Author Archive

Podcast: Emotional Safety in Writing

Brave Writer Podcast

I am recording some of my Tea with Julie emails for the podcast for those of you who prefer to listen. These are brief messages of support for parents and educators. If you’d like to receive the weekly emails, they are free. Sign up at bravewriter.com/tea

Continuing our podcast series on the Four Forces of Enchantment, let’s talk more about risk-taking.

Some writing programs don’t address the key condition needed to take risks in writing: emotional safety.

That’s why writing a diary or a journal has been popular for centuries. The tradition of daily writing away from readers allows people to:

  • discover their own thoughts,
  • externalize their feelings,
  • process what happens to them.

In our “educator” hunger to create writers of our children, sometimes we skip the step that allows them to write without our prying eyes.

Show Notes

Complete Tea with Julie notes can be found HERE.

Resources

Connect with Julie
● Instagram: instagram.com/juliebravewriter
● Twitter: twitter.com/bravewriter
● Facebook: facebook.com/bravewriter

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Get It Done

Brave Writer

The number one way to improve your experience is to do the thing!” and “If you do ONE thing each day, you will make progress and pacify the guilt gremlins.

I know I know. But seriously.

It’s impossible to do All. The. Things. I know you want to do all the things. But here’s what else I know.

That ONE thing that would change your life? That’s the one to do. Make it number one. Rather than focusing on all the stuff that you can do first, or that you think would make your main thing more likely or possible… go straight to the MAIN thing—the top priority.

Let me give you an example.

You say you want to homeschool. So you put all your energy into curriculum shopping, organizing materials, discussing teaching methods, arranging a school room… and yet you feel like you never get around to the actual doing of the home educating.

Flip it. Dive into education first.

  • Grab a book and start reading it aloud in the middle of the mess.
  • Go ahead and write times tables on the window with window markers.
  • Call out the sounds of the letters while you roll them into play-doh shapes.
  • Talk about why the leaves change color in the fall.
  • Walk outside and look at, touch, hold, and examine leaves.

Let the activity of the main thing lead the way (rather than endlessly preparing to do it).

Same goes if, say, you want to be a writer. Open the laptop, open a word doc, and type. You don’t need a better office, candles, wall hangings, plants, or an agent. What you need is words. Get them out! I conducted my entire writing career on a laptop on a kitchen counter for twenty years. You can too!

If the Main Thing is organizing your house for a move, start tossing stuff and don’t worry about homeschooling while doing it. This is a short-lived season. Go all in and get it done.

The point is: whatever the main thing is, you will feel better when you do the substance of it rather than the preparation for it. Cook the food, go for the run, hang the painting, repot the plant, buy the plane ticket, do the science experiment, start the math book. Do whatever the thing is.

Make progress. Feel better.

What’s your one thing today?

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

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Brave Learner Home: Joy is the Best Teacher

Brave Learner Home

Julie’s kids: Caitrin, Jacob, Liam, Johannah, Noah

How much joy is happening in your homeschool?

Stop. Scan your environment.

  • Do you see joy around you?
  • Are your children engaged and deeply involved?

Inside each of us is a natural desire to learn. Yet sometimes that drive gets snuffed out through systematized education.

Good news!

That love of learning can be rekindled.

We know through research that joy and learning are deeply connected. Join us in Brave Learner Home and check out the Master Class, Joy is the Best Teacher.

Joy IS the best teacher. Together, let’s discover more joy in your homeschool.

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Podcast: Critically Thinking about the News with Mosheh Oinounou Pt. 2

Brave Writer Podcast

We’re continuing our conversation (here’s part one) with Mosheh Oinounou, a journalist who breaks down daily headlines of the biggest, most relevant news stories on his Instagram. He also publishes a newsletter that aims to share real, verified news sources and hosts a daily news podcast as part of his Mo News Network.

In today’s Brave Writer podcast, we discuss:

  • how to come together despite our division,
  • how to handle differences of opinion within our communities,
  • and what to do about our political polarization.

Show Notes

Coming together as a divided world

In an increasingly polarized political landscape, it can be tempting to hold your opinions close to your chest. We don’t want to push people away, after all. But that would be a mistake. What we really need is for people to share their opinions and beliefs even more. But how we do that matters.

Debating only drags us deeper into our individual belief systems—it inspires us to aim for victory, not solve problems.

Instead, we need to hear from as many people as possible, from as many different situations as we can. When our problem solving accounts for more people we are better for it. Part of what Mosheh does with his network is try and represent the variety of voices out there so that we can all come to better solutions instead of simply validating our own perspectives.

Handling differences of opinion within a community

How do you hold your own beliefs in a polarized world—not hiding them, but engaging with them?

We need to bring everyone into the discussion and make them feel that their experience matters.

People have to be working off of the same facts, even if their opinions on those facts are different.

At some point we stop debating facts. For instance, climate change: we know the climate is changing. It’s undeniable. But the question that we need to focus on is how we deal with that.

The answer to that question—”How do we deal with this?”—is going to be very different depending on who you ask. But when we’re coming up with a solution that is going to affect everyone involved, we need to hear all voices instead of believing that our solution, the one that benefits us the most, is the right one. That is how we bridge our differences.

Our political polarization

In the United States, our elected officials are meant to be representatives of the majority of the people who voted them into office—even when they go against an official’s personal beliefs. We are in an era where breaking party lines as a representative is not respected. It’s not rewarded. And yet, despite how broken our politics are, there is proof that democracy works. When people cause enough noise to get their voices heard, we can change our government.

If we can respectfully disagree with each other, the world will be a better place. Things will get done, and the actions we take will positively affect more people and leave fewer behind. But it’s going to take work to get there, and that work starts with you.

If you’re looking for tools and support in raising kids in a media-saturated environment, consider reading Raising Critical Thinkers. It is designed to raise kids who are mindful and know how to vet their own sources and think for themselves. In the world we live in today, I can hardly think of anything more important than that.

Resources

Connect with Julie

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Reading Aloud: Connecting to Life Itself

Brave Writer Reading Aloud

Reading aloud is more than getting through the chapters to the end. Reading to your children is a chance for them to experience you—your values, your priorities, your heartfelt connection to life itself.

My daughter Johannah called me from college. “That’s why you cried,” she said.

Johannah had always wondered why I couldn’t get through the end of Charlotte’s Web without leaking tears. It’s that final sentence. It gets me every time.

“It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.”

Charlotte was both—sob! I’m all choked up again.

When Johannah was a child, this line seemed like a matter-of-fact statement about Charlotte. Johannah wondered what feelings I was having that she wasn’t. As a newly minted college student, Johannah reread the book to find out. Cue adulthood, and she experienced a different reaction to those legendary lines. She saw their poignancy, the subtle way E.B. White affirmed writers for their craft, and the power of loyalty in friendship until death. Values—she now understood—demonstrated in my tears, a decade earlier.

When we read to our kids, we aren’t just conveying words or a narrative. Our living, breathing reactions make impressions too. We:

  • show an appreciation for courage or hardship,
  • laugh at the plays on words,
  • smile with delight at alliterative phrases,
  • demonstrate surprise or moral outrage.

Our children, listening along, take in the story and adult response—both. Even when they don’t quite “get it yet.” These shared experiences with you form the bedrock of their values.

Next time you feel a little chagrined by your inability to read without tears streaming down your cheeks—let them flow. Let your children see the good, compassionate, sensitive feeling the story evokes from you.

That’s half the lesson.

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