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How to Strengthen Relationships while Homeschooling
Hi there friends. My name is Courtney Messick, and you can find me at GraceGrowEdify.com, and thank you for allowing me to join you today. It is always an honor to share here with the Cultivating Grace community.
Now, many of you know this important nugget of information already, but I wish that I had known it earlier on in our homeschooling journey. So, I want to share and encourage those of you who might be like me, and be a bit of a late bloomer. Homeschooling is about relationship. Yes, it’s also about education and academics of course, but one of the most crucial elements of homeschooling is the connection between parent and child.
[socialpug_tweet tweet=”Homeschooling is about relationship. Yes, it’s also about education and academics of course, but one of the most crucial elements of homeschooling is the connection between parent and child.” display_tweet=”Homeschooling is about relationship. Yes, it’s also about education and academics of course, but one of the most crucial elements of homeschooling is the connection between parent and child.”]
I have homeschooled for over 10 years, and I homeschooled in the beginning pushing the academics and missing the relational connection with my oldest. So, today I want to give you three tips to help strengthen the relationships with your children as you homeschool, and I believe when you begin to cultivate a solid connection with your children, the homeschooling becomes less stressful naturally.
Tip number one, read together.
This one may seem obvious to some, but if you aren’t reading with your children on a regular basis, you really should be. The impact of reading together as a family can be massive. Reading together is beneficial for children of all ages, even teens, and I still read aloud with my oldest to this day. Just a few of the benefits for your homeschool and your family include bonding together, strengthening reading skills, and creating opportunities for meaningful conversations.
Tip number two, play together.
Now I have to admit, this one is somewhat of a struggle for me. I am not the fun mom, so general play time just does not come easy to me. I am serious by nature, so it takes a real initiative for me to want to play a board game, so I often add in arts and crafts in place of traditional board games for our play time together to connect. So if you struggle in that area too, find whatever it is that you enjoy doing with your children that’s fun for you and for them. It doesn’t have to be a board game or floor play necessarily. Maybe try sharing hobbies that the whole family takes pleasure in like crafting, gardening, art, or cooking can all be perfect for quality time and also extremely easy to add into your homeschool plans.
Tip three, eat together.
Now for many of us, this may seem obvious again, but there are times we can get busy and eating on the go may happen a little too frequently, so try your best to eat together as a family as often as you can. Some ideas for making family meals happen together may include meal prepping or cooking together. Each child or adult can have a different station or area to cook something, prep something, take part in the meal planning and cooking together. Making meal plans specifically for older kids is a great way for them to help out around the house, and also help partake in the family meal planning. They can help you plan meals, they can help you create grocery lists, and those are great ways to incorporate that into your homeschool routine for the week.
These are three ideas that are super practical, but they’re also flexible and easy enough to incorporate into your homeschool routine each week. I hope that you find these tips helpful, or maybe it sparked some ideas for how you can connect and love your people well. Thanks for tuning in.
Hi there! I am Courtney, a Jesus-pursuing, native Texan, homeschool mom of three, and I believe homeschooling can be a peaceful and productive rhythm. At GraceGrowEdify.com I help families create peaceful homeschooling atmospheres through faith, organizational strategies, and cultivating strong roots at home.
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