How to Continue Homeschooling Through Hard Seasons

Over the years, I’ve noticed that the homeschooling questions change with time.

In the early years, people ask about the curriculum. Schedules. Methods.

But now—standing on the other side of those years—the question I'm asked most often sounds more like this: How did you raise such sweet kids?

And I want to tell them: because we made it through hard things together.

They don't ask about the grief, the loss, the seasons when I was barely holding it together. But those seasons are the answer. Those are harder questions to answer quickly. Mostly because they aren’t really about homeschooling at all.

They’re about learning how to live faithfully when life doesn’t cooperate.

When Life Interrupts the Plan

Our homeschool years were not untouched by hardship. There were seasons of physical sickness. The sudden loss of my sister in 2016. Walking with my nieces and nephew through their grief while continuing to learn together. And later, Nana’s cancer returning in 2020—right in the middle of COVID and high school.

None of those experiences fit neatly into a planner. They didn’t pause school politely. They didn’t wait for a “better time.” These trials became the landscape in which learning had to happen.

And for a long time, I didn’t have language for that. I just knew that the tidy categories—school vs. life, progress vs. pause, discipline vs. gentleness—started to fall apart.

What replaced them was something quieter. Slower. More human.

What I’ve Learned Looking Back

As I reflect now, I see that homeschooling didn’t protect our family from hardship.

But it did give us something precious inside it:

• Shared time, rather than fragmented schedules
• The ability to soften when energy disappeared
• Space for learning to change shape without being labeled “failure”

Learning didn’t stop in those seasons—but it did become less measurable and more relational.

And perhaps most importantly, my children weren’t learning alone.

They were learning with us.

Watching how adults grieve.

Noticing how we slowed down.

Seeing what mattered when productivity was no longer the point.

At the time, that didn’t feel like success.

Only later did I begin to see the fruit.

Why I’m Talking About This Now

I’ve hesitated to write about this publicly—not because it isn’t important, but because it deserves care.

Hardship is not a talking point.

And I never want to turn our family’s story into a formula for someone else.

But over and over, I hear from homeschooling parents who are quietly carrying heavy things:

• Chronic illness
• Loss
• Trauma
• Mental health struggles
• Family disruption

And if they are like me, they are wondering:

Does this season count?

Am I ruining my child’s education by not being stronger?

I want to say gently: you are not the only one asking those questions.

An Invitation into the Living Room

That’s why I've recorded a webinar with my daughter, Alyssa, called Homeschooling Through Hardship—not as a presentation, but as a conversation.

Not to explain our story.

Not to offer solutions.

But to talk honestly about what it felt like to keep learning when life was heavy.

Alyssa brings such a tender, contemplative presence to this conversation. She shares what it was like to be a student while adults were grieving. What helped. What didn’t. What softened learning instead of breaking it.

Together, we reflect on:

• Learning during grief and illness
• Homeschooling alongside cousins through loss
• Letting go of false measures of success
• Trusting slow, unseen formation

It’s not a replay of events.

It’s a shared noticing.

This Is for You If…

• You’re homeschooling in a season that feels fragile
• Learning looks uneven right now
• You’re tempted to believe this chapter doesn’t “count”
• You need permission to slow down without shame

The webinar is hosted inside the paid section of Rooted Minds, where we try to create spaces that are unhurried, thoughtful, and rooted in formation rather than performance.

If this resonates, you’re invited to join us there.

A Question to Sit With

I’ll leave you with the question that has stayed with me long after our hardest seasons passed:

What might your children be learning right now that no curriculum could have taught them?

You don’t have to answer it today.

Just let it sit with you.

And if you’d like company as you do, we’d love to welcome you into the living room.