The following remarks are the opinions of homeschool mom blogger Tabitha Loder, and do not represent the views of A Fruit Salad of Harm.

Can we just admit that the great thing about educating your children is that you can pursue it ANY WAY YOU WANT TO? But some people don’t get that. They’ll find subtle ways of putting pressure on you to conform. Can we all just admit that education-shaming needs to stop?

Yes, we homeschool, and it’s clearly the most effective way to create independent, creative, brilliant children. But some people want their children to be mindless, private-schooled robots that employers can press into a cubicle like play-dough into the bottom of a Duplo block. Both are valid. It’s about defining your goals.

Let’s take something simple, like “How should you run your day?”

My day starts at five o’clock sharp, when my husband gets out of bed, makes coffee, goes to the gym, does his morning devotion, wakes the children, serves them their buttered kale shakes, reads to them from the Septuagint, chants through 15 psalms in the original Hebrew, and then starts them on their online course-work. Yes, we did splurge on soundproof education pods for them, and we did put a little bit of extra money into a restraint system that only allow the children to exit their pods once they show content mastery.

But here’s the thing: those pods are worth their weight in gold (which is about how much they cost). There’s no easy way to homeschool. Can we admit that? But strapping your children into a self-contained learning pod for eight hours a day take some of the pressure off. (My hubby calls them “education-coffins”. He has such a TWISTED sense of humor. Cracks me up.)

What am I doing during this time? I’m creating my vision for the day. My methodology here is . . . unorthodox, but effective.

Let’s talk about how it works:

I stay in bed, almost in an unconscious state, until around 11:30 AM. Basically, I’m vision-boarding, but mentally. I’m allowing thoughts to drift unfiltered through my mind. Sometimes the thoughts are CRAZY. Like yesterday, when my vision-boarding, intention-setting session was mainly about entering a cold room, that was my childhood bedroom, but didn’t look like my childhood bedroom, but I knew it was anyway. The room is cold, and in the middle of the room is a pine box, wrapped tight with chains. And I know my children are in that box. And I know I should let them out, but I resist. And then my hands become skeleton hands (gross!). Some people call these dreams, to which I say “Exactly!” I’m setting my intentions and achieving my dreams.

Vision boarding like that helps me to hit the ground running. After a revivifying soak in the tub, I’m ready for photography class by 3:00 PM, when the children emerge from their pods. Learning how to take flattering pictures is the fundamental skill in photography. And you will not believe how hard it is to get children to understand that. “Kittridge,” I’ll say, “Mommy doesn’t have a turkey neck, wattle-thing if you get the angle right.” Two hours later, it’s time to cull and spend some time in Photoshop. Can we just admit that seeing a five year-old master complex photo-editing tools is the CUTEST?

Then we set up the transfusion IVs and I receive a half a pint of energizing blood from each child. They keep me so young. Then it’s NAPTIME for them (they’re wiped out after every transfusion), while I prepare to spend some time writing and just VEGGING OUT on social media.

This is what works for us. It’s not perfect. Sure, we have days where we wonder if we’re doing the right thing. But I always tell my hubs that the energy he spends forcing the children into their pods (they are VIGOROUS) is an investment in the future. Hubster smiles and looks like he almost believes it.