Brave Writer News: January 2026

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[Podcast #323] Silent Reading Parties

Brave Writer Podcast

What if the most powerful way to strengthen focus, creativity, and connection in your home is…quiet?

In this Brave Writer podcast episode, we explore the growing trend of silent reading parties and why shared, sustained reading helps both kids and adults reclaim attention in a scrolling world.

We talk about:

  • body doubling,
  • device fatigue,
  • reading rituals that actually work,
  • and how simple practices like DEAR time or candlelit reading can change the rhythm of a homeschool day.

If your family struggles to settle into books, this conversation offers gentle, practical ways to read together again. Join us—and then grab a book.

Show Notes

We are surrounded by noise that doesn’t sound loud. Notifications, infinite feeds, constant refresh. Even when a room is quiet, our minds are trained to anticipate interruption. That’s why sitting down with a book can feel strangely uncomfortable, for us and for our kids.

One gentle antidote is something surprisingly simple: reading together in silence.

Silent reading isn’t new. Many of us remember Sustained Silent Reading or DEAR time from school, moments when the entire room paused and everyone entered a book at once. What we’re seeing now is a revival of that practice in a fresh form: silent reading parties. Groups gather in bookstores, pubs, living rooms, or libraries, not to discuss books but to read quietly side by side.

What makes this so effective is shared focus.

Reading as a Shared Practice

There’s a concept called body doubling, where doing a task alongside someone else helps regulate attention. It’s not about instruction or accountability. It’s about presence. When everyone in the room is reading, the nervous system settles. There’s nothing else to miss, nowhere else to be.

This works beautifully in homeschool families. When parents read alongside their kids instead of multitasking, reading becomes visible. A physical book or e-reader sends a different message than a phone, even if the phone technically holds a book. Kids read what we model.

We’ve found that setting the stage matters. Lighting a candle. Setting a short timer. Removing phones from the room entirely. Even five minutes can be enough to help the brain drop in. Once that threshold is crossed, longer stretches often follow naturally.

Attention Is a Skill

Many kids today have never experienced being lost in a book. That isn’t a failure of character. It’s a reflection of the environments we all inhabit. Sustained attention has to be practiced.

Sometimes that practice looks unconventional. Chewing crunchy snacks while reading can help some kids focus. Switching between poetry, nonfiction, and stories during a single reading session can lower resistance. Reading doesn’t have to be linear to be meaningful.

What matters is helping kids notice how attention works and giving them safe places to stretch it.

Reading Feeds Creativity

When we talk about protecting reading time, we aren’t defending nostalgia. We’re making space for creativity, interior life, and original thought. Books ask us to stay. To follow an idea all the way through. To inhabit someone else’s perspective long enough for it to change us.

In homeschooling, choosing reading is a statement of trust. Trust that:

  • learning happens through relationship,
  • not everything meaningful can be measured,
  • and when kids are nourished by ideas, language, and story, growth follows.

A silent reading party doesn’t need decorations or discussion questions. It just needs a shared agreement: for this time, we read. Together. Quietly. And let that be enough.

Resources

Connect with Julie

Connect with Melissa

Produced by NOVA

Brave Writer Podcast

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Writing and Your Child’s Mental Health

Brave Writer

We think we’re teaching our kids how to write for academic achievement, but what if we’re actually teaching kids how to write for their mental health?

To help their clients stabilize internal chaos, clinicians use:

  • journaling,
  • freewriting prompts,
  • poetry,
  • and the communication game.

Foundaton of Self-Awareness

The art of writing and self-examination create a foundation of self-awareness that leads to mental health.

So why try a traditional writing program that has proven to damage the mental health of so many students? I’m not being a alarmist. Adults everywhere tell me their stories of the damage caused by a writing instructor in their lives. The evaluation model of writing instruction is failing so many.

Yet writing is one of the most important and effective tools for mental health and recovery.

If your kids learn to write because it helps them know themselves, they may never need it as a recovery tool, but as an ongoing conversation with themselves that leads them to self-confidence and a feeling of personal power.

Liberate your kids to enjoy writing! And if you need support, Brave Writer is here to help.

This post was originally shared on Instagram.
Watch the accompanying reel for more.

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NEW: Independent Study Courses!

Brave Writer Classes

In an era of rapid-fire information and high academic stakes, the most radical thing a teen can do is become a master of the message—no matter the medium.

That’s why Brave Writer created our new Independent Study Courses. These are:

  • self-paced,
  • instructor-free,
  • and designed to let your student lead their own learning.

Our current courses are designed for teens ages 13-18.

Let’s dive in!

MLA Research Essay

Designed for older teens

Think: “No-stress” college prep. The Modern Language Association (MLA) sets the gold standard for scholarly writing. We don’t just teach your teen how to follow MLA rules to write a properly formatted essay; we teach them how to join a global conversation.

This course empowers your teen to take a stand on an issue they care about and back it up with the authority of expert evidence. We teach a repeatable, high-level process your teen can use to thrive in academic writing courses for years to come.

  • The Skills: Analyzing credible sources, using research to enhance thinking, crafting and proving a persuasive thesis, and mastering citations
  • The Outcome: A 1,500–2,000-word argumentative paper that fits any academic purpose

Media Literacy

Designed for ages 13-18

Think: “Safety goggles” for the internet. Our teens are swimming in a digital ocean of deepfakes and clickbait. They don’t need “internet rules” (which are obsolete by next Tuesday) to stay afloat. They need critical thinking muscles.

In this course, we turn your teens into media analyzers and then creators. With this approach, they will understand exactly how they are being influenced as consumers.

  • The Skills: Analyzing creator bias, “reading” audio and visual inputs, and engaging in persuasive digital storytelling.
  • The Outcome: An original Public Service Announcement (PSA) that uses imagery, sound, and scriptwriting to move an audience.
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[Podcast #322] Parenting a Spicy One with Mary Van Geffen

Brave Writer Podcast

What if your child’s hardest behaviors aren’t a problem to fix, but an invitation to grow?

In this Brave Writer podcast episode, we sit down with Mary Van Geffen, author of Parenting a Spicy One, to explore what it really means to raise a strong-willed, sensitive, or explosive child.

Mary Van Geffen
Mary Van Geffen

We talk about:

  • nervous systems,
  • repair after blow-ups,
  • and why slowing down is often the most effective parenting move.

You’ll hear practical strategies, deeply humane insights, and a reframing of “difficult” kids that just might change everything. Join us, and let’s rethink what supportive parenting can look like.

Show Notes

Some children arrive in our lives with intensity dialed all the way up. They ask more questions, feel more deeply, resist more strongly, and react more loudly. Parenting these kids can leave us wondering whether we’re doing something wrong or whether we’re simply not cut out for the job. That’s where the idea of the “spicy one” becomes such a relief.

What Is a “Spicy One”?

A spicy one isn’t a bad child or even a particularly unusual one. A spicy one is the child who presses directly against our own edges. Their behavior exposes our stress, our wounds, our exhaustion, and our expectations. In other words, the challenge isn’t just who they are. It’s what their nervous system stirs up in ours.

When we frame things this way, the focus shifts. Instead of asking how to fix the child, we start asking what’s happening inside us when things go off the rails. That shift alone can soften so much shame.

Why Parenting Feels Harder Than It Looks

When parenting feels most difficult, the instinct is often to move faster. We raise our voices, tighten control, and search for better techniques. But speed rarely brings clarity. What actually helps is slowing down enough to notice what’s fueling the reaction.

Time pressure, financial stress, feeling watched by others, or carrying unresolved trauma can all magnify a child’s behavior. Naming those pressures doesn’t excuse our reactions, but it does help us respond with more intention and less panic.

The Power of the Conscious Pause

One of the most practical tools we can develop is the conscious pause. This isn’t about shutting down or walking away forever. It’s about creating just enough space to regulate ourselves before responding.

That pause might involve movement, breathing, or sensing what’s happening in your body. Are your shoulders tight? Is your jaw clenched? Are you reacting to the child in front of you, or to the fear that this moment defines your entire parenting story? Slowing down gives us options we don’t have when we’re flooded.

Why Repair Matters More Than Perfection

None of us parents perfectly, and our kids don’t need perfection. They need repair. Repair means returning to the child after a rupture, naming the impact of our behavior without justifying it, and explaining how we’ll try again next time.

When we repair, we teach something powerful: relationships can stretch, break a little, and still be safe. That lesson builds trust far more deeply than always getting it right.

Rethinking Praise and Affirmation

Many parents rely on praise to communicate love, but praise often focuses on performance. For strong-willed kids especially, that can feel hollow or even pressuring. Affirmation works differently. It names who a child is, not just what they did.

Persistent. Curious. Open-hearted. Brave. When children hear those truths reflected back to them, they begin to internalize them. They don’t need to earn belonging; they already have it.

What Spicy Kids Teach Us

These kids often grow into adults with vision, courage, and leadership. But long before that, they teach us something essential about being human. They invite us to slow down, stay present, and love without conditions.

Parenting a spicy one isn’t about producing a polished outcome. It’s about showing up again and again with curiosity, humility, and care. And in the process, we often become the steadier, braver people our kids needed all along.

Resources

Connect with Julie

Connect with Melissa

Produced by NOVA

Brave Writer Podcast

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Homeschooling Can Take It!

Brave Writer

Some homeschoolers mistakenly believe that we can parent and home educate unimpeachably. If anyone ever seems unhappy, we’re failing.

But let’s normalize…

  • boredom
  • reluctance
  • an unfinished art project
  • math pages that are too hard or too easy
  • a book no one likes
  • wandering attention
  • lackluster enthusiasm for fill-in-the-blank

Homeschooling is sturdy enough to take it!

In those moments when it does all come together and the magic occurs, those memories are like pearls strung on a necklace.

They linger. They last.

You can make the entire journey that way—lots of misses, a pearl every so often, eyes on the future, heart in the present on this amazing journey called life and learning.

Remember: most of us don’t know what we’re doing. We learn as we go with both notable failures and astonishing triumphs!

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