Podcast: Overturning Overwhelm

Let’s talk about agency.

Here’s what I’ve observed over the last 30 years: Women are sometimes reluctant to take full charge of their lives and decisions. We’ve been trained to believe that an authority outside of ourselves has a better version of the life we could be living than the one we authored in our own minds. When overwhelm hits, it’s as if we delegate the responsibility to someone else to fix what’s wrong. Overwhelm is often a cry for rescue.

Homeschoolers are short on confidence when they begin this brand new method of educating, and for good reason. It’s an unknown experience for most of us and we’re choosing it in spite of what we’ve been told is the best method of education and child-rearing.

It’s easy to feel doubt and worry that we are depriving our kids of what they need in some way—truth is, we’re all deprived right now, and there are no easy solutions.

Even before the pandemic, we were prone to doubt ourselves. There must be a program, or a leader, or a man, or instructions that hold the keys to our happiness and success—that make kids cooperate and experience joy all the time. When these tools and theories don’t perform as expected, we feel ripped off. We declare overwhelm because it feels wrong to make the judgment: this idea/program/method/practice doesn’t work for me and my family.

Do you want to know why we live that way?

Because, for centuries, women have been trained to believe that we are not allowed to be the “top dog” in any context. We are used to deferring, to playing nice, to distrusting ourselves. 

So here are my three steps to help you move from damsel in distress to a kick-ass woman who is in training to be a great homeschooling mother. Ready?

1. Use better words.


Any time you want to use the words “overwhelmed, confused, anxious,” make yourself replace the words with specific needs that can be filled. 

If your kids are fighting your every directive, instead of tearful self-flagellation about what an awful mother you are, say: “My kids’ needs are showing up with anger and resistance. What can I do to hear their anger before we move on to the next activity?”

Instead of: “This program is confusing. I’m overwhelmed,” say, “I read the instructions. I don’t feel brave enough to follow through. I wonder why.”

Tell the freaking truth.

The instructions ask you to ACT. If you get to the end of preparation and can’t act, that’s a problem you can solve! Ask yourself: “What’s one thing I can do based on these instructions?” Ask: “If I had to guess, what do I think the author of this program might be driving at?” Ask: “When I see this philosophy of education in action, I feel like my personality might not jibe with it. What part of how I am can I commit to this concept?”

Give yourself permission to hate what you’re reading or to not understand it and take notes on that lack of understanding. Give yourself a pep talk that says: “I’m smart. I’m capable. I can learn this. I don’t need help, I need time and patience with myself.”

There’s no coach or person who can fill that empty place inside that YOU are meant to inhabit. The good news? The person who gets to fill that place inside you is, well YOU and she is AWESOME! I mean, can you even believe her? This person that is YOU chose to stick it to the man and homeschool! I mean, you’re already incredibly brave and creative! You already have enormous faith in yourself! Let’s use it!

No backwards steps to delegating your authority over your own life. Not every challenge is an indictment of your abilities. In fact, I’d argue—none of them are!

2. Once you tell the truth, take a risk.

Risk being wrong. Maybe everyone loves a method or program and you feel intimidated to try it and secretly want permission to keep doing the textbook routine. Own it. Crush it. Learn from it. Brag about it. Tell the world that this is YOUR choice and you are doing it this way because you want to and can and don’t care if you are missing out on the marvel of some other way of living.

I have a friend who loved K-12 online learning in Ohio. This program is sponsored by the public school system. It allowed her family to run a business, to have the accountability the dad valued, and the independence the girls wanted. They didn’t have to pay for materials and they were relieved of all the distracting discussions about method and philosophy. She OWNED it. But it cost her too. The local homeschool support group kicked her out. They don’t allow K-12 homeschoolers in the state organization.

So she had to choose. She could have fudged: trying to appease the group’s standards while having a homeschool that she didn’t like, that didn’t work for her family OR she could ditch the group and have the homeschool that worked for her people. She could then FIND her people who were supportive of her the way she lived not judging her for not being who they determined was the “right” kind of homeschooler. She joined our co-op and was quite happy there!

When we seek approval through weakness (a weak choice), we sabotage our own lives.

You may seek approval to be IN the group through making a life choice that is not right for you (a weak choice) and then not understand why you aren’t happy anymore. That’s a sabotage of your own life!

Approval means you’re trying to figure out a version of yourself that you can present to the world that won’t get you in trouble. And it keeps you inherently weak. That’s because you can’t confidently take the risk that will help you grow! But risk is the name of the game if you want to get out of confusion, overwhelm, and anxiety. These are cover words for: “They may not like me, they may not approve of me.”

Risk it all. Push all the chips to the center of the table.

Sure, you might think: “But Julie, it’s not good that I don’t like reading.” No kidding! I didn’t like math. You know what that made me do? Work harder to find math that I could tolerate, that made it meaningful. Eventually, I farmed it out because that was the best way to make math a good experience for my kids. But I was honest about math. I didn’t pretend.

If you know reading is important but you hate it, start there. How does a person who hates reading teach reading? How does a person who feels unqualified to teach science teach science?

Why are we pretending to be who we aren’t all the freaking time? It’s exhausting! And oh by the way: Overwhelming and confusing.

I remember when I was attracted to unschooling and my friends were hand-wringing about whether or not it was a valid way to get an education: what about math? What about lab sciences? Everyone was so worried. All that energy wasted on worry! Forecasting what they THOUGHT would happen rather than actually finding out.

Not me. I leapt. I said to them: “Don’t worry. I’ll risk my kids on unschooling so you don’t have to.”

Some of you know my story. Unschooling was mostly a flop for 3 of the 5 kids. So? We have thousands of flops in parenting and education. It’s not like you don’t learn something in that process. But my leap helped me to actually understand the arguments for unschooling and I learned much of its power during that somewhat dissatisfying season even while it was failing bigtime for several of my kids. For the two it helped, it helped tremendously.

That’s the way it goes! Not everybody will have the same experience just because you decided it was good for everyone. As I continued being a home educator, we pivoted again and again and again, but I didn’t ask permission for the pivot. I didn’t say to everyone: “I’m overwhelmed. Tell me what to do.” How does that help anyone help you?

Take the risk! Dive in. Own your choices. Learn something! Trust that you are big enough and strong enough to take failure. 

You have agency. Make choices and be brave about them.

3. Own the power of your brain.

You are smart.

I don’t care if you have a degree or not. Every homeschooler I’ve met has the capacity to learn and to teach kids. Your brain can read instructions and understand them. You may need quiet or a cup of coffee or some friends to talk to so you can process your thoughts aloud. But you are capable.

What if you make a rule for yourself that you will not complain or declare your confusion until you have believed in the power of your own mind to understand, first?

You see a vision of homeschooling that appeals to you. Maybe it’s Montessorri or Waldorf or Wild + Free or Charlotte Mason or some kind of social justice vision of educating your kids to be politically alert and active.

The first step is not understanding how it all works. More is revealed as you go.

Instead, pick the aspect of the philosophy that drew you, and start there. Explore it, live it, get to know it. Let the philosophy unspool. Don’t be in such a hurry to do all of it now. Let yourself grow in the skill and understanding along the way.

If the vision you have is of raising chickens and building sheds, you don’t have to know how yet. Start with one chicken. Make friends with someone who builds sheds. 

The thing is: you can’t do it all well all the time. You will cycle through passions, you’ll do more of one thing than another based on the seasons of your life.

This journey is not a smooth path. No one can mark it out for you. But I have 100% confidence that you are capable of making all the decisions you need to make to have a good life. Each time you declare what risks you are taking, you get to stand tall and firm—say to those who would challenge you: “So? What if I’m wrong? We’ll find out together.”

You create your stress for yourself by allowing your kids or the school board to determine what ought to happen in your home. It happens when you allow Instagram or a homeschool support group to tell you how to create a worthy homeschool.

When your kids give you blow back and you feel a surge of overwhelm and confusion, remember these concepts:

  • You have agency.
  • You can use better words: rename confusion as an “opportunity to grow.”
  • Tell the truth: you can take a risk and OWN it. It’s a chance to learn! Isn’t this homeschool? Isn’t that the point?
  • Finally, you’re smarter than you give yourself credit for. Allow your own brain-power to figure stuff out. Let go of the learned helplessness. Be your own woman!

You can do it!

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