Help! I Homeschool and My Husband Travels

From time to time I’ll have a girlfriend call me when her hubby is out of town on a business trip for a night or two. I usually hear, “How do you do this? This is so hard!” You see, I’m the “go-to-girl” for my friends when it comes to traveling husbands since for years I’ve been a traveling salesman’s wife.

The thing is that my husband started traveling before we had kids, so it was never a complete shock to my system like it would be to other moms who experience it less frequently than we do. We kind of had our own groove. We were used to it. It didn’t mean that there weren’t times when I wanted to pull my hair out, but we managed.

The hardest time in our lives was when we only had two kids and weren’t even homeschooling yet. My husband was not only traveling, but he worked from a downtown office and would often have to get to work early and stay late. It was a bit crazy to say the least! Luckily, it didn’t last more than a few years. We were able to go back to our “normal” routine of having him work from home when he wasn’t on the road. It was nice, although it made homeschooling a bit harder since he needed a quiet place in the house during some of his important business calls.

Let me say for the record that my hat is off to single moms and military families! I was raised by a single, working mom. I know it’s hard work! My husband’s longest time away from us has only been eight days. So, juggling things when your spouse is out of town periodically is one thing, but managing a household and homeschool long-term on your own is quite another.

All that said, having a traveling husband makes life with kids and homeschooling a bit of a juggling act.

Let’s face it, one of the things that is the hardest about a husband who is not at home regularly is that we need help! Whether your husband is traveling or not — the days are really long and we need a break somewhere in our day!

So, what are my secrets to making a crazy travel schedule work for our family? How did we manage homeschooling and the added stress of an on-again-off-again one parent home environment? Planning! Lots and lots of planning — okay, and a bit of flying by the seat of my pants. 🙂 We can’t have it all together all the time. 😉

Survival Tips for When Your Husband is Away

#1 Conquer Bedtime!

The best bit of advice I can give any mom who is handling an evening alone is to get on top of bedtime! Having a good bedtime routine is the most important part of surviving when my hubby is traveling or working late.

We start bedtimes really early! Nothing will bring you to the brink of insanity faster than trying to get tired kids ready for bed. Even just going a few minutes past bedtime can make the whole night harder. If our nights start going long, then I start going crazy. I’m tired and ready for the house to be calm and quiet. I’m ready for some “me time.”  So, I plan ahead.

I’ve found that when I get my kids completely ready early, then it’s easy to just put them to bed if they start melting down. We skip the power struggle that’d we normally have. Once your kids are overly tired, it’s a losing battle. I actually move our entire evening schedule up. We have an early dinner, early bath, early PJs, and early teeth brushing. Sometimes we’ll do Bible and prayer early as well.

I will never forget calling my friend at 3pm when my boys were little and asking if she thought it was too early to put my kids to bed. I was so tired and ready for my day to be done.

#2 Schedule down time for yourself!

I cannot stress the importance of finding time for yourself throughout the day. This is not an easy task when you are homeschooling. One of the top questions I get when people find out that we homeschool is, “How do you find time for yourself?” If I told them my husband traveled, too, they’d really be floored.

Society seems to think that everyone needs “me” time. We do to a certain extend. I believe there is an element of surrender involved in parenting when it comes to “our” time. However, it is important to reboot your system with some moments alone. Call it “me” time if you must.

When you are a homeschooling mom (or even a stay-at-home mom with only littles in the house), it’s really important to find some point in your day to get a little break — especially when your husband works crazy hours or is away from the house for extended times.

My break has always been during our scheduled quiet time. Quiet time in our house is from about 2 – 4pm. I try to coordinate it with the littles’ naps. I have my older kids either read or play quietly in their rooms, play outside, or get more school work done upstairs.

Not every day is perfect. I don’t always get my whole two hours. Naps don’t always align. Basketball practice for the older boys sometimes interrupt our nap schedule. Plus there are days when we didn’t get as far with our school work and need to continue working into nap time. But I really do try to get a break.

*This is actually one of my sanity saver tips in my book Sanity Savers for Moms! (You can get the book for free HERE.)

#3 Get help!

I’ve learned that it’s okay to ask for help, and absolutely necessary to accept it when it’s offered. There is no cape you will be awarded for trying to be a supermom! Don’t be afraid to reach out and ask.

I’ve swapped child care with friends to get a break from time-to-time. I’ve also hired a babysitter to come to the house so I can get away for a while, either to run errands kidless or just get that “me” time we just talked about. Me, coffee, and a good book are a good thing.

Another way to get support is homegrown. I’ve found my kids are highly capable of not only helping with housework but also with meal prep. We’ve taught our kids to make several basic meals. Often at the end of a long day I have my older kids take care of part or all of dinner. It’s fun to work together — and it’s free!

Be sure to see my post on “Help! I Homeschool & My House is a Mess” to hear my advice about getting a house cleaner. {HERE}

#4 Plan Ahead!

I’ve found that having a basic flow for our days helps our days run smoother. I work really hard during the summer planning out our homeschool year. I set up organizational systems for my older kids so they are able to do a majority of their work independently. {Here’s a post all about those systems. I've even created an entire homeschool organization course! You can learn more about that HERE.}

However, having a plan for our meals when daddy is out of town saves the day. Now, I’ll be very real with you here! When my husband isn’t home, I get VERY lazy with meals. Only in the last several years as my boys got bigger (as did their appetites) did I start making “real” meals for dinners. Before then we’d keep it fairly simple while my husband was away: smoothies with mini pizzas, breakfast for dinner, pasta with jarred marinara, burritos & more. Anything easy!

Even when I was serving up basic meals I still had a basic meal plan. Recently, I created a handy-dandy meal planner and grocery list. I find it really helps me to have an overview of what we will be eating for the week.

Make it fun! Homeschool style!

Having a husband who travels makes life a bit more challenging when you add homeschooling to the mix. But, you know what? There is blessing in it too. On the hard days when I start getting frustrated with busy travel schedules I’m reminded of the blessing of work! Having a job and providing for a family is a very important role for a man. My husband is blessed to have work that he really enjoys doing and that utilizes his talents. The way the economy has been these last several years just staying employed has not been easy, so we have a lot to be grateful for. Work is a blessing! So, we make the travel aspect of work a blessing, too. We really try to view it as an adventure and make it fun.

Map It! {Geography & More}

Our adventure starts by tracking him on a map! We get excited to see what cities  he will be going to, what the weather is supposed to be like there, how far the trip will be and what time zone he’s in, & what fun things there is to do there. It’s really fun when there is extreme weather in the region he’s going to & beautiful weather where we live. {Okay, probably not as fun for him.}

Chart It! {Math}

When my boys were little I’d create charts for them so they could get a visual of when he’d be coming home. We’d move a little cut-out airplane from one velcro dot to the next to let them see when he’d be back. I just created a one week calendar with the days of the week on top of each square. I had a little family picture (or you could use a simple star) to represent what day he would be home. It was a lot of fun to watch them get excited about tracking how many days until he’d return.

Love Notes! {Writing & Art}

Over the years we’ve had fun sneaking notes into his suitcase or making signs for him to come home to. If my kids are really inspired while he’s away they will draw a picture for him.

FaceTime & Skype {Computer Science}

Technology has improved so much since we first started having kids. It is so nice for the kids to get to “see” their dad when he’s not home. My youngest son loves having my husband give him a tour of his hotel room. A fun little thing my husband sometimes does on his trips is to take along a couple of the kids’ toys with him. He texts pictures of the toy with him wherever he is (on his pillow, on the plane, at dinner, & other fun locations). The kids get excited picking out which toy they want him take. Often times the toys are in the background as we FaceTime.

Reading Aloud Together {Language Arts}

Sometimes my husband will take along one of our read aloud books when he’s out of town. Our evening phone calls or FaceTimes then become a nice reading time with dad.

The Best Part About Homeschooling & Having a Spouse Who Travels…

Homeschooling is actually a huge blessing for families with husbands who travel. My husband’s travel schedule was one of the many reasons why we started homeschooling! When my husband is home, we are home. We can take breaks when he can take breaks. We can grab a snack with him in between his business calls. We try to eat lunch with him when he has a break in his schedule (okay, many days I’m tiptoeing into his office with a meal in hand while he’s on the phone). The kids love making smoothies and treats to take into him while he’s working from the house.

It’s important to embrace the fun that you can have when flying solo while your husband travels. It’s all about perspective and choosing to see the positive aspects of this lifestyle.  You’ll find that joy follows when you focus on the blessings.

*I wrote this post as part of Homeschooling: What to Do When You Feel Like You Want to Quit.

The “Help! I Homeschool!” Series

This post is part of my “Help! I Homeschool” series! There are more great posts coming that talk through the common homeschool challenges. I hope they all bless you in your homeschooling. Let me know in the comments if there is a challenge you are experiencing in your homeschool that you’d like to see covered! Be sure to check out my other posts:

Help! I Homeschool and My House is a Mess!{You are going to love this one! It’s one of my most popular!}

Help! I Homeschool and We're Behind!

Help! I Homeschool and I Can’t Get It All Done!

Help! I Homeschool and I Have Lots of Kids!

NEW TO RAISING CLOVERS?

I love helping families find simpler ways of doing things in their homeschool, whether they are just getting started or have been homeschooling for years. I just developed a new eCourse designed to help you bring more joy into your homeschool: “The Ultimate Homeschool Organization eCourse.” You can find more info about it HERE. You can also check out my YouTube channel as well, to see some of my videos on homeschooling. I’ll link one below to hopefully encourage you that life doesn’t have to look perfect to homeschool!

* This post contains a few affiliate links, both Amazon & others. Please see my disclosure page if you have any questions.

(c) Can Stock Photo