Are you battling anxiety as a Christian—whether it’s constant nagging worry or a fear that feels like it’s controlling your life?

I can relate. For years, I struggled with an intense fear of home invasion. Even as a clinical psychologist, I had routines designed to make me feel safe, but I could still spend hours awake at night, frozen by fear.

Then one night, while my husband was out of town, someone began pounding on my front door at 2 a.m.

What happened next forced me to face my worst fear—and ultimately changed my relationship with anxiety.

In this video, I share that story along with three keys that helped me overcome anxiety.

And if your child struggles with worry or anxiety, check out Training Aliens, my story-based social and emotional skills curriculum for kids.

Try a free Training Aliens sample lesson: https://funtolearnbooks.com/product/training-aliens-level-1-kit/

If this podcast encouraged you, please subscribe for more practical, faith-based encouragement for homeschooling, parenting, and Christian living.

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/et2XEajx7CU

Stop Worrying, Start Homeschooling

Overcoming Anxiety as a Homeschool Mom

What are You Trusting In?

The post Overcoming Anxiety As A Christian appeared first on Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network.

This week on Homeschool Highschool Podcast: Teaching Teens to Avoid Plagiarism.

Sometimes, parents will request a topic for the podcast. Recently, a parent asked us to talk about plagiarism.

It is so easy these days for young people to be tempted to throw a prompt into ChatGPT or another AI tool and get a paper produced for them. This might seem like a logical time-saver for teens; however, it is a kind of plagiarism. If an AI tool writes their paper, they did not!

One of my sons is a teacher at a university in Korea. Last year, one of his freshman-level courses required students to write a paper. When the students turned in their papers, he found that half of his students handed in AI-produced research papers.

The students had the theme of the assignment. They gave it to the AI tool, and the tool wrote their paper for them.

Unfortunately for the students, it was easily identifiable. Fortunately for the students, he was able to talk to the students and require them to rewrite the paper themselves. Because it was a freshman class and they were learning skills, with the university’s permission, my son could give them a second chance.

On the other hand, when one of my other sons was in graduate school, he was teaching undergraduate students. One of his star students was very busy, so she bought her research paper from a website that writes papers for students. Unfortunately for her, teachers were required to use plagiarism trackers to catch those “bought papers”.

My son was required to report her plagiarized paper, and she lost her full-ride scholarship.

Plagiarism is tempting for students, but it is a problem. Therefore, it is wise to teach our teens to develop the skills so that they do not need to plagiarize.

Let’s talk with teens about how to avoid plagiarism, whether mistakenly or on purpose, in research papers (or any high school writing projects).

When you are writing your paper, you should have a clearly defined topic. For instance:

This topic is going to guide you. It’s easier not to copy and paste somebody else’s work because it probably will not stay on theme as well as when you write your own paper.

When you are taking notes, do not copy and paste. It’s tempting. If you have cut-and-pasted notes from online resources while doing your research, it is easy to cut and paste directly into your paper.

According to the circumstances, this might be plagiarism. Or it simply might look like laziness. Several of my teacher friends have told me about teens who cut and paste sections of their papers from online sources. The font type, size, and colors have differed from the rest of the paper. Oops!

Instead, it’s better to take notes in your own wording or type quotes yourself directly into your document. (Or use flashcards and handwrite your notes!) Remember to keep your citations with your notes.

Remember: if you copy and paste your notes, you are not learning the material, and you are not learning how to write a research paper. The point of a research paper is to:

Now you are ready to write your paper. Remember, you are not cutting and pasting something right out of your notes into the paper. Instead, you are interpreting what you learned and digesting that into your paper.

You do need quotes in your research paper. However, do NOT cut and paste. Type out each quote. Follow the guidelines for the style of paper you are writing (APA, MLA, or Chicago). Remember to include the citation for the quote.

Tip: It is a good idea to include at least one citation in every paragraph, except the introduction and conclusion. Even if you are not using a quote but putting what you learned into your own words, citations prove that you did not plagiarize.

Guidance: NEVER buy your paper or give a prompt to ChatGPT, Grok, Claude, or any other AI platform and have the AI tool write your paper. Your teacher has plagiarism trackers. (Your teacher may even know your writing style and recognize when a paper does not have your “voice”.

You are not writing papers because your teacher is bored and needs something to read. Rather, you are writing papers to:

Writing papers by format, by the rules, in your own words, not plagiarized, is so good for you.

It’s not that hard. Just don’t copy and paste. Put things in your own words.

If you have trouble putting things in your own words, practice with your parents. Say, “Hey, I’m trying to figure out how to say this,” and then maybe they can brainstorm some ideas with you. That is a perfectly valid thing to do.

I have so many homeschoolers who have written good APA, MLA, and Chicago research papers; tell me that when they attend freshman composition classes, that they are way ahead of many of their classmates.

Thus, they get good grades and impress their professors. That’s a cool thing!

Even young people who are not college-bound build good communication and thinking skills by writing their own research papers.

Thank you to Seth Tillman for editing.

The post Teaching Teens to Avoid Plagiarism appeared first on Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network.

Spark the Fire even when your child (or you) would rather do anything else! In this episode Felice Gerwitz shares real, actionable tips that you can implement in your daily homeschool life.

Hey friends. Thanks so much for joining me. This episode is for the morning when nobody wants to start. I homeschooled five children for more than thirty-two years. The age gap in our house was wide. What looked like laziness was not always laziness. Sometimes the book was wrong for that child. Sometimes they were tired or hungry or embarrassed. Sometimes it really was an attitude. Those are not the same problem.

Thanks so much to our sponsor CTCMath.com for helping keep this show on the air.

I used to jump to character first. Do the work. Stop complaining. And sometimes that was fair. Work is part of life. I told my children that an adult does what needs doing whether or not they feel like it. That is still true.

But I also learned to look before I pushed.

Is the book too hard? They feel stupid, and they will do anything to get away from the page. Is it too easy? They feel managed. Is it a story or a method that does not fit how they think? I have pulled a book that looked excellent on paper and watched the same child come alive in something simpler. The child was not the flop. The match was.

Has this child slept? Eaten? Had a chance to move before the hard subject? Some of my children needed to move first or they were going to move during the lesson, and it was not going to be pretty. That is not rebellion. That is a body.

Are they carrying too much? School, a sport, a co-op, and the weather in the house. Teens will look lazy when they are overloaded. Eight-year-olds will too.

Start smaller than you planned. If you use a Morning Crate, begin there — prayer, a little Scripture, one page of something living. Then give them a short piece of the hard work. One set of problems. One paragraph to tell back. One page copied well. A small thing finished is better than a big thing fought over and left undone.

You can keep the standard and change how it looks today. They can talk the answer while you write. You can walk and talk. They can teach a younger sibling the fact they just learned. I have watched a child who would not do the page gladly explain the page to a brother. That still counts.

What I would not do is turn every lesson into a show. You are not there to entertain them. Bored is allowed. Hard is allowed. Talking back is not.

Deal with the respect. That is not a curriculum problem. I was firm about that. I tried not to give a speech in front of the whole table if I could help it. Handle it. Then come back to the work. The work still stands.

If they are afraid they cannot do it, sit closer. Lower the amount on the page. Tell them what they actually did. “You finished three. That is three more than yesterday.” I stopped saying “you’re so smart.” Smart became a trap. Finished was a path.

I tried sticker charts that turned into negotiations. That did not last. I tried “because I said so” with no kindness in the room. That worked for a day and cost me a week. What I kept was this: be close when I could, keep the work real, and say we can do hard things without a nasty spirit.

“Hence I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you.”

Rekindle means it is already there. Sometimes it needs a smaller page and a calmer room. Every day is a fresh start. Attitude sets the tone — yours first.

There is a one-page reminder with this episode at VintageHomeschoolMoms.com. Use it if it helps. Ignore it if it does not.

More at MediaAngels.com/store.

The post Spark The Fire appeared first on Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network.

In this episode, you’ll hear the first 30 minutes of our Winter Preparedness Workshop. Sue Meyer walks moms through using homeopathy for colds, flu, coughs, and more. She built the class around the Influenza Starter Kit and shares the practical approach she’s taught for years: which remedies to reach for first, how to tell similar remedies apart, and how to dose with confidence when someone at home starts feeling sick.

Whether you’re new to homeopathy or ready to make better use of the kit on your shelf, this episode will help you feel prepared for winter.

If you enjoyed this clip, you can get the entire 2 1/2 hour training + Q&A inside the Members Corner! Join now at homeopathyformommies.com/members

Find the Influenza Starter Kit at the Outpost Mercantile – https://theoutpostmercantile.com

The post Getting Your Family Ready for Cold and Flu Season with Homeopathy – A Clip from the Winter Wellness Workshop appeared first on Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network.

College applications can feel overwhelming, especially once senior year arrives. In this episode, I share several useful websites that can help homeschool families choose colleges, understand the application process, work through essays and recommendations, and make sense of what happens after applications are submitted.

These resources are useful for seniors, but many are worth exploring much earlier. Starting in middle or early high school gives students more time to think about what they want in a college and helps reduce stress later.

FAFSA

If your student may apply for financial aid or scholarships, be sure to complete the FAFSA. Parents and students will each need the appropriate accounts, so it is helpful to get those set up before the FAFSA opens.

College Scorecard

College Scorecard is a helpful place to start comparing colleges. You can filter schools by factors such as:

You can also compare information such as graduation rates, average annual cost, and median earnings after graduation.

Appily

Appily offers college search tools, virtual college tours, scholarship information, and quizzes designed to help students think about possible majors and what type of college might be a good fit.

Students can also explore factors such as campus culture, demographics, clubs, and other aspects of college life.

Common App Resources

This provides a video walkthrough of the Common App.

https://www.commonapp.org/apply/fy-toolkit

The First-Year Toolkit also covers topics such as:

BigFuture by College Board

BigFuture includes information about scholarships, college planning, and the application process.

Resources include:

BigFuture also has a College Planning for Homeschoolers FAQ, which answers questions specifically relevant to homeschool applicants, including questions about high school codes and account setup.

College Essay Guy

The College Essay Guy’s resources extend well beyond the main Common App essay.

You can find information on:

There are also free resources for international students, first-generation students, and low-income students.

Even if your child is not yet a senior, consider creating a digital folder where you can save useful college application information. When application season arrives, you will already have resources available rather than starting from scratch.

You can also search the FundaFunda Academy blog for additional articles about college applications, scholarships, and scholarship websites

Take a look at show sponsor, FundaFunda Academy to see what they offer for online classes and web-based unit studies.

Join our Facebook Group, especially for the listeners of this podcast! You can ask questions and get advice as you try integrating technology in your homeschool.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the show and give a rating and maybe even a review! Subscribing will help you make sure you never miss an episode

The post Best College Application Resources for Homeschoolers appeared first on Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network.

This week on Homeschool Highschool Podcast: Organizational Tool for Homeschool High Schoolers with Rebecca Farris.

Working on getting organized now that the year has started, and you are finding out what is working and what is not? Congratulations! Today we are talking to Rebecca Farris, whose planners have been organizing homeschooling families for years!

Our 7SistersHomeschool meets Rebecca Farris story

When we 7Sisters were new in the entrepreneurial business, we decided to participate as vendors at several homeschool conferences. At one of them, right across the walkway from us in the vendor hall, was a lovely, gracious, kind woman named Rebecca Farris, the Well-Planned Gal.

Rebecca and her kids were the most welcoming people ever. The memory of their kindness to the new vendors on the block has stayed with me for well over a decade.

That’s why Vicki was so excited to finally have a chance to talk to Rebecca on the Homeschool Highschool Podcast!

Rebecca was a first-generation homeschooler. Unfortunately, she did not have the best experience. In fact, as she grew up, she did not even want to get married or have kids. She said to herself, “I am just gonna go my way!”

From childhood, Rebecca was business-minded, so she planned on a career in corporate America. However, Providence had different plans for her!

Rebecca often says, as the Well Planned gal, her life did not go as planned, and that’s okay. She ended up getting married and having children after all. She had Jenny, my first child, followed by five kids within seven years.

When her youngest was four years old, Rebecca started thinking about preschool for her oldest. She had already taught her to read through playtime. So, she decided to wait another year.

Then kindergarten came, and she said, “Well, I’ll just wait one more year.” And so on.

They homeschooled one year at a time until suddenly, all five are grown, and she’s an empty nester.

As a grandmother of five grandkids, Rebecca has had time to reflect on what she did right, what she did wrong, and what she wishes she had done. One of her key takeaways from her reflections is that she learned more than her kids through homeschooling.

I learned more than my kids through homeschooling. -Rebecca Farris

Rebecca also feels called to help other homeschool moms now that she is on the other side of it. She loves sharing the gifts God has given to her through homeschooling with homeschooling moms.

Rebecca receives questions from moms such as, “My teens haven’t learned how to organize their lives and their time.” Another frequent question is, “How can I get myself organized?”

Because Rebecca did not have a great homeschooling experience as a child, she decided to make sure her own kids had a wonderful time homeschooling. One way to do this is to make sure she was prepared and planned.

One of the tools she developed was a set of assessments to help homeschooling moms understand where their children were academically, as well as their personal achievements. This series is called Well Planned Start.

Rebecca reminds homeschooling moms that every single high schooler is different:

“The best thing you can do as a parent is to understand your teens.”- Rebecca Farris

She helps moms appreciate each teen’s uniqueness and leverage what they know about them to motivate them to :

Some of the tools that Rebecca makes available are chore charts and planners for teens, so that teens and moms can find the best fit for that unique homeschooler.

One benefit of training children and teens to use charts and/or planners is helping them build a neural structure of daily routines and rhythms.

Rebecca remembers working with her oldest daughter, who was not a naturally organized child, to understand the routines of daily and school-year life. She would work with her to help her understand the end goals for every school year. At a young age, Rebecca also worked with her daughter on internalizing daily rhythms and routines such as:

Rebecca remembers the day that her daughter got married. She went up to her daughter’s bedroom and asked, “Hey, what are you doing?”

Her daughter replied, “I’m almost finished with my five.”

She is an adult and still doing the same practice! It was internalized.

One of Rebecca’s daughters was “super smart but super quiet, very introverted”. She did not need to long-term plan. Rather, she just needed to know the plan for today. So, Rebecca would help her each morning assess what happened the day before and make the plan for the day.

This daughter’s planner was a tactile way to help her keep her “boots on the ground”, as Rebecca called it. She could keep an eye on and celebrate each day’s progress.

One of Rebecca’s sons needed to move freely to learn. Rebecca photocopied his planner and posted it on the wall. He would walk around and occasionally, throughout the day, check his progress on his own planner on the wall.

A planner is a tool no different than a hammer. How do we use a hammer? There are a thousand ways to use a hammer. You must read the situation, and then you adjust how you use it. However, in the end, hammers are used to hit a nail in some way.

Planners are tools. There are lots of ways to adapt planners to our kids’ needs. In the end, when you use a planner, you write down what needs to be done. Then you acknowledge what was completed.

Teens are not simply completing their academic credits. They are preparing for life. Planners can reflect this by including:

By using a well-rounded planner, teens learn self-management and build practice for life success.

Rebecca has many homeschooling-related projects. She dropped a little teaser about some new federal legislation. This legislation provides a way for homeschooling to be 100% funded by our taxes. Rebecca is part of a team that is building the infrastructure right now. She hints that in 2027, every single homeschooler will have the opportunity to have their curriculum, enrichment, supplies, and technology fully funded. To find out more, check out the latest information at her Curious Mind Network.

Visit Well Planned Gal for resources and how-tos for teens and moms

Come join the 7SistersHomeschool Facebook group, where you can share questions or cool things that you have learned.

Thank you to Seth Tillman for editing.

The post Organizational Tool for Homeschool High Schoolers with Rebecca Farris appeared first on Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network.

Felice has been homeschooling since 1986. Meredith has written close to a hundred books, most of them because her own kids needed something that didn’t exist yet. In this episode they each bring three things — six in all — that separate a homeschool year that works from one you survive.

(Felice) Before the books, before the schedule: the attitude check. Felice tells her kids the difference between an adult and a child is that an adult does what needs doing whether or not they feel like it. But she’s honest that her own house got to the point where everyone dreaded the start of the school day — and what turned it was daily prayer together, on their knees in the schoolroom, naming the specific thing somebody didn’t want to face that morning. Meredith adds the anchor underneath it: whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord. We’re not homeschooling because our children are so precious — some mornings they don’t feel precious — we’re homeschooling for the glory of God.

(Meredith) Lay out the year’s lesson plans in general terms, not in detail: enough to know in November whether you’re behind, so you’re not still doing school at the end of May. Clear last year’s books onto the high shelf. Get the room in order. Get your heart in order — what does the Lord want for each child this year, what should keep going, what should change. Then do the same thing daily: know your agenda and your priority before the day starts, so when something comes up you know what can be dropped and what can’t. Preparation is what keeps you proactive instead of in survival mode, and survival mode is where discouragement lives.

(Felice) Her method, and it’s the most practical thing in the episode: a two-year calendar with the whole year on a page. Print the holiday list. Grid out the weeks you already know you won’t be schooling. Then circle school days until you hit your state’s required number — Florida’s is 180 — and fill in the subjects afterward. Meredith’s addition is worth stealing: build a catch-up week into the fall and a catch-up week into the spring. If you don’t need them, you have a week for field trips and educational movies you never otherwise get to. And the counterweight to all of it — don’t be a slave to the schedule. When Felice’s daughter’s all-star team made the softball World Series, the SAT prep they’d planned all summer moved into the school year, and the trip was the right call.

(Meredith) Television teases the nine o’clock show at eight. Do that with your school year. We’re reading this book in March. Later in the year we’re writing and filming a commercial. Give the kids the coming attractions — the fun parts and the hard parts — instead of just announcing the plan. There will be drudgery and there will be discipline, and there will also be delight and memories. Meredith’s discovery: when she promoted school as something positive in her children’s hearts and minds, she promoted it as positive in her own.

(Felice) She had children who struggled to read, and reading trouble bleeds into spelling and writing and everything else. What she did: kept reading aloud to them, chose easier books so reading stayed a pleasure, worked remediation from the side, and leaned hard into science because it pushed deeper thinking without requiring fluent reading. And she gave them language for the struggle — if it’s easy, that means you already know it; if it’s difficult, that means you’re learning it — repeated until they could say it back. Once the reading clicked, those same kids were in trouble for reading the wrong book during school.

(Meredith) Three layers. Provide a Christian worldview — she has watched too many families bring the public school’s assumptions home with the curriculum. Provide what this child needs: every one of her children did fine on Saxon, until Shine, who couldn’t learn higher math that way and needed something else entirely. And most of all, provide yourself. Too many parents hand a child a book and expect the book to do the teaching. You are your child’s teacher; curriculum is one of your tools. Be willing to learn alongside them, trade subjects with another mom, or write the thing yourself — which is how most of Meredith’s books exist. And don’t let “I’m not enough” stop you: God is the provider; you only have to have the heart to provide.

Felice and Meredith close where the whole conversation was headed. Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. The years go fast. Do what you need to do, enjoy what you can, and keep the relationships in view.

Scriptures mentioned: Colossians 3:23 · Psalm 90:12 · Psalm 127:3-5

Also mentioned: Meredith’s Joyful and Successful Homeschooling and Quick and Easy Unit Study Fun · Felice’s Truth Seekers Mystery series and science curriculum from Media Angels · The Brain Trainers (brain-training remediation) · College Prep Genius (SAT prep) · Meredith’s show on the network, Finish Well, for teens and their families

Vintage Homeschool Moms is hosted by Felice Gerwitz and is part of the Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network. This episode is brought to you by CTC Math — ctcmath.com. Find more from Meredith Curtis at meredithcurtis.com.

The post Homeschool Planning: 6 Keys to a Year That Actually Works appeared first on Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network.

Google Search has changed significantly with the addition of AI-generated summaries at the top of search results. For students especially, this can make it tempting to accept an AI-generated answer without ever visiting the original source or checking whether the information is accurate.

In this episode, I talk with veteran homeschooler and educator, Jo Ebisujima, about alternatives to Google Search and why homeschoolers should teach their children to think more carefully about how they search for information online.

Jo shares a variety of search engines and browsers families can explore, including options that emphasize privacy, reduce tracking and advertising, or allow users to search without automatically receiving AI-generated answers.

One simple activity Jo recommends is giving your children several questions for which you already know the answers. Have them search for the same information using different search engines and compare what they find.

This is an easy way to introduce discussions about online research, digital privacy, source evaluation, and AI literacy.

Be sure to check out Jo’s blog post on this topic, where you can find links to the sites she mentions.

For online classes for homeschool students, including Computer Applications, AI for Teens, computer science, and other electives, visit the Computer page on FundaFunda Academy.

Take a look at show sponsor, FundaFunda Academy to see what they offer for online classes and web-based unit studies.

Join our Facebook Group, especially for the listeners of this podcast! You can ask questions and get advice as you try integrating technology in your homeschool.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the show and give a rating and maybe even a review! Subscribing will help you make sure you never miss an episode

The post Alternatives to Google search appeared first on Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network.

We want our kids to be kind, helpful, and cooperative. But we also want them to be able to say no when someone pressures them to do something that isn’t in their best interest.

That can be especially difficult for conscientious kids—the ones who want to be good friends, avoid disappointing people, and keep everyone happy.

So how do we teach our kids to set healthy boundaries without encouraging them to be selfish, rude, or unkind?

In this episode of The Homeschool Sanity Show, I share three practical ways to help your child develop healthy boundaries. We’ll talk about why some kids have such a hard time saying no, how other people can take advantage of that tendency, and what we can do now to prepare our kids for situations they’ll face as teens and adults.

You’ll also learn a simple strategy that can make saying no much easier for kids who tend to agree to things too quickly—and what your child needs from you after they’ve enforced a boundary.

These are skills our kids will use in friendships, dating relationships, college, work, and family life for years to come.

You’ll discover:

Watch on YouTube

Knowing what a healthy boundary looks like is one thing. Practicing it before your child is in a difficult situation is even better.

Training Aliens is my story-based social and emotional skills curriculum designed to help kids practice skills like healthy boundaries through stories, discussion, role plays, challenges, games, and more.

Your kids will meet an alien at Space Camp who struggles with boundaries, consider how the other characters should respond, and practice the skill themselves. Training Aliens is available in both faith-based and secular versions and includes a video course, too.

Download a free Training Aliens sample here: https://funtolearnbooks.com/product/training-aliens-level-1-kit/

Is saying no difficult for you or one of your kids? Share your experience in the comments.

And be sure to subscribe to The Homeschool Sanity Show for more practical strategies for raising competent, capable kids.

How to Establish and Defend Time Boundaries

Conflict Resolution Skills You Must Teach Part 1

Conflict Resolution Skills You Must Teach Part 2

The post How To Teach Your Child Healthy Boundaries appeared first on Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network.

This week on Homeschool Highschool Podcast: Homeschoolers Who Learn Differently: Empowered Strategies with Ashley Barta.

We love meeting new people with cool resources. That’s why we are excited to introduce you to Ashley Barta, who helps empower parents of homeschoolers who learn differently. Ashley is a consultant at Empowered Strategies and Consulting. She is also a military homeschool mom (and comes highly recommended by our friend and 7Sister Cousin, Natalie Mack).

With over twenty years of experience in education, Ashley is committed to bringing the joy of learning back into the lives of families, educators, and children. Her work is really cool because that’s why we’re homeschooling! We want our families to enjoy education!

Ashley’s story actually started in public school. She got her dream job as a kindergarten teacher in a small town in North Dakota. Those were the early days of No Child Left Behind, and there a huge push for all those kindergartners to be doing first-grade work.

Ashley remembers talking to the superintendent and saying, “I just want a play kitchen. I just want a kitchen in my classroom.”

Fewer people understood the importance of play in education. However, Ashley held onto the joy of playful education and brought that joy back into that classroom. Her young students experienced lots of imaginative play and learning through play.

When her oldest son was born, he was diagnosed with epilepsy. They tried to manage care while she worked full time. (And as military spouses know, the spouses run a lot more than their own job and their children.)

She found that all the running around was too much. Her mom-heart was calling her to stay home with her son. Ashley got my first master’s degree in early childhood special education during that time.

She opened her own preschool, and somehow managed to get all of her son’s PT, OT, and speech. Not only that, she ended up having a special education preschool full of children like her son.

Then her husband got orders. Ashley calls it, “The magic sauce of being military”. She had to close the preschool down, and they moved. In fact, the military moved them five or six times in fifteen years.

When the family moved to Nebraska, Ashley thought, “Let’s try homeschooling kindergarten. Let’s just try it.”

So she got all of the “how to homeschool” books. She soon found that homeschooling was fun. They had lots of zoo days and “school on the deck”.

Ashley and her husband decided, “We’ll just homeschool one year at a time, one year at a time.” And now she has a just-finished eighth grader and a just-finished sophomore. Her son is thriving. He might not do algebra and chemistry like his peers, but he is happy, healthy, and thriving. He is doing great for a severely medically complex child.

Soon, mothers with children who had health issues or learning disabilities started coming to her for advice, saying, “Well, you’re homeschooling! How do I do this?”

Ashley understood their struggles. It is easy to think that homeschooling means you have to buy a boxed curriculum and do what other homeschoolers are doing.

She always encourages them, “You know you’re your child’s best teacher. You are completely equipped to figure it out. And get help from other homeschooling people and resources when you need the support.”

Ashley gives homeschool moms the example of working with her son. He is non-verbal, but he uses his talker. For the longest time, everybody said, “Well, he can’t read if he’s not using his talker.”

However, she found a book: Structured Literacy.  The authors of the tool believe that literacy is possible even if you use a speaking device.

Ashley was able to add buttons to her son’s talker that were relevant to him. Now he demands shows that he wants to watch and then wants to talk about it. He can ask Alexa for different things. Through homeschooling and resources like this, Ashley has given him a world that we didn’t think was possible.

Besides being an excellent education choice for her children, the family loves being able to take time off when Dad is home. They can school through the summer if they need to. This is especially valuable for military families. They want to make the most of their time together.

Ashley Barta’s advice for homeschooling moms with homeschoolers who learn differently: Just breathe. Breathe. Every day is a new day in homeschooling, and if your first day stinks, the second day will be better.

Ashley frequently reminds nervous parents that homeschooling is totally doable. If you are a parent who is thinking about homeschooling and has a child who has some medical complexities or special needs, or if you are a military family with different rhythms, it is easy to feel intimidated.

That’s okay. There are resources to help. One of those resources is Ashley Barta and Empowered Strategies.

When Ashley begins to work with a family, she starts with a consultation. Every consultation is free. It’s a conversation to figure out what each family needs to go forth on their homeschool journey.

Sometimes she advises exhausted families to take a little time for de-schooling if they have been in a frustrating school situation: Enjoy the family, re-learn your relationships. Then Ashley helps them decide on the academic goals, strategies, and resources to help their specific needs

One thing that homeschooling moms with children who have learning struggles or the unique needs of military families need is encouragement, and a little “hold your hand and walk that path with you” attention. Also, if students come from a traditional school setting with an IEP, she can help the parents translate it into what it would look like at home.

You can get in touch with Ashley Barta at her Facebook page: Empowered Strategies and Consulting

Thanks to Seth Tillman for editing.

The post Homeschoolers Who Learn Differently: Empowered Strategies with Ashley Barta appeared first on Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network.