Starting the school year with a talk for LLH Simulan Week is a way to prepare myself, not only to lead the LLH Community, but primarily to prepare myself to parent my kids.

I give these talks as the Program Director of Living Learning Homeschool to open the school year with a vision for the whole community to reflect on. But in truth, it has become a yearly opportunity for me to deep dive and reassess my role as a parent-educator and why I still choose to home educate using Charlotte Mason’s method.

I usually choose a theme for the school year around January. The choice is always some combination of where my parent-educator mind/heart is at, and what I feel the LLH Community needs to focus on and grow from. It takes months to read, structure a framework, and immerse myself in that theme. I read everything I can get my hands on and journal my thoughts along the way. I get so immersed in it that ideas start popping up in the middle of the night, half-formed in my sleep. It’s a daunting task but oh how it prepares me as a parent. And that’s probably why I get emotional (sorry for that) whenever I give these talks.

This kind of mental, emotional, and spiritual preparation already covers about 80% of what I need to start Day 1 of the school year. I’m grateful I get to do this almost every year, and grateful the LLH Community lets me take them along with me. But this 80% didn’t used to exist. I used to pour myself into other things I thought mattered more — making sure everything was in place, planned to the T, every book pre-read with notes, every material bought and sitting pristine on the shelf. I gave so much time and energy to the physical side of homeschooling that it consumed me. But after about 13 years of doing this, I’ve reached a place where perfect schedules, ready materials, sharpened pencils — none of it fills me with anxiety anymore. I wish I could say I’d always known this, but I think I needed to live through all that anxiety first, to understand that while those things matter and are worth doing, they’re still peripherals. They were never the foundation.

Because there will always be days when the schedule falls apart. A child gets distracted. Someone gets sick. Life interrupts the plan. And when those moments come, we need something to hold on to that’s bigger than the peripherals. And for me, that’s my why.

Why this kind of education?
Why am I doing this?
Why has God called our family to this path?
Why do I choose living books?
Why rich experiences over merely finishing pages?
Why nourish the whole person, and not simply chase grades?

The clearer my why becomes, the less frazzled I am when the day doesn’t go as planned. The less anxious I feel over an unfinished checklist. I’ve realized how much space anxiety used to take up in my heart and mind — and now, with much more clarity on my why, I have more room left. Room to notice the child in front of me. Room to enjoy learning alongside them. Room to just stay faithful in the ordinary work of the day.

I used to think real growth meant moving towards perfection. But growth is also just learning to let go, after doing what I am called to do, and simply witness how it all unfolds.