Hello friends! Thanks for tuning in today. I really hope that you are finding value in this homeschooling series. I really hope that it is able to Transform Every Attitude you may have about homeschooling or your homeschooling journey. If you allow it, these episodes can also Transform Every Attitude you may have in other areas of life as well.
The last episode was about relaxing and taking a break. We all need a break, don’t we? No matter where you find yourself today, there is something that you need a break from. I can tell you that that’s true for me as well. The last few weeks, for me, have felt a little out of control. My husband has been traveling a lot. He’s been home for almost a week now, but he was traveling a lot there for a bit, and there was a lot of stuff happening here at home that fell on me to take care of.
The end of a school year always seems to be crazy and chaotic for many as well, and sometimes homeschooling is not an exception for this. If we’re involved in homeschooling groups, co-ops, or even just extra curricular activities, there can still be events that seem to take up most of our time. We just need to make sure that we are doing the things that we have to do or choose to do and not the things that others are roping us into but we have no desire to do or it has nothing to do with us or our kid.
Quickly, I’d like to pause and remind you, if you haven’t already, make sure you subscribe to this podcast on whatever platform you are listening on right now, and also on my website, teaoflifepodcast.com. If you go to my website and click on this podcast episode at the top of the page, then, on the right-hand side you’ll see NEVER MISS AN EPISODE OR LIFE ARTICLE. Just enter your email there,
I am continuing the series that I started out as How to Homeschool Highschool. This particular episode, or the last, isn’t just for high school or even for just homeschooling. To be honest, most of this series could be for anyone in general. I think that all of us could use some encouragement to take a break.
Today, I am talking about finding someone who is already doing what you want to do and ask them a lot of questions. This really applies to life, in general. This is something that all of us can benefit from.
Find someone and ask them A LOT of questions about how they do what they do. Asking others who are already successful at doing what you want to do helps you gain knowledge, and they can pass on some wisdom that you may not have ever thought about and some experience that you have not…well…experienced.
If you’re about to embark on the journey of homeschooling, find someone who is already homeschooling. If you’re about to embark on a homeschooling journey in high school, find someone who is already homeschooling in high school, even if their homeschooling looks different than what you desire yours to look like. It doesn’t matter. You can’t figure out what you need to do until you figure out what you maybe also don’t need to do or want to do. It’ll allow you to narrow everything down.
It may also be helpful to ask those questions to those who are not homeschooling the way you’d like to homeschool. You may not know exactly what they are doing or how they are doing it, but you can tell by the fruits of their labor (and here I’m talking about their kids) that their homeschooling journey may not be exactly what you’d like your homeschooling journey to be like, and that’s totally ok, but it may be helpful to take one or two of those parents to lunch as well just to find out what they are doing, just so you can also find out what not to do.
Don’t discount the power of knowledge that comes from seeing both sides of the spectrum.
Scheduling time with others also forms community. You need community. It can also form a sort of accountability. You need to find others who have gone before you and who can lead (or pull) you along. You need to have others there who can help you when you lose vision of your “why,” and you will lose vision. It’s good to have others there to help steer you as well.
There will be times when you will lose your way. Notice that I didn’t say may lose your way. I said, “will lose your way.” You won’t always know what you’re doing, and you won’t always know how to reach your goal. This is completely normal and why I talk about your why. We will get more into defining your why in a later episode, but for now, I will say that your why is what’s going to get you through your entire journey. If you are in a community of other homeschoolers, you will be able to identify and stick with your why a bit easier.
If you can find and cling to a few people who you feel have the most in common with your homeschooling goals and dreams, then that is good. You all can lean on each other and help each other out. There were times when my kiddos were younger and I got together with my closest homeschooling mom-friends, and we taught our kids together. There were even times that we broke off into groups and we taught what we were comfortable teaching. It was fun and helped us get through some of the more treacherous days.
I have gotten a bit off subject here, but this kinda fits into the community part. It’s important to have a community and not only any community but a healthy community. There are a lot of crazies out there, so make sure that you don’t settle on the first community that you find, if you are looking for one on social media or even in your local neighborhood.
I have told parts of my homeschooling story before, but when I was at a certain point in my journey, I was in a community of other homeschooling families, and I didn’t realize that they weren’t really my people. I tried my best to fit in, and all it ended up doing was break me down and cause me to pull away from most all of my homeschooling community. I had two other homeschooling moms that I hung out with after that, but my experience with a bad homeschooling community basically caused me to abandon all other homeschooling communities. During this time, if we had just met, and I found out that you were a homeschooling family, I would have more than likely walked the other way. I was so dismayed by my experience that I just completely separated myself from all homeschooling communities all together.
This wasn’t really good, but it did give me time to reset and figure our for myself what was the best and right thing to do for our family regarding school. After my “breakdown” or “reset” or whatever you wanna call it was over, I began to reach out to other homeschooling moms and communities in my area. I began again taking moms to lunch and picking their brains. I started to seek out other co-ops, and I eased my way back into them. I’m still a little hesitant, and I do still feel like I have an invisible fence around me, but my experience with that other community was so bad that I never want to experience it again.
So, I guess that I am saying all of this to say that when you seek out other people who are doing what you want to do and ask them questions, please make sure that you go in to that conversation knowing that you are only there to ask questions and advise, and you don’t have to take all their advice. Take the advice that you feel applies to you and throw the rest away and move on, and don’t feel bad about it. There are some really opinionated homeschooling moms out there, and you need to go into this knowing that and being prepared for that.
When I first started our homeschooling journey, a mom, who was MUCH older than me, told me that I was going to ruin my child and that I was making a mistake. Now, obviously she was not a homeschooling mom, and she was definitely not someone who I went to for advice, but still felt the freedom to tell me what she thought about homeschooling.
She told me all the negative fears that we’ve all heard and said that my children were not going to be successful citizens. She never convinced me that what she was saying was true. I knew it wasn’t; however, she did convince my mom of all these things, and my mom let me know that she did not approve of our decision to homeschool our children. I even caught her and another member of our extended family talking in secret about how much I was going to ruin my child from homeschooling. They didn’t think that I could hear them, but I kindly turned around and said, “If you’d like to talk about me more privately, you may want to take your conversation elsewhere because I can hear everything you’re saying.” Needless to say, they immediately stopped talking.
I did not let her or anyone else hinder my decision. I just kept on going and never looked back, and I never allowed them to add stress to my decision either. I knew right then that they were now among some of those who I would NOT listen to.
They were obviously not doing what I wanted to do, so I did not need to have them speak into my homeschooling journey.
Now, it’s easier than ever to seek out other homeschooling families in your area or community. There are PLENTY of Facebook groups that are local to communities and those centered on your particular state. There are also national Facebook groups, and one Facebook group that I am currently in is called It’s Not That Hard to Homeschool Highschool. I will post a link to that group in my show notes, but seriously, y’all! It’s right there in the name! This is a national FB group that allows questions and gives encouragement to anyone who is homeschooling in high school. I am also involved in local groups to GA and co-ops in my community who give support when we (or I) need it.
So look for those who are already doing what you want to do and grab onto their heels. Sometimes, all you need is just someone to help you get the ball rolling. Talk to different families who do homeschooling differently though. You can take bits of what they do and form your own ways. This is one of the many beauties of homeschooling. Find someone who values academics and ask them how they structure their day. Find someone who is more of a relaxed homeschooler and ask them the same question, and also talk to someone who unschools. Don’t be afraid, and certainly don’t judge them. Unschooling is not what you may think it is. Unschooling is not no school at all. It’s just a word that says a family is learning in a very non-traditional way that may seem unconventional to most. Our family falls more on the very relaxed homeschooling scope.
If you have any specific questions for me, please feel free to email me at tiffany@teaoflifepodcast.com. I’ll be happy to help answer your question to the best of my ability or point you in the right direction.
Thanks so much for listening today!
