16 Simple Self-Compassion Tools Homeschool Moms Need

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Straight up, I can offer help for homeschool moms in this one thought: we homeschool mamas need to treat ourselves as kindly as we want to treat our kids.

(Because we can’t practice compassion toward our kids if we’re not practicing it toward ourselves.) And if you’d rather listen than read, you’ll find this conversation and many more on the Homeschool Help Podcast for Your (Real) Homeschool Mom Life.

Quieting the Inner Critic Every Homeschool Mama Knows

So how do you address self-criticism, self-judgment, not good enough, or perfectionist tendencies as a homeschool mama?

Real help for homeschool moms starts from the ground up: dealing with our mindsets and emotions and building self-compassion techniques into our real homeschool mom life. (In fact, that’s the heart of how to homeschool better. It starts with you, not the curriculum.)

On one hand, you could choose not to address those emotions at all.

Or you could do the opposite of self-compassion for the homeschool mama:

• just beat yourself up, make yourself feel bad,
• remind yourself how horrible your parenting really is,
• or at the very least, remember that you are a wee bit incompetent or incapable.

On the other hand, you could address that nasty mean person in your head saying all those things and declare, thanks, but no thanks, I’ve got to learn a new way to speak to myself.

Self-Compassion: Where Help for Homeschool Moms Begins

How do I propose that you do that, though?

(After all, it’s hard to get yourself out of your own head.) I know you have stuff to do, homeschool mama! And self-compassion likely isn’t on the list.

I have had a chance to practice self-compassion… and I am committed to practicing it till the day I die. I strongly suspect I’ll always have a chance to learn to speak kindly to myself and include these practices in my life.

So what do we actually do to change those self-criticizing, self-judging, not good enough, self-shaming feelings inside our minds? We need to practice self-compassion strategies.

Take the Free Quiz: Homeschool Help for Moms Who Feel Overwhelmed

Not sure where your overwhelm is coming from in the first place?

Then start with the free Homeschool Overwhelm Quiz. It only takes a few minutes, and it points you toward the help for homeschool moms that fits your season.

My Story: The Help for Homeschool Moms I Wish I’d Had

I dunno about you, but I didn’t adequately plan for my kids’ big emotions. Straight up, I assumed I could modify their behaviours and their unpleasant emotions, and definitely decrease their angry reactions, so I wouldn’t have to experience their feelings at all.

Before you judge me (but I do get why you would), it wasn’t conscious. I wasn’t intentional about any of that last paragraph.

Obviously, I would want my kids to feel good, be prepared for life, know how to address their emotions, and know how to relate to others. However, my training in big emotions went like this: don’t feel your big emotions. And at the very least, don’t express them.

But if you do feel your big emotions, pretend they’re not there. There is a designated feeler of emotions in this home, and it’s not you. Occasionally, another person in your family will address your emotions. However, since she doesn’t know how to address her own emotions, she won’t be able to see you, help you feel safe, and allow for your emotion’s full expression.

(FYI, these important people didn’t intend to convey that message. They were stuck in their own unhealthy patterns, yet they still conveyed it.)

How Self-Compassion Changed Everything

How did that work for me?

It didn’t.

But why?

Because I didn’t honour my humanness, I didn’t see my internal world as safe and normal. And since I didn’t allow for full expression of my emotions, I carried them inside my body (which caused ill health), and I recreated those unhealthy relational patterns in my grown adult life. On top of that, I continued those unhealthy relational patterns in my mothering role.

Naturally, I had more frustrated, more reactive kids too. (I share more of that story in Why I Homeschool, Unexpected Challenges & My Transformation.)

With a whole lotta perspective-shifting therapy and coaching, and a whole lotta practice with a whole lotta tools, I gradually learned to address my big emotions, honour them, and even embrace them.

All of them.

These self-compassion practices have quite literally changed my life. They have influenced every relationship outside of me, but most noticeably, they’ve influenced the relationship I have inside me. That’s the real help for homeschool moms I want to pass on to you.

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Before You Begin: Give Yourself Grace

So before we get started, I want to encourage you to consider these things before you bring new strategies into your homeschool mom life.

Honour Your Common Humanity

So here’s the thing: the reason you’re so dang hard on yourself? Because you’re you.

Would you speak to your friend the way you speak to yourself? Probably NOT. In fact, likely never.

Cause who would remain friends with someone so hard on someone else?

So give yourself a break: you’re human. Just a regular ole human being having a human experience. Sure, you’ve got stuff to learn. Of course, you’ve got stuff to learn.

You’re a human being!

Turns out, because you’re human (& not God), you’ve got stuff to learn.

So honour your common humanity. Honestly, this one reframe is some of the gentlest help for homeschool moms I know.

Help for Homeschool Moms: Get Clear on Your Big Emotions

Learning to address our big emotions is a process: it takes time, it takes grace toward yourself, and a whole lotta practice. Okay, now that you’ve given yourself permission to accept all your feelings, download this Big Emotions audit to get clearer on your feelings.

After all, a practice of self-awareness brings perspective shifts.

So download the Big Emotions audit, keep it in your journal, and answer a question or two each morning.

Real Help for Homeschool Moms: 16 Practical Self-Compassion Techniques

1. Include a daily journal practice.

You build self-awareness one journal entry at a time. That’s why a daily journaling practice is such simple help for homeschool moms: it aids your self-exploration, so you can take care of yourself.

2. Keep a record of the challenging big emotion.

Unlike a daily journaling practice, when we intend to clarify and overcome a specific experience, we need to direct our awareness toward it.

To do that, we can create a daily record of our experience of these particular feelings.

• First, identify a scenario that triggers your feelings.
• Then, spend time each day observing and recording your experience of that particular feeling.

(For a step-by-step version, here’s how to create a plan for your big emotions.)

3. Acknowledge your feelings.

Acknowledge your feelings and identify why your feelings are present.

For reasons that still confound me, the mere act of acknowledging feelings often dissipates their intensity.

Once we accept that we feel things (comfortable and uncomfortable feelings, sparked by things we may or may not want to spark them), we can allow our feelings to rise to the surface and accept them in all their struggle, their beauty, their honesty.

4. Ask yourself what is alive in you.

Next, you need to learn what is alive in you. So:

• ask yourself how your body feels,
• notice where you feel what you feel,
• and notice whether you feel more than one thing at the same time.

5. Observe your needs under your feelings.

Self-care is all about addressing my physical needs, my emotional needs, and my mental needs. And yet addressing my needs has never been my first instinct.

Under those challenging feelings, you’ll always find an unmet need. That’s why homeschool mama self-care is really about nurturing the nurturer. In other words, meeting your needs is foundational help for homeschool moms, not a luxury.

6. Have a plan to address your thoughts.

Do you want to know how to deal with your thoughts?

First, remember that your thoughts are separate from you…

Then, incorporate a mindfulness practice into your homeschool. There’s a reason you hear so much about this. It works! In fact, you can get separate from your regularly experienced thoughts.

For example, I learned three questions from Dr. Amen, author of Change Your Brain, Change Your Life:

• What am I feeling?
• What is the thought behind my feeling?
• What is the story behind my thought? (There is always a story I’m telling myself.)

Of course, you have to practice this regularly to benefit.

7. Do a deep dive into you.

So let’s stop discussing theory for a moment and get into the practical homeschool experience.

Picture a Real Homeschool Moment

How do you respond when…

• Your child won’t sit to do their studies?
• Your child knew his times tables three weeks ago, but now, magically, he can’t recall them.
• Your kids are complaining about the Ancient Greek party you put together in your spare time (and they even wanted to study Egypt). You bought all the things: gauzy drapes at the second-hand store for their togas, grapevines to create head wreaths, grapes, olives, and a fancy gold cord for their waists. And now they don’t wanna do it!

Name the Thoughts You’re Thinking

What are the thoughts you’re thinking?

• So do you feel angry?
• Do you feel unappreciated?
• Do you feel that no one cares about you and what you want?
• Or do you feel like no one values the work you do?
• Do you feel like your child is lazy?
• Do you feel like your child is unmotivated?

Find the Story Behind the Thought

Next, is there a story behind that thought?

• My kid is just trying to make me mad.
• He always wants something but is never willing to help me out.
• No one thinks about what I need.
• No one values the effort I put into making homeschooling fun. I even asked them what they wanted!
• My child is surely going to grow up living hand-to-mouth and not have what he needs.
• My child isn’t learning anything. Everyone is asking why we homeschool, and I can’t say it’s for academics because obviously, he’s not learning anything.

Notice how fast those stories pile up? Often, they point to expectations we carried over from school. (If that’s you, explore the connection between self-care and deschooling.) Honestly, this kind of deep dive is where real help for homeschool moms begins.

8. Create a breathing practice: calming help for homeschool moms.

I know nobody needs to tell you to breathe. If you’re alive, you’re doing it, without intention. However, slow, deep breaths slow your respiratory and cardiac systems. As a result, they slow your fight-or-flight reactions and release endorphins, even relieving aches and pains.

So deep breathe.

Allow the slowing physiological practice of intentional breathing to bring you to a greater sense of equilibrium. (Here’s more on how to include breathwork for homeschool moms.)

9. Acknowledge the core you.

Grab your journal, because what follows will compel you to ask yourself questions to get to know yourself more…

My goal is to understand myself because when I understand myself, I see how I can tailor a life that serves me more and helps me serve my children more. Similarly, if you want to get clear on what your homeschool could look like, the Reimagine Your Homeschool Mini-Course walks you through it.

10. Practice the pause: in-the-moment help for homeschool moms.

Go away.

Specifically, go somewhere your kids are not. Sometimes you’re just in a state of overwhelm, and it takes less stimuli to irritate you.

So practice the pause and take a break. (And when overwhelm shows up daily, these 23 strategies to tame the homeschool stress dragon can help.)

11. Include your mirror “you”.

I often share with homeschool mamas that if they’re particularly heated with their kids, they should head to the bathroom mirror.

Stand in front of the mirror.

See that sad, exasperated, angry face?

Now look back at your face in the mirror and speak to that “friend” in the mirror. Surprisingly, this quick reset can be powerful help for homeschool moms in the heat of the moment.

12. Schedule mindful moments.

Mindfulness helps us identify what’s happening in our interior world so we can respond on purpose in our exterior world.

So spend daily moments listening to yourself. When we practice presence, sit, and focus on our breath, we find profound therapy.

Definitely the cheapest therapy.

Possibly the hokiest.

But if you haven’t tried your vegetables, how do you know whether you like them or not? So try your mindfulness vegetables. (Here’s how to include mindfulness practice in your homeschool if you want somewhere to start.)

13. Speak truth to yourself: encouragement for homeschool moms.

Self-compassion is a way of relating to ourselves.

Sometimes changing the way we relate to ourselves, or speak to ourselves, feels as challenging as stopping the Titanic from hitting that infamous iceberg.

But you can do it, with a whole lotta preplanning, practice & effort. For instance, these 11 uplifting affirmations for you, homeschool mom give you true words to start with. Because kind self-talk is quiet, everyday help for homeschool moms.

14. Consider coaching for yourself.

Sometimes you need someone to walk alongside you to put these practices into your regular life. That’s where coaching becomes real, personal help for homeschool moms.

If you’re curious, book a free Aligned Homeschool Reset session, and we’ll talk through whether coaching is right for you. (Not sure what that conversation looks like? Read 7 Common Homeschool Conversations with a Life Coach. And if budget is a concern, check out these free (&/or affordable) homeschool coaching options.

15. Join a Confident Homeschool Mom Collection.

If you want to show up in your homeschool (& life) authentically, purposefully, and confidently, join our community. After all, gentle accountability and community are the support you need. (Two experienced moms explain why in The Heart of Homeschooling: Essential Lessons from Two Experienced Moms.)

Join the Confident Homeschool Mom Collective free for a week.

16. Use the Self-Compassion for the Homeschool Mama Course.

Finally, the Self-Compassion for Homeschool Mamas Course walks alongside you so you can include practical strategies that benefit you in your real homeschool mom life.

This transformative practice not only models resilience for our children but also nurtures our own well-being. Ultimately, it creates a foundation for a harmonious and flourishing homeschool environment.

In closing, let’s embrace self-compassion as real help for homeschool moms.

“Self-compassion is simply giving the same kindness to ourselves that we would give to others.” –Kristin Neff, author of Self-Compassion

(I share more about how Kristin Neff informs my homeschool with self-compassion.)

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Your Next Step

Wherever you are today, there’s a next step that fits. So start with the one that feels doable:

1. Find your overwhelm pattern. Take the free Homeschool Overwhelm Quiz to discover what’s really draining you, and get help for homeschool moms matched to your answers.
2. Talk it through. Book a free Aligned Homeschool Reset session. In one conversation, we’ll find real clarity and a personalized action plan, so guilt stops running the show.
3. Rethink the whole picture. Next, the Reimagine Your Homeschool Mini-Course helps you design a homeschool that fits your family and you.
4. Go deeper with self-compassion. Finally, the Self-Compassion for Homeschool Mamas Course gives you simple, powerful tools to quiet your inner critic and respond to your kids with more calm and clarity.

Because when you treat yourself with the same kindness you offer your kids, everything shifts.

Originally published March 12, 2024 · Updated November 7, 2026

Call to Adventure by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3470-call-to-adventure
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/