Sometimes my kid just doesn’t want to do school. Period. And, she makes it very clear. “If I were president, I would cancel school forever!” Her words as we struggled to get our school day started. There are so many beautiful blogs and Instagram accounts of homeschool families where their experiences always look so well put together. Even their struggle days look like beautiful chaos. Well, let me just say that that is not so for me. My chaos doesn’t look beautiful at all LOL… it’s just… chaos. When my very vocal 9 year old is not in the mood for school, boy do we all feel it. Today was one of those days. So, the question is…

What do you do when your child does not want to do school?

My answer? We don’t do school. I definitely feel like if my child is in a sour mood with a bad attitude, she won’t be focused and she won’t retain what’s taught. So, I don’t teach. I tell her that she can’t learn with that attitude and we take a step back. I let her go work through her feelings and emotions until we can come back with a positive attitude and a readiness to learn. Otherwise, we’ll both just be stressed out. Part of the beauty of homeschool is that we can do that… take a step back, slow down, and work through whatever we need to work through without feeling that we’re falling behind when doing so.

We’re still pretty “young” in our homeschool days so I feel like we’re still finding our groove… trying things out… failing… and trying again. And that’s ok. We don’t have it all together yet, and that’s ok too. I’m still so very grateful for the opportunity and privilege to homeschool and I’m willing to be patient as we get things together.