Moms love their kids. The love is such that a mom is constantly concerned with her child’s well being. A mom feels a vested interest in every part of her child’s life. When a mom takes on the task of homeschooling she takes on a greater responsibility that is pure joy yet is not without pain. When we go through dark times we often feel we are alone. We also begin the dangerous road of comparing ourselves to other moms who appear to have it together. This causes feelings of failure and temptations to leave homeschooling behind.
When our house is chaotic with dishes covering the countertops, socks on the floor, math books lost, kids fighting, and school not being done in a week, we feel we reached our breaking point. Rest assured that every homeschool has times of chaos. Some homeschools experience more chaos than others and some less. No matter how minor or major the chaos or issue we still feel we are failing as a homeschooling mom. We are our child’s greatest advocate so even if the person hindering them appears to be us, we are quick to find a solution. Slow down and take a break and rethink your situation.
Things that make you feel like you are failing as a homeschooling mom:
A messy house: Commonly you will hear from veteran homeschoolers that either the house is clean and school is not done or school is done and house is a mess. You are not alone if your house is not fit for the pages of House Beautiful. Give yourself a break. To alleviate this stress simply assign morning chores to all children and then assign after school clean up duties.
Feeling taking care of a house and the educating of young minds is overwhelming: If you feel you have more to do in one day than can possibly be accomplished, you are not alone. The trick is organization. Remember in school when a teacher would say good organization alone will raise a letter grade up one. If you have to take a few days off of school for organizational purposes then do so! I promise you that it will be worth any work that needs to be made up. Find organization solutions that fit your personality. This is important or your organization will not hold up past a few days.
Student struggling with school work: If we feel we are not providing the best education then we will be tempted to stop homeschooling. When our child struggles in a subject then we often feel we are not providing properly. In my experience, a child struggling with a subject is not the mom’s fault. Your child may very well struggle in school. Regardless of your involvement in your child’s education you will be the one to handle this situation. This is not the time to stop homeschooling but the time to rethink how you homeschool. You may need a tutor, switch curriculums or have to determine learning styles to get past a rough patch. No matter what, being homeschooled provides the greatest flexibility and time for your student to master any subject.
As you can see no matter what heads your way it is not your fault and feelings of guilt are to be pushed aside. There are plenty of good reasons to stop homeschooling. If you make the decision to stop that does not mean you failed. It means you are providing your child with the best learning environment you can. However, take heart if your intent is to homeschool, most issues can be remedied without sending your child to school.
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