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Everyday Rozanne Dioso Lopez wakes up to her dream life. She is a homeschooling mom to 5 children ages 19, 14, 12, 10, and 8. Rozanne and her husband live in an off grid container home in Costa Rica with their 4 kids and 2 puppies. Her oldest daughter is world-schooling on her own. She is a big fan of slow learning and slow living.

Homeschooling Wasn’t Always On The Radar

Homeschooling wasn’t always on the radar. Her oldest daughter had stopped reading around age 11 or 12. She became really concerned about grades, the life of middle school, and was slowly pulling away from family. A friend recommended the book Hold Onto Your Kids to Rozanne and she read it in one night.

She remembers from that time everyone everyone telling her to ‘let go.’ People told her that her daughter was just coming to ‘that age.’ But that didn’t feel right to Rozanne. Her intuition told her the opposite. It told her to get more involved in her daughter’s life.

At the time, her 2nd and 3rd children were attending a Waldorf School. The youngest were newborn and 2. Rozanne was volunteering, living the busy mom lifestyle, had 5 kids, and was burning out. Her friend suggested homeschool as a lifestyle to slow down and get better connected with family.

She knew they had to make a change.

It wasn’t about school. She felt life didn’t feel natural — the nonstop rush just wasn’t right. They felt they had to figure it out together, as a family. Rozanne feels that any big life choices come from questions like, “What is going on with us? Why isn’t this working for us? What do we want to envision?”

Ask yourself what the best day looks like for your family, then take one step at a time to get there. Ask yourself what’s important to you. After asking those questions it started a change in their philosophy of living. Why wait? They realized that they can create whatever they want, even if it’s waking up grateful for today.

Homeschooling Is Integrated Into Their Life and Belief System

Rozanne feels a responsibility to go on her own journey and for them (her kids) to see it. They are witnesses to her and her mirror, so she can’t not work on herself.

Now she sees her oldest daughter building self awareness.

He daughter actually did not like homeschooling in the beginning. She missed her friends from school and she felt like the odd one out at homeschool gatherings because she was usually the oldest.

But Rozanne believed in it. She felt that her connection with reading was lost. So for the first year of homeschooling her oldest read and quilted. They jumped into homeschooling not really defining what they wanted to do.

In grade 8 her oldest decided to go to a democratic school, then a sports school, and then for rest of high school she unschooled. Her daughter worked, volunteered, travelled, and Rozanne would slip in things to read and make connections for her with people that were mentors. She became the bridge for the outside world.

Rozanne asked, “What is good for this child at this developmental stage?” She nurtured her daughter’s interests. Rozanne doesn’t like to get caught up in labels. But she is very discerning about the things she exposes her children to. She wants to keep them in the magic of childhood for as long as possible, and to practice using their voice in a safe environment. She nurtures a space for them to incubate and grow. She protects the flame they were born with until they know how to keep their own fire.

Slow Living, Slow Learning

Today, they live off grid in the jungle. They have no electricity in their home in Costa Rica. This completely changed their rhythm. How do they ground themselves in a certain rhythm wherever they are and flow with it? Homeschooling has been about teaching and demonstrating skills that wherever they are they can draw upon it.

Their family defines learning for themselves and believe they always have the choice. They can always make the choice to change their life and create anew. They followed their intuition with their children. Now they already see the results with their oldest who knows and lives the power of choice.

Rozanne is an advocate of slow learning and slow living. This has been a wonderful way to learn at home. She felt there was a race she was always running before this move.

Living in Costa Rica has slowed down their life enough for these opportunities to show up. For example, they have high quality sleep, which enhances their health.

Rozanne is open about financial mistakes they made, debt they created, and working a lot. Then timing worked for them and they took risks. The Toronto real estate market was hot, which allowed them an opportunity to sell, make profit, then leap. In Costa Rica her husband works online, they homeschool and have sold the majority of their things in Toronto. She documents their journey and shares what they learn on her blog.

Rozanne also runs workshops on authentic self care and supports other parents in their homeschool journey.