How to homeschool as a Mom with a Chronic Illness

Homeschooling can be overwhelming, and time consuming. But what if you have a chronic illness or chronic pain? Many chronic illnesses don’t have outward physical symptoms making it difficult for people to believe that you have anything to deal with. I know this first hand, and it can be so exhausting.

I am a mom with a chronic illness, so I have several tips to share with you. I have endometriosis. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a reproductive disorder where tissue that normal lines the uterus (endometrial lining) grows outside of the uterus. It causes chronic pelvic pain, lower back pain, abnormal mensuration, extremely painful mensuration, fatigue, infertility, cramping, and more. It can really make for a difficult daily life.

I’ve had endometriosis for over 10 years, I’ve had surgery twice, and am planning to have a third. I’ve been homeschooling for 6 years, and it has been a serious learning curve trying to figure out how to teach my kids on the days when my pain is really intense. The first two years of homeschooling were a mess, I won’t even lie to you. I’ve finally come up with little things that really help.

Tips for homeschooling as a mom with a chronic illness

First things first is your mindset.

I didn’t realize this one until way later down the road, but it really makes a huge difference. I had a lot of school motherhood guilt if I took any days off. I was constantly on social media following these amazing homeschool moms who just laid everything out so perfectly, and made it seem so easy.

I was obviously a horrible homeschool mom because our daily life didn’t look anything like theirs. Because I was a mom with a chronic illness, I felt like I was failing my kids. But I wasn’t, and you aren’t either. There is so much stigma around letting kids be bored or do their thing, but it is actually very good for them. So, remember through everything else, you are doing just fine.

Second, letting them be bored.

Kids need to be bored sometimes. There seems to be this expectation that we, as mothers, need to have a constant plan for the kids. Always giving them something to do, be there while they’re doing it, nit-picking every aspect of it. You don’t. The more you hover, the worse things are.

So, get lots of craft kits or just basic craft supplies from the dollar store. Set them out, and rest. On the days when I am in a lot of pain, and I need to just sit down for a little while this is what I do: I set all out all the craft stuff, and LET THEM BE. I watch tv or read on the couch, and they bring me all the cool things they make to show me, and everyone is fine. It is a great way to get some rest for any mom with a chronic illness, homeschooling or not!

Third, technology is not the devil.

Oh goodness, the hate for technology these days. The judgement towards moms who use technology in the house, it’s all just too much. The amount of educational resources through tech has skyrocketed over the last decade. Like, out of control. Youtube is an incredible resource, Netflix has so many options, Curiosity Stream is one of our favorites, even Amazon Prime is chalked full of fun, engaging, educational videos you can let them watch on really hard days.

Being a mom with chronic illness means there will just be days where you didn’t sleep much the night before, or you know it’s going to be a long, exhausting, painful day. Allow technology to help you! You could go a step further, and have them draw pictures about what they had been watching, and explain the movie to you. This is perfect for documentaries and I even do this with Disney movies.

Learning doesn’t always have to look like learning.

Being a mom with a chronic illness means sometimes we have to get creative!

Playing, creating, movies, documentaries, and talking are all ways to learn. Ways to keep your kids brains engaged everyday. I promise you this: even if it doesn’t look like learning, they are learning. And, you are doing an incredible job homeschooling! You are not failing your kids, and they will look back and remember the good things even on the “bad” days.