A decision to homeschool your children is not something easy to make for most parents in the world. Homeschooling families are still minorities compared to the families with children who go to school. Therefore, there are a lot of challenges met by most homeschooling families. Here are some of the challenges for homeschooling parents:
- Not every family is surrounded by people who support the idea of homeschooling. There are still many disagreements that some homeschooling families have to face.
- While most families send their children to school and parents don’t see their children in the school hours, homeschooling parents have to be with their children more than other parents do. Even if you were teachers formerly, it is always different to be teachers for other students compared to be teachers for their own children.
- If you have never been a teacher, you will also find it is challenging to get to know the suitable homeschooling curriculum for your children.
- Having more than a parent role is another problem for homeschooling parents. Parents are teachers, mentors, friends, workers, professionals, drivers, etc. There is less time for parents to take care of their business and home. Many parents have to juggle with their roles.
Without encouragement, it is difficult for homeschooling parents to survive. Where do you get encouragement?
- Religious routine is a great encouragement for me personally. Praying and reading the Bible, for me as a Christian, gives me a lot of courage to face the challenges.
- My husband has been a wonderful homeschooling father for my children. He gives me encouragement all of the time.
- Lucky for me that my sisters and parents are very supportive.
- Joining homeschooling support groups or a community will give you more insight into how other homeschooling families do their routines and face challenges.
- Homeschooling blog posts and books are other useful homeschooling encouragement resources.
From The Curriculum Choice Archives
The Curriculum Choice is a great site to give more insight toward homeschooling curriculum with encouragement for homeschooling parents. Be sure to browse the tabs above to find curriculum reviews for encouragement. You might also enjoy these that we’ve selected from our archives.
- Nurturing Brave Writers – The tagline for Brave Writer is Peace and Progress in the Writing Process. And that’s what we all want, isn’t it? You might have some stressful time in writing with your children. Read the review of video with encouraging methods for writing.
- How To Raise An Adult – Read this encouraging book about how to do a well-practice parenting to lead your children to be adults, instead of over-parenting. Children will finally become adults and here are some tips to help them.
- Lessons at Blackberry Inn – Reading this book will give you encouragement from Karen Andreola. This book looks at life through Carol’s eyes, a homemaker from the 1930’s.
- Honey For Teen’s Heart – Honey for a Teen’s Heart, a book about books for teens. It is not that easy to communicate with teens. They are different from children and adults. How do you use books to communicate with teens?
- The Big Book of Homeschooling Ideas – Here is the book written by 55 moms around the world to give homeschooling parents ideas so that homeschooling will be more exciting.
- The Homeschool Mother’s Prayer Journal Review – Praying is my number one source of encouragement. Prayer journal is a great way to reflect what you pray.
- Let’s Homeschool High School Review – Homeschooling high school is quite challenging for some parents. Here is a review of good site about homeschooling high school.
- Overwhelmed: Victorious Living in The Midst of Financial Uncertainty – This is a wonderful book of 9 writers sharing about how they survive in the financial certainty while some of them are homeschooling their children.
The Homeschool Encouragement Resources From Curriculum Choice Authors
The Curriculum Choice authors have active blogs where they regularly offer ideas and experiences about their homeschool adventures. Below are their very favorite tips for homeschool encouragement.
Kyle at Aspired Living
- Surrender your Homeschool Expections – Don’t live your life trying to meet the perceived expectations of everyone around you. Recognize your homeschool is unique and only you can determine what will work for your family.
- Getting Your Homeschool Back on Track – We all get derailed sometimes and we just need a little push to get us back on track!
- 10+ Post Every Diligent Homeschooler Should Read – A Diligent homeschooler is not he perfect homeschooler that always gets everything done, but one who works hard to accomplish the things the Lord has laid before them. So here are some links to help and encourage you to diligently home educate your children.
- 5 Days of Large Family Living – if you are homeschooling one or two children you have taken on a monumental task. However, if you are homeschooling 3, 4, 5 or 10+ children you are now climbing Mt. Everest. You will be exhausted, overwhelmed and may question the wisdom of your decision to homeschool. Here are some things that you can do to make the journey easier.
Betsy @ BJ’s Homeschool
My daughter is now a college sophomore! I can’t quite believe it! Of course I miss our homeschooling days, but it is such a joy to see how homeschooling has benefitted her, in college, and in young adulthood, too.
- Why I am Thankful for Being a Homeschooling Mom – This was written during our Thanksgiving celebrations this year. There are so many things that make me thankful for being able to homeschool our daughter, all the way.
- 4 Steps for Planning High School @ Home – If you are thinking about homeschooling your teens thru high school, here are 4 simple steps to get you started.
- The FUN of High School Electives – Homeschooling high school is a lot more than core studies. You get to build and nurture your teen’s interests and help them discover their strengths, through electives.
- T is for Transcripts How To’s and Freebies – Here’s help for making your teen’s transcripts, plus freebie resources too. And don’t let making those transcripts get to you, like they did for me at first….
Going from High School to College – How to Get Started – If the word “college” is coming up in your conversations at home, here’s what we did, when we were just getting started.
- Our Favorites for High School Curriculum, and Preschool, too – Are you looking to switch out your curriculum this new year? Here’s our favorites for high school, and for those precious preschool/K years, too.
- Are your kiddos struggling with handwriting? Here’s 9 Ways to a Mature Grasp – Games and Fun! to help.
Megan & Susan at Education Possible
- 10 Things Moms Want You to Know About Homeschooling Middle School – With the help of our friends we have gathered some short, insightful tips from experienced homeschool moms. These are important things moms want you to know about homeschooling middle school.
- 12 Must Follow Facebook Pages for Homeschooling Middle School – If you are like me and enjoy getting your daily dose of inspiration by scrolling though your Facebook feed then you might be interested in following and “Liking” a few new Pages too. I’m happy to share 12 must follow Facebook pages for my fellow moms who are homeschooling middle school!
- 7 Key Skills & Experiences to Prepare Your Middle School Student for High School – This post is meant to encourage you to think about some easy and positive things you can do (and are likely already doing) to help your young adults become godly, able young men and women.
- 4 Secrets Moms Who Homeschool Middle School Know – A couple of years ago, I started worrying about middle school. It was coming fast and I wasn’t ready. I was sure that I was going to have to change the way we did everything in order to move up to this next level of schooling. I’m so glad I didn’t give in to fear and instead stuck with it. I’ve not regretted homeschooling my middle schooler for one minute.
Tricia at Hodgepodge
The Imperfect Homeschooler’s Simple Guide to the College Search – Deep breath. You’ve reached it – the college search. As a homeschool parent, the college search may have seemed so far off. It certainly did for me. However, it is fantastic journey to be on with your high schooler.
“You can’t change what you have or haven’t done over the past year. Just start where you are, ask the Lord to make you a “joyful mother of children,” pray for grace and wisdom (and strength and patience), and move forward. ~ Vicki Bentley of Everyday Homemaking and HSLDA The Early Years
100+ Helpful Homeschool Habits for All Ages – Helpful homeschool habits. Over the years with babies, toddlers, stacks of school books, hungry mouths and now towering teens, these are the basic routes I’ve discovered for seeing results. (And honestly, for keeping my sanity in that daily does of chaos with five children!)
Finding the Heart of Homeschool – It hit me. The mess on the floor, the grumpy attitudes. Where is the love in all of this? We finished out that homeschool day, we cleaned up the mess and we leaned heavy into the weekend. We just needed a weekend of family time. No agenda. No commitments. No have tos. No school subjects.
Simple Successful Strategies for Homeschooling a House Full – practical prayer, priorities, lasagna learning, adding in the extras, and coping strategies.
Imperfect Homeschool: Drama and Trauma all the Time – Friends, homeschooling is refinement by fire. Daily, sometimes hourly, we have character issues we have to address. And with five children, there is just always something going on. An adjustment to make. And when that challenge is tackled, then there’s something new to concentrate our prayers on.
Adelien at Blessed Learners
10 Ways Out When I Cannot Teach My Children – There are many times that homeschooling parents cannot teach their own children for many reasons. Those must be desperate times. Here are some tips for how to deal with the problem.
If I Could Turn Back My Homeschooling Time – Homeschooling has changed my life completely. As the time is going on, I start to get used to this condition and there are a lot of lessons to reflect from my biggest mistakes. Here are the things I would do if I could turn back the time.
What I Learn after 5 Years Homeschooling – From a lot of situations, I have learned so much about homeschooling my children. Here are what I learned after 5 years homeschooling my children.
The Battles in Homeschooling – The battles in homeschooling accompany us unavoidably. Should we face or avoid them? Here are some battles in homeschooling that I have.
Cindy at Our Journey Westward
10 Reasons I’m Thankful for Homeschooling – The days aren’t always easy, but they are worth it!
Character Training in the Homeschool – Oftentimes when homeschooling is hard, it’s because character issues need to be dealt with. In this series of ten post, I’ve tried to share some of my best ideas for integrating character training into your everyday.
Homeschool Consultations – There are just some days you need encouragement (or help) from seasoned homeschool parents. If you don’t have that kind of support nearby, I’m only a phone call away.
Meredith at Sweetness-n-Light
How to Live Out Your Homeschool Plans Like a Rockstar – So it’s been a few weeks since you started the new school year. And those beautiful plans that you painstakingly agonized over for several weeks (maybe even months) are printed out and placed in your lovely homeschool binder. You look at them and pat yourself on the back because they are so organized and just look.so.good.on.paper….and there they sit. (gasp)
How to Help Your Reluctant Reader – Let’s understand first what causes reluctance for one of our children and go from there. A reluctant reader may not necessarily be a struggling reader, but the two do usually go firmly hand-in-hand. The reader may just not have the ability to connect with books independently due to factors unforeseen. Other children with great reading skills are just not interested.
Charting a Course of Study from High School to College – If you are contemplating the idea of homeschooling through the high school years, now is the time to begin your planning process and begin to chart a course.
Helping Your Teen Stay on Track – For moms of many, or those homeschooling multiple ages regardless of family size, will nevertheless, at some point, face a situation where they need to focus more on their teens to help them stay on track by keeping their finger on the pulse of their teen’s day to day. This is a good thing.
Annie Kate at Tea Time with Annie Kate
Sometimes we homeschooling moms just need a bit of encouragement. These statistics about homeschooling success will help. So will the results our family had with our ‘mommy marks’ and university admissions. For everyday challenges, it will be soothing to remember that you do not have to do it all. And on the bleakest days, remember that there is hope, especially if you are on your knees.
I have organized Eight Years of Homeschool Encouragement and Tips to encourage new homeschoolers, to remind us all of the basics, to share helpful practical ideas, to point out potential problems, to help moms of teens, and to remind moms to care for themselves. It is my prayer that this list will encourage you as much as it did me.
Follow Curriculum Choice’s board Encouragement on Pinterest.
The Curriculum Choice Review Team Features
- Our Encouragement Pinterest Board
- Have you enjoyed this special post from our review authors? Our Curriculum Choice review team features a topic monthly. You can see all that our authors have shared on electives, math, curriculum choices and more under Review Team Features.
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