“95% of American families can’t afford to homeschool, but 100% of families can home-educate. This reflection is dedicated to the 100%.”
–Ameerah Bello
As parents, our role in our home is the CEO of Education. The CEO deals with all the day-to-day things to the high-level strategic decisions related to your home’s overall growth.
The all-so-overlooked mistake we often make is ‘owning’ certain components under our charge while sourcing out others. For example, we take care of our home’s finances and maintenance, but often times source out the academics, specifically our children’s academics, aka, schooling
You being your children’s primary Academic Administrator is extremely vital, not just with the introduction of something like the abacus, but also to your standards related to work ethic, to diligence, and to their attitudes towards their pursuit of academic excellence. Don’t let a school define those variables for your children.
Make it fun and they will come
Quick check….
Answer the following question in less than 10 seconds:
What do you say when your child complains that: “it’s too hard?”
If you’re digging and scratching for the answer: take a deep breath and tell yourself that you need to take some time to figure it all out:
So, what are your philosophies around home education?
You should have at least a few.
6 MUSTS to consider when developing your home-education routine:
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We MUST equip our children with a solution-based approach to dealing with academic difficulty. Example: Have your children say: “What do I need to do in order to figure this out?” instead of “I can’t do this.”
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You MUST apply your home education philosophy to universal concepts. Example: “We have to work hard in order to play hard.”
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You MUST build your family brand or legacy with your philosophy. Example: “We Bellos don’t quit, we find a way.”
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We MUST embed our ancestry, culture, and or ethnicity into our messaging: Example: “Our ancestors fought hard, so must we.”
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We MUST use language that keeps possibilities or opportunities open for success. Example: “What’s hard today, will be easier tomorrow as long as we keep trying.”
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We also suggest that any negative or ‘giving-up-related language be banned from your entire home education space.
Remember, reflect on the CEO’s messages. Be sure that the CEO’s messages only contain language that opens up the opportunity or the possibility of difficulties being resolved at some point. If children are allowed to think or say ‘I can’t’ then their solution-driven outlooks become habitually diminished.
Love your children hard while pushing them towards achieving their greatness, but I do stress that before starting or continuing with your home-education program, to be sure that you start with messages that create and develop a growth mindset, opportunity mindset, and a solution-driven mindset; which essentially are the true skills we want to develop in our children.
Not just with math and not only during your home-education space but be mindful of how those perspectives play out and expand in your child’s life as a whole.
To sum it all up, life has a way of presenting us with some major obstacles that keep us from doing what we want. Oftentimes, those obstacles are in the messages around us.
