Elsie -  remember your vision for homeschooling (the following list is what I jotted down as my vision for our family) Travel Pursue your unique gifts Read Time together Close relationship Adventure Giving  At what point are we going to share that vision? It's great to have a vision, but this vision needs to be shared with our children.
Let them practice living with intention, not just being told what to do/say in and day out.  
Read stories that relay the picture of what we are hoping for - Little Men (individual gifts), Little Britches, Railway Children (team work),  Narnia, The Green Ember
Remind them their place in the bigger story.
Give them space to remember and cultivate longing.
Connect instead of control  - let them connect with their learning. 

Sally Clarkson
You never think you are doing enough The most profound reason we commit to this irrational, challenging call is because it makes a difference in lives and history.
You have the capacity: emotionally and intelligently to live well.
What will people be able to draw from you because you have invested in your own life?
What it means to lead your children: Love - let them know you are for them. You believe in them. You love them as they are. Servant-leader, speak forward into their lives, thinking about who they will be mentoring as they grow. I adore you. Greet with a kiss in the morning and bless them at night. Policeman analogy = when a policeman is following you, do you feel guilty even if you have done nothing wrong? Do you feel like someone is watching you to make a mistake? This is how our kids can feel if we are watching and critiquing everything they do = Adversarial parenting. High training, high love. Engage in great things worthy of your soul. Different kinds of music, she wanted their souls to be filled with music (Celtic, classical, rock) great books and great discussions so they will draw from that excellence.   In your treasure chest they will have something to draw from. What are the best resources I can put into that treasure chest? Engage in what matters, make your home filled with what you want to pass on.  Accept and affirm - (One of her kids said, "it’s a shame that Nathan always got in trouble for saying what we were all thinking") We all have that child who just says what everyone else is thinking… Practice thinking, articulating, and engaging in great thoughts. Look into their eyes, right now, who they are, see forward to the potential of who they will become.  Develop their character - the most charitable, the most kind, the most gracious of human beings. All people are worth being cherished and honored. I want you to be a civilized person. Civility will open the doors to great things in their lives. Train their appetites, manners, giving them the will to keep going.  Tea and candles - this is my five minutes of civility We have capacity and agency, we can choose to go further. We want our children to be strong in difficult circumstances. When we choose to be gracious with people who don’t deserve it, they will say, I saw my parents model it. We want people to learn from the values we cherish. Leadership isn’t about position its about informing and walking with them. When a child feels secure and they know what is expected of them they are more likely to do what you want them to do.
Most of being a good mom is mounting up over, we have to rise above what is going on. It is our job to see beyond the meltdown, the teen sass, and lead them over the mountain.
Susan Wise Bauer - don’t take parenting advice from anyone who doesn’t have adult kids. (Ha!! I loved this piece of advice!) You can make a little kid do what you want them to do. This is what happens when you parent a person.  Any homeschool speaker has at least one kid they struggle with. And the ones they don’t have their own problems. Kids who don’t love anything or our struggling kids are moving towards maturity at a different rate. It takes twice as long as other kids. They don’t process information in a typical way. Visually, they don’t see the mess. Or there wasn’t a connection for what his eyes were taking in and what was registering in their brain. They don’t process social cues, they don't know how to read people. Identify patterns in a helpful way and help them connect.
Don’t do: Don’t take things away from them - they don’t connect cause and effect in a helpful way.  Don’t be oppositional when you correct them, they aren’t being defiant, they aren’t connecting what you want them to do.  Don’t take it personally - wait while they become the adults they were going to be. Don’t try harder to shape them. That’s when the child becomes a problem instead of a person.  Do: Listen - stop talking  Pray - wait for maturity Keep them safe Love them Teach them social cues When communicating with them, ask questions that they have to answer and keep asking the questions Set a bare minimum of academics Do what you need to do to prepare them for the next season of life. Even if it takes longer.  If necessary, get yourself out of the middle. Be a parent first and a teacher second. Get out of the way if you need to. Use that time to love them instead of teaching.  If you are butting heads over school consistently; that becomes the ground of the relationship, be brave to let that go Keep regrouping and wiping the slate clean Don’t be afraid - parenting decisions made out of fear, always end in regret.  The good kid - self-motivated, ended up in er with panic attacks - I think their worst experience is still ahead of them. (It was at this point of her presentation that my eyes teared up and my heart ached for myself and my compliant/easy child. It took me a lot longer to come to terms with who I am and life than someone who bristled with this all when they were younger - I spent years stuck in rule following and trying to do all the things right and the journey to find my voice took longer than I would have liked and was harder to process than I would have expected, needless to say, Susan struck a chord here) They hit it later, they have to come to terms with life later on: They are afraid they aren’t worthy of life, they are afraid they will fail. Fear - fear leads to guilt. It’s really easy to parent kids that feel guilty all of the time. Compliant kids are in just as precarious a state: Say, I love you. Not you’re a good kid. Don’t say, I’m proud of you, say, I’m so interested in what you are doing. I’m so excited to see what you are going to do next. I’m so grateful I get to see what you are going to do for the next season of your life. Put kids in positions they will fail. Let them get “C’”s. It would be good if they could do this earlier rather than later.  Listen, wait, love, and remember that the good kid has the same distance to go. 
What we are doing now is just a small part of who they are. (big sigh of relief)
Life is not made to be solved -
She wished she wouldn’t have spent so much time when the kids were at home making everything right.
We aren’t the ones telling the story. Theirs or ours
When you clash with a kid stop and ask yourself what is the goal hear, what I am afraid of? With the good kids, ask them what they are afraid of.
It takes tremendous emotional reserves to show control and let them live their lives.
The hard kids, their hard part comes early, the compliant child, it comes later  You can’t change them from who they are supposed to be. 
Julie Bogart  We pull out the power tool, severing the relationship Oh they are learning independently, you just can’t tell they are learning, “independently”.  Our kids do love to learn and they are independently learning all the time.  We are actually asking, how do we get our kids to do what we want them to do…? Your self-esteem rests in immature short people We are trying to prove everything to everyone, while they don’t care to prove anything to anyyone.  Your adventure of homeschooling is yours alone and it is a piece of your story, not the whole! 3 ways to be the full person you are and have it bless your homeschool: Heal your relationship with school - Don’t teach what you don’t find interesting. If it’s boring or hard for you, don’t teach it!!! Become curious about the subject, bring people in who are great with it. Bring in someone who is passionate in the subject. Family math, murderous math, etc.  Your curiosity drives the homeschool. Put PBS on for an hour and a half while cooking dinner, listen to podcasts. Your enthusiasm for what you want to know and your curiosity inspires them.  Take time for yourself to grow your own curiosity - Julie went to the library on Monday nights, 2 hrs. Sometimes she read, sometimes she slept, sometimes she cried, and sometime she met with friends. But this time was so valuable and needed. Take advantage in the time now to invest in that distant dream. I want you all doing the thing you were born to do. Baby steps - buy a yogurt of the flavor you like, and eat the whole yogurt by yourself. Don't share with your kids. Get to know yourself. What you like. Get back in touch with you having value - you alone.   It will always be an uneven exchange when you are cultivating yourself and managing teaching/kids - expect this

My final thoughts:
The first night of Wild + Free always leaves me feeling inadequate. The longing for ideals, the desire to attain a wholeness, the keen awareness that for all of my striving, I’m left empty-handed. Not because I haven’t tried, but because I’ve learned that within myself, that will never be enough. As an Enneagram four, this stems from the eternal battle of never being enough. The feelings attached to the ideals are so strong that I can quickly lose sight of the bigger picture while chasing the ideal. The ideal to create this glorious life vs. contentment embracing what is here and now in front of me. The simple things that easily go unnoticed.  But here is what I have learned, if you can choose your 3-5 things, if you honor who you were created to be, the uniqueness of who you are, you will begin to find peace. The feeling of not enough will give way to acceptance and thriving.  Mama, do you know what you are about? Do you know what is unique and beautiful to your family? To yourself? I’m all about making lists, so make a list of what you love, the hopes you have for your children, and the passions in your heart. And then choose one and learn to make this a part of your life for the rest of this year. Focus on the unique gifts and passions that are true to you. Any more than 5 or so means they start to get diluted, so stick with 3-5.
Let’s get comfortable with who we are, what we are good at, and let go of the rest and live a flourishing life - perfect for your family.
You are enough.
You are called.
​Your life is beautiful!