Diary of a Homeschool Mom #1 Hard Days, Stress, and A Curriculum Change
September 4th, 2025-First (New) Week of Homeschool
We had started our school year the first week of August, after weeks of printing the free curriculum that The Good and. The Beautiful offered, I was so incredibly excited for this. Soon, I found that I had crashed and burned out-HARD. School began to be something I was dreading. Between feeding complications with my baby, being screamed at by my 4-year-old (who had INSISTED that yes, she did want to do school and did want to do kindergarten) whenever it came time to actually do the work, and then my 2-year-old was constantly dumping things out and just in general being a terror. It was rough, and I began to feel as though I simply wasn’t cut out for homeschooling. I began to dream of easier days, wishing with all my might that these kids would listen to me, that it could just be easy. The thing that no one really seems to want to admit about homeschooling with multiples is that it’s difficult. So incredibly hard that I began to wonder if the people homeschooling multiples had some kind of secret I didn’t know about, easier kids? Maybe it was me, maybe I was the problem?
Through all of that, I was hit hard with PPD and began to drop into a very low place, and I didn’t feel as though I had anyone to talk to. My poor husband was going through it as well, and I was constantly unhappy, miserable, and near tears, and had a massive breakdown every time we talked. Not to air dirty laundry here, but for a few weeks, life was simply just misery. I knew that something had to change, and my biggest issue I was having with our homeschool day was the curriculum. TGTB is pretty easy, grab and go, but it is extremely parent-led. This works well when you are only doing school with one child, but I am schooling 2 children now, as well as finding “school” activities to do with my 2-year-old as well. I was struggling to sit down for an hour (sometimes 2 if they weren’t cooperating!) and get the work done. Ultimately, I decided that this wasn’t a good fit for our family anymore, and since I was already planning on switching to something else after the elementary years, I felt that it might be time to move that timeline up a little and at least get something different for my 6-year-old. While I love TGTB curriculum, and their gather round science lessons are really lovely (we will continue to use those ones as well as purchase the readers/books), it was just too difficult for me personally to sit down and have to read and teach the curriculum to multiple children. The independent work aspect of this curriculum didn’t really apply when your child can’t read the bulk of the curriculum. She is a fantastic reader, but she won’t be able to self learn by reading curriculum until third or fourth grade.
We landed on BJUpress first-grade curriculum (but second-grade reading and English, as she was getting bored pretty quickly with the first-grade work on those things. The appeal was that the lessons can come in video format, so I can work with the other three children, and she can still get a solid day of lessons if I am unable to sit down with her. So we took two weeks off from school after I ordered a complete grade kit, and we waited. I waited for those boxes to come in the mail (yes, boxes, this is quite a hefty curriculum), and we took a much-needed breather from the stress of our daily lives. I began to think of what I wanted and what the kids needed out of a homeschool day, and while that will always constantly change to fit their needs, it was nice to take this time to think about how I could best serve all of my kids and also not let my house go to shambles.
In that time, we also moved them into their own separate playroom, moved the schoolroom (again), and reclaimed my living room to be a place of peace (somewhat), and we began to settle into what would be known as our new normal. The box arrived, I got every settled, and we got set up to do hybrid homeschool. You can see my unboxing video here if you’re curious as to what comes in the BJU boxes. So now we are full steam ahead in our (new) homeschool journey, and honestly, it is still rough. It seems as though homeschooling when you have four kids is just simply difficult. Suprise!
The new school is actually going well. I am so far pleased with BJUpress (and yes, I will be doing a blog post on why we ended up switching to them and how we are liking the curriculum, so watch for that), and I feel as though this is working for our family. I can definitely see this being used long-term for our family, as the video lessons combined with book work really fit into our day. My 6-year-old is also really enjoying the more difficult reading and English course. Alongside this, I am still using TGTB reading booster cards, their little hands science, and the Notgrass world history curriculum. While our homeschool day looks incredibly eclectic, I find that this works for us, and as we find what works for us and what parts of the BJU materials we will be using, I can see the days of stress fading away behind me.
Yes, this is still hard, yes, I still struggle at times. Schooling 2 kids (sometimes 3 kids if you can count my 2-year-old doing very minimal work) and caring for a newborn, and also trying to keep the house from becoming a complete mess, is really hard. But this is a hard that I am choosing, and I feel as though once I get the hang of this whole homeschool thing, it should (theoretically) become much easier.
