All of us Home Educators feel this emotion on this journey - fear, which is related to anxiety and worry.

"Have I done enough for my children?"

"What if I have gotten it all wrong?"

"Am I failing my kids?"

In this episode, I share my reflections on this emotion to unpack it, and suggest some strategies to tackle it:

1) Making Home Education a mission

2) Turn fear on itself and instead of thinking "what if", think about "what if not?" - What is the price or trade off if we are not homeschooling our children?

3) Take action, one small step at a time. Taking action forces us to confront the fear, thinking about it just makes it bigger and more paralysing.

We need to build faith to overcome fear - and faith, as Bob Proctor says, is about seeing the invisible, believing the incredible and achieving the impossible. We need to focus on the way forward, one step at a time.

This episode is inspired by a couple of radio and news interviews I gave recently and I realised that when people find out that I am homeschooling my children, their response is often "Oh, you homeschool?" followed by some questions that can be quite hard to answer. In this episode, I will share with you how I answered these questions, the real thoughts that were in my head at the same time, and how I would flip those questions around if I had the time and opportunity to. I hope the episode's deep dive into some of these topics will also open your mind and strengthen your view about home education.

So in this episode, I will share my thoughts and responses to:

"Oh, you homeschool?"

1) What about socialisation and their social skills?

2) How do you know they are keeping up?

3) If your children tells you that they want to go back to school, will you let them?

4) How do you prefer them for life / work / success? What if they want to go to university? They won't be able to if they are homeschooled.

I hope by sharing my thoughts, you will find the confidence to reply to this comment of "Oh, you homeschool? I can never do that." with "Yes, I do, thank you for the compliment, I am very glad I am doing so."

This journey of Home Education is similar to swimming uphill against the current in a river. It is full of adventures, challenges and there will be days that feel like this journey is a complete struggle.

Perhaps you are struggling with one of those days when your kids are not doing whatever you would like them to. Perhaps your child is a stubborn one not just today but every day. Perhaps you have one of those struggling kids, and they have you worried because they are not where they are supposed to be with their academic skills. Or perhaps today is just one of those days you felt you haven't accomplish anything for yourself or your children in you are starting to wonder whether it is time for you to consider mainstream schooling.

We have all been there.

In this episode, I share four strategies that I have found useful in helping me get through those days when things feel overwhelming for me, and I hope they will help you too.

And in listening to this, I hope you also see "struggles" in a new light and know that while they can be frustrating and painful, they are also what gives a story a beautiful ending.