As parents of 4 children, spanning 15 years, we've essentially tried every single form of discipline there is. Spanking, time-outs, removing electronic privileges, missed play dates, loss of toys—you name it, and we've tried it. I've also gone a positive discipline route and hugged through meltdowns (which is usually the right thing to do with children under 6) and tried to "overlook offenses" under my own misperception of “grace.”
Read MoreIf you love this topic, I GREATLY encourage a thorough reading of Give Them Grace by Elyse Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson. This book + many others of my favorites can be found on a FREE book list offered at the bottom of this post.
I'll openly admit that on the spectrum of parenting, my style tends toward the more authoritarian side, but with a nice dash of "wishy-washy" at times. I'll also admit to much confusion over the years in approaches, philosophies, and methods in parenting extremely different personalities while trying to "keep it simple" to avoid overwhelm.
Through my parenting journey, I've learned a couple of profound lessons that continue to mold my approach. The greatest lesson I've learned is that there is no guide to parenting worthy of standing upon outside of scripture.
My own greatest struggle has been the balance between authoritarian "obey the first time, immediately, or else" type parenting vs parenting from a place of misunderstood and misapplied grace that left my strong-willed (or rather weak-willed) children without clear boundaries or consistent consequences. I’ve slowly come to the realization that there is a proper Biblical balance between the law and grace.
Read More“Do not let the endless succession of small things crowd great ideals out of sight and out of mind.” -Charlotte Mason
I have no idea how many books I’ve read in my life, but I can promise you that they have shaped who I am and the way I live—drastically. The way I speak to my husband, the way I teach or discipline my children, the way I pray and seek the Lord—have all been shaped by books.
Read MoreAccording to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. -1 Corinthians 3:10-14
We get to choose. We have this free gift of a solid, unshakeable, eternal, faithful foundation that can never be moved, and then we get to choose.
Whether it's who we marry, how we educate, how we parent and discipline, how we speak and serve and love, how we spend and earn our incomes--we have agency. And this freedom can be both liberating and simultaneously terrifying.
Read MoreThis is a guest post from my friend Jana! I love to read her practical encouragement and actionable wisdom. I hope it will bless you too!
The monotony of life at home can lull us into simply existing. We’ve all been there. But it doesn’t have to be so. Mama, you can thrive at home!
Here are three strategies: make it beautiful, provide gracious order, and be a consistent presence.
MAKE IT BEAUTIFUL
Do you feel an internal tug for beauty? Perhaps you love an orange sunset or pink peonies. God created this world beautiful as a reflection of Himself, so I believe an innate pull to beauty is why we desire to create beautiful spaces in our homes. Beautiful spaces bring a deep sense of thriving.
Read MoreThis is a guest post from Kelly Hellmuth! I’m absolutely delighted to have a “peak behind the curtain” into Kelly’s home. Find more from Kelly at the bottom of this post.
“Maybe it’s the influence of the Little House on the Prairie, but I find the history of the one-room schoolhouse a little romantic.” - Denise M. Colby
Don’t we all? Most of us here are pursuing an educational path either with Charlotte Mason or Classical influences (or both!), and we know the value of educating our children together. There is an ease and even a necessity to discuss subjects such as history and science and fine arts as a family.
Read MoreThis is a guest post from Leah Hudson! It has amazing encouragement and wisdom. Find out how to hear more from Leah at the bottom of the post.
When I started homeschooling my oldest, I compared the anticipation to jumping off a cliff into a vast ocean. From my pre-homeschool vantage point, I could see countless other women bobbing up and down in the waves—obviously keeping afloat. Some had even fashioned together trim little boats for their crews. Their success gave me encouragement to take the plunge.
I dove in.
Who knew kindergarten could be so overwhelming? Who knew adjusting to new routines would prove so difficult? I needed to get my sea legs FAST!
That first year was hard. I problem-solved my way through it. And I hoped that someday I could be one of those other homeschool moms who had “figured it out.”
Read MoreThis is a guest post from DJ! I love her perspective of making things work well for her family. Find her details at the bottom of the post.
Hey y’all! I’m DJ from thebookishden.com and I’m so excited to have the opportunity to share with you what a typical homeschool day looks like for our family. I’m sort of fan-girling over here, as Erin’s blog is one I’ve followed for ages!
We’re a family hanging out in a small town right outside of Charlotte, NC. We have 5 kiddos ages, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10. I wish I could say that those stair step ages were our plan, but that was all Jesus!
Our family started this wonderful world of homeschooling about 5 years ago and man…there’s been a serious learning curve! We’ve been experimenting with how we do school since the beginning, and with each child coming to school age-each year looks a little different.
Read MoreThis fabulous guest post was written by my friend Lydia who does a fabulous job of sharing her adventures with her three littles utilizing The Gentle + Classical Preschool. Find more info about Lydia at the bottom of the post.
To the homeschool mamas reading this…
…who are simultaneously changing a diaper, wrangling a toddler away from near disaster, and mitigating the uproarious queries of a preschooler bouncing on the couch — you are my people.
With three very little littles (ages 4, 2.5, and 1), I would be lying if I told you we regularly had beautifully structured homeschool days. Far from it! But homeschooling has brought its own rhythm to our home, adding an invaluable richness to our lives and family culture. I want to share with you an example of what I consider a very good day.
Read MoreThe alarm labeled “It’s Co-op Day!” goes off at 6:00 a.m. Thankfully, the coffee pot also automatically starts at 6:00 a.m. I’m not a morning person, so, in all honesty, the next step in my morning routine is hitting the snooze button. Lunches have been packed the night before and the kids are old enough to get themselves breakfast, so as I grab that first cup of coffee I take a moment to sit in the dark, pray over the day ahead, get snuggles from my dog, and let my brain wake up a bit.
Then we hit the day running. Everyone out the door by 7:35 a.m. to be on time.
Read MoreFull Disclosure: Some links on this website may generate a commission that helps to maintain and market Life, Abundantly. All Amazon links are affiliate links (this does not impact the price you pay). See my full disclosure here.
Full Disclosure: Some links on this website may generate a commission that help to maintain and market Life, Abundantly. All Amazon links are affiliate links (however, they do not impact the price you pay). Click here for full disclosure.
We are officially gearing up for another homeschool year! Honestly, in full transparency, I'm not super excited about it. I think it's because we've had such a busy summer that I don't feel like it's REAL that it's already August. But alas, here we are, whether I like it or not.
I'm being a total slacker on actually getting ready, but I have completed all of my planning, so I thought you might like to see what we have on our plate for the 2026–2027 school year for 4th and 5th grade boys :). I think talking about it will get my heart moving in that direction.
Here's our plan!
I mentioned the other day that I was working on a talk about joy—or more specifically, joyful early learning. Praise God, I finished it! Now I'm rehearsing it over and over again (lol). As tedious as that can be, the reason I wanted to give this talk is because… well… I need it, or at least parts of it.
Honestly, based on the emails I receive from time to time, I have a feeling some of you might need it too. About 97.5% of the "struggle" emails I receive are emails I absolutely could have written myself at some point, so there is ZERO shade here. BTDT, for real.
Many of the emails I receive that are related to behavioral and attitude struggles in children are also reflected in the emotional dysregulation the parent is displaying in the email. Sometimes, their language makes it clear that they are genuinely on the struggle bus with keeping it together, feeling overwhelmed, and overstimulated. Even more often, they simply admit it themselves. Whether it's an issue with self-control, anger, or diligence, it's usually confessed before they begin expressing their frustration over their child's struggles with… you guessed it… self-control, anger, or diligence.
One of my biggest parenting and education regrets?
It’s not that I wish I had been more rigorous. It’s that I wish I had been more diligent.
Diligence, self-control, and consistency were not virtues that were well developed when I entered motherhood. In fact, because I did not have Christ, I think I barely had any virtue at all. There’s not much that pains my heart more than remembering how unfaithful I often was with my sweet girls.
Praise God that He captured my heart and began a great work in me. Because of that—and because of home education—I began to grow in virtue alongside my daughters. Part of that growth was realizing the wisdom of diligence in home education. There is no growth without consistency.
I’ve now seen both sides of the coin: the struggle that came from delaying academics and leaning too heavily into child-led learning, and the fruit that comes from a diligent, consistent education. They are incomparable.
Lately, I’ve noticed another word making the rounds in homeschooling circles: rigor. I think it’s worth slowing down to ask whether that’s really what we’re looking for.
Education is about formation, not just information.
If your educational experience was anything like mine (public schoolers, raise your hand!), when you picture “education,” you primarily think “information.”
From a traditional schooling perspective, the daily goals look a lot like:
facts to learn
chapters to finish
standards to cover
tests to pass
And if we're honest, these expectations follow many of us into homeschooling. We assume our job is to deliver as much knowledge as possible, as efficiently as possible. Then, we probably need to do a test of some sort so we can SEE that our kids learned and maybe also show others that they're learning too.
Last week, on social media, I shared a post about discernment vs. control for homeschooling parents. It struck a nerve with many parents, so I wanted to share more here, plus the book list I created.
Here’s the gist:
In the early years of parenting, our job is control.
We control:
what they eat
what they watch
where they go
who they spend time with
how and what they learn
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I'm so glad you're here! I was just thinking about my last post where I shared our plans for the upcoming school year. Several people had questions about our participation in Classical Conversations and also, "How will you do all of that?" lol.
I wanted to address those questions because I think the answers may be helpful. When you see someone's homeschool plans written out, it's easy to miss all of the context behind how those plans actually fit into a family's week. So, here's a little more context about ours.