Posts by Betsy
How to Continue Homeschooling Through Hard Seasons
Over the years, I’ve noticed that the homeschooling questions change with time. In the early years, people ask about the curriculum. Schedules. Methods. But now—standing on the other side of those years—the question I’m asked most often sounds more like this: How did you raise such sweet kids? And I want to tell them: because…
Read MoreLife After Homeschooling: What Lasts When the Lessons Are Over
Now that I’m on the other side of homeschooling, people keep asking me a question I’m still learning how to answer: How did you do it? It’s a generous question, and one I understand deeply. When you’re in the middle of raising and educating children, you want something you can point to—something concrete, something transferable. A curriculum,…
Read MoreWhy Reading Aloud for Character Formation Shapes Moral Imagination
In recent years, many parents—especially thoughtful, attentive ones—have found themselves uneasy with the language of outcomes, benchmarks, and even social-emotional learning. Not because emotions don’t matter, but because something feels off when formation is reduced to skills that can be measured, checked off, or optimized. If you’ve ever thought, I want my children to be good and wise and…
Read MoreReading as Relationship: Simple Practices for Meaningful Conversations Around Books
One of the quiet pressures many parents feel after encountering a thoughtful book list goes something like this: Okay… but now what?I know I’ve felt it. You find good books. Beautiful books. Worthy books. And then you’re left wondering how to hold them well—how to move from choosing stories to actually living with them in a…
Read MoreGrowing Wisdom, Empathy, and Presence Through Story
For years, I practiced social-emotional learning long before I had a name for it. It happened on the couch during read-alouds, in the car after we closed a book and sat quietly with what lingered, and in the subtle ways one child felt deeply seen by a character while another felt unsettled and couldn’t yet…
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