The next necessary attribute of a pioneer moves us from the place of forming a vision, to seeing that vision come to pass. It is courage. Courage to believe in the vision and the One who gave it to you. This issue of Homeschooling Today deals with the many aspects of courage and how we can apply it to our lives, homes, and homeschools, because they all work hand in hand. You cannot separate parenting and home life from home education. It would be nice if we could put these things into neat little boxes to be opened and closed at the appropriate times. But children don’t seem to ever fit into neat little boxes, do they? And it is the messiness that usually makes us. There is great beauty in being with your family members, all day, every day. There is a lot of messiness too. Tempers flare, egos get hurt, overreactions take place, and we do our best to keep all the balls in the air. We have good days and bad days. We try to keep our patience. We fail. We regret failing. We try again.

This is all to say, it takes great courage to homeschool. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. That’s why I encourage you to print out the homeschool parent’s pledge and recite it with me as often as is needed so truth can be lodged in our hearts and displace the lies that threaten to steal from us.

See, you have every right as the parent to demand your way. You do. But I want you to practice leading your kids with humility instead. Push and demand, and these kids will fight you. Humility breaks down walls. It’s the difference between demanding an apology and leading a child to contrition.

When you draw and lead these kids with humility, it releases them to do what is right. For example, two siblings are fighting. You demand that your child apologizes to his brother. He either resists or spits out, “Sorry, stupid brother!” And that’s what you deserve when you demand an apology!

Instead, you walk into the room and whisper, “I know you’re upset. I also know that when you’re ready, you know the right thing to do.”

And then you walk away and control your own anxiety, instead of freaking out that your child is somehow going to turn into a monster because he doesn’t immediately apologize like you do—especially if you’re a guilt-ridden people pleaser.

Winston Churchill said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could will our teens to have more courage or if we could give them a “courage pill” so that they would try new ideas without being afraid of failing? That isn’t how it works. It would be nice if we could fill our children with courage that easily—but we can’t.

Having courage requires a far deeper work if you want your child to live without the nagging voice in their head that says, “you can’t,” or “you shouldn’t,” or “you will fail.” Courage takes confidence. The confidence to try or try again, coupled with trusting God, will lead them on a path to living a life of courage. Unfortunately, both might be missing in your young adolescents.

What does it take to instill more confidence so our teens will have the courage they need to try? We must guide them through a process of identifying what is happening and discovering the hindrances causing them to stumble. In other words, we must teach them to be aware of how they have made decisions in the past, process the decisions that didn’t work out, and find a way to help them gain the confidence they need for the future.

Those are words I often hear others use to describe us, even though I don’t particularly associate any of them with myself. (Okay, maybe weird, but that’s not because I homeschool.)

One word you—and all the people who think we’re weird and patient—may not think of is courageous. While the term may not spring quickly to your mind, if you are a homeschooling parent, you are courageous. If I could explain that to my younger homeschooling self, here’s what I would say:

Those are words I often hear others use to describe us, even though I don’t particularly associate any of them with myself. (Okay, maybe weird, but that’s not because I homeschool.)

One word you—and all the people who think we’re weird and patient—may not think of is courageous. While the term may not spring quickly to your mind, if you are a homeschooling parent, you are courageous. If I could explain that to my younger homeschooling self, here’s what I would say:

Have you ever heard of the phrase, “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”? That resonated with me as we experienced the early months of 2020. Almost all activities came to a grinding halt as we put our world on hold to see what direction a certain virus would take.

I have to be honest; I actually enjoyed the simpler and slower life this allowed.

As an older mom with only two out of our eight kids left at home, it was reminiscent of those years when all the kids were home. Because there were so many of us, we had to keep a certain amount of simplicity to our days. It was the only way I could manage to keep order and peace in our home and family life.

Fear. It’s the most paralyzing, suffocating, and humiliating emotion we deal with as parents. You feel it when your teenager pulls the family car out of the driveway alone for the first time. You remember feeling it when they were a wee little thing just learning to walk. And you feel it all the time when it comes to the screens in your kid’s life. I know this from the thousands of interactions with parents at conferences, the emails I receive each week, and sheepish inquiries from parents on Facebook asking for a moment of time.

This fear we all experience manifests itself in destructive ways that we don’t readily see. We are afraid of what we will see if we check their devices, so we ignore the urge. We are afraid of looking stupid because they know more than we do about every app, video game, and meme, so we don’t bring up the subject. We are afraid of overreacting and “messing up” our kids, so we let small instances of unhealthy behavior continue. I know because at some point or another I have done all of these. I’ve felt that wave of regret, frustration, disappointment, and anger—all directed at myself for not being willing to do what needed to be done. You’ve felt it too.

There are two truths that I want you to embrace and remember when you start to feel those fears.

With the invention of the telephone came instant communication. Not ticks and dashes translated into letters, but simply using your voice. I imagine that at first people felt strange talking into a machine and then expecting a reply. Now, we don’t think twice about it, but during Alexander Graham Bell’s time it was borderline insanity.

Today, I’m working on my cargo trailer that we’ve hauled around the country for the last fifteen years. It’s a great little trailer, but it’s starting to look a little rough and the side running lights have stopped working. I thought I’d use the time before the world goes back to normal—and it will—to get it fixed up and ready to roll.

My plan is to remove some of the inside and outside panels to get to the wiring and possibly run new wires through the walls. My first stop will be YouTube to watch someone else do it. I could try to wing it, but why? Last week I replaced the brakes on our Suburban. In the past, I’d just dig in and wing it, but I always came close to breaking something that I hadn’t counted on. This time, I watched a three-minute video and changed the brakes lickety-split.