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I wrote last week about how your quiet time could be sabotaging your homeschool morning. This is so true for moms in particular seasons of life — especially when you are still waking multiple times each night or you have small children still.

But what about the mom whose kids are pretty much school age. Why might moms of older kids still be struggling with getting mornings off to a good start? I have a few theories that might explain what is standing in your way.

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You want things to be perfect

Back before I knew better, I wanted my morning quiet time to be perfect. As in — quiet. Except I had these children who would wander in and out and need me. So instead of embracing the noise and interruption, instead of pulling the little one on my lap and reading the Bible aloud or letting him play close by, I would fume that I just couldn’t get a few minutes alone.

Or if I managed to steal 15 minutes I lamented that it was not 45.

Or I wasn’t happy because playing praise and worship music would wake everyone else up.

Listen or read more of this post

I built up the image of the perfect morning quiet time in my head so that it became an idol to me — the result was more important than the process. Once I realized that my mornings, like the rest of my life, were going to look messy and that God was ok with that, then I started becoming ok with it myself.

When I would get interrupted instead of becoming annoyed I would think of ways I could still work in prayer and reading. Prayer became more organic and sometimes even done in stolen snatches throughout the day. Or I prayed with my kids during our Morning Time, adding my intentions to theirs.

The same with Bible reading. If I couldn’t manage my own reading time, then surely the reading I did with them in Morning Time would still “count” wouldn’t it?

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You are looking for the magic bullet

So often we feel like there is one elusive solution to our problems. We think, “If I can just fix X, then everything will be awesome forever.” Sadly that is not how building the habits of a good morning (or any habits) works.

We don’t get to fix this just one time and then expect it to stay that way. Instead, good mornings are built upon habits we develop over days, months, and years. When we let those habits slip, we have to go back and start at the beginning again, building them back up.

And it takes effort on our part (ugh, I know, right) day in and day out.

Since we are human, we will slip backwards and fail on occasion. Being able to pick up and start again is the most vital habit we can develop to be successful in our mornings.

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You don’t want to lead

We run a consistency boot camp here at pambarnhill.com. Moms get so excited that we are going to whip their kids into shape and make them consistent with their homeschooling. Some moms wonder what age the boot camp is for? Oh we have crushed more than one dream when we told a mom that the boot camp is not for fixing the kids — it is for fixing the mom.

Here’s the deal. 98% of all organization, consistency, and chaos problems you are having in your homeschool are your fault. (Yep, I said that.)

Mom is in charge (or she should be) so if you want your kids to get off to a better start, you have to be the one to make it happen. If you want them to embrace a specific organization system or way of doing things, you have to train them to use it. If you want the mornings to be peaceful and productive, then you have to lead the way.

How you do that depends on your kids — different ages and personalities will require different techniques. Some moms can drill sergeant with love, others will need more carrot than stick. What works in my family will likely not work in yours.

But it comes right down to you, mama, having to do the work and maintain the status quo. Few kids are going to make this happen without leadership.

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Now for the good news

If you are fed up with your mornings, feeling like you can’t get into a good routine, or finding that you want to make it something more, you can make changes by starting to build those few small habits. And we can help you do it.

We will be opening the doors on our Put Your Homeschool Mornings on Autopilot class in a few weeks. If you are on the email list, you will be notified of our morning posts.

In the meantime, I will be back next week to talk about the secret sauce to building good habits. Download our FREE printable morning habit tracker to get notified when we publish a new morning post. Just enter your details below.

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