5 Reasons To Involve Fathers In Homeschooling

With August and September being Back To School time I’m dedicating posts to homeschool families and going back to (home) school!

In this post I am going to share with you all 5 Reasons To Involve Fathers In Homeschooling, why fathers should help plan the homeschool, and I’m going to share some ideas of how to involve your husband in your homeschool.

Intro

My husband and I were both homeschooled, but until recently I never really involved him in much of the homeschool planning or process. I realize some of you out there have been involving your husbands all along and this post might not be new news or helpful to you. But I know there are dozens-possibly hundreds of others out there that for various reasons do what I did and tackle the homeschool planning and teaching beast primarily alone.

There can be so many reasons why we moms do this. In our case, one of the biggest reasons is before we moved from the Midwest to the PNW our lives were harder and my husband and I both were working so hard to get by. Since planning is a long process and he was only able to be in the house on Sunday’s, I never really thought of even trying to catch him up to speed and involve him in any way other than having him keep the kids out of my hair for a few hours so I could wrap up details.

Ever since we moved though, my husband has had a little more family time than he did before, and he happened to be around for more of the planning time this year than ever before.

It was a good thing too! I recently finished planning out our homeschool year. This year’s planning was the most intense ever, with a highschooler, middle schooler, two elementary kids, and a pre-schooler to plan for (we also have a one year old). There was more than one occasion where I thought I was going to blow a head gasket-and in all honesty the process definitely took a toll on me! It was during one of those intense moment’s one Saturday when I discovered by total accident the value of having my husbands help in the planning process.

5 Reasons To Involve Fathers In Homeschooling

1. They Make Excellent Sounding Boards

Back to that Saturday, I was feeling really overwhelmed and my husband was nearby. I just started blurting out why this planning process was so hard, and inadvertently I was showing my husband the process and what I had done so far. I noticed the more I talked the less overwhelmed I felt and the more clarity I found.

By the time I finished talking, my husband was blown away by everything I had showed him and all I was trying to accomplish, which brings me to reason #2.

2. The More They Know The More Supportive They Know How To Be

By the time I finished explaining the planning process to my husband, he felt like he had been MIA on me for the previous years. I felt like it totally was my own fault-I’d never really thought to involve him. So for years I struggled-feeling very alone. Ever since that day he’s had such a much better idea of how to support me and the kids in this journey.

Here’s the thing. Two are stronger than one, and homeschooling is a tremendous and heavy workload. It’s such a huge workload that I read once that a lot of homeschool parents end up in divorce. One reason is because the mother becomes so burdened with the workload and the husband is 100% oblivious to all she is trying to do and why she’s always running or else exhausted.

Fact check; If you don’t involve your husband in the planning process and the homeschool process he will be clueless, and he won’t know how to give you the support you are going to need.

Once your husband is aware of your work load he will have a better idea of how to support you, back you up, and fill in if needed.

Every now and then I like to (and we need to) to Saturday school. These are great opportunities to invite your husband to come along for the ride.

Note; You might want to ask him that if he has idea’s that he write them down so you can discuss how to incorporate the idea’s after lessons not during.

3. He May Have Ideas and Insight You Might Be Too Close To The Situation To See

Generally it’s homeschool mom’s that do all the research, read all the curriculum reviews, and spend all day with the kids. But this doesn’t mean that you husband is completely out of the loop!

I recently gave my husband a tablet and asked him to please write down area’s each one of our children needed training in-and goals he personally would like see for our children. I was a little surprised at the tremendous insight into each of our children needs that I didn’t realize he had! From basic manners to character traits he touched on area’s of need for each one of our kids that I was too close to each of them to see (and a little too overwhelmed with the daily grind to see).

4. It’s Good For The Kids To See Daddy Is Involved

Have you ever told your kids to show their daddy what they did in school that day? If so than you know two things, the blank stare when the kid somehow forgot an entire day’s lessons-and the elation and sparkle in their eyes when on the other hand they actually remember a lesson or two and can share what they learned with daddy.

Our middle son isn’t crazy about school. Someday’s he fights me all the way. But he is crazy about his daddy. We recently discovered how much it helps him to be accountable to daddy instead of just mommy, and he loves having daddy look over his school from the day. So we are making more of a point to integrate daddy in his school when he get’s off work and it’s helping!

5. It Helps Keep You Accountable

If you have more than one iron in the fire it can be easy to loose sight of priorities. I’m learning that showing my husband what we got done, where we are at, and where I’m headed on a regular basis with our homeschool helps keep me on track and focused on the big picture and what’s most important.

Ways To Involve Him

Through the years I’ve found a few ways to involve my husband in our children’s education. Sometimes I ask him to teach a specific subject. Idea’s include history, Bible, and character study. Some other activities we love to use to involve daddy in homeschool are games that involve counting, activities, and chess. If our highschooler is in need of assistance I’ll let my husband know and he pitches in with this as well.

Since my husband is around on Saturday’s and Sundays these are the days I like to involve him in our homeschool.

Another excellent idea that we’ve found is periodic talks with each other about where our family is headed-short term and long term. We discuss all kinds of things, including physical and emotional needs for our kids as well as long and short term goals and needs.

Last but not least, my husband prays for our homeschool. We try to do this every morning before he leaves for work.

I hope this post has been helpful for you and given you some idea’s for how to involve your husband in the homeschool process! If you have more ways that you’ve found for involving your husband in your homeschool I’d love to hear them below!

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