If you are a home schooling mother with twins or multiple toddlers, I want to share with you the things I tried that worked for us.

But first, the background story:

I have twin boys who are almost 3.

The year that the twins were 1-year-old, was a pretty good year, school-wise.  It was our first year home schooling, so I gave myself permission to not be perfect.

The twins were happy to sit by me on the couch, drinking their milk, while we did sort of an extended morning time version of home school.  I read aloud and my students narrated.  It was a beautiful time.  By May, as the twins reached 18 months and demanded more attention, school got harder and harder.   With a sigh of relief, we took summer break, and I reassured myself that school would be easier in the fall.  After all, I had done home school for a year now, and I had figured out what worked.  Best of all, the twins would be a year older.  Older is easier, I thought.

All y’all can stop laughing that an experienced mom like me would tell herself that 2-year-olds are easier than 1-year-olds.  I was super sleep-deprived and stressed out from trying to keep two boys alive who could run and open doors, while still giving some attention to raising seven other children.  Seriously, there were daily near-death experiences that May.  I don’t think my fight-or-flight mode is ever going to shut off after the constant alert of that time.  Living with toddler twins is like living with terrorists.

I told myself lies and blissfully planned for the new school year.

Excited and ready to go, we began school in August. The first week was so awful, I wanted to quit home schooling and send all my children back to public school. The twins and my 4-year-old constantly interrupted every lesson. I could not read aloud because they made so much noise that I couldn’t hear myself. Anytime we sat down to start school, one or more of them would start howling.

Homeschooling 4 older children while caring for 5 children age 4 and under. Spring 2018

I started making changes and trying new things.  Now I’m fairly convinced that no matter how many years I home school, I will never have it all figured out.  Each year as my children grow and our circumstances change, I’ll have to tweak things, move things around, and try new techniques.  Children don’t stay the same, so school can’t stay the same.

If you are a home schooling mother with twins or several toddlers underfoot, I want to share with you the things I tried this past year that worked.  Also, I want to give you hope.  It will be hard, no matter what.  If you accept that and give yourself permission to not be perfect and give your children permission to not be perfect, you can at least have a measure of peace as you move through your days.

Know also, that this too shall pass.  Toddlers grow into preschoolers.  It does get easier.  You will have new challenges, but you won’t have the old challenges.  For the most part, I’ve found that whatever the new challenge is, it is not quite as nerve shredding as the old challenge was.  You can do this.  You can do hard things.