As you walk out your unique journey on this earth, you gain deep experience and wide knowledge through the “lessons” of life. As a homeschool mom, many of your lessons come through the day-in and day-out challenges of teaching your kids at home—that place that also requires meals, clean clothes, sleep, and a myriad of other demands.

If you’ve been doing this for awhile you’ve gained some confidence in how to:

• juggle these responsibilities while loving your children (and, if you have one, your spouse);
• recognize different stages of growth and maturity in your children and how that impacts their learning;
• carefully evaluate curriculum before using it (and changing it mid-stream if it’s not working for your specific students);
• discover what helps your students to engage in learning (as opposed to being passive and uninterested);
• judge the pace at which your students can flourish and thrive—like Goldilocks— finding that which is neither too fast nor too slow, but just right.

You’ve learned so much in these past months and years!! If you were to sit down and write out everything you’ve learned from your kids:

• how kids learn,
• how YOUR kids learn,
• how to manage your time,
• how to teach kids to manage their time
• how to handle sibling rivalry
• how to get dinner on the table and laundry off the table while teaching reading and writing and math!

You’re AMAZING. This is not a job for the faint-hearted!!

Now, to become amentor, meaning one who passes on to others the good lessons learned in life, you only need to remember a few more things.

First, you can not give what you do not have. If someone has homeschooling needs, questions beyond what you have ever faced, recognize that your part is to love and support them. Help them, if you can, to find resources for those specific needs.

Second, mentoring is relational. I can’t walk up to someone and say, “I’m going to mentor you.” Instead, it begins as a friendship, as kindness to someone new to your group, as a willing ear or a helpful hand. And, as your new friend begins to see the fruit of your life, she may open up a little bit to ask a question or two about how this all works.

It takes time. And grace. And patience. And wisdom. But most of all, it takes love.

Remember, stay relational.