Have you ever met a super mom… and your insides kind of crumple with the feeling that she’s set the bar so high and… you’re just not there?

It’s so high in fact, that you don’t even want to take the first step because well, you’re just not her. You figure you’ll never get there and maybe don’t even want to???

She’s the mom we’ve all seen.

At the park she’s got all her kids’ snacks from fresh-cut apple slices to trail mix and a yogurt dip with…baby carrots. It’s ridiculously healthy. Neatly packed.

And her kids are eating happily — and neatly — at the picnic table. Then you look at the kids. Their clothes are neat. They are speaking politely. All of them are talking happily, excitedly, and politely.

The kids are using big words for their age, you can just tell by the cadence of their conversation.

You look at the mom. She’s perfectly put together — hair, makeup, shoes.

You glance down at the sweatshirt you threw on, put a hand up to tuck back a few strands of hair that have slipped out of your messy bun, and tuck your feet, the ones with grass stains across your running shoes, under the bench.

Today just sort of happened.

All because you ran out of patience this morning, didn’t get Jamie and Haley up in time which led to missing your first lesson block of the morning, because you forgot to buy dog food yesterday, so you had to take the kids with you to get dog food for Oscar, then ended up giving the kids a worksheet instead of the amazing and engaging hand-on activity you wanted to do…and…forgot to pack a nice snack so you have only the stale chips…and…

And … breathe.

You look over again, and secretly think, geez, Perfect Mom must have a nanny or house cleaner on the side. No one looks this happy and put together.

But you console yourself by remembering that she probably has way more time than you because you are homeschooling and don’t have time to do ‘perfect.’

After all, time spent building a strong relationship with your kids is way more important than neatly packaged snacks.

And you glance lovingly over at your daughter, Haley, swinging off the rungs of the jungle gym and yelling, ‘Mom! Watch me…”

You start to smile and wave, your heart recovering from the sting of Perfect Mom’s picnic scene on the far side of the playground mulch.

You know you and Haley are tight, when…

Haley falls, cries and you rush to help her up.

Perfect mom also rushes over…with a first aid kit to see if your kids need anything. She half apologetically explains that she always carries it with her… because she homeschools.

Ouch.

(By the way, your daughter is fine. It was just a scraped knee that required more kisses than band-aids.)

Okay, so you’re not super mom. At least by Perfect Mom’s standard.

But if you’ve got a close relationship with your kids, you are likely still a superhero to them.

I’ve been in the less-than-perfect-mom-spot. More than once.

It’s hard to juggle life and homeschool. Let’s face it. It’s hard to juggle life and parenting.

And homeschool? It’s a lot.

You don’t need to be perfect to homeschool.

But there are some traits that you can adopt to make the process a lot easier. Traits that help you create a positive learning environment and meet your kids’ unique needs.

The Top 5 Traits of Successful Homeschool Parents

Think: Traits that can strengthen your homeschool routine and make the difference between getting by and thriving.

Disclaimer: They may take time to develop. This is not a quick fix or a 3-step course that comes with a guarantee.

Pro Tip: These traits can be practiced and developed. And you don’t need to nail them perfectly.

1) Patience

This is top of the list for a reason. Mentoring your children and learning their unique learning styles takes effort, empathy, and understanding.

Each kid learns at their own pace and has a unique way of learning.

It can be hard to have patience all the time, especially if you’re homeschooling more than one kid.

Suppose you’re trying to help Haley with her writing, but Jamie is working on math and he keeps interrupting with questions, noises, and pencil tapping.

You’ve used your calm voice already and are ready to snap. Do you snap? Or solve the situation a different way?

Patience, at least in homeschooling, is organically tied to:

• Expectation
• Context
• Project management

Suppose it’s just you and Jamie, and he’s struggling with math problems. It’s frustrating for him, and you.

To make it worse, the math isn’t well explained.

It’s hard to be patient.

If you shift your expectations and let go of your idea that the math lesson should go smoothly, you can plan ways to present the math differently to Jamie to avoid frustration or some of it. (*I’ll write more in-depth about ways to present material in future articles.)

By changing your expectations and planning a different style lesson, you also change the context and how the material is presented.

Jamie may be less frustrated.

Then, if you give Haley a task she has a certain level of mastery over or loves to do, she can work independently, while you work with Jamie on his math until he gets the hang of it. This will help alleviate the frustration of divided attention.

Then apply the same project management approach when you work with Haley on her writing, by giving Jamie something he has a higher level of mastery over, he can also work independently, and you’ll have a calmer space to focus on Haley.

You might not have cracked the eternal battle to achieve patience, but you will have used some practical strategies to avoid frustrating situations by rethinking your teaching style.

2) Organizational Skills

You have more educational resources than you know what to do with.

Organizing them into anything resembling a manageable daily schedule would take the extra ten hours that don’t exist in your day. Never mind making nice snacks and making sure the printer has color ink so those printables all look nice.

It can feel like too much.

The key to organization is remembering it does not need to be perfect. Just manageable.

The house doesn’t need to be clean, the toys all put away, the kitchen counters wiped down. Organization is less about having everything in color-coded folders and more about time management.

Here are a couple of systems I find effective. I use them in coordination.

1. organize by timeframe.
2. organize by types of activities and learning.

Timeframe organizing:

• Month — what are your big picture goals, say a unit on marine life, paragraph writing, a project on volcanoes.
• Week — what things do you want to get to in the next 5 days, including any field trips and activities.
• Day — how do you want to structure your days? Do you want to use flexible time blocks as a way of thinking about your time? Just let it unfold? Do you have specific activities and fixed times?

Nail down a few anchor goals and activities.

Try taking a day at the start of the week to gather materials for your priority list.

Nothing ever goes as planned so it’s good to recognize that any structure you give to your day should be thought of as flexible.

Activity-based organizing:

• Together activities: Put certain blocks of time on your daily calendar for projects, activities, and lessons that your kids can do together across ages and skill levels.
• Individual learning time: Note down other activities that require individual attention so you know how you can use your time. Examples are Jamie’s math and Haley’s writing lessons with you.

Hands-on activities, projects, and field trips can be done together easily. Writing is also an activity that works well for independent work and across different ages. Kids of different skill levels can even read the same text or book but work on different writing assignments independently.

Depending on your kids’ ages and skills, older kids can also be great tutors for younger kids which is in itself a valuable skill for kids to learn.

Have tons of fun projects you want to get to?

I used to keep a list of ‘maybes’ on the side and space in my loose schedule. If we got time, I’d already know what we could do.

3) Creativity

Homeschooling almost by definition, requires a certain degree of creativity.

Real-time/Real-life Creativity

You may need to brainstorm new solutions, and workarounds, and make do with imperfect supplies or conditions. The more you homeschool, the better you will get at this!

Project Based Creativity

This is more of the traditional definition and includes hands-on projects, field trips, and technology.

But unless you’re brilliant at DIY and at hunting down stuff on Pinterest, it can feel overwhelming to be creative on demand on top of organizing lessons and working with your kids.

The good news, you don’t have to do it all. You can focus on one thing at a time.

For example, you could add 1 activity per kid, say soccer or a pottery class or a drawing class, or piano lessons — some creative or physical activity.

Then choose one DIY activity that you can learn about with your kid. Think about whether it can be done as a group to make it easier.

Maybe you have no idea how to crochet but your daughter is keen to learn. Here’s the perfect opportunity to model a growth mindset and delve into a learning process.

And if you don’t feel you can tackle additional art projects or science experiments at the same time, there are lots of options — online or in-person classes, printables that use project-based learning to guide your kid through engagement-centered learning, even subscription-based kits that can take the stress out of being creative on demand.

Take it one step at a time, and engage your kids in the process of discovering each person’s (including you) creativity.

Worried that your creative DIY project isn’t hitting academic goals? (*Also, a topic for a future article).

It likely is and then some.

When kids have the chance to learn through trial and error, testing their ideas, following their curiosity, they are most often learning far more than a specific curriculum ‘standard.’

4) Commitment to Learning

The real commitment is to building a strong relationship with your kids by spending time with them and talking with them. Seeing your kids as people first.

Teaching your child is a process. Not only are they learning, you are learning how to mentor them in their quest to learn how to teach themselves.

It’s a commitment to compassionate teaching which I define as: mentoring your kids from a place of empathy while taking supportive action.

Like anything worth doing, it takes time and effort and can have profound results.

When Jamie realizes that you understand his frustration over math and are finding ways to present the material differently and help him understand the concepts, he knows your commitment is to him.

It still may not go perfectly because learning is by definition messy. It takes effort.

But both he and Haley will know you are:

• Not giving up when it gets challenging
• Finding solutions
• Teaching yourself to mentor them

They will be learning all these lessons too, not just the math and writing.

Nothing is ever perfect, and your days don’t need to be either, you just need to keep going, learning, and coaching your kids.

Kids are naturally curious and love to learn. When they know you support them and are actively engaged in their learning adventure, they will be too.

Talk with your kids, not just to them and not at them.

Things to focus on:

• Have conversations, ask them questions, listen to their answers, and reason with them.
• Leave all of your distractions, including phones, out of your learning space.
• Model being present.

It is the small daily acts that build connection.

5) Flexibility

Being adaptable and willing to adjust your teaching style, methods, schedule, and curriculum to better suit your kids’ needs is key.

Even minute-by-minute flexibility is important and can help de-stress lots of situations.

Your kid is a person first, not a project.

Always consider the deep learning that is happening, even when the lesson you had planned is not.

Earlier, Jamie and Haley were both working on challenging lessons at the same time.

Your attention was divided. It was frustrating for everyone.

But you pivoted.

You were flexible, let go of that plan when it didn’t work the way you imagined, and instead, you came up with a better way to help Jamie learn math and a more manageable way to organize your day.

You were flexible and adapted to the real-life situation. You didn’t yell at them in frustration, or give up entirely and decide Jamie didn’t need to learn math this month. Instead, you found a way through.

5 Tips to Help Support You in the Process of Gaining Those Top 5 Traits

The 5 traits are powerful and will get you through the challenges. But they take time to learn and are a process of continuous iteration.

In the meantime, here are some simple steps to help you on the road to homeschooling success:

1. Start simple. Do easy things like reading together that mirror your pre-schooling time together. Make the shift to homeschooling gradually to give everyone time to figure out what it looks like.
2. Break things down into small steps. You don’t need to be Perfect Mom. Your kids won’t fail if you don’t get it right at first. Start with small steps. Do things together that your kids relate to — baking cookies, nature walks, drawing together, reading. Start with stuff they feel good about and work your way into a rhythm.
3. Be present and remove distractions for you and your kids. It’ll help you understand what your kids need and help you learn how to work with them. As parents, we’ve been teaching our kids from day one. We do know how to teach our kids. But we also need to teach ourselves how to integrate homeschool into our lives.
4. Join a homeschool group. These groups can offer advice, share resources, and provide moral support. Veteran homeschooling parents can share their experiences and tips for overcoming challenges. This community can also offer opportunities for socialization for both you and your kids.
5. Use all available resources. The library, online, your community, homeschool co-ops, and extracurricular activities.

You Don’t Have to Be Perfect to Be a Great Homeschool Parent

You are a superhero to your kids when you show up for them and support them for who they are.

Successful homeschooling is about the effort, love, and commitment you bring to your kids’ learning, not about being perfect.

By taking small steps toward developing these traits and using simple strategies, you are giving yourself a solid foundation to build on for long-term success. Small steps with lots of reflection and iteration lead to progress and are far more meaningful than perfection.

If you are thinking of homeschooling or just getting started, you’ve got this! You can be that superhero for your kid while still being yourself. You don’t need to be Perfect Mom!

This article was originally published at Medium. Republished with permission from the author.