Mom Encouragement

Ripple Effect: How to Inspire Your Kids

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

A messy dining room, a dozen unfinished projects, soggy boots, muddy footprints, a broken telescope, a lost library book, a forgotten passion, a new hobby, and wonder in the eyes of a child.

This is the homeschool life.

Simple moments, like pebbles in quiet pond, the work you do today will ripple through generations.

Yes, what you do today will make a difference for years to come!

Homeschooling isn’t glamorous, and the day to day activities may seem a lot like pushing a rock up a mountain. But through it all I’ve seen how embracing the role of both mom and teacher has unseen power and influence that you wouldn’t believe though it’s right in front of you. And the work you do and example you set will influence your future generations.

Rewind–what’s your story? Who you are today has a lot to do with the path of past generations.

Here’s a glimpse into my story and the beautiful tapestry of learning, passion, and love that has woven itself through my family’s history.

My grandmother was a mother of four and a civil engineer—a woman ahead of her time. She somehow balanced her professional life with the demands of motherhood, and through her, I learned the value of determination and perseverance. She showed me how to think outside the box. When the world said, “You can’t do it all!” my grandma said, “Oh yes you can!” And when I’m facing a struggle I often hear her voice in my ear whispering, “Where there’s a will there’s a way!”

My mother, an artist, educational strategist, Bible scholar and homeschool mom, carried a quiet passion into our home. She made learning an adventure, and always helped us kids find the answers to even the most outlandish of questions. She had a way of filling our days with creativity and the belief that anything was possible, with Jesus. Her art wasn’t just on canvas—it was in the way she taught us to see beauty in the world, and faith in the One who is GOOD, WISE and ALL Powerful!

Because of her faith and example I will never forget that “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!”

And now, as a homeschooling mom of my own children, I see how this legacy continues to unfold.

Homeschooling has given me the chance to watch my own children discover their unique passions and explore them in their own time.

Not just growing in skills and knowledge, but in faith and determination!

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Turning Home Into the Epicenter of Human Life

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

My house is a place of creativity, innovation, technology, tradition, beauty, art, music, good food, and education. Fun comes first!
As the one who organizes and orchestrates the events and environment for over a dozen children and an adventurous husband, I’ve embraced an opportunity to throw out the common uses of the rooms in my house.
Most houses were designed to serve as a place of relaxation and comfort for hardworking couples, and school age children. As a homeschooling mom and home-based entrepreneur I began to rethink the way Americans use their homes.
I saw the impractical design of a home as an opportunity to transform the underutilized living spaces into something far more useful and exciting.

What It Looks Like
Our kitchen is now a “Science Kitchen” and a place for fermenting, cooking classes, experiments, a place for making body-care products, and for inventing new remedies and recipes. In the past our kitchen was a birth center, where a few of our kids were born!
Our living room is a lending library and music room where family and friends gather to create music together and to read, share and borrow books. Our living room is also a place where children can play with puzzles and puppets. Sometimes it becomes a church, where we gather daily for Bible stories, worship and prayer.
Our dining room serves the usual purpose of a space for family meals, often squeezing two dozen of us around three tables! But often we set up the space as an Art and Game cafe! Watercolors, beads, and rubber stamps await the touch and imagination of creative kids. We added a coffee bar with three espresso machines and a beautiful assortment of ceramic mugs and flavored syrups. During the week the tables are used as a school space for my five or six youngest kids.

The nook attached to the kitchen is a tearoom, with a DIY tea making station complete with about twenty healing blends of loose leaf teas made from herbs, flowers and spices which were grown in our garden, foraged from our woods and meadows, and imported from around the world. On our recent trips to Italy, Greece and Israel we searched for local blends to bring home and recreate.
The media room in the basement is a Preschool Paradise – even though our youngest child is nine. We fill my house with young moms who have little ones every chance we get.
Our office is a studio of creativity, design, publishing, and relaxation for myself and my team of collaborators who often drop in to work on projects with me.
Our garage is a charging station for two Teslas and a Cybertruck. It is also a gym for my kids who are into fitness and bodybuilding, and another part of the garage is a pottery and jewelry making studio. My husband has a workshop in yet another section of the garage.
Half of the old barn has been renovated into a DIY creative space for neighborhood homeschoolers, complete with a Lego city, shelves full of games, a small stage, and loads of art supplies. The other half of the barn serves as an art studio for our daughters who are studying oil painting and drawing. The space also includes the set for a podcast studio.

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Untangling from Mediocrity

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

Was there a time when you understood what really mattered, and then you looked at your life?

Was there a moment when you understood the truth about all the things that were irrelevant to the precious, meaningless in light of the meaningful, and futile when side by side with the greatest?

When your eyes were open to the purpose of your life, did you find your calling there?

And when you found your calling, did you listen?

And when you listened, did you surrender?

Did you learn to obey the voice calling you to surrender everything, break the chains, and unload the burdens so that you could be free to run your race? Or are you still entangled with the everyday pressures and demands of mediocrity?

Here’s some inspiration for those of you who need to get to that place of throwing off the entanglements.

If you are not free to run your race, it really is time to stop everything and change direction.

Look ten years down the road. If you change nothing, you will be exactly where you are now, just older and with more debt. Every day like the last, striving, struggling, climbing a ladder to nowhere, or digging some hole ever deeper.

But don’t mistake faithfulness in the little things for a meaningless life. If you are being faithful where you are, doing the hard daily work of your calling, you must persevere! For example, your faithfulness as a mother with young children. Your days are long, your work gives you little rest, but the influence of your sacrifice for others is precious, meaningful and great.

Perhaps you heard the call to missions, and you work in the dirt and spend your days feeding dozens of hungry children, cleaning bathrooms in an orphanage, serving in gardens, villages, churches, and schools–but there is nothing romantic about your missionary life. It is hard work and you have dirt under your fingernails. But you are storing up treasures in heaven, and adding many smiles to earth. This hard work may seem thankless, and it’s lonely at times, but your love brings hope, and that’s enough.

Maybe you are a dad, looking for another income stream, putting a roof over dozens of other homes so you can keep a roof over the one home that matters most. It’s hot. It’s long days. It’s thankless work, and you come home to smiling kids and a weary wife. It’s a season where nothing seems romantic; but in a world where so many families are falling apart, your family is sticking together. You look around and what might not seem like much, is actually everything. When it comes to the value of family, you are rich, proud, and looking forward to the day when He says, “Well done my good and faithful servant!”

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A Daughter is Your Legacy

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

When I was about 14 years old, I started to feel angry about what feminism was doing to society. I dreamed of being a mother—specifically, a mother to seven daughters. When people asked me what I wanted to become, I would proudly say, “A mom and an artist.” Their reactions were always dismissive, as though they couldn’t decide which dream was worse, so they trashed them both.

But I didn’t let that stop me. I wanted to create a magical home for my children. As a child, I dreamed of living in a big Victorian house filled with treasures and souvenirs from all over the world. I imagined traveling with my daughters, teaching them to be great artists. I pictured a house full of pets, a kitchen filled with the smells of food from every culture, and a life brimming with creativity and adventure.

I always envisioned my daughters as teenagers who were smart, confident, industrious, and, most importantly, deeply in love with each other as sisters. When people told me it would be a shame to bring children into such a dark world, I would reply with conviction, “My children will be the ones to light up the world.”

I fought for that dream. I read pioneer love stories and Amish romances that inspired me to make everything from scratch and to create beauty everywhere I could. My roots gave me strength—my mother was a successful artist, her mother was the first female civil engineer in California, and her mother was one of the founders of the Humane Society. My great-great-grandmother left Bohemia at 19 to build a life for herself in New York City. Many of my ancestors were outliers, and I’ve since learned that several of them probably had traits of Asperger’s. They taught me resilience, optimism, and how to think differently.

These women inspired me to dream big. Despite their accomplishments, they always put family first. My grandmother adored Ronald Reagan, and even though I come from a line of intelligent, powerful women, they held traditional values, believed in their daughters, and cherished family. I wanted to pass that on. A daughter is your legacy—and I wanted seven.

As I watched feminism take root in my generation, I saw it corrupt many of my friends. They believed they couldn’t live fulfilling lives if they were “slaves” to children. But I’m so thankful I never bought into those lies. By the time I was 35, I was living my dream—I had seven daughters! And I didn’t stop there.

Motherhood is such a beautiful, life-giving gift, and I believe we need to encourage our daughters to embrace their own unique gifts, talents, purpose, and the joy of being mothers too.

If you are dreaming of forging a legacy of strength in your daughter, this is a valuable tool:

The Introvert and The Extrovert Within Me | How They BOTH Prepared Me For Stepping Into My Calling

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

I’ve always given the introvert in me a lot of attention and respect. She has asked for many things over the years, and when she doesn’t get her way she has a fit, her brain melts, her attitude is rotten, she is easily distracted, noisy, and becomes a nuisance. For years she made the rules for example, she warned me: “If you participate in two public events in a row, you better give me two days of rest, research, relaxation, time for hobbies, long quiet times, quiet walks, and opportunities for conversation without conflict or drama.”

She would boss the extrovert in me around, and make her sit quietly with art supplies and large stacks of books by a sunny window with beautiful music playing in the background, interrupted only by well behaved and precious children, who just want to cuddle up with books and kittens.

The introvert in me is a strong woman who loves to bring order out of chaos, and she’s great at delegating all the busywork to everyone else. She’s also the girl that orders salads and says no to cheesecake. She doesn’t like driving much, and feels her best when she’s by a warm fire crocheting afghans and listening to Ted Talks. She sees what the world should be, and constantly ponders how to make it so. She’s patient and wants to be well prepared for whatever comes her way, seeking to control whatever comes her way, creating the future she envisions, at the heart of her home, welcoming others in, but hesitant to venture out. She is pained by the disorder and opts for her comfort zone where she dreams up alternative worlds.

She’s gone. Did she starved to death a couple weeks ago? Maybe she hibernated and I haven’t heard from her since. She’s no longer fighting for her quiet, space, focus and thinking time. What happened to her? Six weeks ago I answered my life’s calling and stepped out of my comfort zone, and she simply didn’t come with me.

Maybe she just couldn’t stand the risk taking, all the people, the excitement, the collaboration, the long hours on the road, the purposeful yet hard work. She remains silent as the active and busy extrovert who has such a strong sense of urgency and calling, takes a stand. Why is she silent? She used to fight to pour over her books or crochet endless blankets so she could keep her hands busy, busy, busy, while she thinks, thinks and thinks.

The introvert had so many things to study, research and think about that she was driven to carve out that individual time for personal growth and vision development. But something happened. There was a calling and the extrovert answered it. She got up an incredible amount of courage to say yes to a dream she had been pushing down year after year. The extrovert stuck the sourdough starter in the fridge and got to work, like the sky was falling and she had to help prop it up.

So, the extrovert pops awake at 6am and dives into the day, she has a calendar, she makes her own coffee, and she still makes time for conversations with the King of Kings, who called her. She is focused on His calling and that calling isn’t one she can pursue from the comfort of home. She no longer fears failure, risk, loss, or the unknown. She just feels pulled into the hope of a calling. The one the introvert had been researching all these years.

She has boundless energy and suddenly looks forward to connecting with her team for a couple hours each morning, and then she smiles and laughs with the tribe of kids who are happily sleeping in on weekdays and starting late on breakfast, school, work and chores. She is just as good at delegating as the introvert, but has total different goals.

The introvert was delegating so many things just to free herself up to make time for reflection, relaxation and research. The extrovert delegates too, but to support her purpose and vision in doing the work to reach the world. The extrovert isn’t as addicted to comfy clothing, and cares a little more about her style, she doesn’t mind driving, in fact last week she took me on a five city tour, and hosted a birthday party after arriving home. The extrovert doesn’t just delegate to go off alone, she brings her family with her into the calling, and they thrive.

The extrovert appreciates the world the introvert so thoughtfully created, but she’s doing a terrible job keeping it up to the same standards. Yet she is so productive that she’s finding ways to outsource the things she has no time for. The extrovert is courageous, she loves getting to the next place on time without rushing the moment. She is focusing on one thing at a time, she is people centered, and awake, and aware of everything but the voice of the introvert who once ruled her world.

The extrovert didn’t even notice the introvert was gone, until the weekend came and there was a day with nothing on the schedule.

She felt unsatisfied for a moment, not knowing what to do. She looked at the yarn basket, the bookshelf, and the pile of clothing waiting to be folded up and put away; she thought about her sourdough starter. And then she ordered Chinese food, rounded up a ton of her kids and had lunch. After that she told the kids to clean their rooms and round up the livestock, that got out of their pasture. She no longer felt the need to relax, reflect and research by the fire.

And she paused, took a drive, and wondered how she ever overcame the pull of the introvert to protect four days of the week for reading, cooking, baking, studying, thinking, creating and crocheting? She stopped to think about it.

For the past 30 years the introvert with her insatiable thirst for focus and thought has been the dominant voice in the relationship, and now she has nothing to say, she’s not pitching a fit.

And now she speaks, and so softly she says “I worked all these years, building this platform, protecting your time, giving you focus so that you could study, learn, prepare and research while nurturing your family to maturity. I fought to keep you undistracted by all the opportunities out there so you could build up your character and knowledge. I knew your calling, and I knew that one day you would have to step outside your comfort zone to pursue it. I was determined to discipline you so that you would not lose your focus. You had a calling so great that that a foundation had to be built within the framework of a quiet life. Now that I have built this firm foundation all these years, I gracefully step aside and yield to my extrovert who has what it takes to bring this calling and vision into the world. And because this introvert knows how to be still, be quiet, and give way, you can step into the calling for which you were prepared.”

Sarah’s Mom Tip | Motivation of Love vs. Fear

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / 1 Comment

Life Skill # One: How to feel motivated by love and a desire to create and explore- rather than being motivated by the FEAR of mistakes and imperfection!

Everything about traditional schooling is FOCUSING on a child’s mistakes and judging them by every little thing they do wrong instead of the many things they do right.

Success and happiness in schooling is based on getting nothing wrong. So kids grow up thinking that a mistake is a sign of failure.

Kids should be free to make mistakes in the process of mastering skills and studying academics. WHY? Because learning to work through life without being a PERFECTIONIST is one of the most needed skills!!!

How many of us think we will never be good enough?

Why are we hyper-focused on our own small shortcomings?

Why are we always obsessed with those three things we got wrong in a day instead of the 1,000 things we got right??? Yeah that time you yelled at your kid on Christmas Day!!!! But it’s really not a big deal!!! Look at all those beautiful moments you shared and those memories YOU created and all the love you poured into each gift under the tree!

So what’s going on here?

In school kids learn to make their lives revolve around perfectionism and fear of failure… or we just give up and believe that we will never be enough.

Please, don’t give in to this style of raising and educating children!!!

This is why Fun-Schoolers thrive! Fun-Schoolers are free, confident, creative, optimistic and comfortable with TRYING and TRYING again. Fun-Schoolers create journals and portfolios that show their progress and illustrate their personalities and passions. When your kids are fun-schooling they learn through real life skill building.

If you are afraid you will never measure up, if you are always focused on the shortcomings of the people you love, if you think that mistakes represent failures- you need to let go of all that pressure you grew up with when someone (everyone) tried to standardize YOU and put you in a box called “perfect”.

Try to rethink your own perspective on what is “good enough” but being grateful for the way you did 1000 things well yesterday, even it you flubbed up 5 or 10 times!!!! You were amazing! Move on from the failure mindset and embrace GRACE for yourself and your kids. And your spouse too!!!!

You can start the new year with NEW EYES that see the 1000 good things instead of those few faults… in yourself and in your world.

You are going to be okay. And I’m ready sorry that the stupid education system you grew up in told you you will never be good enough! It’s not true. You are a gift, a blessing, a treasure, you are worthy of love and what you do us good enough!

Sarah’s Tips for Reducing Stress, Media, and Clutter

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / 1 Comment

I would love to encourage those of you who are feeling stressed as parents to get down to the root of the problem. What is keeping you from enjoying a peaceful home, heart and homeschooling experience? What are some simple changes you can make to reset and relax?

Please share steps you are taking or have taken in your life to reduce stress, media and clutter, to be more intentional in your life. Here are my discoveries:

1. I feel like a lot of families are stressed because too much media has crept into our lives. We need more time in face to face conversations, more time enjoying nature, reading and play.

2. When it comes to social media for example- I’ve learned to skip the newsfeed, and stop mindless scrolling and go directly to the groups I enjoy connecting with – to have meaningful conversations like this one.

3. When it comes to TV and movies, there’s a password, none of the kids can access the TV without permission and help. And there is only one TV in the house that is off almost all the time. For 18 years of our marriage we had no TV at all. Now we use it for family movie nights and educational group learning.

4. When it comes to activities that require driving kids around – it’s usually not happening. We are choosing a home centered life, and if I’m driving kids somewhere it’s with purpose and is usually an activity for the whole family or multiple siblings. We make our home the destination of fun for all the kids friends and leave it up to them to find transportation if they need it. Where there’s a will there’s a way.

5. When it comes to food, it’s not fast – it’s slow. We slow down and treat cooking and baking like a hobby, and we eat meals together, sitting down, at a table and we talk. Our bodies need nutrition and connection- meal time should include both.

6. We simply school by letting go of standardization and focus on learning about the things our kids are passionate about, we go deep into their career goals, hobbies, and interests- they learn to research!

7. Homeschooling looks a lot like living life to the fullest, it’s immersion into the real world to learn how to interact with the real world. Kids in a classroom learn to be kids in a classroom, they learn to be students, and perhaps they can successfully apply that learning to becoming an employee, but children are not designed to sit still and be quiet. Kids are designed to explore and ask questions! Typical classroom learning ignores the very basic design of how children are wired to learn through discovery and play.

8. Scrapbooking, Journaling and Researching with Fun-Schooling Books helps my kids to dig deep into their passions while learning about many other related and relevant subjects. Fun-Schooling is a method of learning that is more like the way adults would choose to learn in real life, where there are no multiple choice quizzes or answer keys. In real life we learn things because we need to know something, or we desire to know something. That’s all.

9. When things seem out of control and life feels stressful we have some go-to methods to help reset. When we need a brain reset I often get out Dyslexia Games or Brain Games. Taking a walk or sending the kids outside to play is also an excellent way to reset the atmosphere in the home. Turning off media is a big first step, and turning to a cup of tea and a fun-schooling basket full of books about our current passions is also a great way you can focus on peace and embrace joy in life and learning.

10. A child’s life should revolve around free play in an environment that offers a safe place for unlimited creativity and imagination. The outdoors can’t be beat! A Lego table or designated art space is a wonderful indoor option. As kids get older play begins to involve specific hobbies, and leads to mastery of skills. Kids who become addicted to screens and gaming might miss out on the beauty of childhood. They end up just wanting to be entertained and may loose their natural creativity and curiosity.

11. Get lost in a book or in a forest, I promise you will find your way out. Wander! Explore! Let yourself just enjoy the simple things of life.

12. Take time to reboot your relationship with your family members and your devices:

Put everyone’s devices on a countertop, and focus on your family instead. Try to remember who you are and what you really wanted in life. A couple days ago we did this. Everyone put their devices on a table in the hallway for the day. They were free to use them, but not go out of the hallway. Going to a central location to be on our phones makes us more intentional. Our devices separate us from everyone else in the house because each device is designed for one person only, is this what we really wanted?

What are some ideas that you have incorporated into your life to be more intentional and peaceful?

Parenting Teens is a Delight for Me. Yes, Really!!!

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / 1 Comment

I have a really fun and peaceful relationship with my adult kids and my teens. They love spending time with our family and come to me for advice and ideas. I believe a lot of this success is attributed to the fact that our parenting style was not stagnant- it grew and changed with our kids.

When your children are little babies and toddlers the role of the parent is a lot like a “Lifeguard”. Your job is to keep them alive because they can’t survive without your constant care and intervention. They have not developed their own logic or understanding of danger. Of course you are so much more then a lifeguard in this season- but if you are not fulfilling the role of lifeguard the consequences can be devastating.

When your children are growing beyond preschool stage, and before they hit the tweens the role of parents is no longer lifeguard but often you find it necessary to play the part of “Law Enforcement” and “public safety”. You are teaching them about boundaries, behavior, rules, and providing consequences when they test the limits. You are making sure they don’t get caught up into habits of lying, stealing, sneaking, and going into dangerous situations that they are unaware of. You are choosing friend groups for them and keeping them out of trouble. You are so much more than police-mom, but if you don’t informed healthy boundaries at this point the consequences can be devastating.

Once they reach the tweens they usually know the rules, they are developing character, they have tested the basic boundaries and are ready to get in the game! They are really for responsibilities, and new freedoms! They have built relational skills, learning skills, life skills under the supervision and guidance of the parents and now they no longer need mom and dad to be the police.

At this age they need a “Coach”. This is when life with your growing kids gets fun! It’s about empowering them to become who they were meant to be, while you give them encouragement, support, and fair discipline- taking them out of the game and having meaningful talks on the bench when they abuse their freedom or display immaturity – losing privileges until they prove they are ready to play fair.

Thanks to your coaching, your young teens now begin to understand who they are, where they are going and what they want in life! Once again the parent and child relationship changes. If you stay in the lifeguard stage or police-mom mode when your preteen needs a coach, and you don’t listen and given them the attention they need as they navigate these transitional stages the consequences can be devastating. It’s tempting to try at this point to be a bigger tougher police-mom – but that’s not going to benefit anyone.

You now become an “Mentor” helping them to evaluate their options, and giving them wise advice to help them grow into adults. You model for them what life looks like in the real world and teach them how to operate in it by your side.

You intentionally create time and space for open communication and take time to listen and speak into their lives. You are proactive and available, and your kids know that you will hold them accountable, and be there supporting and encouraging them as they prepare to launch. You intentionally give them more and more freedom, space, responsibility and ownership of their own path.

You are no longer the lifeguard, the police-mom, or even the coach – your relationship with your child is becoming one built on mutual respect, as they get older – though the parent still has the authority to pull the plug or take away the keys if the child abuses their freedom or engages in stupid and dangerous behaviors. Mom is still the boss, but your goal is to teach them to be their own boss. In general they should have a peaceful growing happy relationship with the parents who no longer treat them like babies or little kids. If they are constantly resisting and avoiding you- it’s probably cause you are stuck in a parenting style better suited to little kids. Grow up, and they will too. When they feel trusted and respected they will shine. But that doesn’t mean to throw them to the wolves, allow them to hang out with gangs, or give them unlimited time with an unlocked phone.

Once your kids are declared “adults” you no longer have a place of legal authority or obligation. If your kids grew up feeling like mom and dad were just playing police year after year, they are going to get out and avoid contact, because they finally have freedom, and that means freedom from your aggressive parenting style. If you were a good coach and a kind advisor in the tween and teen years you will have a new role in your relationship with your adult kids… they will seek you out as a trusted “Consultant” they will come back to you on their own terms, when they need advice, help, guidance and support. The relationship becomes one that looks friendship between two adults who care deeply about eachother, where the younger respects and honors the older, and values their advice and support.

If you think back on your relationship with your own parents, if your relationship with them was struggle and still is, there is a good chance they never outgrew one parenting style or another as you grew up, and you always felt like you were being controlled, policed or not trusted… and maybe you wanted out. Maybe they were helicopter parenting who constantly swooped into rescue mode, when you needed to learn how to handle your own problems. Maybe they didn’t take on a role of protector or guide at all, maybe they were so focused on their busy lives that they expected you to make it on your own, maybe they were too permissive and failed to provide boundaries from a young age, leaving you to fend for yourself.

Whatever the issues might be, you are a parent who cares deeply enough to homeschool and you were willing to sacrifice so much to do this! You want to create a safe and vibrant environment for them to grow, and as you do- don’t forget to grow too.

Are your kids struggling with their relationship with you? Maybe it’s time to quit the police role and start parenting more like a coach. Maybe they need a mentor, not a lifeguards.

What parenting phase are you stuck in?

(Just a quick note, as I wrote this post I was mostly thinking about my relationship with the children born into my home, and the stages of parenting that began in the early days of childhood. I also am parenting five kids who came to our family five years ago after experiencing unspeakable abuse and abandonment, along with five years in a government run orphanage in Ukraine. Parenting kids with trauma is a whole different thing. I have shared a bit about that here and in a podcast with Durenda Wilson. )

Mom of 15: I Followed My Passions and Discovered This…

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

Before the kids came along, I considered myself an artist, a writer, and a traveler. I was filling my life with art, creativity, and wonder. I used to travel Europe selling jewelry and art to fund my passions.

After becoming a mother, my passion became my children. Around 3 years into motherhood, I began to remember how much I loved art and poetry. I started to add a few of my passions back into my life. My husband started working four days a week. I took Fridays to dive back into my passions.

I began reading, writing, and small art projects. I purchased paintbrushes and acrylic paint and covered my home with murals. That turned into a small business decorating other’s homes. Then I started teaching moms homemaking, homesteading, and creative skills. We let our little ones play while we learned together.

There was one thing I didn’t do lots and lots of moms my age were doing. Spending time on TV and the Internet. I found when you have little kids, you’re going to be exhausted. The default can be turning on a show and putting them in front of a TV. We didn’t have a TV so that was never an option. I didn’t want that to be the example I set for my kids of adulthood. As parents, we are our children’s greatest teachers. The life we model for them is what their perception of adulthood is. Do we really want them to think being an adult is about working so much you’re exhausted and then starting at a screen watching other people live their lives the rest of the time?

As my kids reached school age, I started customizing their education around their passions. They take their passions seriously and become experts in their fields of interest. All of my kids start businesses in their early teens. Creativity and beauty has kept my children from becoming addicted to screens and technology.

Well-meaning family and friends have expressed concern my kids are missing out on aspects of “standardized” education. Yet my children have skills and talents kids in traditional school don’t have or have to wait until their 20s, 30s, or 40s to develop. I let them let go of things that are irrelevant and they’ll never need to know.

When a child’s education revolves around what they love, there’s no struggle or fight.

Our modern day workforce is all about skills, talents, and ability more than degrees and head knowledge. My children will be able to have specialized careers in their fields of passion. They’ve been studying since they were young and most of my children are making their own income before they ever move out as legal adults.

The way I raise my children looks very different from what you would see in a schoolroom because the childhood happening in our house looked like a lot of fun, adventure, exploring, creating, community, and more. Everyone is contributing their own gifts.

This is all because I set the model for them of pursuing my passions and letting it fuel my actions and career path. I want my children to look at the model I set of adulthood and be excited.

Today I have 15 children age 8-24. I delight in my teens and we have so much fun together. You have one life to live and it shouldn’t be boring. This is what I want my children to know and how I want their education to look. What about you?

Find my whole talk on this subject in the video below. And subscribe to my YouTube channel for more videos like this.

Get a FREE Mom School bundle so you can dive into your passions.

Buy 2, get 1 free Mom-Schooling Bundles with the promo code B2G1MomSchoolBundles at https://www.funschooling.com/mom-school

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Sarah’s Mom Tips – Choosing a Major & Why 13 Is the Magic Number
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One Day There Was A Mom

One Day There Was A Mom

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

One day, there was a young mom with eight children under ten years old, she was serving as a town council Vice President and was organizing festivals for Main Street. Homeschooling the kids and always searching for strategies to help her struggle learners to thrive, and to help her struggling neighbors to become a community, and helping at church and building her home-based ministries. She contributed to the family income by teaching classes every weekend for IUPUI. She cooked a feast every night. She was helping to run a farm store and all her children were starting their own businesses… she was up at night with a nursing baby and had a car seat under her desk at town hall.

And everything she did was fueled by self care and a little time at the feet of Jesus.

She made an effort to carve out time to recharge and to put her own passions and creativity on a pedestal, to always start and end her days with a time of focus on the things that brought her joy. One day she had realized that she was awake for over 16 hours a day and it was no crime to take one or two of those hours each day to focus on filling her own heart, and investing in her own needs, passions and pursuits. She gave 14 hours away to everyone and everything else, but held precious her space to thrive.

Some people send a message that mothers should never for a moment put themselves first, never for a moment do one thing for the joy of it… if there is a dish in the sink or laundry to be done. She learned to let the children entertain themselves, she helped her husband understand that if he didn’t give her a break she would have no energy for him at the end of the day, so she stopped listening to the voice of guilt and picked up a paint brush, a crochet hook, and a good book. As the children grew, her talents and hobbies developed and grew as well.

She was an example to her children of a parent who didn’t loose herself to parenting.

As her hobbies grew along side her children they became so well developed that they eventually became an income source that allowed her husband to become a stay-at-home dad who could focus on his own calling to serve others on the mission field, in the community, and be at home with the children. All the children were thriving so they had another baby and adopted five more kids.

The family didn’t thrive because she sacrificed everything to meet the needs and demands of others, the family thrived because she knew how to fill her own tank, and she knew of to give herself rest and space to be who she was meant to be, and by taking care of herself she was able to accomplish so many more things for others than she would if she lost herself to motherhood. She would tell you that there is nothing more precious to her than her family, but she knows that a family thrives when the mother thrives. And by the grace of God, and through the compassion and encouragement of a loving husband she took care of herself too.

When all my kids were little I used 49cent craft paints from Walmart and a couple of cheap paintbrushes to over our walls with murals…