A Homeschool Journey Coming to an End

There comes a quiet moment when you realise your homeschool journey is coming to an end. Not with a dramatic finish, but with a gentle easing into something new. For me, as a homeschool mum in my early fifties, this realisation has arrived alongside menopause, shifting identity, and the first stirrings of empty nest feelings. After nearly 25 years of homeschooling my children, I find myself standing between what has been and what is yet to come, learning how to finish this season with intention, grace, and care for who I am becoming next.

I am still a homeschool mum but I am also becoming something else, and that in-between space has been both tender and unsettling. This post is about what it means when a homeschool journey is coming to an end, to sit with empty nest feelings, and to navigate the often disorienting experience of menopause while trying to work out who you are on the other side of it all.

When the Homeschool Journey Comes to an End

Homeschooling isn’t just something you do.
It becomes the rhythm of your days, the framework of your identity and the lens through which you view the world.

When your homeschool journey begins to come to an end, there is no neat finish line. Instead, there is a long, quiet tapering. Fewer lessons at the table, less noise in the house and more pauses where activity once lived.

Finishing a Homeschool Journey After 25 Years

For a homeschool mum, this can stir up unexpected grief. You may find yourself wondering:

• Who am I when I’m no longer actively homeschooling?
• What do I do with the skills, passions, and energy I poured into this life?
• How do I let go without dismissing what mattered so deeply?

Ending a homeschool journey, especially after 25 years, isn’t about closing a door abruptly. It’s about finishing well, with intention and gratitude.

Menopause and the Emotional Shifts of Midlife Motherhood

Layered into this transition is menopause, a season that can feel like living in a body and mind you barely recognise.

Perimenopause and menopause affect far more than physical health. They touch memory, confidence, emotional regulation, creativity, and self-image. Many women describe a sense of becoming “unrecognisable,” even to themselves.

As a woman in menopause, I have experienced:

• emotional volatility that feels entirely foreign,
• brain fog that interrupts creativity and conversation,
• deep fatigue alongside sudden bursts of urgency,
• and a persistent question of Who am I now?

When menopause coincides with an empty nest season and the end of homeschooling, the sense of disorientation can be profound. And yet, there is also the possibility of renewal — if we give ourselves time.

Empty Nest Feelings for the Homeschool Mum

Empty nest syndrome looks different for homeschool families.

When your children have learned, created, eaten, argued, and grown at home, their gradual leaving reshapes the entire household. The silence can feel loud. The absence can feel physical.

Empty nest feelings may include:

• sadness mixed with pride,
• relief alongside guilt,
• longing for the past while hoping for the future.

For homeschool mums especially, these feelings deserve space and compassion. This isn’t weakness. It is the natural consequence of a life deeply invested in relationships.

The Comfort of Finishing Things Before Moving On

In this season, I have discovered something unexpected:
there is deep comfort in finishing things.

Not rushed endings.
Not productivity for productivity’s sake.
But slow, meaningful completions, the kind that honour what has been.

Finishing homeschooling thoughtfully.
Completing long-paused creative projects.
Bringing closure to studies, writing, and records that have walked beside me for years.

There is something healing about telling your nervous system: this mattered, and it is complete.

Giving Myself Time: An 18-Month Transition Plan

Rather than pushing myself to “move on” quickly, I have given myself 18 months. This will act as a gentle container of time to move through menopause, empty nest emotions, and the final season of homeschooling.

This is not a deadline.
It is a kindness.

Within this window, I am choosing to:

• finish homeschooling with intention and presence,
• complete long-standing creative and academic projects,
• declutter both physical spaces and emotional attachments,
• and prepare myself, slowly, for what comes next.

👉 You can watch the companion video here, where I talk more openly about this season and the projects I’m completing.

Life After a Homeschool Journey Comes to an End

Ending a homeschool journey does not mean ending creativity, purpose, or calling.

For many women, especially in midlife, it marks a threshold, a moment to gather together all that has been learned and carry it forward in new forms.

The skills cultivated as a homeschool mum – patience, adaptability, creativity, depth of learning – do not disappear. They transform.

Menopause and the empty nest are not failures of youth or usefulness. They are invitations to re-author the next chapter.

Finishing Well So We Can Begin Again

If you are a homeschool mum approaching the end of your homeschool journey, navigating menopause, or quietly grieving the changes of an empty nest, know this:

You are not behind…
You are not losing yourself…
…No, you are finishing something meaningful.

And finishing well creates the strongest possible foundation for whatever comes next.

My second post on this blog was called ‘Our Wonderful World‘ and was a reflection on the bright moon and stars which my baby girls was seeing for the very first time. This baby girl turns fifteen next month. Time flies by. I thank God for home-schooling and all those minutes and hours I had with my five precious bundles.