A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

One of the most persistent questions I get in my inbox is: “But what about high school? I love all that magical enchanted lifestyle stuff for kids under 12. Don’t we HAVE to do some things they don’t want to in high school?”

And so a podcast was born. My thoughts on that topic!

10 Things to Have Done by the End of High School

1. Reading! Without reading, you’re just not going to get the same level of education. Now this doesn’t mean your child needs to be able to read by X age. It simply means valuing the communication recorded through history for us to enjoy today.
2. Critical thinking. If your children don’t know to ask good questions and be curious about a variety of answers, they will simply be students and not learners.
3. Math and Science. It is important to provide enough opportunities to learn math and science during high school so that they can choose any field in college.
4. Writing. Let your kids loose on the Internet (while also protecting their safety, of course). In whatever way you can, give them the opportunity to self-express through online communication. Why? The fastest growth in writing comes from an interested audience!
5. Foreign language. Learning a new language expands the brain; it gives you a way of understanding that the way you think is not the only way to think. And when you have the power of a living language, you can connect with other human beings alive today.
6. Chase one affinity. Make sure that your homeschool takes a deep dive into at least one thing that each of your children has an affinity for, and chase it for all it’s worth! More learning will come from that experience than anything else in their entire childhood.
7. Encounter people and places. You want to make sure that, in everything you do, your children are intersecting with people who are not like you. Multiple perspectives matter!
8. Performance. It’s extremely valuable to learn how to stand in front of people and be self-possessed. Find things that encourage your children to have self-possession in front of an audience, such as being in a stage production or in a band.
9. Find friends! It is your job to help your kids find friends, and given your choice to homeschool, you might have to go out of your way and be intentional about it..
10. Advocacy. You are your child’s advocate; you’re going to stand for them and be their biggest fan. They have you, and you’re responsible for teaching them that they’re valuable. This is one of the most important things you will ever do for your child – and then you’re going to teach them how to advocate for themselves!

Would you please post a review on Apple Podcasts for us?
Help a homeschooler like you find more joy in the journey. Thanks!

Today’s homeschooling families are often well-versed in their children’s special needs: whether the child is struggling to read due to dyslexia or struggling to handwrite due to dysgraphia or needs to hop on one foot to learn math because of ADHD!

This episode of the podcast explores the ways you can create an environment that supports those differences. I also give you some tips on what to do if you would like expert support.

A disclaimer for this episode: we are not trained experts and our specialty is not special needs, and anything we share today is based on our own experiences and research. So nothing in this episode should be considered clinical diagnosis or expert referral – this is all parent-to-parent sharing.

Tips to Keep in Mind

• All learning differences and all learning styles deserve a unique parent! If you have five kids, you’ll have five approaches.
• When we look at a child and think something doesn’t match the preconceptions we have, what we’re doing is comparing that child to traditional education standards.
• You may notice that when a child has difficulty with one thing, they compensate in other areas. So how are your kids expressing their learning in a way that you can validate?
• If your child is challenged by speaking or writing, you want to foster an intimate dynamic so that your child has an opportunity to feel emotionally safe and take risks. Julie absolutely recommends supporting them by being a transcriptionist, hired hand, and secretary.
• Catch your children in the act of thinking!
• If your child is uncomfortable around other people, consider finding them support in the form of pets.
• Put your children in environments that show them themselves, show them their strengths! That may be a camp, a sport, or even a game.

Would you please post a review on Apple Podcasts for us?
Help a homeschooler like you find more joy in the journey. Thanks!

This podcast episode is designed to steam the wrinkles out of your crumpled homeschool.

Sit back with a cup of tea and exhale.

One Big Happy Family

A family is a collection of individuals and we can’t forget that. The friction of human beings living in a family space together is always going to feel a little bit like controlled chaos – and it’s totally okay if that’s the way that it is!

However, making space for everyone in your family to have some of your focused attention and some alone time or downtime is the challenge, particularly for big families. So how can we leverage the unique benefits of homeschooling to do that – and what should we avoid?

[This post contains Amazon affiliate links. When you click on those links to make purchases,
Brave Writer receives compensation at no extra cost to you. Thank you!]

What doesn’t work:

• Scope and sequence don’t work, no matter how many kids you have.
• Timed lessons just don’t work in homeschool. If you have children that are a range of ages, especially if some aren’t school age yet, something is going to disrupt that schedule.
• Forgetting about your middles. It’s easy to overly focus on the oldest and youngest and neglect the ones in the middle, so we recommend keeping track of when you spend focused time with your kids so it’s easier to distribute evenly!
• Too much routine or too much inspiration. Set up a routine that you can always rely on, but then if inspiration strikes ditch the routine.

What does work:

• Group projects work incredibly well for science, history, writing, and arts & crafts.
• If you have a big family, take advantage of it! Let your children talk to each other – and encourage it! One of the most incredible tools we all have now is the ability to easily record each other digitally. It allows your child to narrate in a way that they won’t in a traditional classroom scenario.
• Doing math as a family can be difficult, but the book Family Math is an incredible tool we recommend to make it easier!
• Rotate one-on-one time so that everyone gets a share of your focused attention.
• Co-ops can help or hurt. It’s great to have somewhere you can go that has other kids, especially kids at multiple age levels so that every child has someone to socialize with. However, some co-ops can feel like a ball and chain: they’re so academically oriented that you end up feeling more pressure, instead of getting some relief and time to socialize!
• Time off for errands, play, and clean up.
• Hire someone to help you! Someone else’s child would probably love to make a few dollars spending some time with your younger children while you have to give another child focused attention.
• Take advantage of non-traditional hours to get everything done.
• Create predictable storage for each kid, for library books, for writing supplies, and for all of your media. This means everyone always knows where everything will be and a lot fewer things go missing.

Would you please post a review on Apple Podcasts for us?
Help a homeschooler like you find more joy in the journey. Thanks!

Home education depends on a healthy, vibrant family life.

“Yeah right” you may be saying. I get it! Sibling rivalry, resistance to “chores,” and all that together time can make “happy family” seem impossible.

Let’s fix that on this episode of the Brave Writer podcast!

The Power & Responsibility Axis

The power and responsibility axis is what creates roles in families.

The person with the most power has the most responsibility, and the person with the least power has the least responsibility. A newborn baby just has to show up and exist – it’s not fair to expect them to pay the pills, or even have a good attitude about being there!

Choice Creates Space & Freedom

So when we think about how families evolve into a healthy organism, we need to think about what level of power each individual has. On top of that, we want various roles to be adopted because there’s freedom to choose them, not because it’s the only option.

At the point that you feel the role you’re in no longer serves you, or if you start to feel hemmed in by it, that means you’re losing your choices – and this is important because you will be the most effective home educator you can be if you know it’s a choice!

Facilitating Choice

So the question becomes how can we facilitate the greatest freedom to choose given the various levels of power our children have?

A newborn has no power. They are literally dependent on your goodwill for survival, and how they will ultimately develop.

A few years later, your children start to take initiative. Your kids are starting to experiment with choices and sample their options, and part of what you’re doing is giving them input to limit or expand the choices they have and the roles they take in your family.

You want to encourage the search – you don’t want to limit their growth by developing a fixed view of who your children are.

Would you please post a review on Apple Podcasts for us?
Help a homeschooler like you find more joy in the journey. Thanks!