Written by contributor Kris Bales of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

In the day-to-day of life, every homeschool parent hopes for good homeschool days.

Sure, we know they aren’t all going to look like that photo on the front of the homeschooling magazine. We also know that bad days are inevitable. However, there are steps we can take to ensure that that good days outweigh the bad.

Our family works on a six weeks on/one week off schedule. Last week was our break week. You’d expect that it would have been a great week, but, surprisingly enough, the week before went more smoothly and was far less stressful than break week.

In considering what might be the cause behind break week being more stressful than a school week, I identified a few key factors that seem to contribute to a good day, homeschool or otherwise.
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Written by Jamie Martin, editor of Simple Homeschool and writer at Steady Mom

Dear Trishna, Jonathan, and Elijah:

I’ve watched the school bus go by for years now–sometimes with envy, longing for a bit of extra “me” time and a bit less responsibility.

Lately, though, I watch it through the early morning fog–with a deep sense of rejoicing.

You mean, we get to do this…together? The learning, the living, the loving–all of it?

It’s almost too good to be true.
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Written by contributor Rachel Wolf of Clean and Lusa Organics Skin Care

Homeschooling can be such serious business.

Each day you juggle more tasks than a CEO.

Learning styles, lunch, and laundry.

Geometry, groceries, and gardening.

Disputes, diapers, and long division.

It’s a big job you’ve taken on. 

And yes, also the most rewarding.

Even so, sometimes I get a little too serious about it.
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Written by contributor Rachel Wolf of Clean and LuSa Organics

Lately I’ve been reflecting on how our relationships change when we become parents.

My relationship to my husband, myself, my community, and my friends transformed on account of parenthood.

And I didn’t see that coming.

I thought life with children would be much like life before, just messier.

It wasn’t.

I think I called my friends to apologize for the curveball but – with a screaming baby in my arms – said we might never finish a phone call again.

Then I promptly hung up.

We made it through, of course. (Mostly because my friends soon had children of their own and they started hanging up on me, too.)

The second curveball came when we chose to homeschool.

Somehow I didn’t see that one coming either. But homeschooling (like parenting in general) changes our relationships.
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Written by contributor Kari Patterson of Sacred Mundane

I was sound asleep when the airplane took a sharp descent.

We had departed from Miami at 7:59am, the same time American Airlines Flight 11 departed from Boston. Now, not even an hour later, the flight attendants scurried about, nervous, hurriedly asking us to please sit up, fasten our seat-belts and put our tray tables in the upright and locked position.

I rubbed my eyes, confused, and did as I was told.

The pilot’s voice crackled over the speaker: We were making an emergency landing.
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