There is a version of our spring that I will never forget. We had just decided to shift our homeschool curriculum — something I had prayed about for months and felt genuinely good about — and you would have thought I had announced we were moving to another country. My 12-year-old went silent and stiff. […]
It happened on a Tuesday afternoon during our lunch break from school. My 10-year-old came downstairs looking visibly uncomfortable, and when I asked what was wrong, he said something that stopped me mid-pour of my coffee: “Mom, I didn’t want to do it, but I didn’t know how to say no.” He’d been on a
There is a moment I keep coming back to. My 15-year-old came home from a youth group gathering a few months ago, and I asked him how it went. He shrugged and said, “It was fine. I just don’t really know how to talk to other guys sometimes.” He wasn’t upset about it. He wasn’t
It started with a notification sound. My 12-year-old was at the dinner table, technically not on his phone — it was face down, just like the rule says. But every single time that buzz happened, I watched his eyes flick toward it, his mind drift away mid-sentence, and his whole body shift like it was
It was a Tuesday afternoon in February — one of those grey Connecticut days where the sky looks like it can’t quite decide what to do with itself. My 10-year-old walked into the kitchen, slumped against the counter, and announced with full dramatic conviction that he was so bored he might actually die. I didn’t
It started with an innocent comment at the dinner table. My 12-year-old looked down at his plate, pushed the rice to the side, and said, “I’m trying not to eat too many carbs.” I blinked. He’s twelve. He plays outside for hours, grows an inch every few months, and still asks for seconds of my
A few months ago, my 15-year-old came downstairs after finishing a big project looking completely deflated. He had worked hard on it — genuinely hard — and when I asked him how he felt about it, he shrugged and said, “I don’t know. Is it good enough?” That question stopped me cold. Not I’m proud
My 15-year-old walked into the kitchen last fall looking genuinely frustrated. He’d been put in charge of a group project at our homeschool co-op, and instead of the team pulling together, it had fallen apart. Kids weren’t doing their parts. He’d gotten annoyed. Things got tense. He came home deflated and said, “I don’t think
It was a Tuesday afternoon, and my 12-year-old had been working on a project for weeks — a detailed model he was building for our homeschool co-op showcase. He had measured, painted, and pieced it together with more focus and care than I had seen from him in a long time. And then, two days
There are days in our house when it feels like the conflict never stops. My 10-year-old borrows something without asking. My 15-year-old snaps at someone because he’s tired. My 6-year-old bursts into tears over something that happened forty-five minutes ago and is apparently still very much unresolved. And somewhere in the middle of all of