Are you doing everything “right” in your homeschool… and still wondering if you’re doing it right enough?
In this episode, I’m talking with Jeanette Pascua, a longtime homeschool mom of five, former high school theology teacher, and the editor behind much of what we create at Homeschool Better Together.
Jeanette has been homeschooling for about a decade, and her oldest is now in high school. That means she has something I think every homeschool mom desperately needs: perspective from the other side of the elementary years.
Her homeschool looks pretty different today than it did when she started. Her kids are scattered around the house doing different things, her older children have significant control over their schedules, and the whole day feels much more relaxed.
But it didn't start that way.
We talk about what it actually takes to help our kids grow into independent learners, why independence looks different for every child, and how Jeanette gradually handed over pieces of her children's education instead of throwing them into the deep end.
And then we get into something I think almost every homeschool mom has wrestled with: the pressure to do homeschooling “the right way.”
Jeanette is a Charlotte Mason homeschooler, and she talks honestly about the pressure that she puts on herself to follow this method the way others prescribe that it "should" be done.
Sound familiar?
We also talk about letting go of the perfect plan, what happens when subjects or books fall off the schedule, and the surprising reassurance that comes from watching an older child move toward high school.
Because sometimes you don't realize your homeschool is working until you get far enough down the road to look back.
What You'll Learn
- How Jeanette gradually transferred responsibility for school from herself to her kids
- Why independence doesn't look the same for every child
- How to invite your kids into homeschool planning without handing them the whole steering wheel
- The pressure to follow an educational philosophy “correctly”
- Why you need to homeschool the kids actually standing in front of you
- What happens when a book, subject, or entire chunk of your beautiful plan gets dropped
- How reaching the high school years can give you a completely different perspective on your earlier homeschool worries
- Why a homeschool that looks relaxed from the outside may actually have a lot happening underneath
- How homeschooling has shaped Jeanette into a gentler, more patient mom
- And, naturally, whether iced coffee counts as a homeschool snack
Jeanette also shares what she loves most about working behind the scenes at Homeschool Better Together—including the books she discovers while editing our curriculum plans.
And if you've ever looked at your homeschool plan three months into the year and realized, Wait…we're not actually doing that subject anymore, you're definitely going to want to hear this conversation.
One of my biggest takeaways from our conversation is this: balance in a homeschool isn't static. We're constantly adjusting. Sometimes something needs more attention, something else needs to take a back seat, and that's okay.
That's not failure.
That's homeschooling.
Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
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