Many homeschooling moms cry because they need hope for homeschooling a difficult child. A difficult child can bring the strongest mom to tears.
By difficult I mean the child who is different from your others; what works for the other kids doesn’t work for this child. They are high maintenance and often demanding. Learning may come hard for them, and leave you frustrated, as you don’t know how to help them learn.
I had two difficult children, and I remember many days when I would cry because they had pushed me all day. Sometimes I didn’t know how to cope with homeschooling when they couldn’t “get it”. On other days I would cry just because I didn’t know what to do with them! The blessing that came from dealing with them was that it made me depend on God!
I think the hardest part of dealing with that difficult child is that they push us to our limits. Often we then respond harshly to them. Then we feel guilty and are full of regret. We determine that it won’t happen again, but it does. After a while, we are at the end of our rope.
The loneliness of homeschooling a difficult child sets in. We feel like we are the only one who has a child like this, and who struggles as we do.
Can I assure you that you aren’t the only one with a difficult, challenging child?
I meet hundreds of parents at conferences that are struggling with this. The other comforting thing is that we have a God who offers us wisdom. We don’t have to figure it out on our own!
James 1:5 tells us “If any man lack wisdom let him ask of God…”
There were many, many days when I cried out to God, and asked Him to give me His wisdom. If I didn’t have those difficult children, I wouldn’t have learned to depend on God, and grow in Him as I did.
It hurts when you have spent years pouring God’s truths into your children, and then you watch them turn away from it all. Often, when a child rebels, if as a parent we can work to win their heart back, they will turn around. Other times, however, you may do everything you can and should do as a parent, but they still walk away.
This hurts because you see where they are headed, and the danger that is out there. The most important thing we can do at that point is to pray for them! Cover them with your prayers for their protection, and trust God to care for them. He loves them even more than us, so we can trust them to His care. (See my ebook Praying Through Proverbs For Your Children.)
It also hurts because you feel like you are responsible and that you have failed in your parenting.
It is so important to remember that God doesn’t measure our success as parents by how our children choose to respond to our teaching and influence. He measures our success by our obedience to Him! If we have been faithful to teach and train our children according to God’s Word, we have been obedient, and that is the highest success.
If you are struggling with a difficult child or a rebellious child, seek God’s wisdom. Do all you can to win and keep their heart, train them faithfully, and pray fervently!
As I’ve said before “we need to work as though it all depends on us, and pray as though it all depends on God!” Do your part, and leave the results to God.
If you have a wayward or prodigal child, be encouraged by the truths prodigal children can teach us that I share here with you.
Parenting is hard, and homeschooling adds to that challenge. Tears are a normal part of it, and show that we care! If we weren’t passionate there would be no tears over the homeschooling struggles with our kids.
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Hi Kathy, how did things turn out in the end with those difficult homeschooling kids? I am just starting my homeschooling journey with my 5 year old and already finding it so so hard. Just want to hear that there’s light at the end of the tunnel ☺️xx
Lynn, I’m so sorry that you felt so alone in your struggles! The truth is all homeschool moms struggle in different areas, ad we don’t like to talk about it. We fear being viewed as failures. In reality, being honest and real is encouraging to others who are also struggling. Definitely keep praying for your children! God hears and answers prayer. You might enjoy one of my 30 day prayer challenges. {{Hugs}}
I just found this post after googling “prodigals” and “cry.” I was a homeschooling mother for many years. No one, in all of that time, told me that homeschooling mothers cried. Why would homeschooling mothers cry? Homeschooling mothers were perfect, with perfect kids. Everything was rosy because they homeschooled. They were better parents with better children. All the proof you needed was online message boards where perfect homeschooling mothers posted about their perfect homeschooled children. The greatest challenge faced by these moms was which spelling curriculum to use. It was obvious to me that I was the lone homeschooling mother who was crying over her prodigal children. It’s too late for me to salvage those years and my children, but I still pray. Thank you for this post — it is a rare offering of honesty in a world (the world of homeschooling) that too often shoots its wounded.