After 20 years of homeschooling our own children and 15 years of serving the South African homeschooling community, we know that there are a few regular worries that come up during the span of years in which moms carry the responsibility of educating their children at home.

No matter where you are on the homeschool spectrum, (from unschooling to doing school-at-home,) there will be times when you doubt your ability to stay with it for the long haul.

Here are some ways to prevent a panic attack and a hasty decision to stop homeschooling. We have identified the 7 top tips for you.

1 Know that there will be good days and bad days
2 Understand yourself and your children
3 Know why you are choosing the style or philosophy of education
4 Keep your eye on the end goal
5 Have your support network
6 Anticipate the curve balls
7 Don't give up when it gets tough

It's a fool’s paradise if you come into homeschooling thinking that all will be “hunky-dory” all the time. Not so! Your children will still make mistakes, be cheeky or rude and you will still have to deal with your anger, impatience and parenting issues. Some days things will go smoothly and all assigned work will get done and other days will feel like you [and your kids] have been pulled through a bush backwards.
This is normal…good days and bad days happen, your goal is to have more good than bad and to keep getting better.

Knowing who you are and who your children are is very important. Do not try to be Susy Q next door, who loves unschooling, or Donna G down the street, who uses textbooks only. Find out how you like to “teach” and what your children respond to and keep at it.

Keep your vision or philosophy fresh by reading a book every few months on the homeschool path you have chosen. We both choose to follow a living book Charlotte Mason approach for most of the years, with little rabbit trails into new territories. However, we also made the effort to keep up to date with ideas sparking from this central philosophy. What homeschool parenting books do you plan to read this year? (View our recommended selection on the link above.)

Your end goal is not to teach your children to read or add sums or memorize the periodic table, it is to raise children with a strong character and the ability to make wise choices when they are older. Where do they learn that? When they do chores, sit at a desk and struggle through writing letters or learning to read or do Algebra. These are simply stepping stones on the journey to raising self-sufficient adults. As you help them to push through on a tough day, you will be growing their will to do the right thing.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that you need hordes of homeschoolers around you to make the journey successful. Some of the most successful homeschoolers in history lived very quiet family lives. They were busy in their homes, doing their work, stretching their brains and relying on the wisdom of their parents.

However, you do need a support network and this may not necessarily be other homeschoolers. It could be friends outside of the homeschool community, grandparents and parents and a selective amount of Facebook homeschool groups.

Anticipate the curve balls that come at you as a homeschool mom and don’t react to them, rather respond…for example: illness comes, but illness also goes. People make insensitive comments, but just as many are starting to see the benefits of correctly done home education. Curriculum bought may not suit, so shelve it and buy one that will.

And lastly, don’t give up when it gets tough. The Bible clearly tells us to embrace trials as discipline. That discipline is GOOD. And it encourages us that we should not grow weary in doing good. As you embrace this, you can teach your children to embrace their challenges and become victors which brings us full circle back to a quote that we unearthed many years ago as beginner homeschoolers ourselves:

“In contrast to what many homeschoolers believe, God’s initial goal for Christian homeschooling families is not the raising of godly children. Instead, God’s wonderful but subtly hidden agenda is that the homeschooling experience be so challenging for the parents that they feel the need and hunger for a closer walk with their Heavenly Father.” ~ Kyle Miller

May you all have a wonderful month ahead and keep on keeping on.