How to Avoid Homeschool Mom Burnout: 5 Small Habits that Help

This post shares 5 small, practical habits that prevent homeschool mom burnout, what Charlotte Mason had to say about the topic, and why changing your curriculum is NOT the answer.

We’ve all been there.

You wake up in the morning already tired.

The thought of pulling out the math books makes you want to crawl back into bed.

The kids are bickering, the house is a mess, you’re behind on the laundry (again), and that beautiful homeschool routine you carefully planned in August seems to have completely fallen apart.

You hate to say it, but you’re tired of homeschooling.

Maybe you start browsing new curriculum, wondering if that’s the problem. Maybe you decide everyone needs a week off. Maybe you start scrolling Instagram for inspiration, only to come away feeling even more discouraged by everyone else’s peaceful morning baskets, tidy homeschool rooms, and smiling children.

Or maybe you just grit your teeth and keep going, because what else are you supposed to do?

After nine years of homeschooling my five children, I’ve had my share of seasons when homeschooling has felt exhausting – and I’ve come to believe that preventing homeschool mom burnout usually doesn’t require a dramatic overhaul.

More often, we need to pay attention to the small things that are shaping our ordinary days.

Because here’s the problem: homeschooling isn’t just something extra we do. It happens right in the middle of motherhood, housework, meals, appointments, relationships, sleepless nights, and everything else that makes up our lives.

We don’t need a solution that works for one luxurious Saturday afternoon. We need habits that can support us on an ordinary, rainy Tuesday morning in October.

What Charlotte Mason Had to Say

“If mothers could learn to do for themselves what they do for their children when these are overdone (overwhelmed/exhausted), we should have happier households. Let the mother go out to play! If she would only have courage to let everything go when life becomes too tense, and just take a day, or half a day, out in the fields, or with a favorite book, or in a picture gallery… life would go on far more happily for both children and parents. The mother would be able to hold herself in ‘wise passiveness,’ and would not fret her children by continual interference – she would let them be.”

~ Charlotte Mason, School Education, pages 33-34

I don’t believe Miss Mason is advocating an abdication of all responsibility here. We also have to remember that in her time period, it was common for most households to have a nanny to help care for the children – something that is much more rare in our day.

However, the main point that is still true today is that mothers are people too! She is simply pointing out that we usually know what to do when our children are “overdone” – we might give them a break, a snack, send them outside, stop for some cuddles – and we should remember that we need these things too.

Perhaps homeschool mom burnout happens when we forget that, not only are our children “born persons,” but so are their mothers. Mothers, too, need “half a day out in the fields,” and sometimes this is even more important than finishing all the laundry.

Changing Your Curriculum is NOT the Answer

Curriculum is an easy scapegoat, especially when we also get the thrill of buying a new one. And yes, sometimes we do need to switch curriculum! Not everything works the way we expect it to.

However. When we are dealing with feelings of burnout, overwhelm, or exhaustion, it’s usually not a result of our curriculum. Before we throw it all out and start over, let’s consider what else might be causing these problems.

“Treat Yourself” is NOT the Answer Either

Listen, I love a treat as much as any girl. Pedicure? Yes please! Massage? Absolutely! Dinner out with friends? Sounds amazing.

However, I have found that none of these treats – as delightful as they are – make any meaningful change in my daily homeschool life.

Sure, I might come back a little more relaxed and ready to take on the next challenge… but all it takes is a day or two of sick kids, grumpy pre-teens, and dishes piling up in the sink for me to forget that the “treat” even happened.

And for most of us, “treating ourself” is not something we can realistically do every day – or even every week! If we could, it wouldn’t be a treat.

Instead, what actually makes a real difference in preventing (or fixing) homeschool mom burnout is small daily habits that we can do every week, no matter what our schedule or our budget is like.

All of these are FREE.

All of these are accessible to EVERYONE, no matter the ages of their children.

And all of these really, truly make a difference.

5 Habits to Prevent Homeschool Mom Burnout

#Habit 1: Care For Your Mind.

There was a time, shortly after our second child was born, when I read about 50 books in a span of five months.

Yes, that works out to be about 2-3 books per week.

Now before you start wondering what sort of super-woman I was, please let me tell you that I did not plan to do this. In fact, I don’t know if I had read any books during the previous year. I loved to read as a child and teen but somehow that habit fell by the wayside during the busy years of college and early marriage.

This reading frenzy began because this lovely little dark-haired cherub to whom I had just given birth WOULD NOT SLEEP. To be precise, he would not sleep the way we wanted him to (on his own, in his crib).

Instead, we discovered that the only way he would sleep was if he lay, tightly swaddled, in his reclined bouncy seat, with the vibrating motor on, AND with Mom or Dad vigorously bouncing him until he finally drifted off.

Anyone with a sleep-resistant baby knows that there comes a point when you will do anything to get that baby to sleep, so naturally Dear Husband and I spent HOURS sitting on the floor and bouncing that darn thing until this very small person drifted off. However, if we stopped bouncing too soon and tried to creep away, we would inevitably be stopped at the doorway with a heart-stopping wail and be forced to return to our post on the floor.

In a desperate attempt to while away the bouncing hours and help myself stay awake, I started reading.

I re-read all of the Chronicles of Narnia for the first time since my childhood. I read all of James Herriot’s books, doing my best to stifle my midnight laughter. I read Harry Potter, the Lord of the Rings, Anne of Green Gables, Sherlock Holmes, Little House on the Prairie, and anything else we happened to have on our bookshelves.

Jumping Ahead to the End of the Story: this dear little boy DID eventually learn to sleep in his crib, and he’s now a large healthy pre-teen who sleeps great every night. We wore out THREE motors in that indomitable little bouncy seat (yes, you can buy replacement motors) and in the process, I rediscovered my childhood love of reading.

So what does this all have to do with feeding your mind?

Even though my body was exhausted during this period of motherhood, my brain was so happy. I could hardly keep my eyes open, but I didn’t feel burned out – because I was rediscovering beautiful stories and ideas that I had forgotten for so many years.

Feeding my mind through good, interesting, hilarious, and beautiful books kept me sane during a difficult time, and I’ve kept the habit of regular reading ever since then.

How to do this practically:

You can practice caring for your mind by…

• Reading for just 10 minutes: before the kids get up, after they go to bed, or during nap time. Even these little bits of time add up!
• Choosing books for your own reading from many different genres: perhaps some non-fiction about homeschooling or parenting, some about a hobby or special interest you have, some fiction just for the delight of it, some you’ve never read before, and some you’ve re-read many times and still love.
• Keeping a book in your purse or in the car: that way when you have to wait for an appointment or the kids suddenly start playing independently at the playground, you can snatch a few minutes of reading.
• Choosing books to read to your kids that you love too: even though your homeschool history book might be mainly for the benefit of the children, remember that homeschooling educates you too! If what you’re reading is so dull you have to force yourself to pull it out, it’s probably not doing much for your children either.
• Listening to podcasts on a topic you find interesting: perhaps during nap time, while the kids watch a show, or in the van while running errands.
• Talking with your husband or a friend about what you’re reading or listening to! This helps us remember it better, too, because it’s just a form of narration.
• Keeping in touch with friends who don’t have kids: I’ve found this to be hard at times, because our lives are so very different – but that difference is exactly why there is value in connecting with these friends. These friends remind me of different parts of life besides parenting and help to lift my head up from my pile of never-ending diaper changes to think about something else for a while, and that is a gift.

Habit #2: Care For Your Body.

To be perfectly honest, I have not done a great job of this. I’ve spent many years short on sleep (unavoidable at times), eating my kids’ lunch scraps, never taking time to drink water, and avoiding all exercise except for chasing runaway toddlers.

However, after baby #5 this neglect started to catch up with me in various ways and this year I’ve started to make this more of a priority. This past summer I read Justin Whitmel Earley’s newest book, The Body Teaches the Soul, and while not all of his doctrine lined up with my own, it still reminded & encouraged me that we can honor God by caring for the body he gave us.

How to do this practically:

You can practice caring for your body by…

• Paying attention to the nutrition of your food. This does not mean overhauling everything, especially if you’re in an exhausting newborn season, but a good place to start is simply by paying attention. How much of what you eat is whole foods, and how much is processed? Is there ONE thing you could start making from scratch instead of buying?
• Drinking more water. I’m pretty sure I was continually dehydrated for years on end, and this affects digestion, energy and much more. Perhaps this one begins by acquiring a large water bottle that you can just fill once (or twice) a day, and keeping it near you so that it’s easy to keep sipping!
• Going for a daily walk. This doesn’t have to be a long distance or a fast speed. Even a short, meandering walk with toddlers in tow and the baby in the stroller helps you by moving your body and giving you fresh air.
• Getting outside as much as possible. And yes, you can do this with the babies, toddlers, or children! Fresh air, sunlight, grass underfoot, blue skies… all of these things do wonders for our mood and overall health.
• Keeping up with your own appointments. Whether that be appointments with your primary care doctor, chiropractor, dentist, functional medicine doctor, or whatever else you might need – I know from experience that my own appointments tend to fall behind as I am busy making sure the children get all of theirs in! Remember that part of caring for your children is caring for their mother, and don’t buy into the lie that neglecting your own health means you’re a more devoted mother.

Habit #3: Care For Your Spirit.

I am not a theologian and I’m not going to attempt a scientific definition of “spirit” or try to distinguish it from your “soul.” However, when I say “care for your spirit” I mean both the sense of your spiritual life – that part of us which longs for a relationship with God – and also that part of each person’s soul, even the atheists’, that longs for beauty. Perhaps these two are more connected than we realize.

What I know for certain is that each of us has a spirit that craves beauty and spiritual truth – something more than just intellectual knowledge. This is why every culture has its art, music, religion, and literature, despite the fact that none of these things put food on the table or create wealth.

How to do this practically:

You can practice caring for your spirit by…

• Getting up before the children. Important note: while I LOVE this quiet time now, I never did this until my youngest was sleeping through the night. Before then, I was just too tired and maximizing my sleep time was too important! If you can’t manage this now, do not feel bad. There will come a time when you can.
• Prioritizing afternoon nap/rest time. THIS was my best quiet time in the days of babies and toddlers and unpredictable nights. You may not know this, but even those children who have dropped their afternoon naps can still do an afternoon quiet time in their rooms! This was an essential part of our routines for years and years and I looked forward to it every day. If you’ve got young children at home, I can guarantee that your spirit needs a quiet moment at some point in the day.
• Making a point to notice beauty. Stop to watch the sunset, smell the roses, watch the birds outside the window, notice how the sunlight catches your daughter’s hair and makes it glow. There is beauty in every day, and making a point to look for and notice these moments does wonders for our mood.
• Decorating your home. This is not a waste of time and energy! On the contrary, as Christians we believe that we were created in the image of a God who loves beauty – and therefore when we create beauty for those around us, we are bearing his image in a very literal sense.
• Making something with your hands. This could be painting, drawing, knitting, sewing, baking, gardening, or anything else you can think of. There’s something incredibly satisfying about creating something physical with your hands.
• Share classical music and great art with your children. Not only will this educate your children, but it will refresh YOUR soul and spirit too. Read more about how we do picture study in our homeschool here.
• For fellow Christians: bathing your days in prayer. The amazing thing about prayer is that it does not require you to get up earlier, go anywhere, or do anything different than you normally do at home; and yet, while you are going about your ultra-ordinary day, you can talk to the God of the universe about all your cares and concerns! What a gift.

Habit #4: Protect Your Attention.

This habit is probably the most obscure of the five, so let me explain what I mean. I have noticed in my own life that sometimes when I feel overwhelmed, there’s not actually anything wrong with my life. The kids are doing fine, homeschooling is running pretty smoothly, Dear Husband’s work is going well… but what has happened is that my brain has become overwhelmed by social media.

When I scroll Instagram, I might see the latest outrageous news headline, fall fashion ideas, 10 contradictory pieces of homeschooling advice, 5 toys my kids HAVE TO HAVE this Christmas, and an ad for laundry detergent… all in the space of TWENTY SECONDS.

What is a brain to do with this deluge of information?? Get overwhelmed and anxious, of course.

Jumping from video to ad to headline to photos to reels in a matter of seconds destroys our powers of attention and (for me personally) starts to make my brain feel like a squirrel in a hamster wheel.

Hence, we might feel that creep of homeschool mom burnout – when there’s actually nothing wrong with our homeschool.

Rather than overhauling our curriculum, what if we tried giving our brains a break from the scroll and re-learning how to focus our attention on something that’s not a screen?

How to do this practically:

You can practice protecting your attention by…

• Setting limits on your phone apps. This is a simple step that helps to prevent the scrolling from unconsciously sucking up too much time.
• Reading more. Yes, we already talked about this in the section on “caring for your mind,” but books are truly a fabulous antidote to a fragmented, distracted attention – because they require concentration and focused thought. It’s much harder than scrolling through Instagram! But the more we read, the more we train these habits in ourself and the easier they become.
• Leaving your phone in the other room while you homeschool. There’s no way around it: having your phone anywhere in the same room is a major distraction. Try putting it somewhere else during homeschool time, dinner time, and any other time when you want to be focused on the family in front of you.
• Making a point to look each child in the eye (at least once a day) when they are talking. With multiple children it’s simply impossible to look everyone in the eye every time they speak (without making your children think you are COMPLETELY unhinged) but look for points in the day when you can give each child eye contact plus your undivided attention.
• Paying attention to nature. Everything we see in nature – whether it be plants, insects, birds, or the sky above us – has something to show us if we will slow down and pay attention. Nature does not divulge its secrets instantly, but the more we stop and look, the more we will notice. It’s pretty much the opposite of the scroll, and does wonders for our mind and spirit.

Habit #5: Create Margin.

This is a big one! If you’re feeling homeschool mom burnout, it could simply be from a constantly-rushing schedule that never gives you a minute to just breathe. I used to think that the on-the-go, jam-packed-schedule life was purely the domain of public school families. *insert maniacal laughter*

After 9 years of homeschooling and spending time with MANY other homeschool families, I know better. Homeschool families have their traveling sports and chess club tournaments and multiple-instrument lessons and everything else the public schoolers have, too.

If we want a quieter life with time at home, slow mornings, evenings in the backyard, and afternoons NOT spent chauffeuring children around – it won’t happen by accident. It takes a deliberate, intentional choice.

And of course, this is NOT to say that the uber-busy, multiple-activity, continually-moving life is wrong! I just want us all to remember that it’s not required and we do have a choice.

For me, I’d rather skip the traveling sports and spend our weekends hiking, playing board games, or cooking together in the kitchen.

How to do this practically:

You can practice creating margin by…

• Protecting your weekday mornings. I didn’t do this for far too long, and eventually I realized that every time I scheduled a doctor appointment, therapy session, or playdate in the morning it disrupted our entire homeschool day. A morning with nowhere to go felt calm and peaceful; a morning with an appointment in it made me rush through everything so that we could get there on time. This is not to say you can’t do this sometimes – just make it the exception rather than the rule. When we had littles still needing afternoon naps, my ideal time for “events” in our day was about 11am-1pm (yes, sometimes we had to pack a lunch); once the afternoon naps weren’t so crucial anymore, then I started scheduling everything in the afternoons.
• Writing down important family times in your planner. And no, I don’t just mean “Jimmy’s soccer game on Saturday at 10.” I mean things like “family game night,” ” family dinner,” “family movie night,” “family hike to see fall colors,” and anything else that is important to you. These are all things that WE WANT as part of our normal family life, but sometimes if we don’t write them down (and consider them to be an appointment that can’t be changed!), they simply will not happen.
• Schedule in free play for your children. Free play (unsupervised by adults) is incredibly important for children of all ages, and the beautiful thing about scheduling it into your day is that it gives YOU a moment of margin! The whole point of free play is that adults are not involved or directing it, which means that (although with young children you’ll still need to stay very aware of what’s going on), you have a few minutes to sit and think, re-heat your coffee, plan your dinner, or just recombobulate after a busy morning.
• Saying no. Yes, I know this is hard… and sometimes even impossible (I can’t exactly say NO to the speech therapy my son needs)! But the simple fact is the more we say YES to (extracurriculars, co-ops, events, ministries, lessons) – the less margin our life will have. If you want breathing room in your life, you can’t say yes to everything. If you already have mandatory appointments and therapies on the regular, you will probably have less capacity for “fun” extracurriculars. Much of this is dependent on your own personality and how much “busy-ness” you and your children can handle, but keep in mind that a full schedule is not necessary for a rich life.

Conclusion

PLEASE DO NOT DO EVERYTHING ON THIS LIST.

I mean, eventually, yes, perhaps – just not right now.

Homeschool mom burnout won’t be fixed by trying to change 50 things at once – you’ll only get overwhelmed and make it worse. Perhaps this week you decide to take a walk each day. Maybe next week you try putting your phone away during the morning.

Small habits accumulate over time and truly add up to noticeable changes in our home, our homeschool, and ourselves.

Some of these I do well; many others I’m still working on. Ten years from now I’ll probably have more to add to this list!

But all of these habits, no matter how imperfectly we attempt them, contribute to a life that feels sustainable – one that can bend with the hard times without breaking completely.