Courtney Moyer, a homeschooling mother of four (plus a young niece), wrote to Julie saying, “The consistent homeschool challenge that has confronted me is homeschooling multiple children at multiple levels, lacking expertise to multitask... It seems that chaos overrides my agenda on most days... I know if I could understand a way to multitask, anxiety would be minimal, creating a hospitable atmosphere that's desirable for my children.” Courtney’s concern is one that almost every homeschooler dea...
Jan 21, 2019•1 hr 12 min
Our guest Myah St. John homeschools three children (plus a newborn), and her oldest child, 14, is on the verge of high school. Myah’s always embraced a one-room schoolhouse model for her family, but she finds herself floundering trying to balance high school with elementary school... and as her teenage daughter starts to become a young woman. Why do our children become these people we don’t understand? How do they transform so quickly from a young kid happy to be part of the team to a young adul...
Jan 14, 2019•1 hr 19 min
Jessica Hammond is a homeschooling mother of two who feels conflicted as she tries to spin half a dozen plates. She has a laundry list of passion projects and hobbies, and she wants to be able to devote time and energy on those passions without feeling guilty. “I want to be present and engaged with my kids during our days. But I also want to accomplish interesting projects of my own. And right now, it feels a constant tug of war between the two, Jessica says. “How can I adjust my mindset and tru...
Jan 07, 2019•59 min
Jardel Manalo is a homeschooling mother of five, ranging from the ages of two to 12, who also opened her school doors to a wonderful 12-year-old young woman named Samantha. That’s a lot of children at a lot of different stages in life – a situation we know many of you can relate to – and that can create a lot of pressure for us to perform, both as parents and teachers. Jardel says, “I don't feel like I am able to connect with each of my children daily, both personally and academically ... Is thi...
Dec 24, 2018•1 hr 7 min
Karen Goldstein and her son Elijah are struggling with the difficult transition into high school. It can be a challenge to fit in the oftentimes-rigorous high school work while still allowing breathing room for a laid-back, enjoyable lifestyle – and holding on to the love of learning throughout it all! “More subjects leaves less time for in-depth exploration, field trips, time in nature, rabbit trails, and down time. I miss that. There is only so much time in a given day. We are both working har...
Dec 17, 2018•1 hr 8 min
Today’s guest, Jennifer Hunter, is a mother struggling with a problem that afflicts many homeschooling parents. Jennifer says, “My homeschool challenge is that I am lonely! My kids are all young, and while I am honoured to be spending my days helping them learn, it isn’t always stimulating for me.” We expect this is something that every homeschooling parent experiences at one point or another. We all love our kids, of course, but it can be difficult to connect with other families, or even just o...
Dec 10, 2018•1 hr 13 min
There’s a dilemma that plagues every homeschooling parent’s mind at some point in their journey, filling threads online and conversations in person: How can we make learning fun? And then the natural follow up question comes up: Do we have to make learning fun? Because the truth is that education won’t be fun 100 percent of the time. This is the dilemma brought to us by our guest Anne Trott, who asked how she can push through these challenging moments and teach perseverance, without hurting her ...
Dec 03, 2018•1 hr 19 min
Jenniver Vetter is a brave mother of six who has been homeschooling for nine years. She has embraced the emphasis on relationship and freedom in learning that homeschooling offers, but she worries that her children also need to learn skills that don’t lend themselves as easily to fort building and play. Jennifer asked, “How do I balance the love and creative side of learning with the nuts, bolts and rules side of learning?” We know this is a big question in the Brave Writer community, but Julie ...
Nov 26, 2018•1 hr 5 min
In this day and age, we are so connected to technology. We carry these magic little screens with us everywhere – and if you’re anything like us, it can start to feel like a third arm! We use them for work and for entertainment, and when our kids see us using these tools, they want to use them too. But what is too much screen time for our children, and what is an appropriate use of that time? Today we’re going to explore those questions with our guest Lindsay McCarthy, a homeschooling mother of a...
Nov 19, 2018•1 hr 17 min
Today we’re going to talk to a brave mother who wants to support her children’s dreams, is inspired by everything she’s learned about on Brave Writer... but feels stumped. She wants her family to be immersed in a culture of learning, without always being in “school mode,” but she’s struggling to figure out how. That brave mother is Christa Gregg, a homeschool mother of three children with a Master’s degree in social work and a background in counseling. You can download show notes for the podcast...
Nov 12, 2018•1 hr 6 min
Over the past four seasons, our help inbox has been flooded with What Abouts: What about the kid who won’t work hard? What about college? What about chores? There are vexing dilemmas that come up in a lot of our home education journeys, and they can lead to a lot of questions and self-doubt. Homeschooling is hard! We get it, and we’re here to help. So we’re calling this season Ask Julie because Julie Bogart is here to help you figure these questions out, while discussing all the ways you can imp...
Nov 05, 2018•1 hr 2 min
Our guest MacKenzie Koppa (aka Bold Turquoise) is the creator of a slew of resources for families: the Cultivating the Lovely podcast, the Lovely Homeschool online course, and the brand new The Same Page podcast. The Same Page is practically designed with Brave Writer families in mind. The core of each episode is memory work encompassing poetry, Shakespeare, historical facts, and scripture. So in five minutes or less, you can get a spoonful of great literature and, over the course of multiple ep...
Oct 01, 2018•44 min
Homeschooling changes when you transition into the scary world of teenagers, so today I want to discuss teens in general and what you can expect from a homeschool with teenagers. After home births, breastfeeding, babywearing, cosleeping, and having a wonderfully close relationship with her young children, Julie thought that she would seamlessly move into the teen years and escape all of the weirdness that other families talk about. Their family was so tuned in, so it was going to be different. T...
Sep 24, 2018•29 min
Before Julie started Brave Writer, she worked as a freelance writer, freelance magazine editor, and a ghostwriter – which is to say, yes, you can simultaneously pursue a dream or passion and homeschool! Whether you want to earn money, go to grad school, start a business, or write a blog, you can do that and still be a phenomenal homeschooling parent. In today’s episode, Julie shares some of her experiences in developing a working lifestyle, as well as what it feels like to earn money while being...
Sep 17, 2018•40 min
After working with parents for years, we have learned that there is often a reluctance to giving your own efforts to your child’s writing. But kids with parents who are involved in their education get better grades, and as a result, they feel more successful – and children who receive no support end up performing worse. Because parental involvement in education is what produces the greatest results in children! You can download show notes for the podcast here: http://blog.bravewriter.com/categor...
Sep 10, 2018•29 min
There’s a difference between correct writing and good writing. You can check off all the boxes and put together a series of grammatically correct sentences, but does that engage the reader and make them want to keep reading? Probably not! Even academic writing, at its best, should compel the reader – that’s it’s #1 job! But many popular writing curricula keep perpetuating myths about good writing, and today we’re going to bust them! You can download show notes for the podcast here: http://blog.b...
Sep 03, 2018•37 min
One of Julie’s most popular talks is called “Updating Charlotte Mason to the 21st Century,” so when she stumbled upon Leah Boden – AKA Modern Miss Mason – Julie knew that she had found a kindred spirit. You can download show notes for the podcast here: http://blog.bravewriter.com/category/podcasts/ Resources: Learn more about Modern Miss Mason Connect with Leah on Instagram: @leahvboden | @modernmissmason Facebook: facebook.com/modernmissmason Read: For the Children's Sake: Foundations of Educat...
Aug 27, 2018•44 min
Imagine this scene: your child is reading a book, and they’ve been reading for a few months now. Suddenly, you think, “What if I had taught them to read this other way? What if I had used this other philosophy from the beginning? What if my child were in school?” When the "what ifs" show up, they can trigger worry, envy, and despair – and they can show up everywhere – but that isn’t serving you or your children! So how can we keep these “what ifs” from derailing our homeschools? Today I want to ...
Aug 20, 2018•32 min
We recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Barbara Oakley, Ph.D., educator, writer, engineer, and perhaps most importantly, a female Indiana Jones! Barbara’s work focuses on the complex relationships between neuroscience and social behavior, and we think that any Brave Writer fan is also going to be a fan of Barbara’s newest book – Learning How to Learn: How to Succeed in School Without Spending All Your Time Studying; A Guide for Kids and Teens – which teaches kids and teens simple trick...
Aug 13, 2018•41 min
Do you ever feel stressed out talking about home education philosophies? When Unschooling, Classical Education, or Charlotte-Mason come up, do you ever feel like you’re going to have to defend yourself? Have you ever felt this way in an academic homeschooling community? It’s weird, isn’t it? In this episode, Julie discusses the importance of safe communities, the dangers of ideological purity, the red flags she saw around Unschooling, and three principles for a healthy education. You can downloa...
Aug 06, 2018•42 min
Before getting into the topic of this episode – the top 10 things to have done by the end of highschool – we want to make something clear: you can’t teach your children everything by the time they’re 18. As a matter of fact, your education wasn’t finished when you turned 18, either! It’s okay to save or discover some things in adulthood. And truly, life would be so much less satisfying if learning and growth just stopped when we turned 18. Homeschooling is, as Charlotte Mason says, providing a f...
Jul 30, 2018•48 min
A disclaimer for this episode: we are not trained experts and our specialty is not special needs, so anything we share today is based on our own efforts to do research and learn from other trained efforts. So nothing in this episode should be considered clinical diagnosis or expert referral – this is all parent-to-parent sharing. And Julie’s children are all adults now, so the stories she has to share come from the perspective of someone who has already made it to the other side and can see how ...
Jul 23, 2018•32 min
Are you a happy family… or are you not? Today, we hope to solve that dilemma! There’s a temptation to only consider the family identity when we think about our families, and that can be a wonderful identity to share! But a family is a collection of individuals and we can’t forget that. The friction of human beings living in a family space together is always going to feel a little bit like controlled chaos – and it’s totally okay if that’s the way that it is! However, making space for everyone in...
Jul 16, 2018•52 min
We often see families join Brave Writer or The Homeschool Alliance who get excited about this style of living, but then we struggle to find other like-minded individuals out there in the world. Even in the homeschooling community, there can be a big disconnect between your theory of education and a friend’s. This may be someone you like personally, but they have a different vision of homeschool and it causes a little bit of conflict. There are a few types of friends that you’ll want to cultivate...
Jul 02, 2018•43 min
Today we want to talk about the roles in our families – and the incredible power of choice. We delve into the labels and roles we use to characterize our kids, how those may limit our children, and how to let young people explore who they want to be through choice. Homeschooling is an empowering choice, and we can leverage that power to provide the best learning environment for our kids! You can download show notes for the podcast here: http://blog.bravewriter.com/category/podcasts/ Resources: C...
Jun 25, 2018•40 min
Julie spends a lot of time looking at the homeschooling zeitgeist, and she notices a common theme coming up every so often: the search for the one thing that’s going to magically create a flawless homeschool. But really we shouldn’t be aiming for perfection – we should be aiming for progress! You can download show notes for the podcast here: http://blog.bravewriter.com/category/podcasts/ Resources: Check out this brand new, free product designed to kickstart your writing program this school year...
Jun 18, 2018•28 min
In the last episode , Julie started breaking down some research on brain-based learning, or the science behind what it looks like to be a good learner. Today, we’re going to dig into the rest of that research so that we have a holistic understanding of how our children learn! You can download show notes for the podcast here: http://blog.bravewriter.com/category/podcasts/ Resources: Check out this brand new, free product designed to kickstart your writing program this school year: 7-Day Writing B...
Jun 11, 2018•22 min
When Julie started learning about home education, she read a lot of work by home educators. Of course this makes sense because she wanted to understand the philosophy behind home education. However, learning the philosophy didn’t teach her to understand how learning functions inside a person’s brain. So much of educational training is focused on organizational skills, but it’s also important to understand what’s happening inside our children's’ noggins! You can download show notes for the podcas...
Jun 04, 2018•37 min
Julie coined the term Party School when she was developing her own homeschool experience. Today, we’re going to look at the properties of Party School and how you can turn it into a practice that brings a little enchantment to your homeschool. With these tips and some imagination, you can transform the study of any subject into something more engaging and fun! You can download show notes for the podcast here: http://blog.bravewriter.com/category/podcasts/ Resources: Check out this brand new, fre...
May 28, 2018•41 min
As we get older, we go through many different stages of our lives, and it can be challenging to discuss the topic of “Awesome Adulthood” because of this fact. Not everybody feels like they’re in a position to add anything to their lives, let alone an awesome new passion, hobby, or career choice. If you have children under the age of five years old, for example, your primary job to to take care of them and your enriching self-education is going to be look like becoming skilled at parenting. Our h...
May 21, 2018•29 min
