Our Homeschooling Journey: Quiet Time

As soon as I open my eyes, I mentally plan the things I need to accomplish for the day. Being a stay at home homeschooling momma that I am, I pretty much have everything planned throughout the day. There is so much to do, so much to accomplish, so many things in my to-do list. The lessons should have already been prepared, the meals planned for the whole month, if not for a week, the activities, the chores.

Once I get out of bed, the day officially starts for me. This schoolyear, we are going to build a new rhythm. We are now in first grade, which means we are starting to take things a little more seriously. Last year, one of my challenges, or might I say, my biggest challenge was burn out. With everything happening in the house all at once, I got tired. I felt burnt out towards the middle of the schoolyear.

I knew that there was that possibility which is why I planned for everything. I made a timeline, a weekly plan, a monthly outlook, a quarterly target. A time in place for each lesson, each chore, each activity. But there was one thing I forgot to plan for.

Plan for rest

I forgot to plan a time for rest for myself. To be honest, I did not actually forget. I just did not plan for rest at all. How could I? With everything that needs to be done, who has time for rest? And besides, my daughter doesn't really like taking naps in the afternoon. If I take a nap, she won't have anything to do. So I figured if she doesn't nap, then nanay doesn't nap either. I guess because of the guilt I feel of leaving my daughter by herself, I just took rest for granted.

I felt guilty of stopping in the middle of the day. I felt guilty of being seen not doing anything because I have this expectation of myself that I need to be doing something at all times. That I should not stop. But Nanay needs to rest. Nanay badly needs to rest!

Since the start of the homeschool year 2021-2022, my kid has been too busy with everything she needs to learn and do. Likewise, as the mom educator with a lot of other responsibilities outside of homeschooling, I was also too busy. Resting or even sleeping, for me, looked like a total waste of time.

By mid schoolyear, I can already feel signs of burnout. Not just on me but I can feel my kid also feeling tired too. What was once an enjoyable time became a burden for both of us. She started saying things like "Yay, it's the weekend, no study time!" That was actually the last thing I hoped to hear from her. I wanted her to always have the love and thirst for learning. I did not want to end up having to bribe her just to sit down during study time. We have just started our 2-decade journey of homeschooling. This can't be good.

Quiet Time

I knew at that moment that something needs to change. I also knew that homeschooling is the route for us. There has to be some way to ensure that our learning could be our happy place once again. And so I decided to go look for other homeschool providers. I found the one and luckily, they conducted trainings for parent educators.

It was during one of the homeschooling trainings that I attended this year when I heard about Quiet Time. Simply put, it is a time when everyone in the house just does anything they want to do quietly. Of course certain boundaries have to be set like everyone should be inside the house, no gadgets allowed, no TV/Netflix/YT. So far, those are my rules. And they need to be followed otherwise our quiet time will not be effective.

At first, I tried to do it for 30 minutes. The instruction I gave my daughter was that she could do anything she wants but she needs to do it as quietly as she possibly can. She can consider it her free time for the day. Since she already knows how to read by herself, that's what she did. While I anxiously just sit there quietly trying to see if a 30-minute of quiet is possible at all. To my surprise, I found out it is actually possible! After a few days, I added more and more minutes to our quiet time. And now, we spend 2 hours of quiet time every day.

Products of Quiet Time

I gradually increased our quiet time from 30 minutes to 45 minutes, to an hour, and now we have 2 hours of quiet time in the afternoon every day. One of the things I did during quiet time was sleep. I badly needed that afternoon nap. I now know that the afternoon naps my mom used to force on me when I was a kid was actually her time for rest during the day. And it felt good for me because it was a guiltless afternoon nap for one tired momma!

My kid on the other hand who, just like me when I was a kid, despises afternoon naps. From a point of view of a child, it is really understandable. She has so much energy she needs to disperse. And so, I gave her ways to kill time while we are on quiet time. We have been having quiet time since March of this year and so far, she has accomplished a lot.

1. Books finished. It just so happened that my kid is a book lover. She has finished a lot of books since the day we started our quiet time. One of the things she loves buying is books, be it online or at a physical store. She found out that she had a lot of other unfinished books and even ones she hasn't opened yet! One of the things she loved doing during our quiet time is scouring her bookshelves and looking for books that she finds interesting. I was surprised at one point when she started giving me trivias like "Nanay, did you know that baby koalas are actually just really small? It's on page yadda yadda on my book!"
2. Interesting artworks. I gave my daughter a Thought Journal. It's actually just drawing books where she can interpret her thoughts through drawings. Did you know that sketching and art can also be a form of narration? She would sometimes draw the scenes she like the most in the stories she read.
3. Neverending storybooks. I have made a compilation of the short stories my daughter made during her quiet time. When she discovered comic books, she also started making comic books of her own. It gets confusing to me at times because some of her stories do cross overs. But I love that our quiet time sessions help fire up her imagination.
4. Arts and crafts. One of the things she learned was how to use a pair of scissors. Sure, she left a lot of mess afterwards on the first few days she discovered cutting, we used it as an opportunity to teach her about cleaning up after herself.

We do not need to keep our kids entertained

The goal of quiet time is to help kids fire up their imagination, let them think, and give them time to meditate and absorb everything they learned during the day. I had to fight the urge to go to her and tell her what to do during our quiet time. She had to figure it out on her own. Otherwise, it would just look like me, giving her busy work so that I could go to sleep.

Kids need to know how it feels to be bored so that they'll know how to cope with boredom. Truth be told, there were some sort of traction towards quiet time on the first few weeks. I would often hear my daughter say "Hmm. What to do, what to do?" I made sure I equipped her with knowledge and skills that she can use for her quiet time. This way, she will find her own way towards finding something productive to do.

Conclusion

So far, this 2-hour daily sessions of quiet time has helped keep my mental health in check. I still have tons of things to do, I still have a lot in my mind. But in those 2 hours of quiet time for myself, I find peace and calm before I go back again into the action.

Motherhood is a never-ending 24/7 job. Add homeschooling in the mix and it becomes even more challenging. Getting a "me time" suddenly becomes something a mom needs to fight for. If you ever feel guilty of stopping everything just so you can rest, please don't ever feel that way.

Everyone needs time to just pause, recollect, relax, and just let it all go before jumping in to the next task in your to-do list. At first it will be hard physically, mentally, and emotionally to just stop for a while every day but you should try it. Love yourself. After all, you can't pour from an empty cup.