Homeschool Conventions: Speakers

Planning for the FPEA Homeschool Convention

If you've been around the blog for a while you know that I attend our annual homeschool conference every year. It is a weekend that I need to be able to continue homeschooling year after year. It is difficult to homeschool children, especially in a large family. It is even more difficult when all four of the children you are schooling have ADHD and are dyslexic. Each year I start with new shiny books, a great plan that has been refined accounting for the previous years' rough spots, and a joyful eagerness for the new year. Unfortunately all too soon, school feels like the doldrums and my crew is murmuring about mutiny. By the end of the year, I am wore out and asking myself if I really want to put myself through this for another year. I wonder if I am failing as a parent and educator, and if I should just enroll them in school. Though we've learned so much, I can't help but agonize over their troublesome areas. The solution is a homeschool convention.

...the truth is that good things are hard and hard things are good... -Todd Wilson

Todd Wilson is fond of reminding us that good things are hard. Parenting, homeschooling, marriage all these things take hard work, but they end up being some of the best things in life.

Anything worth doing is worth the hard work that goes with it. Homeschooling conventions remind us of that, while giving us the tools and techniques to do it better.

One of the best ways to both be encouraged and learn about new tools and techniques is through the speakers. This is where I always start my planning. This year I took several hours last Friday to sit and plan out which seminars we would catch. This process is a little more complicated than when I first blogged about this two years ago because now I am planning speakers for the kids as well as myself.

As usual my sessions revolve around neurodivergent kids and homeschooling high schoolers. With only two years left in Britt and Ruth's high school year, unless I can convince them to wait another year to graduate, I need to be honed in on the best ways to make use of the time they have left and how to set them up for a trade or college. So in addition to the keynote speakers, Gary and I are planning on the following sessions:

• The Difference Between Schooling and Education

• Executive Function Junction: Helping your Child to Become the Conductor of Their Own Learning

• for Gary - Help! I'm Married to a Homeschooling Mom

• for me - The Emotion Commotion: Finding Peace Amid Anger, Anxiety, and Grumbling in Your Homeschool

• What's My Role As a Parent After Graduation

• Latest Family Empowerment Scholarship for Students with Unique Abilities

• Managing a Full House: Homeschooling Multiple Ages Like a Pro

• Get off the Couch: Helping Kids Become Disciplined Workers

• Build an Amazing Transcript

Once our kids start taking high school classes, they get to come along with us to the homeschool convention. It is definitely the point when they need to have more say so in their education. They look through materials and help to chose their own classes, and start to consider what it is that they are interested in. While I've always believed in interest lead learning, in high school that goes from them picking a subject and me finding materials to them really owning the process of planning out the next four years and where they want to go. Rebecca is coming with us for the first time this year, and while she is young still to be thinking about these topics, she is taking high school classes and it is time to get her more involved. The kids have a phone, and stay together with regular check-ins with us. However, they get their own sessions and time in the Convention Hall. This year that means they will be attending sessions that I chose on preparing for life after high school, and one that they chose about writing:

• From Confusion too Clarity Helping Students Find Career Direction

• Executive Function Junction: Helping Your Child to Become the Conductor of Their Own Learning

• The Degree Free Way: How to Help Your Teens Build the Life They Want

• Ace Any Standardized Test and Get Free College

• So You Want to Be a Novelist? Storytelling Techniques that Go Beyond the Basics

Additionally, Britt and Gary are going to a session geared for fathers and sons called Becoming Warrior Poets, while the girls and I roam the Convention Hall. While looking at individual improvement we are also looking forward to some bonding time with the big kids. We all have a mix of work and fun mixed in along with time for exploring the Convention Hall. Some of our sessions are with favorite speakers such as Todd Wilson, he is always informative, incredibly uplifting, and downright funny. Others are with speakers that are new to us such as Israel Wayne. But all of them hold the promise of helping us grow and improving our school year.

Now I'm off to finish my planning for the FPEA Homeschool Convention that's starting tonight. Maybe I'll see you there.