I hear this worry a lot. Every time I open the Q&A box on Instagram or Facebook, it comes through strongly—bubbling up from that deep pool of doubt we all find ourselves wading through from time to time. So today, I want to break this down, because these thoughts can really muddle you up if left unchecked.
My advice? NAME THEM.
Step back and take a good, hard look at the thoughts swirling in your head. Name them. Give them definition. Often, our fears are scarier when they’re vague and shadowy. But when you drag them into the light, they become a lot less intimidating.
Step back, examine these thoughts and feelings as rationally as you can, and name them.
What do you really mean by ‘setting my children up to fail’?
What would failure actually look like for you? Draw a line forward, imagining your child as an 18 or 19-year-old. What would their life need to look like for you to feel that it’s a poor outcome?
Now flip it. What would success look like? What would their young adult life need to include for you to sit back and think, ‘I’ve done a good job of helping them make their way to this’?
Once you have these two end results in your mind—failure and success—start thinking about the paths that lead to each. Because that’s the key: it’s the pathway, not the one-off moments, that matter.
What choices can you make today, tomorrow, and in the months and years ahead that will help your child grow into a confident, capable adult? What things, or the absence of certain things, might steer them toward an outcome you’re not proud of?
So define failure. Make it specific. It’s much easier to fear something when it’s just a foggy ‘what if’. But when you know exactly what it is—when you lay it all out in front of you—your brain starts to work with you, rather than against you. You can rationalise it. You can process it. You can challenge it.
Then, do the same for success. What does success mean for your family, your child? Not what the world says success looks like, but what you think it looks like.
One of the traps we fall into is believing there’s a universal definition of failure and success, some kind of standard that we all have to measure up to. But there isn’t. Success and failure are incredibly personal, nuanced things. What one family considers a big thing, another might not even care about. And that’s okay. It’s better than okay—it’s necessary. Because when you know what your own definitions are, you stop comparing yourself to everyone else’s.
So, here’s your task: sit down and define what success and failure look like for your homeschooling journey. Be specific. Be honest. What would you be proud of when your child is an adult? What would you regret?
Once you’ve done that, you’ll have a clear target. And only when you have a target can you take aim.
If you're in this kind of headspace right now, I hope you find this helpful! And please just reach out any time if you want to bounce any of these thoughts and feelings around by email.
Talk soon,
Issy.