More Than Enough: Grow Your Confidence, Banish Burnout and Love Your Homeschool Life is the newest book by Kara Anderson. She joins us today for a cozy homeschool mom chat. How do we navigate all the expectations we face as homeschool moms, both from within and from without? How can we pursue joy in the homeschool journey with confidence in our own unique family’s way of doing things? You’re going to love this Homeschool Conversation!
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Who is Kara Anderson?
Kara Anderson went from newspaper reporter chasing down cops in heels to unexpected homeschool mom of 2. She writes online, co-hosts the Homeschool Sisters Podcast, and is podcast manager at the Read-Aloud Revival. Together with 3 of her friends, she co-founded the online Kindred Homeschool Conference and community. Most recently, Kara Anderson has written a book for homeschool moms: More Than Enough. Her passion is to help homeschooling moms find joy and magic in their days with their kids.
Watch my video interview with Kara Anderson
Show Notes {with video time stamps}
Kara’s journey to homeschooling, to quitting, and then back {1:20}
Kara loved her job as a newspaper reporter and never thought sheโd be a homeschool mom. She got laid off when she was 9 months pregnant, however, and it turned out to be the best blessing in the world!
Her kids are now 13 and 16. Kara has been married to her husband for 23 years. But when the kids were little, homeschooling still seemed so new and different. And maybe even kind of crazy.
At 3 years old, they sent their son to a local preschool. He was an early reader, very precocious, and he kept getting in trouble because he would not sit on the masking-tape line.
The next year they gave homeschooling a try, but in December she made a desperate call to the local Montessori preschool and enrolled him for that spring semester. Over the summer, the preschool wanted to move him up into the 6-9 classroom because he could already read. They were supposed to work on handwriting over the summer, but his fine motor skills were just not ready (he was only 5).
They tried homeschooling again, it stuck, and now theyโve been doing it for almost 12 years!
โThat same little boy that wouldnโt sit on the line? He loved books and he loved stories; he just needed to be able to move while he listened to them. He was taking it all in, but he was very active. And I think he kinda needed to be active to take it in.โ
Kara’s homeschool personality and philosophy {5:30}
Alongside her book, Kara has created an audio companion, in which Kara interviewed 3 of her homeschool mentors and asked them the same set of questions.
While talking to our friend, Pam Barnhill, Pam brought up something that changed Karaโs mindset. She used to think labels boxed us in and kept us to artificial standards. But Pam helped Kara see that these labels are helpful ways that we can communicate to people.
(Normally? People just want to the short answer; theyโre just being polite. They donโt want a monologue.)
Karaโs short story: they started out as very Waldorf-inspired homeschoolers, but it didnโt work for their family.
โItโs ok to take what works from a philosophy and hold on to that and then leave the rest,โ Kara reflected.
Now? They’re relaxed, interest-led homeschoolers who love to dive deep into passions.
Kara says, โItโs hard to change opinions. Itโs much easier to change your own mindset.โ {8:00}
โWhat weโre doing is not the traditional path, so you cannot expect general approval from people. Right off the bat, theyโre confused,โ Kara pointed out. People want to know the grade and the favorite subjectsโฆ and sometimes our kids arenโt quire sure how to answer that question.
โWe only have so much time and energy,โ and Kara encourages moms not to spend that time and energy on the dentist or the great-aunt, but to focus it on our own kids.
Investing in our own families (instead of trying to convince everyone around us about how our family is running our homeschool) is a better choice.
Kara says, โDonโt let the method boss you around.โ {12:31}
A lot of methods were created a long time ago or were created for classrooms, Kara noted. It may not be possible to perfectly recreate them in your dining room with the toddler and nursing infant.
You donโt have to follow a method 100% because it wasnโt created for your unique family. Weโre all different with different strengths and weaknesses.
As we pursue any method, Kara encouraged that โwe have to realize if weโre part of a group โฆ where weโre feeling like weโre not โxโ enough, that probably isnโt the group for us. And thatโs ok.โ
โItโs better to not have a group at all than to have the wrong group,โ Kara said.
Karaโs words encouraged me to consider my own conversations with other homeschoolers. As we talk to other homeschool moms, we can be the person who accepts other moms and families even if they donโt do the homeschool method in the same way that we do. We can ask open-ended questions and really care about other homeschool moms and their families, instead of just caring about the homeschool methodology.
โTo build relationships with other homeschool moms, find the things we have in common rather than just focusing on the things that make us different.โ Amy Sloan
How do we find true, helpful mentors in the midst of all the noise? {16:59}
There is lots of noise online. All the Instagram, Facebook, and blog people telling us that weโre only homeschooling correctly if we do things their way exactly.
Hopefully Kara and I arenโt adding to the noise here. Donโt turn us off; this is going to be helpful, I promise. ๐
Just because someone has a million followers doesnโt mean they know everything. Kara encouraged, โIf youโre following someone online who is routinely making you feel bad or less-than? Unfollow. Even if itโs just for a little while, because that is not helpful to you in any way.โ
โWe see these little squares of perfectionโฆand it can be really easy to feel like if our life doesnโt look like that all that timeโฆthat weโre getting it wrong,โ Kara noted.
I (Amy) think itโs important to remember that thereโs only so much input you can take in without getting overwhelmed. We can all grow and change. But some random person on the internet who doesnโt know you and your kids? Maybe they arenโt the best choice for getting input.
I love my friend, Dawnโs, post about the โperfectโ composite online homeschoolerโฆthe mythical perfect homeschool mom weโve created in our heads, where weโve combined the best strengths of everyone and put them into that one perfect person weโre supposed to be.
Kara’s best tips for finding joy and magic in the day to day of homeschooling {23:48}
Does this surprise you? Karaโs answer is: โDo less.โ
You have to slow down so you can find the joy and magic. If weโre running around all the time, we donโt have time to sit and enjoy the moments with our kids.
โBuild in a little margin into your days,โ Kara encouraged.
Find Kara Anderson and More Than Enough Online
- More Than Enough (Karaโs NEW Book)
- Audio Companion with Pam Barnhill, Sarah Mackenzie, and Jamie Martin
- Blog
Did you enjoy this interview? Be sure to check out all the other interviews in our Homeschool Conversations series!
