Energy and Time invested

I was reading a posting on one of my home-schooling lists and it prompted me to blog about the energy it takes to home-school. One of the posters remarked that home-schooling has literally taken over her life and, although she knows it the best thing for her children, she is exhausted from the effort. I remember when we first began home-schooling. I spent hours and hours and hours creating curriculum, tests, essay questions and field trips. I drove Connor to one activity or another (usually in Rochester) practically every day. Yes, I pretty much devoted my entire day to teaching Connor. Now, I find, Connor does most of the work himself. We have a list of subjects that must be covered, and how exactly we meet those standards is flexible. For instance, take Science. We settled on Biology this year. Some days Connor decides to "play games" on Biology4kids website, other days he looks at cells in the microscope, and yesterday his new tutor came over to work with him. I do not have to dictate the when/where and the how of Science. If Science is on the daily list, then Connor figures out a way to fit in a Biology type activity. I expend much less effort now than I did the first year, and I think it helps Connor to be an independent learner. Only once in awhile do I have to sit down and do a mini-lesson on a particular subject. Most of the time, I'm doing my own thing, while Connor is doing his own thing. Yes, I still drive him around to various lessons (guitar, horse-back riding, Tae Kwon do, and Chess), but it just seems more manageable now.