You're listening to the Brave Writer Podcast. I'm Julie Bogart. The Brave Rider

podcast is designed to support parents who take an active interest in their

children's education. whether you homeschool or not.

So I was digging around in my old files looking for something to share with you this week and I ran across a piece of

writing that I contributed to a column I used to write for University Press International.

I've retooled it a bit for this podcast today, but I felt like it might

speak to some of you, particularly those of you with teens or kids heading

off to college for the very first time.

We have such hopes and dreams for our children.

We want them to grow up to be fully self-sufficient adults with strong values and to have emerged unscathed

without having tripped over any of those stumbling blocks that were so challenging to those of us when we were teens and in our

20s. The truth is everybody has to face a little something on that journey to

adulthood and as parents we're often looking

for the key that's going to protect us or them from those hard falls. This article that I wrote for UPI is one that I felt

addressed a little bit of that feeling and I wanted to share it with you today.

So I'll read it and then let's come back at the end and talk about it for a moment.

Knocked Up and Some Place to go by Julie Bogart.

A moment comes for all parents, the cold ring of the phone too late at night, that means something, a car crash, drunk driving, the police.

Some of these moments paralyze, childhood cancer, learning disabilities, the onset of mental illness. Others overthrow hopes and dreams.

I'm pregnant. I just got kicked out of college. I'm struggling with an addiction. I didn't want any of these moments and neither did my group. After all, we're homeschoolers. We hope to control, I mean shape, our kids values, at least

enough to keep our Xanax consumption to a minimum.

My group, the ever resourceful energetic crowd who orchestrates

...