Remember you can outsource those uncomfortable questions kids ask you

Learning without fear keeps curiosity alive.

For a week now my six year old son has been ending our day asking about brains. Brain poking. Brain surgery. Brains in and out of bodies. I love that he's curious but I also feel my shoulders rise up into my ears. When he asks to see videos I know I'm not the right person to walk him through this topic. "Go ask your Dad."

That's the beauty of homeschooling. You can outsource any question to the person who is best suited to answer it. In this case I mean the person who won't introduce resistance or fears into the topic. Intellectual curiosity is a beautiful thing and I want to keep it alive and healthy in my children and in all the children of the world.

When I was in school in the 80's we didn't have computers. Now we do. This adds a great advantage to the homeschool family (or to a school family when kids ask about things outside of the curriculum). With research on the internet any adult can find resources to educate a child almost instantly.

Extinction.
How the bodies work.
Where do babies come from? (Check out birdsandbeesandkids.com)
War.
Calculus. ;)

Sometimes kids ask about a topic that you don't know how to navigate. But someone does.

Your partner. Your best friend from high school. Another homeschool parent in your community. Your family member who is a nurse. Your friend's friend who is a geologist.  

You'd be surprised how happy people are to help. People love to talk about the topics that interest them. People love to be asked about their expertise. And people love to feel a part of the bigger meaning of life. Answering an eager question from a interested child taps into some core, powerful feel-good stuff. 

People ask me, "How do you homeschool?" and I want to rephrase the question. "How do WE homeschool?"

Because it's not just me. It's me. It's my husband. It's the grandparents. It's the community around me–both our homeschool community and my hobby communities. It's all the educators on the internet who reach out with availability. It's our tutors. It's the teachers in the classes we sign up for. It's the volunteers at the Children's Museum and Zoo and Libraries. It's my friends from years and years ago and new ones from yesterday. It's my children themselves.

I get to choose which topics I will tackle with my kids, even if I'm not sure how to go about it. Even if it makes me uncomfortable. But that's a choice. It's a choice for you too. It's not just homeschooling. It's not just school-schooling. We have the world at our virtual fingertips. A world filled with helpful, intelligent, kind, skilled people.

Don't think you have to go it alone with any topic. You never do.

Especially when it's a topic you aren't sure you can handle with grace and you want your child to walk away from the conversation filled up not with fear or uncertainty, but with confidence and a continued love for learning.

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