Self Care in Teaching and Cultivating!

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

If you notice in an airplane, they remind you, in case of an emergency the oxygen mask will drop in front of you and that you should put on your mask first before you help others.

Only when we first help ourselves can we effectively help others.

Homeschooling is an adventurous journey, however, it can drain you! As children grow you may find it even harder to cope with! Added to it if you have been having new additions to the family, routines would be a mere dream. Pulling yourself together and getting something to work could be far from reality! At this stage what do you do?

Remember the emergency oxygen mask on the airplane! If you take care of yourself first you can take care of others! So work on that much needed "Self Care".

I used to feel so overwhelmed with the sudden change of situations and circumstances that do not allow you to stick to your usual routine. It was very depressing to pass every day without anything been done with regard to homeschooling. But I started working on "Self Care".

Self Care is in the secular sense means,

"actions and attitudes which contribute to the maintenance of well-being and personal health and promote human development."

“the practice of activities that are necessary to sustain life and health, normally initiated and carried out by the individual for him- or herself.”

Accordingly many will encourage you to spend time on something that will make you feel happy and on activities that would give you a break from daily routine such as a spa massage, run and jog, hang around with friends and much more. Alhamdulillaah while all of the above sounds great, I really thought for myself, do I have enough time to give time for such activities in my life? Even if I hang around with friends my mind will be not settled as I have so much to do and so much to think about! I cannot have some time for myself as I do not live with extended family, nor do I have family close by. I am not comfortable to leave the children alone. So how can I work on self-care?

As for me, self-care means,

“O you who believe! Ward off from yourselves and your families a Fire (Hell) whose fuel is men and stones, over which are (appointed) angels stern (and) severe, who disobey not, (from executing) the Commands they receive from Allah, but do that which they are commanded.” (66:6)

Taking care of ourselves and our families is true self-care. If we work hard on these lines we would achieve the much-needed self-care and as a result, we can cultivate our families and bring in that joyful homeschooling days back again! This is what I did and this is what worked for me by the mercy of Allaah!

One such self-care activity which really gave me and gives me satisfaction and motivates me to continue and sail through is teaching and cultivating. When nothing was happening in our homeschool with regard to academics for almost 3 years, I started having pep talks and discussions on a few random topics every day. The sessions may last only for few minutes sometimes and maximum 20 minutes on other days, but this brought in such a lot of satisfaction for me as well as happiness for a child who has lost a usual routine! Textbooks and workbooks and projects were on the standstill, but learning did not stop! We may talk about a book she has read or a fiqh matter or even just an Attribute of Allaah and how to understand it.

Eventually, when we were pulling together to start everything all over again, this little steps we took helped us to get organize and get back to routine over time.

Try this out and see the blessing inshaa Allaah!

We discussed many more points as to how we could pull ourselves and organize our homeschool with hundreds of sisters who were struggling like me at the workshop we had for mums Get Organized: Homeschool 101 a few months ago. The sisters were given detail notes and simple projects to put their knowledge into action and to complete the assignments that would help them to reach their goals.

Alhamdulillaah almost all of the sisters got motivated and energized by the mercy of Allaah and are slowly getting their homeschool in place. The workshop is available for others to complete at your own pace on my website. You are welcome to sign up and get access to the "Nurture Islaam Learning Zone".

Those of you who are interested to sign up can email me at ummmaimoonah@gmail.com or WhatsApp me + 974 66132058 Inshaa Allaah!. 

What are your Self Care activities that helped to get your homeschool organized?