A Brave Writer’s Life in Brief

“Whatever you resist, persists.” -Carl Jung

You know that feeling when you’re upset, and someone tries to talk you out of it? Are you like me? Do you double down on your opinion, do you want the other person to simply hear you, to accept as valid for you a negative feeling or analysis?

Yeah, same for your kids. And yet we parents resist their perspectives with such ease.

• It will only take five minutes!
• Try it! You’re gonna love it.
• It’s not that hard.
• Once you get started, you’ll be glad you did it.
• That’s ridiculous!

What follows? Resistance. Now your child not only disagrees with you, but feels bent on proving to you the rightness of his or her opinion.

What would happen, though, if you tried this magic phrase: “You may be right?”

Do we need our children to agree with us in order for them to follow through on eating breakfast or finishing their math work or making the bed?

Examples

“I hate making my bed. I’m just going to get in it again tonight. It’s stupid.”
“You may be right! See you downstairs in five.”

“I wish I never had to learn math. It’s too hard!”
“You may be right! Let’s do the next one together.”

We can give our kids the dignity of their unique experience. We don’t have to cheerlead them into a false positivity. They can make a bed AND think it’s pointless. They can learn math WHILE wishing they didn’t have to.

Most often, feelings are passing. Feelings are not facts. They just need to be

• heard,
• accepted,
• and folded into what you are already doing.

If the negativity is profound, you might say: “You may be right. Let’s take a break to think about it.”

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

What would it look like to be more of you in your homeschool?

Indulge your sense of humor, if that’s your personality.

Organize the day ahead of time, if that’s what helps you.

Enjoy your gifts:

• math,
• science,
• art,
• acting,
• logic,
• writing,
• music,
• foreign language,
• technology,
• history,
• crafting,
• baking,
• literature…

Dive deep, and give time to what you love.

If who you are is self-disciplined, you don’t have to become loosey-goosey. If who you are is a free-spirit, you’re not required to lesson plan.

Imagine what your homeschool could be if you affirmed your strengths and allowed yourself to maximize their value for your children.

Working hard to correct what you consider to be flaws is not proof of a quality homeschool. Executing your weaknesses poorly yet with discipline doesn’t equal a satisfying education.

A quality homeschool experience is grounded in your

• passion,
• joy,
• and competence.

Lean in to what makes YOU amazing and watch your homeschool flourish. 

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

Is it possible to live your best life as a homeschooler? In other words, is homeschooling a sacrifice of self, giving up what could have been a rich adulthood? Or is it a means to your best adult life—the one you’d pick again because it was just so danged wonderful?

Jeanne Faulconer, Director of Brave Writer’s Homeschool Alliance, said to me recently that homeschooling is more than an education for kids. It’s like yoga—a life-practice. It’s a path, the way, a philosophy of living that guides, well, everything while you are living a homeschool life.

I had a bolt of clarity. That’s how I feel about writing. It’s a practice, a process, it’s a way of life for me. Academic writing is important and we teach it, but it’s a subset of the vitality of writing. Writing is self-expression, a chance to engage your own mind and the responses of readers interested in your original thinking.

Homeschooling is the pursuit of knowing, learning, exploring the big bold beautiful world without the pressures of school. (Wow! Reread that sentence.) It’s a chance to nurture intimacy with children, not just marshall them into study habits. It’s a way of life because life and learning become one. We’re literally training our own brain chemistry to be curious over correcting, to go for insight over parroting.

We’re not martyrs.

We’re not giving up our adulthood for our kids.

We’re the lucky ones—each day we yield to not knowing yet in pursuit of knowing a little more that means something to someone in our homes. What an adventure!

In hindsight, I can easily say homeschooling let me live my best life. I hope we can help you say the same.

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

Idealism is the enemy of well-being. Bold statement, I know. Idealism inspires us and allows us to aspire to challenging the status quo. Totally powerful and necessary for transformation and change, particularly the kind that impacts society, not just you or your family.

Idealism harms us when we become more attached to protecting that system of beliefs or practices than providing for the health and well being of the individual human beings in our care (including ourselves). We harm each other when we judge a person’s choices against our ideals for society rather than seeing that choice in the complicated individual context out of which it emerged.

So here are my gray-hair thoughts to consider. When you are faced with a crisis, get ALL options on the table—even the ones you swore you’d never consider.

• Sometimes just seeing them laid out provides a pressure release that allows you to continue in your original choice.
• Sometimes you discover a third-option that helps you, supports you without having to give up the ideal entirely.
• And sometimes, you will find such overwhelming relief imagining the forbidden option that you are suddenly aware there’s a much deeper pain, lack of health, starvation going on and you must face those scary facts, now.

The new choice is only for now. It is not a verdict on what you’ve done before or what you’ll do in the future. When in triage-mode, saving a life is all that counts—yours, your kids’, your partner’s.

You have choices. Find them. Use them. Change your mind.

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