The Layers of Learning Podcast with Karen and Michelle is here to help you get your whole family learning together in your homeschool. We are the sisters behind Layers of Learning. We love getting together to chat about homeschooling and this podcast is just a series of our chats. We’re inviting you to listen in on our conversations.

We both have big families, but we teach almost all of our school subjects to everyone at once. We want to help you find the joy in that too, so we talk a lot about family homeschooling. To see all of our episodes, visit our Layers of Learning Podcast Page. Join us as we explore how to have a happy, hands-on, family-style homeschool.

Homeschooling is hard. Life is hard. Sometimes it seems like everyone else has it all together and your struggles feel lonely and overwhelming. In this podcast episode, Karen and Michelle want you to know that you aren’t alone. When you are in your tough seasons, just know that everyone has them. Hang on and keep taking tiny baby steps…the tough times do eventually pass. The cool thing is that taking those tiny strides through tough stretches makes you grow and become someone who knows they can do what it takes.

During this episode you’ll hear about some of our tough homeschooling seasons and hopefully, learn about a few of the things that have helped us through them and changed our perspectives. Taking even the tiniest of baby steps will allow you to progress. Even if you only do a few small things consistently, those small bits add up to so much. Add them all up and then one day, you’ll look back and see how all those baby steps moved you further forward than you ever could’ve imagined.

• Some of our toughest homeschooling seasons were things that were completely beyond our control. We all have those hardships that we can only get through by taking small steps forward.
  
  
• Letting go of your preconceived ideas about what homeschooling should look like is a really good first step.
  
  
• Choose to prioritize your family over your outside social obligations. Admit when you can’t do something. Limit how much you commit to. Do a few things well instead of doing everything badly. Choose the essential things and focus on those.
  
  
• Having a husband who was deployed in the military, juggling teaching lots of kids of all ages, trying to live up to too many obligations, and dealing with a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis are all things we have personally faced. Our trials may be different from yours, but no matter what your hardship is, you are not alone and you can baby step through it.
  
  
• Often the life lessons you will learn through the hard times will prove to more valuable than the science, art, or math lesson you had planned.