Self-Care & Deschooling: Is there a Helpful Connection?

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Self-care and deschooling changed everything for me — and it started with a hotel room twelve blocks from my house.

Not across the world. Not even across town. Twelve blocks.

I brought my laptop, my leather notebook, and a deep hunger to write — to work on my memoir, to pitch articles to the Kamloops Mama Magazine, to do something creative and professional that reminded me I existed beyond my relationship to my kids. My husband came for one night just to be with me. And for two days I wrote and wrote and wrote.

It felt guilty at first. Too decadent. Too luxurious for a homeschool mom who had kids at home and subjects to cover and a schedule to keep.

But it was profoundly healing.

And here’s what I’ve come to understand since then: self-care and deschooling are not separate conversations. They’re the same one. Because when I finally gave myself permission to follow my own curiosity — my own creativity, my own longing to write — I came back to my kids with more energy, more fuel, and more genuine interest in who they were becoming.

We start deschooling for our kids. But somewhere along the way, we realize we’re doing it for ourselves too.

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So What Is the Connection Between Self-Care and Deschooling?

I think self-care and deschooling are intricately connected because of this: how you think affects how you do your homeschool. And how you do your homeschool influences how satisfied — and how depleted — you feel at the end of every day.

Deschooling is a highly effective tool that helps us release doubt, uncertainty, and that not-good-enough feeling that so many homeschool moms bring into coaching conversations with me. It helps us zero in on what actually matters — in our kids’ education and in our own lives — so that both our kids AND their mamas can live purposefully.

Throughout my homeschool years I’ve been learning about learning, learning about living with my kids, and learning about what an education is anyway. And what I’ve discovered surprised me.

Turns out I didn’t need a teaching degree. I didn’t need to lesson plan every single day. I didn’t need report cards — well, one year I did, because the kids asked for them.

Permission to do it differently, to trust myself, and to take care of myself while I took care of them.

That’s the self-care and deschooling connection in a nutshell.

What Happens When You Don’t Deschool — Or Take Care of Yourself

Let me tell you what it looked like before I understood any of this.

I tried to create a private school at home. A better-than-private-school experience, actually, because I knew I was capable and I didn’t want to miss anything or fall behind or disappoint the neighbors or my in-laws.

Here’s what I included:

• Latin, French, Italian, Swahili, and Spanish (dependent on our travel adventures)
• Math workbooks, logic and critical thinking exercises
• Economics, current affairs, politics
• Chemistry, geology, astronomy, biology, botany, genetics, forensics, microbiology, human physiology, animal husbandry
• Nature study with drawing pencils on a picnic blanket
• Violin, piano, theatre, choir, ballet, gymnastics, soccer, baseball, contemporary dance, jazz dance
• History readalouds and dictations, historical summaries, essays, and timelines
• Expository essays, research writing, magazine article writing, NaNoWriMo every November
• Drawing, design, painting, impressionism, classical music
• Reading reading reading LISTS

I could go on.

And I got a great education doing all of this research, by the way. Oh, and the kids probably learned some cool stuff too.

But here’s the truth underneath all of it: their home education wasn’t always about them. It was about my fear of not being enough. My need to prove I could do this. My inability — at that point — to ask the most important question in homeschooling: what does this specific child actually need?

That’s what an undeschooled homeschool looks like. And that’s what an undeschooled homeschool mom feels like too — exhausted, second-guessing herself, never quite enough.

Self-Care and Deschooling: What Shifts When You Do Both

Self-Care and Deschooling: What Shifts When You Do Both

Here’s what I’ve seen in my own life and in the lives of the moms I coach: self-care and deschooling create the same internal shift. They both ask you to stop performing and start paying attention.

When I started taking that time for myself — the café mornings, the hotel weekend, the writing that was just mine — something changed in how I showed up with my kids. I had more energy, more creativity, more genuine curiosity about their interests, and more fuel to hold their needs without resentment.

Self-Care and Deschooling Give You Freedom

Breaking free from the absurdities of traditional schooling — and even expected homeschool approaches — allowed me to facilitate a home education that actually served the kids in front of me. And they enjoyed it more — honestly, so did I.That enjoyment? That’s self-care and deschooling working together.

Self-Care and Deschooling Build Confidence

Feeling confident in my homeschool approach didn’t just make me feel more at ease. It made me more confident as an individual — in my writing, in my coaching, in who I was becoming. And my kids became more confident too. Confidence is contagious in a homeschool home.

Self-Care and Deschooling Clarify Your Purpose

Rediscovering the purpose behind my decision to homeschool helped me implement my reasons into my actual days — not just my philosophy. Our learning environment aligned more consistently with our family’s values. And I stopped doing things because I thought I should, and started doing things because they actually mattered.

What Self-Care and Deschooling Look Like in Practice

If you’re ready to explore this connection in your own homeschool life, start by asking yourself:

• What do I actually want to create, learn, or pursue right now?
• Where am I homeschooling out of fear rather than intention?
• What would I do with two hours — or two nights — that was just mine?
• Are my daily activities aligned with what actually matters to my family?
• What belief about education am I holding onto that isn’t serving me or my kids?

These aren’t just self-care questions. They’re deschooling questions. And that’s exactly the point.

Ready to Go Deeper?

If you want to explore the self-care and deschooling connection in a quiet, thoughtful way — the Deschooling Journlaling Workbook is your starting place. It’s a self-directed deep dive that helps you examine your mindsets, get curious about your kids, and build something that actually fits your real family and your real life.

👉 Find it here →

And if you’re ready to have someone walk alongside you —

The Aligned Homeschool Reset Session is a free 30-minute coaching conversation where we talk about what’s working, what’s not, and what you actually need right now — in your homeschool and in your life.

Because you didn’t start homeschooling to lose yourself in it. You started it because you believed something better was possible — for your kids and for you.

👉 Book your free session here and take the first step toward reclaiming your rhythm, your joy, and your homeschool.

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Originally published February 21, 2024. Updated and expanded April 9, 2026.