Something that can make homeschoolers feel bad is comparing home education to traditional school.

The chronic feeling of overwhelm, guilt, and pressure to perform often comes from the “ghost of public school past.”

Why do we let public school expectations dictate how we feel about our homeschools? We literally opted out of that method and system!

We create an emotionally draining environment when we continually measure our experience of education against the one we chose not to use.

It’s like measuring your homegrown strawberries against the perfectly sized flawless-looking berries in a supermarket display.

You literally grew your own strawberries for specific reasons that are meaningful to you. The way they grow strawberries for supermarkets is a completely different method and a process that you have chosen not to do in your own backyard because you prefer the homegrown variety! BRAVO!!

REPEAT AFTER ME: It’s emotionally draining to hold my homeschool to a school standard.

Keep growing wild strawberries…please!

Love you.

Over the last five years, we did a lot of this growing together through my free newsletter “Tea with Julie.” Since then, my hair got grey and your kids got older!

Today, it feels like time for something new. Substack beckons!

We can do more of what I’d like to do with you—with comment sections plus video and audio. I like the format (reminds me of old school internet where I grew the most as a homeschooler and human person).

Plus my ever-busy brain needs a place to keep writing!

Here’s what you can expect:

• Themed content delivered weekly (parenting, struggles with writing, teaching a specific subject, homeschool planning, managing multiples, dealing with burnout, taking care of your own brain, and more).
• Weekly freewriting prompts for your kids. We’ll encourage you to share their freewrites in the comments so you can get to know how freewriting works for kids besides your own! I can’t wait to read what they write!
• A podcast for your kiddos called Monday Morning Meeting! Five minutes of ideas to help them be revved up to learn. (Paid subscribers only)

Sometimes, we’ll send out public Substacks to everyone because it’s a topic that is better suited to the WHOLE WORLD. But the rest of the time, we’re going to focus on specific aspects of educating, parenting, and adulting—what I call brave learning. Paid subscribers will get to comment and read the entire message, and engage with me and one another.

See you there!

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Online friends are GOLD. They’re often your heart to heart people.

BUT there’s nothing like having a person in your life that you can call to go on a hike or to make baking soda volcanos with you. That in-person comrade may or may not be “best friend” material—and they don’t have to be. They bring their in-person energy! Precious!!

Be Brave

It takes courage to initiate with a human you don’t know. In the pre-internet days, there were no other options! Take a little of my chutzpah—be brave and ask someone you know a little (neighbor, soccer mom, person on the treadmill next to you at the gym) if they are interested in doing family-style stuff with you.

Pick one low stakes event. Trade phone numbers (for texting obvz—not scary TALKING), make it happen, see how it goes!

You’ll get some polite “no’s” but eventually, you may find just enough of what you need to stop feeling so alone and lonely outside of the internet.

You deserve in-person friends! (Psst: and they don’t even need to be homeschoolers…though after knowing you, who knows what might happen?!)

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

Your kids hate writing because they don’t know that the words that live in their heads are the ones that need to be on the page. They think they have to find the words the teacher has in mind or the words that the assignment expects. They sometimes think they have to find the words that they can spell or punctuate.

The Secretary for Your Brain

But writing is merely being the secretary for your brain. Your kids need lots of room to simply hook up the hand with the mind and scribble it onto a page. That’s it!

Can you trust that messy process to grow a writer? YES!

Today: set a timer for one minute. Everyone (including you!) writes! Keep that pencil going at top speed, no regard for errors. Just write. At the end, pencils, down, and give a big exhale. No need to even read the writing! Just do it.

Writing is hard when we think it’s a performance. Writing becomes easier and easier when we see it as a skill that hooks up a brain with a hand. Nothing less, but nothing more either.

Everything in the writing life starts with the confidence to put the pen on the page and write what you think.

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

Would you like to use the Brave Writer philosophy but would rather custom design your own writing program?

No problem!

1. To nurture your child’s inner voice and facilitate original writing

DO-IT-YOURSELF:

• Read about Writing Voice (check out the additional links at the bottom of the post).
• Jot down your children’s thoughts for them until they are ready to write on their own.
• Practice freewriting.

BRAVE WRITER SUPPORT: Purchase Growing Brave Writers or take our Brave Writer 101 Online class if you’d like to be coached.

2. To combine mechanics with literature

DO-IT-YOURSELF:

• Pick age-appropriate fiction and nonfiction to read with your kids.
• Select passages from the books for copywork and dictation.
• In addition, you might use a grammar reference once in the upper elementary years (like Nitty Gritty Grammar) and then a more systematic program (like Winston Grammar) once in junior high and once in high school (or learn a foreign language).

BRAVE WRITER SUPPORT: Pick one of our ten-month Language Arts Programs or purchase our language arts guides a la carte to go with the books you are reading.

3. To create writing projects

DO-IT-YOURSELF:

• Learn about structure and format in writing.
• Create writing projects with your kids.

BRAVE WRITER SUPPORT: Use our writing project programs. Each course has ten or more writing projects in it to last you at least a year. Or sign up for an online writing class with our awesome writing coaches!

Which Brave Writer Products?