Today’s writing prompt for Home Education Week is: Describe yourself, your family or one of your children. What is it like to be home educated in your family? What is “normal” for you?

If I were to sum up what it is like to be home educated in our family, I would have to say that it is the constant struggle between my desire for academic excellence and the children’s desire to watch movies or play computer games all day, which usually falls somewhere in between, with me thinking they should have learned more and them thinking they should have had more screen time.

I am a firm believer in learning things just because there is virtue in being learned. That means, yes, we do have to read this even if it is boring and, yes, you do need to know your times tables and, no, I don’t care that the public school no longer teaches them. Oh, and my favorite, I don’t care what the public schools do, I said no calculators.

At the same time, I am a firm believer in keeping the joy in learning, which means that I am cautious not to force too much at any one time and I spend most of my efforts trying to teach things in a way that is interesting to the boys, which can be hard, since they are so very different from one another.

I have a curriculum, partly because my state mandates it and partly because of that academic excellence thing, but I also have a lot of fun learning stuff - arts and craft supplies, books, learning games, math manipulatives, educational computer games, science DVD’s from the library, puzzles, and so forth - that the kids can just do on their own when the mood strikes them, which it often does.

How our day looks depends a lot on The D’s mood. He has some mental health issues, which are still in the process of being diagnosed, and when he is having an episode, it turns our day on its head.

Big E usually gets up ready and willing to “do school.” The D wakes up crabby and tired, claiming that school is “stupid.”

Typically, I tell him that he does not have to do it and I start to work with Big E. Nine times out of ten, if he is not in a really bad way, The D will get curious about what we are doing and join in.

This winter we have been sick more often than not. It is really getting old. Very old. I cannot remember a day when I did not have to modify some part of my plan because someone was sick.

So, a typical day for me means having a written plan of everything that I would like to ideally get done and fitting in as much as I can, while working around illnesses, mental states, and general life circumstances.

In short, there is no such thing as a “typical” day, just a family going through life together, living and learning, and trying to love each other through all of our struggles.

Be sure to head on over to Principled Discovery and check out what other homeschoolers had to say.