The new academic year is in full swing, and for many of us, we are just beginning to find our rhythm. As we do, it’s important to make sure we take steps to minimize the opportunity for burnout. Knowing all too well how easy it is to find myself in that place, I created a list of practical keys to help me maintain my peace and sanity and avoid burnout. In meeting and mentoring new families and founders, I developed an acronym, GRACE, that has been especially helpful for parents new to homeschooling and unconventional education, as well as founders who create these special spaces. In this, the first of five installments, one for each letter of GRACE, we’ll begin with G.
G stands for “Give yourself permission, and then give yourself a break.” The focus is giving yourself permission to do three things: permission to be flexible, permission to make mistakes, and permission to take a day off. As a strong Type A personality, one of the things I learned very quickly as a homeschooler was that flexibility is not optional; it is a necessity. In my house, we have an 11th Commandment: the flexible will not be broken. As a mom of six, it didn’t take long for me to experience the reality that each of my children learns differently, and that what worked for one child would not necessarily work for another. Moreover, I learned that sometimes the one who needs the adjustment is me, along with my expectations.
I still remember sitting on the classroom floor in my basement, teaching my oldest daughter and son, who are 18 months apart, history. The curriculum was The Mystery of History, and I was reading a story about early civilization. My daughter was fully engaged, listening intently. My son, on the other hand, was a whirling dervish, constantly in motion, and as I was reading, my frustration with him increased. Finally, I put the book down, glared at my son, and demanded he tell me what I had just finished reading aloud. To my shock and chagrin, he gave a perfect recitation of the lesson. In that moment, I realized that I needed to adjust my expectations of what learning looked like for my kinesthetic son. My daughter could sit quietly and engage; my son was a body in motion that needed to stay in motion. I had to be flexible.
Giving yourself permission to be flexible also means that if something is not working, be it a curriculum or a program, regardless of how much you love it, how much time you’ve already spent on it, or how much money you’ve spent on it, be willing to make a change. In my family, we purchased a middle school social studies curriculum that simply was not working for us. About a third of the way into that curriculum, we made a change, and my kids went from loathing history to fully enjoying it. Had I not given myself permission to make that change, we probably would not have survived that year of homeschooling, at least as far as history was concerned.
As a founder, I have lived the lesson of flexibility many times over in our program. Obvious lessons in the necessity of flexibility came from the pandemic, when we, along with much of the world, moved to virtual instruction. Yet, there were many other instances when flexibility benefited our program and the families we serve. For example, from the beginning of our program, Parent Duty, a requirement in which the parent or guardian serves the program on-site for a set number of days during the year, was only to be performed by a parent or legal guardian. However, as the demographics of our families changed, with more working families, more single parents, and more instances of close relatives taking on the primary responsibility of homeschooling, we had to be willing to be flexible and make allowances for adults other than the parent or guardian to serve our community through Parent Duty. It has benefitted us far beyond what we could have imagined, with some of those adults filling in for parents and coming on as instructors for our program.
The next lesson in giving permission was one of the hardest for me as a Type A. You must give yourself permission to make mistakes. Perfectionism and the fear of making mistakes will rob you of the joy of homeschooling and put you on a fast track to burnout. The truth is, we will all make mistakes, and it took a long time for me to reframe mistakes as opportunities to learn. In my math classes, I have learned to celebrate when my students make mistakes, and I literally thank them, because it gives us an opportunity to go deeper, to dissect what happened and learn where we got off track. The kids understand that these errors are perfectly normal, that everyone makes them, and how to avoid future pitfalls. From these mistakes come some of the greatest “aha” moments for the kids. It’s absolutely wonderful!
As a founder, perfectionism, which can be rooted in the fear of making mistakes, is a poison that has the potential to demoralize and dismantle your team. The chairman of our board has a wonderful saying: “Our goal is to operate in excellence, not perfection.” What’s meant by that is that excellence is not an absence of mistakes; there’s a recognition that we will learn and grow, and one of the roads to being stronger as an organization is learning from mistakes we make. I have a very close friend who gleefully states, “You’re free to fail! And failure is an event, not an identity!” Failure, like mistakes, is not the end, and when viewed differently, can always be an opportunity to learn and grow.
Another root of perfectionism is comparison, which is often said to be the thief of joy. As a parent, you cannot compare yourself or your children to another because you are entirely different people living out entirely different life experiences and operating in entirely different circumstances. The same is true for your program. Living in comparison to another program wastes time, energy, and resources, and ultimately costs you your identity as a program. Your identity is the greatest gift you can give to the families you serve, and you can’t give that to them if you’re trying to replicate someone else’s program.
Perfectionism, borne from the fear of failure or comparison, can become a ruthless taskmaster that will suck the life out of your team and your organization and, if you’re not careful, will kill your program. Giving yourself and those around you permission to make mistakes frees your team and your family to learn and grow rather than live in fear of getting it wrong.
The other thing that we Type A’s have difficulty with is taking time off, and yet, giving yourself permission to take a day off is absolutely necessary to avoid burnout. Everyone needs a mental day, a day off to recalibrate, to be renewed, to take a moment and breathe. Both as a parent and as a founder, I have found that one of the best things I can do for myself, for my children, and for the families who depend on our program is to take a day off. As parents, we often give to the neglect of ourselves. As founders, we can be so mission- and goal-oriented that we forget the impact our mental and emotional health can have on our organizations. Just as our children need “brain breaks,” so do we, both as parents and as founders. So give yourself that permission.
For my family, that break can sometimes look like taking advantage of discount Tuesdays at AMC or Regal Theaters and going to the movies on the cheap. For our program, one look at our schedule tells the intentionality of our breaks. We schedule them in, and as each break approaches, we set the expectation in our community that everyone is on break. Families know that unless there is an emergency, they won’t hear from leadership or their tutors during breaks. They also know that no homework is due to be turned in during breaks. Breaks are a necessary part of life.
After you’ve given yourself permission to be flexible, permission to make mistakes, and permission to take a day off, it is important to give yourself a break. Please go easy on yourself, whether you are a parent or a founder. For both, life in the unconventional ed space is not a sprint; it’s a marathon. Give yourself grace. Throughout this journey, there will be good days, and there will be days when you will question yourself over and over and over again. When that happens, and invariably it will, know that you are not alone, and know that another good day is just around the corner. The more grace you give yourself, the more you’ll have to give to your children, your team, and the families who depend on you, and the less likely you will find yourself in a place of burnout. You were never meant to run this race on empty.
Giving yourself a break is where it starts, but it’s only the beginning. In the next installment, we’ll look at R: Rest. Rest is so much more than sleep, and you may be surprised to learn that there are seven different types of rest, each one something your body, mind, and spirit may be asking for right now.
