26. (S2E7) Note to Homeschooling Parents: Remember Self-Care - with Amy Milcic

Amy Milcic is a former mental health therapist and a homeschooling parent of five active, busy boys. She has a great blog, Rock Your Homeschool, that will add sparkle to your family’s learning fun.I first ran into Amy on Periscope, where she starts her day by pumping up other homeschool moms (I think coffee is one of her secrets!). Today, she is going to help pump you up in your homeschool efforts, too.Amy’s kids are drawn to the freedom of the Brave Writer lifestyle. It allows them to embrace who they are as an individual and keep out of any cookie cutters.“The Friday Freewrites have been… oh my goodness! I could cry when I think about the effect it has had on our family.”Friday Freewrites have been hugely beneficial for Amy’s family. They have helped her kids be comfortable in who they are, their thought processes and how they can express their thoughts on paper.  One of her children even said, “Mom, I never knew writing could feel this good.” Before Friday Freewriting, it was a struggle. The same child would crumple into a fetal position at the first mention of writing.Poetry Teatime has also been very meaningful for Amy’s family. It’s so popular that they want to do it more than once a week!“As a mental health therapist, I feel that self-expression is so important and poetry is just a beautiful way of carefully selecting words to express your thoughts and feelings.”Poetry has helped Amy’s boys realize that there are different writing formats and different ways to express yourself. Poetry Teatime opens up a world of new conversation and discussion that, otherwise, they never would have had. For the athletes in Amy’s family, poetry also helps them find a part of themselves that they never knew existed.If you want to see some wonderful examples of Poetry Teatime with five boys, check out Amy on Instagram @rockyourhomeschool.As a former mental health professional, Amy is acutely aware of the importance of self-care in homeschooling. As parents, we want to give everything to our children – yet, we need that time to reconnect with ourselves.“Self-care as to be a priority. Otherwise, if my cup is empty, I can not be there for my family. I feel that is a vital part of a homeschooler’s life.“Whether it’s self-care or lesson plans, there is no one way to do it. Many homeschooling parents and children feel boxed in, feel overwhelmed or feel like they should do something differently. That is simply not true.One of the wonderful things about the Brave Writer lifestyle is that there are so many different ways to do any one thing, and we can focus on using our own individual gifts to help our children.There’s many different ways to teach any one thing. We all can use our own individual gifts to help our children with that “and, in the process, learn more about our children and help them discover their unique potential.”You can download show notes for the podcast here: http://blog.bravewriter.com/category/podcasts/ Resources:You can download Free Writing Lessons here: http://go.bravewriter.com/free-writing-lessonsAmy Milcic: Rock Your...