’ grief was OK, and that she wasn’t responsible for trying to make us happy and that I still loved her even when I left to sit in front of my window in the dark. And Dakota needed reassurance that she did everything she could that night and that fault for her brother’s death was not her burden to carry. We all needed to learn how to walk through this thing together, as a family.

We had important lessons to learn, lessons that we are still learning though it has been over six months since the accident, lessons that were not going to be learned by practicing math facts no one could concentrate on or reading history no one cared about.

When major life changes come our way, homeschooling can sometimes take a back seat. Sometimes the routine, the structure, the schedule is good to keep just to help children feel some sense of normalcy and control, but sometimes adhering to the demands of a more formal schedule can get in the way of learning the lessons the Lord has set before us.

No one questions taking time off from homeschooling after the death of a loved one, but sometimes the clues are more subtle. If you find yourself getting ready for school in the morning but your heart just isn’t in it, take some time to pray about whether or not these are the lessons your family needs to be learning right now. Whether it is for a day or for a season, the books can wait.

To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven. ~Ecclesiastes 3:1

What lessons has your family learned through time away from formal lessons?

Dana Hanley writes about life more abundantly, from the joy of a baby’s smile to the almost unbearable grief of losing a son and seeking each day to find beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, a garment of praise instead of the spirit of despair (Isaiah 61:3) at Roscommon Acres and is raising money for Tiggy’s House, a children’s home with Tiny Hands International in her son’s memory. You can visit Dana on her site, Rosecommon Acres.