To the mothers just starting out…

I feel compelled to give a bit of encouragement to those moms who are just starting out your homeschooling journey. I can just see you now, pouring over what curriculum to buy, what to teach, scanning for hours through Pinterest ideas, taking trips to the craft stores or even homeschooling conventions. You have such wonderful intentions of getting up before your children, pouring over the Word, setting out the workbooks and newly sharpened pencils all ready for a wonderful day of schooling at home. I see the pressure you’re putting on yourself. The pressure that says…if you don’t do it THIS way…your children won’t learn anything.

I see your resolve, your heels dug in when the day isn’t going perfectly to plan. You set out to school at home…and that is what you’ll do gosh darn it. If a public school teacher can teach 40 children in her classroom…you can teach one, or three, or seven at home.

You make yourself an island, a one woman show. You and your husband agreed that this is what you would do, this is the responsibility you would take on. It’s your “job”.

Until one day it all seems like too much. Too much work. Too many tears. Too many hours spent on one subject. The children are too little. The lessons are too intense, or even too boring. It’s all just. too. much.

So what will you do then? Stick with it? Keep doing what you’re doing? Or will you be the one to say enough is enough. Will you be the one to say you need help, a breather, a day off, a new type of workbook, a trip to the park, a plan for there to be less of you and more of HIM in your school day? If you’re not just starting out…do you need a “reset”? A chance to push all the methods and chaos swimming in your mind and give yourself some time to figure out how to make this actually fun for all of you?

The pressure to homeschool the “right” way is crushing, even more-so to moms just starting out. Since there is no “right” way, just the myriad of ways God has directed us to homeschool, how about we take a step back and relax. Prayer would probably be amazing right about now 🙂 🙂

You are not going to fail, not if you fall back and allow the Lord to catch you, hold you up and guide your every homeschooling thought. You will not fail those children. You are a good mother. Just relax.

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