If you’re searching for how to show up better in your homeschool, chances are you already know something needs to shift — and you’re not alone.
Somewhere in my third year of homeschooling, I was done. In my heart, I was mouthing the words “help me” as the school bus drove by.
Kids’ squabbles set me off more intensely than they should have. Perpetually irritated that a child wouldn’t show interest in his studies, I’d hear myself saying, “If you don’t… then you’re getting on that bus Monday morning.” Looking back, I wasn’t proactive in how I showed up. I was reactive.
Are you there too? Then let’s talk about what it actually takes to show up better in your homeschool — starting with you. And if you need a breather first, grab A Clarifying, Energizing (& Free) Homeschool Mini-Retreat for You!, a short pause made just for you.
Why It’s Hard to Learn How to Show Up Better in Your Homeschool
I knew I didn’t actually want to look up the local school’s telephone number, but I didn’t know what else to do. I was done.
Here’s what that season looked like for me:
- No time for myself
- A body that didn’t feel good
- Constant overwhelm
- Boredom with yet another repeat of the same curriculum
- Doing everything as perfectly as I could, yet feeling it wasn’t good enough
- Wondering if I was doing right by my kids’ education
If that list feels familiar, you may also see yourself in The Perfectionistic Homeschool Mom on the Edge of the Bed.
The Moment I Realized I Wasn’t Factoring Me In
Then a friend of mine, a non-homeschool mom, suggested I watch a Brené Brown TEDx talk. Somewhere in that discussion of authenticity and vulnerability, it clicked: I wasn’t factoring myself into my homeschool at all.
Honestly, I’m not sure I knew who I was, what my interests were, or how I’d want to do things for me. I don’t think I even owned a facial moisturizer. Brushing my teeth was about it. Time for me, or something that stimulated my mind? Umm, what? I did not have time for that.
That’s when I understood: take care of yourself so you can take care of your kids. And I say that to you too. It’s not an option.
You Set the Atmosphere of Your Homeschool
It’s not only about filling a pitcher so you can pour out a cup for your kids, though there’s truth in that. You embody the atmosphere and energy of your homeschool. Mom has the biggest influence in the home, and I don’t say that to make you feel bad or pressured. Learning how to show up better in your homeschool begins with factoring yourself back in.
You’re not going to show up perfectly, authentically, ideally, exactly as you want to all the days of your life. That’s not a thing. As a human being, you have human needs, human feelings, and human challenges, and you won’t do it right all the time. At the same time, you are growing, and you want to do right by your kids — that’s why you started homeschooling.
Whether you’ve been homeschooling for one month or twenty-five years, you need to routinely practice taking care of yourself to nurture the nurturer.
Common Challenges That Keep Homeschool Mamas from Showing Up Well
Women inspire and encourage me so that I feel not only supported but also able to address real issues, concerns, or needs in my real homeschool. And I know that my experience as a homeschool mom is fairly reflective of yours — because I’ve been there.
We all come to homeschooling for different reasons. Our opinions differ about what an education even is, and about how to engage our children when things get hard. Simply put, we just don’t see the world the same way.
But when I wrote Homeschool Mama Self-Care: Nurturing the Nurturer, I discovered we share some very common struggles. Naming them is one of the first steps in learning how to show up better in your homeschool.
Perfectionism and Anger in Your Homeschool
Perfectionism. Some of us don’t feel like what we’re doing is good enough. Surely whatever we see on Pinterest or someone else’s Instagram is the better way to homeschool. Surely the school system knows how to educate children, and we couldn’t possibly meet their standards. (Wait — are we supposed to want to?)
Anger. We tell ourselves we’re just not patient enough to homeschool, but the truth is I have yet to meet a mom who feels she’s patient enough. The mamas who seem the most patient aren’t necessarily more self-controlled — they’ve simply learned to understand their child. They know who their child really is and where they are developmentally. That takes years.
Doubt and Boundaries
Doubt. You’re doubting whether what you’re doing is really doing right by your child. Does this education-at-home thing actually work? It does. But doubt isn’t dispelled simply because you decide to be confident. It isn’t a vaccination situation — it’s a muscle you strengthen over time. As you observe your children learning and growing, you’ll build independent thinking and become family-centric in your approach: what does your family need? What does your child need?
Boundaries. Whatever boundary challenges you experience in your relationships are showing up in your homeschool too. My own exploration of boundaries began in my marriage and extended outward, and practicing that muscle has directly shaped how I show up with my kids. It’s also what gives me time for myself, quiet, recharge, and mental stimulation.
Many of these struggles grow from stories we tell ourselves. I unpack several of them in The Lies Homeschool Moms Believe That Makes Everything Harder.
Overwhelm and Unrealistic Expectations
Oh, so many reasons to feel overwhelmed. You can be reminded of what to do about it, but it’s a muscle you need to strengthen. Unrealistic expectations top the list. Maybe that needs to become a homeschool mom affirmation every morning: Be realistic with my expectations of my child, because they are a child.
P.S. I’m speaking to myself right now. When you’re around your homeschool kids long enough, you kind of expect them to adultify. Frankly, that’s a useful tool, because they should be growing up along the way. But they’re not grown up yet.
Those two ideas are challenging to meld. You want your child to grow up and engage in relationships in a healthy way. You’ve given them the tools, so why aren’t they doing it already? Still, they are children. The goal is to help them grow up while recognizing they’re not grown up yet.
Rethinking What Homeschool Should Look Like
Altering my expectations of how I homeschool is a huge discussion. The unschooling and self-directed learning movements take this on with fervor, as they should, and they’ve given me loads of things to consider about my child’s learning approach, whether or not we choose those paths. (I am not telling you how to homeschool, and I mean that.)
Still, I think it’s useful to take cues from our practical homeschool days and ask:
- Is what we are doing working?
- Do we enjoy it?
- Are our children learning?
- What do they think about this?
Questions like these help you decide whether to shift in a direction that works better, and they’re a practical start on how to show up better in your homeschool. Knowing how to learn matters more than test-taking and grade-making. Big discussion — but oh, so overwhelming when our expectations are a school-like homeschool.
Loneliness and Showing Up Authentically
Loneliness has always been a challenge for homeschool moms, but this season has highlighted it for everybody in a unique way. As homeschool moms, we’ve been challenged to create a community that feels satisfying for our homeschooled kids and for us.
The notion that we’re alone isn’t real, though the feeling is valid. With seven billion people on the planet, surely somebody else thinks like us, feels like us, or exists like us. Therein lies the challenge: we expect that to not feel lonely, we must have people who think and do things just like us. (If you have a partner or a best friend, you’ll know that no matter how much you love each other, you don’t think the same way. You just don’t.)
So how do we approach loneliness, a sense of separateness, or a lack of community? One way is by showing up authentically.
Why Authenticity Eases Loneliness
If Brené Brown taught me anything, it was that I could not show up in a contrived way. Oh yes, I could — and oh yes, I did, because I was afraid to show up any other way. I wanted to show up as a good person, a kind person. Those things are valuable, but there’s a whole different aspect of me. That doesn’t mean being unkind; it means showing up like me, authentically, truly me.
When I show up as me, if people like me, it’s because they actually like me. When I show up inauthentically, they might like me, but they don’t know who I am. They’re liking something that isn’t really me, which only deepens the loneliness.
Homeschooling taught me that we homeschool moms are not homogeneous. Even in the same church or community, we don’t choose the same curriculum (if we have one), the same approaches with our kids, or the same values. I learned I don’t have to think identically to connect.
Be Friends with Yourself First
Along the way, I’ve found that the number one reason I feel lonely is that I’m not comfortable just being with me. I’ll let you think about that one. Many people say, “Say what?” But if we’re comfortable existing in solitude, we’re comfortable being with people who are different from us. We’re not alone, because we’re with ourselves. So be friends with yourself first.
“Belonging is the innate human desire to be part of something larger than us. Because this yearning is so primal, we often try to gain it by fitting in and by seeking approval, which is not only a hollow substitute for belonging but often a barrier to it. Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our own level of self-acceptance.”Brené Brown author of Daring Greatly, How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
Being friends with yourself is part of how to show up better in your homeschool, and so is spending time with mamas who get it. That’s one reason I host the Homeschool Mama Book Club inside the Confident Homeschool Mom Collective.
Are You Planning for Your Homeschool — But Not for Yourself?
This is the season when many homeschool mamas begin planning for their next year. If you’re thinking, Are you kidding? I am so done with homeschooling; I’m not planning next year, don’t worry. I’m with you.
In my early years, I most definitely planned my upcoming homeschool in May. Often I attended a homeschool conference, pulling my rolling luggage down that giant hallway past the curriculum vendors to see what my next homeschool year would hold. Exciting!
And boy, did I put effort into it, just like you have. My coloured markers and Daytimer were always at hand, every subject was planned, and a little notebook held my ideas. That’s the difference between then and now: back then, I expected that if I wrote it down, I would do it. Not so much anymore. These days I’m way more free-flowing.
My Eight-to-Three-Thirty Homeschool Days
Way back then, the whole day was scheduled. (No surprise if you know me.) I was an eight-to-three-thirty kind of gal, because that’s what they do in school. Religiously, I followed Susan Wise Bauer’s classical homeschool approach. (The Well-Trained Mind is filled with fabulous homeschool ideas and ways to approach different aspects of an education, by the way.)
But I followed it to a T, and that was a lot — for ALL of us. My eight-year-old and six-year-old at the time most definitely remember it, and even the most academic of them didn’t think it was fun.
Still, I did it. Every read-aloud, every history reading, morning read-alouds and poetry, Latin, French, Italian, economics, logic, science, chemistry, biology, and geology — I planned it all. And I could continue…
Observe Your Children, Then Plan for You
Maybe you’re not planning anything as I did, and that’s okay. However you do it, I genuinely think you should do it the way that works for you and your kids. Go with the flow of how you were traditionally taught if you need to, but gradually pay close attention to your children.
Observe how your children learn. What they do when left to their own devices actually teaches you what learning really is and how you should be homeschooling. Then, gradually, let go of your ideas of how you’re supposed to do it, and do it the way your family needs.
Of course you’re doing all that planning for your homeschooled kids. That’s expected. But are you planning for yourself?
To show up better in your homeschool, you have to start by asking yourself: how do I actually want to show up? If you’d like a simple way to carve out that time, The Free Homeschool Mom Retreat Planner to Simplify Your Time walks you through it.
How a Retreat Can Help You Show Up Better in Your Homeschool
I wrote Homeschool Mama Self-Care: Nurturing the Nurturer to encourage you to take care of yourself and to plan for you. It was born out of my own practice of caring for me so that I could care for my kids.
A book is a good beginning. Sometimes, though, learning how to show up better in your homeschool takes more than reading; it takes time set apart. That’s why I’m also offering a Homeschool Mama Retreat.
Someday I intend to host you in real life. I’m a bed and breakfast owner, eager to get back into the business when I’m able, and I would love to meet you in person at my homestead bed and breakfast. Picture a weekend of homemade breakfast, coffee by the riverside, and afternoons of canoeing, hiking, paddleboarding, or zip-lining if you feel like it. In the evening, we’d gather around a campfire with a glass of wine — you, me, and a few other mamas — chatting about the most important parts of taking care of ourselves and nurturing each other.
In the meantime, the Homeschool Mama Retreat is offered virtually. Wondering how that works? The Most Useful Guide to a Virtual Homeschool Mom Retreat explains it. If you’re comparing options, 5 Popular Retreats for Homeschool Moms: Renewal and Rest rounds up a few more.
Reassess, Release, and Reimagine
The goal of this retreat is to help you:
- Reassess your homeschool vision. Why are you homeschooling anyway? What’s keeping you going? Do you still have a vision, or does it need to be recreated?
- Release the mindset blocks around what an education is “supposed” to look like, and explore how you’re meant to show up — as teacher, learning consultant, or facilitator.
- Reimagine how you actually show up in your homeschool family day to day — not how you ideally show up, but how you truly show up.
Multitasking, Reading, and What Makes Homeschooling Hard
We’ll also talk about the myth of multitasking. Is there a homeschool mama out there who doesn’t become incredibly proficient at it? Naturally. But it’s not always a happy-making path. More often it’s an agitated state of getting it all done without feeling very good at the end of the day.
I’ll encourage you to read beyond this retreat too — a whole lot about homeschooling. Even when you don’t agree with an author, you’ll feel you were with another seasoned homeschool parent who was willing to structure their thoughts in a book and give you loads of ideas.
We’ll talk about what makes homeschooling hard, though I’m guessing you already know. Then we’ll reimagine how you show up. When you regularly observe and assess how you truly show up — not on your best days — you can unravel the internal challenges and choose to show up the way you want. That is the heart of how to show up better in your homeschool.
Who you are impacts your family. I wish it weren’t true, but more is caught than taught. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a homeschool mama will always infuse her children with the core of who she is, more than the core of what she says.
Thank you, Jane Austen. (Jane Austen did not say that.)
Understanding Who You Are Beyond “Homeschool Mama”
Exploring your identity outside your homeschool mama identity might not feel pertinent when you’re in the thick of homeschooling. You have a lot of demands on you, so why focus on who you are?
Well, one day you won’t be homeschooling. The kids grow up; that’s the goal. Nurturing yourself along the way means you’ll know what to do when that day comes. And for twenty years, you don’t have to put yourself on hold.
So what are the steps to becoming you? In the retreat, I share where I’ve come from and how I got here, because I didn’t start that way in homeschooling.
There’s also the question of becoming you while you live with others. Counselors call it self-differentiation. It might be the most difficult aspect of being part of a family: fully acknowledging who you are and what you do, while still coexisting with other people and affirming them to be themselves.
Along the way, I’ll keep directing you back to your homeschool mama daily affirmations. (You can download my free PDF of Homeschool Mama Daily Affirmations.) Saying them each morning reminds you how you want to show up. There’s no magic sauce: you won’t always follow through just because you said them. But gradually, they seep into your soul.
Your Emotional Landscape and Practical Recharging
We’ll renovate the self-care strategies you thought about when you first heard about my book: your morning routine (a routine, not a schedule, even for you), feeding your brain, taking care of your physical needs, and creating a regular self-nurturing routine.
Then there’s your emotional landscape, which I think is one of the biggest aspects of self-care. What fills you with doubt, overwhelm, loneliness, failure, or impatience? How do you handle pressure cooker days or stressful times? Is there such a thing as homeschool balance? How do you feel about the feelings that aren’t comfortable, and what do you do with them? It’s a very big discussion in the retreat, for probably obvious reasons: your emotional state infuses your homeschool atmosphere.
Practical Recharging for Homeschool Moms
Finally, we’ll talk about recharging intentionally — mentally recharging and enabling quiet time. Am I joking? No, I’m not. It can be done, but don’t lock yourself in the bathroom. You’re guaranteed to have a child knock on the door. Together we’ll explore keeping alone time, practicing fun time that you think is fun (not just what the kids think is fun), and creating learning time for you.
I’ll share the steps I’ve taken to nurture myself, so I can help you nurture yourself, and you can nurture those in your homeschool. Consider it the practical side of how to show up better in your homeschool.
If you’re interested in the Homeschool Mama Retreat, check it out here or email me directly at [email protected]. Prefer to talk it through first? Book a no-obligation conversation with Teresa, the Homeschool Life Coach, or browse Free (&/or Affordable) Homeschool Coaching Options for You!
A Final Letter on How to Show Up Better in Your Homeschool
Once upon a time, you likely told yourself you had one of the best jobs in the world. You took on this job with fervor, when no one expected you to. And now you get to watch your kids grow up right before your eyes.
Watch them learn chess moves at three, win chess games with Dad at eight, and create their own Minecraft servers — or at least, that was my experience. Maybe their vivacious, animated personality creates a successful YouTube channel with 25,000 views. Perhaps a fascination with dolphins turns into an aquatic online science class. A little one dancing in a cute pink tutu might pursue a fine arts degree in ballet. People-watching passions may turn into a social science degree, and a preoccupation with history, reading on the bed, may become a Greek and Latin history minor.
As they develop their interests on the way to adulthood, you get to develop yours too.
If you’re interested in Greek mythology, buy a book and read it with the kids. Take courses online. Build Greek columns from sugar cubes, wrap yourself in white sheets, make a crown of grape leaves, and have your kids feed you grapes, olives, and wine on the living room floor. Call it social studies. You get to dabble in your interests, just like you encourage your kids to dabble in theirs.
Choosing the Charmed Side of Homeschool Life
And you get to do the homeschool hygge. Isn’t it funny how outsiders think we’re tethered to all things uncomfortable? Meanwhile, we steadily move toward all things hygge.
Do they not know we can let the kids sleep in if they want? That we don’t feel pressured toward cultural trends (nor, a lot of the time, even know about them)? Or that we get to move at the flow of our family, and influence that flow to fit our needs too?
We get chocolate chip cookies with cursive workbooks. Family room fires with afternoon reading. Tea and essential oils throughout school days, and candlelight, just because.
You Have One of the Best Jobs in the World
Mama, has anyone told you that you have one of the best jobs in the world? Homeschooling can be a challenge to maintaining a mama’s self-care, no doubt. But the homeschool lifestyle can also be a charmed one that encourages it. Building your needs, wants, and personality directly into your homeschool world is a challenge, but it can be done. And it will be done as you keep moving into habits and practices that take care of you.
That’s how to show up better in your homeschool: not by grinding harder or planning more perfectly, but by nurturing the nurturer. By showing up for yourself, you have something real to offer your kids.
Let’s keep working toward turning our challenges into our charms. I wish you and your family health and happiness as you go beyond surviving to thriving, and as you learn to nurture the nurturer.
Your Next Step in How to Show Up Better in Your Homeschool
If you’re ready to keep going, here are a few ways I can walk alongside you:
- Start small: grab A Clarifying, Energizing (& Free) Homeschool Mini-Retreat for You!
- Go deeper: join An Energizing Homeschool Mom Retreat for Your Heart
- Practice self-compassion: the Self-Compassion for Homeschool Mamas course teaches homeschooling mothers how to cultivate self-compassion, develop useful self-awareness practices, and address big emotions. By modeling healthy communication and emotional regulation, moms can nurture themselves and their children in meaningful ways.
If you’re a homeschool mama looking for extra support, ask me about the Homeschool Mama Retreat. You don’t have to figure out how to show up better in your homeschool alone.
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Call to Adventure by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3470-call-to-adventure
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
