CHM 066:On Days You Don't Feel Like Homeschooling

Hi and welcome to the Christian Homeschool Moms Podcast.

I'm Demetria, your host, and today I'm going to talk about something that I think plagues a lot of homeschool moms, and that's what do you do on the days that you don't feel like homeschooling?

I know we're just now into homeschooling.

For most of us, it's just the first couple of weeks of school.

If you're not home year round homeschooling, then it's probably just, you know, you've been in school for maybe a good four or five weeks, maybe less, and already, you know, a lot of us are already experiencing the whole maybe beginning edge of burnout.

And that's normal.

You know, once you start getting some momentum, it'll get better.

But, you know, this podcast is all about addressing what do you do on those days when you just don't feel like it?

I probably should have waited until January or February when the real slump happens to, you know, give this pep talk.

But I thought I'd go ahead and do it right up front at the beginning of the school year for many people.

So we'll talk about that.

And first, I have a verse for you that I think will help out with this topic.

And actually I have a few verses for you regarding that.

So we'll start with Ecclesiastes 9, 11.

It says, I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favor to men of skill, but time and chance happen to them all.

And then over in 2 Timothy 4, 7, it says, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

Matthew 24:13 says, but he who endures to the end shall be saved.

Now, apparently these verses are all having to do with our faith, all having to do with our journey, our walk, our race.

You know, it says, the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.

So this is these analogies of a battle, a race, a journey, a walk.

All of these things have to do with where we are in this lifetime under heaven, and the time that passes between birth and death and what we do with our time and how we use that time effectively.

If it's a race, if, if the analogy is a race, as in second Timothy 4, 7, it says, I have finished the race and I have kept the faith.

In second Timothy, I have fought the good fight.

So if you're looking at it as though it's a fight.

Then you fought a good fight.

If it's a race, you finish the race.

And you kept the Faith.

In Matthew 24:13, he who endures to the end.

It's not what you're, you know, it's not what happens in between.

You know, it's what happens in the end.

So you, your journey, there's going to be all kinds of bumps, and they're going to be your ups and your downs.

You're going to be in the valley sometimes, you're going to be on the mountain sometimes.

It's what happens at the end of that.

Okay, so what I want to encourage you with those scriptures is that there are going to be days you don't feel like homeschooling.

That's okay, you know, just go to sleep and wake up.

Tomorrow there'll be another day and do it all over again.

And one of these days, you're going to wake up and realize that you actually finished your race.

And so I'm really encouraged when I hear.

I listen to a lot of different speakers, teachers, Bible teachers, and there's certain televangelists that, you know, I will definitely listen to because they just make me feel better.

There are some evangelists that I, you know, I don't listen to everybody, but there are certain people that, when I listen to them, actually do laugh.

And I.

And I have.

It's like a good, honest feeling of, I learned something and I got something good out of this.

And crevlo$, is one of those evangelists that keeps me feeling happy, you know, and he says this, he has a saying that if everything's not working out for you and things aren't going well for you, you're having an awful day.

Don't worry.

Just go to sleep.

And when you wake up in the morning, it'll be another day and you can start over.

You know, just go to sleep.

If you're having an awful day, go to sleep, wake up, start your day again.

And it's not to be flippant, but it's to say there's hope.

You know, if you're still here tomorrow when you wake up, then there's hope for you tomorrow.

And if you wake up the next day, you know, you've made it another day.

God gave you another day of your life, then obviously you're there for a reason.

So he has a purpose for your life.

You're not there to be depressed.

You're not here on this earth to be depressed, to be Sad to be discouraged.

There is hope for you, so there is hope for your homeschooling.

There is hope for every aspect of your life, you know, including the education of your children.

And so that's what I want to share with you with those scriptures, and I hope that encourages you.

Now, if you've been homeschooling any length of time, you know there's going to be days.

You just.

You're not going to feel like homeschooling.

Let's just be very, very honest here.

It might even be every single day that you feel this way and you're not alone, okay?

There's so many of us that feel that way.

We just don't say it.

So there's nothing really extra special about any of us, not even mom bloggers, who seem to really portray this perfect airbrush picture of our homeschool classrooms online.

We take these pretty pictures of our school rooms and we put them up on our blogs.

The truth of the reality is that once that picture's been snapped and the kids run through the room and they recreate the chaos that was there before we tidied up the room for the picture, you'll see the truth of it.

And unless you're living on pins and needles and of the some sucking in your breath whenever a speck of dust hits the floor, then your house looks just as chaotic as my house.

And right now, our house looks especially messy since we're in the middle of a move.

So let's just be honest.

This is the real deal, okay?

It's not this picture perfect.

We're living this perfect lifestyle.

And it's not what you're dreaming about.

It's the reality of what we're trudging through every single day.

We're all in it for the same purpose of, you know, just keeping our kids in the best environment possible, giving them the best academically and spiritually.

And that means we're going to make a lot of messes.

You know, there's going to be a messy homeschool day.

Just like we have our messy house days, we're going to have messy homeschool days.

There's going to be days when nothing seems to be going right, the kids are not behaving, or we can't seem to get out of bed, we can't muster the strength to teach yet another page of that grammar book.

We know it's not a curriculum choice issue.

We've already talked about that on the last podcast podcasts.

We know we've been called to homeschool so that's not a question of concern, right?

It's just us, more or less.

It's just that we're tired.

We're tired of the curriculum.

We're tired of trying to teach and explain a concept.

Tired of school time.

Just tired.

And it's during those moments and on those hard days that we have to learn to just let it go, okay?

Just let it go.

You know, ever since Frozen has been the big hit, my kids won't stop singing Let It Go.

And I keep thinking just how relevant that is to my life as a homeschool mom.

Really, I should just let it go?

And what do I mean by that?

You know, I can't let go of my control, but I can.

I can let go of my control, and I don't have to, you know, I don't have to teach a concept a certain way, and I don't have to have a certain response from my kid to know that I've done my part in covering a topic.

Once I've explained and they seem to understand it, I can move on.

It's like bright light bulb, moment.

We don't have to camp out there until I've killed the concept.

It's okay.

We can move on.

You know, I can let go of my control.

Secondly, I can let go of my fears.

You know, sometimes we women, we don't believe in ourselves, and we bring that into our motherhood, and we project it onto our children.

And yes, believe it or not, we do project it onto our kids.

If you're afraid that, for example, you're not good at something, let's take math, then you should do your best to get your child the help that she needs to learn it effectively.

Maybe she's gonna learn it better than you were ever able to and be really good at math, even though you might have felt it three times in high school.

So don't project your own fears onto your kids.

I'm learning that my fears don't have to be my children's fears.

You see?

Let me give you an example.

Growing up, I never learned how to swim.

And I'll just admit that right here on the podcast, I cannot swim.

I find it scary that I don't know how to swim and I'm living so close to the ocean.

So now it's my turn to either pass on my fears of swimming to my kids.

Okay.

Or I can give them the tools that they need to be great or even adequate swimmers.

It's really hard for me because of my own fear of the water, but I've enrolled them for swim lessons so they can hopefully not receive the same kind of fear that I had with water.

So I can let go of expectations.

Okay, that's the third thing.

What is it that you expected to accomplish at the end of the school day, at the end of the week, at the end of the month, the semester, the school year?

Did you have goals?

And if you did, did you meet those goals?

Okay, well, it's okay if you didn't.

So give yourself a break and let go.

Expectations that are robbing you of the joy of homeschooling your kids.

Let them be who they are.

Let them learn at their own pace.

Let it go.

Let go of the super high expectations that put you and your kids in bondage.

And lastly, just give yourself the much needed break.

Actually, this is not the last tip, but give yourself the much needed break.

If you're burned out with homeschooling, then you need the break.

So take it.

There's no guilt.

There's no pressure, there's no condemnation.

You can only give what you have.

And if you don't have the strength, it will be doubly hard for you to serve your family in any capacity.

So fill up your heart and your soul with God's strength by filling up on his word.

Let him restore you.

Let him strengthen you.

Take a break.

Let him speak to your heart.

You can do that in a variety of ways.

I have some tips that help me, especially in my quiet times, what I do when I'm kind of getting away from all of the homeschool drama stuff that we do during the day, the teacher mode.

And I like to get away.

I like to tuck away, even if it's for a bubble bath for a little while.

And just whatever it is that makes you happy, go out for coffee, you know, do something fun.

And only then will you be able to.

To be available to your kids in the way that best serves them.

Only then can you pour into their hearts joyfully and willingly.

Because you, mama, you need to be rested.

So give yourself the much needed break.

Another tip for you is to roll up your sleeves and make a plan.

And so once you've had your break, it's time to get to work.

And at some point, you're going to need to pray over God's will for each of your children, each of them, and begin making a homeschooling plan for each of them individually.

Figure out what they should be learning and plug in how you most like this.

You know, how you'd like to see that Happen.

Pray for the Lord's direction in guiding you through curriculum choices.

Again, we talked about that on the last podcast.

There are so many choices out there, it can be very overwhelming.

But pray for his direction.

And he will, he's so faithful.

He will give you specifics on what to do, what to teach, how to teach it.

If you just listen for the Lord, he'll show you whether he's going to, you know, speak through a friend.

However, he will give it to you.

You just be available to hear his voice and he'll lead you in the right path and he will help you.

He'll show you how to teach the material daily to your kids.

You know, pray for wisdom.

Pray for wisdom on how to best address the learning needs of each of your kids and then begin making a plan to see it come into action.

You know, when we start to feel burned out with homeschooling, we just don't feel like it.

Realize that with the Lord's help, we can do anything.

Our feelings can be changed.

That's one thing that can be changed in our life, and that's our feelings, our miracle.

Working God can take our hearts of stone and melt it and make us more palatable for him.

And then he'll then use us to be a blessing to our children in a capacity we never sought possible.

And that's because he's in the business of working miracles.

If you think it's impossible for you to ever enjoy homeschooling again, then think again.

So what do you do on those days that you just don't feel like homeschooling?

I hope that you will apply some of these ideas to your life as I am still working on in my life, bringing in some of these concepts that I've just talked to you about.

And, you know, as the Lord speaks, speaks to us, you know, we should just do, do what he says and know that he's got our best interest at heart.

He is speaking all the time.

We just have to hear.

We have to have the ears to hear what he's saying.

And he's speaking all the time, all around us.

It's all about quieting ourselves and getting in a space where it's just him and us and we're, you know, we're quiet before Him.

I know it's so hard to get in a quiet space spot, but, I mean, he'll speak to you even if there is no quiet.

He'll speak to you.

Whatever your situation is.

If you have a house full of kids and things are noisy 247 Lord will still speak to you, but, you know, yeah, it's going to be a little bit more of a challenge to hear him when you're, when you're really, you know, distracted.

But whenever you have a little time for yourself, even if it's just five seconds in the restroom, alone in the bathroom, you know, see if you can kind of tuck away, get into that space where it's just you and God, and just cry out to him and ask him whatever it is your heart needs, whatever you need, he is there for you.

He's there to minister to you, to pour into your heart.

You might not feel an answer right away.

That's okay.

I mean, nobody, you know, I don't know too many people that, that immediately get answers.

Some people do.

That's pretty miraculous.

But, you know, some of us, we have to keep, you know, we have to keep at it.

Keep asking God.

Keep asking God.

Keep asking God.

He hears us.

You know, he's not deaf.

He hears what you're asking Him.

He knows, and he's already got an answer.

But just the art of seeking him and him knowing that, you know, we're going to come back to him in faith and we're going to say, abba, father, you know, I need this from you.

And Lord, you know, what should I do?

And however you do that in your own personal way that you relate to God, that's completely, you know, up to you and how you do that, and that's between you and God.

But just knowing that you faithfully believe that he is going to answer.

He's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him and that he will answer you, he will guide you.

And on the days that you don't feel like homeschooling, he will strengthen you and he will give you wisdom.

Whether he tells you to just take a break for the rest of the day and give your kids a day off or to help them to learn consistency and persistence in certain topics or subjects that they're struggling with.

Maybe it's a character development issue that they need to work through, and the Lord will guide you into that and tell you exactly how to address the specific issue that's at hand.

Because maybe it's a little bit more than just you feeling burned out with homeschooling.

Maybe it's a power struggle between you and your student.

So whatever that particular case is, God has an answer for it.

Just seek him and he will help you with that.

So I hope I've been helpful to you somehow in this podcast.

And if you have any questions, concerns, comments, suggestions about topics, and if you want to leave anything, any comment about this particular podcast, I'd love to hear from you.

You can leave a message at the blog.

This podcast will be up on the blog as episode number 66 and also you'll be able to find this episode in itunes.

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If you just leave a comment and a rating, I'd be very happy to receive that from you.

And if you have any questions or anything that you'd like to speak about.

Just kind of wanted to get some feedback about something.

You can come to our Facebook group and there are a group of other homeschooling moms there that could probably answer your questions there as well.

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You can find me there from that as well.

And yeah, I look forward to coming back in another week with more encouragement for you and interviews coming up shortly.

Have a blessed week.

Thank you for listening to Christian Homeschool Moms.

You can reach us@christianhomeschoolmoms.com until next time, happy homeschooling.