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It is days like today that I catch myself speaking quite negatively to myself. When the day is not going as planned, when children are having a hard day, when I am having an emotional day, it makes doing the right things so much harder. It is on these hard days that I want to give up, I want to crawl into the dessert and become a hermit, I wish I had my support system the way it used to be because life was easier. When everyone behaves, life is easier. When the children are listening, getting along, and are able to handle their bigger emotions life is easy. But is an easy life worth it?
When I have these emotionally driven thoughts I remind myself that God did not call us to an easy or simple life. A simple and easy life is one of rejecting discomfort, self-discipline, difficulty, and being a slave to the desires of the flesh. When your children are being stubborn, God is helping you practice patience. When things are not going according to your plan, God is trying to remind you that someone else has a plan for you that may be a better plan than anything you even imagined. I find that when life gets hard and uncomfortable it is because I need to grow, learn, and adapt to certain things. Through this growth things become easier. So when the children are going through a period of time of “being difficult” I realize that I need to learn something, grow, and remember that the difficult period will pass. Through God, all things are possible, even on the worst days. Even when I want to crawl into my bed and hide from the responsibility of parenthood and homeschooling, I know I would never trade the life I have right now for anything in the world! I know I am blessed to have the life I have and I thank God for it every day, but not every day is going to be easy and that’s okay.
Why can’t life be easy and simple? Think about it though. Do we learn anything if we do not make a mistake? Can we grow if we think we are perfect or are already doing everything correctly? We are all our own individual selves with our own opinions. We like things the way we like them and done the way we like and that may conflict with the way others do things. Two-year-olds like to be independent and try things on their own and that may not coordinate with our timeline and do battling a two-year-old who wants to button up their own dress shirt when you are running late for church will be frustrating, but what can we learn? Start getting ready earlier. Let them get ready earlier on their own and then follow up with them afterwards.
Every difficulty we have in life is a learning experience or an opportunity for change. When we lose loved ones in such unfortunate ways, many people begin foundations that raise awareness surrounding the circumstances for the loss of their loved one, raise money for medical prevention or other causes, etc., and while this does not bring back their loved one, it certainly makes the world a better place due to the unfortunate loss. We can do good things and learn so much in uncomfortable situations and when life isn’t easy.
Tough days in homeschool can be brutal and things can begin to unravel quite quickly. My overly critical mind can do a lot of self harm for my mental state and confidence with homeschooling. I definitely have days where I think, “Would my children be better off in a school?” “These tough days wouldn’t exist if I sent them to school.” Then I remind myself that I would rather go through a thousand tough days than to send my children back to school. It might be “easier” to pass off a child who is being difficult on to someone else to make your life, your stress levels, or your nervous system more calm, but it is most definitely not worth it. Allowing someone else to have a massive influence over my children, their development, their values and their worldview are just not what I am willing to trade. Homeschooling is not school at home and I can adapt a tough day to meet the needs of the family for the day. However, tough days are going to come and go and we can adapt some difficult days while persevering through others. We get to decide which days and difficulties need the attention and which ones need the lesson of resilience.
Home is a place of refuge, comfort, and fun for everyone and it can be hard to separate the home from the school sometimes. When you’re trying to help one child through their emotions, the other children that depend on you for their school work are forced to move to independent work or they get to finish school early that day. What I learned today is that when I have a child who is being difficult, changing the school subject can help them reset or change their mindset and attitude. I also learned something that may sound so opposite to what you think you should be doing but this difficult attitude could also be the result of needing a break. We all have those days! Even though we may have just begun our day, we may need to focus on short lessons that day or flipping between subjects more frequently than normal. On the hard days is when it is especially important to focus on the relationships and the person and not just a set of rules.
Another mindset we are continuing to shift further into is incorporating homeschool into our everyday life. Just like we would do house work or play outside, we learn and complete schoolwork. We have a morning routine, we complete household duties, we complete some schoolwork, then we have a break. We incorporate cleaning into our day, more schoolwork, music practice, etc. Josh and I believe that by schooling this way it can show the children a couple things:
1) That learning should be a normal part of life and continued as a lifelong endeavour, and
2) To create a good school/life balance so that translates to a good work/life balance when they get older.
There are days that are tough that don’t involve homeschool as well. We have 6 children and they all have strong personalities and like to get their own way. Who doesn’t? I notice that if I am on my phone too much or I am distracted in some other way, that things get a little more chaotic. So when things get uncomfortable, I need to look at why that is, shift my focus, and change some things. Get more intentional and attentive, get on the floor and play with the kids, change the way they are playing and perhaps play a game all together. Help the children through their difficulties and don’t just tell them to figure it out on their own. Our children depend on us to help themselves regulate emotions and they don’t learn to regulate emotions if we don’t teach them. So perhaps these tough days are indicators of gaps that our children or we have in our own emotional or mental capabilities and we need to grow.
This is my gentle reminder to myself and to anyone else who needs to hear it is that no matter how hard it gets, it will pass. You will get through the tough time. Remember you cannot take back hurtful words or undo hurtful actions so be patient and graceful in the difficult times. Lord knows I have prayed for patience for years and He sure is allowing me to practice it these days. The great thing is that I am getting better at it and growing! Remember: Offer up the struggles you are having to God and let Him take care of it. Say a quick prayer, take a deep breath, and do the next right thing with love.
I have been praying at Mass for my ears and heart to open to whatever the Lord needs to tell me. I feel that the Lord is telling me that I am in “survival mode” right now. I need to grow in self-discipline, consistency, confidence, follow-through, and learning to get into a regular routine with our daily schedules that are not just Monday to Friday but also include the weekends. I have been trying to create a daily rhythm for our days without specific intentions or specific goals. I have not defined our schedule or routine, but created a general flow. This is not good enough when there are several people in the house and we each need routine for our days. The Lord is showing me that I need to grow in leadership of the house. I am the COO of the house with Josh being the CEO. We formulate a plan together and since I am home with the children, I am in charge of executing the plan daily. My focus for 2026 is growing in leadership and I will keep you updates on how it is going!
The hard days are where we realize that we have opportunities to grow in virtues and listen to the Lord in what He may be trying to show us or tell us. I need to remember that a negative mindset doesn’t help anyone and I need to continue showing grace and growing in the relationships with the family. I need to step up my leadership within the family and stop running away or checking out when things get difficult. We can do hard things and persevering through the hard times is worth it. Lean on God and ask for His graces and you will be surprised at how fast a day can turn around! I also know that I don’t know it all. My eldest child is only 12 and we have not been perfect parents, so if you have any words of wisdom for me or others, please leave them in the comments! We would really appreciate it!
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