A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

PSA: For Type A home educators who wish they could relax and chill a little more but are attached to “the to do list.”

You can be as check-listy as you like in your homeschool. Truth! You don’t have to pretend to be some other uncomfortable version of yourself—that free spirit go-with-the-flow hippie type earth mama—to get to connection and natural learning. Be you! Make that checklist. Change what’s on it.

For instance, instead of 3 pages of math and 15 minutes of silent reading, list the stuff you forget to do in all your ship-shapeness. How about these?

• Listened attentively when your child told her tale
• Eased a child’s stress with a hug and kindness
• Played a table top game with the children
• Used body activities to teach a lesson
• Celebrated a learning milestone with a treat
• Allowed a curiosity to continue uninterrupted
• Put messy craft materials out on a table (while gritting teeth) for exploration
• Cleaned up after the kids without resentment

You can put ANYTHING on a calendar or a check list. You decide!

Go forth and be yourself. Expand the ways you lead, while honoring your natural temperament.

PSA: For Type B homeschoolers who wish they made better plans to prove they are being conscientious but hate calendars.

You can be as free-spirited as you like in your homeschool. It’s true! You don’t have to pretend to be some fantasy version of yourself—slick bullet journaler, daily scheduler, definer of objectives and goals for each child—to get to confidence in your children’s homeschool progress. Be you! Follow inspiration. Then plan from behind.

For free-spirits, the advance planning you do is invisible to you. Your mind and attention range over all kinds of important ideas, trivial rabbit trails, and methods you might want to explore as you go on your way. Then one moment out of the blue: an idea occurs to you to test, or a spontaneous big juicy conversation erupts, or you play with a concept like fractions all morning. The spontaneous feel of these learning excursions makes them appear “accidental” or outside what “counts” as education.

Nonsense! In fact, you must count these experiences that never made the list or calendar because your finest work shows up unguided by you!

So pull out that gorgeous, intimidating planner you had to have (but hate to use) and fill it up… with what you’ve already done. Count it all!

At the end of each day, jot down on the right date anything of value that happened:

• Talking about cheetahs while making lunch
• Googling how to care for American Girl doll hair
• Copying addresses onto birthday invitations
• The pun-fest that dad started at dinner
• Learning how to change a lightbulb
• Skip-counting while skipping
• Singing memorized lyrics to a song (aka poetry memorization)

It ALL counts, even when it’s not planned in advance. Over time, your planner will tell you what you’ve accomplished after the fact rather than stressing you by asking you to prepare to do what you cannot face. Ask me how I know this!

It works! You get to be who you are in homeschool (after all, who you are is how you got here—so it must work for ya!). Let’s keep a record to prove it.

This post is originally from Instagram and @juliebravewriter is my account there so come follow along for more conversations like this one!