When setting up your home along with your school, determine what values and priorities will govern the environment. Do you want clear cut and predictable tasks? Or do you want a free-flowing style?



Make a list of what's important to you and your family and lists the items in order of priority. When you list and prioritize your values, you declare and acknowledge your family style and create a lifestyle that accommodates and reflect your values. Take this task seriously, as it is the first and most important step in creating harmony in your family. Blend together your life requirements along with the education of your children with clear cut modes and responsibilities for each. When you synchronize your values with your lifestyle, you will have a perfect environment in which all participants will flourish.

To avoid conflicts between your home and homeschool, you must establish and adhere to a family style, so that roles, expectations and requirements will be understood by all.

Here's some examples of family styles. If you value traditional methods with a focus on manners and respect, then your family style will require that the whole family spends a lot of time together learning and reinforcing behavior. As you know, you can tell your children over and over to behave a certain way but if that behavior is not modeled by you, the parents, you are wasting your breath. The old saying "do what I say, not as I do" never works! On the other hand, if creativity and self expression is your valued goal, your family and school style should be relaxed and free flowing, which requires independent play and unconventional teaching methods.

Remember to keep it simple. Organize all spaces to reflect your style while still promoting curiosity and energy. Make your home and homeschool a respite from the confusing and demoralizing outside world. Create a pleasant place to live, educate your children, share meaningful experiences and create permanent bonds. Make it a place that everyone truly enjoys.

Others will see how you live and learn in harmony. They will take note of your calm and purposeful environment and want to emulate it.

Put harmony into your family life by defining the values and priorities of your home style. A well-organized home and school provides a harmonic foundation in which your family will flourish. This harmony and peace will affect everything you do. Your family will work, rest and play with clarity and purpose. When you organize your homeschool around your values and priorities, you will reduce stress and achieve cooperative behaviors. Everyone will feel more self-assured as they live and learn.

Next, organize your space to reflect your individual family style. Streamline distracters to create functional order, and most importantly, eliminate clutter. Your home and school should be clear and purposeful.

It will take planning and thought at the beginning but I assure that you and your family will be better for it. Do it and you will feel like a million dollars!