I think deschooling is a highly effective tool that helps us release doubt, uncertainty, and that not-good-enough feeling that so many homeschool moms discuss with me during coaching.
Deschooling helps us (& our kids) zero in on the most important elements of learning, education & life. So both our kids AND their parents can live their lives on purpose.
Throughout my homeschool years, I’ve been learning about learning, learning about living with my kids, and learning about what an education is anyway.
Learning about learning, learning about living with my kids, and learning about what an education is anyway isn’t what I thought it was.
(Has that been your experience too?)
Turns out, I didn’t need to have a teaching degree, I didn’t need to lesson plan each homeschool day, and I didn’t need report cards (well, one year I did, because the kids asked me for them!)
I’ve had to learn how to get comfortable with boredom, understand genuine motivation, be flexible in my homeschool intentions, choose curriculum and resources based on the real children in front of me, and begin to unpack that unhelpful, oxymoronic word, homeschool.
In my upcoming 8-week Deschool 201 group coaching program, I’ll share what I’ve learned so you can transform your homeschool journey with a newfound sense of freedom, confidence, and purpose, breaking free from traditional schooling or homeschooling norms, boosting your confidence, and infusing purpose into your homeschool days.
Imagine if you did a little self-care by…
learning to become confident in your homeschool choice,
uncovering the reasons you you’ve been feeling not-good-enough,
clarifying how to have a more purposeful family life,
understanding how to move toward more freedom in your homeschool life, and
moving more to what works for you & your homeschool kids.
Therefore, your traditionally schooled (& homeschooled) mindset could move toward the things that matter to you and your kids…
Moving towards your family’s interests & honouring their needs.
Enabling activity that is guided by the people that are in your homeschool, including the kids right in front of you, and you and your partner too!
You saw learning opportunities everywhere, and you felt free from the pressures to conform to traditional school (or even homeschool methods), allowing you to thrive outside the constraints of expected norms.
You could observe and understand your child’s unique learning approach, enabling you to tailor educational approaches that resonate best with them.
You felt confident in your homeschool approach, and you saw that confidence reflected in your kids too.
Or you rediscovered the true purpose behind your homeschool choice and it aligned your learning environment more consistently with your family’s values.
You saw your homeschool intention beyond a philosophy or a curriculum.
And you could move at the flow of seasons in your family life.
You could foster a love for learning driven by curiosity, exploration, and discovery rather than adhering to rigid curriculum structures.
Encouraging a more collaborative and communicative relationship between you and your child.
You learned to lean into real-life experiences as learning, providing opportunities for practical application of knowledge and skills in everyday situations.
You could see that the way you taught your kids to engage their life as children would be the way they chose to engage their life as adults.
We fuel that not-good-enough feeling when we fail to meet conventionally schooled (or traditional homeschool expectations), we set ourselves up to work toward unrealistic ideals and efforts (& teach our kids to approach life that way too), and we fill our days, and our kids’ days, with a whole lotta busy work when we aren’t clear on our home education intentions.
Are these activities serving our children’s home education, remember the “raising up” of our child(ren)?
Sometimes. Sometimes not.
Confessional: I tried to create a private school at home.
Do you know how?
I included:
Latin, French, Italian, Swahili, and Spanish (dependent on our present travel adventures)
Math workbooks, logic & critical thinking exercises
Nature study, with drawing pencils on a picnic blanket
Violin lessons, piano lessons, theatre programs, choir, ballet, gymnastics, soccer, baseball, contemporary dance, jazz dance, etc, etc…
History readalouds and dictations, historical summaries, essays, and timelines too
Expository essay writing, research writing, magazine article writing, NaNoWriMo every November, creative writing projects of all sorts
Drawing, design, painting, impressionism, classical music
Reading reading reading LISTS
I could go on and on and on here…
And I got a GREAT education by the way! (Oh, and the kids probably learned some cool stuff too).
And though I think we homeschool mamas should incorporate our interests into our homeschools, my goal in homeschooling was to give them a private school experience, or an even better than private school experience, because I knew I was capable.
My ultimate goal was NOT to look into their eyes, listen to who THEY were, and what THEY needed, or consider where life might be leading them.
(In other words, their home education wasn’t always about THEM).
I also assumed I had to homeschool the way I did because that’s what everyone did in their homeschools, and what I was doing seemed familiar to the schooled experiences I had, and I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss anything, or be behind anything, or not disappoint the neighbours or my in-laws.
That’s why I know that you need to be clear on what an education is anyway, so you can create an individualized education that will raise your children to do and be who they were meant to do.
So, what if you could move toward an individualized education, one that would serve them, raise them, to become the person they were meant to be on this planet, and help them move toward the activities they were meant to pursue in their lives?
What if you understood that all of life was a learning journey and we’ll all be on it all the time and we only need to be clear on what our kids need today? You can reimagine your homeschool life!
All my deschool transitions throughout my homeschool years have helped me do this:
Freedom: Breaking free from the absurdities of traditional schooling, and even “expected” homeschool approaches, allowing me to facilitate a home education that served the kiddos in front of me. And they enjoyed it more! AND I ENJOYED it more.
Confidence: Feeling confident in my homeschooling approach didn’t just make me feel more at ease myself, it also made me more confident as an individual. And guess who else became more confident? Yeah, you guessed it, my kids.
Purpose: Rediscovering the purpose behind my decision to homeschool, more cleanly implementing my reasons into my actual homeschool days, and making sure our learning environment aligned more consistently with our family’s values, which made it so much more purposeful.
Self-care and deschooling are crossover elements we’ll be discussing in the Deschool your Homeschool group coaching program. It’ll be the bridge between your current homeschool experience and this transformative destination.
Self Care & Deschooling: What’s the connection?
If you want to learn the connection between self-care and deschooling via my story of deschooling in the video here.
an assessment of your belief on what an education is anyway
exploratory questions & discussions to help shift your perspective
a plan to practically shift your homeschool toward your real children & your satisfaction in your homeschool
We’ll allow a 1 1/2 hour group intensive time. You’ll receive personal feedback and the Big Emotions Journaling Workbook for you to continue the work afterward.
Deschool your homeschool journaling workbook that aids in your self-exploration, to get clear on how you can bring freedom & individualization into your homeschool.
$9.99Original price was: $9.99.$5.99Current price is: $5.99.
I help homeschool mamas shed what’s not working in their homeschool & life, so they can show up authentically, purposefully, and confidently in their homeschool & life.
