315. The 8 Stages of Homeschooling
Brave Writer
Julie Bogart and Melissa Wiley
4.8 • 927 Ratings
🗓️ 26 November 2025
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How do we move from “I think I want to homeschool” to “We’ve created an education that fits us”? In this episode, we walk through the eight natural stages homeschool parents experience, from jumping in without a clue, to swapping curriculum in search of the “perfect” program, to finally trusting ourselves and embracing “us schooling.”
We share real stories from our own homeschools, talk about ideological pressure from methods and social media, and offer practical ideas for planning from behind and building a routine you can bend without breaking.
Listen in to discover your stage and what might come next, and then join us to share where you are in your journey!
Resources:
- Read Julie’s post on this topic here: Brave Writer Podcast: Natural Stages of Growth as a Home Educator - A Brave Writer’s Life in Brief
- Visit the Brave Writer Book Shop
- Brave Writer class registration is open!
- Visit Julie’s Substack to find her special podcast for kids (and a lot more!)
- Purchase Julie’s new book, Help! My Kid Hates Writing
- Brave Learner Home
- Learn more about the Brave Writer Literature & Mechanics programs
- Start a free trial of CTCmath.com to try the math program that’s sure to grab and keep your child’s attention
- Subscribe to Julie’s Substack newsletters, Brave Learning with Julie Bogart and Julie Off Topic, and Melissa’s Catalog of Enthusiasms
- Sign up for our Text Message Pod Ring to get podcast updates and more!
- Send us podcast topic ideas by texting us: +1 (833) 947-3684
Connect with Julie:
- Instagram: @juliebravewriter
- Threads: @juliebravewriter
- Bluesky: @bravewriter.com
- Facebook: facebook.com/bravewriter
Connect with Melissa:
- Website: melissawiley.com
- Substack: melissawiley.substack.com
- Instagram: @melissawileybooks
- Bluesky: @melissawiley.bsky.social
Produced by NOVA
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Looking for a great math program? |
| 0:03.0 | CTC Math provides online video tutorials that make learning math easy and effective |
| 0:10.0 | by using creative graphics and animation that are sure to grab and keep your child's attention. |
| 0:16.0 | Here's a great testimonial from Lori. |
| 0:18.0 | She said one day my 10-year-old was in tears over math. |
| 0:23.7 | I tried my best to help, but I ended up in tears as well. |
| 0:27.7 | That very night, I received an email offer for CTC Math. |
| 0:32.1 | The following Monday, we reviewed the curriculum together. |
| 0:35.8 | She was willing to give it a shot, and we have never looked back. |
| 0:39.9 | Start your free trial today by visiting ctcmath.com. |
| 0:50.0 | Welcome back, everyone, to the Brave Writer podcast. Hello, Melissa. |
| 0:53.9 | Hello, hello. It's great to be with you. I was thinking about our upcoming episode, and I had a couple of conversations in direct message on Instagram that made me think today's topic was essential. Today, I want us to talk about these sort of natural stages of growth |
| 1:14.0 | homeschoolers go through as they become the career educator for their families. How does that |
| 1:21.2 | sound? I love this idea. You know, we've identified the natural stages of growth |
| 1:26.8 | kids go through to become fluent writers. |
| 1:30.1 | And one day, I spent some time thinking about what I have observed, not only in my own life, but in the lives of other homeschoolers. |
| 1:38.6 | And I thought it might be fun to just kind of go back over what those stages are like. So I thought we would start out with |
| 1:46.7 | stage one, and I love to call this stage jumping in. And so I thought we could start, Melissa, |
| 1:53.2 | by you talking about what made you choose to jump in to homeschooling. Okay, when I was thinking |
| 2:00.7 | about this topic, |
| 2:02.2 | I got just such a flush of warm memories, |
| 2:05.7 | but also like laughing my head off at my younger self |
... |
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