Homeschooling with a toddler underfoot can feel like juggling while riding a unicycle—and someone keeps tossing more balls your way. You finally sit down to help your older child with math, and suddenly the baby’s pulling books off the shelf or your preschooler is loudly reenacting their favorite animal noises. It’s chaotic, frustrating, and yes—completely normal.

Many parents in this season feel torn between guilt and survival. The easiest solution? A screen. And while I get why that happens, it isn’t the best so here are some ways that we dealt with the younger kids when the older ones needed to do their homechooling.  

1- Create a “Little Ones Rhythm”

Toddlers and preschoolers thrive on predictable routines. To be honest, my whole family did better when they knew what to expect and what was expected of them.  This is the beauty of a routine, or a rhythm to our days.  Consistency.  Not perfect because flexibility and consistency go hand in hand.  Maybe order is a better word.  We had order in our days, and the kids knew what to expect on a normal kind of day.  

The key with having babies, toddlers and preschoolers as well as homeschool age kids is to create a routine, or rhythm, for each child – starting with the most demanding and disruptive, but also overlapping activities as much as possible. Kids of all ages can do a similar activity in the same place but at different levels. 

2- Use Hands-on Busy Activities

Teach your young ones to play with a limited amount of toys, in a defined space.  Have times in their day where they don’t wander and touch everything.  Set aside simple, independent play activities just for school time—puzzles, building blocks, lacing cards, sticker books, or sensory bins. Keep a special box or drawer that only comes out during homeschool. When it feels new and fun, it holds their attention longer.  But don’t give the whole box to them at once; teach them to focus and stay engaged by 1-2 activities for a set period of time.

3- Give Older Kids Independent Work Blocks

Train your older kids to work independently when you are not available.  My kids had set activities or subjects that they could do by themselves.  This varied for each child and season, but activities like – workbooks (we had a few), finishing projects or notebook pages, reading a book, typing lessons, art projects.

Our family routine generally was about me going between each age group – setting each one up to do something on their own, then going to someone else to set them up for their next activity/task.  This is why it is important to have everyone in one space – or close by space – so you can supervise everyone even if everyone is doing different things.

4- Include the Littles Where You Can

One of the things I loved about our homeschooling was learning together.  We used a literature based approach – where we read stories and talked about the world before going and writing about what we talked about (a simplified description of our homeschooling!)  This meant that the preschoolers could listen in, and the toddlers would often sit on my lap.  I would allow the little ones to draw or colour in, but they needed to sit still when stories were being read.  The bigger ones would go off and do their research and writing component and I’d have 15 minutes or so with the little ones.  

So choose curriculum, resources and methods that help you balance everyone’s needs.  I chose to do things together – others choose resources that enable their homeschool kids to do everything independently.  Choose what works for your purposes and goals and family culture – but remember your choices in curriculum, resources and methods will impact on how your day goes trying to balance different ages.

5- Embrace a Flexible Mindset

Some days won’t go to plan—and that’s okay. I adopted the mantra:  Homeschooling isn’t my lifestyle – my lifestyle is my homeschooling.  Homeschooling was a part of who we were as a family, it gave us many amazing opportunities for sure, but ultimately we were a family first.  And that meant when there was a baby, or sickness, or struggle – we addressed those as a family.  And in a family there is give and take as we help each other thrive.  So if we needed a season of lifestyle learning, and less structured learning so that we could all do well with the crazy toddler season then that is what we did.

And if you do use screen time for the little ones …

Give yourself grace. If you’ve been leaning on screens to get through, and you don’t want to  then ask yourself: What’s my long-term plan for screen use? Can I reduce it a little this week? That kind of intentionality makes a big difference over time.

School or Family centric Homeschool?

I never wanted to create a school in my house.  I wanted to create a loving family that loved to learn and I soon learnt there are many ways to learn.  And having babies, toddlers and preschoolers gave us opportunity to delve into those many different ways to learn.

Little ones are only little for a season. And in that season, your homeschool might need to flex a little. A whole-life learning approach gives you room to adjust, to breathe, and to embrace the give-and-take of family life.

Heart-focused Homeschooling Action Step

What’s one small change you can make today to reduce screen time for your little ones? Just one baby step—that’s all it takes to start.

If you want to tweak things in your family to incorporate some of these ideas that I’ve talked about, you may want to consider a season of deschooling so you can have the time to adjust your thinking and the way you do things.  Deschooling is simply a season where you stop with doing school at home (or doing any homeschooling that is overwhelming you) and give yourself time to think things through.  But parents often ask – What do I do with my kids during that time?  That’s what my masterclass/workshop lays out for you – as well as ideas to help you find a way to homeschool that is life-giving – for everyone.  Masterclass:  Deschool for a Strong Homeschool (learn more about it)

Read more about Screens and our Kids

How To Reset Your Child’s Screen Time (Heart-focused Parenting Podcast #96) Removing technology when you reduce your child’s screen time is only half the solution – you have to teach them what to do instead.

Online Technology & Social Media are not the Real Problem for our Kids (Heart-focused Parenting Podcast #11) The real issue with technology and social media is the heart and how you deal with that will make all the difference with how it will impact your family.

The Most Important Thing for Parents to get Right when their Teens want Social Media (Heart-focused Parenting Podcast #71)  Parents have to start thinking about how to help their teens do this wisely and safely.

Hi there! I'm Belinda and I'm glad you are here!

I am a family life coach and help parents to raise their kids with faith, values and life skills in a way that is intentional, relational and heart-focused. Read more in my Introduction page

You can learn about heart-focused parenting through my podcast, blog and weekly email (Heart Boosters).

If you need help you can book a coach call or email me here.

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