Empowering words for your new homeschool year

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Would you like some slightly unconventional encouragement as you step into a new homeschool year? Start by paying attention to your thoughts.

Since childhood, I’ve loved collecting meaningful quotes. I kept two thick journals filled with words on every topic imaginable. Years later, those quotes supported me through college writing—and today, they still serve me as I share encouragement through Instagram stories.

There’s something powerful about borrowing wisdom from others. Their words can encourage us, inspire us, and gently reframe our experiences in ways we might not have seen on our own.

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Let’s choose words for your new homeschool year: for your kids and yourself.

Consider these words for your new homeschool year: to help you show up on purpose in your homeschool mom life…

Henry David Thoreau might have been my first educator as I memorized one of his quotes in my single-digit years:

“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

Young Teresa didn’t understand the significance of those words, but I thought they sounded like they were probably wise, and it would be useful for me to memorize them.

As older Teresa, I get it.

I’ve learned, they’re definitely wise. Sadly, most hu(mans)” are leading lives of quiet desperation.

“We should stop asking 18-year-olds what they’re going to do for the rest of their lives. What are you going to do for the rest of your life? It’s an odd question, no matter what your age.”–Me

This quote arose when I became clear that our kids continue their education well after they leave our home-based educating families.

“Collect your kids before you direct your kids,” Gordon Neufeld, author of Hold onto Your Kids.

If we really want our kids’ hearts, they need to know we have theirs first.

Last week, in the Confident Homeschool Mom Collective, I offered a workshop titled “Eyeball to Eyeball: Practical Moments to Meaningfully Connect with your Homeschool Kids,“ and I referred to Gordon Neufeld.

I share that when we first see our kids in the morning, we need to give them a little eyeball-to-eyeball contact, so we connect with their hearts first.

Also, this is meaningful intel: it’ll help you see where your kids are likely at and how they’ll likely engage with others.

“Make your plans but hold them loosely.”–Teresa Wiedrick

I have said this on repeat to many homeschool moms.

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“The chief desire of (hu)man is not pleasure, it’s meaning,” declared Viktor Frankl, holocaust survivor and author of Man’s Search for Meaning.

Viktor Frankl gave meaning to the hard stories of my life. It was through Frankl that I learned I was writing the story as I was living it. How I frame my life gives it meaning.

I am grateful to the nun in my catholic high school religion class for introducing Viktor Frankl to me because he threw me a life preserver when I was 19, as a distressed and despairing young woman who didn’t know how to hold a series of events that occurred during that year: a domestic violence crisis in my family of origin, a car accident, and a relationship breakup.

It was too much for me. I was ready to be done. “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” It was then that I began my quest to understand how and why there could be meaning in it all.

“The education system serves the system. The system doesn’t serve the child.”–Still me

Do systems ever serve individuals? I don’t think they do. But if you do, I’d love to hear how.

“A person’s freedom of learning is part of his freedom of thought, even more basic than his freedom of speech. If we take from someone his right to decide what he will be curious about, we destroy his freedom of thought. We say, in effect, you must think not about what interests and concerns you but about what interests and concerns us.”–John Holt, in Pat Farenga’s article, “The Rise of Self-Directed Education”.

ps Next week, I am super excited to bring you a conversation with Pat Farenga.

“The pain pushes till the vision pulls.”–Michael Beckwith

The Universe is pushing you until you have a vision that is bigger than the pain. The potential is always bigger than the problem you’re going through. So when you begin to have a vision, you begin to have a vision about the possibility. And when you sincerely embrace it, you’ll walk in the direction of your vision.

“The homeschool mom life wasn’t meant to be lived alone.”–Me

We are especially independent as homeschool families, which benefits our children as they become independent themselves; however, we weren’t meant to live alone. We were meant for community.

“Self-education is the only possible education; the rest is mere veneer laid on the surface of a child’s nature.”–Charlotte Mason

Was Charlotte Mason an unschooler?

“Homeschool. The only job you lose when you’re successful.”–somebody’s meme from Instagram

Thank you, Instagram homeschool influencer! Mic drop=truth!

“Individualizing a home education doesn’t mean you have to do everything differently for each child.”–also Me

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“Husband and children will take from your plate. We will emotionally and mentally starve you. All of it is wrong. Don’t let us convince you that sacrificing yourself is how you must show love.”–Rupi Kaur

Food for thought…or perhaps, keep that food on your plate;)

“I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it.”–Maya Angelou

Thank you, Maya Angelou. I’m going to keep on keeping on!

“Our earlier lives aren’t wrong; they are just preconstruction, that’s all. Our lives are meant to unfold, to evolve, and that’s good. The only wrong thing, perhaps, is permanently hesitating on the verge of courage, which would prevent this process from taking place.”–Sue Monk Kidd, author ofThe Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman’s Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine.

Brendon Burchard, from The Charged Life, first introduced me to focus on three words as part of my morning routine.

These focus words help us to, well, focus on particular intentions.

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What words for your new homeschool year will you choose for you and your kids?

My words for the year I first wrote this post: expansion, encouragement, and invitation.

Each of those is a word focusing my thoughts on my business, my engagement with others, and my kids.

I create words for my kids, too.

I’ve also prayed specific words for each of my children each year in my journal every morning: gentleness, courage, and confidence.

Some years, I’ve chosen specific words for each of my four children, too. Like…

• relational & empathic,
• develop & expand,
• self-nurturing & boundaries,
• cool & self-soothing.

The more I pay attention to these words, the more I attend to the bigger picture of my life, my children’s lives, and the bigger picture of my homeschool.

(And the less likely I will get in the way of my kids embodying them.)

Words have a powerful effect on our lives.

And after you’ve seen my long list of words, words, words, you know that I am…thorough, intentional, oh, and…wordy.

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.”

–Henry David Thoreau

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