RELAX, TAKE A BREAK, and BREATHE!
Just like I said in Part 2 of this series, “relax, take a break and breathe!” That may feel like it’s easier for me to say. If you’re just starting out, you could especially be feeling the stress of what’s all involved in getting started, or what you feel may be involved in getting started, or what you have been told is involved in getting started. Let me just stop right there and say that there are A LOT of people out there who have never once homeschooled their kid, yet they think they know how to homeschool, or think that they know how to homeschool because they once had a neighbor or a niece who homeschooled, or maybe just think they know a little bit about everything, in general, and you know who I’m talking about. I’m sure that someone just popped into your head just when I said that. I have a story too, about just that, that I am going to share in my next episode.
There are also those who are well-meaning, and they actually may know at least a little bit about homeschooling. That part may be true. But, here’s the truth. They probably know about homeschooling because they have homeschooled their own child or children, but they DON’T know about homeschooling when it comes to your child – just like I don’t know how you should homeschool your child. Everything that I talk about here on my podcast are my experiences, and in every episode, I hope to be able to share MY experience in order to help you create the life and, in this case, the homeschooling environment and atmosphere that you want for YOU and YOUR child.
There is one thing that I know that all homeschooling moms do need to do though, and that is to just stay calm. It doesn’t matter if your child is in Kindergarten or in High School. The more calm we approach our homeschooling journey, the easier, more enjoyable, and more rewarding it is going to be for everyone. It doesn’t matter what stage you are starting this journey out in.
If you are pulling your kid out of another school system, chances are, you’re doing it because that system is not working for you. This is your chance and opportunity to change the system to be your system, and you cannot do that without a calm mind and attitude. There’s no way that you can think straight if your mind is cluttered with stress and deadlines. You want this journey to have a good outcome, and stressful situations don’t always produce good outcomes, especially if the stress is caused by negative forces.
It’s really ok if you take a break after pulling your kid out of school. There is a general rule among the homeschooling community that says that when you pull your child out of the brick-n-mortar school system, you need to take a break, in months…yes…months…that equals the amount of years that your child was in school. This is called deschooling. If you are pulling your child out of school in the 3rd grade, then you need to take 3 months off of schooling…the 6th grade would mean taking 6 months off of schooling…the 10th grade would mean taking 10 months off of schooling. You get the picture…
Deschooling refers to the adjustment period that a child (and parent) takes when adjusting from traditional school to homeschool. This time allows decompression to take place and for schedules to be reset and for new ones to become re-established.
10 months for a 10th grader may seem a bit excessive, and you can consider how long you need for your own children, but don’t discount the importance of deschooling. Deschooling is not the same as unschooling. During this time, your child will still learn, but his learning will look very different than traditional textbook learning. During this time, your child could learn a musical instrument, learn homemaking, baking, gardening, farming…learn a trade skill. All of these are learning and should never be discounted just because they don’t come from a traditional boxed curriculum or school system. It all still counts, and extracurricular activities are needed in the homeschooling world as well.
If you’re not sure about deschooling because you’re afraid that if you miss a moment in education, that your child will fall drastically behind, this is not so. You first have to define education, or maybe even re-define education. What does the word education mean to you? I don’t want to know what it means to the traditional school system or what it means to your mother-in-law. I want you to sit and think about what the word education means to YOU.
According to the Oxford Dictionary, there are 2 meanings to the word education. One is one that we are very familiar with, and probably the reason that you have decided to homeschool your child. The first meaning is, “the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university.” This is the meaning that we are all used to hearing, and this is usually where we stop. However, the word education has a 2nd meaning in the Oxford Dictionary, and that meaning is, “an enlightening experience.”
So, now I’m curious. What does “enlightening experience” mean? Well, according to Collins Dictionary, “to enlighten someone means to give them more knowledge and greater understanding about something.”
Merriam Webster says that it’s “providing or tending to provide knowledge, understanding, or insight.”
Education is way more than just reading from a book or performing tasks related to reports and tasks. It’s more than time wasted on meaningless reports and administrative duties. Education is more than that. It’s out-of-the-box thinking. Or to put it in a different way, it’s out-of-the-brick-n-mortar-box thinking.
You may think that if you take that break that I referred to, that you won’t be able to catch back up, but the truth is, in homeschooling, there is nothing to catch up to. We all work at our own pace and schedule. Your kid will not fail. YOU will not fail if you take a break. Taking a break is taking care of yourself, and self-care is not failure.
I do plan on talking more about deschooling in a later episode, so make sure you stick around for that.
There’s a quote that says, “Too much of a good thing is a bad thing.” If that is true, then too much of a bad thing would be even worse or possibly detrimental. Last episode, I shared, or re-shared, an older episode from 2018, when my then cohost, April, and I talked about how school is the biggest stressor in a child’s life. The outcome of that also means that it would be one of the biggest stressors in adult lives as well. Well, meaning, loving adults, who care about their kid, that is, and I know that is who you are because, otherwise, you would not be here trying to figure this whole homeschooling thing out for your own child. It’s because you care so much. You’re also stressed because you care so much. That’s completely understandable.
So, you may be in a place where you’ve had too much of that other thing, and it’s time for a change. Or…you never want to put yourself in that situation to begin with, so you just wanna start out this homeschooling journey from the beginning. You are not alone, and I am here to help you and encourage you as you need it.
I have said before that in order to move forward, you must first take a step backward to get better traction.
So, take a step backward. Take a breather. Take a break. Gain better traction. I promise that you and your child will be better for it. Your kid will still get into college (if that’s the goal) if you take a break. You will not screw up your kid just from taking a break. You will not be a bad parent if you take a break. In fact, some of you will instantly become better parents if you just take a break!
Today, I talked about the number 1 thing that will help you get started in your homeschooling journey. That was to Relax. Take a Break. Breathe. The next steps that I will cover in next episodes are:
*Find someone who is already doing what you want to do, and ask them a lot of questions. I have a friend who is meeting me for coffee today because she has questions about homeschooling. She is about to pull her two children out of school, and she wants to know how to get started.
*Figure out your homeschooling goals.
*Research your state laws.
*Learn your child’s learning styles.
*Think about how you want your homeschool experience to look.
So, I hope that you will join me on these next episodes on how to homeschool, as you get started on your own homeschooling journey. I think that this episode could be beneficial even to those who don’t homeschool. Everyone needs to take a break, right? In fact, two nights ago, I had a lot going on on my phone with text messages and phone calls. I sat down for a moment, in hopes of taking a break, and my phone continued to go off. This is when my 16-yr-old son suddenly put me on a phone restriction. He gave me 6 minutes to finish the conversation that I was having, then I had to put my phone on Do Not Disturb and not touch it for an hour. I thought this was absolutely hilarious, but I also loved that my teenage son recognized that I needed a break and knew exactly how to give it to me. I followed his recommendation and guidelines for the following hour, and I felt better, but I also think that my doing this spoke volumes into his life and our relationship. It told him that I trust him and I value his opinion. I’m sure that the next time I tell him that he needs to take a break, he will do it because of the trust and relationship that we built during that one moment in time.
Relationship over education-ship…remember last week’s episode? 😉 Also, If you have any questions or comments about anything that I share on my podcasts, you can send them to tiffany@teaoflifepodcast.com. I will try my best to answer them for you and for my listeners. You never know when the answer to your question could be life-changing for someone else. There are no stupid questions…only stupid answers, and I will try my best not to give a stupid answer.
If you are interested in hearing more about our homeschooling journey and how we got started, you can go back and listen to episode 4.
Also, if you’d like to hear my 7 Simple Steps to Living the Life You Love, you can listen to that episode too because I really feel that those steps very much apply in this journey as well. I’ll leave a link to that episode in my show notes as well, but it is episode number 72.
Well, that’s it for today. I really hope that this episode inspires you to take a break. Stop, breathe, sit quietly and meditate. Ponder on what really matters in your homeschooling journey, and join me next week when I talk about finding someone who is doing what you want to do, and ask them a lot of questions.
