Homeschooling Bravely (with Jamie Erickson)

Jamie Erickson’s books are frequently recommended in homeschool circles, but it wasn’t until several months ago that I read one of hers for the first time! I knew as soon as I finished it that Jamie would be a wonderful podcast guest, and am delighted to share our conversation with you all today. We don’t have to homeschool in fear. Learn how to homeschool bravely in today’s homeschool conversation episode! Thank you to Podcast Sponsor All About Learning Press! Click here to learn more: https://bit.ly/reading-and-spelling Show notes and full transcript: https://www.humilityanddoxology.com/jamie-erickson Homeschool Planning Tips: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLt7wgqzxNavkHcUvtQNMrAZyYvtUeFh0m FREE Year of Memory Work: https://www.humilityanddoxology.com/year-of-memory-work Made2Homeschool - a new homeschool community for YOU https://www.made2homeschool.com/?ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.made2homeschool.com%2Fa%2F2147529243%2FKNcPGL3t (ref) Follow Humility and Doxology Online: Blog https://www.humilityanddoxology.com/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/HumilityAndDoxology Instagram http://instagram.com/humilityanddoxology YouTube: YouTube.com/humilityanddoxology Here's an excerpt from my Homeschool Conversation with Jamie Erickson: Amy: What about the mom who’s like, “I think homeschooling sounds great. It doesn’t sound scary. I just am already overwhelmed. I feel like I’m not even doing a good job just all the other mom and life and keeping the house running, stuff I’m supposed to be doing.” How is that mom supposed to now add home educating to her list of to-dos? Jamie: I think first and foremost, you can’t borrow trouble. I did that in my early years. I looked ahead to the years I’d be having to teach upper math skills. I wasn’t there yet in the same way that I can’t fear having baby number five when I’m only on baby number one. God will give you exactly what you need when you need it. I think sometimes that really is the struggle with moms. It’s not our overwhelming busyness, it’s we look at the busyness that we have right now and we add in all this other busyness that we think is going to come not realizing that your kids grow with you and so your busyness will change and will ebb and flow. I think also many moms who have started out in the public school and have transitioned to homeschooling will confess to actually being less busy. The busy that they do have in their lives of homeschooling is actually a busyness of their own choosing. What I mean by that, when you have kids in the public school, you think, “Oh, somebody else is teaching them and then they come home.” What happens when they come home is you’re doing homework with them for hours after school. This is homework at the end of the day when you are tired and you are spent, you have no more gas in the tank, you are having to tutor to someone else’s teaching style and ways of teaching like common core math. You are actually proactively teaching and not having to reactively retrain. You get to teach them regular old math or whatever it is you want to teach versus the way somebody else is wanting them to learn, and you get to have a long runway of learning right alongside them. You get to start out with the basic fact and add on to the next fact. You’re not just thrown into the deep end having to remember all of these things that it’s been years since you’ve learned. I think sometimes we can look at homeschooling and think, “I can’t do that, that will make me so much more busy than I already am now.” I would argue that it’s the opposite. It’s when you have your kids in school and you’re racing out the door to get them to school or to pick them up from after-school activities, bundling up all of your younger ones, waking them up from naps to go pick up your older ones, whatever, all the chaos that happens when you have to live half of your life outside of your house, I think that’s a different kind of busy. It’s a busy of not your choosing."