How I Have Worked My Online Business While Home Schooling An 8-Year Old

byEdwinBernard

9.2K followers

2 years ago

It has not been easy juxtaposing looking after our granddaughter, now 8 and homeschooling her while trying to work on my affiliate marketing training and business. One of the benefits I see is when she will return to her Dad mid summer, I will have all that extra time available to work on my business that I had wasted before.

Passing Of Time

How fast five months has passed. Our granddaughter started her year with us when she was 7. Half way through she turned 8.

During this time I have seen amazing growth in her as a person. Diana is much happier and has made my life brighter. I will miss her when she has to return home.

While we are doing her Dad a favor, he has been missing out on watching her blossom.

Challenges Teaching A Kid

I have had challenges with the homeschooling. The Grade 2 text books I found in the library have helped but I needed to mold the lessons to get through to a very hyperactive little girl.

Since I am not a trained teacher I had to improvise, I structured our day teaching her math in the morning followed by reading and English in the afternoon. Fitting in doctors visits for myself and my wife often cut into her learning time.

One on one teaching has its benefits. I am able to teach her in one hour what would probably take several hours to learn in a classroom setting.

Teaching Math - Home Visual Aids To The Rescue

In teaching Math, I was able to put my jar of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters to good use. Teaching adding, subtraction, multiplication and division was a synch using pennies. This cache was also very helpful in teaching her how to make money transactions in the examples in the text book.

My watch was a great learning tool to instruct her to tell the time. And the measuring tape came in handy to understand the concepts of object dimensions. I was able to cull together other physical objects at home to explain various shapes.

Diana helps me in the kitchen where I am able to extend her math education in measuring ingredients for recipes. She loves to video and occasionally I let her use my phone to record what I am doing. I also record her cooking activities too.

Local Public Library Provided Helpful Books

The Grade 2 Math books from our local public library came in very handy. There are also a plethora of books with Disney stories.

Since Diana was familiar with these characters through movies, it has been fun helping her read these books. As well as learning to recognize new big words.

We focused on one story per afternoon which was the most I could get her to focus on. On some afternoons she learned new words using a picture dictionary. And on other afternoons she practiced cursive writing.

Now at the end of the school year, Diana has a notebook filled with work she has done during the past five months. When I started homeschooling she was way behind in her class. I hope that she is now ahead and will start Grade 3 I hope in a stronger position in her school. My worry is will she be able to maintain the progress she has been able to make here.

Carving Out Time For My Business

It is 2:23 am while I am writing this article. Fortunately tomorrow is a Memorial Day holiday so I can sleep late.

I have to wait until Diana is sleeping before I can focus on my business. Sure I could have told her to disappear when she wanted to spend time with me.

These moments are precious so I decided to spend as much time as she wanted to spend with me. When she is occupied with her tablet, I have been able to do house chores. Since my wife has problems with her hands, I do most of the work at home, like cook the meals and the housework.

Hearing the strains of Grandpa, Grandpa so often during the day has been like music to my ears. We have developed a great relationship in which she has helped me too. When we go grocery shopping Diana helps me load the cart as well as in the check out counter.

She now keeps a watchful eye to make sure there is nobody around me to steal the debit card like what happened several weeks ago. I wrote a post here about that fraud. That case has yet to be resolved as the bank is giving us a hard time.

Time For The Park

At our age we do not have friends who have kids Diana's age she can play with. I take her to our local park where there are kids around for Diana to make friends with. She does that with ease. It is a lot of fun to watch her interact with kids of all ages. I feel this is a quality that will help her as she grows up.

When she hears another kid, usually a boy, say a bad word, she lets me know and wonders why their parents allow them to do that. Instead of criticizing the other kid, I commend Diana for taking the high road and not using bad words herself.

Summer Fun For The Grand Kids

In a few weeks Diana's dad will be driving her 11 year old sister and 3 year old brother to spend a month with us.

Since our son is a single Dad, this will give him a much-needed break from the 3 year old.

We've had all of them with us for the past two Christmas seasons but this will be the first time in the summer.

There are a lot of adventures to look forward to.

Legacy

When their Dad comes to take them back, it is going to be a bittersweet moment. Diana has been much easier to take care of at this age compared to her Dad. He also was hyperactive.

The secret weapon we have had now that didn't't exist back then was the Tablet! We gave Diana and her older sister tablets last Christmas and it has worked to give us a break. Of course, we control what she can watch. 

One of my business goals is to earn a boat load of money online to create a legacy for our grand kids. There is time to do this. I look forward to a time in the not too distant summer when we can all go on a cruise together. That is one of my motivators to build a successful online business.

Who knows what the future will bring, Tempus Fugit. Once gone, it cannot be replaced. I better get cracking!

Life goes on!