Once you decide to home school your child you will need to make a good schedule and stick to it. Children will benefit by consistency and a little discipline and need to know what is expected of them. It’s no use making them work from 9 to 5 one day and then let them get away with no work at all the following day. Most parents say their children can learn all that’s needed in the mornings and thus they can use the afternoon for sports, socializing or just pursuing their own interests.

Many home schooling parents allow their children to find their own time of when they want to do certain lessons, rather than follow some arbitrary curriculum. Their children’s reading skills have progressed in their own time, some earlier and some later than what is called ‘average’.

Since you don’t have to stand in line at the canteen, have a certain time for recess or wait for the slowest student to catch up, not to mention all that travel time, you’ll find that lessons tend to be over much more quickly anyway. But still, home chores like washing, cooking and cleaning still have to be done, and there are the children waiting and ready for their lessons, so what do you do? A lot depends on your own nature. Do you love to have the children involved in household chores? Weighing out ingredients for a cake can hone their maths skills. Let them help, they’ll love doing it and it will teach them their life skills as well. A child who has this kind of responsibility usually grows up to be an efficient and well- adjusted adult.

If you prefer to do the housework yourself, or the children are really too young to do much, then set them their school tasks while you go and do the housework. Make a game of it. Can you finish this page before I get the washing hung out? Another way of juggling household tasks is to get up early and do say one hour of housework before school starts. Then down tools and concentrate on just the school things for 2/3 hours before taking a break and doing some more housework.

Many very young children want to be as close as possible to their mothers. Older children may happily work alone for some time. A lot will depend on the child’s age and nature. You could try each of these suggestions for a week and see which one works the best for both you and the children. One thing is sure, once your children start being home schooled, they will have more time and energy to devote to the pursuit of art and music.