I know I have mentioned Brave Writer before. She is a font of amazing inspiration, support and reading help. Not to mention her generally uplifting posts on Facebook (HERE) that are mainly directed at Homeschooling families but could conceivably apply to “regular” families as well. Well this time I want to share a rather lengthy post of hers off of Facebook talking about the panic and fear of a child falling behind what we consider the norm. I know we have all battled with this. I have taken a sliding grade approach to our homeschooling where we work our hardest to level up over time and to progress with a strong foundation and not sweat a straight across grade declaration. And according to the yearly testing last year we are getting results beyond our expectations. But still there are nights of panic, of obsessive worry about levels and grades and other kids. This is where Brave Writer’s advice is a balm to the homeschooling mom’s soul… enjoy! (original post HERE) The reminder that YOU HAVE TIME!!!

Weekend reflections: You have time.

More than enough. No matter where you are in the journey, time is on your side.

Your child *should* be reading? How does rushing help? How does panicking about time enhance the quality of the work you do together? How does adding pressure to the mix create space for your child to grow and learn and discover?

Your child is at the critical age (7, 10, 12, 15, 17! 19 gasp!). You can’t let the child slide any more. It’s TIME to get serious about X, Y, and Z because it all counts now….So what will you do? Buckle down? Press harder? Generate more tension and resistance? Put the child in school, ground the teen, remove computer privileges? This strategy will yield learning, and will make up for lost time, how? This pressuring and panicking will prepare your child for life after living at home, how?

All you have is time. There’s no law in the book that says your child has to be in college at 18, or ready for high school at 14, or reading by 9. These are made up, to suit a big bunch of people passing through an impersonal system.

You are at home.

Take your time. You have oodles of it.

If you are truly concerned about a child’s progress, pick one area and focus on it. But focus on it not in a panicky, “We are behind; you are resistant and willful” kind of way. Focus on it like a tangled necklace that requires your reading glasses, full concentration, and patience as you really see the threads, one at a time, and you slowly, gently tease them apart until Voila! The whole chain slips free of itself.

Your child needs your patience, not your urgency. Your child needs your reassurance that you will take whatever time necessary to solve this puzzle. Your child needs you to look into resources and references that train you to be a better parent during this challenging season. Your child needs you to tease apart the threads—the details of what isn’t working, not just the general panic that says, “Oh my word! He is so behind!”

You may also need to examine whether the timeline in your head is even realistic or necessary. It is difficult to let go of our traditions around education. I remember when I realized that Liam needed four years of junior high level work, not three. It was a great decision to step out of “grade level” and simply focus on learning and enjoying that year together. 

He is also taking a year and a half off between high school and college, just this year, meaning he’ll start college in the fall at age 20. What’s wrong with that? Why wouldn’t we be okay with that choice? Ironically, this is the kid who learned to read the earliest of any of our kids (age 6). So being “ahead” back then didn’t mean he was ready to go to college more quickly or even when most kids go.

We home educators need to stop being so enamored with the educational framework we inherited from traditional school. What is required, is being tuned into your child! 

Have you heard the phrase: “Go slow to go fast”?

If you slow your pace to really grasp the details, the meaning, the skill set required for your child—if you practice and master those aspects of the subject area that are essential rather than brushing by them or giving them cursory attention or whizzing through a workbook without total comprehension or mastery—in the end, you will be a whiz at performing using those skills and tools. You’ll know what you are doing and you won’t be stopped by ambivalence, confusion, hesitation, and uncertainty. You will “go fast” because you “went slow” at the start.

Reorient your clock to human being time, not school time. Help your children to “go slow, to go fast.”

If your child is not interested in writing, turn your attention to your child’s interests. Capture some of them in writing for your child. Use writing in your child’s presence and be interested in what your child says (what words come out of his or her mouth). Be an advocate for your child’s limits—give the tools and resources, carve time from the full schedule to “go slow” with writing. One letter or one word at a time, for a good long while, may be the best way forward. No pressure, just care and consistency.

If you are lying awake at night worried about a child who is showing chronic lack of progress in a specific area of education, you will want to consult an expert for assessment. This is good parenting. Be careful not to push the panic button, though. This is a step you take after having gone slowly. Spend unhurried time getting to know your child’s specific struggle rather than rushing to judgment. You might discover the key that unlocks the gate through your own patient work. 

For instance, it was when I paid closer attention to Johannah’s struggle with reading that I finally saw what was happening for her. She was unable to recognize the alphabet when the fonts varied or changed (it was like trying to read 7-10 alphabets for her, rather than a single one). Once I “caught” what was happening, I tailored our phonics work to mastering the alphabet first, as it showed up in cursive, manuscript, serif and sans serif fonts. Next thing you knew, she read!

She was nearly 9, but that hasn’t limited her in a single way as an adult.

Read the manual, understand the instructions, fine tune your philosophy, test the practice yourself (can you follow the instructions? can you work the problems? how does it feel to do copywork in another langauge?). See if you can approximate what is happening for your child. Become a student of your students.

Your job isn’t to push your children through a body of information by 18. Your choice, as a home educator, is to take the time required to get to know each of your children intimately so that you might facilitate the best, tailor-made education for each one that you can. You are supposed to take time to do it, and you are not responsible to ensure that it all happens at the same speed as traditional schooling.

“Go slow to go fast.”

Please. 

Do you feel the need to be a “know it all” and be totally knowledgeable about everything but feel that you always fall short? Let Brave Writer (visiter her HERE) soothe your worries! (This is a Facebook post)

Today’s thought: It’s okay to not know.

You can’t possibly know all you believe you need to know to homeschool:

before you homeschool,
while you homeschool,
long after you retire from homeschooling.

You won’t have it all together before you start. That’s okay.

You won’t have it all together as you go…ever. That’s okay too.

You won’t have had it all together, when you look back, though it will seem more like you did as you romanticize the past. That’s the reward for your persistence.

You may not have all your books, your plans, or your “necessary” materials before it’s time to begin. Begin anyway.

You won’t have your philosophy of home education nailed down and held in place for 15+ years with no alterations. It evolves as you home educate. Philosophy of education is discovered in the “doing.” It’s not a prerequisite.

Your children may not be in the “learning mode” you fantasize about in your head at the time you crack open the new books in the fall. They will get there by winter.

You will be going along when some new idea hits and you’ll smack your forehead and wonder how you could have gotten by for so long without that one key piece of information, insight, or ingenuity. That’s how it happens. You’re on the right track.

You won’t know enough in some subjects to be the best “teacher” your children could have. Dive in anyway. Learn what you can. Model what you can. Get help. Be satisfied with less.

You can’t know if what you are doing with your children today is enough to prepare them for college. You can’t know until the slip of paper comes back in the mail with the red letter “ACCEPTANCE” on it validating all your uncertain work. Yield today to the process of this day’s learning. Leave college for tomorrow.

You can’t worry enough to save your children from gaps, challenges, and failure. You can love enough to be with them no matter what, with a willingness to “do what it takes” as that is revealed to you.

You don’t know if you are a good enough mother, good enough punctuator, good enough mathematician, good enough enthusiast for learning. You can’t know. You take the risks to be those things to the best of your ability today, and then trust.

You can’t know if the laws will change, or if the state you’re in will protect your rights. Take advantage of the laws you have today.

You can’t possibly know if your children will be glad you homeschooled them. That’s theirs to feel and own. You make your parenting choices for your family. They will make theirs for their children. Both are okay.

Stay open. Keep learning. Principles and compassion keep your family grounded.

You don’t yet know what you don’t know. You can’t.

What is incredible though is how much you already do know and how valuable, useful, and rich it is when you live into your knowing.

Make peace with “unknowing.”

Embrace your risk-taking, adventurous spirt.

In the end, it’s not the knowing or the not-knowing that create the best homeschools. It’s the willingness to engage that process with heart, hope, and flexibility.

I struggle with my lack of knowledge and my inability to have a concrete set in stone plan that continues the whole school year. The idea that there are so many people out there with “it all together” haunts me every time I come across a homeschooler’s blog that is just so well put together, where their photos show organized learning and well planned out weeks.

As I face another year of prep work to begin, a year of ideas to come up with… topics to choose and basics to cement the knowledge that others are also struggling along learning, not knowing brings me some peace. The process began over 9 years ago when we found out we were expecting our baby (and later realized BABIES) and will continue even past our homeschooling years… I hope we never stop learning, stop trying, stop finding new things to know!

Brave Writer is quickly becoming a favourite for me. She is inspiring on Facebook and constantly coming up with thought provoking posts. This one is no exception. I want to share with you a portion of one of hers…

Let it go.

What if “they” are right? What if you aren’t meeting your expectations, let alone theirs?

Or what if you aren’t meeting *theirs,* let alone YOURS?

What if some of the things “those other people” say are true?

You can take it, can’t you? You can go back to your life and think about what to do to address real issues that come up from time to time, right?

What if some of those comments are actually compliments in disguise?

We forget sometimes that this home education task is pretty darned daunting and we are pretty audacious to take it up. That’s why people are shocked. That’s why they take it upon themselves to scrutinize you or to say things like, “I could never be with my kids 24/7.” It’s not that they couldn’t, if they really thought about it. It’s that they do, in fact, admire you for doing it and you deserve that back-handed admiration. Enjoy it. Receive it.

As you find your way in the world, I’ve discovered (mostly by way of the “hard way”) that I get further in my life when I pay less attention to what other people say about me, and instead get busy doing what I know I should be doing, what I say I want to be doing.

The most appealing homeschooler to a non-homeschooling family is the one who has nothing to prove, enjoys all families, and relishes the chance to participate in the big world as a friend and fellow parent.

You are fine, as you are. You’ve picked a lifestyle that is non-conformist so you get the back-flow of curiosity and discomfort from the mainstream. Ultimately, you can though, let it go.

It probably took you some time to adjust your mindset to the idea of homeschooling. Extend that same grace to those in your life, as you can. Don’t share details with those who are unsafe or discourage you.

Your inner light and your real struggles humanize you to your family and friends, and make your homeschool both approachable, and, conversely, above reproach. People are drawn to real people, not cardboard cut-outs of unimpeachable characteristics. In other words, be yourself, as you are, as you homeschool.

It’s not up to you to protect the reputation of homeschooling as an institution. You don’t have to defend homeschool or make sure that your homeschool is a model or an example to others. You have nothing to prove, nothing to hide.

Let it go. Breathe it out. Float. Be. You’re okay.

Live the life you choose today, no matter what they say.

There are so many portions of advice that are crucial to a homeschooling mamma’s mental well being… I have heard “I could never be with my kids 24/7.” many times. Seeing it as in some way/shape/form as a compliment takes the sting of negativity away (or at the very least dulls it). It is really important to understand that we do not need to prove anything to the families around us. They are living their life their way and we in turn are living ours ours. Both are viable and tailored to meet the needs of those who live it. Why must we explain more than to say – we are happy, we are learning and we are growing?

I have found that the advice “Don’t share details with those who are unsafe or discourage you.” has been both helpful and saddening. There are individuals in my life that simply cannot see the benefits of what we are doing and so we do not speak of it at all. While this has helped me to avoid the negativity that has, in the past, tainted conversations it has also closed some doors to communication and celebration of our schooling milestones. There have been people who have changed their minds, my silence on the matter has allowed them to simply experience what we are doing in person, on Facebook and here on the blog… when the proof of our progress and enjoyment has been shown, often simply through images, the message has gotten through. We are working hard together as a family to create a learning environment 24/7!

So as Brave Writer has said here… I am going to let it go… I have nothing more important to do than create a learning atmosphere that not only our children but Ken and myself can thrive in. Along the way we may just inspire other families to do some of our activities, to see the benefits of family learning and to enjoy our company as we go through this adventure called homeschooling!