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What to do when it all gets too hard and we want to give up?
by Beverley Paine, April 2022
Last week in The Educating Parents Homeschooling and Unschooling group I answered a plea for help from distraught and frustrated home educator ready to give up.
What I love about online support groups is that there are usually lots of experienced home educators volunteering help, many others sharing stories echoing similar experiences, some how their issues were solved, others just saying "thanks for posting, I'm going through this too!" experienced home educators too.
It is awesome that can tap into this incredible resource, the brains and experience of other home educating families. It's good to remember though that we're all different, coming from different places. Take what works for you, that resonates with you, in the here and now and let go of the rest, because it probably isn't what you need right now. And that's okay.
Having read all the great replies I wondered what more I could add, and came up with this...
I've been there done that, felt that, and experienced it a thousands times over when home educating my kids (two of whom are now home educating their kids, so obviously something worked!)
It's okay, breathe, step back, pause. You don't have to crack this nut today, this week, this month or even this year.
You have time. Yeah, you've been doing it for quite a few years already and that might feel like an indictment right now, but to be honest, something must have been working for you, your children and your family sometimes during those years.
Can you remember some of those things? Write down a few notes or draw a picture about what that looked or felt like, what happens when life is going 'right' for you?
Next, do an inventory (list) of EVERYTHING your child can do. Don't think about school subjects, goals, outcomes. Put them right out of your mind for now.
If you need some help thinking of different skills, abilities, competencies your child has already mastered or in on the way to getting under control, there is a collection of checklists on my website: scroll down the page to see the list. Don't worry about anything on those lists he hasn't covered yet, at this point you're trying to get a realistic bead on where he is at now, what he can do, has accomplished so far.
And that word is really, really important: REALISTIC.
Stop, think about that word and what it means for a moment.
Who says your child should learn this or that in this or that way by this or that age? Who?
Does that person (or curriculum writer, edu-crat, politician, grandparent, well-meaning friend, etc) really know your child, understand who he is, what he needs, how he ticks, what he likes and dislikes, what turns him on and what turns him off?
Do they really care about your child? Love him? Want to put the kind of effort you've been putting in these past years?
YOU (and your son) get to say what he learns, when and how. Just you and your son. And maybe his dad, but [as stated] his dad has already hand-balled that responsibility over to you guys, so yeah, probably just you and your son.
Sure, you have to tick the boxes and jump through the hoops to get through the home education registration process every year, but groups like this (and all those tutors and experienced home educators putting up their hands to offer help) can walk you through how to do that. And in your situation, definitely have a chat with a seasoned unschooler, that will definitely help.
The what, how and when your child learns is something that is measured and conducted over your child's childhood. Think about your long term goals. Not those darn short-term expectations (curriculum outcomes) that have been placed in your mind.
My guess is that yYou probably need to do a bit of deschooling... I've been at this home education game 35 years and I am STILL deschooling my conditioned mind!
So give yourself a break, be kind to yourself, because, believe me, this deschooling gig isn't easy (for many of us).
All too often are heads are in 'should' land, or parked someone in the future. What matters is what is in the here and now. Come back to now.
What have you got right now? Who is this kid, right now? What motivates him?
Too many of us dismiss what motivates our kdis or what they are already doing as NOT LEARNING.
I honestly believe kids don't know how to not learn.
They only know how to not learn what other people expect them to, when and why. This having to live up to other people's expectations of what they should be learning gets in the way of how they actually learn. They have to set aside their natural learning style and preference to jump through hoops to satisfy other people's definition of what learning is and how it happens.
And sometimes we have to do that. I call that learning how to play the game of education.
My kids would often go along with my need for them to play the game of education for a few different reasons. One was to get enough 'evidence' for the end of registration home ed review, another was to help shut up that nagging voice in my head that either they or I wasn't doing enough, wasn't a good enough homeschooling mother. We knew it was usually just a dip in my confidence and that it would go away, but it would go away quicker if they played the education game for a day or three, do a few pages of bookwork, an assignment or project - and that would quickly show me how unnecessary it was. And I'd be a happier, less nagging, more creative, fun mum.
When my kids were your son's age I was learning to celebrate 'doing nothing'. I was learning to see that what I thought was doing nothing, learning nothing, was actually something. And I started to learn how to value that. Not what I'd be trained to think was education, or learning. But what was actually happening everyday.
Over time I got good at translating what was actually happening into educational jargon so other people could connect the dots between what the curriculum wanted my child to be learning and what was actually happening.
I find that whenever I start thinking, " wow, I have to do what schools are doing in the way schools are doing it," I feel like I am failing. And it isn't true, I'm not.
As an example, my son wasn't reading yet at age 9. He started to put it all together at around age 12. At age 17 he wrote html code to build a website, added a forum, managed the forum, and wrote tutorials on topics of interest to him. At 19 he also designed a part for his car, modifying his gear box, building a 3D printer (back before you could buy them) so he could print a protype of the car part. As far as I know he's never read a novel and never written an essay. He's in his 30s now, runs his own successful business, does engineering drawings that satisfy regulatory authorities. He was unschooled. He learns in the way that best suits him, when he needs to.
It takes faith, and faith is hard. Faith requires trust. We need to trust in our children's natural learning ability.
Also, to another worried and overwhelmed mum in the same post, I wrote this:
When we're in the middle of a stressful situation, particularly if it is ongoing, our mental health suffers and that usually means we doubt our abilities as a parent and educator of our child.
Back when I was home educating my kids I would regularly feel that I was failing my children, wasn't good enough as a home educating parent, was overwhelmed and because so few people understood home educating and why anyone would want to do it... I had zero support to continue, so naturally would end up questioning the sanity of homeschooling every time doubt, confusion and depression would grip me.
It took me another 20 years to work out all the things that triggered my depression, but luckily sometime along the way I realised that homeschooling was not one of them.
Being able to help my children meet their learning and developmental needs in ways that honoured their natures was part of my personal healing process: in time I was able to start honouring and respecting my nature too, instead of trying to be something everyone else seems to think I should be.
I'd also get overwhelmed whenever money was short, or one of us had health problems, or when the relatives came to stay at Christmas... I learned to see that all these other things were the problem, rather than my fear of not being able to help my children learn.
Plus, I found that when I kept homeschooling records this helped to prove to me that my kids were learning enough, just in different ways and at different times to how they would if there were in school. I'd notice that my memory wasn't good at remembering all the good times we had learning at home, only the times when it wasn't working out. On balance it seemed to work out more often than it didn't, and that helped.
I encourage all home educating families to keep records in whatever way works best for them, not to help them jump through the registration review hoops each year, but because I know it is a great way to build confidence that home educating is working, the kids are learning. Plus, the kids love looking back through photos of their earlier selves, remembering the activities and excursions.
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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.
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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
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