Episode 26: Fear of Missing Out

The time of year leading up to the conventional school year can include mixed emotions. We’re surrounded by back to school focus, fellow home educators talking about their plans and maybe even wondering how we might get to our family’s own aspirations and ideas. Please pull up a chair and listen in as we talk about moving through the fear of missing out.

We Discuss:

How people are talking about planning and curriculum and being ready for the beginning of the school year. It sometimes feels like we must be missing something.

That so much has to do with how we perceive homeschooling and education and the way we go about that so some people‘s actual homeschool styles are going to require more planning than others. It doesn’t necessarily make them better but it’s just kind of the reality of logistics.

Taking personality into consideration rather than making assumptions about homeschool styles

That there isn’t one way of doing things and so just because we see people doing those things doesn’t mean that we are necessarily missing out if we don’t. It also doesn’t mean that our kids are necessarily missing out if we don’t.

Adventure lists, project lists, joy lists and compiling of ideas and plans with flexibility built in

Marketing in Back to School sales that promote the idea of a new and fresh start

Centering of school and Back to School in kids’ books, shows and movies and how that doesn’t always resonate for homeschool families – finding our own norms

Acknowledging that our kids will be missing out on things no matter what decisions we make – school or not, particular homeschool style, our particular location

That it’s okay not to do “all the things” whether that’s following the Olympics or taking advantage of traditional fall activities or anything else

Practical ways to work through feeling grief or uncertainty about the first day of school or various milestones like school pictures, riding in the bus, track and field.

The idea of “what enough is” and looking very intentionally at how rich everyday life can be

The school year as simply an extension of what you’re already doing and both the ordinary and extraordinary things you’re enjoying.

Marking down the ordinary things on the calendar as a way of noting the regular abundance of our lives

Taking “stock” of the content and process of our week from three perspectives: What do our children bring and initiate? What do we? What do the natural happenings of life? Is there an area we’d like to pay more attention to?

Challenging common assumptions about linear or standardized learning and developmental stages

Potential fear of missing out on what we had intended to bring to parenting, so actually missing out on the implementation of our own ideas

Abundant family living on a budget – ways for home education to be as accessible as possible

Resources:

Taking a Kinder Path – 4 lists to liven up your home ed days (And keep you on track for a life you love) 

Taking a Kinder Path – Joy lists: A Home Education Essential (what they are, why you should have one and how to get started)

Taking a Kinder Path – Home Ed Resources – Read-aloud round-up 2021 (gorgeous gift ideas with)

Taking a Kinder Path – 13 Best-Year-Yet Resources for Home-Ed Planning

Taking a Kinder Path – New to home education – Your first week

Life is Already Full – Moving Away from the Fear of Missing Out

Are we Looking from the Perspective of a Child?

A Piece of Ordinary

Abundant Family Living on a Budget

Episode 16: Lists or Not – How Do We and Those We Love Keep Organized?

Episode 25: Self-Directed Learning Beyond Acadmics

A Lifetime for Learning – Parents Don’t Need to Offer Everything

Homeschooling Terms that Crept Up on Me…Confessions of an Early 2000s Homeschooling Mum