We live on a beautifully, exhausting rollercoaster that is homeschooling. The balance is never ending: grace and structure; chaos and rigidity; workbooks and real life. The deep and personal inner work and the external weight of bearing one another's burdens.

Just to be very clear, this blog post is not written by a professional. Nor an expert. It’s not even written by a mom who has it semi-figured out. Rather, I am writing this blog post as a rookie homeschool mom who is continuously trying to grow and be better.

If we could enjoy a cup of coffee together and you asked about my homeschool journey and you shared concerns about it, this is what I’d say…

As a public school mom turned homeschool mom, one thing you will never hear me say is that you should homeschool your kids.

….we do have a look back a bit to make sure we are on the right path going forward. I have been considering what has worked well for us and where in our school plans we can adjust this coming year.

As I plan for our second year, yes, I’m choosing curriculum and making lesson plans, but really, I’m dwelling on the more important things. I’m thinking about what my goals are as a teacher and a mom, and what changes need to be made so that I can ensure what we’re doing aligns with my core reasons of WHY we chose to homeschool.

These are not perfect rules or strict timelines, but they are a constant reminder of what we expect and how we take care of our home, our minds, and our bodies throughout the day.

The beauty of homeschooling is that I get to design their day-to-day lessons and I don’t have to feel the same stress and pressure as teachers to check all the boxes and ensure everything dictated by the state gets taught in a given timeframe.

The absolutely beautiful thing about homeschooling is that we can make it what we want, what is best for our families.

After months of flopping back and forth between options, I told myself to make a decision and just commit! I gave myself freedom to scratch anything that wasn’t working, but I knew I could get trapped in this researching and decision making loop forever if I didn’t just choose something.