How many hours of Schooling does your child really need?

So I am approaching the new year with both apprehension and a surprising calmness both wash over me throughout the points of my day one minute I'm like yeh lets rock this homeschooling thing and the next I want to rock in the corner oh my gosh I cant do this.

This morning I went onto our government website to read through the guidelines of what is required of a homeschooling parent and was quite taken a back.

You see numerous people have told me that there is absolutely no reason why your child needs to school for 6 hours a day and that you can absolutely get through everything the need to know within half that time, thinking back to when I was in school that concept seemed absolutely preposterous and yet the more that I have read and researched the more that aha moment has increased.

So I was reading through the guidelines this morning and according to our government and the DOE your child needs to school for a total of 196 days of the year divide that by 12 and you have 16 days per month... yes let that sink in 16 days out of 30/31 days ok so given that most months calculate out to 4 weeks that totals 4 days a week and if we look at 6 x 35 minute sessions you come out to 3.5 hours every day over 4 days... so if I have to school my child from home 5 days a week I would only need to cover 2.8 hours every day in order to meet the educational department requirements... 

Now the voice of encouragement takes over and I'm like yeh I can rock this again because seriously lets say 2 and a half hours of actual teaching each day isn't a tall order given that assessments and tasks can be completed throughout the day with feedback given or help given as needed and yet still that voice of discouragement pulls because we have been brought up to believe that conventional schooling is the only way, everything needs to be done as it has always been done

Does this mean that homeschooling is for everyone, no I don't think so but its great to know that we can even as full time working moms, unconventional maybe, difficult probably but the option is there and I think its great.

We are a bit stuck between a rock and a hard place given that my ex wants Loghan enrolled at a mainstream special needs school whilst I would prefer to continue to school him at home for at least a year and then take it from there but at the end of the day we can only take it day by day and knowing the government we are in for a bit of a wait anyway which is sad but at the same time in our case I am quite excited that I have this opportunity, the past few months have caused a lot of trauma for my family which is something I only realized once we were completely devoid of the situation.

I cannot explain how peaceful my household is once again, how lovely it is to walk through my door and have that cup of coffee, to sit my kids and spend that time with them to have supper on the table by 6:30 and to go to bed knowing that all is well within our space, my kids are calm and happier than they have been in months, our home is calmer than it has been in months.... not that I regret trying to build upon my dream to create a school for special needs kids not at all but I do regret what it has or did become.

Moving forward though I need to figure out what we will be doing curriculum wise in the interim, personally my ocd pulls me in the direction of everything being laid out and delivered to you in one neat box with a bow but logic dictates that there is no sense in paying for a curriculum we may not use for the full year so for now I am doing my research and we will see where it goes but still excitement =)