Over the years, there have been times when I was sick. When you have only one child, you can't ask the eldest to take over or help out with teaching duties. Oh, there were times where I could muddle through and we accomplished a full day's worth of work . . . But there were days when I was doing good to get from my bed to the couch just to keep an eye on my son.

When he was younger (early elementary), I would just say school was off. I figure if the teacher couldn't get to school, the student wouldn't necessarily know what was expected of him. Without a teacher, no school. Oh, he was always a reader and even if he weren't, I could ask him to read to me.  We might watch an educational movie or something on video about nature or space. There was still learning going on; it just didn't look like "school."

As he got older, he could do a lot of his schoolwork on his own, just coming to my sickbed to ask questions. There were still a few days where I would give him a break. Homeschoolers don't take very many "in-service day" or "snow days" -- we can take "sunshine days" and we can work through the bad weather. So, taking a break every now and again, can be a good thing. Of course, in my homeschool, we educated all year long. Our school year, more often than not, had 200 or 225 days instead of 180 (what is deemed appropriate by the government schools). Taking a sick day occasionally didn't hurt us at all.

Once he hit high school, and even before when he hit 12 years old and up, he didn't need me to teach. (We used a video curriculum for math, for example.) I was there if he had a question, but generally speaking I could be sick and not have to worry about him.

It is a growing experience--as they get older, you want them to be able to work more independently. You don't throw them into the deep end at the beginning and expect them to do their work all by themselves, but you train them and allow them to do what they can as they can. If you happen to have a head cold, it can be part of the routine in a way, maybe not on the schedule, but at least you can go with the flow when you need to.

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