hen we begin the school year, most of us homeschooling moms are excited about the potential for a fresh start and hopeful that all the planning and praying will yield enthusiastic children and effective results. These are good things to hope, plan, and pray for, but many times we find ourselves burnt out within a short time. We’ve miscalculated the sustainability of our plans.

Children don’t always cooperate with all the good things we think they should learn or experience and, as many seasoned homeschooling moms can attest, children often have their own timeline for learning.

This is especially challenging when you consider that every homeschooling mom struggles with the question, “Am I doing enough?” We often think this question can be answered by finding “the perfect” checklist and then accomplishing those goals—believing that if we could figure this out, we would finally be at peace. We need to recognize that the questions we are really asking are, “Am I going to fail my children?” and “Will they be prepared for life?”

The problem is that the answers to those questions don’t come in neat little packages (although we all wish they did). Instead, we must ultimately find peace with what we have chosen and trust that it will be enough.

In my thirty years of homeschooling, the only way I have ever found that peace is to bring my fears and doubts to God and regularly ask what He wants for our family.

One of the most helpful questions I asked myself was, “If you pushed all fear aside and there was no one to tell you how to homeschool, what would you want to do with your kids?”

I knew immediately I would want our days to unfold in a way that seemed natural—in a way that my kids and I enjoyed being together and that they experienced an environment that was as free from stressful learning as possible. I wanted them to be learning, often without even realizing they were learning. I wanted them to have time to follow their interests and have hobbies. I wanted them to acquire numerous practical skills and develop a solid work ethic. I wanted to build a strong, cohesive family where our relationships were thriving. I wanted our kids to have a childhood. I wanted them to know and love God.

I believed strongly that homeschooling did not need to be stressful. I knew there would be difficult moments and even seasons, but I also believed that God wanted our family to flourish. And I believed that most of the learning that needed to happen could happen in our home environment of safety, love, security, discipline, daily rhythms, and faith as we labored together toward common goals.

It meant that the countless times I tried to add more than I should to our routine and saw life being sucked out of our family, I had to go back to the basics—back to a more simple version of life and homeschooling than pretty much anyone would think could be successful. But guess what? It was successful!

Homeschooling has to be sustainable for us and our kids. Some questions we can ask ourselves to help us hone in on what is sustainable are:

• What kind of mom are you? What do I really want for my kids and our family life? (Refer to the question I mentioned earlier that I asked myself.)
• What season of life are we in? Do we have lots of littles at home, teens, or both?
• What are our family dynamics or demographics? (For example, more boys, more girls, dad’s work schedule.)
• What does our family enjoy? (For example, music, outdoors, animals, etc. Note: Sometimes this takes a little time to discover, but we can do this by experimenting.)
• What does each child enjoy? Interest-led learning is a powerful way to educate our kids because they are amazingly capable of self-teaching when they’re fully engaged in something they love.
• Where do we live? There are advantages and disadvantages to every place. We need to utilize what’s available to us to benefit our family and homeschooling including things like weather, natural resources, etc.

A sustainable homeschooling life will reflect the priorities of your family through your daily rhythms.

For example: I believe that good sleep, nutritionally dense food, and lots of physical movement are an important part of a healthy life and healthy childhood. I made sure we had a regular schedule, time to plan and prepare good food, family dinner every night, and outdoor time for the kids in the afternoons.

Of course, some chores needed to be accomplished each day to keep order in our home, so that was built into our routine along with family time in the evenings. I also left some margin throughout the day for discipline and training—especially in the early years—because inevitably that was a regular part of our days. One of our priorities was to train our children well, afterall.

Once those were in place, whatever time was left was what was available for other things whether that was directed learning (bookwork/curriculum) or other activities.

You can see that once our priorities were in place, it automatically simplified our homeschooling. We couldn’t spend copious amounts of time in the books because the other things took precedence.

As we lived this out, I was amazed to discover that my kids were learning more than I would have ever imagined from simply living family life together.

Let me remind you that this is what God led my husband and me to do. We had to seek Him and walk in obedience to His direction and you have to do the same.

You see, God knows us and our kids far better than we do. He also loves our kids more than we do. I know that is hard to imagine, but it’s true. He does want what is best for them and He does want to help us raise and homeschool them. But that can look simpler and different than we would have imagined. There is a reason for that:

urenda Wilson is a home-schooling mom of eight (born 1991 through 2004), seven of whom have graduated. She has been married for 32 years to Darryl, and they have 9 grandkids. Durenda has written The Unhurried Homeschooler, Unhurried Grace for a Mom’s Heart, and The Four Hour School Day. She is the owner/writer/host of her blog and podcast, Durenda Wilson, and mentors moms at simplyunhurried.com. She also enjoys speaking at events where she can encourage homeschool moms to think outside the box and homeschool in a way that is a great fit for their families!