Homeschooling in Survival Mode: Finding Peace When You’re Running on Empty
Practical steps and soulful reminders for mothers walking through hard, low-energy seasons.
This past winter was one of the hardest seasons I’ve walked through in a long time. On paper, everything looked lovely — I had cozy plans, comforting routines, and a desire to make our home a peaceful, nurturing space. But in reality, I was struggling.
Getting out of bed felt like climbing a mountain. Each morning began with an effort I could barely muster. I found myself moving through the day in survival mode — ticking boxes, forcing smiles, trying to romanticize the experience in hopes it would shift something inside. But the truth was, I was unwell. I was overwhelmed. And every day, I asked myself quietly: Am I doing right by my son?
We’re not new to home education. We’ve weathered plenty of storms. But this time felt different. My older three are now grown, pursuing their own paths, and suddenly, I’m homeschooling just one with no support from older siblings at home— a whole new dynamic, a different kind of challenge.
When there were more children at home, they were each other’s company. Yes, they squabbled — of course they did — but I could send them outside together and know they’d play, explore, and keep each other entertained. That gave me small, sacred pockets of time to rest or simply breathe.
But now, with one child — a child who feels the weight of being alone, who struggles with solitary play — I am his constant companion. And when I have no energy for that swimming trip, that park outing, or that messy craft session, the guilt creeps in. The ache of “not enough” settles into my bones.
This is when you need to dig deep and find your why again.
For me, that looked like revisiting our home education mission statement — the one I wrote with passion and vision when we began this journey. I sat with it, let the words speak back to me, and asked myself what life might look like if I didn’thome educate. That simple exercise helped me reconnect with the core of why we chose this path in the first place. Not to mimic school at home. Not to produce perfect days. But to walk beside my child in learning, in life, in all its messiness and meaning.
I also began journaling again — nothing fancy, just honest. Scribbled words, raw emotions, unfiltered thoughts. I poured out the guilt, the grief, the exhaustion. And in doing that, I found something surprising: not solutions, but space. Space to breathe, space to feel, space to remember that this hard season didn’t define me or my child’s experience of learning.
The first thing I had to do was accept this: this is part of the process. Seasons come and go. Some bring joy and ease; others feel like a kind of dying. But even in nature, we don’t rush the winter. We don’t panic when the trees shed their leaves. We understand that this shedding has purpose, that there’s beauty and wisdom in the pause before growth.
And yet — when we experience those same cycles within ourselves, we resist. We criticize. We feel broken. Lazy. Unproductive. As if we’ve failed simply for needing rest.
Could you imagine stepping outside and yelling at the trees because their branches were bare? Kicking at them in frustration because their leaves had fallen off?
How silly that sounds — and yet that’s exactly what we do to ourselves when we expect constant productivity, endless energy, and uninterrupted motivation. We forget that we, too, are cyclical beings. That rest is not weakness. That slowing down is not failure. That sometimes, simply being is enough.
So if you find yourself in a season like this — weary, unsure, burdened by the weight of all you feel you should be doing — I want to gently encourage you to pause. Not to fix or force, but simply to be still long enough to listen.
Ask yourself:
- What is my why?
- What truly matters to me and my family in this season?
- What would it look like to honor this season instead of resist it?
And if you’re not sure where to begin, here are a few small, grounding steps that helped me begin to feel human again:
- Revisit your homeschool mission statement. If you don’t have one, write one — not for Pinterest, but for your heart.
- Journal honestly. Let the page hold what your heart cannot carry alone.
- Lower the bar — kindly. What does a “good enough” day look like right now? Let that be okay.
- Create moments of connection, not perfection. Reading aloud in bed counts. So does sitting together in silence.
- Give yourself the grace you’d give a friend. You are not lazy. You are living.
Hard seasons don’t mean you’ve failed. They mean you’re human. And maybe — just maybe — something beautiful is being quietly prepared beneath the surface.
Spring always comes. And when it does, it doesn’t apologize for the winter that came before it.
