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My kids

Saturday, October 29th, 2011

Warning: I’m about to brag. If you are already dreading the Christmas letter season wherein families trumpet their exceptional children, skip this post. I can’t help it. Sometimes my own children stun me (just like yours stun you).

I did not teach music. I was not against music. I played CDs, we listened to some classical when my kids were really little (without any attempt to explain or teach it), and I offered voice/piano/musical instrument lessons to my kids once we could afford them (meaning my children didn’t start piano or saxophone or singing until they were teens). Somehow, all of my kids love music, and a couple of them are truly devoted to all genres, including classical. I woke this morning to this discussion between my oldest (Noah, 24) and my third child (Jacob, almost 20).

screen-shot-2011-10-29-at-82248-am1

Give your kids the gift of learning and they will outlearn you for the rest of their lives (at least, that’s the idea and it seems to be working in their 20s).

P.S. Jacob is a resident assistant in his dorm at Ohio State and those are residents kissing him. :) He looks happy about it.

Posted in Family Notes, Homeschool Advice, On Being a Mother | 7 Comments »

When my kids are unhappy

Monday, October 17th, 2011

Over the course of your 10-20 year homeschool odyssey, your kids are going to be unhappy at times. Some of the unhappiness will last months (maybe a year!). Sometimes you’re unhappy and it bleeds into the family culture. Let’s look today at how to address some of the boredom and crankiness that visits the various ages and stages of children in your house.

Kids express unhappiness the way kids do:

  • boredom
  • anger
  • fidget-i-ness
  • being silly
  • procrastinating
  • pretending not to listen
  • picking on a sibling or the family dog
  • tears
  • staring blankly out a window
  • arguing
  • campaigning for what they think will make them happy
  • calling someone else a bad name
  • doing poorly executed work
  • not caring
  • not investing
  • giving up
  • pretending to be happy when they really aren’t
  • showing signs of stress and anxiety (sleeplessness, restlessness, not interested in eating)
  • comparing your home to someone else’s
  • rejecting your values
  • siding with the other parent who momentarily seems more fun

A 4-5 year old who is bored is much easier to rescue than a teenager who feels suffocated and has decided to challenge the values of the family. Yet the underlying feeling is similar—it’s unhappiness—and we can facilitate a huge turn around in how our kids experience our homes and “schools” if we help them become peaceful, cooperative, empowered-from-within, happy kids again.

Tuning into your child
Any child who is unhappy needs a parent to tune in and take notice! You’re the adult: you get to set aside your agenda to find out what your child needs.

The toddler needs physical touch and expression of energy (hugs, tickles, eye contact, being flipped upside down, wrestling, chasing, jumping up and down on a bed) to get the adrenaline flowing, to feel reconnected, to up-end a mood. Sometimes food, sometimes a nap, sometimes a cuddle on the couch is enough.

The young child benefits from focused attention on his or her specific interests. Too much time spent on your agenda will lead to tedium and crankiness. Bend low to make eye contact first. Then: A board game, running around the back yard, sitting in your lap for a picture book, helping you set the table for a snack, playing on the floor, singing to a CD… these help pull the young child out of the helpless, resentful mood of too many days in a row of someone else’s agenda.

The middler needs a dedicated time regularly (every day? every other day?) where there is no limit (reading as long as he or she likes without having to do anything else or without being required to sleep, playing a computer game without a timer ending the turn, watching TV and lying on the couch without having to get up, being allowed to finish the entire math book because he’s on a roll, digging a hole in the backyard as deep and wide as she likes, taking a scandalous amount of time to organize a bookshelf or rearrange the bedroom furniture, going to the zoo or the museum or the park or the nature preserve to indulge whatever interest is currently on fire, practicing a musical instrument for an entire day). Middlers are curious. They benefit from indulgence in their curiosity and they especially appreciate it when you “get it.” If you notice that a particular child is obsessed with a hobby right now, take advantage of that white heat of passion and let them go! Buy a book, or rent a DVD, or take a field trip, or purchase new equipment, that adds meaning and energy to the passion. (And yes, I include the Wii, XBox 360, online gaming, and Play Station in this list of “passions” just like I include an absurdly long time of pining for American Girl Doll accessories while paging through a catalog. I’ve seen good stuff come from these sources in kids.)

The young teen is often the most moody and the hardest to cajole out of the mood. We’ve got hormones raging and they are old enough to feel the “been there, done that” of homeschool. They’re looking for adventure, yet they are not quite old enough to take charge and make it happen. Try a conversation about BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goals). Ask them if there were no monetary limits and no time limits and no travel limits, what might they like to do? You might find out that your teen wants to take piano lessons for the first time, or wants to join a sports team, or a theater troupe, or learn Klingon, or go to Space Camp, or become expert at fashion. You may not cure the moodiness, but you can facilitate a brand new, grown-up adventure to buffer the sense of tedium that encroaches at ages 13-14. Talk to the teen! Find out what’s missing. Do the best you can to help it happen (you might need that teen to earn money or find someone to drive them or to start small and build—but put that goal somewhere visible and all of you work toward it).

The older teen is nearly at adulthood and feeling the tug between wanting a “mommy” and wanting to be respected as a “fledgling adult.” Risk and adventure. That’s what they need. Let them lead you into conversations about their interests, their viewpoints that aren’t yours, their anxieties. These conversations happen best one-on-one, with yummy food or drinks. Make time for the older teen and remember: they are gone A LOT! So if one comes home at midnight ready to talk, you get the toothpicks out to prop your eyelids open and you sit on the bed and talk. The older teen sometimes needs to challenge how he or she was raised and you need to go soft inside and let those words slide over you. They aren’t the final verdict. They are the words of a “near adult” trying to find his or her way this week. Be interested, be quiet, be curious, be gentle, be willing to take it.

Bottom Line:
You can’t keep everyone happy all the time and be happy yourself. Not possible! What you can do is pay attention, remind yourself that these years are fleeting (no matter how today feels), and that the needs of your children are reasonable and real. Just like yours. You may not fix any of it in a day, but you can do One Thing today to help alleviate some of the building pressure in the home. If you have Many Children (like so many homeschoolers), you’ll need help! Tag team with the co-parent or a friend. Get the community involved (youth workers, coaches, aunts and uncles, grandparents).

Take Care of You:
You need to be happy too: vitamins, exercise, therapy (it helps if you need it!), time alone, a passion or hobby, a good relationship with your significant other, and a source of joy each day (tea, flipping through a magazine, bubble bath, chocolate, gardening, your favorite rerun on TBS, your spiritual practice).

You can do it!

Would love you to share what’s working in your family in the comments section.


Posted in Brave Writer Lifestyle, Brave Writer Philosophy, Family Notes, Homeschool Advice, Husbands (homeschooling partners), On Being a Mother | 4 Comments »

Happy Mother’s Day: On Being a Mother

Sunday, May 8th, 2011

In April of 2009, Oprah featured an episode on mothering that ran so counter to my personal experience, I felt the need to write about how I understood mothering. Today, as we celebrate our mothers and are thankful for the chance to be mothers, I share it again with you. (The original posting of this blog entry yielded 73 comments! Clearly the most popular blog entry in our history.)

–
From April 27, 2009

Oprah featured moms on her show a couple weeks ago. The two “experts” who “wrote the book” were bubbly, sharp, blond business-type women who wore chic outfits that had never seen spit up or spaghetti sauce stains. They rallied the audience into a frenzy of confessions about motherhood which variously decried the hardships of this “first order of creation” occupations.

“I hate the fluids of babies: pee, spit up, spilt milk, snot.”

“I cried the day I drove to the car dealership to buy a mini-van.”

“There were days I wanted to ’send them back to the hell from whence they came’.”

On and on the tales of woe pored from the mouths of devoted parents. Video clips of small kids on bikes, disastrous laundry rooms, “stuffed to the gills” cars with seats and sippy cups floated by, making one wonder why anyone would sign up for the task of mothering, let alone sustain it for decades. Moms confessed things, too, like the one who said she didn’t want to wake the sleeping baby by stopping the car for a potty break, but she needed to pee so badly, she took a Pampers diaper, stuck it between her legs and let it “go” as she drove. Yeah, I thought that was way more information than I needed to know about her, too.

There was a surprising lack of joy represented in the discussion of mothering. Mostly being a mom was held up as the hardest job on earth, the most demanding, the most self-sacrificing, the most misunderstood and overlooked work on the planet. A kind of shared martyrdom, underdog status united everyone and Oprah, never having mothered anyone, had to declare that indeed, they were right. Mothering equalled sainthood (which we all know implies burning at the stake and smiling through it!).

With my kids in the room, listening to the pain of childbirth and engorged breasts, the relentlessness of little voices, the demandingness of the small child’s need for food, sleep and comfort, the annihilation of a woman’s identity and sense of self, I couldn’t take it any more. After all, far from being the hardest job in the world, mothering has been the happiest, most satisfying, life-giving, joyful, rewarding, fulfilling and (dare I admit it?) easiest job I’ve ever had. Oh sure, the hours suck, there are anguishes deeper than the ocean, there are seasons (years!) of such utter exhaustion you can’t imagine ever being rested again… but all those discomforts are easily and unequivocally overturned by my children, themselves.

I punched pause on the DVR to set the record straight:

“Being your mother has been the single greatest joy and privilege of my life: not a burden, not a perennial unrelenting source of emotional and physical agony, not the ‘hardest job in the world’, not the knee-capping blow to my ‘adult individuality’ nor has it been the thankless, under-appreciated, most overlooked profession these mothers would have you believe. In fact, my sense of personhood, identity and self-knowledge has grown more through mothering than any business I’ve started, any degree I’ve earned, any relationship I’ve pursued. I thank YOU for being the best people to ever happen to me.”

Then I spewed in bullet style the privileges and unique joys that came with mothering them (all five of them, each one popping into my life like a fresh daisy, every two years for 10 years).

Cuddling: Being your mom means I got to have someone to cuddle non-stop for 12 years while sleeping with at least one of you at a time, nursing you, carrying you, holding you, helping you in and out of car seats, and backpacking you.

Sleeping together: There is nothing more divine than a baby who falls asleep on your chest while you fall asleep and the whole world stops while mother and tiny child become fused as one content, quiet, shared being. No meditation, yoga, prayer circle, private retreat has ever come close to providing me with the depth of peace, pleasure and abiding hope that sleeping with a baby has given me.

Playing: Board games and hopscotch, dress-ups, face paint, finger paint, walks in the woods, trips to the zoo, picking up bugs, rolling down hills, blowing bubbles, eating too many cookies, watching Arthur on PBS, rewatching Disney movies, cards, chasing a dog in the backyard, trampoline jumping, creek splashing, snowman building, skiing, middle of the night slumber parties, bike rides, soccer in the backyard, soccer on the official fields, ultimate frisbee… What adult gets to do any of this on his or her 9-5 job? Talk about luxury!

Conversation: Oh it starts off good – Why do bubbles float? How did I get red hair? Why doesn’t Santa Claus visit Moroccans, too? But boy does it keep getting better!? I’ve learned about human rights, veganism, Role Playing Games, Shakespeare, Klingon, fashion, exercise, lacrosse, birds, fantasy novels, conspiracy theories, atheism, feminism, linguistics, alternative monetary systems for world peace (seriously!) and more by talking to my kids.

Mothering is the job that means taking the dog and kids for a walk in the woods is on task. It’s the one where teatimes and picnics are considered achievements worth trumpeting to friends and family. It’s the job where even on bad days, someone tells you “Hey, I love you Mom” and then hugs you so tightly, you believe it.

There is no comparison to the jobs I’ve had in business and writing. Sure, affirmation and personal achievement are nice… but they are nothing like the bond that comes from the devotion of loving people who live every day looking for you to see them for who they are. I’ve found that the easiest thing in the world is to love my kids. All it takes is entering into their lives on their terms and giving all I’ve got. I get it all back and more.

Yes, there have been nights where I cried myself to sleep over a non-stop crying toddler or a teenager’s emotional pain. There are times when I feel out of control and invisible and fearful for my child’s future or welfare. But the rewards of mothering so far outweigh any of its challenges, I can’t relate to the repeated refrains of “how hard I have it” simply because I chose to have five kids. Instead, I just feel perennially lucky that my lifestyle has included such richness, tenderness and connection to immortality through my children.

I think it’s time we blew the whistle. Mothering isn’t a job. It’s a privilege.

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Homeschool Advice, On Being a Mother | 12 Comments »

Collection of Happy Thoughts

Monday, April 11th, 2011

I know, I know. Why has this blog been so dormant over the last year? Truth be told, in addition to some personal challenges, Brave Writer has been growing! My time and attention had to be turned to other pressing concerns, such as curriculum development (more on that soon, I promise!), website building, improving our online classroom, preparing for and traveling to three conventions in a month, speaking in various parts of the country for workshops, teaching classes myself and all the usual stuff that a kitchen-table-growing-like-gangbusters-into-a-grown-up-business experiences in year 11.

We are improving contact between you and me, and between you and, well, you, too! Here are a couple of ways we are making headway:

  • You can now chat with me via a live chat widget when you visit the website! This live chat function will be open when I’m online. I look fwd to being able to serve you all better, particularly our overseas customers who find the phone a difficult means of communication with me.
  • We are releasing a brand new discussion/message board for the Brave Writer community so that you have a place to talk about the Brave Writer Lifestyle. You can use it to get feedback from other moms and dads who are in the trenches helping their kids, just like you! I’ll pop in to answer questions as well.
  • We’ve just created a twitter identity as well as a facebook page to make it easier for me to send out short snippets of insight and writing support, rather than having to commit to an entire blog post every day. My hope is to update the blog once per week while using the other tools for daily support.
  • We’ve enabled podcasting for Brave Writer as well. Look for my convention workshops to be posted some time next week.

These are all ways I hope to enrich your experience of Brave Writer over the coming months.

In the meantime, listen to these happy thoughts shared by our fabulous families!

Just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed your seminars. I’ve been homeschooling 22 years, and writing has been one of those things I’ve felt like I never did a good job teaching, because we never seemed to get around to doing any of the “curriculums” I purchased. The kids did write–they wrote what they wanted to write, or type, when they wanted to, so I knew they could write, sort of, but I always felt like I should be doing more. Your seminars reminded me that writing can be just as relaxed and part of our real lives as reading good books. Your ideas about the way to help children write are so much more in line w/ my way of homeschooling, than any of the canned programs I have, that I just felt a giant sigh of relief while listening to you. Thank-you. I feel like your seminars were worth the cost of the conference all by themselves. I purchased the Writing Jungle and read the first chapter that evening in my motel room and enjoyed it so much. I’m looking forward to making writing a part of our lives in a more relaxed and natural way.

Dawn

—

Hi Julie!
I met you yesterday at your booth. My son, Luke, is currently in Jean Hall’s expository essay class and enjoying it immensely.

Here’s a little background about Luke (14) and my daughter, Kallan (12). We have been using another program for several years . We struggled quite a bit to get writing done. OK, we struggled a LOT. I believe the things the kids learned do a good job of helping them when they are editing, but the actual act of putting the pencil on the paper and writing something wasn’t happening. I was becoming very worried that my 8th grade son was not going to be ready for high school writing. I was also worried about my 12 year old dyslexic daughter who would not write, because she is self-conscious about her spelling.

I finally bought “The Writer’s Jungle” and proceeded to carry it and a highlighter around for several months. At the beginning of February, we curled up in front of our wood stove in Colorado and I read several of your descriptions of other attempts at freewriting. We discussed how it felt when we sat in front of a piece of paper. It was almost as if a wall would appear and absolutely no words would appear. Even I would have a problem and I love to write. After several years of the other program, I would even freeze. I set the timer for ten minutes and my daughter decided she would write about her new (and first) American Doll, I decided to write about airports (love them) and my son said he would just “write what comes into his head”.

Here is what came out of my gangly 6’1”, 14 year old who is constantly walking around with his nose in a book. I no longer worry about his creativity.

THE BLANK PAGE SYNDROME (Luke Brumfield)
The page is as white as a dove, the plumage snowy white, the subtle wind currents lifting it above the clouds. Perhaps, it is like snow, the glistening water dripping like a faucet, or perhaps like a cloud floating below the stars. The incandescent stars and fluffy clouds matching together in a dance eons old. This is how I think of Blank Page Syndrome. The white abyss of a writer’s block, the paralyzing fear buffeting his brain. The fear of failing making him cry out in frustration. Needless to say, right now this writer has no qualms about such matters for his pencil is light, his mind active, his resolve solid. Blank Page Syndrome is like the Niagara Falls icing over. It’s luster gone, replaced with a blank wall of impenetrable ice. The reader may or may not have experienced this syndrome, but the writer has. This essay has been written in ten minutes and the writer is done. Now there is no more blank page.

This has not been revised other than a couple of periods, one misspelled word, and some capitalization. THANK YOU! They both see for the first time that writing can be fun!

Leslie

—

Hey Julie,
I wanted to share something with you. My daughter and I attended the Cincy. convention this past weekend. We were coming from north of Dayton on Friday morning and were planning to attend two separate workshops at 10:30 – I thought! The workshops actually started at 10:00, not 10:30 and we encountered Cincinnati, morning traffic (we’re not used to that out in our boondocks area). So we arrived late. Once inside the convention center we sat down and tried to figure out our plan B for the day. I was planning on coming to your booth at some point. We’ve been using “Brave Writer Jungle” for about a year and a half, but I was feeling a lack of confidence in my ability to go forward.

Well, anyway, we both ended up coming to your workshop – and all I can say is “God was takin care of me that day!” You said exactly what we needed to hear – thank-you for being you. We came to your booth and one of the gals spent quite some time with me. We’re going to start using the Boomerang next year, but have already started to use some of the concepts in our school stuff this week.

I went back and read a blog that you had posted last year in January – I kept it in my emails because, again, it was what I needed to hear, and obviously what I needed to reread now. It was about homeschooling through grief. The last 5 years have been hard years for me – a lot of really sad stuff and some really great life moments. We’ve done: illness, graduation, college, death, marriage, a lot of change and a lot of emotion. Your blog helped me to realize that our family is still trying to get our gears re-machined, and forcing the issue can sometimes end up with a lot of overheating and smoke.

I just wanted to thank-you for doing what you do, to thank the people that help you do what you do, and to encourage you – you do make a difference.

Have a grand spring day!
Warmly,
Robin

—

These last two years have been intense ones for me personally and in the business. I’m grateful whenever I hear from you—sharing how your families are learning to write and love each other every day. Makes all of it worthwhile. You’re all doing brave, meaningful work. Brava to you and your dear families!

Julie

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Contacting Me, Homeschool Advice, The Writer's Jungle | 5 Comments »

What it means to be “brave”

Monday, September 20th, 2010

Hello everyone!

Summer is long over. However, fall is just beginning in the Bogart household. My middle child only moved to college on Thursday! Made it very hard to settle into a fall routine.

Now that we’re here, let’s explore a few thoughts about Brave Writer and writing that may support your coming school year. One of our Brave Writer moms said it well a few years back:

I saw the name “Brave Writer” and honestly didn’t even consider why the website was called that.  After reading what a friend had to say about The Writers Jungle on the Sonlight forums, I decided to check it out.  At first I thought…no, way…the price is too much!  Boy was I wrong! It has been one of the most valuable investments I have made on this homeschool journey.

Last week I finally realized the significance of the name “Brave Writer.”  It speaks not only to the bravery of putting your thoughts down on paper, but also to me as a homeschool mom.  I have been using several recommended curriculum including a spelling workbook. It has gone fine—my ds 8 has been getting great grades on the tests as well as learning some alphabatizing and proofreading skills. However, when he writes, he misspells some of those same words.  There is a disconnect with my ds between completing a workbook and memorizing a list of spelling words and actually being able to spell well. Another downside…the spelling workbook pages were taking way too long some days with a dawdling boy (but who could blame the kid! It’s not the most fascinating work!). And that’s when I did my first brave thing…I threw out the spelling workbook (gasp, and the $10 I had paid for it).

O.K…that may not seem that brave, but it was my security blanket! And now I am having these crazy thoughts concerning the Grammar book as well. You see, I want him to spend more time on copywork, dictation, narrations, reading great books and poetry and there are just so many hours in the day (especially productive hours where an 8 year boy is involoved).

I’m having trouble letting go of those nagging thoughts “Well, so-and-so is having her ds do the whole grammar book and talks about how much he is learning…what if we don’t?  Will he still get into a good college someday? What if he can’t diagram a sentence?” (As I write this, I realize just how silly that sounds, but deep down I still wonder).

So I’m starting with my first brave act…I’m throwing out the spelling workbook and trying a more natural approach using copywork and dictation.  Maybe soon I’ll be able to take the next brave step with a little encouragement!

Kay

By the way, my ds doesn’t hate to write now that we do freewriting. I never realized how much pressure he was feeling because he thought everything had to be perfect!  Thanks, Julie!

What a great story! It’s true that being brave is not just about writing. It’s about taking calculated risks to trust that writing can be as natural a process as learning to speak was. Kay’s journey can be yours! Every day I hear from families who have completed the homeschooling journey. Here are a couple of their comments:

Hi Julie

We’ve been with Brave Writer for many years: have won a competition, participated in an on-line class, and my daughter is still loving her writing. She’s 17 now…

We’ve loved your stuff and continue to recommend your services to people everywhere we go.

God bless,
Anna
–
I thoroughly appreciated your blog, bravewriter manual and especially the “tuesday teatime” idea. We have enjoyed poetry with chocolate cake and have good memories for that. You helped me approach an area I did not have confidence in so THANK YOU.
:-)

Jenny
–
Dear Julie,

As a homeschool family, we have been so blessed by you. I just want to thank you so much for what you have done for our family, over the past few years of our subscription.

As you know, children grow up. Our two are at the end of their homeschool journey, and we are using less and less homeschool curriculum, and more and more of community based learning prorams.

We have all ( me too) enjoyed the bravewriter lifestyle, and will always cherish special memories of reading aloud, and poems with our afternoon tea and candles. You are such a huge blessing.

Thank you for everything.

Sincerely,
Beverley

It’s great to be a part of these journeys. Hope Brave Writer can help you too!

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, BW products, Dictation and copywork, Email, Friday Freewrite, Grammar, Homeschool Advice | No Comments »

Congratulations Class of 2010

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

I had the privilege of speaking to the homeschool graduation at our homeschool co-op over the weekend. These were the kids I’ve taught for ten years, some of them my son’s best friends. They voted me into this position and it felt like a great honor to be the one to deliver the keynote. So here it is, for those who’ve asked me about it.

–

Noah, my oldest, said to me once when I tried to shoehorn him into my fear-based vision of what his future ought to be: “Mom, you raised me in an unconventional way; now you want me to be a conventional person?”

Ouch! Zinged by my own values! By my own kid!

Homeschooling, whether you realize it yet or not, is the radical unconventional status-quo defying choice your parents made on your behalf when you were too young to know better. Instead of yellow school buses, apples for the teacher and lunch boxes, you stayed home. Let’s face it. Your parents were the hippies of the 1990′s!

Your mom read Charlotte’s Web from a rocking chair while you assembled Legos. A big brown UPS box delivered brand new workbooks, still shiny and blank. You didn’t have due dates or grades until your mother panicked (around age 13) and suddenly got crazy grading and assigning and making you sit in a straight backed chair to write papers… until you slowly both got comfortable again and moved back to the couch. Homeschool for this bunch of graduates meant Learning Tree co-op and camp, prom in a church and for some, church in a school!

You did math with our favorite math tutor, Mrs. Steiner, or videos or apple pies. You learned to write with me, or through tears, or on computers with Facebook status updates. Foreign languages were dead or silent even though so many of you are going on mission trips to Mexico or Europe for YWAM now. Shout out to DTS students from Hawaii to Germany to Ireland!

In other words, ‘homeschooled’ is the unconventional distinct identity you will always have – the “two truths and a lie” trump card, the one thing that makes you different from others. And that’s a big deal.

In fact, even more than the homeschooling itself, the choice to homeschool by your parents… that choice ought to have formed a part of your character that will accompany and guide you for the rest of your lives.

Your moms and dads made a brave choice back in 1996 when they decided to turn their backs to the culture to keep you home. It probably didn’t always look brave to you when you when they monitored your computer activity and supervised your reading and music choices! Still, they were pioneers in their own right.

They weren’t homeschooled. They blundered forward armed with a few books and a couple of models of what it might look like. Your moms literally gave up career opportunities to spend 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with you. You know what happened at soccer games you played? Other moms would find out that you were homeschooled and they’d say to your mom: “Oh I could NEVER do that. My kids would drive me crazy.” But your moms thought, “That’s so sad. I love being with my kids.” And they meant it. Even when you did drive them crazy!

As you go off to college or the military or a career, forging a path for yourself, I want you to remember that the legacy of homeschooling has less to do with text books and literature. Nope, it’s a model for how you might courageously live your own life. Ask yourself these kinds of questions that your parents asked themselves:

  • Will you be content to perpetuate the status quo as you understand it?
  • Or will you, like your parents, challenge the system and be willing to adopt a standard, a philosophy, a set of beliefs or practices that make the world a better place? That ensure that the children you raise will be as nurtured, valued and adventurous as your parents….

There are two words that characterize the life you’ve led so far: Risk and Adventure.

Your parents, the ones who said no to R movies and who monitored your MySpace, who required you to finish math classes even when you thought they were pointless… those parents are the original risk-takers and adventurers in your family. They’ve modeled for you how to stand up to the culture and say, “I’m willing to risk my reputation on my kids, for the sake of the future.”

You were our grand experiment. We asked, “Can we educate our kids, at home, without the support and props of school and culture?” The ghosts of public school past haunted us – we had to fight to keep them at bay sometimes. But you may be different. You get to decide whether or not to homeschool your kids and if you do, you’ll finally be able to answer the decades old question: Just how much grammar really is necessary in home education? We still don’t know.

The truth is, because you’ve already lived as a counter-cultural person, I hope that spirit, that energy, that chutzpah will govern your future choices. Be as daring as your parents have been to challenge “what’s normal,” to be the risk-takers who put their ideals into action. Be deliberate about your choices (researching, discussing, conscientiously thinking through the consequences of your choices not just on your own life, but on the lives of those entrusted to you). Discover other ways of living, other worldviews (so many of you are already on your way to doing just that!). Let yourselves become the people your parents dreamed you would be, even if that means choosing differently than your parents. Because, after all, your parents chose differently than theirs did.

You were given:

  • A quality, personalized education
  • A home environment that nurtured spiritual values, individuality and close family ties
  • A context that developed critical thinking and a commitment to making a difference

These are the core values of the home educators in this room. They are your core values too. How you take them into your future and nurture them now, on your own, is up to you!

Will you dig wells in central Africa to provide clean water to impoverished communities? Will you become a lawyer who defends the rights of the under privileged? Will you cultivate the arts and make your home a place where music and paintings are a natural part of the atmosphere? Will you make your faith relevant to your community? Will you earn more degrees and contribute your knowledge to the Great Conversation that spans the centuries?

Will you inspect railroads or start technology companies? Will you bear children and raise them to be the best individuals they can be?

No matter what you do… No matter where you go… Challenge yourself to explore alternate ways of thinking and living. Who knows what new form of education or family bonding will present itself in your generation?! Don’t assume that what everyone does is what everyone ought to do. Take the risks that lead you to an adventurous future, that contribute to a new way of seeing and being.

You are homeschool graduates… members of an exclusive club—the prototypes of what it means to put personal values ahead of cultural expectations. What will you do with that legacy!? Add me on Facebook and let me know what you did with the precious gift your parents gave you.

Congratulations to the class of 2010!

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Family Notes, General, Homeschool Advice, Tips for Teen Writers | 5 Comments »

What you can do when you want to give up?

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

It’s April. Spring break is just around the corner, and happens to come at the right time every year (the moment when I want to collapse from the drain of winter quarter)… except for one thing. Sometimes when I allow myself to let down during the break, I lose all my energy to finish the year strong. Our homeschool dribbles to the end of May and ekes into June with just enough sluggish energy to feel we have completed the year’s work. Or in those “let’s just hurry up and get to summer” years, the dribbling and eking maybe didn’t even occur and we hope no one from the state shows up at our door in July looking for work samples from seven subjects.

I used to put it this way: in the fall, I was a classical educator. In winter, I shifted to a Charlotte Mason-unit study kind of school style. But by spring, radical unschoolers.

If this is you and right now you’re wondering how you can get to the end without the end coming too soon, here are a few Brave Writer suggestions that may help.

  1. Change the routine. Maybe you let everyone sleep in longer than usual and you start the day outside (weather permitting). Start with an entry in a nature journal or tending seedlings you plant. If you usually begin with math, start with grammar. Save math for later in the day. Maybe you can kick a soccer ball before you do any school work at all!  Do something utterly different than you have been. Look at the Brave Writer Lifestyle to trigger ideas.
  2. Get ready the night before. Best piece of advice, hardest to follow. Don’t labor over it. Before bed, pick one thing to use as your centerpiece the next day. It might be a book of poetry, perhaps flowers to plant. Maybe you find a DVD that the kids can enjoy in the afternoon, or you decide to bake brownies so that during read aloud time, there are fresh munchies. Stay simple. Just plan one thing (maybe all you do is stack the school books on the table so they are easily found and no one has to complain that they “can’t find the grammar book”).
  3. Play music. We forget how powerful music is in creating mood. If you’ve got an iPod and a speaker set, put that out the night before. You can throw it on shuffle and let the tunes roll, or you can be more deliberate and create a morning playlist conducive to studying. You might even pick a song (instrumental) to use for either freewriting or free drawing. For freewriting, allow the mood of the music to guide the writing. For free drawing, put a variety of writing elements on the table (markers, crayons, colored pencils, high lighters, pens). Your kids will express the mood of the music as they listen.
  4. Poetry. Perhaps you’re already good at poetry teatimes. If you’re not, this is meant for you. Spring is the perfect time to develop/cultivate the habit of reading poetry, sipping tea and eating treats. Read about it here.
  5. Shakespeare. May is the month of Shakespeare in Brave Writer. Take advantage of the fact that we have already structured into our world a focus you can usurp and use in yours! We have a Shakespeare class for high schoolers available and we offer some suggestions of ways to introduce Shakespeare to your kids in the Brave Writer Lifestyle. The blog will also feature some specifically Shakespeare-y kinds of things to do with your family too.
  6. Take classes. We have good ones. Kidswrite Basic, Kidswrite Intermediate and Literary Analysis start next week. Don’t miss your chance to get these in before the year ends.
  7. Take a day off just for you. Plan a hike in the local hills, go to an art museum alone for a morning, see a movie no one wants to see with you, spend a day wandering a labyrinth, get a massage, get a mani-pedi in bright red. Do something to recharge that takes you away from the burden of daily planning. You deserve it. You’ve been working hard all year.

Bottom line: Each year feels like you re-invent your homeschool. That’s because you do. You’ve got kids changing ages and stages, your income fluctuates, your home routine is up-ended by some sports schedule or dance or acting. You find that what worked one year is just not going to work the next. You’re at the end of one of those years now. What things can you do now, that you may not ever get to do again? What opportunities does this year offer that will vanish come September? Do those now. If that means going to Disneyland while you still have kids under 10, do it. If it means having teatimes outside in your backyard because next year you’ll be living in a condo, have as many as you can. If it means that you have leisurely mornings now but next year will be driving someone to school, enjoy sleeping in and reading together in pajamas these last few weeks.

Whatever phase of life you’re in, savor it. Look ahead and consider today. What can I do today that makes a memory, that preserves what I love, that enhances our well-being? Then do that. Math can wait (unless of course math IS that thing <g>).

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, General, Homeschool Advice, Nature Walks, Poetry, Shakespeare, Unschooling | No Comments »

New to Brave Writer

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

Brave Writer has three components to support your writing and language arts goals:

Home Study Courses

Online Classes

Language Arts Programs

The Home Study Courses are divided into two. The Writer’s Jungle teaches you, the parent, how to be the most effective writing coach in your children’s lives. The principles, exercises, and guidelines apply to every level of writing from beginner to pro. If you like to work at your own pace, need a manual to which you can refer when you get overwhelmed, if you benefit from having your entire philosophy of writing stood on its head and recreated for you, then start with The Writer’s Jungle. It will work for all your kids.

Help for High School is our home study course for teens. It’s written to your student and is intended to be self-teaching. The course is organized around specific modules and in each module, there is an exercise or writing assignment to complete. These can be done multiple times if you swap topics. They are writing processes, not specific assignments geared toward a period in history or a work of literature. Help for High School provides models of how to write expository essays (both open and closed forms) as well as the steps necessary to understand the structure of argument, thesis and points and particulars.

The Online Classes provide moms and kids with instructor support and accountability. They cover a wider range of choices in terms of specific writing genres. If you prefer to be in a classroom style setting with an instructor, other students and the gentle accountability of due dates, start with Kidswrite Basic. This online course transforms your understanding of how to best facilitate writing in your home. It gives you the tools to know how to encourage and foster good writing habits rather than merely editing poor writing for mechanical errors.

Kidswrite Intermediate is the course to consider if you want to make the transition from parent-led writing to student-led. It’s designed for kids just on the cusp of essay writing. The processes in KWI make up the first half of Help for High School. The benefit to taking it as a class is that the online class offers instructor feedback and the opportunity to read other student writing. KWI prepares students for all levels of essay classes, as well.

The other online classes round out writing experiences. We offer fiction, literary analysis, poetry, grammar, freewriting, SAT/ACT preparation, Shakespeare, literary discussion (Boomerang Complete) and more. The courses help you and your kids to widen their writing experiences while giving you the support and modeling that make you a more and more effective writing coach. The courses also prevent a feeling of isolation in the homeschool, putting you in touch with other parents and students from around the world who are embarking on a similar journey.

The language arts portion of Brave Writer supports and enhances the writing programs. The Arrow, the Boomerang and the retired Slingshot are designed to provide you with easy-to-use tools that teach mechanics, spelling, grammar, handwriting and literary elements in the context of great literature. The Arrow works best for kids 3rd – 6th grades. The Boomerang is designed for 7th-9th grades (though some high school students do quite well with the Boomerang). The Slingshot (already published issues) catered to 10th-12th grades. We now offer literary analysis classes for 10th-12th grades instead.

You can either subscribe to the current year’s lists of the Arrow or Boomerang (paying monthly on your credit card), or you can purchase already published issues ala carte and design your own year’s program around books you and your kids want to read. These tools are meant to supplement your writing program, not replace it. When the Arrow or Boomerang are used in tandem with The Writer’s Jungle or Help for High School, or along with Kidswrite Basic or Kidswrite Intermediate, you will be offering your children a complete language arts/writing package.

Jump in. Try not to figure it all out or become overwhelmed at the choices. Pick one thing that you find fascinating. Purchase it or sign up for it. Use it, do it. Experience and enjoy it. See how it goes. Then do the next thing. As you take it one thing at a time, you will build momentum. You’re not in a rush. You don’t have to solve writing and language arts this week, this semester or even this year. You only need to take the next logical step toward the goal of becoming the best writing coach you can be. In turn, your kids will grow into more and more effective writers.

Posted in Arrow, Boomerang, Brave Writer Philosophy, BW products, Help for High School, Homeschool Advice, The Writer's Jungle, Tips for Teen Writers, Young Writers | 2 Comments »

Writing through the tears

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

Who can do anything well while crying?

Can you type while crying? Make dinner? Have sex? Probably not.

Tears are an indication that something is dreadfully wrong. They signal pain:  emotional or physical. In writing, emotional pain may be writer’s block or fear of making a mistake. Physical pain may be that the hand hurts from squeezing the pencil too tightly, or eye strain, or physical exhaustion from a poor night’s sleep. Crying is not a sign of laziness or lack of character. Crying is the last release, the final “giving up” and admission of failure. Crying signals: I need comfort.

When the tears come, the writing’s done.

Take a break. Acknowledge your child’s feelings: I see that you’re unhappy. Let’s talk about this later. Offer a hug.

Later, come back to your child and find out what’s going on. Ask:

Are you afraid of making a mistake?

Is it too hard to grip the pencil for ten minutes straight?

Are you having a hard time spelling?

Do you wish you could play outside in the sunshine rather than sit at a table?

Does it feel like you have nothing to say?

Are you sleepy? Hungry?

Be an investigator and a comforter. A cup of tea and eye contact will go a long way toward soothing the hurting writer. Remember, writer’s block is the usual reason for writing paralysis (not strong wills or sinful natures). Writer’s block means the child doesn’t have access to the words inside. The words are hidden behind anxiety, fear of failure, or a vague sense of the topic (not enough depth in the topic to be able to talk about it meaningfully in writing).

Writer’s block is experienced by everyone (pros, professors and prodigies) and at its most acute, produces tears. So give oodles of empathy, hugs, and comfort foods. Then talk about how to make writing less painful. Take some time to remind yourself of the goal – a free, brave writer who is at ease when writing, not gripped with anxiety and fear.

Julie

P.S. If you find it hard to know how to get beyond the tears and writer’s block, peruse my website and the archives of this blog for ideas. I also devote a good chunk of The Writer’s Jungle to this subject as well.

Freewriting is one of our favorite tactics for unblocking stuck writers. Another idea is to stop writing all together for awhile and work on building a relationship where talking freely and well is cultivated. That means, of course, that you will seek opportunities to drive your kid to his destinations so that you can chat the whole way, drawing him out, listening to what he knows lots about and encouraging him to share as much as he can as well as he can… so he’ll grow in verbal self-expression.

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Homeschool Advice, The Writer's Jungle, Writing Exercises, Young Writers | No Comments »

You gotta be home to homeschool

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

There are two kinds of “being home” that I want to explore in the blog. Today’s post focuses on the physical choice to be “home” more than away. For families with young kids (particularly if you’ve got kids under 12), cultivate a home life, in your house. For families with teens, be choosy. Outside activities are important, but consolidate when you can. If you’re in that awkward phase of life where you have some of each (little kids and big ones), your choices have to be that much more creative and deliberate. I’ve got a special section just for you further down.

The second kind of “being home” has to do with attitude—how do we treat each other when we are home as opposed to away? What does it look like/feel like to be educated in a home? We’ll look at “home” as a way of being tomorrow.

Choosing to be at home:

The first step in creating a better homeschool environment is to be home. Long stretches of time that go uninterrupted by orthodontists, trips to the tutor, vet appointments for the dog and shopping for food are essential to create a feeling of time and space to learn. One of the best bits of advice I received early on is to not make my doctor or dental appointments in the mornings. Just because I’m “home” doesn’t mean I’m free! If my kids were in a school building, I wouldn’t want to take them out for a check up. I’d wait until the afternoon. Likewise, my time at home is full and therefore I’m not available for appointments before noon, either. Better to schedule all such meetings after lunch. (If you have napping kids, then you have to wait until naps are done or let them nap in the car or stroller.)

Additionally, limit outside activities. We had a rule in our family of five kids that only two kids could be playing on a sports team at any given time. That meant that some of our kids couldn’t do their sport year-round. We had no prodigies so I didn’t have to weigh the merits of possible college scholarships against my decision for sane living, so your mileage may vary. But we discovered early on we could only support two weekend games and two sets of practices per week, per season. The same could be said for musical instruments, tutorials, co-ops, dance lessons and so on. When you have lots of kids, this becomes even more important. You do not want your youngest children to spend their early childhoods sipping Juicy Juice boxes in a car seat watching DVDs in the back of the van while they are schlepped along with hockey pads to the next practice!

Hire people who will come to you or live within walking distance. The midwife I chose on my fifth birth traveled to me to do my check-ups. That’s the sole reason I picked her over my previous midwife. When my youngest decided she wanted piano lessons, I sent her across the street. Our piano teacher isn’t my favorite as far as technical skill to teach, but for the early stages, living two minutes from my doorstep outweighed all other concerns. We hired a violin teacher who drove to our house. We also hosted literature discussion groups, writing groups and study sessions so that we could stay home.

Carpool. Do activities that other families do so that you don’t have to do all the driving.

Save some activities until your kids can drive themselves. We didn’t have our kids get jobs outside the home until they could drive themselves. Three of them, however, earned money while at home babysitting and selling cookies in our neighborhood. Neither of these required me to drive anyone anywhere (except when one of them ran out of chocolate chips and forgot to tell me… grrrr!).

Consolidate activities. It’s better to have one long busy day of appointments than to have 30-60 minute trips three or four times per week that interrupt your time at home.

Make one day your inviolable day that you never go anywhere. Once you decide to do this, it will feel nearly impossible to make happen. You’ll find all kinds of reasons you can’t keep this commitment. Of course. Just like dieting or exercise. It’s a discipline. But just as you would clear your schedule to be available weekly for a co-op day, you can do the same in reverse. Make Tuesdays or Fridays (or whatever) the day you never leave the house. You always have the full day at home and are ready for it with good food, a lesson plan, fun TV programming to watch and no pressure to go anywhere. Even if you pull this off three Tuesdays of the month, that’s wonderful! You’ll be amazed at how jealously you guard that day once you commit to it. (Tuesday has traditionally been that day for me since we have co-op on Mondays which is all-day away from home.)

Teens: I’ve shared before that teens need to sense that they are getting out into the big world, evolving into young adults. Home can feel confining, redundant, risk-free. What felt safe and nurturing as a young child becomes confining and tedious past 13. These feelings are normal; they aren’t signs of rebellion or an inability to be happy. I recommend that your teens get involved in something much bigger than they are. One of my Brave Writer students became enamored of low cost, energy efficient housing and built eco-friendly homes in her backyard! Another started a fish breeding farm in the creek neighboring her house. These activities kept these students home, obviously. But home had become a bigger world!

And that’s the point. Home is either the refueling station between community college and aiding at the local elementary school three days a week, or it’s the means to pursuing a dream (writing a novel, inventing a language, crafting a quilt, remodeling the basement).

In our family, two of our teens joined a Shakespeare company that met downtown with professional actors and a wide variety of students once a week on the weekends with performances at the end of the year. I know teens who’ve gone on mission trips, have built computers from scratch, are on high level sports teams, acted in plays, started parttime high school or junior college, worked for the first time, gone to art institutes, joined community or high school music programs, written for publication, and started businesses. Doing written narrations by themselves at the kitchen table is not enough for a teen’s education. Supervising the small children in the family is not a teen’s daily responsibility. We had the babies; they didn’t.

Teens need driver’s licenses and money. They need peers and challenges. And they need a home. That home is their anchor. They tack between feeling bold and anxious, mature and needing a mommy. Home is the place where they can suck their thumbs, curl up and recharge. Each teen is different so remember that some need more down time than others. You can monitor this by evaluating how well they manage emotionally. Paring down the outside activities can be one way to help them reconnect to themselves. But be cautious here. Sometimes we moms imagine they will be happier with less, when what they crave and need is more. Teens have a remarkable capacity to juggle many demands and some need that stimulation to become the competent people they want to be.

So what do you do if you have teens needing adventure and little kids needing a stable home routine? This is the trickiest period, but it’s important to be intentional. There are a couple ways to help your teens get out without sacrificing the little kids in the process (and there are ways to keep a nice, vibrant home life without forcing teens to sit home all day). Try some of these ideas and see how they work for you.

  1. Commit to one big “out of the house” project for your teen. Support one big project (Shakespeare, biology class, refurbishing a car, All Star soccer). Pay for it, help get the teen to that project, show up for performances or whatever is required. Then, above that one big project, put the responsibility on your teen to make the other stuff happen. That means if it requires money, they earn it. If it requires rides, they coordinate (create the car-pooling, or drive themselves, or work it out with you so that it doesn’t interfere with your routine with the younger kids). They take responsibility for making the stuff they want… happen. That’s part of adventure, responsibility and risk. They choose to make their lives more interesting, richer.
  2. Find one big project to work on at home. This can be as sophisticated as constructing a language (I have one kid who did this) or as simple as becoming really good at World of Warcraft. It’s great if your teens have a goal that can be pursued at home: watching all the top AFI films, writing a novel, studying art history, planting a vegetable garden, rebuilding the engine of a car, building a website, learning photography. School work (the stuff that goes on the transcript) is necessary, but if it’s all that your teen does at home, home will quickly become a chore rather than a place your teen wants to be.
  3. Protect your mornings. Let your teens know that you need the mornings with your younger kids. That means you will resist being a ride between 8:00 and 11:00 every day. (If a teen needs a ride home from school or something routine like that and it doesn’t take you more than 15 minutes round trip to make it happen, then that’s not unreasonable… but be wary of interruptions that take a half hour or more.)
  4. Triangle in other teen families. It’s sure nice if your daughter and her best friend are both in the play together. Car-pooling! It’s great if a group of kids takes biology together so they can study, ride-share and have friends all at the same time.
  5. Pass home responsibilities down to the younger kids; free your teens to do less at home. Remember when your oldest was 10? You expected a lot (cleaning a bathroom, laundry, setting and clearing the table). But now that your youngest is 10, you still expect the 16 year old to do those chores while the 10 year old seems “too young.” Nonsense. Get your younger kids to do the chores and free the teen to study, have a social life, work a job, and pursue extra-curricular activities. This helps your teen want to be home, too.
  6. Keep a computer in the family room. This enables you to be with your youngers while your teens have a reason to leave their bedrooms.

More ideas? Post them in the comments section.

Posted in Brave Writer Philosophy, Family Notes, General, Homeschool Advice, Tips for Teen Writers, Young Writers | 4 Comments »

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