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6 Ways I homeschool through a difficult season.

Difficult seasons are part of life’s designs, and no matter what we may be doing, they do come up now and then.

Unfortunately, when we are struggling, life does not stop moving. It is either we try to move or we feel stuck.

When I began the journey of homeschooling, my children, it was in a difficult season. I was still new at parenting solo and I just started therapy. My son’s autism diagnosis was still fresh and he was doing speech and language therapy. I had a less than two-year-old daughter at the time and we were struggling financially.

Despite all of the above and the natural fear that comes with trying something new, I dove into the experience and it’s been a roller coaster of joy and some tears.

Recently, I found myself in a difficult season again that sent me deep into a dark space. As I struggled to swim back to the surface, I can’t help but be worried that a new school year was approaching and I was not in the mental or emotional space to prepare myself and my children for it. I am a solo Mum with no support system who still has to show up for herself and her children.

I remember telling a dear friend as tears run down my face; “how do I find the strength to get up every morning and be the mother my children need when all I wanted to do was wallow?”

I initially thought to myself “I have been doing this for while, I don’t need any special preparation”, so I attempted to dive in without plans, but I couldn’t cope. Despite having resources that were supposed to make homeschooling a bit ‘easier’, I realized that my mental well-being is the KEY resource that our homeschool needed to thrive, trying to move ahead with a confused and emotionally drained mind was not going to work!

I have to say that the flexibility of homeschooling played a vital role in the way I dealt with the situation.

Here are the few steps I took during this season to help myself unpack and process the mental and emotional hurdles, and get ready for a new year of homeschooling.

• Seek God’s help! His help and guidance led me to the steps I took.

• Embrace reality- I extended grace to myself. I had to embrace the truth that currently, life isn’t going as usual, and trying to do things the way it was done in the past will not work. Another problem that made it difficult for me to be real with myself was the comparison game, so I took time away from social media and focus on an internal approach to solving my issues. Taking this step really gave me the clarity I needed to find my way out of the rut.

• Journaling- This is not even a cliche. Writing has been proven to help reduce stress and process emotions among other benefits. I started my journal with words of gratitude. It is easy to take for granted the privilege that God has granted us to be home with our children and walk their learning journey with them. I reminded myself of this blessing, I look down memory lane and gave glory to my Lord for how far we have come. Then I revisited my WHY. I dedicated our homeschool to Allah, it is all for His sake. To raise children who will know Him, love Him, and be pleasing Him.

• Find the right inspiration- According to an article in Harvard Business Review, “inspiration awakens us to transcend our ordinary experiences and limitations.” One morning, I watched a video on Jady A Youtube channel, and it awakened my sleepy homeschool Mama heart! When I journal my reflections later, I cried and felt lighter.

• Focus on the core- I have what is called a minimum viable checklist; which indicates the least amount of lessons we can do in a day to feel productive. So in this case, I was making sure we don’t miss Hifdh (Qur’an memorization), and later I added a bit of Mathematics and Language Art.

• Technology to the rescue! Reading aloud to my children is one of the things that gives me joy, but during this period I didn’t have the energy to even do this with them, so a subscription to Epic Books helped bridge the gap until I became abled. Also, I used IXL for mathematics and Language arts when I didn’t have the mental headspace to figure out any curriculum. Both were amazing tools that helped my children learn while I took a break to heal. They used these when we are all cuddled up in bed.

Grief is part of life; it is okay to take a break, stabilize our emotions and learn to live with the storm, but we can’t stop living because life continues.

After a month, I was able to come up with a solid plan for a new homeschool year. I made some changes in our homeschool to better accommodate the current dynamic of our lives, such as outsourcing some areas of learning. I also re-establish our homeschool mission.