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There are 7 perspective-shifting homeschool coaching discussions I routinely have.
My goal? That homeschool mamas can live their lives with vision, clarity, and confidence.
These perspective-shifting homeschool coaching discussions usually begin with a discussion on homeschooling, but rarely focus on homeschooling.
What are these perspective-shifting homeschool coaching discussions?
Here are conversation pieces I often hear from homeschool mamas.
1. Am I doing this homeschool thing good enough?
What would make it good enough?
- What are you trying to measure your homeschool against?
- Why wouldn’t what you’re doing already be good enough?
- Do you ever feel that you’re not good enough in other areas of your life too?
You are your child’s greatest advocate.
Read the Homeschool Mama Daily Affirmations every morning to remind yourself how you want to relate to your homeschool child and how you want to show up in your homeschool. Then come to understand that you are good enough and you are up to the task.
I am uniquely qualified with what my children need most. My value and worth are separate from my children’s successes and failures. I am commited to my own emotional and physical health. My healing directly impacts the joy as a parent. I am not a victim of my circumstance.
Are you giving your child eyeball-to-eyeball time?
Sometimes we know we’re not doing this homeschool thing good enough. Or sometimes we need to decide what we’re going to do about what we could do better, like ensuring we’re giving our kids eyeball-to-eyeball time (aka heart-to-heart time) every day.
**Caveat: you can’t always give your child constant, unbroken eyeball-to-eyeball time.
Have a specific time to plan for that special time together, and have an intentional plan for nurturing and taking care of you too.
Use this self-care checklist to do just that.
Are you in a low-energy place (and that’s the reason you’re not feeling good enough)?
Acknowledge and accept where you’re at after this demanding couple of years.
How well are you supposed to be when a major world experience happens?
Accept the reality of where you’re emotionally at. It is okay if you’re feeling tired, strung out, and uncertain where your energy will come from next.
You are a human being having a human experience.
What is the goal for your child’s education?
Have you considered what an education is anyway?
What is an ideal education for your child?
Remember that the root word for education is educato (which means “to raise up”). So, what are you raising up? Your child. You are raising up your child.
So, what would help you to raise up YOUR child?
2. What can motivate me to continue homeschooling?
This means you need to Know your why.
- What’s the reason you began homeschooling?
- What is the reason you’re still homeschooling?
- Do you see evidence of that reason in your daily life?
The clearer I am on my life purpose, the more I want my kids to be clear on their life purpose.
With your journal and pen, answer these questions:
- What would it have felt like to have lived your life on purpose?
- What does it look like to live your life on purpose?
- What are the things you really want to do to ask if you’ve lived your life on purpose?
- What is keeping you homeschooling?
- Why are you homeschooling?
3. I think I might have boundary issues in my relationships?
So when our goals and needs are met, we have energy and mental space to extend nurture to those around us too.
So, what are your boundary challenges?
- steps to dealing with boundaries in your homeschool
- 7 ways to find quiet, build boundaries & handle overwhelm in your homeschool days
We need to develop a stronger sense of ourselves as much as those around us.
When we don’t set up our relationships so we are flourishing as much as everyone else around us, we’re not actually showing up in our lives as thoroughly as we could be, and we certainly will have boundary issues.
4. How do I live alongside others and still be me fully?
You can find the homeschool mama mini-retreat here.
Learn more about yourself (& your family members) through the enneagram or Myers Briggs.
When you learn more about yourself, you learn about your base motivations, how you relate to others, and how others are receiving you.
And when you learn about other people’s personality types, you can learn more about how they frame the world, understand themselves, understand you, and how they are receiving you too.
5. How do I get time alone or have separate time from my homeschool kids?
So what is standing in the way of you getting alone time?
Your kids are growing up, and you will have a whole lot of time when your kids grow up: it really will happen sooner than you have guessed.
Where can you find time in your week just for you?
- the life of the perpetual mother hen: finding quiet
- Fourteen Powerful Approaches to Overcoming Overwhelm in your Homeschool through a Pandemic
- how to incorporate fun into your homeschool
- Life Lessons I Learned From my Homeschooled Kids
So you can build into you throughout your homeschool years.
6. How do I find community and connection as a homeschool mama?
Then put yourself out there. Get on a Facebook thread about homeschooling and invite other homeschool families to join you on a field trip. Don’t wait for the homeschool community to reach out to you.
You can always find connection and community virtually through the Homeschool Mama Book Club.
You can always join the Homeschool Mama Self-Care Patreon community.
7. I’m not sure I really know myself.
Self-awareness is required to homeschool (& be a parent).
Answer these questions with your journal and pen:
- What makes you feel good?
- What makes life fun for you?
- Write “Be (your name)”… and six things that define who you are.
- What has been the biggest challenge you’ve dealt with in your life and how have you overcome it?
- What is your emotional climate?
- If everything was just the way you wanted, how would your life look over the next few years?
- Write your “I am from” poem. (Listen to mine on the podcast episode).
Get to know you as you write a poem about you: an “I am from” poem (originally found in Julie Bogart’s recent book, Raising Critical Thinkers).
When we get comfortable with these seven areas of our lives, we’ll show up with clarity, confidence, and vision in our homeschools.
This is my I Am From poem.
I am from vereneke and zumma borscht and saty dowl in grandma’s lap I am from tonsilitis, popcorn twists and raspberry jello, I am from long distance truck hauls, satellite calls, retarder brakes purring, growling engine lullabies, I am from green locked journals, gratitude journals, quote journals, verse journals, crush journals, prayer journals I am from six weeks summer, almost-midnight sunsets, yellow oceans waving in the wind, nostrils frozen at recess, I am from Mr. Dressup, Laura Ingalls, ET, Back to the Future, Video Hits I am from sock hops, red leather jacket, white glove, and moon walks, I am from most men living lives of quiet desperation I am from old-fashioned landlines in seven rooms, telephones telling stories, telephones calling the alarm, then telephones in cemeteries, I am from fleeing, hiding, running in barefoot, changing names, changing locations, changing purpose, changing hope I am from writing stories till sunrise, sharing stories, wanting to share stories, wanting to know my story, wanting to define my story, wanting to be a story, and being an unfinished open book, I am from Schindler’s List, The Firm, and Sleeping with the Enemy, with dreams of Sense & Sensibility I am from public school, Christian school, catholic school, private school, eleven schools I am from prizes for verses, verses that tell wrong, verses that tell right, verses that declare peace, verses that declare fight I am from being still and knowing God, knowing I’m seen, plans made for me, prosperous plans, harm-free plans, future plans, peaceful plans I am from wild rose country, the yellow rose of Texas, and rose-scented Longing I am from dreams of India: if we really want to love, we must learn to forgive, I am from Africa where I had a home at the foot of the Ngong hills, …and a brick n mortar home with a fireplace at the edge of the Great Rift Valley, …and a drape over my head, swiping and moaning malarial pleas awaiting Ebola or a plane out of Africa I am from a blackbird singing, blackbird dead, blackbird at night I am from the fight song, take back my life song, I am from, broken wings, mended wings, flying wings, learning how to fly wings
People also ask:
- how to love yourself as a homeschool mama
- homeschool mama, be conscious of your influencers
- How do I take a virtual homeschool mama retreat?
- Tell me about the Grappling with Overwhelm Journaling Workbook
- Do you offer homeshool coaching? You can book a strategy session here.
Call to Adventure by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3470-call-to-adventure
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
