A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

The number one way you can have a great homeschool is to shift the responsibility for it being great from your kids’ performance to your preparation.

In other words, put more time into making sure that the lessons are relevant, interesting, and suited to the child’s skills. Put less energy into requirement, frustration, and worry that your child is getting behind.

No one gets behind if they are attended to. If the child is stuck or struggling or bored, that’s not the child’s fault. It’s the child’s reality.

You have two options.

1. You can require the child to perform anyway. You can punish a lack of compliance, you can yell or argue or show disapproval. You can nag and lecture and withhold screen time. You can push the child along to complete work so that you feel better, even if your child feels worse.

2. You can put your energy into understanding how to make this a meaningful lesson for the child. What else can you do to make the subject come to life, meet the current skill set, or show relevance to that child’s life today? You can accept the child as he or she is and work with that person, not the fantasy version of the child you wish you had.

Both 1 and 2 require energy. You get to decide which energy you’d rather expend.

Do you prefer to be the authority who gets compliance or the partner who creates meaning?

The reason we don’t try number 2 more often is because the models we have are reward/punishment based. But you’re at home. You get to toss those models onto the ash heap. Instead, experiment with kindness, collaboration, curiosity, and joy. Imagine that the subject could be appealing and pleasurable. Work to find the angle.

Joy IS the best teacher.

That’s where the bulk of your home education work occurs—finding the way in to a happier experience. That’s your job!

Lucky you: it’s a really gratifying one because when you find that sweet spot, the learning is legendary and you’ll want to Instagram it right away.

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

If the program stays in your inbox, and you don’t download it to the computer, you have no hope of using it.

If the curriculum sits on the dining room table, spine un-cracked, it will not magically transmit the content to your learners.

If you feel confused or overwhelmed, that feeling won’t go away until you make a pot of coffee and sit with the program, reading it until you understand its aims and how to use it.

There’s no shame in:

• taking it one product at a time,
• reading the teacher’s notes or user’s guide,
• and getting familiar.

There’s no auto-fill program—you buy it, your kid gets educated from it.

Any successful experience with curriculum comes from your choice to learn it and use it.

You can do it!

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