Dairy of a Home Schooling Dad: What i have learned from my 1st year



 


This has been a huge year in my life, the most difficult and challenging year I can remember. 


After 20 years of work I needed to take time out to home school my kids. What did I learn?

 

You can only support them as far as you are able to support yourself. The biggest lesson I learned is that children are more in need of understanding who they are, emotionally and mentally. I thought academics would be the challenge but it was learning how to teach my children about who they are over algebra or phonetics.

 

I needed to be more in every way. I thought the challenges would be academic. The real challenges were emotional and mental. For me and for them. We all had to transition to a new way of being. I had to ‘ unschool’ myself from my work based mindset. Where value is measured by productivity. To a more supportive and adaptive role. Where I thought I was patient and flexible I found out I need more. There was good value in putting in structure but I found the structure needed to be loose and flexible. We could not measure days in productivity because emotional needs would trump productivity.

 

I needed to work more with my oldest on emotional health most. You can start to assess your children’s mental health based on their attitude, mood and general demeanour. Trauma is real in children as young as 3 years old. Though by the time they get to 6 you can see it becoming depression. It depends on a number of factors but ultimately comes down to your child’s attitude. Watch for the signs and don’t be afraid to act. I felt like I ignored the signs for too long before I took action. One day my son was bitten in nursery and this pushed him into a 2 week depression, he was 3 years old. He was never the same again, he lost his innocence. It has taken years to work through this with him.

 

 

My tips from what I have learned in the past year:

 

·      Learn to get out of their way - your limits become their limits

·      Always be honest no matter how uncomfortable

·      They know what they want and what they need more than I do

·      The biggest learning lessons were mine

·      Move away from productivity defining success

·      Introduce emotional management

·      Create safe spaces where they can express without suppression

·      Mental health routines are crucial

·      Teach them about boundaries, emotional, mental, spiritual as well as physical

·      Space is vital for everyone

·      Some spiritual practice is key

·      Academic studies are secondary

·      Empowerment comes from understanding self, emotions, thoughts, exercise, spirituality

·      Sometimes they need to be pushed, more often they need to be guided

 

 

Keep growing, redefining, you’ll be surprised by who you become. 

 

If you are reading this and thinking, I don’t do any of this myself then don’t worry, it’s like everything else. The more you do, they better you become. Or book yourself in for a coaching session with me. Healing your trauma is the definitive key to parental success. Your healing becomes their healing as you are their blueprint. They will copy your conscious and unconscious habits. They will adopt you attitudes to life.

 

When you become a parent there’s no training, little support and guidance so all you have to go on is what your parent did to you. The way past this is trauma healing. This will help you adopt your own style of parenting and your personal approach to life. Is it worth it? To find out who you are and help your children find out who they are? You know the answers to that. So even if you can’t afford 1on1 coaching. You can start with some basics and move in from their.

 

·      Meditation - get to know your mind, there should be only one voice, if there’s more than one you are fragmented. Meditation can help but subconscious work is needed.

·      Daily emotional practices to let the anger out (everyone is angry, not just you). Roaring or screaming into a pillow?

·      Exercise regular - walking, running, swimming anything that gives your body an outlet

·      Spiritual practices - affirmations, gratitude, rewire the subconscious for positive progressive actions

 

The key thing to remember is this can and should be fun, though not all of it will be, the more fun you make it the more likely you are to do it regular and before you know it they become built in routine for you and your children. Children are all about fun, adults should be too. 

 

#parent #father #kids 

 

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