If you’ve been feeling lost in homeschooling lately, you’re not alone. One mom I coach is surrounded by people — a husband, kids, a faith community — and still feels profoundly alone. Not mountain-cabin alone, like she’s a hermit somewhere remote. Rather, the alone of being the most present person in every room and somehow the least seen.

That’s Donelle. She’s analytical, she journals, she notices things many people don’t — and none of it felt safe to share publicly, not even with the people closest to her. On her intake form, before we’d even spoken, she wrote:

“I find I’m too often alone in my mind. I need someone who can relate with me.” surrounded by people — a husband, kids, a faith community — and still feels profoundly alone. Not mountain-cabin alone like she was a hermit on the mountain. Rather, the alone experience of being the most present person in every room and somehow the least seen.

That’s Donelle. She’s analytical, she journals, she notices things many people don’t — and none of it felt safe to share publicly, not even with the people closest to her. On her intake form, before we’d even spoken, she wrote:

“I find I’m too often alone in my mind. I need someone who can relate with me.”

In this episode, I walk through the five ways losing yourself as a homeschool mom actually shows up and the eight words Donelle wrote to herself the evening things began to shift for her. I also share where I’ve seen this same pattern in my own life, and in another mom’s story about the moment she stopped rescuing her almost-grown sons from their responsibilities.

“I want to be at peace to be myself. Not free to be myself. At peace to be myself.”

If you’ve ever felt like you’re holding everyone else together and nobody’s holding you, this episode is for you.

I’m Teresa Wiedrick — homeschool life coach, graduated homeschool mom, and author of Stop Losing Yourself: The Homeschool Mom’s Guide to Boundaries, Confidence & Calm. I spend my days as the support, the clarifier, and the cheerleader for the woman behind the homeschool family, because I believe the most important curriculum in your homeschool is you. Most moms think the fix is a better routine (or a more consistent routine) or the ideal curriculum. It’s rarely that. Rather, it’s the internal pressure, the perfectionism, the shame-based scripts running underneath — and those don’t get addressed by external resources, like a planner.

It was 11 p.m. on the night of the Royal Wedding, and I was standing in a hotel hallway in my pyjamas with a ten-year-old who refused to sleep. My daughter had become so captivated by British history — a perfect example of child-led learning in your homeschool — that she wasn’t going to miss Kate and Will’s wedding for anything, not even a full day of homeschool conference ahead of us.

That moment, bleary-eyed and laughing in a hotel corridor, taught me more than any curriculum guide ever had. When a child is truly interested in something, you don’t have to push, plan, or persuade. You just have to get out of the way.

But I didn’t always know that. For years, I tried to do it the other way.

There are things I want to impart to my kids, no question. But learning doesn’t necessarily happen because I said something out loud, or because the kids read through a passage, narrated it, did the math worksheet, completed the lab report, or watched the video.

There were some days I expected them to be like little computers that could receive a daily upload. (I did this because it made me feel that their education was being created and measured.)

If I could do the work to research a topic, buy the book, plan the lesson, and teach it — once, twice, then reinforce it — the kids should learn, right?

Alas, with many kids and many years, I’ve learned that most learning does not happen that way. So how do you actually facilitate child-led learning in your homeschool?

Feeling like your homeschool is still running on “school-at-home” autopilot? Grab the free Deschool Your Homeschool Checklist and find out exactly where to start letting go. Get it here →

In my early homeschool years, I often tried a classical teaching approach — readings, lectures, narrations (aka homeschool mama testing) — and I was utterly surprised, and often frustrated, that they couldn’t regurgitate what I’d taught.

Surely if I had done all the work, and been creative and interesting, they would be able to spit it back. Right?

Here’s what I actually learned:

I’ve since learned that child-led learning in your homeschool works. It really works.

And if you want a deeper look at all the reasons this approach is so powerful, check out Child-Led Learning Benefits Your Kids (& You) Will Love.

Our oldest daughter had a long-time interest in British history — sparked, possibly, by an Usborne book or a historical fiction novel. When Kate and Will married, we were at a homeschool conference. She was so captivated that we decided to forgo sleep in the hotel to watch the ceremony together — just as I had done when Charles and Diana married.

Her interest continued and she wove British history throughout her homeschool years.

Our second daughter was interested in all things zoology before she was even formally homeschooled — underwater animals, creatures in the air, animals barking in the backyard. The week before she left for college, I took photos of her with every animal on our homestead: our twenty chickens in Cluckingham Palace, Violet our Great Pyr, our cats Neptune and Meredith, and our three goats, Clover, Thistle, and Poppy.

That interest, so vivid when she was two, had threaded itself through her entire homeschool education.

Either of these topics — or truly any topic — can become a full-fledged curriculum. If you think in traditional subject areas, you can learn to incorporate your child’s interests into all of them.

Take any topic from an Usborne Encyclopedia and get them to write a section of their own. They can create dictionaries with definitions, hand-drawn animal encyclopedias, or illustrated glossaries. For more ideas on how to harness interests for writing, visit How to Teach Writing in a Child-Directed Way.

Kids can choose a topic, look up related definitions, and create a specialty vocabulary dictionary — which doubles as a spelling list. You can also play Bananagrams, Scrabble, Boggle, magnetic letter tiles on the fridge, hangman on a whiteboard, or any number of online games like Wordle. For more ideas on how to incorporate spelling via your child’s interests, check out How to Get Rid of the Spelling Program and Still Learn to Spell.

There are endless books on any topic. Make a weekly library date — your librarian is your new best friend. They know a little about everything and know where to find resources on everything too. And it’s all free. (Well, until you forget to return the books, which you will.) Here’s how we incorporated reading into our afternoons together. And also how I taught to read four different kids basic reading schools.

You cannot get away from math. Even when I attempted unschooling for a time, I discovered the unavoidable truth: arithmetic is everywhere. Read more on how you can’t NOT do math naturally.

By far, the most interesting way to study science is to actually be a scientist.

Here’s a discussion on how to do science and have fun.

Many books are written from a historical perspective, providing a rich narrative about a period — and are wonderful for read-aloud time too.

Add activities: geography and atlas study, events happening elsewhere in the world at the same time, a Book of Centuries journal, diaries of children from that historical moment, or a lapbook of everything learned.

If your kids are interested in Egypt, they might be interested in doing this. Or if you like art history like me, consider this.

Two of my four kids were happy with a free-flowing, interest-led education. The other two preferred workbooks for an hour. And so be it.

Barbara Oakley, author of Learning How to Learn, reminds us that the brain works in two modes: focused and diffuse. Both matter. We don’t only learn by sitting down and concentrating. Sometimes the best learning happens in the shower, on a walk, or while building Lego.

In child-led learning in your homeschool, this means:

The goal is never to create alternative approaches for the sake of novelty. The goal is simply to follow the child.

Who are you educating? Who are you raising up?

Get to know your specific child so that your specific child remains your focus. For a deeper dive into supporting independent learners, this post on Self-Directed Learning: the Art of Encouraging Independent Homeschooling is a good place to start.

Here’s a question worth sitting with: which of the following are educational activities, and which are entertainment?

No matter your homeschool philosophy or approach, I will always encourage you to lean into unschooling practices. Not because unschooling is the only way — but because it helps us release our grip on how we think a child’s education should look, and just let them learn.

“Children do not need to be made to learn about the world, or shown how. They want to, and they know how.” — John Holt, Teach Your Own

If you’d like to understand more about the philosophy behind this kind of education, 7 Freedom-Loving Ways John Taylor Gatto Informs Your Homeschool is well worth a read.

Ready to put this into practice? The hardest first step is often just seeing where school-minded thinking is still running the show in your homeschool — even when you don’t mean it to.

Not sure where school-at-home thinking is still holding you back? The free Deschool Your Homeschool Checklist walks you through it in ten minutes, honestly and without judgment. Download the checklist →

Child-led learning means structuring your homeschool around your child’s natural curiosities, interests, and preferred learning style rather than a fixed curriculum. It’s an approach that trusts children as capable, motivated learners when given the freedom to pursue what genuinely interests them.

Start by observing what your child gravitates toward — books they pick up on their own, questions they ask, activities they return to again and again. Then find ways to connect those interests to traditional subject areas like writing, math, science, and history.

Yes — almost any interest can be a vehicle for every subject, from math and writing to science and history. The key is learning to see curriculum in the things your child already loves rather than imposing a separate structure on top of it.

They’re closely related but not identical. Unschooling typically means no formal curriculum at all, while child-led learning can include structured elements that are chosen based on the child’s interests. Think of child-led learning as a spectrum, with full unschooling at one end and interest-led curriculum at the other.

Deep focus on one subject is often where the richest learning happens — and you’d be surprised how many other skills can be woven into a single passionate interest. Give it time before redirecting; the curiosity almost always broadens naturally.

Some kids genuinely thrive with workbooks, schedules, and predictable routines — and that’s completely valid. Child-led learning means following your actual child, not an ideology, so if structure is what they’re asking for, that’s the right answer for them.

If the checklist opened something up for you, the Deschool Your Homeschool Journaling Workbook is where you go deeper. It’s a self-coaching tool built specifically for homeschool mamas who are ready to stop second-guessing and start building a homeschool that actually fits their family.

Deschool Your Homeschool Journaling Workbook — $9.97 Through thoughtful prompts and guided exercises, this workbook helps you redefine your homeschooling journey with clarity and confidence. Shop now →

The Deschool Your Homeschool Journaling Workbook is a self-coaching tool designed to help you redefine your homeschooling journey with clarity and confidence. Through thoughtful prompts and guided exercises, this workbook empowers you to:

If you’re ready to stop spinning your wheels and build a homeschool that works for your real life, book a free Aligned Homeschool Reset Session. We’ll create a personalized plan that meets your family where you are right now.

Book your free Reset Session →

I help homeschool moms release pressure, edit expectations, and make small, intentional shifts that lead to a more confident and connected homeschool life.

Originally published June 14, 2022 · Updated August 21, 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/

Breaking generational patterns as a homeschool mom is some of the most important work you will ever do. And a few weeks ago, Diane Sorensen and I had a conversation that brought that home for me all over again.

We talked about the good girl who became the good mom — the one who kept the peace, said yes when she meant no, and made sure everyone around her was okay. We talked about what that costs her.

But here’s the question I keep sitting with since that conversation:

Where did the good girl learn to be good in the first place?

Because that’s where the generational pattern lives. That’s where the unhealthy cycle began its life. And that is what today’s episode is all about.

If you haven’t yet listened to that conversation with Diane — go find it after this one. It’s called The Real Cost of Being the Good Girl Who Became the Good Mom, and it sits right alongside everything we’re talking about today.

Breaking generational patterns as a homeschool mom doesn’t happen by intention alone — and it also doesn’t happen overnight.

I want to share a belief I hold around this topic — because I think it needs to be said before anything else.

You cannot break a cycle you don’t understand.

And you’re not going to break a cycle completely and absolutely. You have your entire life to figure out how to do that. I prefer the term cycle interrupter over cycle breaker — because there is no magic formula here. The cultural conversation around breaking cycles can feel, if we’re not careful, a little too easy. As though declaring yourself a cycle breaker is the same as doing the work.

It isn’t.

What I do know is this: what you believe dictates how you experience life. The stories and the limiting mindsets you created when you first had a moment of trauma or challenge — or when you began recognizing generational patterns within your family of origin — those stories have a dramatic effect on everything. On how you approach your homeschool, your relationships, and how you see yourself.

But it is 100% shiftable — the moment you acknowledge it. The moment you see it, you cannot unsee it. And that is where change begins.

About half of the women I work with are full-fledged focused on breaking generational cycles — or at least giving voice to the limiting mindsets that have kept them small, not living their fullest lives.

And the song that keeps coming to mind when I sit with these women?

This Is Me from The Greatest Showman — sung by Keala Settle. About not being a stranger to the dark, about hiding away, about learning to be ashamed of your scars, and about being told that no one will love you as you are.

And then — the moment she decides she won’t be broken down to dust, that she is brave, that she is bruised, and that she is not scared to be seen.

That song epitomizes what breaking generational patterns sounds like from the inside.

If you don’t know it — listen to it here: This Is Me by Keala Settle from The Greatest Showman. Because those lyrics are the anthem of this episode.

That song captures exactly what breaking generational patterns as a homeschool mom feels like from the inside.

Here are five ways breaking generational patterns as a homeschool mom has shown up in my own life.

I share these not to hold myself up as an example — but because I know that when you hear someone say out loud the thing you’ve been living quietly, something shifts. It invites you to shift too.

“You can’t tell a kid how to calm down, you have to show them.” — Jodi Carrington

My parents didn’t consistently listen when I was vulnerable. Not because they wouldn’t have wanted to — but because they were so locked into their own inner worlds, so focused on finding safety in their own experience, that they didn’t have capacity to hear mine.

A very wise daughter said to me once — mom, the experiences you had as a child are not the ones I’ve had. We are not dealing with the same things.

That stopped me. Because I had been so caught up in my own story that I couldn’t conceive there was a completely different narrative happening inside my own home.

Your child’s experience is their own. Your job — and mine — is to be present enough to actually hear it.

“The more times big people are able to regulate in the physical presence of a child, the better that child begins to develop the skills of emotional regulation.” — Jodi Carrington

This is one I still catch myself in occasionally. But the quality of conflict in my home is completely different than it used to be.

This past weekend I was trying to book a family event. The website wasn’t working. I tried another. I called the place directly. By the time I got to my kids they were frustrated with me. And I do not like disappointing the people I love.

But here’s what I noticed: a long time ago I would not have been able to hear their disappointment at all. I would have been so locked in my own frustration that I couldn’t take in that they were disappointed. I would have made their frustration entirely about me.

Instead I held my own emotions. I heard theirs.

That is breaking generational patterns as a homeschool mom in real time — not perfectly, but meaningfully.

This is partly why I am so fierce about homeschooling the child right in front of you. Not a curriculum. The actual child. Their actual interests. Their actual curiosity.

I wasn’t asked what mine were.

I loved my grade four teacher — Ms. Brenda Wiens at Harry Balfour Elementary in Grande Prairie, Alberta. She liked my drawing of lords and ladies. She gave me stickers on my birthday. And I was so starved for the feeling of being seen that I actually convinced myself she was my real mother. I planned to tell her. I told my mother first. Spoiler — Ms. Wiens was not my real mother.

But that is what happens when a child feels unseen. The mind creates stories to explain the gap.

So now I do the intentional work of making my kids feel seen. Fifteen minutes of eyeball-to-eyeball time where they lead. One-on-one trips — like the one to Newfoundland with just our son, where he caught cod after cod on the Atlantic and still wouldn’t eat a bite of it.

However, we do it — we show up for our kids in ways that make them feel seen on their terms.

This one is on the fresh side. Not new — but fresh.

You’ve heard me reference the Mother Wound. I have a couple of episodes on that topic if this is new to you — go find those after this one.

For a long time, I could see, plain as the sun rising, that my father’s behaviour was the source of so much fear and pain and unpredictability in our home. What took me much longer to understand was the dance that occurred between my parents — and the role my mother played in that dance. Subconsciously. An agreement to participate in a dynamic that had its own rules, to satisfy the unmet needs of each of them.

As the eldest daughter, I played my own unique role in all of that. First and foremost as a sort of parent — for those who didn’t know how to maintain peace, or for those who didn’t know what to do with the unhinged moments of unpredictable mental illness, anxiety, and violence.

I was the one who held it together. Who read the room before she could read books. Who managed everyone else’s emotional world while her own went unattended.

I came to understand that my mother has a limited capacity to fully see me — and to address the hardest challenges between us.

But the little girl inside me still wants her. Still needs her. Still desires that mother — no matter how old I’ve become.

Breaking the pursuit cycle means that when I don’t get my needs met from her — I turn inward. I ask myself: what do you need right now? And I find a way to give that to myself.

“The answer to the world’s most significant human-centered problems is simply this: We all just want to feel seen.” — Jodi Carrington

When we stop looking for that exclusively from the people who cannot give it to us — who have proven repeatedly that they can’t and they don’t know how — that is when we begin to find it in healthier places. In the people who actually can.

This is the most radical break of all.

I routinely receive emails from homeschool moms who are living in isolation and fear — unable to get out of very unhealthy relationships. And I hate that they feel trapped like that.

I have lived experience that you cannot make someone get out. They have reasons for staying.

But if you are someone who has broken her silence — who has left something like that — I want to say: bravo!

You are doing extraordinary work. The hope and clarity and life you are bringing to your relationship with your kids and yourself — that is no small thing. And your children are receiving something that was never given to you.

That is the cycle breaking. Right there.

I’m sure it feels wobbly. But I believe in you. And the little girl inside me is genuinely grateful that you are doing it for your kids.

Just this past week I received this from a woman I’ve been coaching:

“I feel I need help in learning how to parent myself. However, I have no idea how to do that and that’s what’s stressing me. Because I know a coach isn’t supposed to provide solutions to the coachee. So my question right now is do I need to prep myself before we meet? And what should I be doing or asking myself in order to parent myself?”

And here is what I wrote back:

“What a beautiful self-awareness. When did that become clear? Tell me why you believe reparenting would be useful for you now. And what about this conversation stresses you?

Reparenting — also known as self-coaching — is a very useful tool. Been there, done that, still do.

Your relationship to yourself is the most important thing. It directly informs how you relate to everyone else too.

Before we next meet, you could get clear on a few things:

Those three questions are for you too. Right now. You don’t need to be in coaching to ask them. You just need to be willing to sit with the answers.

“We are not the things we accumulate. We are not the things we deem important. We are story. All of us.” — Jodi Carrington

Girlfriend. That line.

We spend so much time in the homeschool world accumulating things — curriculum, resources, methods, proof that we are doing this well enough. And I get it. When you have chosen an unconventional path, you want evidence that it’s working.

But here’s what I know after two decades in this space: your kids are not going to remember the curriculum. They are going to remember you. Whether you were present or distracted. Did you listen or deflect? And in the hard moments — did you repair, or did you disappear into shame?

That is the story. That is what gets passed on.

And the generational pattern — the one we have been talking about today — that is a story too. One that was written before you were old enough to hold a pencil. One that you have been living inside without consciously knowing it was there.

The moment you see it — really see it — you can begin to write something different.

Not all at once. But differently. That is the generational pattern and that is what breaking generational patterns as a homeschool mom is really about.

If there is a cycle you are sitting in right now and you’re not sure where to start — book a free Aligned Homeschool Reset Session with me. It’s a no-obligation conversation where we get clear on what’s really going on, what might need to shift, and how you might begin to do that.

Every Wednesday morning, a warm, thoughtful reflection lands in your inbox drawn from the books we’re exploring together — including Jodi Carrington’s Feeling Seen. Journaling prompts. Practical takeaways for your homeschool and your life. You don’t have to read the book. You just have to show up for yourself on a Wednesday morning.

Learning how to create a homeschool routine that actually works starts with getting clear on three things:

Grab your free Confident Homeschool Roadmap — Start Your 1st Year with Confidence.

Here are six tips to help you create a homeschool routine that works for your family:

Remember, a homeschool routine is a tool—not a cage. It should help you reach your educational goals while protecting your family’s well-being. Aim for both structure and flexibility as you shape your day.

If you’re teaching multiple children at different ages, consider staggering learning blocks to match their attention spans and energy levels.

Staggering learning blocks like this reduces overwhelm and meets every child where they are.

One of the most important things you can do is set your day with intentional energy and thought. Listen to yourself before you listen to your kids.

I start the day with a cup of coffee and milk, a UV light, my daily morning mama affirmations, and journaling—well before I think about our homeschool routine for the day.

Building a morning routine as a homeschool mom, so you’re kick-started before the kids wake up, is the goal—even though it’s a real challenge with young kids. It might not always be realistic, but it’s still worth aiming for. That doesn’t mean setting your alarm for 4:00 a.m. I never did that, and my kids would laugh if I suggested it to you.

Still, the goal is to be up before the kids, especially the little ones, so you can set your day—and your homeschool routine—with intention.

This year, mine are: encourage, expand, invite.

Choosing focus words sets your mind to approach the day—and your homeschool routine—the way you want to.

How can you weave your own interests into your morning basket?

There’s no magic bullet in reading daily affirmations, but it does set your mind on the right things. Praying and meditating with intention, and asking God for help, strengthens my resolve and clarity before I ever open our homeschool routine for the day.

Speak kind, loving words to yourself before you begin.

Morning routines look very different depending on the age of your children.

The goal is to start the day with calm and intention, not chaos.

A schedule is forced confinement; a routine is a guideline. Homeschool routines are flexible, predictable, and productive—that’s what makes them work long-term.

A homeschool routine isn’t just academics—make fun memories a goal too.

One-on-one time with older children matters, but it’s tricky to protect within a busy homeschool routine when younger ones need guidance too.

This ensures older children feel seen, encourages independence, and nurtures individual relationships.

Get clear: what matters most to you? What do you value? Do you see those values reflected in your daily activities and your homeschool routine? Don’t build in things that aren’t important to you.

Like grammar and sentence diagramming, for me.

You get to decide what belongs in your homeschool day.

Time-blocking gives you clarity on how long each part of your homeschool routine actually takes.

Tracking your time for a week is a great start—but once you actually see where your hours are going, you’ll probably notice the gap between your planned routine and your real one. That’s exactly what this next guide is built for.

Feel more grounded and less scattered in your homeschool days. This printable Time Blocking Guide helps you create a realistic, flexible rhythm by showing you where your time actually goes — then helping you reclaim it. Includes a time audit, SMART goal planning, daily and weekly templates, and reflective check-ins. Stop reacting to your days and start designing them.

Crafting a homeschool routine that suits both you and your kids is a transformative journey. It means aligning your educational beliefs, clarifying your vision, and understanding your family’s dynamics. Choose a routine over a rigid schedule so you can balance structure and flexibility.

Set clear goals for academic, social, and personal growth. A consistent rhythm provides stability, while breaks and flexibility prevent burnout and encourage deeper exploration.

Mix core subjects, enrichment activities, and real-world experiences into your homeschool routine for a well-rounded education.

Prioritize self-care with a mindful morning routine. Journaling, affirmations, and focus words offer clarity and purpose. Tailor your routine to your values and goals—whether that means adding fun, fostering connection, or building life skills.

As you navigate this journey, stay adaptable and patient. With intention and a well-crafted homeschool routine, you’re on the path to a rewarding homeschool experience for you and your children.

Regularly review how your routine is working. Stay open to adjustments based on your child’s progress, interests, and your family’s dynamics.

Or join me for a free Aligned Homeschool Reset session to clarify what matters most for your homeschool family.

It requires aligning educational beliefs, clarifying your vision, and understanding your family’s dynamics.

Know a homeschool mom who needs to hear this? Send her this episode.

This episode is part of our 2025 series, The 1% Pivot — because small shifts in how you lead yourself create the biggest changes in your homeschool.

Originally published September 2, 2025 · Updated August 15, 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/

When your life and homeschool routines don’t feel satisfying, or you don’t know how to get it all done, consider these 5 game-changing ways to streamline and simplify your life and homeschool routines.

From embracing imperfection and finding joy in the present moment to owning your authenticity and pursuing your passions, today I’ll offer you 5 game-changing ways that can guide you toward a more intentional, purpose-driven life — and a set of homeschool routines that actually fit the family you have, not the one you think you’re supposed to have.

Before I share the 5 game-changing ways to streamline your homeschool routines, I want to ask you six questions. So grab your journal!

Six questions to ask when you’d like to simplify and streamline your homeschool routines:

We want to recognize that mistakes are a natural part of growth and permit ourselves to learn from them.

We need to create practices amidst our daily tasks and challenges, engage in affirmations, and foster gratitude and enjoyment in both teaching and learning.

We need to ensure that our activities, curriculum, and extracurriculars for us and our kids align with our values and boundaries, ultimately simplifying our lives.

We want to align our daily activities with what genuinely brings you fulfillment and happiness.

At the end of our homeschool family days, we want to know we’ve created meaningful learning experiences and shared moments of significance with our communities.

Can I tell you a story about my life and homeschool routines?

Straight up, I didn’t know I couldn’t do everything. I wanted to know that everything I was doing was enough.

Sound familiar? I hear that discussion of enoughness all the time.

I didn’t get it then, but I now know that I have to determine what my version of “enoughness” is. What is my version of success & enoughness in my homeschool and my life? Then work backward to decide what I have to do.

Could I do it all? Nope.

Could I give my kids every opportunity? Nope.

Would I be able to say at the end of the day that I could have done things differently or more? Yup.

I learned that homeschool routines are a tool to help me achieve my home education goals while also maintaining the well-being of my family. It’s important to attempt to include both structure and flexibility to create an environment that supports your child’s growth and learning journey.

I didn’t know that I was supposed to use my natural giftings and aptitudes and my kids as a jumping-off board to create an authentic, meaningful life. Oh, and also, determining how each of us functions together.

Certainly, I didn’t know I had to create space and time for myself.

I didn’t know that my goal wasn’t to do it perfectly but to learn from imperfection.

Of course, I didn’t know that my end goal wasn’t when they graduated, but this moment right here, right now: because I was making memories and living my life right in the moment. Not when I was done with the work.

If you want to streamline and simplify your homeschool routines, I don’t believe your goal is to cull stuff, get rid of unhealthy relationships, or delete an overbusy calendar.

Remember, perfection isn’t the goal—it’s embracing life’s beautiful imperfections that truly matter.

Messy routines. Messy people. Of course, messy kitchens. And always messy homeschool spaces.

And a nasty cycle of perfection can preoccupy your days.

You set unrealistic perfect expectations for yourself, then project them onto others — and when no one can meet them, everyone ends up frustrated, and you’re left in a cycle of shame, control, and dissatisfaction. Loosening your grip here is one of the fastest ways to lighten your homeschool routines.

Even with daily tasks and endless to-dos, there’s magic in practicing mindfulness.

If you’re waiting for life to feel perfectly settled before you feel great, I regret to be the bearer of bad news: it’s not going to happen.

Life is this: growth.

Those things are growth opportunities.

But you can do a few things to bolster your joy.

Try mindfulness moments, a gratitude practice, daily affirmations, breathing exercises, or a simple prayer of thanks.

Whether it’s the giggles of your little ones while you’re playing Snakes & Ladders, the warmth of a cup of pumpkin spice latte, or a breathtaking blue moon in August, these moments hold the power to fill your heart with gratitude and joy — and that gratitude is what makes your homeschool routines feel sustainable instead of exhausting.

The more we get clear on who we are, allow others to see the real us, and create practices to encourage our authentic, unique selves — just like we do the same for our kids — the more we’ll instinctively streamline and simplify our life and homeschool routines.

When we own our unique selves, really lean into us becoming more us, the things that aren’t us disappear.

It’s time to take one more step toward living outside the societal box and embrace our unique selves, unapologetically and authentically.

Your life, your journey, and your homeschool routines are yours to create!

What lights up your soul? Is it writing, painting, dancing, or a long-lost dream?

You want your kids to do the things that light up their souls, even if it’s pursuing their passions because they enjoy them…

But rather, because we embrace your passions and allow them to bloom in their interests.

The pursuit of their passions not only fuels their creativity but also brings an incredible sense of fulfillment. That’s why they look so happy playing.

Therefore, I’m going to encourage you to pursue your passion too.

And guess what happens when you pursue your passions? You fall in love with the thing you’re doing, and you spend more time doing things you love.

Then you love your life (oh, and you realize there are a whole bunch of things in your life and homeschool routines that you don’t love, so why in the world are you doing them?)

So, pursue your passions, girlfriend!

You may have heard me speak to “time blocking your life.” Time blocking is one of the single most effective tools I know for building homeschool routines that actually hold up under a busy week.

Time blocking means this: decide if an activity is something you want to include in your life, determine how much time you want to spend doing it, and grab a simple hour-by-hour schedule and block out time to do it.

For every single thing you want to do in your life.

If you want to include a weekly activity just for you, but don’t know what you even want to do? Ask your mom (or exchange kids with a friend) and leave for an hour every week to do whatever strikes your fancy. Do you want to book time at a pottery studio, peruse a bookshop with a latte, begin a writing practice, learn to weave, or start your own business?

Because there are too many extracurriculars. Next semester, only include the activities that fit when everything else is determined.

You don’t have anyone to look after your kids? I get that. But time to make friends.

What if the kids won’t give you the space? Time to teach them you’re unavailable on the other side of your bedroom door, and mean it, or simply plan to leave. Consider practicing an afternoon quiet time on each of their beds, or a communal quiet time in your family room with quiet music and reading. Get them used to not being “available” all the time.

Or what if your partner won’t give you the space or support you need? Straight up, you’ve been participating in a way of relating that isn’t serving your partner or yourself. Your needs matter too. Stop telling yourself they don’t. And require him/ her to honour them too.

Can’t make the time? Then, my friend, you might not want it as much as you think — and that’s okay. If you really want something, you’ll make it happen.

What if there are things on your list that you don’t want to do? That doesn’t truly align with your sense of life purpose. Delete them. Categorically and unapologetically, though kindly still, delete them.

Join me in the Confident Homeschool Mom Collective to evaluate your daily habits and routines. Make space for what truly matters and create a life filled with purpose.

Above all the discussion points I shared today, remember that transformation begins with the willingness to embrace change.

When your life and homeschool routines feel overwhelming or uninspiring, these strategies can be a guiding light toward a more purpose-driven existence. From honouring imperfection to pursuing your passions and living with unwavering authenticity, you have the tools to craft a life that aligns with your dreams and aspirations.

Your homeschool journey is not just about an academic end goal; it’s about creating lasting memories as you savour as many moments as possible.

Reimagine your homeschool life where you and your family thrive more, where life is a curiosity-based adventure, and where each day is a step toward well-lived homeschool routines — and a well-lived life.

Feel more grounded and less scattered in your homeschool days. This printable Time Blocking Guide helps you create a realistic, flexible rhythm by showing you where your time actually goes — then helping you reclaim it. Includes a time audit, SMART goal planning, daily and weekly templates, and reflective check-ins. Stop reacting to your days and start designing them.

Originally published September 5, 2023 — last updated August 10, 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/

Mentally strong homeschool moms are not born that way. They are built — one honest, uncomfortable, growing moment at a time.

And this book by Amy Morin is one of the best tools I have found for that building work.

It found me in an airport bookshop — you know that thing you do when you’re killing time waiting for a boarding call, and you wander the shelves because there’s nothing else to do and you’re not ready to sit yet? The title stopped me cold: 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do by Amy Morin.

I picked it up. I could not put it down.

When I read the list on the back cover, I thought — I could have written this book. These are things I’ve learned and am still learning in my own life. And I have absolutely learned most of them in the context of homeschooling my four kids.

This is how Amy Morin informs my homeschool.

“Mentally strong people have healthy habits. They manage their emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in ways that set them up for success in life.”
— Amy Morin

Mentally strong homeschool moms do the same. They manage their emotions, their reactions, and their patterns — not perfectly, but intentionally. And they keep showing up even when it’s hard.

Amy lists thirteen things that mentally strong people don’t do. I’m going to walk you through all thirteen — but I want to go deeper on the seven I see come up most consistently in my coaching work with women who home educate. These are the ones that come up over and over and over. The ones that quietly make homeschool life harder than it needs to be. And the ones that — when you shift them — change everything.

Before we get into the list — here’s what I want you to hear. Every single thing on this list is something I have had to work on myself. Some of them I’m still working on. So there is no judgment here. Just honest conversation between two women who are trying to do this homeschool life well.

Alright. Let’s get into it.

Mentally strong homeschool moms don’t waste time feeling sorry for themselves.

That would be easy to do this year. We have to determine how we’re filling our days as homeschool parents, and we get to do it.

March forward, despite all the challenges.

When we react to stuff or people going on around us, we aren’t choosing. We’re giving away our power. We need to be proactive, not reactive.

And girlfriend — I did not understand this for a very long time.

If you are getting heated — yelling, or consistently nagging — I want you to hear this gently: you are giving away your power.

I want you to hear this gently: you are giving away your power. You are not convincing anybody. You are trying to convince them with your intensity or your overpowering energy. And I say this with so much compassion because I have done this a thousand times. At least a thousand.

Here’s something I say to moms a lot — and I know this doesn’t represent every partnership or every family dynamic, but it represents enough that I’m going to say it. Mom wonders why the kids won’t listen to her — but the moment dad walks into the room they immediately comply.

Here’s my take on that.

Mom is deeply aware of what’s going on. She really wants the kids to do the thing — because she wants the best for them. And she really, really wants them to buy in. Whereas dad walks in, sees that the kid didn’t do the thing, says — hey, you gotta do the thing — and walks out. He’s not thinking I hope you comply. He expects them to. And they do.

That right there is what it looks like to not give away your power.

So here’s what I’d offer you: believe first that you mean what you say — before you say it — so that they can believe it too. Don’t ask for their buy-in before you’ve committed to your own expectation. And sprinkle your expectations lightly — because too many at once exasperates kids and makes them feel like they’re never doing good enough.

Change is a guarantee in this life. Consider it life’s way of preventing boredom.

Because if we haven’t learned that we aren’t in control of everything about our lives — we probably have finally learned it by now.

When we let go of listening to other people’s expectations of us and our kids’ education, we can do our homeschool our way — the way that fits us and our specific children.

People pleasing seems to be a thing amongst homeschool moms. But I’m pretty confident it’s a thing amongst women in general. And from a reformed people pleaser — it ain’t working for you.

You think you’re avoiding conflict? Sure. Except that you’re taking on the internal conflict of avoiding that external conflict. So the conflict is just happening inside of you instead. The resentment builds. Frustration sets in. You feel uncertain — like you have to dance just to keep everyone happy.

People pleasing doesn’t work. And also — it isn’t really you showing up. The truth of yourself gets buried underneath what you think everyone else needs from you.

I had a profound moment in a passport office in 2004. I was waiting for my passport — me, my husband, and my third daughter who was presently inside of me in early pregnancy — getting my passport a week before we were heading to Mexico. And I was reading a book called The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee — a study of Romans, which in the Bible is all about grace.

And reading that book it was like the heavens opened and light shone on me. I got real, real clear that grace was a gift — not something I needed to earn first. And in that one moment everything shifted.

Because I realized — if I didn’t need to earn grace, why in the world was I spending my life trying to earn the grace of the people around me?

I’m going to leave that there because I know that not everyone will follow that rabbit trail with me. But for those of you who did — I hope you heard it.

You were created and put on this planet to do something remarkable. And it requires you to be authentic. People pleasing is not authentic. It is not you. And it is not working.

Whether you realize it or not, if you took up homeschooling, you already took up a calculated risk.

So own it. And enjoy it.

The way things used to be — it is what it is. Today is a different day, a different year. How will you show up this day?

Now here’s where I want to add some nuance — because people say the differentiation between coaching and therapy is that coaching focuses on the future and therapy focuses on the past. In my personal experience — both as a coach and as a client — I don’t actually see it that way.

I am not a therapist. I am not trained to diagnose or engage in clinical therapeutic tools. But I am unquestionably a trauma-informed coach. And I am very clear that your attachment tendencies and the stories you carried before you were a mother are deeply influencing how you’re showing up in your homeschool today.

The little girl who was hurt. A teenager who felt bullied. The child who never felt truly seen.

She is showing up in how you homeschool. In how you engage your kids. In how you understand your partner.

So I don’t think we should dwell on the past — but I absolutely think we need to be honest about it. Own it. Accept it. Because your past is not back there. It’s happening in you right now.

When we do that honest work — we can move toward the life and the homeschool we actually want.

Except you will, of course. But mistakes are there to teach you something — so you don’t have to keep hitting your head against the same wall. Listen to what the wall is telling you.

And here’s the truth: noticing our patterns requires self-awareness. Because sometimes we are making communication errors — showing up in unhelpful ways — and we don’t even know it because we can’t see ourselves.

Build self-awareness practices. Set an alarm on your phone for the time of day when you are most heated or most frustrated. And when it goes off — pause. Put your hand on your heart. Ask yourself what is really going on in there.

I worked with one mom — mother of twins and a preschooler — who found this tool extraordinarily effective. Over the course of a few months she noticed her own intensity decreasing simply because she was paying attention.

Another mom practiced it so consistently that one day — without saying a word to her kids about it — her children noticed. The alarm went off. They stopped what they were doing, put their hands on their hearts, took a long, slow deep breath, and asked themselves how they were feeling.

She wept. Not just she — but her kids — were learning emotional regulation. Together.

That is the work.

Keep in your lane. Do your own thing. You have your specific children, your specific experience of education, your specific way of homeschooling. Enjoy your family, enjoy your Instagram feed, enjoy your story — and celebrate when others are doing good things in theirs.

If you really want to continue homeschooling, accept that you’ll fail. Yes, you really will. You’ll know it in your soul that you didn’t quite hit the mark; you didn’t quite show up the way you wanted to.

But your failures didn’t prevent you from pursuing the thing you really wanted: to capture all the charms of your homeschool freedoms.

Can I tell you something? Motherhood is a long game. Homeschooling is a long game. I know you know that — but I want you to really hear it.

You cannot have this all figured out right now. You can — mostly — have it figured out when your kids are grown. And to be fair, I still don’t think I have it all figured out. But if I had known what I know now at the beginning of this journey, it would have been rather handy for my kids.

But I don’t actually think that’s the point. I don’t think we’re supposed to do this perfectly. I think we’re here to learn alongside them. And being in the fishbowl with your kids every single day means you will have many opportunities to learn. Many.

So don’t give up. Keep persisting. Keep being real about your own personal growth.

Because girl — it’s going to happen. You are here for the long game.

Solitude is good for all of us. What alone time? I’m a homeschool mom.

But here’s what I want to say to you: you need to develop interests outside of your kids. I know I wouldn’t have loved hearing that in early motherhood — because I prized motherhood. I still do. It is a demanding and beautiful and deeply memorable profession. And package it in home education? The memories are coming out of the cracks.

And yet — they are going to grow up.

How do I know? Because recently I started to dismantle my homeschool room in a very meaningful way. I took down the ribbon of triangular numbers that a few of my kids put together on the ceiling during the early boring months of the pandemic — the digits of pi, strung up there like bunting. My youngest is going to university. My empty nesting is about to occur.

I remember once upon a time wondering what in the world I was going to do when I had all this time on my hands. Well — that day is coming. And I am not afraid of it. Because I built a life that belongs to me alongside the life I built for my kids. Reading and writing and hiking and gardening. Coffee with friends and movies and traveling.

Start now. Even if it’s small. Because the nest empties faster than you think.

Does the world owe you validation in your homeschool choice? Nope. You decided it was the best choice for your family — so own it, relish it, and don’t look for affirmation from others about your choice.

This homeschool thing is a long game — a marathon of parenting. One day you get to look back and see the big picture. But not yet. Keep going.

And here’s the truth: you cannot lead a child to the toilet and make them pee. You cannot lead a child to the workbook and make them check off your boxes. But you can keep showing up. You can keep introducing and reintroducing a concept over the course of time. Because that is actually how kids learn.

Do we even know all the phonics rules ourselves? One mom said that to me recently — I don’t even know these rules. Well — guess what? Neither did I. I was a teenager reading a newspaper and I saw the word i-n-d-i-c-t and read it as in-dict. Had absolutely no idea that word was indict. English is a genuinely confusing language. But I still learned to read. And so will your kids.

This is the long game. And you are in it. Keep going, girlfriend. You got this.

Everyone has a story of why me. Anyone can turn that why me story into a life not well lived.

Life can be challenging, but we must decide how we frame those challenges.

Past schmast. Everyone has a past. Everyone has a story. A story that might make others’ jaws drop or bring someone to compassionate tears — we all have them.

We can’t change our stories, so we have to get on with living forward and live our lives on purpose for this time that we have.

How we think affects how we approach our life, our purpose, our relationships, and our homeschools.

Teresa Wiedrick, author of Homeschool Mama Self-Care: Nurturing the Nurturer

Here are two ways I can support you as you do this work of becoming a mentally strong homeschool mom:

Every Wednesday morning, a warm, thoughtful reflection lands in your inbox drawn from the books we’re exploring together — including Amy Morin’s work on mental strength. Journaling prompts. Practical takeaways for your homeschool and your life. You don’t have to read the book. You just have to show up for yourself on a Wednesday morning.

If one of these thirteen things feels particularly stuck right now — in your relationship with a specific child, your partner, or yourself — I’d love to think through it with you. A free Aligned Homeschool Reset Session is a no-obligation conversation where we look at where you are, what’s feeling hard, and what might need to shift.

Originally published March 27, 2023. Updated August 10, 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/

If you’ve ever lain awake wondering what’s wrong with your homeschool, know this: you’re asking one of the same questions homeschool moms are asking every single week — you’re just doing it alone, at midnight, with a search bar instead of a friend.

After two decades of homeschooling my own four kids, and six years coaching the women who do this work every single day, I can tell you this with complete confidence: the questions that keep homeschool moms up at night are almost always the same questions. Over and over. In every coaching conversation. In every Collective session. And in every message I receive at midnight from a mama trying to figure out what’s going wrong and why she can’t seem to fix it.

So this summer on the Confident Homeschool Mom Podcast, I decided to address them directly. Seven episodes. Seven books. And seven questions that deserve more than a quick fix.

Watch the video below — and then keep reading for the full breakdown.

These aren’t random questions. They’re the same questions homeschool moms are asking — out loud and not out loud — every single week.

The Road Back to You — Ian Morgan Cron & Suzanne Stabile

What looks like defiance is almost always a collision between two completely different core motivations. Yours and theirs. The Enneagram helps you understand both — and once you do, everything shifts.

Nonviolent Communication — Marshall Rosenberg

Not just how you speak to your kids — but how you listen to them. How you hear what’s underneath the behaviour instead of just reacting to the behaviour itself.

13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do — Amy Morin

This one isn’t just about homeschooling. These are the personal mental habits that are quietly making your whole life harder. And homeschool moms are particularly vulnerable to several of them — because we carry so much and ask for so little help.

Feeling Seen — Jodi Carrington

Kids don’t need us to be perfect. They need to feel seen. But how can we help our children feel seen when we ourselves have never felt truly seen? This episode goes there.

Still with me? Good — because these are exactly the questions homeschool moms are asking most, and getting through four of them without flinching means you’re already doing the hard, honest work.

The Gardener and the Carpenter — Alison Gopnik

A carpenter shapes wood into a specific, predetermined form. A gardener creates the conditions for growth — and then trusts what emerges. Most of us were taught to be carpenters. This book helps you become a gardener.

Stop Losing Yourself — Teresa Wiedrick

This is the question underneath so many other questions. You started this journey with such intention. And somewhere along the way — between the lesson planning and the sibling conflict and the never-ending needs of everyone around you — you lost the thread back to yourself. This episode is drawn from my own coaching work with homeschool mamas, and there is a whole course built around it.

Radical Acceptance — Tara Brach

Radical acceptance isn’t about giving up or lowering your standards. It’s about stopping the war with reality long enough to actually see it clearly. And from that place of clarity — choosing what to do next.

So if any of these are questions homeschool moms are asking themselves at 2 am, take it as a sign: you’re not behind, you’re not alone, and you’re not the only one wondering.

If none of these seven quite fit, and you’re still asking your own version of “what’s wrong with my homeschool,” that’s exactly what the free Homeschool Overwhelm Quiz is for. 👉 Take the quiz and find out exactly where to start.

Whichever question is yours, you don’t have to sit with it alone. So, here are a few more ways to stay connected:

Join the Collective — Before joining, Michelle felt completely alone in her homeschooling journey, constantly second-guessing herself. But now, every Friday feels like a reset — no competition, no judgment, just compassionate women who have her back. Join the Confident Homeschool Mom Collective →

Get weekly book reflections — Because reading alone isn’t the same as reading together, sign up for Reading That Restores You, the free Homeschool Mama Book Club newsletter, delivered every Wednesday.

Talk it through with me — And if you’d rather talk it out than read your way there, 📅 book a free Aligned Homeschool Reset Session to work through what’s coming up for you personally.

This episode is all about nonviolent homeschool communication — specifically, the patterns that make it harder than it needs to be. Nonviolent homeschool communication starts here — with understanding these old patterns.

And there is one book that has shaped how I think about this more than any other.

I’ve read a lot of books on relationships, parenting, connection, and attachment over the years — more than I can count. But Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication is the one I keep coming back to. For me, it is the bible of relationships and communication. And it has changed how I show up in my homeschool in ways I didn’t expect.

Here’s what it taught me.

NVC (aka Nonviolent Communication) is a language of life that helps us transform old patterns of defensiveness and aggressiveness into compassion and empathy and to improve the quality of all of our relationships. (Definition provided by the Center for Non-Violent Communication).

We all have old patterns that need to be transformed.

And we definitely notice we have reactive, defensive, and aggressive patterns when we attempt to create relationships.

Certainly, we notice this when we saturate ourselves in the homeschool parenting role.

(Definitions provided by the Center for Non-Violent Communication).

Here’s how each component transforms homeschool communication in real life.

“What I want in my life is compassion, a flow between myself and others based on a mutual giving from the heart.” ― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

This is what we all want: we want a flow within ourselves and between us. But we’re not all trained to enable that flow.

Either way, those defenses don’t build relationships.

Vulnerability and authenticity allow relationships to expand and grow.

Nonviolent homeschool communication requires this foundation first — self-compassion. And that is an easy thing to say and a less easy thing to do.

Are you a homeschool mom navigating the ups and downs of daily life with your kids? Introducing the Homeschool Mama’s Toolbox—a powerful resource to help you manage big emotions like anger, guilt, or overwhelm with clarity and intention.

“All violence is the result of people tricking themselves into believing that their pain derives from other people and that consequently, those people deserve to be punished.” ― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

And in the words of Maya Angelou, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.“

If we have a growth mindset about life and relationships, how we show up will shift over time.

Growth changes everything. Over time, we show up differently in the same scenarios — five, ten, or twenty years later — if we choose that path. Looking back in regret and shame is one option. Forgiving ourselves and growing is another.

And when we grow humble and self-aware enough, we realize that others aren’t trying to intentionally cause us pain or friction either. Punishment didn’t teach us when we simply didn’t know better. It won’t serve the people engaging us wrongly now either.

So we choose grace — the same grace we’d want extended to our own growing selves.

This shift in perspective is at the heart of nonviolent homeschool communication.

“At the core of all anger is a need that is not being fulfilled.” ― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

It’s a useful tool to self-protect.

But it also protects or keeps us from connecting with others if we self-protect too hard.

And those emotions are always fueled by our unmet needs.

Nonviolent homeschool communication asks us to address those needs directly rather than react to the emotion on the surface.

So we need to address our own needs and respectfully request that others meet our needs, so that we don’t spend our lives reactively, angrily demanding others meet our needs, and/or never connecting with ourselves or others.

“We are dangerous when we are not conscious of our responsibility for how we behave, think, and feel.” ― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

You know when you’re not a parent and you have heaped judgments on your own parents parenting approaches BUT THEN you have kids???

And all you can think to yourself is DANG, this parenting thing is only easy when I’m not doing it. (& also, I can see now that my parents were doing the best they could do with what they knew to do in their parenting years, no matter how unhealthy things were).

Because parenting is SO CHALLENGING at times.

Every parenting book I’ve read had something to say. And I’ve appreciated most of them for something.

I’ve made the gamut of parenting mistakes. I really have. Which means I have regret. (& lest you try to console me for my perfectly imperfect parenting, I will go to my grave regretting them, but I also don’t fuel them with self-contempt).

Self-shaming won’t change how I engage my kids now. Mistakes were made — I’m human. Healthy examples weren’t always available to me, and no matter how many parenting books or hours in a therapist’s office, I was bound to struggle with this one relationship: the relationship with myself.

My defenses and my reactiveness towards things that hurt me or offended me or confused me were my instinctive armour and battle gear that I brought into my family life, as a wife, and as a mother.

I wish this weren’t true. But it is. I had (& still have) armour and battle gear.

Do I like that? Hell no.

Will it serve me to pretend that these patterns weren’t mine at the beginning of my family journey?

Again, hell no.

I’ve learned that including practices in self-awareness has helped me see me a little more clearly (a little more, because there will always be room for more self-awareness, I’ll never see myself clearly).

Or in the words of Carl Rogers, “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

Self-awareness is the foundation of nonviolent homeschool communication — and this is where it starts.

“My theory is that we get depressed because we’re not getting what we want, and we’re not getting what we want because we have never been taught to get what we want. Instead, we’ve been taught to be good little boys and girls and good mothers and fathers. If we’re going to be one of those good things, better get used to being depressed. Depression is the reward we get for being “good.” But, if you want to feel better, I’d like you to clarify what you would like people to do to make life more wonderful for you.” ― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

If we don’t acknowledge who we are, that we are separate people, and that we have separate needs, we force ourselves to go underground.

Our identity becomes like vanilla ice cream.

Vanilla is a flavour of ice cream, sure (aka it’s a personality of ice cream types, though it is a basic personality).

But it doesn’t have a specific personality, a particular flavour, or a particular texture.

(Clearly vanilla is not my favourite. Bring on the peppermint chocolate chip).

We are unique and are meant to be here for a special purpose.

When we put our efforts toward being good or right, enabling ourselves to go undercover, we aren’t really us. And so does our nonviolent homeschool communication.

And when we put our efforts toward fully accepting all of our parts, and each of our needs, and acknowledging our real selves, we flourish.

The very most important thing I gain from Marshall Rosenberg’s book, Nonviolent Communication, is this fill-in-the-blank statement.

It is a useful tool: a fill-in-the-blank conversation “instruction manual” to address my needs and request someone to engage my needs (which, not coincidentally when you practice doing this for you, makes it awfully easy to engage for others too).

When I see that______________ I feel ______________ because my need for ________________ is/is not met. Would you be willing to __________________?

This single sentence changed my nonviolent homeschool communication more than any other tool I’ve found.

So my goal in my relationships with my kids and my relationship with my partner is to make observations, clarify and express my feelings, declare my underlying needs, and ask for my needs to be met.

That simple.

And not easy at all.

Here are three ways I can support you:

Every Wednesday morning, a warm, thoughtful reflection lands in your inbox drawn from the books we’re exploring together — including Nonviolent Communication. Journaling prompts. Practical takeaways for your homeschool communication and your life. You don’t have to read the book. You just have to show up for yourself on a Wednesday morning.

Sign up free here.

If you want to work through homeschool communication challenges live — with a community of women who genuinely get this life — come join us in the Collective. This month, we’re exploring Nonviolent Communication together. Roundtable conversations, book club discussion, writer’s room, and actionable strategy sessions. Every Friday. Your first Friday is completely free.

Join the Collective here.

If homeschool communication with a specific child or your partner feels particularly stuck right now — I’d love to think through it with you. Book a free no-obligation Aligned Homeschool Reset Session and let’s look at what’s really happening and what might need to shift.

Book your free session here.

Originally published July 6, 2022. Updated August 4, 2026.

If you’re struggling as you learn how to stop taking your child’s behaviour personally, girlfriend, I get you! That feeling — that your child is doing something to you — is an easy one to fall into. Not just being difficult, but somehow, specifically, deliberately difficult, aimed at you. You’ve had the thought before, even if you didn’t say it out loud: why does he do this to me?

First of all, I want to admit, I have most definitely been there. But I want to offer you a different question to reframe that. Not because your frustration isn’t valid — it is — but because that first question keeps you stuck. It keeps you reacting instead of understanding. And once you swap it out, something in the whole relationship starts to shift.

In a recent coaching conversation, one of the moms I work with was working through exactly this. Her son has a hard time sitting still, gets bored fast, and constantly needs something new to stay engaged — and she’d been reading that as defiance. As him pushing back against her, specifically, was on purpose.

But that constant need for stimulation, that low tolerance for boredom, that instinct to keep moving toward the next interesting thing? That could also be reframed as a personality thing. That’s a recognizable Enneagram Type 7 pattern — a child whose core wiring orients toward possibility and away from anything that feels confining. He’s not doing it to her. He’s doing it because that’s how he’s built to move through the world.

That distinction changes everything about how you respond. A defiant child needs a consequence. A Type 7 child who’s drowning in boredom needs variety, movement, and a shorter runway between tasks. Same behavior. Completely different parenting response — and you can only get to the right one once you stop making it about you.

A quick caveat: trouble sitting still, low tolerance for boredom, always chasing the next stimulating thing — that can also be part of an ADHD profile, not just an Enneagram 7 pattern. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, and this isn’t a substitute for an evaluation, and it’s a separate conversation from learning how to stop taking your child’s behaviour personally — both can be true at once. The Enneagram points to motivation; ADHD is something more neurological. A child can be both — and understanding one doesn’t rule out the other. If this is showing up across settings, not just during school time, it may be worth a conversation with your pediatrician, who can guide you toward an evaluation if needed. And if ADHD is already part of your homeschool reality, you might also like How to Homeschool When Everyone Has ADHD (And You’re Exhausted).

This same shift showed up for two other moms in a Confident Homeschool Mom Collective conversation, both talking about their husbands.

One had spent years frustrated that her husband seemed to avoid conflict at almost any cost — going quiet in arguments, smoothing things over instead of hashing them out, seeming to just… ignoring the conflict instead of addressing it. And she read that as him not caring enough to address the unmet needs under the conflicts. Once she understood he was a Type 9, whose deepest instinct is toward peace and away from friction, she wasn’t excusing the pattern — but she stopped taking it personally. It wasn’t about her. It was his wiring, doing what it’s always done.

Enneagram coaches often see 9s and 8s pair up in marriage — and 8s aren’t afraid of conflict at all. So imagine how he was receiving her in those moments: not as someone smoothing things over peacefully, but as someone withholding, someone who wouldn’t engage. (If you want to see this dynamic from the other side, I loved this Enneagram 8 mom’s story of growth — it’s a great window into how an 8 experiences conflict, connection, and homeschooling.)

Kids, partners — the pattern is the same. The behaviour that used to feel like a verdict on you turns out to be almost entirely unrelated to you. It’s wiring. And wiring isn’t personal.

If you’re someone who tends to see things in black and white — this behaviour is good, another behaviour is bad — this shift can feel disorienting at first. It’s not that boundaries stop mattering or that behaviour stops having consequences. That is certainly not my goal here. However, it IS that you stop assigning motive where there isn’t one.

Your child avoiding boredom isn’t defiance — in fact, there’s a bounty to boredom when it’s handled well (I go deeper on that in how to deal with your kids’ homeschool boredom). Your partner avoiding conflict isn’t apathy. Once you can separate the behaviour from an imagined motive aimed at you, you’re free to respond to what’s actually happening instead of reacting to a story you’ve built around it.

And if it’s you who’s the bored one some days — bored of the routine, bored of the sameness, bored in a way that feels a little taboo to admit as a homeschool mom — that’s real too, and worth naming (here’s a whole post on being the bored homeschool mom).

You start responding instead of reacting. You start getting curious instead of assuming offense or hurt. Instead of why does he do this to me, you start asking:

That question — is this about me, or is this just them — is one of the most useful tools I know for a homeschool mom learning how to stop taking her child’s behaviour personally. It doesn’t make the hard moments disappear. Your Type 7 son will still get bored mid-lesson. Your Type 9 husband will still go quiet when things get tense. But you’ll stop absorbing those moments as a referendum on you, and that alone changes how much of the day you carry home with you emotionally.

You don’t need to become an Enneagram expert overnight to make this discussion valuable. Start small: the next time your child’s behaviour sends you into a spiral of why does he do this, pause and ask instead, is this wiring, or is this really about me? If you do that, you’ll find it’s the former — and that single shift in framing can be enough to bring you back to curiosity instead of hurt.

Certainly, if you want to go further, understanding your child’s — and your partner’s — Enneagram type is one of the fastest ways to build this reframe into a daily habit rather than something you have to remember to do in the moment.

If this resonated, I’d love to help you think through it. Book a free Aligned Homeschool Reset Session and let’s find out what’s really driving the dynamics in your home — and how to stop carrying what was never yours to carry.

The Homeschool Mama Book Club 2026 is the one thing I wish someone had offered me in my early homeschool years.

1. Join the Book Club Newsletter — free, every Wednesday

Every Wednesday morning, a warm, thoughtful email lands in your inbox drawn from the books we’re exploring together. Reflections, journaling prompts, and practical takeaways — even if you haven’t read the book.

Sign up for the free Book Club Newsletter here →

2. Join us live in the Confident Homeschool Mom Collective

Every Friday at 10am Pacific, a group of homeschool mamas gathers to talk about the things that actually matter — roundtable conversations, book club discussions, Writer’s Room sessions, actionable strategy sessions, and real talk about what it actually feels like to do this every day.

Your first Friday is completely free.

Join the Confident Homeschool Mom Collective here →

This is exactly the kind of conversation we have, every single week, in the Homeschool Mama Book Club.

A place where you say the thing out loud — why does he do this to me — and a room full of women nod because they’ve thought it too. We read together, we talk it through in book club discussions, we bring our real questions to Writer’s Room sessions and strategy conversations, and in the middle of all that, you get tools to really support your homeschool mom life.

The women who show up every Friday will tell you it feels like a reset — a space where they’re actually seen, understood, and encouraged, without competition or judgment. If you’ve been carrying how to stop taking your child’s behaviour personally all on your own, this is where you bring it instead.

You’re Invited — Join the Book Club →

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

Welcome to the Homeschool Mom Book Club 2026 — a year of reading chosen entirely for you.

Can I ask you a question? Who is nurturing you?

It’s a question most homeschool moms never get asked. We pour everything into our children — our time, our creativity, our patience, our presence — and somewhere in all that nurturing, we forget that we are humans with needs too.

I’ve been there. I spent years showing up for everyone else and calling what was left of me enough. Occasional Wednesday nights at Starbucks with a latte and a journal were the thing that kept me going. I thought that was enough.

It wasn’t. It’s cliche, but it’s true: I was surviving, not thriving.

I craved time to read and write and learn for myself — not just enabling it for the kids. And when I began reading for me, I realized I could answer some of the challenges I was noticing in my homeschool family.

After nearly two decades homeschooling and six years coaching women who home educate, I’ve learned that books, and their authors, can be incredible resources for us as home educators.

I’ve also learned, from my own life, and the lives of other homeschool moms, we consistently DON’T put ourselves on our to-do lists. We leave our needs, our interests, our rabbit trails last on our lists. Our social lives can be abysmal (funny that onlookers are concerned that our kids aren’t socialized, when mom is driving them hither and yon, waiting in the parking lot while they meet new friends and do cool things).

That’s why the Homeschool Mom Book Club 2026 exists. And that’s why I want to invite you into the 2026 lineup — twelve books, one per month, chosen entirely for the woman doing this work every single day.

If you’ve been putting yourself last in your homeschool, I made something for you. It’s called the Permission Slip — 14 daily anchor practices for the homeschool mama who keeps coming last. It’s free and it’s yours. Grab it here:

Before we get to the books, I want to say something I come back to again and again in my coaching work with homeschool moms:

You are the most important curriculum in your homeschool.

Not the books you choose for your kids. Not the actual curriculum you pull out each morning. And not the co-op or the field trips or the Charlotte Mason inspired nature study either.

You.

The way you show up. The way you regulate. Even the curiosity you model. The grace you extend — to your kids and to yourself. That is what your children are absorbing every single day.

So investing in yourself isn’t something you do when you finally have time. It’s the most important work you can do for your homeschool. And a good book — and a community of women to think about it with — is one of the most accessible ways to begin.

One book a month. Twelve months. Four quarterly themes that build on each other — so the reading isn’t just a list but a year-long conversation with yourself.

When you’re listening to yourself, able to hear two thoughts in a row (because you know that is hard to do with kids afoot), and willing to unpack the challenges in your homeschool mom life, you’ll move toward enjoying the charms of your homeschool family life.

And here’s the part I want you to hear clearly: you don’t have to read the book to show up.

I know, crazy, right? A book club where you don’t HAVE to read. Of course, you’ll be more deeply benefited if you do. But I know I wouldn’t have been able to read a book a month in my busiest homeschool years and I’m certainly not expecting it of anyone else.

Come for the conversation, come for the community, and come because for one Friday morning a month someone is asking what you think and what you need.

Every month in the Confident Homeschool Mom Collective we gather for four Friday sessions built around each book:

June, July, August

We start by turning inward. Before we can talk about education philosophy or creative practice we need to know ourselves a little better first.

June — Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown
Do you actually know what you’re feeling — or are you just reacting to it? Brown maps 87 emotions and gives you the vocabulary to finally understand what’s happening inside you — and why it matters for every relationship in your home.

July — The Road Back to You by Ian Morgan Cron & Suzanne Stabile
Why do you parent and teach the way you do? This warm, witty introduction to the Enneagram helps you understand your core motivations, your stress responses, and the invisible rules you’ve been living by without even knowing it.

And when you join the Confident Homeschool Mom Collective (where the Homeschool Mama Book Club lives, you’ll have access to a workshop on how the Enneagram works in your homeschool family.)

August — The Life That’s Waiting by Brianna Wiest
What would your life look like if you stopped forcing it and started living it? Wiest’s newest collection of essays is for the mom who has been pushing herself toward a life that doesn’t quite fit — and is finally ready to choose differently.

September, October, November

Why do we homeschool? What do we actually believe about how children learn? Fall is when we go back to the roots.

September — Free to Learn by Peter Gray
Do you actually trust your child to learn — or are you still operating from a school mindset you never examined? Gray makes the research-backed case that children are biologically wired to learn through self-directed play. Even if you’re not unschooling this book will crack something open in you.

October — How Children Learn by John Holt
The foundational text of natural learning that reminds you why you chose this life — and gives you permission to trust your child’s curiosity more than any curriculum. We’ll be joined by Pat Farenga, the man who kept Holt’s legacy alive, for a virtual visit.

November — Learning How to Learn by Barbara Oakley
How does your brain actually learn — and are you teaching your kids in a way that works with their neurology or against it? Oakley draws on the world’s most popular online course to explain focused attention, diffuse thinking, and why rest is not the enemy of progress.

December, January, February

Winter is the practical quarter. We get into the how — and we use the quieter season to spice things up and capture a new vision for our homeschools.

December — Charlotte Mason Education by Catherine Levinson
What would it look like to bring more beauty and intentionality into your everyday homeschool life? This is the clearest, most accessible introduction to Charlotte Mason’s philosophy of living books, narration, and nature study. Cozy and grounding for a December read.

January — Mindset by Carol Dweck
New year, new mindset — literally. Are you modeling a growth mindset for your kids or are you secretly still stuck in a fixed one? Dweck’s framework is something every homeschool mama needs to sit with — especially in how we talk about failure and effort with ourselves and our children.

February — The Self-Driven Child by William Stixrud & Ned Johnson
What happens when you give your child more control over their own life — and why does that feel so scary? This neuroscience-backed book validates what many homeschool families already sense intuitively and gives you the research to trust it.

This is my favourite quarter of the Homeschool Mom Book Club 2026.

March, April, May

Spring closes the year in creativity and honest self-reflection. When a mama feels energized and fueled in her own life she is more energized and fueled for her kids.

March — Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg
What if writing isn’t about being a writer — what if it’s about finally hearing yourself think? Goldberg treats writing as a spiritual practice not a performance and this book will change how you think about your own voice even if you’ve never considered yourself a writer.

April — The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jaouad
What would happen if you kept a journal — not to record your days but to understand them? Jaouad’s gorgeous memoir in essays and journaling prompts gathered from a hundred writers and artists is the perfect companion for building a practice that actually sticks.

May — Please Look into the Mirror by Michaela Angemeer
What am I still carrying from my own mother — and what do I want to put down before I pass it to my kids? This Canadian poet’s collection of prose and poetry about the mother wound, inner child healing, and cycle breaking is a courageous and fitting close to a year of honest self-reflection.

The group votes. We revisit a favourite, celebrate the year, or dream up the next list together. That meeting is a party.

“Before joining the Collective I often felt alone in my homeschooling journey, constantly second-guessing my choices and comparing myself to others. But after becoming part of this group I’ve experienced unwavering support and genuine connection like never before. Now every Friday feels like a reset — a space where I’m truly seen, understood, and encouraged. There’s no competition, no judgment — just compassionate women who have my back.”
— Michelle, Collective member

“It is the only thing I have successfully and consistently time-blocked. I love the real-time interaction with other mamas working on so many similar things in themselves, their home, and their families.”
— Sarah, Collective member & homeschool mama of 4

“I have really appreciated the book club this year. And I’ve read some familiar authors and topics but there are also titles and topics I haven’t considered and I’ve really benefitted from these. I love that if we don’t read the books it’s totally okay. Sometimes it’s nice to scope out the book at the meetup and read it later if it sounds interesting.”
— Whitney, homeschool mama of 4

The Homeschool Mom Book Club 2026 is the one thing I wish someone had offered me in my early homeschool years.

1. Start with the Permission Slip — free
If you’ve been last on your own list for too long, this is where to begin. The Permission Slip is a free checklist of 14 daily anchor practices for the homeschool mama who keeps coming last. Not a to-do list. A daily reminder that you are allowed to matter in your own life.

Get the free Permission Slip here →

2. Join the Book Club Newsletter — free, every Wednesday
Every Wednesday morning a warm thoughtful email lands in your inbox drawn from the books we’re exploring together. Reflections, journaling prompts, and practical takeaways — even if you haven’t read the book. Even if you never plan to.

Sign up for the free Book Club Newsletter here →

3. Join us live in the Confident Homeschool Mom Collective
Every Friday at 10am Pacific a group of homeschool mamas gathers to talk about the things that actually matter. Roundtable conversations. Book club discussions. Writer’s Room sessions. Actionable strategy sessions. Real talk about what it actually feels like to do this every day.

Your first Friday is completely free.

Join the Confident Homeschool Mom Collective here →

Listen. You didn’t choose this life because it was easy. You chose it because something in you knew it mattered. And that something — that instinct, that conviction, that stubborn love — is still in you.

You’re still here and still showing up.

That deserves more than survival. It deserves a good book, a supportive community, and someone who asks how you’re really doing.

The Homeschool Mama Book Club 2026 is that place. Come find us. 🧡

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