Archive for the ‘Podcasts’ Category

[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

Posted in Podcasts | Comments Off on [Podcast #323] Silent Reading Parties

[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

Posted in Podcasts | Comments Off on [Podcast #322] Parenting a Spicy One with Mary Van Geffen

Spark Children’s Creativity through Writing

Brave Writer

What if the real magic of learning isn’t found in a curriculum, but in the relationship between a child, a parent, and an idea?

In this episode of the Outspoken podcast, Julie Bogart, CEO and Founder of Brave Writer, talks about why protecting a child’s authentic writing voice matters more than teaching to evaluation. Julie:

  • provides suggestions for how parents can act as coaches who nurture insight rather than enforce correctness.
  • discusses AI and its impact on kids’ ability to think and struggle productively.
  • and explores how homeschooling has evolved and why relational learning outperforms traditional schooling. 

Tune in to hear how Julie is reshaping the future of writing and home education!

Here’s a clip from the episode:

Resources

Connect with Julie

Help! My Kid Hates Writing

Posted in Podcasts | Comments Off on Spark Children’s Creativity through Writing

[Podcast #321] No Paper Trail? No Problem!

Brave Writer Podcast

If your homeschool doesn’t produce stacks of worksheets, does that mean learning isn’t happening?

In this Brave Writer podcast episode, we explore why meaningful education often leaves very little paper behind. From embodied grammar lessons to spontaneous moments of insight, we talk about how children actually learn and why traditional record-keeping can miss the point. We also share practical, low-pressure ways to document growth without turning your home into a classroom clone.

If you’ve ever worried that your homeschool doesn’t “look like enough,” this conversation offers reassurance, clarity, and permission to trust what you see unfolding every day. Join us and rethink what counts as real evidence of learning.

Show Notes

One of the hardest adjustments for homeschooling parents, especially those coming from traditional school environments, is letting go of visible proof. We’re conditioned to believe that learning must produce paper: worksheets, essays, tests, portfolios stuffed with graded work. When those things disappear, anxiety creeps in. Are we doing enough? Is this real learning?

The truth is that much of the most meaningful learning doesn’t announce itself with tidy artifacts. It shows up later, unexpectedly, in conversation, curiosity, and connection.

Why Paper Feels Reassuring

School trained us to equate effort with output. Thirty desks, thirty papers, one teacher checking compliance. That system depends on physical evidence. At home, learning happens differently. Children sprawl on couches, talk through ideas, act things out, read deeply, and connect dots silently. That can feel unsettling if you’re waiting for proof.

But learning isn’t linear, and it isn’t always visible in the moment. Skills like punctuation, sentence fluency, or narrative structure don’t emerge because a child followed steps in the right order. They emerge through repetition, exposure, and internalization. One day, a period simply appears at the end of a sentence because it feels right.

Catching Learning in the Wild

Instead of assigning work in order to generate records, we can become observers. When a child explains something they’ve learned, narrates a story, makes an unexpected comparison, or uses new vocabulary, that’s learning surfacing. Write it down. Record it. Take a picture. Save a note on your phone.

These moments are often more revealing than any worksheet. They show synthesis, understanding, and ownership.

Expanding What Counts as a Record

Documentation doesn’t have to live in a binder. Photos of projects, ticket stubs from museums, lists of books read, sketches, voice memos, timelines, family notebooks, and weekly reflections all tell the story of a rich education. Free writing, done occasionally, gives children a chance to consolidate what stuck without draining joy from the process.

Many families find it helpful to track what they did  in the course of a day or week, rather than focusing on what they planned to do. Looking back over weeks and months often reveals far more progress than memory alone can hold.

Shifting the Focus

When we focus only on what’s missing, we miss growth. A page of writing with three spelling errors still contains dozens of correct words, strong verbs, and clear ideas. Training ourselves to see what’s working builds confidence, both in our children and in ourselves.

Homeschooling isn’t about recreating school at home. It’s about creating a learning life that fits your family. When you trust that process, the evidence is there, even if it doesn’t fit neatly into a folder.

Resources

Connect with Julie

Connect with Melissa

Produced by NOVA

Brave Writer Podcast

Posted in Podcasts | Comments Off on [Podcast #321] No Paper Trail? No Problem!

[Podcast] 2026: The Complete List

Brave Writer Podcast 2026 Complete List

Did you miss a 2026 episode of the Brave Writer Podcast? Did you want to listen to an episode again?

We got you!

Here are all the episodes of the podcast aired in 2026 in one convenient place so that you can listen (or re-listen) to them whenever you want.

Show Notes are included!

And bookmark this page! Episodes will be added as they become available.

2026 Podcasts

Tune in to the Brave Writer podcast on Apple Podcasts (or your app of choice)
and also here on the Brave Writer blog.

Brave Writer Podcast

Posted in Podcast Season Recaps | Comments Off on [Podcast] 2026: The Complete List