Monday Q&A | Surviving When Sick, Feeding Children, and Homeschooling Challenges
Every Monday, I answer a few of the questions that my readers send me. If you have a question you'd like me to answer in a future Q&A post, just leave me a comment here or email me (thefrugalgirl [at] gmail [dot] com) and put Q&A in the subject line. I look forward to hearing from you!
I wanted to ask a question that popped into my head the other day. My household was turned upside down this week. My husband is out of town working for several weeks and my daughter and I both caught the nasty cold/flu bug going around. Maybe you don't have this happen as often since your kids are homeschooled and probably aren't exposed to as many germs, but how do you keep things afloat during times when you or several of your kids are sick? Do you ever have to resort to "survival" mode? What does this look like for your family? Any general tips?
-Kara
Yup, we definitely have had to live in survival mode, but not so much because of typical germs. Longtime readers know that I had hyperemesis while pregnant, and that meant I was pretty much out of commission for the first couple of months of my pregnancies.
We depended on the help of family and church members during that time, Mr. FG pitched in while he wasn't at work, and I got only the very basics done. I kept the kids fed and clothed and taught piano lessons (it was kind of a financial necessity at that point). Other than that, I didn't do very much except incubate the small person inside of me. The standard of living around here sagged quite a bit during those times, but there just wasn't much we could do about that.
There have also been a few times when all of us have gone down with a bug at the same time, and that was similarly miserable. Fortunately, bugs are shorter than pregnancies (and how!), so letting things go isn't as big of a deal.
Please don't think I hold it all together when I'm sick...I have no great advice about how to do that! Just let the housework go, eat canned soup, and lay down to rest and recuperate.
When it comes to longer-term illnesses like my pregnancy sickness, the best tip I have is to focus on two basics-food and laundry.
(This also can be helpful in an unusually busy phase of life.)
If people have clothes to wear and food to eat, they can survive pretty well, you know? It's much better to skip floor-washing than laundry-doing because a smeary floor is preferable to walking around naked. 😉
How closely does the food you prepare and serve to your family resemble that of which you grew up eating? Are your children picky and how do you deal with that?
-Maria
I've written about how we handle picky eaters before (just scroll to the bottom of that post to see my answer), so go check that post out....it'll open in a new window.
The meals I cook are somewhat similar to what I ate growing up...for example, we don't tend to eat tons of meat and neither did my family. I tend to make a lot of green salads like my mom did, and I often steam broccoli and green beans like she did (though I have lately become enomored with sauteeing beans!)
On the other hand, my mom made more casseroles than I do (though she doesn't so much now), and my childhood family ate more legumes than my current family does (Mr. FG hates legumes).
I do handle picky eating fairly similarly, though...my parents were just as no-nonsense about it as I am.
Do any of your children have unique learning disabilities or 'differences'? My ten year old son is Dyslexic, ADD, and gifted which makes our homeschooling journey quite adventurous to say the least. I was just curious if your children had any learning struggles and what your wisdom on it would be.
-Annie
Wow! I can imagine that those things make homeschooling challenging, but I'm sure that the individual attention you're giving him is really great.
My children's learning abilities all seem to be on the normal spectrum thus far, so I'm afraid I can't be very helpful. However, I know that some of my homeschooling readers are in similar situations to you, and I think they'll be able to offer some advice.
If that's you, could you share some advice with Annie in the comments or perhaps point her to some bloggers who write about this type of homeschooling?
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Today's 365 post: Egg hunting at Grandma and Grandpa's house
I'll just say that his isn't completely off topic since there is a picture of sauteed green beans in the post. 🙂 I just have to say that I made your sauteed green beans for our Easter meal yesterday (the first I've ever hosted!), and they were a HUGE hit. I also made the honey glazed pan rolls, and they've become a family favorite over the past couple years. Thank you for sharing such great recipes with us, Kristen. I love making people happy through food, and so many of your recipes have helped me do just that!
Great advice when dealing with the sickies. We just go into survival mode here too. The laudry gets thrown in when possible but not put away. The freezer stash get raided and some very good friends pop over when they have a chance. You do just what you can C:
Hi! I am a freach canadian from Québec and I love so much your blog!!! I am a teacher and I think that you are doing a phénoménal job. I don't know if you read in freach but I also have a little blog....(don't compare to yours!)
Follanie
http://www.testufolle.blogspot.ca
I just read your post on picky eaters (my 3 year-old is going through a phase). You mentioned that you try to put an appropriate portion on each child's plate. I wonder if you have a resource anywhere for how big an appropriate portion for an average three-year-old would be? My husband and I seem to have vastly different opinions on the matter, and googling mostly tells me to let her "eat until full". That's fine, but it doesn't help me decide how much food to put on her plate.
My husband is grouchy when she doesn't clear her plate (him having come from a clean-plate household), but I'm fairly certian he gives her too much for her little tummy.
I found Ellyn Satter's books very helpful when my kids were little, especially Child of Mine, and How to Get Your Child to Eat (But Not Too Much). And now I see she has a website!
http://www.ellynsatter.com/
When I was homeschooling 2 and pregnant with #3, I came up with a priority list. This list is what worked for me; somebody else's list would probably be different. However, having a priority list was really helpful. If I only got one thing done, at least I knew it was the most important! Here's my list:
*everybody gets fed
*everybody gets dressed
*thaw something for dinner
*throw in a load of laundry
*school
*housework
This also helped my husband, who used to get frustrated when the house was a mess, but once he understood my priorities, he was better able to accept where things were at.
The Pioneer Woman has a page for homeschoolers. They have covered exceptional learners before, and often (weekly?) address community questions.
My daughter is dyslexic, ADD, and gifted...She is in private school right now, but my plans are to start homeschooling next year. So, I would love to hear any advice that any of the readers have as well. I would also love for Annie to tell me what she is doing now. That is quite a combo of learning differences!!
Hello Lanie,
We are currently doing the Barton Reading and Spelling program but still have a long way to go. We do many books on tapes/cd as he follows along as well as watching documentaries on whatever we are studying in Science and Geography. I have had to tweak, supplement, tailor, change, you name it, to help my son learn in the way that he is able to.
I am currently reading the book Dyslexic Advantage and it has changed my perspective on this learning difference immensely! I cannot speak any more highly of is book! So I have recommended this to other families over other books about Dyslexia.
I guess the need I have is just for additional ideas. Things I can implement in our everyday lives as we learn and grow together. Like, for example, he is extremely unorganized and has difficulty remaining on track while following the simplest of directions (get dressed, brush teeth, do this before that, etc....) I used to believe his behavior was willful disobedience but the more I read about the Dyslexic processing style of this kids, this is not uncommon.
Hello Lanie,
We are currently doing the Barton Reading and Spelling program but still have a long way to go. We do many books on tapes/cd as he follows along as well as watching documentaries on whatever we are studying in Science and Geography. I have had to tweak, supplement, tailor, change, you name it, to help my son learn in the way that he is able to.
I am currently reading the book Dyslexic Advantage and it has changed my perspective on this learning difference immensely! I cannot speak any more highly of is book! So I have recommended this to other families over other books about Dyslexia.
I guess the need I have is just for additional ideas. Things I can implement in our everyday lives as we learn and grow together. Like, for example, he is extremely unorganized and has difficulty remaining on track while following the simplest of directions (get dressed, brush teeth, do this before that, etc....) I used to believe his behavior was willful disobedience but the more I read about the Dyslexic processing style of this kids, this is not uncommon.
As far as learning difficulties go, myself and a couple of siblings were slightly ADD. I've found (from retrospect and from working with my little brother) that the most helpful thing in our case was to have constant one-on-one supervision that wasn't also overbearing. We needed someone there to help keep us focused and to keep the atmosphere an interactive one without them becoming an overbearing or impatient school-ogre breathing down our necks. Taking breaks while doing subjects that seemed boring or monotonous (like math was for me), or simply keeping them brief and to-the-point, also helped.
Hahaha! "A smeary floor is preferable to being naked." I love the way you put things! You just made my day. I had extreme morning sickness as well. In my third pregnancy with our daughter it was the worst. I ended up dehydrated with broken blood vessels in and around my eyes from getting sick constantly. Not such a lovely look. We are usually a very limited screen time family, and I cook almost everything from scratch. During my last pregnancy? Not so much. I actually fed the kids Cheerios for dinner. A lot. And sometimes Rice Crispies. We survived, though, and all was back to normal in no time.
If it's acceptable for breakfast, why wouldn't it be acceptable for dinner?
Hi Annie (and other readers),
I have no experience with ADD myself, but my mom is teacher and I know some people in my surroundings with ADD. They all have a very positive experience with using icons to plan their day for instance.
As an example, the getting ready in the morning ritual will look like:
getting up at 7.30 am
getting out of pj's
wash
brush your teeth
getting dressed
breakfast
That's quite a lot for some and if you have pictures of all the things you need to do, that can be very helpfull.
I'm not sure if there's a lot on the internet in English (but I guess so), since I'm originally Dutch. I did find a website with icons which might be helpfull: http://www.sclera.be/index.php?page=download&id=1 (scroll a little bit down for "All pictograms in English").
Hope this helps 😉
I have no idea if this is helpful or not but my cousin has some fetal alcohol syndrome and mild autism, so he has trouble staying on task and finishing things in an orderly time frame. My aunt homeschooled him and he had a list for morning time, school time, and bedtime. His goal was to finish the list and check everything off. If he got off task, he was redirected to his list and it helped him keep things more orderly. Of course it wasn't always perfect and smooth sailing, but it was a helpful tool!
No sure if I can offer any tips, Annie, but just wanted to say my college girl is dyslexic and is graduating this semester with a 3.2 GPA. I am so proud of her. She figured out how to get through college taking only 3 tough courses and 1 easier one each semester plus she had 504 accommodations through out her 4 years of college. The reading coursework can be overwhelming for a dyslexic, but with help and perseverance, it can be done.
Re: picky eaters, I always emphasised early on that certain foods may not be your favourite, but no good food is 'yucky', even if you don't like it. I really dislike it when visiting children poke around at food and say it's horrible. One little girl was so rude about her food (I found out afterwards she seems to pretty much live on cupcakes...well, not quite but they certainly figure heavily in her diet!) I did have to say we had a rule about not saying 'ewww' to food.
I always do what Kirsten does, and give everyone a small amount of everything. "Broccoli may not be your favourite, but have a small piece and tomorrow night it will be carrots for dinner, and they are your favourite,"
As well as the nutrition and realising you can't only ever eat your favourite foods, exposure to those foods means that now the youngest two actually quite like all those cruciferous vegetables and will happily eat them along side everything else.
I wouldn't force a child to eat something they really detested, but my neighbour once told me her (then 7 year old) daughter wouldn't allow her to put vegetables on her plate. That made me wonder exactly who was in charge. And when she had tea at our house, she had 3 peas and 6 sweetcorn kernels on her plate because everybody in our house has a bit of everything (she started to protest) and she ate them happily. I'm not sure she actually dislikes vegetables that much anyway, I think it's habit, part of who she is ("I don't eat any fruit or vegetables") and a way of taking control.
Thank you all who gave me greats ideas and webesites! :0)
Hi Kristen – I've only been reading your blog for 6-8 months so I didn't realize you had hyperemesis with your pregnancies. My cousin has that also and is on her 3rd pregnancy, each one being worse than the previous. I feel so awful for her and wish I could do something but I have never suffered that bad with my pregnancies. Other than Zofran (which she is on via a pump), do you have any tips or suggestions of things that maybe helped you get through the worst of the nausea? Just thought I'd ask if there is something you figured out through 4 pregnancies that maybe helped you be able to keep food down or at least function on a very basic level? She pretty much starts dry heaving/throwing up the minute she tries to get out of bed or off the couch. She's tried all the usual things like ginger, sea bands, eating crackers, etc. but hyperemesis is obviously in a whole different league than those kinds of remedies!
This is for Annie's question. I have a DD that is academically Gifted. I also have a step-daughter who has Aspergers. We are subscribers the a Yahoo Group can GiftedHomeschoolers. It's for academically gifted students and "twice acceptionals".