First off, I love writing about our homeschooling journey. I love sharing what my girls are up to and what they are learning. I also love trying to reach other homeschooling parents.
That being said, and allowing myself to be totally transparent here, I feel that I have been failing with this blog. I am not personally impacting others as I had set out to do when I first began this dream and concept 3 years ago. While I am not seeking to get rich or have vast amounts of fame, I genuinely feel that this blog has not been serving the purpose I had originally set out to accomplish.
It has been on my heart for many months now ways to accomplish my goals of helping others in the homeschooling community feel confident in themselves and their abilities to meet the schooling needs of their children. I have prayed open heartedly for God to intervene and direct the next steps in my journey. I first tossed around the idea of creating resources for parents, but with the lack of audience interaction with the blog, I didn’t see how this would accomplish my goals either.
However, in February I was led to a webinar about Teacher Burnout. While I am not burnt out as a teacher (because let’s face it I have the best teaching job ever), I was burnt out with this blog and its inability to reach my goals.
My mind has been able to refocus these last few months, with some more praying, planning and work behind the scenes to realize this dream I have had for awhile now. I envision helping people who are feeling overwhelmed with the prospect of homeschooling their child. Maybe they have been told that because they lack the kills or the degree that they will be ineffective to their child and will be a disservice to them. I want to help those that have started to research what it would take to either pull their child out of school or never send them in the first place, because in their heart they long to make a bigger impact on their child’s education. I want to find those people and offer them both encouragement and the tools that they need to successfully set up and start homeschooling their child.
Instead of focusing on this blog as it stands right now as a “failure” I am choosing to now see it as a steppingstone to what the future can now hold. First things first though, this blog will not be ending. I will still be posting and creating content for blog post, but with a slightly different focus in the future. In the interim I will be still posting updates, but as I’ve stated this year I will be reducing those wrap ups to the end of each of our school quarters. I will write up two posts, one of the things we have done together and another focusing on the girls individually. My goal is to have one other post a month still relating to homeschooling.
WHERE THE SHIFT COMES IN
I am working currently on a way to expand myself by creating a “boot camp” for parents of a week to two weeks where I help them navigate the ins and outs to begin their homeschooling journey. In addition to this I am also going to be setting up coaching individuals who need or want the extra help behind the scene. From choosing curriculum, making different curriculums work for their unique child and helping the establish routines, schedules and fostering the love of learning they are seeking their homeschool to be.
Once I launch this program the blog will shift into this platform and continue as it has in the past. I’m hoping to highlight families (that are wiling) and their success along with the continued success of our homeschool and the journeys and adventures we are undertaking.
So I am asking all old and new blog post readers to hang in with me as I begin to shift the focus and content of Momma Bear School and be able to help others in the process.