Homeschooling When It's Hard: From One Tired Mom to Another

I need to tell you something before we go any further:

You're not failing.

I know it doesn't feel that way. I know you look at some Pinterest-brushed post with the color-coded schedule and the children who sit quietly and complete their work. I know you compare your chaotic, tear-filled morning to a standard that doesn't actually exist.

You're scared.

Scared you'll get in trouble for not meeting state-mandated goals. Scared you're not qualified. Scared you'll prove those condescending family members right. Scared your child is falling behind and it's your fault. Scared that when they're eighteen, they won't be able to pass a community college entrance exam. Scared they'll struggle to keep a job flipping burgers — and everyone will point at you and say "Those poor children, if only...."

I know that fear. I've lived in it.

But here's what I've learned in 24 years:

Good homeschooling doesn't look like perfection. It looks like showing up — again — even when yesterday was a disaster.

I've had children on the university honors list and children who struggled with reading into their teenage years. Both paths started at my kitchen table. Both involved tears — theirs and mine. Both required me to keep going when I wanted to stop.

The lie is that success looks like order, completed checklists, kids working ahead of grade level.

The truth is that success looks like persistence. Trying again, when you don't want to. Being there, when you want to be anywhere else.

You're still here.

That's not failure. That's grit.

You're Not Failing

When Your Child is Behind

Let's talk about the fear that keeps you up at night.

Your child is behind.

Maybe it's reading. Maybe it's math. Maybe they're fourteen and working at a fifth-grade level and you don't know how you got here or how to fix it. You've tried three different curricula. You've blamed yourself. You've cried in the shower where no one can hear.

There's a special kind of panic that comes with realizing your child isn't where they "should" be. You wonder what you missed. What you did wrong. Whether the damage is permanent.

I need you to hear this: Behind isn't broken. Behind is just... not there yet.

One of my kids was struggling to read 3rd grade material nine weeks ago. Not because of a lack of intelligence. Not because I failed as a teacher. Because this child's brain works differently, and I was so busy doing everything that needed done, that I didn't slow down and really look at the situation.

When I finally set aside my frustrations and looked at the situation clearly to really assess his needs, learning style, and our relationship... I was able to put everything into perspective and create a plan that is working.

Today? Nine weeks later. He's reading at a 5th-grade level — confidently — with visible improvements every single day.

That didn't happen because I found a magic curriculum. It happened because I made myself stop panicking. I reviewed what I knew about how this particular child learns, and built something that works.

My mom helped me come up with a back up plan. A plan that will involve him not being homeschooled. It's make it or break it time. You'll have to come back to see what happens. That part of our story isn't written yet.

For now, I'm so encouraged. His math scores went from C's to A's. His reading jumped by 2 grade levels, and he is doing more work on his own every week.

Nine weeks. Two grade levels.

Not because I'm special. Because I finally got out of my own way.

Here's what I want you to know.

You can figure this out. Not overnight. Not perfectly. But you can.

Start by assessing where the gaps actually are — including where their character is weak. Be honest with yourself.

If your child still can't identify verbs, add that to your list. If they don't understand how to consistently line up multi-digit multiplication, address it. If they are just plain lazy, acknowledge it.

You don't need expensive testing. You need to sit with your child, pay attention, and be real about what they know and don't know.

Then meet them there. Not where the curriculum says they should be. Not where their same-age peers are. Where they are.

Progress over perfection. Always.

When You're Juggling Too Much

Maybe you're teaching a first grader and a high schooler. Maybe you have one with ADHD that can't sit still for more than three minutes. Or one of your children has anxiety and shuts down when she feels pressured. Maybe the child that started out so easy is gifted and has become bored. Or your student hates everything about school and lets you know it loudly. Most of us have one or more of these children. I have all of them.

They all need you at the same time.

And there's only one of you.

I've been juggling this for over two decades. Ten kids. The age span has stretched from toddlers to teenagers to adults still needing support. I've homeschooled while pregnant, while nursing, while babysitting other people's toddlers to bring in extra money.

You aren't tired because you failed at organization. This is genuinely, impossibly hard.

So let me share what helped me survive.

Think like a one-room schoolhouse. A century ago, one teacher taught all ages in a single room. She didn't do it by giving every child an individual, grade-perfect lesson. She taught together and differentiated the output. You can do the same. Read aloud together. Discuss together. Then give different assignments based on ability.

Teach subjects together whenever possible. History, Science, art, Bible —these don't need to be separated by grade level. Let your kids learn together, then adjust the reading or writing expectation for each one.

Expect age-appropriate independence. Your six-year-old needs you beside them. Your twelve-year-old can work alone for stretches (even when they don't want to). Your sixteen-year-old should be managing much of their own learning. This takes training, but it's essential for survival.

Use older kids wisely — but carefully. Peer tutoring can be beautiful when it's framed as mentoring, not parenting. It can breed resentment when the older child feels like they're doing your job. Be intentional.

Ask for help when you need it. One of my children requires the vast majority of my daily focus. Another needs almost as much, and that only covers the school day. I was running on empty, my other students were falling behind because I wasn't available, and resentment was building.

Last year I broke when talking to a retired friend. She had experience with teaching special needs. I needed advice, but she offered so much more. She now tutors one of my struggling readers on math, language arts, reading, and survival type skills (his favorite!). She has been great for his character development.

I couldn't do it alone. Maybe you also need help. There's no shame in that.

Give yourself grace. You don't have to teach every subject, every day, to every child.

You just have to do the next thing.

When Special Needs Complicate Everything

When one child needs more — more time, more patience, more appointments, more everything —the whole family feels it.

The other kids get less of you. The house falls apart. Your spouse doesn't fully understand why you're so exhausted. And you carry a guilt that never quite goes away; Am I giving enough to anyone?

I understand this weight.

Eight of my ten children have ADHD. Three are autistic — some high-functioning but deeply sensitive, others need ongoing support well into adulthood. There is dyslexia and dysgraphia in my home. One child's reading was delayed for years because of severe speech problems that persisted into age five.

We've lived with Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, IBS, and allergies that range from inconvenient to anaphylactic. I've homeschooled through therapy appointments, specialist visits, and medical crises that derailed entire weeks.

I don't tell you this to impress you. I tell you so you know. I understand how heavy this is.

Some things that have helped me:

Therapy counts as school: Occupational therapy, speech therapy, physical therapy — these are educational. Stop feeling guilty about "missing" school for appointments. You're meeting a need. Take school along for the other kids. A workbooks or a biography you can read keeps their learning mobile. You're not missing anything and your children are learning how to work together.

Flexibility isn't failure. Some weeks, the child with the greatest need gets the most attention. That's not neglect of the others; that's triage. Communicate with your kids. They understand more than you think.

Your knowledge of your child is your superpower. No teacher in a classroom of thirty knows your child like you do. You see the subtle signs. You know what works. Trust that.

The fact that you're still trying? That you're still showing up for the child who needs more while keeping the others afloat?

That IS success.

When You Want to Quit

There's a difference between a hard day and wanting to quit.

A hard day is tears and frustration and collapsing on the couch when it's over.

Wanting to quit is darker. It's the thought that won't leave: I can't do this anymore. They'd be better off somewhere else. I'm not cut out for this.

I know that thought. I've had it more times than I can count.

For about fifteen years, I thought about quitting multiple times a week. Sometimes multiple times a day.

The recent progress with my struggling reader has helped. Watching daily improvement reminds me this works. But the child who fights me on every subject? That battle still makes me want to throw in the towel almost daily. A breakthrough doesn't mean the fight is over.

I need to tell you about the years I lost.

In 2011, my son died. He was young. He was adopted. And he died at home.

I won't share all the details because some grief is too sacred to display. But I will tell you that what followed nearly ended me.

There was an investigation. This created an entirely different kind of trauma on top of a devastating loss no parent should experience. It caused a ripple effect through my family that I didn't even know about until years later.

And then there was my depression. A deep depression that I didn't fully comprehend I was suffering from — one that stole over three years, not just a few weeks or months.

For those years, I went through the motions. I was physically present but mentally gone. My carefully built systems fell apart. I dropped balls I didn't even know I was holding. My children felt the gap. I have to live with that.

But here's what I know now.

My kids still turned out okay. Not because I was doing everything right those years. Because I kept trying. Because eventually I started seeing what was around me, and I addressed each issue with determination until I knew each child was firmly on a path to success.

Some seasons, school looks like reading aloud together and nothing else. Some seasons, it's documentaries and audiobooks because you can't manage more. Those seasons are about surviving and hanging on.

That counts.

You're allowed to have a bare minimum day. A bare minimum week. A bare minimum year.

You're allowed to struggle without being disqualified.

The goal isn't to never fall. The goal is to get back up.

You're still here. You're still trying. That matters more than you know.

Simple Systems for Tired Moms

I'm not going to give you a complicated system.

You don't need more to manage. You need less that actually works.

After 24 years — including seasons where everything fell apart and I had to rebuild from scratch — here's what I've learned about systems.

Simple survives. Elaborate breaks.

I've tried the detailed planners. The color-coded schedules. The curriculum that requires hours of teacher prep. They worked for a season, then life happened, and they collapsed.

What survives is simpler:

A rhythm, not a rigid schedule. We do certain things in a certain order. Morning subjects, then afternoon projects. Consistency in sequence, flexibility in timing.

Curriculum that doesn't require me to perform. I chose CLE workbooks this year for my youngest kids because they're thorough, solid, and require minimal work from the parent. I spent years thinking I had to give more — more creativity, more hands-on projects, more of myself. But this is a season where I have less time and less energy, and I'm not going to be hard on myself.

Record keeping that satisfies requirements without consuming me. We do school everyday. Attendance isn't hard to track. If a child is sick or staying the week with grandma, I put their code on that day in my planner and draw a line through it. It's easy to subtract those few days when it's time to submit the count to our umbrella school.

I track the curriculum that we use for each subject for each child. I don't create Pinterest worthy portfolios.

One plan for multiple kids whenever possible. Same history. Same science. Same read-alouds. Different output and expectations based on age and ability.

That's it. Nothing fancy. Nothing impressive.

You're Not Alone

You're carrying more than anyone sees.

The mental load of tracking every child's needs, progress, struggles, and appointments. The emotional labor of staying calm when you're screaming inside. The physical exhaustion of being always available, always needed, always on.

No one gives you a performance review. No one thanks you at the end of the year. Some days, no one even notices what you did.

But I see you.

I've been where you are — and in many ways, I'm still there. My youngest is eleven. I have years left. I still have hard days, hard weeks, hard seasons.

But I've also seen the other side.

I've watched my struggling learners become capable adults. I've seen one of my children — the one a therapist once suggested might need long-term support to function in the adult world — navigate college, make the hard decision to change schools when it wasn't the right fit, and handle life responsibilities independently.

I've watched another child work through the kind of pain and anger that threatened to swallow everything — the fallout of grief and loss and a home that was barely recognizable for a while. It was a hard road. But that child spent semesters on the honors list and has built a successful, independent life.

I've watched three of my children make the university honors list. My oldest graduated cum laude with a double major.

Not because I did everything right. Because I didn't quit.

That's why I built this space. Not to tell you how to do it perfectly. To walk with you while we both figure it out.

I wish someone had believed in me when I was drowning. I wish someone had said, "You can do this, and I'll be here while you try."

So let me be that person for you.

You're not failing. You're fighting.

Still here. Still teaching.

And now, so are you.

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