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I thought I was a pretty patient mama…until I started homeschooling…and I have a feeling I’m not the only one. Kids, while a beautiful blessing, give plenty of opportunities to develop patience. Homeschooling takes it to a whole new level.
Whether you are brand new to homeschooling or years into your journey, I’m sure you have had moments where things aren’t going as planned. Whether there is an attention struggle, trouble with a new curriculum or concept, siblings distracting one another or a whole other frustration, it wears on you.
It is hard, but God is doing a work in both us and our children and that is so comforting to know. He is with you in every struggle and you can do this!
Below are 5 things that have really made a difference in our homeschool and I pray they would encourage you on your homeschooling journey.
1. Pray about Your struggle with patience
This one may seem obvious and it should be the very first thing we do but sometimes emotions can be blinding. I know I am guilty of thinking I can handle it on my own. Thankfully we serve a patient God who gives us grace.
Whether I seek Him first or when I am totally exhausted, God is always there. Sometimes this may even be later in the evening, when I’m reflecting on the day. God is our heavenly father and wants us, His children to come to Him when we are struggling (1 Peter 5:7).
I also recommend letting your kids see you pray, even in your worst moments. This is showing them what it looks to have a relationship with God. Maybe you have them pray with you or even for you. Not only are you teaching them to rely on God but you’re also teaching them that we all have struggles.
I have even had my son remind me that I need to go and pray if he sees I am getting frustrated. He is starting to recognize it for himself too which is so amazing to witness. Praise God!
2. Set a Timer
This is something that made a MASSIVE difference in our math lessons specifically. Math always came easily to me but not so much for my son. We tried all the things…switching curriculum, manipulatives, games, rewards…everything it seemed. While these did help some, it was still a bit of a struggle.
While I’d rather not admit it, I would get really frustrated because I didn’t understand what he wasn’t understanding, literally anything would be a distraction for him, and we both ended up in tears some days. This is not what I wanted for our school time together.
One day I asked him if setting a timer for 20 minutes would help. I would set the timer and as long as he put forth the effort for that time, he could be all done for the day. If he finished the lesson early, even better! He said that sounded fair.
It was like a switch flipped. He was finally putting forth the focused effort I was looking for, and more importantly he was understanding the concepts.
When I talked with him about why he thought it helped, he said before he didn’t know how long the lesson would be and it felt like it would never end. I realized I had kind of felt the same way. The timer gave us both the boundary we needed to be patient with one another.
3. Take a break
Sometimes this looks like taking a day to have an adventure together, or maybe doing some fun science experiments or crafts. Other times, this looks like taking an extended break.
I remember when we first moved from Pennsylvania to North Carolina back in 2024. We had been on a roll with learning how to read. We were cruising through our readers that came with our curriculum and the Bob books we used to supplement. My son loved being able to sound things out for himself.
Then we hit a wall.
After the week or so that we had taken off for the move, we just could not get back into it. We both ended up frustrated and in tears. I was so worried about losing our progress but two months…yes TWO months later…he asked to do homeschool again one day and it was like we had never stopped. I was amazed. Talk about a lesson in patience.
That two months, we had focused on having fun and simply learning while doing life together. Ever since then, we have chosen to do year round homeschooling and take breaks whenever we need to, generally just a few days is enough to reset. We also do homeschool everyday, little by little which allows us to be super flexible. You can find out more about our daily routine here.
One of the things I love most about homeschooling is the freedom it gives you. My encouragement here is to not be afraid of stepping outside of the norm if it helps bring peace (and patience) to your home and heart. When we start to see those fruits of the Spirit in our home, we can know we are headed in the right direction.
4. Change up the Order of your day
When I first started homeschooling, I would see all of these perfect morning baskets and focused schoolwork first thing in the morning and I’ll be honest…the comparison trap got me.
I tried it…for quite a while…and it just didn’t work for us. We would end up not getting school work done until the afternoon despite my best efforts, which left me with no patience on top of feeling like I had failed that day. How could everyone else get their kids to sit and focus so well in the mornings?
Well, I learned my kids have so much energy in the morning and they need to get it out before they can sit and focus. We all function differently and have more or less energy at certain times of the day. Our kids are no different.
I’ve learned to use these times to my advantage. We have our family bible time in the morning while we eat breakfast (this helps keep them focused) and then the rest of our mornings are free. You can find out more about our full daily routine here if you are interested but our schoolwork gets done in the afternoon.
Tailoring our schedule to our needs made a world of difference. Our days may not look like the average homeschool family, and I’m okay with that.
5. Spend some time simply enjoying your kids
As I said earlier in this post, kids are a beautiful blessing from God. As parents, it’s so easy to get distracted with all of the things life throws at us. There are so many things we have to do, that sometimes we forget to slow down and enjoy them.
I am certainly guilty of this.
But when I slow down and take the time to do something with my kids simply for the fun of it, I find I crave those times all the more. I am especially surprised by the conversations we have. When you spend quality time together, this can also lead to having more patience with one another when those difficult moments arise.
If you have trouble coming up with a fun activity to do, just as your kiddos to think of an idea. If they are older, they could even research and plan a day.
As you may have heard it said, homeschooling is a marathon, not a sprint, and there is a time for every season (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8), including rest. I pray this post blesses you and your family.
You’ve got this!
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