Kara S. Anderson

Homeschool connection, not perfection.

It’s not Perfection, it’s Indiana Jones

by Kara S. Anderson

Over the weekend, I made a big announcement: I’ve decided to close my shop here at karasanderson.com.

I know the whole shop closing probably forever thing may have been a little unexpected.

And beyond closing my shop, I’m making some other big changes as well. I’m going to put my blog and social media on hiatus soon too.

(The plan right now is that my blog posts will remain available, but any free downloads on posts might not be available because I’m pausing my email service.)

***

As many of you know, my son started college in September. You don’t know that my daughter has grown up so much in the past couple of months – driving, getting her braces off, getting a job, plus she has big plans to start dual enrollment classes in January.

And so things here are changing drastically.

For a while, I was telling people life felt like that game Perfection. Do you remember? You had 60 seconds to get all the pieces into place or the game would “pop,” and you had to start over. (Dear Lord, they still make it.)

Sidenote: I feel like this game is at least partially responsible for the perfectionism and anxiety I have dealt with since I was 6.

***

But recently I was doing a speaking thing, and realized it’s not the game Perfection – it’s that scene from the third Indiana Jones movie:

Indy is rushing through a series of secret rituals in hopes of retrieving the holy grail, a cup that can be filled with water. One drink grants eternal life, and in this case, the grail will also save Indy’s father, who has been shot.

Indy has to make a literal leap of faith, and when he does, the path appears.

***

And so THAT is really more what it’s like, friends. I don’t have to put all the pieces in place. I just need to have faith and take the next step.

I will tell you since beginning this process, I have felt so much lighter. I don’t necessarily see a path ahead, but I feel it. And for now, that’s enough.

My whole deal – writing, podcasting, my book – they’re all about homeschooling with you. I’ve never been an expert offering advice. I’ve always felt more like a big sister – sharing the raw truth with you, and trying to remind you to be kinder to yourself, more patient, gentler …

***

Right now, I need those things.

I need slow.

I need to knit, and read, and drink tea and yes, write, but maybe not for public consumption just yet.

***

So please know, that as I find my way, I will miss you.

A few people have said “Kara, maybe THIS is the next step – maybe you help mamas navigate what to do as their children grow up and move on.”

And maybe. Maybe at some point.

But it’s all so raw and new – it would feel like serving you crudité instead of a lovingly slow-cooked, nourishing vegetable soup.

It would be fine, but you’d be hungry again in a half-hour.

***

That said, I’ll share a few things that are helping me:

In fact, during that speaking thing last week, the host asked where people could find me and I answered “therapy.”

It’s true. Therapy is a tremendous help.

And you know what my therapist asks me every session …

She asks what I am doing for self-care.

Self-care is a big deal to me, because I didn’t think I had time for it for a long time, but what was really going on was that I didn’t think I was worthy of it and also, I thought that to be a good mom, I had to give my kids every ounce of me.

That is not the recipe.

The actual recipe should go more like, give your kids some of you and then take REALLY good care of yourself so you can wake up tomorrow and have something more to give.

I’ve written a lot about self-care over the years, mostly because I’ve been trying to figure it out.

It isn’t easy. It’s a practice.

***

 

Which brings me back to perfection … the life-choking trait, not the game.

A long time ago now, I changed my tagline on this blog to “Connection, Not Perfection.”

And here I am, seemingly disconnecting.

What the heck, Kara?

So let me tell you this: This is the part of the movie where the hero (YOU!) realizes that she has had everything she needed inside her this whole time. The other character, let’s call her Dumbledore, was just there as a guide for a while.

And it still stands – what I hope for you and your family is connection, not perfection.

Friends, let connection be the lighthouse you seek when the seas get rough, and you’re not sure how to get home again.

I can’t tell you if I’ll be back, or when, but I can tell you – it’s never been about perfection, Dear Heart.

It’s about courage and showing up and continuing to show up, and connecting and reconnecting, and then knowing when it’s time to let go.

So much love to you,

Kara

P.S. A lot of you have asked about my book. It’s not going anywhere. You can still grab it in paperback, ebook or audio.

In fact, play this if you need a little hug:

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That time I quit homeschooling

by Kara S. Anderson

The day I quit homeschooling didn’t feel particularly dramatic.

Still, relief poured over me as I called the little Montessori-inspired school and asked about enrolling my son after Christmas.

Because I was NOT cut out to homeschool.

I had given it an honest try. I had put my whole heart and soul into it, and it hadn’t worked at all.

I felt like I was pushing all the time, which was entirely against my nature.

And my kids were NOT doing what it said in the books and on the blogs. Oh – especially the blogs!

Every blog I looked at showed sweet little cherubs, sitting so peacefully, working together …

Not one showed kids arguing. They never showed a sweaty mom, trying to gather her children to read a book … exhausted from wrangling a couch-jumping 4-year-old and nursing a squirmy 1-year-old who wanted to dump blocks – not listen to a book originally written in 1377.

And I had reached out for help!

I had asked in the Yahoo group – “why won’t my kids …” and “what do you do if your children …”

And the results had been condescending and rude.

I was NOT Waldorf enough, they said, and so I couldn’t be in their club.

Forget that that particular Yahoo club was made up of people who seemed kind of mean and judgmental and harsh.

I still wanted in because of what it promised.

I wanted the peaceful children and the lazured walls and the bread-baking.

But I couldn’t handle it. I had tried for 4 whole months, and so that phone call … it was like hearing really good news from the doctor.

If we hadn’t been so broke, and it hadn’t been December, I would have taken everyone out for ice cream.

The worst day

The day when I finally decided it was all too much wasn’t particularly loud or stressful.

It wasn’t like I had a full-on meltdown.

In fact, my kids were quiet as I made the call to the little school, requesting enrollment.

People always tell homeschoolers “don’t quit on your worst day,” but this wasn’t really my worst day.

It took a lot of time for me to feel so defeated.

And now, looking back after 11+ years of homeschooling, I know where things went wrong:

  1. I was so terrified of not doing enough, that I tried to do everything. I pushed way too hard with kids who were too small.
  2. I didn’t have support. And the people who I thought would be supportive were judgmental and mean.
  3. I thought that to follow a method, you had to follow it completely. (That was the message I was getting). I didn’t know it was OK to take the parts that work for you and leave the rest.

There was a lot I didn’t know.

What I did know, was that I felt bad ALL THE TIME.

I wasn’t doing enough.

I wasn’t doing it right.

Our homeschool looked nothing like the ones I saw online.

What I know now

We just started our 12th year of homeschooling here, and this is what I know now:

I still worry about doing enough.

I’m still not doing it “right,” necessarily.

Our homeschool still doesn’t look like the ones I see online.

And all of that is OK.

Because my kids.

My kids are these cool, interesting, unique people who love making music and skateboarding and rescuing cats and art and gaming and junk food and learning.

We have never gotten into a homeschool routine that includes hours at desks.

Some days I throw out the plan.

Sometimes things don’t work.

But we wake up every day and try again, and so far, that has been enough.

And we love each other, and we enjoy just being together, and OHMYGOSH – THAT is huge.

That part is way better than enough.

So if you are struggling a bit this week, feeling like you aren’t getting it right, and that you should be doing more, OK – I think we think those things because we love our kids and take this stuff seriously.

Good job.

Now stop thinking of your fears as truth and start thinking of them as helpful reminders of just how much you care.

And then brush them off your shoulder and just do the next thing.

And if you feel like quitting – that’s OK.

Just ask yourself if it’s fear talking you into giving up.

And if it is, you know what to do: Tell that fear that you appreciate the reminder of how important all of this is, but you already know that, so please shove off.

And then the next day, get up and try again:

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The 3 things to-do list and homeschooling

by Kara S. Anderson

For a long time, my solution to overwhelm was a brain dump.

I needed to get that stress-tornado out of my head and on to paper so that I could create a plan of attack.

Just the process was helpful, but it was hard to know where to start fixing.

Usually, by the time I need to do a brain dump, I am in pretty deep and think I need to fix it all at once.

And that doesn’t work. (Trust me.)

A while back, I was feeling very brain-dumpy about school. I was worried that we weren’t doing enough.

(Enough is a real stinker. When you get really wrapped up in Enough, it makes you feel like you’ve had too much caffeine and not enough deep-breathing.)

And so as I thought about what would really feel like Enough, I decided maybe it was a good idea to pick up my copy of Essentialism, and this time read it specifically as a homeschool mom.

Reading Essentialism is an antidote for that yucky Enough feeling. So are all the things my friend Melissa writes.

(Melissa makes you feel like you’ve been breathing with monks and drinking nothing but herbal tea and fresh spring water.)

Asking myself WWMelissaD, I recalled a post of her’s from a while back about her 3 thing to-do list, and I started to feel a little idea forming – was it possible to homeschool for the rest of the year and only do three things?

Would I be neglecting my kids’ needs if I did so?

Would this plan make me feel worse?

It turns out, that the answer is no. It made me feel so much better.

For the past few months, we have been focusing on 3 things in our homeschool: math, reading aloud, and games.

That doesn’t mean that that’s all we’ve been doing. Instead, those became the things we made sure to do every day. (Because there were only 3 things, that part became easy!)

And anything else was a bonus.

To keep track of all of it, I marked it all down each day AFTER THE FACT in my bullet journal, and let me tell you – those lists were packed with good stuff.

But on the hard days? The sick days? The gloomy days? The Ladies Holiday days? The three things made me feel like we had done enough.

The guilt and worry fell away. They were beaten out by a feeling of accomplishment; a warm, fuzzy blanket of reassurance.

And slowly, I started adding back other things.

Because doing just enough gave me some energy back, some time to think, and a much-needed deep breath.

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