The hardest part of homeschooling…

The hardest part of homeschooling …Is deschooling your mind.

The rest is easy. Loving my children. Following their lead. Playing and enjoying my life. Planning our days. Adventuring and trying new things, exploring nature and different parks together, looking at the world map and creating vision boards of where we want to travel, learning about the history of the world, listening to stories and reading together, cooking and baking, cleaning up a day of fun filled mess…the list goes on…these things light me up.

Of course, there are times when it gets too much and we have to reset and shift things but for the most part homeschooling is a wonderful life lived with the little ones I have chosen to have and to raise. I have chosen to bring them into my life and I continue to choose to raise them above anyone else.

And do you know when homeschooling became fun for me and for my children? When I actively began the process of deschooling. But in order to become aware of my need to deschool and become aware of just how ingrained within me the education system was took time and it was the hardest step to take. To look at myself and to question my words, actions and behaviours towards my children. To recognise my triggers and to ask myself with the most kindness, where these triggers come from (always from the wounds of my own childhood). To begin to shed the beliefs I had about my children not learning.

To question the mainstream narratives that tell me I am not qualified enough to teach my children. To engage in the process of becoming aware, reflecting on and shifting all the thoughts I carried with me from childhood about learning and education and from the institutional life that most of us grew up in.

I will say this until my jaw hurts…deschooling is not something you and your children do before you homeschool. Deschooling is something you (mostly only you, mama) consistently do, work on, meditate on, journal on always an forever through your homeschooling life. It is a beautiful process of observation of your inner beliefs and your outer actions. A process so intimate it will bring up A LOT for you. But the deeper you dive, the more beautiful it gets.

Deschooling takes a lot of inner work. It is mostly about you and it is all about your mindset and where that intersects with the way you raise and homeschool your children. You see, if your children are little they are not yet tainted with the institutional life that you have been through and they do not yet have the educational mindset that you do. They are already happy. They are already leading authentic lives and they can impart so much of their wisdom if you give them the space to do so and if you listen to the way their spirits soar every day.

But let me assure you, the faster you begin deschooling and the longer you stay with the thoughts, feelings and beliefs and reflections you have about education, the richer your homeschooling life will get and the deeper you will attune and connect with your children. Once I actively began to deschool, our homeschooling transformed into life and our days went from expectations and battles to learning and connection. Thats why deschooling is the hardest part of homeschooling as a mother…yet its the most important for both you and your children!