Dear Homeschoool Mama,
First of all, take a deep breath. And then slowly exhale. Recognize that you’ve just completed the 2023 portion of your homeschooling year!!! This is huge. I pray that your holidays were peaceful and brought a measure of recharge and inspiration as you enter into these deep winter months of homeschooling in Rochester. Get ready for some fun indoor activities. Lean into your local homeschooling community. And at a moments notice be ready to shoo your kids outside to fill their lungs with clean crisp oxygen as they romp and play in the beautiful falling snow.
Take heart as you begin your 2024 routine at home, whether this is includes a rigid schedule to keep everyone on task or a more laid back approach, feeling out the day and your child’s needs as you go. Kids tend to thrive off of structure and boundaries. This is where they can feel most safe and secure in their day to day. But don’t be afraid to improv and jump out of the box every now and again as you see fit. This is the beauty of homeschooling, mama! Flexibility. Adventure. Play.
As you look back over the start of your school year, take time to recognize the milestones you’ve achieved with your kids. Celebrate all the work they’ve completed in their curriculums. Review the tremendous amount time you’ve spent together doing what they love, whether that’s reading aloud together during your morning routine, their own independent reading, art projects, piano practice… fill in the blank! Recall the places that you’ve been together and things that you’ve learned. Maybe you went to the library and grabbed a few books about whatever was catching their interest that week. Or maybe you took a field trip to a NYS national landmark, such as Niagara Falls.
And if all you’ve been able to do this year is be home together (some call this survival mode; I call it my favorite thing!), recognize that as a win in a society where people are running here there and everywhere barely able to sit down together for a family dinner. These are moments and years that you can never get back with your children. Embrace every minute that you spend with your family, no matter where you are. And remember that you do not have to do ‘all of the things’ to have a successful homeschool.
Most importantly, mama, remember that you are enough. The things that you are doing in your homeschool are enough. Coming from a mama whose first several years of homeschool often involved no capacity for extras… no energy for field trips… no extracurriculars… life throwing curveballs my way. I often say that my children and I were in the school of life during those early years. Learning things that can’t be taught any other way than through experience. And certainly not from a textbook. I can honestly look back and say that I am grateful for every life lesson that we were given during those times. And I am grateful to have not spent [too much] time fretting about whether my kids were getting all that they needed academically or not. Their needs were met in so many beautiful ways and I am so grateful for that. I was ‘enough’ for my kids then, just as much as I am ‘enough’ for them now.
May you too be able to sing the refrain from the famous Christmas carol where “mom and dad can hardly wait for school to start again!” as you jump back into the fray of home education in 2024. But not because your kids are driving you crazy, but because you’re so excited to get back to the routine of your homeschool. I hope you find yourself not only looking forward to teaching your child(ren), but also anticipating the many thing that you will also learn. And the countless ways that you will grow right alongside them as you continue this journey together.
Things are certainly not perfect here, but I am grateful for every day I spend with my kids. No matter what we may or may not accomplish academically on any given day, it is an incredibly beautiful thing to have a front row seat to who my kids are today and who they are becoming. It is one of the highest honors I’ve experienced in my life.
You’ve got this, homeschool mama!
