You’re reading The Ten AM, a Tuesday check-in for the parents who chose the kitchen table over the classroom. Think of this as the group text you actually want to read—a quiet moment for us to connect from one living room to another about the beauty, the mess, and the hard truths of raising humans in the wild.
Welcome to The Slow Pour.
We’ve officially rolled into February, the month of questionable weather and even more questionable motivation levels. All month long, we’re digging into homeschooling rhythms. Not the rigid, military-drill kind, but the kind that actually lets us breathe. To kick things off, let’s poke at that twitchy, lingering itch to optimize every single second of the day as if we’re being graded by a panel of invisible, very judgmental experts.
There is a wild, intoxicating magic in the realization that you actually get to keep the kids, ditch the bells, and rewrite the entire rules of the game in your own living room.
Looking back at the Kimberly who first signed up for this—the one who dropped a small fortune on "aesthetic" curriculum and curated desk decor—is like watching a prequel with a guaranteed happy ending. She made it. We made it, you and I. We are finally inhabiting the life that used to be a graveyard of late-night Pinterest pins and Instagram saves, back when the soul felt like a dial-up modem screaming for a high-speed connection. It’s a gorgeous life, really. It’s cozy, it’s intentional…
…and it’s ours.
The thing is, I’ve never subscribed to the idea that life has to be "hard" as a matter of fact. That feels so heavy, doesn’t it? So defeatist. I don’t want to survive my life. I want to dance with it, even if I’m occasionally stepping on everyone’s toes and the background music is slightly out of tune.
But there is a specific kind of relentlessness required to homeschool. It’s a beautiful, soul-stretching persistence that makes you wonder if you’re actually moving forward or just running very fast on a treadmill made of library books. It’s the kind of hard that is worth it—oh my GOD, is it worth it—but it’s also the kind of hard that can turn a good day into a brittle one if you aren't careful.
You know how it feels when the morning is technically good, but the vibe is somehow... off?
Ever wonder if you’re holding the reins so tight that neither you nor the horse is actually enjoying the walk? You know what I mean: when the sun is streaming through the window, the coffee is artisan-grade, and the house is cozy…yet you look at your kids and realize they’re sitting there with the slumped shoulders and dead-eyed stare of someone waiting for their number to be called at the DMV.
Yep, no matter how perfectly cozy we make our rooms, or how perfect the curriculum is for our kiddos’ learning styles, days like these happen. And when they do, I’ve realized that we don't need more discipline when the rhythm breaks.
We need more audacity. We need the courage to admit that while this life is a choice we love, it doesn’t always have to be so serious to be successful.
Last week, we hit one of those proverbial walls. It was only 8:30 AM and the day was quickly devolving from simple learning hurdles to more of a soul-level strike from all 3 of us. I was just getting started with a history lesson with the forced cheerfulness of a flight attendant during a mid-air engine failure. My kids were already breaking out the paper to draw, rolling around on the carpet, and resisting listening like I was asking them to head into the cafeteria for standardized testing for the fifth day in a row.
It wasn't that they couldn't do the work. It was that they weren’t feeling the rhythm, and neither was I.
So, I did the only logical thing: I blew it up.
"Should we call it?" I said. Their eyes lit up, and I felt a sudden, rebellious spark. "We’re doing the day backward. We’re starting with the victory lap."
We started at the end. I changed into workout clothes and we headed to the front yard. I got to lift some weights while they rode their bikes. Then, we headed inside, and while I showered, they played. Then, it was learning time and we were all feeling more at ease. We worked our way up from the afternoon read-alouds—doing them in a beanbag chairs because actual chairs felt too stiff, and by the time we reached the morning math (at 1:00 PM), the energy had shifted from a funeral procession to a festival.
By turning the day upside down, we all fixed our perspective on learning. And because of that, I had to go deep into my own mind to understand why the broken rhythm bothered me so much. It wasn't about the lost time. It was about my own internal struggle with control vs. connection. I was using the schedule as a shield against the fear that I wasn't doing enough. If we followed the list, I was good. If we veered off, I was lost.
But the reverse day taught me that the best version of us isn't the one that follows the map perfectly. It's the one who knows how to find the path again when the map blows away.
Nothing about learning is about the schedule. It’s about our ability to see the world through a more empathetic lens. To realize that a child’s resistance is often just a request for a different song. And what if we did that for ourselves sometimes, too? What if we acknowledged that our own stuckness isn't a failure of character, but a signal that we need to change our lead?
The truth is, the rhythm of your homeschool day doesn’t break because you’re failing. It breaks because it’s a living thing that needs to breathe.
The promise of this life isn't a stress-free existence. It’s the freedom to be human while we learn. The relentlessness of parenting is only a burden if we refuse to adapt to it.
Turn your days upside down now and then. When the resistance is high, start with the end. Celebrate how far you’ve come first. Work later. Validate yourself as much as you validate them. Because if you can learn to dance with the chaos instead of trying to organize it into a line, you’ve already won.
It is so, so worth it. Even when it’s backward.
Especially when it’s backward.
XO,
Kimberly Crossland
