One crucial impact of homeschooling  is that you spend way more time with your children (even when you use quite a few tutors as we do). This will test your relationship with your children in new and unexpected ways and in turn becomes one of the ultimate learning opportunities for yourself. Seeing your children as a mirror of yourself is one of the fundamental tenets of the two books on parenting by Dr. Shefali Tsabary.  I highly recommend both The Conscious Parent and Out of Control and wish these books had been out (and I had read them) when we first had children. I found Dr. Shefali through Michelle Gale, who used to work at Twitter and now is an independent coach for parents and entrepreneurs in the Bay Area.

As someone who had always been hyper rational and results oriented I was not naturally inclined to put much value in the whole “consciousness” movement. But I now know that I couldn’t have been more wrong. Whether it is interacting with our children or with other adults, so much of what we say and how we say it is a reflection of our own fears, regrets and hopes. For instance, in homeschooling I often find myself saying something like “you really have to learn x” (where x is usually something like math or writing). Why? Because I am afraid of what will happen if the children don’t learn it and/or because I hope that if they do they will be successful and happy in life.

There is nothing wrong or bad about that per se – much of this comes from a good place. But lacking the awareness of one’s own motivation and failing to share it honestly and making that part of a legitimate discourse is at the root of many relationship problems. This turns out to be hard work because it starts with understanding oneself and because these kind of discussions take time (which for many of us seems to be the scarcest commodity).

If you want a good introduction to this thinking you might want to start with Dr. Shefali’s recent post on discipline. If you prefer video, you can find her on Youtube.