S9 E8 | Reducing Overwhelm in Your Homeschool (Shiela Catanzarite)
Show Notes:
We've all experienced a sense of overwhelm on our homeschool journey from time to time, and sometimes it's hard to pinpoint exactly where the source of stress is coming from. But we're never stuck. There's a solution to overwhelm! In this episode Shiela shares the solution and also practical ideas and strategies to help you not only identify and reduce overwhelm but avoid it.
About Shiela
Shiela Catanzarite is an author, speaker, editor, and communication coach. She's a 20-year Charlotte Mason veteran homeschooler and has worked as Jeannie Fulbright’s editor and designer for 20 years helping develop Jeannie’s award-winning Apologia science curriculum and most recently her Charlotte Mason products published through Jeannie Fulbright Press. Shiela is the author of the newly published Living Verse Language Arts in Poetry and is finishing up her second book in the series Living Verse Language Arts in Scripture, to be released spring 2024.
Earning a bachelor’s degree in Special Education and a master’s degree in Christian Education from Dallas Theological Seminary, Shiela has been teaching language arts in some capacity for 40+ years. Her passion remains helping students understand the elements of language and how to use these elements artfully to communicate effectively. Shiela is currently a language communication coach, working one-on-one with students who have language learning and communication challenges. She also writes curriculum for her private middle and high school English language communication classes that focus on writing and speaking.
Both of Shiela's and her husband Bruce’s daughters attended private universities on scholarship and went on to pursue graduate studies in medicine and global business. She attributes their love for learning and academic achievement to homeschooling with Charlotte Mason’s philosophy and methodology.
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Show Transcript:
Shiela Catanzarite Welcome to the Charlotte Mason Show, a show that discusses Charlotte Mason's philosophy, principles, and methods. I'm your host, Shiela Catanzarite, author of the newly published Living Verse Language Arts in Poetry, and soon to be published, Living Verse Language Arts in Scripture. I'm so thankful you joined me today, and I pray this episode deeply encourages you as you learn more of Charlotte Mason's life-giving methodologies and how to implement them to bring greater freedom, confidence, and joy to your homeschool days.
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Hello! I am so excited that you're here with me today, and I'm actually very excited to be with you because I'm going to share about a topic that I feel will really encourage you. It's something that I struggled with in my homeschool and I think is common among all homeschoolers, and I just hope that you will find practical ideas and encouragement to help you reduce overwhelm in your personal life and in your homeschool. So that's what we're going to talk about today: reducing overwhelm. But before we get started, I want to tell you that I've started sending out a weekly newsletter, and it's all things language arts. I've been teaching language arts for almost 40 years and I've written language arts curriculum. And I just wanted to have a weekly encouragement newsletter that shares tips, ideas for teaching language arts, little lessons that you can use, poetry, word of the week, and also a section in my newsletter where I highlight some of the writings of the students who are using Living Verse Language Arts in Poetry, my new curriculum. So it's been really fun. I've shared some poems and some visual narrations, and even last week a mom sent in an extended metaphor writing and it was just brilliant and fun. And so if you are looking for encouragement in language arts and you need some tips and ideas, or you are using my curriculum and your child wants to share some of his writing with our community, I would love to send it to you. Simply go to my website, to the resources page and let me know that you would like to receive my newsletter. You can order one of my resources or you can email me at [email protected]. That's my email address. I'll put it in the show notes, but just email me and let me know that you want to receive the newsletter and that will start coming to you. I send it out on Thursdays. But it's been a lot of fun and I would love to have you join me in that community. And if you decide to get my newsletter, feel free to let me know what you'd like to see in it. If there's something that you feel like would be encouraging or helpful I can include. I would love to be able to incorporate that as well.
So, I want to start by just reminding us that homeschooling is a long arc and that sometimes we need a little help and sometimes we need a lot of help. But the encouraging thing is, there are so many resources available and you are never alone and you are never without support on this journey. Help is definitely there for you, and there are just a great variety of areas that homeschoolers need help with. And the needs, of course, change during certain seasons of your homeschool journey. I know you already know that, but there's one struggle that gets expressed over and over again among homeschoolers, and that is the struggle of overwhelm. This constant burden of feeling like you're not able to keep up or the feeling that you're not doing enough or you're not enough as a homeschooler. And this is a common struggle that a lot of homeschoolers express. And as a homeschooler, you manage a lot. Not just your children's education and all that that entails, but also your house and everything that comes with caring for the needs of your family outside of homeschooling like cooking and cleaning, shopping, doing laundry, scheduling, planning, driving, etc. etc. and it is a lot to handle and overwhelm is a very real struggle for many homeschoolers. Maybe not all the time, but definitely on some days and during some seasons. I know I struggled with it. And if you're feeling overwhelmed, I do want you to know that you're not alone and that there is help for you. Be encouraged. There is a solution.
And today I want to talk to you about this solution, and that is to simplify, which as you know, it comes from the word simple. And simplicity is a very powerful thing actually, especially for the homeschool family. And I want to read a few definitions of the word simplify. It means to make simple or simpler; to make less complex or less complicated; to make something easier to do; to make something clearer and easier to understand. And I found some really awesome synonyms for the word simplify that give a more nuanced meaning of the concept, and I want to share them with you. To trim or prune; to strip down; to unscramble; to untangle; to demystify; to make plain; to cut the frills; to make smooth; to refine; to streamline; and the last one, to ease. And I want to come back to the word ease because Charlotte Mason gives insight into this word, but for now, I want to ask some questions to get you thinking about this idea of reducing overwhelm. So how can you simplify the processes of managing both your home and your children's education? How can you streamline? How can you make things less complex and easier for both you and your children, so that everyone experiences peace and joy on the journey? Well there are definitely ways to make this happen, and I want to look at some practical ideas and practical strategies to help you simplify and reduce overwhelm.
So think back to the list of synonyms for the word simplify. And I want to help you think some of these through. And I want to begin with the word demystify. So one of the synonyms for simplify is to demystify which means to take the mystery out, to clarify. And this is where I believe most feelings of overwhelm begin. And it's never a mystery that we're under the stress, we can feel very strongly these feelings of overwhelm, but often we can't articulate or even pinpoint the exact reason why we're feeling this. And Psalm 94:19 says, "When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, your consolations delight my soul". And I cannot tell you how many times I have been to this verse in my life. It's so powerful that another version says, "When anxiety overwhelms me..." And anxiety is rooted in fear and doubt. So when we're feeling this overwhelm, we're most likely being overtaken by a sense of helplessness that's coming from doubt. And this is common, I think, on the homeschool journey. We're doubting that we can keep up or we're doubting that we're doing all we should or we're doubting that our children are learning what they should be learning at the time they should be learning. And this doubt can really apply to any area of our life, not just homeschooling.
And so to begin reducing overwhelm, we need to start by identifying the main area that's causing it. And you know it's not always clear. I remember at times during our homeschool journey just blurting out loud, usually in tears, I feel so overwhelmed. I feel so overwhelmed. And my husband would ask why? You know, why do you feel overwhelmed? What's causing it? And I remember saying, I don't know. I just feel overwhelmed. It's everything. Everything is overwhelming. And I just felt in despair in those moments. I can remember that. And it was never everything. It's never everything is overwhelming. It was usually just one thing or maybe two things. But my anxious thoughts were multiplying within me and it felt like everything was spinning out of control. And I needed to demystify this overwhelming feeling and kind of get to its root. And a close friend helped me learn to do this when my husband was unemployed for 20 months during our last years of homeschooling. And I remember that day, we were walking our dog down the street, and his boss called him at 10:00 in the morning and said they were having a huge layoff and to have his computer turned into the company by 2:00 that afternoon, so four hours later. And we were shocked because he'd been with this company for 20 years and never had we imagined that we would lose our financial provision and financial stability in one instant. And we were thankful for his severance package, but as time went on and that package ran out with no job offer in sight, things got real. And I just remember, you know, months going by, maybe this month the job will come through and the next month, and it was 20 months before he was employed again. And to say I was overwhelmed is an understatement. I think distraught is a better word. And it was really brutal emotionally.
And I think a big part of my overwhelm was that I was trying to carry everything. I was trying to manage it in my mind. I was trying to figure it out mentally. And thoughts rooted in fear and doubt, they were swirling around my mind and they were overwhelming me. And the girls were in their junior and senior year of high school, and college tuition was, you know, right around the corner. And we were committed to keeping them in their activities and the passions that they had been pursuing for so many years. So that was a part of the stress was we didn't want to stop all of their activities that they loved right before they were going to college. And I was trying to believe God, but my anxious thoughts were multiplying and they were cascading over me. And I remember calling my friend at a breaking point, just bawling and telling her that we were just not going to make it financially. And she listened well. And then she gave me the simplest, most practical advice that immediately reduce my sense of overwhelm. And it's actually advice that I still apply to my life today. And she said, Sheila, put everything on paper, write it down, get it all out of your mind, and look at the financials objectively. They're only numbers. I remember, she said, They're only numbers. That was so freeing. She said, Look at what you have and what you need. Pray for and believe God to supply the specific amount that you need, that number that you wrote down. And that was huge. It was huge.
Just the simple act of getting everything out of my mind and on paper, demystified the overwhelm. Things became clear and I knew exactly what we were dealing with and what we needed to do. And so letting go of the anxious thoughts by getting everything out of my mind actually made room for God's comforting promises to renew my mind. Going back to the verse, "When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, your consolations delight my soul," and sometimes our minds are so overwhelmed with anxiety and fear and doubt, our minds are so crowded, there's no room for God's peace. There's no room for his promises. And sometimes we have to take time to let go of everything that's overwhelming our mind, so that we can receive the promises that God has for us. I know that was true for me. And since then, I've learned that our minds are not designed as holding receptacles, but God designed our minds for generating creative ideas. So holding onto worries and anxious thoughts is a big source of our overwhelm. So practically, getting our thoughts down on paper and out of our minds is really the first step for simplifying our lives and our homeschool. It gives us hope that everything is figureoutable, and that we're going to be okay and that our children are going to be okay. So think about where you feel the greatest overwhelm. Is it in managing household duties, or is it in keeping up with caring for your family's needs? Are you overwhelmed with keeping up homeschool planning and lessons? When you're anxious thoughts overwhelm you, stop and ask yourself this question: in what area am I feeling overwhelmed and why? Take a minute, sit down, get out a piece of paper and immediately write down your answers to those questions so you can get everything up and out. And the simple act of getting things out of our minds and seeing them objectively on paper can greatly and quickly reduce this overwhelm.
Once you get it out, you can begin to work on the more practical ways of reducing overwhelm, which is what I want to share with you now. So let's say you've identified your area of overwhelm and we've looked at the synonym: to demystify. We've already looked at that one, so let's look at the next one: to trim or prune, which is to cut away what's not necessary or no longer fruitful for the goal of producing more fruit. And in gardening, it's just the idea of removing what's no longer needed so that the plant's energy can be directed toward growth and greater fruitfulness. And we know that Jesus used this analogy in John 15. And so take some time to evaluate what you can cut away from the area where you were feeling overwhelmed. What can be removed? What are you investing energy in that is no longer fruitful for you or for your children? Maybe it was something that was helpful last year, but it's no longer benefiting you. Maybe you got curriculum that's not bringing life to your homeschool and you need to put it away. Maybe there's something you're involved in that's not bringing you joy, and it feels like an obligation. What needs to be removed from your schedule? So when you begin trimming and pruning what's not necessary, you immediately reduce overwhelm, freeing up time and space for the more fruitful things that God has for your family.
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Let's look at another synonym for simplify and that is to strip down, which means to lighten the load by removing what's heavy and burdensome. And Hebrews 12:1-2 says, "Let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us." God has set a race before us, and he wants us to run lightly and with endurance. His word tells us that. But the only way we can is to strip off any and every heavy thing that would slow us down. And the top athletes understand this concept of racing lightly. When you look at runners and swimmers, you see that their clothing is designed for speed and endurance, and runners have a strict diet to control their weight and to keep them lean so they can run lightly and swiftly on their course, and swimmers tuck their hair up in a cap and even shave their bodies to reduce drag so they can race through the water with more speed. And we should wet our races with just as much intentionality, because our races have been marked out for us by God Almighty. And that's so amazing to think about. That should make us want to do everything to race well in a way that honors God. And so we have to think what is slowing us down on our race? What's slowing you down on your race? What weight do you need to strip off? How can you reduce drag? Are there harmful attitudes or habits that need to be cast off? Is fear of missing out—FOMO—or comparison weighing you down or causing you to add activities or curriculum to your homeschool that are burdensome? Ask God to reveal every weight that slowing you down and any sin that's tripping you up. And again, write down what he shows you and begin to strip down so you can run your race lightly and with endurance, and stay in your lane.
This is such a big temptation when we homeschooled. I remember so well going to conventions and mom meetings and hearing what everyone else was doing and feeling like maybe we should do that too. And specifically, I remember that everyone was jumping on the TeenPact bandwagon and I thought we should too. The girls were in middle school and everyone was excited, and they were traveling and doing the TeenPact and becoming really articulate speakers, and I remember thinking, Oh, we should do that too. And it was an amazing opportunity, but it was not a part of our race. It wasn't meant for our girls. And I also remember at times, moms raving about curriculum that didn't really resonate with me, but I would doubt myself and felt, Well, maybe they see what I don't see. So I would buy the curriculum and about a month in I would realize that it didn't really match my heart and the methodology that I felt strongly about. And through time, I eventually learned to stay in my own lane and run the course that I knew God had marked out for us, knowing that every family is different and is a unique blend of personalities and ages. And as you think about running your race, only you and the Lord and your family and your children can determine what that race looks like. It takes great discernment, wisdom, and intentionality to run the homeschool race confidently and well for the long term. It really does. And it's not perfect, of course. We get off track and we run in someone else's lane, or we try and run someone else's race, but God is running beside you and he's going to give you the wisdom, grace, and strength that you need to finish strong. If you ask him, he will give that to you. He wants you to finish well and strong, and he wants you to have fun, and he wants you to have joy. So find families who are called to the same course as your family and have fun running together and cheering each other on. I remember sometimes we'd run together and then we would change activities, or someone would go to a different homeschool group and we wouldn't be on the course with that family, but we'd always find someone else and we'd join up and run together and just make sure to have fun, because God wants us to. And he will give you the endurance and give yourself grace, it's not going to be perfect. It's a long arc, but in the end, you will be exactly where God wants you to be, and your children will become who he's called them to become. So stay encouraged as you race. And when you begin stripping down all the things that are not meant for you, you'll begin reducing overwhelm in your life and in your family's life and in your homeschool life.
So the next synonym for simplify is to unscramble or untangle. And sometimes in the midst of family and homeschool, things can get scrambled and all tangled up. And this definitely creates overwhelm. And I believe a simple way to unscramble your life is to write down your vision. Your vision for your personal life and your vision for your homeschool. And a written vision creates clarity and direction, it keeps you untangled and on track, it keeps you progressing toward the goals God has placed in your heart, and it protects you from impulsively saying yes to things that are not God's best for you. And when you live and homeschool from a place of vision, you greatly reduce the risk of overwhelm. And I created a free PDF on how to create a vision for your homeschool. I would love to send that to you if you go to my website, shielacatanzarite.com, and click on the resources tab, you'll see, a place to submit your email and I will send you the resource. And I do want to let you know that when you submit your email, I add you to my newsletter and so if you get my newsletter and you're not interested in it, you can unsubscribe from it. But I would just— whether you have my newsletter or not, I would love to send you my free resource. So be sure if you're interested in how to create vision, I would love to share that with you. So again, just untangling and unscrambling is easy to— there's an easy solution, and that is creating a written vision that you can look at and keep you on track and know where you're going.
The next synonym is to make plain or cut the frills, and this goes back to having a clear vision that makes plain exactly what you're aiming for. And having a planner or printed schedule keeps you focused and living out your vision. And when you prioritize on a schedule or a daily list what needs to be done, you avoid decision fatigue. And this is a huge thing. This decision fatigue really gets people when you get up and you're like, I don't know whether I should do this or that. Should we do this? And you're spending a lot of energy trying to make a decision. We used to have decision fatigue on our family fun night trying to decide on a movie. Sometimes it'd take an hour to decide on a movie and it was exhausting. And by the time we played the movie, we were all exhausted and tired. But if you have your vision and then you fill out your schedule based on your vision and what you want to accomplish, then you cut down on the decision fatigue and then you have that clarity. And I still try and do this when I'm scheduling my days, I always ask myself, What has to be done that cannot be done tomorrow? And what cannot wait and what needs to be done today? So if you kind of think it through that way, it's a good way to figure out what the priority is. I know this needs to be done, but it can't be done tomorrow so I'll put it on today. And when everything is written down and everyone in the family can see what the day's priority is, overwhelm is reduced. Everybody knows what to do and then you can put all your energy toward actually working out your vision and living it out, rather than getting up in the morning and trying to figure out what you're going to do.
Okay, let's go to the next synonym for simplify: to smooth or streamline. I love this one because it's one of the easiest ways to keep your homeschool from becoming overwhelming, and that is to streamline your homeschool by having your family learn together. This means choosing one curriculum that all your children can do, as much as possible. And this is huge and I can't emphasize enough the many, many benefits of this style of learning. It's really homeschool simplicity at its finest. It truly is. It cuts down on so many things. There's just an immediate reduction in the amount of curriculum that you have to buy, the amount of money that you have to spend, the amount of planning that you have to do, the sheer amount of books and workbooks that have to be taken off the shelf and put back and sometimes even found in in the midst of the clutter. It just reduces so much stress because everyone's on the same schedule and is learning the same thing, which creates unity and shared knowledge. And basically how it works is you would choose maybe one science curriculum for the year, one for history, one for language arts, one for Bible, etc. and everyone would use the same curriculum. Of course, you have to find a publisher that creates curriculum that's designed for that family learning. And each child works on their level and learns what's appropriate for them. So you may— you're working on writing and your first or second graders learning to write a really good, simple sentence while you're middle schoolers writing a paragraph or an essay, and so the child is working within their own level of development and mastery, but everyone's studying the same topic. So maybe you're studying, you know, the flying creatures or maybe you're studying, you know, early American history or you're studying poetry, so the whole family has the same topic. Everyone's working at their own level. And if you use notebooks, then that really helps with that family style learning. And so that is a very, very, very good way to reduce the stress and the overwhelm when you're looking at curriculum and you're looking at planning your lessons. And so if you have a high schooler and a kindergartener, of course, you're going to need to vary your approach, and you're not going to be able to do everything together, but think about the family read alouds. So you're gathering everyone of different ages to enjoy the same book, and it's kind of the same concept. We can gather for our homeschool lessons using the same curriculum. So it's kind of the same way. So look at your different ages and see as much as possible what you can do together. And I would say that math might be the one subject that's more difficult, because the ability level in math kind of builds on the level, but as much as possible, see what you can do to do it together. You will reduce your stress drastically and you will reduce the overwhelm.
One more thing I want to add here is short lessons. Short lessons simplify homeschooling for your children, and they protect your children from feeling overwhelmed and drained from having to sit too long with the lesson. This is such a huge thing that Charlotte Mason advocates for. So we don't want to feel overwhelmed, but we don't want our children to be overwhelmed with lessons that are too long. And so if you employ short lessons, you are reducing overwhelm for them, and they're going to be more excited and more joyful during the homeschool day, which we all want.
And so the last synonym is to ease. And I'm going to let Charlotte Mason speak to us on this because she said it best. She says, "The mother who takes pains to endow her children with good habits secures for herself smooth and easy days; while she who lets their habits take care of themselves has a weary life of endless friction with the children." And there you have it. There's a choice between smooth and easy days or weary days of endless friction. And Charlotte Mason actually says a weary life of endless friction. And none of us want that. We don't want that, our children do not want that. And I believe that continual overwhelm is one of the causes of weariness. And Charlotte Mason says we don't have to live this way. And a weary, overwhelming life, it's 100% avoidable. And so we have a choice here. She's giving us a choice, and she's telling how we can secure these smooth days and how we can avoid this endless friction and overwhelm. Good habits is the path to easy days, she tells us this. And so diligent training of good habits in the early years reduces one of the greatest sources of overwhelm in the homeschool, and that is a lack of foundational habits like attention, gentleness, truthfulness, neatfullness, etc. so when you establish a priority habit training, you were going to avoid a lot of nagging, a lot of arguments, a lot of attitudes. It reduces so much stress. So you got to lean into that in the early years. It is so worth it. Then you establish good attitudes, good habits, good schedules, good work ethics. You get that established early on and then you can move on to really enjoying learning it. It is a huge, huge, huge way to reduce overwhelm in your homeschool. Let me remind us again: "The mother who takes pains to endow her children with good habits secures for herself smooth and easy days; while she who lets their habits take care of themselves has a weary life of endless friction with the children."
Well, God loves you and your children so much and he does not want you to live and homeschool overwhelmed. He really doesn't. He has immeasurably more in store for you as you run your race, and he wants you to run lightly with joy and purpose, and the grace is available for you to do so. God's wisdom and strength are enough for you to finish this race strong. It's a long arc, but it's one worth running and it's one worth running with freedom and with a sense of adventure and a sense of life giving joy and fun. And I hope this episode has encouraged you and that you've learned some practical ways to simplify your homeschool, to lighten your load, and to reduce overwhelm. And homeschool really does have the capacity to be one of the most wonderful, joyful, life-giving adventures for you and your children. And like I said, the homeschool race is long but remember, it is only for a season. It's only part of your course. So enjoy it, cherish it, and protect it by keeping things simple so you can focus your eyes on Jesus and all that he has called you too. Thanks for being here today. I look forward to seeing you next time. Have a blessed week.
Thank you for tuning in to the Charlotte Mason Show. If you want to learn more about Charlotte Mason and discover a beautiful Language Arts curriculum that uses her methodologies, go to my website at ShielaCatanzarite.com. There you can find my new blog where I discuss Charlotte Mason's principles for Language Arts, and how to implement her philosophy in your homeschool. Please enjoy my free resource on how to mark a poem. Simply provide your email address and I'll send you the free PDF that teaches a simple, hands-on, Charlotte-Mason-inspired way to bring poetry into your homeschool. If you haven't already, please subscribe to the podcast. And while you're there, leave us a review. Tell us what you love about the show. This will help other homeschooling parents like you get connected to our community. And finally, tag us on Instagram @HomeschoolingDotMom to let us know what you thought of today's episode.
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