Encouraging Moms Who Homeschool

 Homeschooling is a lifestyle.  Which means it intersects with, and sometimes invades, all aspects of our lives. Homeschooling is a lot. And so, it is not for the faint of heart. But neither is raising children, or following Jesus, or a myriad of other things that offer the highest ROI while demanding the utmost dedication from us.  Basically, homeschooling joins the ranks of pursuits that are daunting, difficult and daring.  And since you are reading this post today, let me assure you that the strong sense of overwhelm and the emotional roller coaster you deal with now and then is totally normal for someone undertaking such an all-encompassing task/role/journey as homeschooling.  Is there actually a dream to be lived out as we educate our children at home? Or is it merely survival in the midst of stress and pressure and all the things that make life hectic?  It's both. There is no easy button or cure for the chaos that comes with raising and homeschooling ...

For 25 years, I homeschooled my five children. Managing a family while homeschooling is challenging, and I needed to come up with ways to simplify my life in every way possible. Homeschool planning and preparation took up a lot of time each week, and I needed some help. Good thing I am a note-taker, because I stumbled across some amazing advice I’d written down from a speaker at a homeschool conference (and I wish I could remember who it was that shared this tidbit originally so I could thank her, but I don’t remember…but credit goes to her for the notes I took during her session at the conference years and years ago, because from that one idea I began to tweak and work out a way to make my family homeschool planning so much better.) Her tidbit of advice was to try and divide the work your child has to do for the homeschool year by the number of days you will be homeschooling. And when I read that little note, I tried it out, began to make it fit our family bit by bit, and soon enough ...

  *Some Key Points About Naomi: 1 - She was a woman who lost so very much as a result of following her husband’s leading to leave their homeland and live amidst foreigners who did not serve the Lord God Most High. (Sometimes we bear the weight of other people’s decisions and as a result of simply living our life in light of choices beyond our control, we can end up lonely, misunderstood, or wrongly judged. When it seems as if no one understands you, try to remember that God saw Naomi’s lot in life, and He sees yours, too.)  2 - She made an impact on her Moabite daughters-in-law that was significant enough for them to express their great love for her and willingness to follow her back to her homeland and forfeit any future opportunity to become mothers themselves (some of this was cultural, of course, but I think we see more than the normal culturally expected response; these women had been impacted not only by Naomi, but by the God of Naomi. Is my life a witness for the Lord t...

 How many things do you have to accomplish during the course of a day? Now think about all you do during an entire week.  Start thinking about everything you have to get done in a month, or a year, and you might break out in hives.  For most homeschool moms, burnout happens one day at a time. If I had to take a guess as to the number one cause of burnout among homeschoolers, I'd probably sum it up on one word: LIFE. Life just keeps coming at us, fast and furious.  So, preventing or "curing" a case of burnout might involve figuring out how to handle the daily-weekly-monthly-yearly grind.  (Spoiler alert: homeschooling is wonderful & amazing & filled with moments that make great memories...but it is also a G-R-I-N-D and there's no shame in admitting that.) Ask yourself if there is any part of your homeschooling that can be better organized, if the overwhelm is getting to you. Is your family involved in too many extracurricular activities, and is that causi...