Welcome to The Educating Parent Beverley Paine's archive of articles about homeschooling and unschooling written over a period of 30 plus years

Free download a quick guide to getting started with homeschooling and unschooling by Beverley Paine The Educating Parent in this excellent Resource Directory
Introduction to
Home Education

 

Free directory of Australian homeschooling and unschooling support groups organised by national, state and territories National and State
Support Groups

 

Plan, record and report all in the one document! Always Learning Books planners available in each year level to suit your homeschooling needs, includes curriculum checklists
Yearly Planner, Diary & Report

Let Beverley and friends help you design and write your own curriculum to suit your child's individual learning needs, learn how to prepare lessons, unit studies and more, record and evaluate your children's learning in this series of 3 parent workbooks developed on Beverley's popular homeschool manual Getting Started with Home School Practical Considerations

Homeschool Course for Parents

this Always Learning Year 7 Plan is everything you need to get started a comprehensive collection of curriculum aligned resources and links to activities, lesson plans and unit studies for your year 7 homeschooling student
Homeschool Learning Plans
go back to The Educating Parent home page click here to learn more about what The Educating Parent offers to help you start and continue your awesome homeschooling or unschooling adventure click here to subscribe to Beverley's substack blog with new entries added every other day click here to join the largest Australian online homeschool community The Educating Parents Homeschooling and Unschooling Facebook group

How doing my best and working for better grades damaged me

Beverley Paine

At 52, I am rebelling against the need within to finish everything I start. It began to dawn on me some time ago that my sense of self-worth is tied to successfully completing anything I choose or am required to do. I think this began in school: my teachers were happy with my results and attitude to work but always put 'Beverley could do better' or 'isn't applying herself to the best of her ability', especially if my report card showed more Bs than As. As a result I grew up thinking anything less than 100% wasn't good enough and that to be completely successful one has to do the very best that one can do in each and every moment, striving for the perfect 100% all of the time. 

Sounds like a recipe for failure doesn't it? It's not surprising that every day as I reflect on my achievements I feel like and see myself as a failure. Or that, no matter how hard I try, I can't reach that 100% goal - I'm always a few percentage points short! Most people think I'm crazy and that I'm an over-achiever and that I should be happy with 95%. But on the report card in my mind at the end of each day it says, 'could do better'. That translates into 'not good enough': I'm not good enough. I've personalised those comments from long ago and taken the judgment to heart, made it about myself.

This message was reinforced continuously for twelve years from the age of five and became a conditioned response, a mantra that runs through my head every day. But it's worse than that. For twelve years how I was judged as a person came down to whether or not I successfully completed discrete tasks called assignments, essays or tests. Finishing was all important. Failing to finish was exactly that - a fail! For the next twenty-five years of my life I was goal-oriented. Success was measured not only in how well I did (anything less than 100% fell short of course), but also occurred only when the task was completely finished. And once it was finished I could begin to enjoy the fruits of my labour.

This resulted in me becoming fixated on getting things done because only then could I fully enjoy life. When I had finished school I could get a job and enjoy being an adult (the whole point of school, right?) When I finished building my house I could relax and enjoy it (no one mentioned maintenance!) Finishing became the goal and the purpose, with the enjoying the end result the motivation.

As a home educating parent I discovered that the process of learning and doing is way more important than the products. It is where most of the enjoyment happens too. Learning and doing is fun. There is intrinsic motivation in both. I knew this as a child but school and grades systematically erased that knowledge and understanding. As a parent I worked hard to de-school my homeschooling practice but de-schooling myself is an ongoing process - it never stops. 

Browse our comprehensive library of articles!

keep up to date with new posts to this website daily by clicking here to subscribe

Support Groups: National SA VICWANSW QLD TAS ACT NT
Registration Guides: VIC NSW QLD SA WA TAS ACT NT

Looking for support, reassurance and information? Join Beverley's
The Educating Parents Homeschooling and Unschooling Facebook

Need a ready made homeschool learning plan in a hurry for your homeschool registration? Try one of ours!

Need a ready made homeschool learning plan in a hurry for your homeschool registration? Try one of our Always Learning Books homeschool year level learning plans, packed with links to FREE lesson plans, unit studies and activities for each curriculum subject area, hundreds of suggestions, use what you want, only $18

Want to learn how to write your own education plans to suit your unique children's individual learning needs?

itap into Beverley's four decades of home educating experience and learn how to write your own homeschool curriculum and learning plans to suit your child's and your family's individual needs, a complete how to homeschool course for parents in 3 self paced workbooks each focusing on a different aspect of home educating, planning, recording, evaluating and creating lesson plans image shows 3 workbooks, plus samples of pages, and 3 children walking in bushland

The Educating Parent acknowledges Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders past and present.

click here to become a Fearless Homeschool member giving you access to all past summit workshops as well as exciting new content and webinars, online discussion platform, and more

Twinkl downloadable Home education resources helping you teach confidently at home

say goodbye to home education registration stress with this ultimate rego bundle from Fearless Homeschool

make homeschooling a lot easier, zero to homeschool's excellent course is here to help

go back to The Educating Parent home page click here to learn more about what The Educating Parent offers to help you start and continue your awesome homeschooling or unschooling adventure click here to subscribe to Beverley's substack blog with new entries added every other day click here to join the largest Australian online homeschool community The Educating Parents Homeschooling and Unschooling Facebook group

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 opinions and articles included on this website are not necessarily those of Beverley Paine, The Educating Parent and April Jermey Always Learning Books, nor do they endorse or recommend products listed in contributed articles, pages, or advertisements on pages within this website.

Without revenue from advertising by educational suppliers and Google Ads we could not continue to provide information to home educators. Please support us by letting our advertisers know that you found them on The Educating Parent. Thanks!

Affiliate links are used on this site that take you to products or services outside of this site. Beverley Paine The Educating Parent and April Jermey Always Learning Books assume no responsibility for those purchases or returns of products or services as a result of using these affiliate links. Please review products and services completely prior to purchasing through these links. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question before purchasing or signing up.

Text and images on this site © All Rights Reserved 1999-2025