Want to Create a Happy Homeschooling and Childhood?

How visualizing the future you want can help you create it.

I think a lot about how my kids will remember their childhood.

I didn’t grow up in a particularly happy home. I remember a lot of fighting, a lot of sarcasm, a lot of chaos. I developed some awful ideas about myself and my value in my childhood. In the present, I have a rocky relationship with my family, and it requires a lot of intention and work to get along.

But my husband’s family laugh and joke when they see each other. They like to outdo each other making delicious foods, finding fun games, bringing new coffee or wine to share. They have always been this way, and that’s why they make an effort to see each other socially. They don’t hang out because they should, but because they want to. 

When you are setting up your happier homeschool, you will be thinking a lot about your day-to-day. Your days will run most smoothly with plans: for your teaching, your meals, your home management, and your own self-care. 

But when you create your mission statement and your vision statement to understand why and how to guide your days, you will realize that you’re planning ahead.

It may not seem like it now, but what you’re really doing is creating the future.

It may be hard to imagine your kids all grown up and coming over for coffee when they are just learning to read or finding the continents on the map, but creating the future is exactly what you are doing. I will go out on a limb and guess that you are like me and you want to inhabit a happy future. So today, I want to share one of the most powerful things I have done to create my happier homeschool and a happier family life. 

Try this: Imagine Your Family 20 Years From Now.

I imagine my kids as adults. I imagine what kinds of people I hope they’ll turn out to be. I imagine how they will feel and what they will think about their childhood. When I do this I get really clear really quickly about how I want to do this homeschooling- and family thing. 

The most important things? I want:

For them to know that they are always loved and always connected by a strong bond with their family. 

For them to grow to be competent, resilient, and emotionally mature.

For them to feel empowered to be good parents because they learned by watching my husband and me. 

For them to stay curious and engaged, to be lifelong learners. 

For them to feel really lucky that they were homeschooled.

What I hope they will feel about being homeschooled:

“I had such a great childhood!”

“I loved being able to homeschool. We got to do so many things I could never have done if I had gone to regular school.”

“We played so many games. We did so many projects!”

“It was good to spend so much time with my family.”

“I had so much freedom to be myself and learn in ways that were meaningful to me.”

“I had space to love learning. I’m still always learning today.”

“My mom just lit up when she was teaching us. I could tell she loved learning with us and that homeschooling life was fun and relaxing for her.”

That last one? That one really inspires me to keep calm and bring my best self to our homeschool.

I want my kids to know how much I love getting to do this crazy life with them. How very lucky I feel.

So I try to keep my focus on fostering a love of learning and making happy memories every day. I aim to raise kids who enjoy spending time with their dad and me and with each other as grown siblings. 

Mostly I keep in mind that I’m raising my future peers. Selfishly, I want those peers to be curious, successful adults that I enjoy spending time with. And unselfishly, I aim to have done my job so that they can look back on their childhood as a time of great fun, security, and discovery, and of knowing they were truly loved. 

That’s what keeps me going.  

That and coffee. 

What keeps you going? 

Give a shout in the comments!