The Struggle is Real
I see this all the time both with my classroom students and my homeschoolers.
The moment something feels hard, there’s this quiet panic that sets in:
“I must be bad at this.”
“Something is wrong with me.”
“Everyone else gets it but me.”
Ughhh, I just want to scream:
Of course this is hard! You’ve literally never done this before!
Somewhere along the way, we started treating struggle like a warning sign instead of what it actually is: a completely normal part of learning.
There’s the reel with the therapist says “what do you say when other people fai?”, “That’s ok, you can try again!” and what about when you fail? It’s trash, I’m trash, and I am never doing that again! I guess it’s not just my students! I’ve definitely been there too, but lately I am trying to reframe “failure”, trying to reframe “hard” into something I can grow from.
I saw another reel this week that nailed it. We love to talk about transformation with the butterfly metaphor. Growth! Beauty! Wings! But no one really talks about the part where the caterpillar turns into… goo. Because honestly? That part kind of sucks.
It’s uncomfortable. It’s messy. Nothing looks right. And if you didn’t know what was happening, you might assume something had gone very wrong.
Learning is like that too.
The beginning of anything new is awkward. Your brain is stretching in unfamiliar ways. You’re holding pieces that don’t fit yet. You’re making mistakes because that’s how the connections get built. That “this feels bad” stage isn’t failure—it’s information.
And yet, so many kids (and adults!) interpret that discomfort as proof they shouldn’t keep going.
What I’ve noticed, both as a teacher and a homeschool parent, is how powerful it is when kids realize they’re not alone. When they hear, “Yep, this is hard for everyone at first,” something shifts. The shame eases. The shoulders relax. The panic quiets down just enough to try again.
Honestly? The same is true for grown-ups.
When I’m struggling, whether it’s with teaching, building something new, or just trying to figure out my next step, it helps so much to know that the struggle itself isn’t a personal flaw. It’s a shared human experience.
It means I’m in the middle of learning, not at the end of my ability.
We don’t need to rush kids (or ourselves) out of the goo stage. We just need to name it.
This part is hard.
This part is normal.
This part doesn’t last forever.
And if we can normalize that, we give learners something far more valuable than quick success—we give them permission to keep going.
A Simple Takeaway
If learning feels hard right now, that doesn’t mean something is wrong.
It probably means you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.
The wings come later. 🦋
