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Thinking About…Bravery & Belonging

Thinking About…Bravery & Belonging

by OnlySchoolers · Feb 4, 2021

With February being the longest month of the homeschool year, there’s plenty of time to dive deep into two key themes for home educators: Bravery and Belonging. Join Gina and Christyn as they discuss their big and small moments of brave action in homeschooling, and how the idea of belonging can sometimes be a stumbling block…until you find your people.

1:55   Recap of Episode 1 and the new insights into autonomy Christyn and Gina uncovered

3:42   Paying attention to to what fulfills us as parents makes us more interesting educational partners for our kids

5:16    Gina thinks bravery in homeschool is sometimes just saying out loud “We’re homeschooling” because you can never predict the response

6:40    When you opt for a different path, you have to have bravery to go along and stay on it

7:05   Christyn’s idea of bravery comes partly from Sara Bareilles’s song “Brave“

7:35   The song talks about how disappearing and not showing our brave because we doubt our choices and we don’t want to make waves

8:30   Committing the act of homeschooling shows our big our brave is!

9:00   Gina talks brave moments in her life, including starting this podcast, and putting herself out there on radio interviews and in writing to talk about the positives of homeschooling

10:13   Christyn discusses being brave enough to start the homeschooling lifestyle at a time when her life was overshadowed by her husband’s death. She took on Joan of Arc’s quote as a mantra: “I am not afraid, I was born to do this.”

12:40   Smaller brave moment for Christyn: waking up and going to the zoo instead of opening the books. The success of that made an impact on how she decided to homeschool going forward

14:04   Gina’s smaller brave moment was talking up the first day of school, then announcing the only thing on the schedule was to play all day! It’s a brave step to announce that the education of your kids belongs to you

14:35  Moving to Belonging as a theme, especially in a community sense

14:55   Gina finds meeting and greeting the world in general to be a perennial challenge

15:30   Christyn doesn’t always feel like she belongs in homeschool groups. It’s been a stumbling block, but one-on-one dynamics work best

16:15   Gina agrees that her best belonging moments are with small groups

16:40   Homeschoolers often get caught up in group identities that may create barriers for belonging if you don’t fit

17:25   Home educating can bring stress so feeling like you have support is key. 

19:18   Gina and Christyn both hope that the OnlySchoolers podcast community gives a sense of belonging

20:23   Homeschooling is lonely sometimes, and homeschooling an only can be especially lonely. Gina and Christyn talk about how their kids’ experience of finding a place to belong

24:10   Show us your brave!

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Filed Under: Episodes, Season 2 Tagged With: be brave be bold, we all want to belong, you can do this

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