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What is Your Homeschooling Life Like?

© Beverley Paine March 2008

Jennifer wrote and asked me: "Even though I'm 17 and have 6 years to find a husband and even have a kid I have decided to home school my children since my brothers and sister go to really bad schools. I just wanted to know what your homeschooling lives are like."

My homeschooled children are now all older than you are, but I think I can answer your question anyway.

Life wasn't always a lot of fun, or even very interesting. We focussed on doing things together that meant something to each of us, rather than on 'getting an education'. It was important to me that the children grew with self-confidence, realising that they have their whole life to learn whatever it is they want to know and do... All I needed to do was make sure they had the tools and know how to use them to help them learn.

This made homeschooling life much easier because most of the pressure parents and children feel to perform academically or otherwise were removed. Life - and homeschooling - is what you make it!

In retrospect, with two decades of experience, I'd say that the most important thing to remember as a prospective mother intending to home educate is to be a parent first, teacher second (or not at all!).

Concentrate on bringing up healthy happy children. Make sure they get to play, sing, dance, run, hop, skip, tell stories, laugh, sleep and imagine every day. Give them quality toys that make them use their imaginations. Spend hours every day talking to them. Play with them. Pretend with them. Ask them what they need, what you can do for them. Protect them. Feed them good quality nutritious food and give them an unpolluted environment in which to live and play. Allow them access to lots of friends, but don't over do - children need time to be alone and love to spend endless hours daydreaming or doing nothing at all!

Get to know your inner child and be guided by her wisdom. Don't completely grow up. Retain your curiosity about the world. Help your children retain theirs...

Be the best parent you can be. That way you know that homeschooling is going to be great for you and great for your children.

Whenever we felt insecure or unsure about homeschooling it was always because we were comparing ourselves or what we did to what was happening out there in the world - looking over our shoulders to see if we were measuring up to other people's expectations. This usually made us unhappy and we'd stop learning; learning would stop being a wonderful family journey where we helped each other achieve our individual goals.

It can be frustrating at times - you know the old saying - you can choose your friends but you can't choose your relatives! However, being together for a lot of time meant that we couldn't let relationship problems fester, we couldn't ignore problems, we had to sort them out as they happened. This has meant that we're very close as a family - not only then, when we were homeschooling, but also now, as a family of five adults.

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Beverley Paine with her children, and their home educated children, relaxing at home.

Together with the support of my family, my aim is to help parents educate their children in stress-free, nurturing environments. In addition to building and maintaing this website, I continue to create and manage local and national home educating networks, help to organise conferences and camps, as well as write for, edit and produce newsletters, resource directories and magazines. I am an active supporter of national, state, regional and local home education groups.

"You've been an inspiration to me, I love the way
you really listen to people."
Vanessa

"Whenever I read your writing I always come away
with increased confidence in my ability to provide and
share a wonderful learning journey with my family!"
Davina

"Your guidance, understanding, support and words of
wisdom changed our lives. We now offer support and
organise many homeschooling events for others."
Lesley

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I am convinced that your books are going to add
quality and peace of mind to my journey of teaching my kids
at home! Just from studying your website, until almost
2am in the morning, I 've been encouraged!"
Louisa

"Thank you for all your many,many reassuring words
over many, many years. You probably don't know exactly how valuable you are to the Australian Home Education community. I've been reading your stuff for maybe 8 years or more now. And I'm very grateful."
Gythaa


CLICK HERE if you want to learn
how to write your own education plans
to suit your unique children's individual learning needs?

Or you are looking for quality curriculum and teaching tips...

Welcome to the World of Home Education
and Learning without School!

We began educating our children in 1985, when our eldest was five. In truth, we had helped them learn what they need to learn since they were born. I am a passionate advocate of allowing children to learn unhindered by unnecessary stress and competition, meeting developmental needs in ways that suit their individual learning styles and preferences. Ours was a homeschooling, unschooling and natural learning family! There are hundreds of articles on this site to help you build confidence as a home educating family. We hope that your home educating adventure is as satisfying as ours was! Beverley Paine

3 ESSENTIAL STEP BY STEP GUIDES

Getting Started with
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PARENT WORKBOOKS

#1 Create Your
Own Curriculum

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let experienced home educators Beverley, Tamara and April walk you through HOW to create a learning plan that builds on solid foundations that works for YOUR family AND ticks all the boxes for home educaton registration with part 1 of this getting started with home educating serioes of parent workbooks, Create Your Own Curriculum!
Let experienced home educators Beverley, Tamara and April walk you through HOW to create a learning plan that builds on solid foundations that works for YOUR family AND ticks all the boxes for home educaton registration!

To see the full range of Beverley Paine's books on homeschooling, unschooling and natural learning visit Always Learning Books

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The information on this website is of a general nature only and is not intended as personal or professional advice. This site merges and incorporates 'Homeschool Australia' and 'Unschool Australia'.

The Educating Parent acknowledges the Traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Owners, the Custodians of Australia, and pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people viewing this website.

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