 Hey everybody, welcome to Wallach Way. I'm Jessica. And today's video is about homeschool mission statements. Now, if you're new to homeschool, you might be thinking what is the mission statement or maybe you're a homeschool veteran and you're thinking I've been homeschooling all this time without one, why do I need one? Because that was me, you guys. I homeschooled for two years before ever writing down my why or my mission statement or my vision statement or whatever it is you wanna call it. And it's funny because I would be the first one to tell you not to do that. But we did not set out to homeschool. I didn't say we're gonna homeschool. We kind of did it in preschool because I just wasn't ready to let go of my little bitty premature four-year-old. And she was my rainbow baby and I was like the idea of her being gone was just too much. And so we did it for preschool. But I had every intention then of sending her to public school the following year. So I didn't need that. And then when we decided to homeschool for kindergarten anyway, because it was working for our family, I still didn't need it because what we were doing was working. So why did I need this mission or this vision statement? Even though every video I watched and every book I read was like, you need to know your why. You need a mission or vision statement. I didn't see the value in it at that point. And so I didn't write one. We just kept doing what we were doing and we kept doing what was working until it wasn't working anymore because then that's when there were problems. And I was like, hmm, I bet this is why you're supposed to have your why or your mission or your vision statement. Because when things quit working, you kind of need to know what your goal is. Like what is your end game? What is it you want out of this? And especially the older Emily has gotten and the more intense homeschool has gotten, I find myself coming back to that mission statement more and more, sometimes on a daily basis, sometimes on a monthly basis. Sometimes I don't need to reference it except once a year. But it's really, really nice to have it because it really helps guide our learning. It helps guide the resources I bring into our homeschool. It helps guide the routine that I make for our homeschool. It helps guide our days, our weeks, our months, our homeschool years. It really helps set the tone for everything. And so looking back, I wish we had done it sooner. I wish I had had my why or my mission or vision statement from the beginning, but I didn't. Instead, we waited until about halfway through our second year, maybe even the end of our second year. Like I said, when things quit working and Kevin and I sat down together and we started trying to figure out what we wanted for our homeschool long-term. I'm not talking about we want her to know her ABCs in her one, two, threes. I'm talking big picture. Like when she leaves our house in our homeschool, when she's done, what was our goal? What did we want for her? And the more we kept bouncing things back and forth off of each other, it was like at the end of the day, we really didn't care if she had educational gaps, if she knew everything there was to know because let's be honest, that's an impossible goal. You cannot teach your kids everything there is to know and they're gonna have educational gaps no matter what. There was no specific things that we wanted her to learn. Like, for example, Kevin and I were turned to college after Emily was born and we were both able to learn everything we needed to learn because it was important to us at the time because it was either interesting to us or important to us that we did it. And so even though we had been out of school 10 years for me and 30 years for him, there was nothing that we weren't able to figure out and learn and so it was like, okay, there's not one thing that we need to make sure she knows. Like, algebra wasn't at the top of our list because it's like, you'll learn it when you need it, right? But what we kept coming back to was that we really wanted her to be somebody who learned throughout her entire life, just like we had returning to college later in life. We wanted her to keep learning, whether that was college or hobbies or for a new job or whatever. We wanted her to continue to learn throughout her entire life and we really wanted her to be able to reflect on her homeschool years in a positive light. And by positive light, we wanted it to be that she reminisced in a way that was like, I really enjoyed that and we did it together as a family. And so when we looked forward to like that's what we wanted for her, it was easy to come up with what our mission statement is now. The homeschool mission statement that we finally wrote after a lot of revision is to instill a love of lifelong learning while prioritizing relationships and connections. So now that I have that mission statement, every time I wanted to buy a new curriculum or a new book or a new game or whatever it was, I could hold it up against that mission statement and say, is this new math workbook, because that's always what it is, is math, right? Is this new math workbook going to help her be a lifelong learner and prioritize relationships and connections? No, it is not. She's not gonna want to learn this. It's not gonna encourage her to continue learning throughout her life. And I promise you, it's not gonna prioritize our relationship and connection because it's probably going to create meltdowns and tears and one of the two of us raising our voices. Therefore, don't buy the workbook. Now that doesn't mean that I don't still have times that I'm like, oops, and I do something that I regret, but it makes it easier. I have something to reflect upon, right? I can look at it and say, nope, this isn't meeting my end goal. Or in times that I'm freaking out and I'm freaking out over the fact that she can't spell supercalifragilistic espalodosis. I can go, okay, but was this really important to me? Does it matter that she can't spell this? No, because she still loves learning. She's going to be somebody who loves learning for the rest of her life because she is really enjoying it and it's something that she hasn't found cumbersome. And we're prioritizing our relationships and connections by playing games for spelling instead of doing this whatever curriculum that she doesn't find interesting and is boring and who really cares if she can spell supercalifragilistic espalodosis. I don't know how to spell it and I don't care if she does. And so that's what it was able to do for us. Your mission statement or vision statement or your why might look completely different than mine and that's okay. Yours might be a bullet list of academic things that you really, really want your child to know when they leave your house and that's fine. Yours might not be a list of what you want but it might be a list of what you don't want. Like I don't want tears to ensue and I don't want this or this or this. It can look like whatever you want it to look like but the point is it's important to have one because it really helps to guide your learning and it helps you know what is better for your homeschool, what's not great for your homeschool and it gives you something to hold it up against. And so I really, really encourage you if you haven't yet, even if you've been homeschooling for five, six, seven years to sit down and come up with your why or your mission or your vision statement for your homeschool. And it will say the thing that helped me do that the most was I believe it was in a podcast Sarah McKenzie did and she said what she really thought about was all of her kids sitting around their dinner table 20, 30 years from now, right? With their spouses and they're just like they're talking about homeschool. What is it you want your child to say when they're reflecting back on those years of their time at home? Do you want them to say we completed the math workbook every single year excitedly about it? Okay, so then write that down in your mission statement. I wanna create a homeschool where we finish the math workbook every single year. And do you want them to say we had so much fun, we did so many field trips then write that down. I wanna create a homeschool where we go on field trips every chance we get. And then if that's your mission statement every time a field trip comes up you're not going to feel guilty that you're leaving the book work at home because you're gonna be able to come back to that mission statement and go, you know what? I wanted a homeschool where this is what we did. And so it's gonna help you let go of that guilt and just leave it, right? Like because you wanted that you wanted a homeschool where you were going on field trips more often. Do you want your kids to be sitting around the dining room table and say we had so much fun. It was not even like school at all. Like it wasn't even like we were doing school. We had a blast. It was the best. If that's what you want from your child or your children then that is what needs to be created and your mission statement. We are going to create a homeschool where it doesn't feel like school at all and it's tons of fun. In that case when it comes time for back to school which I feel like is when we're all very susceptible to bringing resources and curriculum and things into our homeschool that do not fit our mission or vision for our homeschool, you can hold it up. Is this curriculum going to do this? No, it's not. Maybe instead of spending the $150 on this curriculum I could spend $150 on something that they would find more fun. Maybe that's games. Maybe that's field trips. Maybe that's experiences. But it really is going to help you create the homeschool that you want by holding everything up to this one mission or vision statement that you have for your homeschool. So I really hope that you guys found that helpful. And I would love it if you would leave your mission or vision statements in the comments if you have one because I love reading how other people are homeschooling and what kind of their visions are for their homeschool because I know that we all have very, very different visions. Like I said, yours may be completely different. It may be a list of things you don't wanna do. It may be a list of things you definitely wanna do. It may be really, really vague. It may be a paragraph. It may be two words. I would really, really love for us to just see a lot of different vision and mission statements so that we can see that there's not one right way to homeschool and that we're all homeschooling for a unique way that fits our family.