The top three things I want my kids to know before they graduate
This is just been on my heart for a while. Having to talk through homeschooling stuff, talk to.
A lot of people that are starting post Covid. We've been doing it for nine years and even though I have my Masters in Education, I'm just throwing all of that knowledge to the wayside with my own kids in the sense of like I'm not making them, do the regimented public school thing that was really bored into me during my educational, years in an undergrad and grad and I'm basically starting completely from scratch with all of my mind sets. Every single thing that I thought worked every single mile stone that I they have hit as young people. And I'm having to basically just start with a clean mindset and just think through, "What are the important things that I want my kids to graduate with?"
And this is something I have to go over and over in my mind. And when we're having a good day, when were having a bad day, when we're having a day where I feel like, I don't know what I'm doing. And then some days I'm like we did amazing today and I have to really think through like what are the overall milestones?
That I can say awesome and I can't pressure myself and put this inside. This weight of anxiety on me, it's just not feasible to be like everything I say and do is going to affect my kids for the rest of their lives. And if I miss a time period in history and if I miss particular mask, you'll like they're they're gonna be completely crippled the rest of their life. And if I don't do enough social things are going to be crippled socially the rest of their life.
And if I don't do enough, Spiritual things are going to be, you know, so I can't have this mindset of like I have to check all these boxes in order for them to have a happy safe childhood that's just not feasible. Okay, it's not. So when what can I say that when they graduate I want to make sure when they graduate they are loved that they feel love from me and their parents, me and their dad me and their dad, their extended family, they feel loved, they feel confident about themselves.
As humans that goes into research about then later on being able to take risk and business risk in education, if they feel secure and confident in who they are and their foundation, in the people that have raised them, then they're going to be better to take risk.
They're going to be better to, to want to create to feel like, you know what, even if I mess up, I still have a good foundation. I saw people that love me that are going to help me and support me either way. So number one that they feel loved. Number two that they can be creative, they can think outside of the box, they can problem solve they can they can figure out a new solution that maybe people haven't looked at because, you know, maybe we read a lot of books or we went and did a lot of trips or we went and did things that were unconventional and helps her imagination to bloom and Blossom during this time.
So, when they're 16 17, 18, they're coming up with these Creative Solutions to a problem that maybe their peers may or may not be able to solve. So that, that's a goal for Me they can use their creativity and the the art world like myself, they can use that creativity and maybe the mechanical world, and the engineering world, and the starting their business world, and the entrepreneur, whatever that creativity is a very broad umbrella of creativity thinking outside the box, and problem, solving kind of all rolls into one for me.
So feeling love feeling, creative feeling that they can learn continue learning in their life, continue a lifelong pursuit of learning so whether that means all of the hours Is that? Is all of the hours that thousands of hours that I spend on a Barnes & Noble. The reading that having literature in the home. They getting going to thrift stores and just bringing books by the truck load into the house building. More shelves to to house the books. Getting excited about a series that they're reading, you know, reading out loud to them every day.
Oh this goes into the love of learning and they say, you know, parents don't take their kids to book stores, they don't read to their kids anymore. And so like this huge percentage of kids are walking away with High school diploma. But like, never pick up a book, the rest of their life. So that's not good. So I definitely want to have a goal of just lifelong pursuit of learning. If you don't know something, let's go find the tool to find it. Find the site to find it. Find a way that you can know more about it than knowledge is forever. That the pursuit of knowledge, the talking to mentors.
The knowledge is power mindset. So those are the top three things that I want to see my kids have when they graduate. And I think that's a pretty good, nice. Umbrella of things that I can feel secure, I can feel happy about. I don't have to feel anxious knowing that I missed something in their school, in their education.
But they feel loved, they can feel creative and they have this pursuit of lifelong learning and I think as a parent something for you guys to have as your foundation as well when you're going through life with your kids. Whether or not your home school family or not just having this mindset of like hey at the end of the day does my child.
Feel Love from from us, feel forgiveness. We apologize. We hug. You know what? I mess up today? That's part of feeling loved that secure household that secure relationship. Do they feel like they have a creative? Mind, are you, are you involved in their creative pursuits?
Are you involved? And when they come to you with a cool thing, they discovered a cool thing. They belie you saying that's awesome. That's great. You can do, you know whatever you want. I love that. That's amazing. You're such A group good writer.
You're such a good dream or dance or speak or whatever you're encouraging these these early Pursuits early on or just like, wow, you have such a great way of with words or whatever, like your words are positive. And then lastly, again, the lifelong habit of just learning like oh I love how you let's read a book about this. Let's talk about this.
Let's watch National Geographic about this, let's read the news, let's discuss what happened, you know, it's just having this overall pursuit of lifelong learning, And, and bringing that into just daily conversations, having these conversations with your kids, and like, when you're in the car, talk about the news.
When you're at the table, the dinner table like hey, what happened today, and like, how I make you feel, or just having that open conversation learning, the conversational skills learning that, you know what, we can have an open mind about things. People can be different than us. People can believe different than us, but we can still have a great conversation to learn about other people to accept other.
We'll come from different backgrounds and cultures and their there's interesting people out there that we just love to learn about and cultures and foods. And all of these things that goes into the lifelong pursuit of learning the mindset of learning. And so, hopefully, that encourages you guys today, have an awesome day. Thank you guys so much for tuning in for my home. School adventures.
I am a child wrangler, a girl boss, a media creator, a business mentor, a professional domestic engineer, Captain of the Hot Mess Express and most importantly- an imperfect but constantly progressing disciple of Christ.
We coach, teach, shoot, set up events and build reclaimed decor and adventure mobiles out of our home studio in Chesapeake, VA all while raising three amazing but crazy children.
Follow our loco lives on our IG accounts:
@virginiamarketingandmedia
@virginiaphotosandfilms
@nomadearthdesign