Creating a Peaceful Home for Stress-Free Homeschooling

Having a peaceful home leads to peaceful homeschooling. When we get our household running on rails of habit and routine, we find we have more “brain space,” time, and energy for all of the learning activities with our children.

First, a letter to myself when I was first starting out:

Won’t you come home, Dear Mommy?

You’ve been living in Little House on the Freeway, and it’s been frantic. You are exhausted, and your family walks around gaunt in spirit. You don’t have a mansion, perhaps not even a house.

Gather what is available to you and press it to your heart–it is the sacred place of your family. Allow your Creator to take each loaf and each fish and multiply it, that the meals, the spaces, the hours are full of nourishment for body and soul.

Like the wise birds in King David’s psalm, build your abode ever in the presence of God:

Even the Sparrow has found a home,

And the swallow a nest for herself,

Where she may lay her young–

Even Your altars, O LORD of Hosts,

My King and my God.

Psalm 84:3

Of course you are too weak for such an enormous undertaking! But take heart, when you are weak, He is strong. Never lose heart–He has overcome the world.

It’s important we “come home.” Why? because our modern times have taught us that the house we live in is nothing but a pit-stop in the rat race. We come home to stick our charging cord into the outlet. We sleep and grab a quick snack and we’re off!

But home, especially in these days, should be much, much more. It should be the center; a place where we find our center. Someone has said we are not “cleaners”or cooks, but curators in a museum of memories.

So, the time we spend creating a peaceful environment makes us more rich than having a chest filled with gold.

When we spend the time and effort to bring our house into a fully functioning house of rest and peace, we make room for all of the other delights, such as learning together.

I know it seems impossible. I know the everlasting mound of laundry and the floors that never stay swept look daunting, but there is hope!

The devil is the father of lies. He wants to steal, kill, and destroy. But God is the God of order, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. When we begin to fight chaos, we are working against the kingdom of darkness and standing with the our fellow soldiers in the Kingdom of Light! We are destined to win!

In order to fight this fight of faith, here are some practical strategies:

Build systems that operate automatically.

Develop habits that allow you and your children to do things automatically.

For example, even a small child can make their own bed as they get out of it in the morning (that is, if the bedding is simplified). Make brushing teeth, washing faces, and changing clothes part of “wake up” time.

After every meal, make it automatic that each person takes his own dish, utensils, and cup to the kitchen counter. Make it a rule that no one walks in the house with outside shoes. Make the floor “lava” (ht: Clutterbug) to discourage leaving clothes and trash all over the place.

Have a specific place in your day for regular home maintenance chores so that everyone knows what happens next. Divvy up these chores so that everyone helps and things are evenly distributed according to age and ability.

Only keep the best of everything.

This is not minimalism, per se. It is taking stock of all of the stuff you own and deciding what is actually adding to your life. I first learned of this idea from Don Aslett in his book, Clutter’s Last Stand (if you want a book that will get you laughing about your hoarding, this is the one), way back in the 1980’s. Back then there wasn’t a lot of information on getting rid of clutter. Most people figured if you buy it, you keep it till you die!

Now we have amazing people who are helping us along in our quest to fight against our stuff culture. The Minimal Mom, Clutterbug, and Joshua Becker are just a few. They have created videos, podcasts, blogs, and books to help us in our quest to get free from clutter.

Basically,

Keep only those clothes you actually enjoy wearing that look good on you. Pitch the rest.
Keep your meals delicious and nutritious, but simple. Stick to basic things your family will eat, which will make your planning and shopping a breeze.
Keep only the furnishings and decor that “spark joy.” Get the rest out of your space and it will give rest to your aching eyes.
Keep doing only those outside activities you enjoy and add to your life. Stop signing up for things due to peer dependence.
Use only the books and media that encourage and inspire. The rest is waste.

Center chores and home maintenance around daily anchors.

As homeschoolers we are making messes all-day-long. This is to be expected, but if we aren’t on top of things, we can feel out of control. As I discussed in my video about planning a homeschool day, if we attach chores and tidy times around breakfast, lunch, and dinner, we will get on top of things and keep chaos at bay.

Prep your meals early in the day.

During your morning maintenance chores, make sure and prep your lunch and your dinner. Why? because you might be running a tight ship at 10 a.m., but by 5 p.m. things get looser and looser until it is going to take phenomenal strength to get things back in shape for dinner.

Also, do some lunchboxes early in the morning, and you won’t have an interruption to your learning experiences for lunch. (My blog post on homeschool lunchboxes is one of the most viewed on this website!)

Practice putting things in place the night before.

Create habits of laying out clothes and food before bed. In fact, start getting ready two hours before you hope to be actually asleep. If your kids are to be asleep by nine, give them their baths at seven. If you want to be asleep by eleven, start your bedtime routine by nine.

Make a whole-house tidy, including washing dishes and starting the dishwasher, part of your bedtime routine.

After you have your basic home maintenance chores on autopilot, make room for special cleaning and organizing projects.

Take huge tasks, such as cleaning out the garage, and split them up into do-able portions. For instance, tackle that garage in 15 to 30 minute portions:

Get out the trash.
Go through the tools.
Go through the outdoor equipment and bicycles.
Go through the storage totes (maybe one or two at a time).
Remove things and sweep

and so on.

Practice a daily purge right before you go to sleep.

I learned this from books by Norman Vincent Peale (such as The Power of Positive Thinking). The idea is that you look over the day that has passed and:
Repent for sins and mistakes
Remove resentment in your heart by forgiving the trespasses of your family members, and others, against you.
Pray over the concerning circumstances or people in your life and roll those cares over onto the Lord (Psalm 37, Philippians 4:6-7).

Doing this will give you a peaceful outlook, and your peace will set the tone for the entire house!

I’ve actually written a book in which I cover many of the things I have spoken about here: