WEBVTT
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Mom, I just can't do this. The words cut through
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the house like thunder on a quiet night, tears streaming
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a mass problem, sitting untouched, and frustration written all over
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their face. If you've been there, you know the struggle
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is real, and so is the love that carries us
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through it. Welcome to We are the Hansons. I'm your host,
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Maya Hanson, and today we're talking about something every parent
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will face at some point, helping our kids through school struggles,
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the meltdowns, the breakthroughs, the messy middle, and the joy
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when it all finally clicks. Before we dive in, I
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want you to know something. The scene I just painted
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that was Tuesday night at our house, my eight year
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old Anelin staring at long Division like it was written
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in ancient hieroglyphics, and me standing in the doorway feeling
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like I was feeling her because I couldn't magically make
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it make sense. But here's what I've learned about raising
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thirteen kids through countless homework battles, project meltdowns, and I
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hate school declarations. Sometimes the most important lessons happen when
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the textbooks are closed. From our big, beautiful, chaotic family
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to yours. This is we are the Hansens, where we
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get real about raising kids with heart, humor and a
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whole lot of grace. Schoolwork doesn't always happen on neat,
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color coded schedules. Sometimes it happens after sports practice when
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everyone's tired. Sometimes it happens in the middle of making
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dinner with kids crying in the background. In our home,
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I've seen the tears of frustration, the slammed pencils, and
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the whispered words I'm not smart enough. And in those moments,
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it's not about homework anymore. It's about heartwork. Let me
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paint you a picture of last month. It's seven pm.
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Dinner dishes are still on the counter because we had
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to stop everything. When nine year old Torn had a
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complete meltdown over her science project, the volcano she'd been
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working on for two weeks, it didn't erupt the way
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it was supposed to. She threw her safety goggles across
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the kitchen and declared that she was the worst scientist
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in the world. Now, Torn is the kid who can
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tell you everything about black holes and wants to be
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the astronaut. But in that moment, one failed volcano made
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her question everything about herself. I sat down with her
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right there in the kitchen where she'd slumped against the cabinet,
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and I said something that surprised even me. You know what,
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maybe it's not supposed to erupt today. She looked at
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me with those big, confused eyes, and I continued, Real
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scientists fail all the time. That's how we discover new things.
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What if this volcano was teaching us something we didn't
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expect to learn. We ended up spending the next hour
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not trying to fix the volcano, but documenting what went wrong.
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We took pictures, brote observations, even tested the failed mixture,
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which by the way, was incredibly salty and made us
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both laugh and tell our side. Her project ended up
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being about when experiments don't go as planned, a scientific journey.
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She got an A plus, But more importantly, she learned
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that failure isn't the opposite of success, it's part of it.
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That night taught me something profound. Sometimes our kids aren't
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struggling with subject matter. They're struggling with perfectionism, with fear,
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with the pressure of not getting everything right the first time.
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And that's not a school problem, that's a life skill.
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We need to help them navigate over the years, I've
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borrowed tools from teachers, counselors, and child development experts and
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blended them with a little big family chaos. Here's what
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worked for us. Big projects feel overwhelming, so we slice
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them into small, doable parts. Just two problems, just one paragraph.
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Small wines lead to big confidence. Let me tell you
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about my daughter Mattie's book report Saga eighth grade, and
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she had to read and report on a three hundred
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page novel. She took one look at that book and
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declared it was impossible. Instead of pushing her to power through,
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we made a deal. Five pages a day, that's it.
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We even set a timer fifteen minutes of reading, then
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a five minute break to tell me what happened. By
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day three, something magical happened. She wasn't reading past the timer.
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By week two she was taking the book to bed.
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That impossible book became her favorite story, and the report
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she wrote three pages when she only needed one. I'll
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say it looks like you're frustrated. Naming the emotion helps
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kids feel understood and less alone. Nick came in handy
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last winter. When my son Gavin was learning to drive,
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his parallel parking looked like abstract art, and he was
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getting more upset with each attempt. Instead of saying just
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keep trying or it's not that bad, I said, man,
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this looks really frustrating. Your brain knows where you want
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the car togo, but coordinating all these movements at once
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isn't cooperating. Yet he looked at me and said, yes,
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that's exactly it. Just having his feeling named and validated
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gave him the emotional space to keep going. We started
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practicing in empty parking lots, celebrating when he got within
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two feet of the curb. Instead of expecting perfection, I'm
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proud of how hard you tried. Goes further than good job.
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It teaches resilience. This one was hard for me to
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learn because I'm naturally results oriented, but I started noticing
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something when I shifted my praise. When I focused on effort,
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My kids were willing to try harder things, take bigger risks.
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My youngest still at home, Anlin, was terrified of showing
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her math work. She did race and rewrite the same
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problem five times, afraid of making a mistake. So I
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started praising the process. I love how you're thinking through
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each step, or look how you double check that answer.
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That's real mathematician thinking. Now she shows me her work proudly,
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mistakes and all, because she knows the thinking matters more
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than perfection. Sometimes the best way through is stepping away,
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a quick walk, a game of catch, even dancing in
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the kitchen resets their brain. Science backs this up, by
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the way, when we're frustrated, our brains literally can't access
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the problem. Solving areas effectively. Movement gets the blood flowing
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and helps reset our nervous system. We have a family
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rule now, if someone's been stuck on the same problem
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for more than ten minutes, we take a brain break.
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Sometimes it's jumping jacks by the kitchen counter. Sometimes it's
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a walk around the block. Last week it was an
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imprompt dance party to tailor swift. Annlin came back to
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our fractions after our dance session and solved three problems
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in a row. Movement is medicine for frustrated brains. This
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one's tough, but it keeps my voice steady. My kids
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are more likely to settle too. I'll be honest, this
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is my hardest one. When my kids melting down over
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homework at eight pm and I still have lunches to pack,
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laundry to fold, or emails to answer. Staying calm feels impossible,
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but I've learned that my energy is contagious. If I'm frantic,
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they feel frantic. If I'm calm, they can borrow my
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calm until they find their own. I have a little
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trick now, when things start escalating, I take three deep
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breaths out loud so that they can hear me doing it.
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Then I lower my voice and speak slower. It's amazing
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how quickly they mirror that energy. Last month, when torn
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was panicking about a test, instead of saying you should
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have studied earlier or just calm down, I said, Okay,
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let's breathe together first, then figure out a plan. We breathed,
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We made a plan. She felt supported instead of judge,
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and you know what, she passed that test. There are
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nights it feels like a storm, voices raising, frustration, swirling,
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and I've wondered am I helping or making it worse.
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Let me take you to one of our darkest homework moments.
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It was a Thursday night in October. My daughter Mattie
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had a research project due the next day, a project
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she'd known about for three weeks but somehow forgot until
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that evening. The whole house was tense. She was crying.
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I was fighting the urge to lecture her about procrastination.
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Her younger sister was asking for help with her homework,
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and we needed to get lunches made. I felt like
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I was failing everyone. Maddie was learning that Mom would
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always bail her out at the last minute. Her sister
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was learning that her needs came second to crisis management.
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I was teaching them that chaos was normal, that planning
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didn't matter. But what I've learned is this struggle is
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part of learning. It's not proof of failure. It's proof
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that growth is happening. So I stopped right in the
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middle of the chaos. I stopped trying to fix everything.
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I sat down at the kitchen table and said, Maddie,
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this feels overwhelming for both of us right now. Let's
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take a breath and figure out what's really important. We
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looked at what she had to do and broke it
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into the smallest possible pieces, not perfect pieces, manageable pieces.
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She wasn't going to write the best research project in
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eighth grade history that night, but she was going to
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turn in something she could be proud of and more importantly,
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she was going to learn something about herself in the process.
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So I sat close, put my hand on her shoulder
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and said, I'm right here. We'll figure this out together.
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That moment, more than the right answer, is what they'll remember.
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We stayed up until ten pm that night, past everyone's bedtime,
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but Maddie learned that even when she messes up, her
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family doesn't abandon her. She learned that good enough is
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sometimes exactly enough, and she learned that asking for help
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is in failure, it's wisdom. The project wasn't perfect, but
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it was hers and she was proud of it. And
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the next project, she started it the day it was assigned.
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Sometimes the most important lessons happen in the struggle, not
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in spite of it. Here's something I wish someone had
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told me earlier. Every kid learns differently, and that's a
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bug in the system. It's a feature. With thirteen kids,
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I've seen every learning style imaginable. My older kids, like
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Logan and Courtney, are visual learners. Show them a diagram,
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a chart, a color coded system, and they're golden. But
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ask them to listen to instruction without seeing them forget it.
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My daughter, Torrine, learns through hands on. She can't understand
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fractions until she's physically cutting up pizza or pie. She
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can't grasp history until she's building a model of a
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medieval castle with a cardboard box and ductate. Aneline, our youngest,
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needs to talk through everything. She doesn't know what she
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thinks until she hears herself say it out loud. Homework
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time with Aneline sounds like a constant conversation, and that's
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exactly what she needs. And then there's Maddie, who needs
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zero distractions. She does her homework with noise canceling headphones
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and emerges in our later with everything perfectly completed. For years,
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I've tried to make them all learn the same way,
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the way I learned or the way they're school taught.
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But when I started paying attention to how each child's
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brain worked, everything changed. We created different homework spaces for
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their needs. The older kids who've moved out learned the
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system and took them to college and their careers. Maddie
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has a desk covered with all of her stuff she needs.
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Torn has a desk where she can spread out and
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build things. Anlin she has her desk and a lot
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of times they used the kitchen table, same family, same support,
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completely different approaches, and it works because we're not trying
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to force square pegs into round holes anymore. The breakthrough
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came when I realized that accommodating their learning style wasn't
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lowering expectations, it was raising them. When kids can access
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learning in their own way, they actually achieved more, not less.
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Sometimes despite our best efforts, we need to back up,
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and recognizing when to seek help isn't giving up, it's
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stepping up. Last year, I noticed that Anneline was struggling
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with reading in a way that seemed different from normal
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learning challenges. She was working twice as hard as her
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siblings for half the results, and it was breaking her spirit.
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The teacher kept saying, she just needs to try harder
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or focus more. But I knew Anlin, this kid could
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focus on marine biology documentaries for hours straight. Focus wasn't
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the issue. We had her evaluated for learning differences. Turns
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out one she had dyslexia, not just a learning disability,
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a learning difference. Her brain processes text in its own
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beautiful way, and once we understood that we could work
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with it instead of against it. Now she uses some
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audiobooks while following along in text, she has colored overlays
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that make words stay still on the page. She dictates
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some of her writing assignments instead of struggling to get
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her brilliant ideas down on paper. Her confidence came flooding back,
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and she realized she wasn't broken, she was just different.
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And different we learned can be absolutely wonderful. If your
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child is consistently struggling despite good support at home, if
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they're starting to hate learning, if their self esteem is suffering,
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don't wait talk to their teacher, talk to the school counselor.
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Sometimes kids need occupational therapy, speech therapy, or learning specialists.
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Sometimes they need different teaching methods or accommodations. Getting help
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is an admitting defeat. It's advocating for your child, and
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that's one of the most important things we can teach them.
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When you need help, you ask for it and then
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comes to breakthrough. That first correct answer after a long night,
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the teachers note saying they're improving, the smile that spreads
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across their face when they realize they can do it.
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Those wins, they're worth every tear because they remind our
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kids and us that the struggle was never wasted. It
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built character, It built grit, It built connection. Three weeks ago,
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Aneline ran into the house after school with her math
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test in her hand. Not an A plus a solid B,
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but the look on her face pure gold. Mom, I
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understood every single problem, even the hard ones. She didn't
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just pass that test. She conquered her own doubt. She
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proved to herself that her persistence pays off. She learned
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she could trust her own brain to figure things out.
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Torren's volcano project is still sitting on our kitchen counter
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two months later, not because we forgot to throw it away,
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but because she asked us to keep it there. It