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Homeschool Guilt Lives Between Idealism and Reality · Making Everyday Magic: The Podcast

• 0:02
  All right, let's take it back.
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  When you imagined homeschool,
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  what did it look like?
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  Is what you do now. What it looked like?
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  I can assure you, mine did not look like what we do now.
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  And it was really hard
• 0:19
  to have that realization and to separate those things.
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  And it was even harder when I realized
• 0:26
  that the void between
• 0:30
  my ideal homeschool and my real homeschool.
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  That that was where my guilt comes from.
• 0:37
  Homeschool guilt.
• 0:38
  Welcome back to making Everyday Magic.
• 0:40
  My name is Shanna and if you are new here we are a homeschooling family of four.
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  We are knocking on that 10th year of homeschooling.
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  And today I want to talk with you
• 0:49
  about separating homeschool idealism
• 0:53
  from realism.
• 1:00
  Before we go any further, please scroll down.
• 1:01
  Hit that big red subscribe button,
• 1:03
  turn on the bell for notifications, and give this video a thumbs up.
• 1:06
  As always, you can find me down in the comments
• 1:08
  or over on Instagram at Making Everyday Magic.
• 1:11
  And just so you know, because it's totally on topic
• 1:16
  next week from the time you're seeing this will be me sharing my
• 1:20
  my homeschool plans for fifth grade in ninth grade.
• 1:22
  So in like,
• 1:25
  I don't know, six months.
• 1:26
  Somebody check back and remind me about that separation between you and me
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  and, realism and idealism, because, I mean, right now I've got ideas.
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  I got, how's it going to go?
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  I do not know, but we will.
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  We will for sure figure it out.
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  I know that you can relate.
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  Right.
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  You see anything? And it looks awesome.
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  You see ten things, and they all look awesome.
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  And you want to do them and you want to do them.
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  Now, we've talked about that recently, and it all looks great
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  and it all looks wonderful and it's so cool.
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  And obviously everybody's going to love it and everybody's
• 1:56
  going to do these great jobs and look oh, here's a new art thing.
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  And oh look at this class.
• 2:00
  We did that class too. And oh, there's this homeschool event during the day.
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  We should do that too.
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  And you have planned exactly
• 2:07
  14 years worth of homeschool stuff into three days.
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  And that is, that is that is that is not possible.
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  Okay. That is homeschool idealism, right?
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  You think that you're going to have a Pinterest worthy room
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  and it's going to be awesome and, it's going to smell like roses
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  for some reason, and it will be good and it will be wonderful.
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  And everybody's going to get up on time and we're all going to get started.
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  And your kids are never going to have a hiccup in their learning journey.
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  Nobody's going to be dyslexic.
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  Everybody's going to read, well, nobody's going to need a snack.
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  Definitely not 15 snacks.
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  They definitely don't have to pee 47 times.
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  It's going to be great. It's all going to go to plan.
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  And that's how it works, right? Because this is this is homeschool.
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  This is how school. This is how homeschool goes.
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  Except that's idealism.
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  And, realism is not idealism.
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  Realism is that
• 2:50
  everybody needs like basically 100% the opposite of everything I just said.
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  And that is where we actually live.
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  The problem is, and it's it's just like a birth plan.
• 3:01
  It is just like a birth plan. Right?
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  It's going to be whatever.
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  And the baby is just going to fly out of there after one push.
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  But in actuality you have like placental abruption
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  and people have to have surgery and everybody almost dies.
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  So it's just kind of like that where you wonder what happens.
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  And, and then you have a weird grieving process.
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  It is hard.
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  Hard, especially when you're first starting.
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  I like to think I'm a little better at it now, but I'm not.
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  I like to think that I do a better job of keeping a handle on
• 3:34
  what is actually possible within the confines of both time and space.
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  I don't, but if I did, then I would be better at this after my.
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  I just told you, I have nine years of experience.
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  So clearly.
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  Clearly, I've gotten a handle on doing this.
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  Right.
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  But, like, if I had, I would recognize
• 3:59
  your ideal idealism and your realism.
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  The further apart they are,
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  the more space there is for homeschool guilt.
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  And if you are new here, welcome.
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  You don't know this yet.
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  But everything you do makes you feel guilty because it is
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  a wild decision that we have chosen to add
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  our child's entire educational existence to the burden
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  that is on our shoulders, that we already carry of, I don't know, keeping them
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  alive and feeding them and housing them and hoping they grow up to be good people,
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  and also hoping that the world isn't
• 4:36
  on fire by them because of global warming or war or whatever.
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  And, and also we're going to teach them how to read.
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  Yes. We're so good at this.
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  So obviously, for those of us who have chosen to homeschool
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  don't already have a problem with idealism, right.
• 4:55
  You're going to feel guilty.
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  Is it socialization?
• 5:00
  Maybe that's why people keep bringing it up.
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  Is it that they don't do something in the time
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  or on grade level that they're supposed to?
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  Probably. Probably down to,
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  do they just hold their pencil?
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  Weird.
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  Because you don't know this yet, but you're going to stress about that.
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  And down in the comments tell me, has anybody out there
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  not stressed about like
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  pencil holding hand placement or handwriting quality?
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  If you have never stress about any of those, go away.
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  You're not our people. Okay.
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  There are things that I did not know
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  I needed to worry about, that I found out and then were ready to,
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  The space between the idealism and the realism is where homeschool get will live.
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  Homeschool guilt parenting.
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  Well, the whole thing.
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  It is really hard to human.
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  It is really hard to mother.
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  It is really hard to homeschool.
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  And it is.
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  It is damn near impossible to do all of those things.
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  And what you can't do is all of them great at the same time.
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  But for whatever reason, our lovely little brains,
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  especially our three and brains, seem to think that we can know.
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  Okay, so now eight and brains think we can 3 a.m.
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  brains question if we've ever done anything right.
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  So those again the space between.
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  It is our job
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  as we're going to this planning season to.
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  Be realistic okay.
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  What does Coco Chanel say.
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  Look in the mirror before you leave. Take off one thing.
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  That's what we're going to do with our homeschool plans.
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  Put a list of some days or one days.
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  Not everything needs to be done now.
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  Not everything needs to be done this year, okay?
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  They don't need to do every single thing every year.
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  They don't need to do every single thing every day.
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  They don't need to do every single thing every week.
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  They don't need to do every single thing right now.
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  Okay?
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  I am so guilty of finding the thing, sourcing the things,
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  getting excited about the things,
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  thinking my kids will love the things and they want free play.
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  This is the perfect analogy actually.
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  You know
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  how your kids have a lot of playdates and you wind up like going to the zoo,
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  and then you go to do this activity, and then you go to do this thing
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  that you bought tickets for together.
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  And what happens is your kids just want to run feral in a field
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  because they just want to spend time together.
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  They don't want to play an activity.
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  They don't want to meet up with people that they aren't actually close with.
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  They don't want to do that, okay?
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  They want free time.
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  Yeah, it's like that. Okay.
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  I don't know how we do this.
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  And maybe what we do is we book out hours a day for for free time
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  and maybe what we do is we limit their toys.
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  Yeah, I'm doing that.
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  I don't know what it is.
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  I don't know what the solution is, but I can tell you.
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  And I can scream the warnings from the rooftops.
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  Get your realism and your idealism closer together.
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  And that does.
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  That's not what I mean to say.
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  I recognize the problem in that statement.
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  Here is your realism. Here is your idealism.
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  Bring your idealism to your realism.
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  Do not bring your realism to your idealism.
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  Everyone will perish.
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  Okay, don't do that.
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  Realism stays.
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  Bring your ideal at one thing at a time, okay?
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  One thing at a time. Don't start big.
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  Just like every time we come back from a break,
• 8:19
  every time we restart, start with one big bite.
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  You do that real well. You could take a second big bite.
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  Can you do that? Okay.
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  You throw on some fries.
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  Don't do it all. Don't do it all right.
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  Now you don't have to do it all.
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  You don't need to do it all. Don't make yourself feel bad.
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  Just do your best.
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  I just I don't know how else to explain the realism and the idealism.
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  They've got to get together.
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  Okay?
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  This happens with wedding budget and birth plan and home renovation
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  and Pinterest boards and and and and and and and and and.
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  Okay.
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  I do not have Pottery Barn money, but I got Ikea money.
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  Okay?
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  My realism is Ikea.
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  My idealism is Pottery Barn.
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  Never the to show me what your home,
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  what your life, what your home school looks like right now is good.
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  It's good enough
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  if you have
• 9:12
  happy people, if you have happy people making progress,
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  if you're doing that mostly consistently, that's great.
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  Before you jump off the deep end saying that you need to do
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  all the things and grab all the things and buy all the things
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  and do all the things, just remember what I said.
• 9:30
  Take one thing off before you walk out the house, okay?
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  As I hope you find this helpful, entertaining or informative.
• 9:37
  If you did the scroll down, hit that big red subscribe button, turn
• 9:40
  on the bell for notifications and give this video a thumbs up as always,
• 9:43
  you can write me down in the comments or over on Instagram.
• 9:46
  I think Everyday Magic let me know what was so I will take anything at all.
• 9:51
  What was your crazy? I could do that.
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  But then you couldn't do that and I oh,
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  I've got a lot because I am a DIY girly.
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  I have replaced all kinds of things.
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  I have demoed things.
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  I have tile, the kitchen, I have painted, things I have made things.
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  Just today I made a whole playbill.
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  I have never done that before.
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  I have taught myself pretty much everything I know how to do.
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  Designed websites, this whole YouTube situation, all the things
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  and rarely was it something I
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  wish I've done again.
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  My idealism and my realism and my idealism got real close, real fast.
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  So, I'd love to hear what's your thing?
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  What was your thing or what was your thing you started you like?
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  Nope, that's not for me.
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  I am so guilty like I do that I do that, especially when it comes to save money.
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  It is girl, I should not be left alone.
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  That is for sure.
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  Anyways.
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  So yeah, yeah, that's a good.
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  That might be why I absolutely love group learning for my kids.
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  Is that it just it's so much easier because I could do it
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  a lot of more like one thing, instead of having to do a lot
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  of little things or a lot for multiple people, like combining subjects,
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  I think that is probably why it serves me so well.
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  That and you know that that is actually the necessity of me Monday.
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  It's because I just I needed to force myself.
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  Right. My idealism was that we could do it all.
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  We freaking can't. I can't.
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  The reality of that mom on me Monday was that
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  I needed to force myself
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  to find a time to to just.
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  It is sacred and that is where I am.
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  I am focused and I am doing it because if not, this girl
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  is trying to do 15,000 other things and I just, I literally cannot.
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  And so for me,
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  that was a place when my idealism got to my realism
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  real fast and I changed things and I figured out the way to make it work.
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  And that's the deal.
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  You have to figure out what does work for you.
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  How does it work? How is it working now?
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  Do you have anything else you want to do? Absolutely love that.
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  I've got tons of videos here on how to create your dream routine
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  and what that looks like, but it all is based in that realism.
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  What's it really like?
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  What is really happening?
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  How is it really going for you?
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  What is honestly your pitfall?
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  You have to get really honest with yourself.
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  Not a lot of us are.
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  We are all idealistic and we all idealize ourselves, good or bad.
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  Very rarely are we grounded where we are.
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  And so that space between is what makes you feel like.
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  And I just there's no other way to say true story.
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  Getting us closer together and taking honest, hard looks at what
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  you are, where you are, what you want and how you're going to get there.
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  Real possibilities.
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  That's the difference.
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  And that's the key
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  entrance of a accountability.
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  I guess.