My “Worst” Homeschool Year Yet

I probably post about homeschooling more than any other topic.

It’s not like I’m an expert… not by a long shot. I just like to share the journey and hopefully offer mutual encouragement.

I think part of mutual encouragement comes with being honest with each other. So, I’ll be real here… I’m currently wrapping up my hardest, messiest, most chaotic homeschool year yet.

I started off strong. I shared all my hopes and plans. It all seemed so well laid out, a great set up for a great year.

But then… the world sort of flipped on its head.

And it just kept flipping, and flipping, and flipping.

Hurricane Helene

We live in Western North Carolina… one of the areas hit hardest by Hurricane Helene. Our small mountain communities became national news as we were swept by flash floods, landslides, and downed trees and power lines everywhere. The loss of life, homes and possessions was staggering.

For awhile it felt hard to think of anything else. And between power outages and a lack of clean water, local schools were out for weeks.

But the beauty of homeschooling is that you can sort of press on regardless. And we did. But between a lack of power, helping with recovery relief, and grieving with our stricken community, every day of school felt like a numb check mark on the calendar buried beneath so many other distractions.

But I was determined to stay on schedule.

Family Loss

Just as life began to seem like it was finding a new normal post Helene… I got a call one morning that my grandfather had suffered a massive heart attack.

This news led to multiple trips to the ICU in a larger hospital 30 minutes away, which meant the kids frequently staying with friends and family. Soon my grandfather was transferred closer to home, but the unsettling feeling of what was to come and the sad news of him finally being sent home on hospice, made it harder to focus as we pressed through each day of school.

Once again… it felt like a check mark on the calendar and hardly anything more.

It was only days before my Papa went home to be with Jesus. I was grieving and so were my boys.

By this point we were just beginning December and, despite all the chaos, we’d hardly missed a day of school all fall. I briefly considered giving the boys the entire month of December off just to breathe, and heal, and enjoy the holiday as much as we could.

Turns out to be a good thing I didn’t. Little did I know, the struggle to complete a solid year of school was far from over.

Some Unexpected News

Two days into 2025, I stared at the positive pregnancy test announcing the news of a very welcome, but slightly unexpected baby #4.

I felt a whole range of emotions.

My heart was about to burst at the prospect of adding another child to our family… I wept tears of pure joy and thanksgiving. How gracious of God to bless us with precious new life after what had been a very difficult few months.

But I also knew the reality of what was coming.

See, I’m one of the mamas that get’s sick, like CRAZY sick, in my first trimester. And little did I know that this first trimester would be the worst of my four pregnancies.

Within two weeks of finding out our good news, I headed into about a six week stretch of hardly being able to leave the house. Morning sickness doesn’t scratch the surface. It was all day and sometimes all night sickness. Aside from OB appointments and a few rough attempts to make it to church, I was barely able to get off the couch… or eat, or drink, or talk, or handle any noise at all.

We were down to the bare minimum of what I was comfortable calling a full school day. Any extras went out the window. Math and language arts would have to suffice. History and Geography were temporarily shelved. (Thankfully, my mom teaches the boys science, so we were able to keep that going). But again, between my need for quiet stillness and my boys being lovingly swept off by friends and grandparents for those weeks, every day of school felt like a major accomplishment.

We’ve just crawled out of what was, for me, a dark couple of months and are finally rejoining the land of the living and more fun and purposeful school days.

So… Was It A Total Loss?

No, by God’s good grace, it was not.

It wasn’t what I pictured, what I wanted, or everything I hoped it would be. It felt like pure survival mode this year.

And yet…

It’s almost like God knows that we parents are fallible, even when we try our hardest, and He made our children incredibly resilient.

I’m not negating how hard it’s been on my boys, nor would I hope for another year like this one. But as I find myself taking stock of how they’ve fared coming out of a very difficult year, it amazes me how far they’ve come, how much they’ve grown, and how many life lessons they’ve learned.

Scholastically, my boys are thriving and seem to have taken in so much of what they needed to this year. My inability to be a perfect teacher or to be as attentive to their individual needs as I’d like to be didn’t stop their little brains from soaking up what was laid out in front of them each day.

But even more importantly, I’ve seen them grow in maturity and an understanding that life can have some major ups and downs. Inevitable lessons that we would never choose for them, but we also can’t avoid. They’ve had some pretty honest moments about the hardships of the year.

My boys have seen and experienced the tragedy of loss and death, as well as the gift of new life, and the range of emotions that comes with it all. They learned to care more for the needs of others, and to trust God’s timing… that He knows best in all things.

They came together and helped out in huge ways while I was down and sick for so many weeks. They’ve been such a joy and have been unbelievably patient, even as I struggled during these last couple of months.

God Is Faithful Still

Is it the year I would have chosen for my boys or for myself? In many ways, no.

Is God faithful to strengthen them and grow them and teach them, even when I feel like things are spinning wildly out of my own control? Indeed He is. He is steadfast, stable, and so very able, even when I’m not.

We often talk about not getting buried under “mom guilt”, but that also means we need to give credit where it’s due. We tend to think our children’s ability to thrive comes from our ability to control every aspect of their environment and circumstances. We can’t. But we can trust and give thanks to the One who is perfectly in control of all things.

So, fellow mamas, be encouraged when things don’t go as planned… sometimes they go nothing like we planned. Some homeschool years will be smooth as butter, and some will feel like a rocky, uneven, ride of highs and lows we couldn’t have planned for.

Still, if we are loving our children through the craziness that is this life, doing our best with the days the Lord hands us, repenting where it’s needful, and trusting Him to ultimately care for us and the well being of our children, He will be so faithful.

He will not fail us. He will not fail them.

But this I call to mind,
    and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
    his mercies never come to an end;
 they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:21-23