Ten Useful Skills You Might Find Yourself Developing As a Homeschooling Mom

by Jennifer Osuch

These skills are listed in no particular order. Some are more humorous than others but all are skills I now possess as a homeschooling mom.

1. Reading upside down. I'm a bit out of practice but when my boys were learning to read this was a handy skill. It allowed me to move around more freely while one of my children read out loud. There is a lot of motivation to hone this skill when it means you can move more than two feet away from your child while he reads.

2. Writing upside down. Same as number one. It's helpful to have good penmanship writing the normal way then work up to writing letters upside down. I've only mastered printing. Cursive would be a challenge but I know some moms that can do it.

3. Working through math word problems while running on a treadmill. This one takes some practice. A large part depends on the word problem - algebra and fractions present certain obstacles. For me I find the better conditioned I am, the smoother my breathing, the better my child can understand what I'm saying.

4. Developing theories for the mysteries in history. "Mom, why did Alexander the Great want to take over the world?" or "Mom, what really happened to the Roanoke colony." Of course some mysteries will always be mysteries, I'm not convinced Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

5. Doing math word problems while at the grocery store. This amounts to doing two math problems at once since most homeschoolers I know (including myself) are on a budget. Oh yeah, and ignoring all the stares from people who don't understand what you're doing or that think your kids ought to be in school, which is a whole other set of skills (those skills are beyond the scope of this post).

6. Teaching more than one subject at the same time. There have been times I've started to spell a word for one child, helped another find the square root of a number, then finished spelling the word for the first child. Add a third child with yet a different subject and you're at peak performance.

7. Having a conversation with someone (usually a spouse) and doing word problems. The degree of difficulty depends on the topic of conversation. Talking about a budget is similar to number five in that you are doing two math problems or more at once.

8. Googling! Because no one person knows it all! The faster you can type the faster this skill will develop.

9. Becoming a curriculum connoisseur. I've never met a homeschooling mom that did not have a collection. Not all curriculum works for every grade level and/or every child.

10. Teaching with a baby attached on your hip. I'm out of practice at this one too. But it takes skill to keep a baby or toddler occupied when you're trying to teach your child about "The Declaration of Independence."

How many of these skills do you have? Do you have any "homeschooling mom" skills?

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