A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

We can’t create space for traditional school subjects to be loved by children until we help them to be meaningful to children.

My sweet friends: the terrifying adventure begins!

What kind of wild line of reasoning did you follow to choose THIS life? The full responsibility for your children’s education? The audacious (self-aggrandizing) belief that YOU were capable of providing this education? WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?

Homeschooling never matches the fantasy in your head. It’s so frustrating and scary!

That’s because learning at home JUST WON’T SIT STILL! It’s like life has this way of interfering with that Oh So Important Education you would give your darlings at the table in the workbooks if they would STOP LEARNING ABOUT EVERYTHING ELSE!

A Meaningful Life Now

Your homeschool will be completely unique because it will be YOUR lives, braided together on an adventure to LEARN—not to get through and get done, not to check boxes (though by all means check some if you need to for your sanity). Our goal is a meaningful life now, not just one we prepare for at a future date.

Lean in, trust the process and know this: every so often, you hit a wall of entropy and have to reinvent your homeschool a little bit. It’ll be okay. That’s how it works!

Hang on to your hats! I’m rooting for you BIG TIME!

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

Education is not a “right or wrong way” proposition. Your drive to not make mistakes will ruin homeschooling for you. It’s totally fine to change your mind regularly about how you create learning opportunities for your kids! And you will—because you’re learning and growing too. Don’t wreck your homeschool trying to solve it. Get curious. Be brave. Try try again.

I met a mom at the National Association of Women’s Business Owners (NAWBO) conference. She’s interested in home education and asked an amazing question: “What was the hardest part of homeschooling?”

I told her it was not the long hours or the endless needs of my kids. What dogs most of us is the worry that there’s a better method, the one that will bring a quality education that our kids will love every day—no complaints, no mistakes.

Not Knowing

Learning to tolerate that feeling of “not knowing” how it will all turn out is the key to making it a good long while.

I told her that you know you’re getting the hang of it when you stop worrying so much about doing it right and lean into simply doing it.

Homeschooling is a grand experiment that allows us to:

• adapt,
• make changes,
• and pivot when needed.

Because of that, sometimes we live with too much uncertainty that feels unnerving.

Remember, home education is a process not a destination. It’s unpredictable and that’s both its beauty and its biggest challenge.

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