The kitchen table was filled with scraps of wrapping paper and a worn roll of tape. My birthday gift—a vanilla-scented candle I’d once mentioned I liked—sat before my oldest son. It was wrapped in paper that crinkled at odd angles. There was entirely too much tape on the outside. The final wrapping looked awful, but I could tell by his smile that he had chosen it just for me.
On a Tuesday morning, Elijah, a reluctant nine year old on my homeschool writing team, slid his composition across the table to his mother who was his editor. The paper was filled with eraser marks, spelling errors, and incomplete sentences. Yet beneath the mess was his first complete narrative—a three-paragraph story about ancient Egypt. His eyes watched his mother’s face with hope and apprehension as she began to read. The presentation was far from polished, but the gift inside—his emerging voice as a writer—was valuable.
If you’ve been teaching your kids to write for more than a week, you know these moments. Those poorly wrapped gifts keep coming—spelling errors that make you cringe, punctuation that seems completely random, and the frustration that bubbles up when they stare at a blank page for thirty minutes. Then come the tears (theirs, and sometimes, after bedtime, ours). We secretly wonder if their writing will ever get better.
After twelve years of walking alongside hundreds of homeschooling families, I can say with confidence: Yes. I’ve seen children who declared they “hated writing” become teenagers who submitted stories that were selected for publication. I’ve seen mothers, convinced they were failing, learn to help their children grow into exceptional writers. These changes didn’t happen overnight. They came through time, tears, coffee, prayer, and understanding three crucial lessons about those “poorly wrapped gifts” our kids keep handing us.
The first lesson in receiving our children’s writing is to accept the gift as it is presented. In Sarah MacKenzie’s book Teaching from Rest, she states, “Surrender your idea of what the ideal homeschool day is supposed to look like and take on, with both hands, the day that is.” When applied to our children’s writing, this wisdom invites us to surrender our preconceived notions of what their writing should look like at any given age or stage. The tape in the wrong places—those spelling errors and run-on sentences—is precisely what we have the privilege of helping our children improve. But this acceptance is not only beneficial to them. There is something inside for us too. When we finally stop flinching at their mistakes, something shifts for us too. As we give them space to grow as writers, they give us grace as we fumble through teaching them. Over time some of the most frustrated parents turn into the most compassionate homeschool teachers.
The second lesson teaches us to unwrap the gift with care. My son would’ve been crushed if I’d ripped through his birthday gift wrapping while pointing out every piece of misplaced tape. Yet we do this with writing all the time! One piece of tape at a time—”I love how you described the pyramid here” or “This part made me laugh!” before even thinking about giving suggestions. In Andrew Pudewa’s book, However Imperfectly, he states that “students must feel successful in order to continue to practice, but parental overexpectation can easily stifle that sense of success.” He goes on to say that we must be on guard for “perfect product anxiety.” He tells us that we can never help our child too much. This gentle unwrapping is an art form that requires patience and restraint. We must look past the awkward sentence structures to find the kernel of a brilliant idea. We should notice the creative word choice among the spelling errors. We must celebrate the effort even when their writing falls short of our hopes.
The third lesson reminds us to cherish what’s inside the package and trust the process. “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6 speaks directly to the homeschool mother’s heart as she guides a reluctant writer. When we surrender our timeline, our expectations, our need to see immediate progress, we discover a valuable gift hidden within those early writing attempts. Over time—hours, days, weeks, months, years—I promise you, that child who needs you to practically hold the pencil today will eventually write independently. And here’s the true gift: learning to trust the Lord in the process, discovering He had you and your child covered all along.
In the end, the “poorly wrapped gifts” our children hand us contain something far more valuable than perfectly polished writing. They hold our children’s thoughts, voices, and perspectives. They carry opportunities for connection, for mentorship, for growth together. Most precious of all, they contain the trust our children place in us when they share their imperfect work, hoping we’ll see past the “wrapping” to the heart of what they’re trying to say.
Next time your child hands you a writing assignment with the metaphorical tape stuck everywhere but where it should be, take a breath. This isn’t just homework to correct. It’s a gift to receive. And like that lopsided birthday package from my son, its real value has nothing to do with how it’s wrapped, but everything to do with the love, effort, and trust with which it was given.
By Alicia Brown, Certified Writing Instructor, https://www.writewithmrsbrown.com
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