How Do I Inspire Them?

I’ve always loved to read. To me, reading was like magic. It opened the world to me. When we decided we were going to homeschool our children, I was ecstatic about sharing my love of reading with them. But it hasn’t always worked out that way.

There is a saying in certain homeschool circles, “Inspire not require.” As a natural born student and a life long learner, this made perfect sense to me. But no one explained to me how to do it. When my daughter would rather draw or play outside than do math, I feel torn. Because my brain says “She can’t just go through life only doing what she wants.” and my heart dies a little at ever telling a child they can’t create or explore.

I keep hoping that we’ll find the right book and suddenly the light will come on and she will love the written word. So far she loves audio books and graphic novels. I read articles about which books are the best for reluctant readers. I find every decent graphic novel adaptation of classic books.

How do you inspire someone? The people who have inspired me most were mostly just being themselves and doing what they love most. So I will read to her, talk to her about reading and let her see me reading. Hopefully she’ll get the message.