EP 5: Stop Doing What's Not Working

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What if the real homeschool win isn't doing more, but knowing when

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Welcome to Homeschool How We do it, the podcast for curious

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or overwhelmed parents wondering if homeschooling could work for their family.

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I'm your host, Brittany. In this episode,

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longtime teacher and homeschool dad, Mr. Dave shares the mindset shift that

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can literally transform your everyday. Stop doing what's not working.

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Crazy, right? From reading breakthroughs to learning

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motivation and flexible systems to lifelong habits, we spoke about

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everything and how customizing education for each kid

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is the power move. There's so much packed into this episode.

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Let's get started.

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Hi there. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Happy to

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be here. For those who don't know, the focus of this podcast

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is really to encourage other families who might be thinking about

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homeschooling, or maybe they are homeschooling, but they're looking for some tips and tricks

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and just have the curiosity of how other people are doing it. And so,

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with that context kind of in mind, would you mind introducing yourselves?

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For sure, yeah. Well, I'm Dave, sometimes known as Mr.

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Dave for a long time. I taught at a private

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Christian high school in Winnipeg for 25 years.

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And during that time, our family was homeschooling,

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and we, yeah, we homeschooled right up until our kids were

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in grade. The end of grade eight. And then they came to

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the school where I was teaching for grades nine through 12, and it was a

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seamless, more or less seamless fit. They. They handled that

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very, very well, and they all did extremely well in the school setting

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afterwards. And they really liked the. The new opportunities of extracurricular

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stuff and sports teams and all those kind of things. So it was. It was

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a good fit for us to do it that way because I was there in

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the school and I could actually be part of things. And so I'm not sure

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that I would have done that if I wasn't part of a school,

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like a formal school setting. I think we might have homeschooled all the way to

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grade 12 then, in that case, but because I had some inside information about how

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the school was working, and I kind of knew that there were some good things

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happening there then I had some confidence and I knew my colleagues

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who are the other teachers. And so knowing your kids teachers is actually a really

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huge bonus when sending them to a school setting.

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So that's kind of how we did it. That's how it worked for us.

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And then following that, I. I shifted

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about four years ago and created Waterstone Academy. Which is

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my own little operation here. And I decided

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that, that what I was going to do was make

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all the resources that I have as a teacher available to the homeschool community.

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So my focus with Waterstone is to be a homeschool resource

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for various homeschool co ops. Just mostly what I'm doing, but also

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organizing individual activities and events and workshops with

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other homeschool groups all over the province. I've everywhere in the last four years have

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some fun with people in all kinds of different settings. And so that's kind of

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what I've been doing. And I think the, your, your in your

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intro, the idea of, of providing some encouragement to people who are

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thinking about homeschooling, I will provide that encouragement as well. I'll echo that.

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Absolutely. I think it's, it's an amazing way to do it.

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And for those who are always, you know. For who, for families who are

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looking for tips and tricks and just finding out how other people are doing

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it, as you said, that's what I think all homeschooling families

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are doing. They're constantly trying to find, how are other people doing

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this? What else can we change? Because it's infinitely customizable.

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And so parents who are into this really want to know

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what all their options are so they can pick the best one that suits their,

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their family's needs. So I think providing lots of options

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is great. Yeah, well, and I think it's, it's kind of the daunting task of

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it, though. Like the very thing that makes it so wonderful and powerful makes it

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feel like a big mountain to overcome. If you are trying to make all

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those tweaks and changes before getting started, like, there's something

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to be said for just getting your feet wet and diving in and then,

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oh, this isn't working, or I wish I could do this differently. And then you

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start asking those questions of others too, and then going, oh, I want to adopt

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that. Oh, I like that. Or this is definitely not working for us. And,

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and kind of going down that path. Absolutely. And that's normal. In fact,

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I think that's, that's kind of a life process. Right. Like,

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it's not just homeschooling, it's your career, it's, it's your hobbies,

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it's your family dynamics or whatever's going on.

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You always have the freedom to say, this isn't working. We're going to stop doing

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what's not working. We're going to try something else and see if it works better

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and if it does, you roll with it. And if it doesn't, you stop doing

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that thing that's not working. You try something else. And that you can do that

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as a homeschooling family. Of course you can. And the things that you discover

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work really, really well for one kid.

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You're gonna find out your kids are really different

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and you need to customize some things. Sometimes you gotta shift for

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another kid that's like, oh, that wasn't working for him. But this curriculum

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over here does. Or this experience really gets them going great.

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That's also the point of homeschooling. Customizing your

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education to as closely meet the needs

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of your kids as you can. And you can always pivot, you can

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always stop doing what doesn't work. Right in the middle of the week, you can

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stop. You don't have to even finish the page you're working on. You can say,

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this isn't working. We're deciding right now, let's try something else. And you keep

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trying things to. You land on stuff that works so good. That's,

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that's doing life and it's, it's modeling that for your kids too.

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They'll pick that up. Yes. Yeah. And well. And that's

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such a core part of that, I think we've found for us. We get to

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spend a lot of time with our kids, so we're getting to know them really

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well in a way that I think the teachers usually get to know your kid.

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And the teachers don't even have that much time to get to know your kid,

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but they're still with them for hours a day. And so they're picking that up.

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So you're getting that side for better or worse.

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But also. Yeah, that modeling, it's a huge, huge thing. They pick

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up the good and the bad. And so the more time you spend together,

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you are what they're mirroring.

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Which is challenging. And definitely, like, I think there's

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some growth that comes as a parent to homeschooling as well.

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Okay, let me share a statement with you. I've shared with lots

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of parents. I've had lots of opportunities in the last four years

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to connect with parents at various homeschool events and co ops

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and, and especially the co ops where it's very regular. I'm working with, with a

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couple of different ones. And what's, what's fascinating is,

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is being able to just speak to the parents and encourage them as

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much as I'm encouraging the kids. And here, here is a statement that

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I heard a few years ago that just haunts me.

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And, and I'll, I'll. I'll share the haunting with all of you.

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Here we go. Just let this land for a second. Okay, here's the statement.

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When we were young, we were watching our parents

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grow up. Okay. And the

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more you think about that, the more it will haunt you. Because you

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can see it from both sides as parents. You can see it both from the

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kid's side and from parent side. And so, yeah, you're in the process as

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a parent, homeschooling your kid, trying to figure this out. You'll notice that none of

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your kids came with a manual.

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Would have been nice. Yeah. I don't know, would we read them? You know,

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but only an emergency. Yeah,

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maybe. Yeah. Flip to the index once in a while. But really

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you got to figure it out. And you're also in the process of growing up

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yourself. You're not done. Just because you're 18. Some magical

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number. Oh, now you're grown up. Now I guess you know everything, right? Really,

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you know, hang around with 18 year olds, you'll find out they don't know very

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much. You know, lots more than you give them credit for sometimes. But,

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but not compared to somebody who's 50. Right. Like, it's just, there's always

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that you're on a continuum and, and you're growing up too. Right. So that's

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kind of daunting a little bit. And it's kind of the sense of I'm making

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a bunch of mistakes and my kids are along for the ride.

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And that's, but that's what they're going to face with their kids too.

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So them seeing how you're doing it is actually helping to ingrain in

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them how they're going to do it later. And, and, and I'll switch from haunting

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to, I think one of the most encouraging statements I can give homeschooling

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parents. And if you've been around you, you've heard me say this before. Perhaps if

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you're a homeschooling parent from one of the co ops I'm working with or one

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of the events. You've heard me say this. I guarantee it. Here it is.

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As parents, you are the world's leading

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expert on your kids. Agreed.

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Yeah. And there is literally no one else in the world

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that is more invested in your kids

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success than you are. So that's my answer to parents when they

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say, I'm not sure I'm qualified to homeschool, it's like, well, if you

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aren't qualified. To know what's going on with your

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kids who is. Well.

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My husband and I have had that exact conversation. Like, there's no one

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else in this world who cares about the success of our children.

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And not like, success even financially, but like success and then becoming good,

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wonderful people. Right. Who contribute meaningfully to the world

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and are gonna. Yeah. Be good spouses and

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great friends and great to the community and. And all. No one else cares about

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that as much as we do. Right. And you find yourself surrounded

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by some people who really do care about those things. And hopefully you've got

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some family and maybe other parents and other families who are working in the same

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space. That can be really encouraging and it's really helpful. But at

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the end of the day, you're tucking them in at night, and nobody

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is at the same level as you are in both understanding your

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kids as well as invested in their success.

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So if you're not qualified to homeschool them, who is

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like. Like everybody else is going to be at a lower level

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of qualification than you. So that's. I try to say that as an encouragement

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to parents who are thinking about this. Of course you can do this. You're motivated

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more than anyone else to do this. That's exactly. It's. It's the motivation.

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Like, there is just. It's a motivation you can't fake either.

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Right. It's. It's just like the most authentic,

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serious, wonderful motivation that will just continue. Every time you

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see their beautiful smile, you know, you want what's best for them.

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That's what fuels everything. I think, for most of us parents,

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every day, all the decisions that we're constantly making. Right. Are with them in

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mind and wanting to provide them. You know,

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the best moments, even when they're not great, even when it's like, I need to

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send my kid to the room because they just did something to their brother.

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I'm doing that because I'm trying. I'm trying

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to articulate that wasn't right. That's how that works.

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Oh, wow. Well, and you also. This is the thing as a

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parent, when you're homeschooling, you also get to have all this

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time with them. And so it's not just intrinsic

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motivation, but there's reinforced motivation, too, because you get to see them

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learn in real time. You get to see them grow. You get to see them

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excited about discovering something. You get to see them work

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through their frustration and get better at things. And as you're seeing that,

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that just fuels your motivation to keep doing this.

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Like, I want more of this to happen. Yes, a hundred percent.

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A hundred percent. And I think understanding, like,

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how they learn about things, we think about that in terms

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of how they learn to do math or how they learn to read. But life

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is learning, right? So I think of my oldest when

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he was learning how to play piano, and he still is. He's young.

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He was okay with lessons. We had lots of tears, and I'm

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not gonna pay for lessons if you're not gonna practice kind of conversations.

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But then one day, I realized that the

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light bulb went off, and when he was able to play music that sounded like

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music, all of a sudden, he was the most motivated.

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We stopped asking him to practice, and he started tinkering

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five, six, seven times a day. He'd just sit down at the piano and play

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these. These songs that sounded like songs. And then saying, mom,

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I want more songs. Can you sign me more songs? And then started playing things

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by ear. And so it was like watching that motivation

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that for himself, that click, and realizing, okay, my son needs.

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He's motivated by feeling like something is real and that he's not

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just putting in effort for the sake

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of effort. He wants to see the reward. Like, I. I saw that in

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real time, and now I know that about him. And so when we were learning

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how to read, part of that was I would say to him,

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once you can read, well, the entire world is open to you.

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You can learn about anything in the entire world that you are interested

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in. So let's just learn how to read. Like, put the work in here,

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because what that opens to you, you now, it's literally anything you want to discover.

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And that was highly motivating for him. And so, yeah, being involved in that

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as a parent has been so incredible. And so we've got

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four kids, so we're going through that times four, and they're

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all completely different. You know, one kid, totally different.

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He. You know, when it comes to writing, I find that

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he's like, oh, three sentences. Oh, this is so painful.

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And he'll sit for an hour not writing three sentences.

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And then my other son, he's like, oh,

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how could I ever write everything I want to say in only three sentences?

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Because he's thinking he needs to write a novel, and we're going, no, no,

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no. Just the prompt is write three sentences about a beautiful day. And he

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just wants to describe the entire scene into a novel and the other. And so,

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again, totally different kids, totally different motivations. But being in the trenches with them,

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I think, has been one of the most rewarding things. And I Don't think

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if we were not homeschooling that I would have discovered

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that about them this early. Because my kids are still pretty young. They're 9,

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7, and 4 and then an infant. So it's

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pretty early to see some of these traits in them, I think. But it's because

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we're spending time together. Yeah. Yeah. You get to see it.

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And, and, and by the way, that your. Your kids are

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accomplished readers. I know that for a fact.

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They are. Even through the summer. It totally worked. I.

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They have maxed out our library cards.

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Yeah, that sounds familiar. That sounds familiar.

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Yeah. Yeah, we had. We had three or four library cards going all

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the time, and they were always like, maxed out to the top. Yeah,

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well. And you know what's bad? When I'm asking them to clean up, this is

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true story from even this morning, I'm asking them to clean up, and then they're

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sidetracked by books. And then as a parent, you're like,

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I feel really wrong taking away books so that you'll clean

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your room. You could judge that moment to moment.

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How's that going? Right. Yeah, that's right. Or go to bed. And they're

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like, but can't I stay up and read? It's like,

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yes. 15 minutes. Okay.

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Under the blanket with a flashlight. Well, those are some

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good memories that we have to.

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So I've done that when I was a kid. Yeah.

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Oh, I love that. And I, I think passing on. Right. This love of reading

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is, again, something that money can't buy. It's.

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It's such a. A good thing that I think will pay off rewards for the

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rest of their life in so many dividends. Right. In. In so many ways.

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What reading kind of approach for teaching reading are you using?

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So we used the good and the beautiful exclusively.

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So for all of our curriculum up until now, and that's really worked well

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for us. And I know not everyone feels that way, but they. The. Well,

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you gotta figure out what works for you. That's the thing. If it's working for

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you, it's working. So don't mess with it. Right. Yeah, they did. They did a

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really great job. But I think one of the biggest things that made a difference

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for us was like. Two summers ago,

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three summers ago, when the oldest was just learning to read. And then the second,

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my middle child was early in learning to read, but he

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was very curious. So in the States, Pizza hut has the BookIt program,

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and it's been around for a long time. And I just happened to get an

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Email from Pizza Hut US. And they were like, here, join our BookIt program.

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And the idea of book it is that you exchange

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your reading for a pizza, basically a personal pizza

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at the end. So they were very motivating. And it worked when I

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was a kid, but usually it's, it's teachers in a classroom. This,

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this was during COVID And so I think they were like trying to incentivize parents

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and then they were extending it kind of like to homeschool parents. It was an

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eligibility, like, you could do this too. So anyway, I was like, oh, that's cool.

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And it doesn't work in Canada, but I can buy a $5 pizza for the

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kids. So let's try this. And at that point they were reading like

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sea dog run. Well, the oldest was a little further than that.

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They were in their early readers. So the thing was you're going to read every

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day, and every day when you read, you color your sheet of paper and at

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the end of the month you, you give that back to me and we'll have

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a surprise. And so for the first month, it was pizza. And so what became

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like, I read my early reader book and it took me three minutes,

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became, well, now you need to read two. Well, now you need to read three.

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And then the middle kid was like, see dog see spot run.

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Spot runs fast. So within that summer, they literally

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went from that level to. To full on reading.

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They were reading every single morning. The first thing they did when they got up

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was to read. And then they were so proud of them. And again, going back

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to like watching the motivation when they can see their own success, they stopped

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tripping over themselves. They were motivated by the fact that they could read. And that

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was one thing I liked about the good and the Beautiful was I found that

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those extracurricular things like books I was able to buy matched

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with the lessons really well. And so, so like when I would go

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buy step one books from Costco, they weren't necessarily

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the right words that my kids knew. Right. Because we hadn't covered those words yet.

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Right. Or they're like, not the site. We weren't doing the sight word thing that's

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in public school. But when I was using the books that went with the curriculum,

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they knew those words. They'd already mastered them. So then they, they open a

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book and they're like, oh, I know this, right? And then every day they

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realize, oh, I know this. And then it makes them want more

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because they know this. They can do it. They can do it. So literally it

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Was like three or four months that summer that their reading

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completely exploded. And then by the time we started school, September, October, we continued to

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do the calendars. I just went and made my own, and I have those available

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for other parents. I made them for the year. They're free download. You can have

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them. That I think, has just been incredible. And so the first month with pizza,

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and the second month, they wanted a cupcake. And then it was clear that they

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were motivated. So we said, okay, well, if you want to exchange three or four

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of these months for a $20 Lego set, ooh,

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you can do that. And that you're talking my life right there.

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So, yeah, that was kind of our big aha. I think there's

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a lot there to unpack and what you've just said.

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I'm trying to grab all the things that are floating around on the screen here

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in my head. One thing is that having a way to

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visibly track progress and see the progress

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represented in a coloring sheet or, you know, in a checklist

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or something like that is generally helpful for human beings,

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not just kids learning to read, but generally helpful for

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all of us to see a progress bar somewhere. It's really

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good. That can be motivating in our family. What we did is,

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with our oldest, when he started to read is we had a reading

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snake. Where we started off, we. My wife made a little. A little cardboard

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cut out of a tail and a little head, a little smiling snake head.

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And then snake sections. The body sections were all individual

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books. And so when they read a book out loud to us,

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we would write down the title of the book and the dates and, you know,

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that kind of thing, and then add a section. And this.

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This reading snake was just on the wall and wandered around on

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the wall and the ceiling and across the. The living room and just wound

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all over the place. And they just kept adding sections. Every.

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Every time they read books, sometimes two or three in a day, they put these

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little sections on, and they stick them to the ceiling or the wall, wherever it

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was. And you could visibly see, from day to day, this snake getting

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longer. And then we had kind of highlight spots where there's, like. At 50,

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something special would happen. Like, you know,

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okay, when you read 50 books, you get your own library card. Okay.

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When you. When you read a hundred books, you know, there was some

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kind of a little special event of some sorts, right? And then I think at.

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At 200, then the grandparents would take you out for dinner. And at 250,

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there was something. And then. And then when they got to 300. Then we'd

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have like a family party and the grandparents would come and

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whoever else was coming and we'd have a cake and ice cream and just have

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like a big dinner and a party with everybody coming to celebrate

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the fact that you got to 300 books. And we did that with each of

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the kids. They all, one of them had a snake and I think one of

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them had an electric eel and. One of them had a caterpillar,

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you know, whatever. And so we did this and

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we just found it really, really motivating. They were looking forward to it. The ones

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coming up from below were like, oh, I can't remember, I can't, I can't wait

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till I get to 150. Because then this special thing would happen. And because

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that was. Now it's a tradition. It happened once, now it's a tradition. Right.

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And so that was really motivated. That worked really well for them.

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A couple of other tidbits to grab here is what

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we used was the classic teach your kid to read in a hundred easy

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lessons. And what you're saying about your experience,

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I can absolutely see the value in having curriculum integrated

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where you've got some things that are designed to line up together.

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If you're running something like that, great, that's fantastic. But if you're just

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kind of out there saying, how do I teach my kid to read? I would

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highly recommend go grab that book. Teach your

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kid to read in 100 easy lessons. And it's literally a script for the parent

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to read and point at things on the page and you just follow

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your way through. And even with that or with any

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other learn to read kind of program, your,

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your results will vary depending on the kid.

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And so our first one we thought, okay, you're five,

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it's probably a good idea to start looking at learning to read. So we

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pulled this book out and our oldest was fine with that.

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It was like, okay, I'll go through that and every, every day you go through

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a lesson and okay, I'm getting it, no problem. It was very easy. He just

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went through it and started reading and got excited about reading. And we had the

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snake going across the ceiling. And before you know it, he was, he's reading on

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his own very easily. But while he was still in the lessons.

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So he would have been, he would have been five getting close to six.

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The three year old getting close to four was sitting

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there going, well, when do I get to learn to read? I'm like, well,

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at least let him finish the the book first.

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Like, let's just get through this. Okay? But he would not let it go.

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He was like, I, I, I need to learn to read, too. Like, okay.

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So he started when he. I think he was 4. And we started it

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because he wanted it. He wanted it so bad. It was like,

378
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well, okay, then I'm not going to say, no, go play outside,

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because you're not supposed to read yet. He wanted it. So it's. This is what

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00:24:24,320 --> 00:24:28,000
you do when you're homeschooling 100%. You see what your kid's interested in. You pour

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gasoline on that fire, right? And so that's what we did. And, and he,

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he had it bang, man. And he's still a, A master reader today. Even.

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Even, you know, 20 years later, the summer he turned 5,

384
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he read all the Chronicles of Narnia on his own. Oh,

385
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wow. Not something you hear every day. Yeah. And then.

386
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Yeah. And then the summer he turned eight.

387
00:24:50,640 --> 00:24:53,840
He. He sat down and read the Hobbit and all the Lord

388
00:24:54,340 --> 00:24:57,310
of the Rings books. Wow. In five weeks.

389
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Wow. And he just went crazy at it.

390
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And I thought, you know, he's just skimming through whatever. But no, no. He could

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tell me the names of places in Elvish and the details that

392
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I'd forgotten since reading them. And he was getting it all. It's just astonishing

393
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how quickly he went through everything. But then,

394
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okay, the youngest turns five, it's like, well, okay, it's time to pull

395
00:25:22,800 --> 00:25:26,860
out the book. You know, you're five. Let's go. It was a

396
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nightmare. It was tears and crying and I

397
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don't want to do this. And it was a fight. And we tried for,

398
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:38,580
I think maybe we got 20 lessons in maybe. And it was just like,

399
00:25:39,080 --> 00:25:42,420
you know what? It's not working for this guy.

400
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And he doesn't. If he doesn't learn to read until next year,

401
00:25:46,340 --> 00:25:49,900
the world isn't going to end. Like, it's going to be fine. You know,

402
00:25:50,400 --> 00:25:53,220
we can just. Never mind and just go on, you know? Meanwhile, he's digging into

403
00:25:53,720 --> 00:25:56,920
math and reading. Really liking that. Okay, go do that. And so the

404
00:25:57,420 --> 00:25:59,760
next year, a year later, we pulled it out again. Hey, do you want to

405
00:26:00,260 --> 00:26:02,560
try this? He's like, yeah, I think I'm ready. And then it was a breeze.

406
00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:06,240
Okay, so if you're trying to do something because you think

407
00:26:06,740 --> 00:26:10,040
it's time and it isn't, stop doing

408
00:26:10,540 --> 00:26:14,080
that. Right? Try later. Do something

409
00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:18,000
else. It's not working right now. Don't try to make it work. You don't

410
00:26:18,500 --> 00:26:22,210
have an obligation to make it work. Yeah. You have an obligation to

411
00:26:22,710 --> 00:26:26,090
see that your kids love learning. That's a good nugget.

412
00:26:26,410 --> 00:26:29,730
Yeah. Yeah. That's where you're going to

413
00:26:30,230 --> 00:26:34,130
have your most success as a homeschooling parent is guiding your kids to

414
00:26:34,630 --> 00:26:37,930
loving learning. This is what we want to make. Like, when you have a process

415
00:26:38,010 --> 00:26:40,570
that's designed to produce something at the end,

416
00:26:41,930 --> 00:26:45,810
your process is heavily informed by what you're

417
00:26:46,310 --> 00:26:49,290
trying to make at the end. So you really need to know what you're trying

418
00:26:49,790 --> 00:26:52,710
to make in order to design a process to make. Make that thing. Right.

419
00:26:53,270 --> 00:26:56,870
So there's no point in buying plywood if you're making Coke cans.

420
00:26:57,370 --> 00:27:01,510
Like, that's just. You need to have your process

421
00:27:02,010 --> 00:27:05,430
adjusted to point to what you're producing. And so

422
00:27:06,230 --> 00:27:09,710
if you think about it, I think probably most parents would agree what

423
00:27:10,210 --> 00:27:13,870
they want their kids to become is lifelong learners. So that

424
00:27:14,370 --> 00:27:16,390
means showing them the learning process.

425
00:27:17,440 --> 00:27:21,640
And if it's. If something's not working, what you do in the learning process is

426
00:27:22,140 --> 00:27:25,400
you think of something else. If you're at work as a parent and you're trying

427
00:27:25,900 --> 00:27:28,720
to figure out something on a spreadsheet and it's not working,

428
00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:32,400
you really don't keep doing that thing. You get

429
00:27:32,900 --> 00:27:35,240
up and you go get a cup of coffee, and you talk to Bob down

430
00:27:35,740 --> 00:27:37,880
the hall and say, hey, listen, have you ever done anything like this? Or you

431
00:27:38,380 --> 00:27:41,520
look it up on YouTube and you go, oh, I should try it that way

432
00:27:42,020 --> 00:27:45,520
instead. That's what we do as adults when we're learning things and

433
00:27:46,020 --> 00:27:49,330
we hit a snag. So when you're teaching your kids and

434
00:27:49,830 --> 00:27:53,770
you hit a snag, do that. Stop trying

435
00:27:54,270 --> 00:27:57,650
to push through what's not working. Take a step back and go, what's the point?

436
00:27:58,150 --> 00:28:00,770
What are we trying to accomplish here? What are we making? What do we need

437
00:28:01,270 --> 00:28:04,890
to have happen here? Is there another way to make this happen? And with

438
00:28:05,390 --> 00:28:07,410
a lot of kids, as soon as you show them a different way, they're being

439
00:28:07,910 --> 00:28:10,890
like, oh, oh, why didn't you show me this before? Now it makes sense.

440
00:28:11,390 --> 00:28:15,370
Oh, okay. Yeah. So you got to do that. And another nugget

441
00:28:15,870 --> 00:28:19,210
there is that back to when we were young and

442
00:28:19,610 --> 00:28:23,450
we watched our parents grow up. Right. As a homeschooling parent,

443
00:28:23,930 --> 00:28:27,850
you're not just helping your kids through the learning process so they become lifelong learners.

444
00:28:28,650 --> 00:28:32,250
Newsflash. You're showing them what a lifelong

445
00:28:32,750 --> 00:28:35,370
learner looks like as an adult. Right.

446
00:28:36,410 --> 00:28:37,530
Comes full circle.

447
00:28:39,450 --> 00:28:42,830
Yeah. Because that's what you're doing as

448
00:28:43,330 --> 00:28:45,910
a. As an adult. People are intimidated to homeschool, say, like, oh, how am I

449
00:28:46,410 --> 00:28:49,350
going to design, you know, 12 years of curriculum? You don't have to. You have

450
00:28:49,850 --> 00:28:51,510
to be like a week and a half ahead of them.

451
00:28:53,270 --> 00:28:56,470
Great. Right. And you're learning as they go. Uh huh.

452
00:28:56,550 --> 00:28:59,950
And you're remembering stuff that you learned in elementary school, going, oh yeah,

453
00:29:00,450 --> 00:29:03,950
I haven't seen that in so long. But it refreshes and you're just

454
00:29:04,450 --> 00:29:06,910
staying ahead of them. That's all you have to do. That's right. You know,

455
00:29:07,410 --> 00:29:09,750
and then there comes a point where they'll just take off from there and they'll

456
00:29:10,250 --> 00:29:13,610
be running independently on things and you don't have to keep doing that because they'll

457
00:29:14,110 --> 00:29:17,770
get it. But they see you figuring things

458
00:29:18,270 --> 00:29:21,650
out, changing what you're doing when it's not working, taking a break

459
00:29:22,150 --> 00:29:25,730
when something is too frustrating, getting excited

460
00:29:26,230 --> 00:29:29,810
when you learn something new. Oh guys, I saw this cool science experiment.

461
00:29:30,310 --> 00:29:32,890
We've got to try this. Let's come to the kitchen and try this thing.

462
00:29:33,390 --> 00:29:37,450
They see you excited when you learn something new. That's exciting. So then they

463
00:29:37,950 --> 00:29:41,370
get the idea that learning new things is exciting. Oh, well, good. That's what we

464
00:29:41,870 --> 00:29:45,410
want for them. Because no matter what they, they, they choose

465
00:29:45,910 --> 00:29:49,170
as their path, as they become adults, they're going

466
00:29:49,670 --> 00:29:52,770
to have to learn stuff. Right? And so we want them to be good at

467
00:29:53,270 --> 00:29:56,770
it. We want them to be excited as, as learners. We want them to see

468
00:29:57,270 --> 00:30:00,650
it as possibilities rather than obligation and, and something,

469
00:30:01,150 --> 00:30:03,610
some burden. We want them to see it as an opportunity.

470
00:30:04,330 --> 00:30:06,890
And so you're showing them that all the way through.

471
00:30:07,370 --> 00:30:11,060
They can't help but pick that up. Like they're going to notice that that's

472
00:30:11,560 --> 00:30:15,860
going on. They're going to internalize it even if they can't articulate it. So that's,

473
00:30:15,940 --> 00:30:19,300
you're modeling something for them that's so good.

474
00:30:19,800 --> 00:30:22,500
Well, and you know, just as you say that it's such a good visual because

475
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:26,579
I do work in Excel in my day job and

476
00:30:26,900 --> 00:30:29,860
you do. You get to a point where this isn't right. I'm done. I don't

477
00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:33,780
know why it's div0 like I don't. Or why, you know, it's like a rounding

478
00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:36,660
thing. I don't know. This should work. It's always worked. Why is it working?

479
00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:39,740
And then you just, you do you give yourself permission to take a breath.

480
00:30:40,060 --> 00:30:43,620
So as a parent, particularly thinking of those lessons where

481
00:30:44,120 --> 00:30:47,420
it's not working, you don't have to keep it doesn't have to get to emotions

482
00:30:47,920 --> 00:30:50,740
Right. You don't have to, like, get to tears and be like, no, you have

483
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:53,420
to finish this lesson today. It's not that hard. We just need to take a

484
00:30:53,920 --> 00:30:57,460
breath and let them go. And I found too, with our kids, sometimes it's not

485
00:30:57,960 --> 00:31:00,700
even that the concept is hard and we need to, like, wait a year.

486
00:31:01,100 --> 00:31:04,350
Sometimes it's like, have they eaten? Are they hungry?

487
00:31:04,850 --> 00:31:07,790
Is this blood sugar? Do they just need to have. We've been at this for

488
00:31:08,290 --> 00:31:10,390
a while, and they just need to go run a couple laps around the yard

489
00:31:10,470 --> 00:31:13,990
and then come back in and get. Especially as boys, like, get the energy out

490
00:31:14,230 --> 00:31:17,110
for sure and start over. And so, yeah, just.

491
00:31:17,510 --> 00:31:21,070
It's so simple. But I. I think sometimes those simple things

492
00:31:21,570 --> 00:31:23,910
that are right in front of us are the things we take for granted.

493
00:31:25,590 --> 00:31:28,630
Model here the homeschooling scenario.

494
00:31:29,540 --> 00:31:32,980
You can notice those things and just, you know

495
00:31:33,480 --> 00:31:36,540
what? It's snack time. Because whatever reason

496
00:31:37,040 --> 00:31:40,220
you guys are, you. You grew an inch last week, and so you're gonna need

497
00:31:40,720 --> 00:31:44,260
some calories more than you did. We didn't have to have snack time

498
00:31:44,760 --> 00:31:46,900
every day last week, but this week we do, because all of a sudden,

499
00:31:47,400 --> 00:31:49,780
you're hitting a growth spurt, okay? So you pick up on stuff like that.

500
00:31:50,260 --> 00:31:53,620
A rigid school schedule, like the kind that you have to have in

501
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:57,580
industrialized education. It doesn't accommodate

502
00:31:58,080 --> 00:32:00,980
any of that. It does not account for any of that stuff.

503
00:32:01,460 --> 00:32:04,420
And how could it when you're trying to manage 30 kids in a classroom,

504
00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:08,340
like, you would get nothing done. So I have total compassion right. On why

505
00:32:08,840 --> 00:32:12,100
a teacher may recognize those things, but they're not empowered to be able

506
00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:16,500
to make those decisions, because to. Some extent, and there's

507
00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:20,540
some latitude there. I mean, as a teacher in the classroom for quarter century.

508
00:32:21,040 --> 00:32:24,540
It sounds better when you say it that way. I started back

509
00:32:25,040 --> 00:32:28,760
in the 1900s, you know, but when I was in

510
00:32:29,260 --> 00:32:32,720
that classroom setting, you know, different teachers have different levels of strictness

511
00:32:33,220 --> 00:32:36,560
for things. And I tried to not be a super strict.

512
00:32:37,060 --> 00:32:39,320
Like, I wanted it to be where everybody could have a chance to learn.

513
00:32:39,820 --> 00:32:42,959
Like, if you were messing around and interfering with somebody else's opportunity to

514
00:32:43,459 --> 00:32:46,680
learn, I didn't want to put up with that, but I was willing to give

515
00:32:47,180 --> 00:32:50,960
a lot of latitude. Like, if you need to have a snack,

516
00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:55,200
go ahead. Like, because if you detect that

517
00:32:55,700 --> 00:32:59,560
yourself, I'm calorie crashing right now. I can't pay attention to physics right

518
00:33:00,060 --> 00:33:03,640
now because my stomach is rumbling. Well, if pulling out a granola

519
00:33:04,140 --> 00:33:07,680
bar and quietly nibbling it in class and not distracting anybody Else is going

520
00:33:08,180 --> 00:33:11,400
to solve your problem and help you learn better. I'm all for it.

521
00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:17,200
Right? That's okay. I had a little station in my classroom with

522
00:33:17,700 --> 00:33:21,420
a kettle and some water and some tea and hot chocolate and

523
00:33:21,920 --> 00:33:24,980
things like that. It's like, get yourself a mug of hot chocolate and go back

524
00:33:25,480 --> 00:33:29,700
to your desk. And, you know, if that helps you stay focused, great, because you

525
00:33:30,200 --> 00:33:32,940
have to as teachers and as. As homeschooling parents, your teachers,

526
00:33:33,660 --> 00:33:36,380
you have to constantly ask the question, what's the point?

527
00:33:37,100 --> 00:33:40,980
What are we trying to do here? What is the end result that we're

528
00:33:41,480 --> 00:33:45,100
wanting from this lesson today? I want the kids to know this thing. I want

529
00:33:45,600 --> 00:33:47,620
you to be able to do this task, or I want you to be able

530
00:33:48,120 --> 00:33:51,800
to solve this kind of problem. Okay? So anything that helps you

531
00:33:52,300 --> 00:33:54,920
move towards that is a good thing. And that might be taking a break,

532
00:33:55,240 --> 00:33:58,800
that might be grabbing a cup of hot chocolate, that might be getting up and

533
00:33:59,300 --> 00:34:03,640
moving around. I had kids that could not sit still in a classroom,

534
00:34:04,040 --> 00:34:07,400
and I had. I was privileged to have a sort of a science lab kind

535
00:34:07,900 --> 00:34:11,160
of classroom. I had tables and then counters all the way around the perimeter of

536
00:34:11,660 --> 00:34:14,680
the room with sinks and cupboards and stuff, but there was lots of room on

537
00:34:15,180 --> 00:34:18,820
the counters. And so I would tell kids that if you just.

538
00:34:19,320 --> 00:34:23,700
If you're feeling fidgety and you just can't sit still at the table, then stand

539
00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:26,620
up and go to the back of the room and, you know, move around a

540
00:34:27,120 --> 00:34:30,540
little bit back there. We have to be respectful so that we're not interfering with

541
00:34:31,040 --> 00:34:34,700
somebody else. That's kind of the challenge of the environment in the classroom.

542
00:34:35,340 --> 00:34:38,460
But if you need to move, get up and move. You don't

543
00:34:38,960 --> 00:34:41,060
have to put up your hand and ask me. Just, like, slip out of your

544
00:34:41,560 --> 00:34:45,110
seat and go sit on the back counter if you want to. And some of

545
00:34:45,610 --> 00:34:48,750
the kids through the years would be like, wait, it's okay to sit on the

546
00:34:49,250 --> 00:34:52,630
counter? Like, yeah. Well, that became their spot for the rest of the year.

547
00:34:53,130 --> 00:34:56,630
They just propped themselves up on the counter with their back against the wall and.

548
00:34:56,790 --> 00:35:00,390
And from then, they were fine because there they could concentrate,

549
00:35:01,110 --> 00:35:04,630
you know, and it. Just because they were comfortable there. Great.

550
00:35:05,130 --> 00:35:07,430
I want you to be comfortable. You're going to learn more if you're comfortable.

551
00:35:07,830 --> 00:35:10,550
And so that was always okay.

552
00:35:10,860 --> 00:35:14,260
People were always sitting on the sides or even sitting on the floor. Like,

553
00:35:14,760 --> 00:35:17,620
some kids would sit on the floor in the front of the room because the

554
00:35:18,120 --> 00:35:21,380
floor was more comfortable. Okay, cool. I'm fine with that. What's the

555
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:24,900
point Right. Is the point that you're all sitting in your desks facing the same

556
00:35:25,400 --> 00:35:28,780
way, and when somebody walks into the room, it looks like I'm running a tight

557
00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:31,580
ship. Is that the point? Or is the point for you to get the best

558
00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:35,460
learning experience possible and remember everything you possibly can? I think it's the

559
00:35:35,960 --> 00:35:39,780
second one. So whatever helps that. Whatever supports

560
00:35:40,280 --> 00:35:43,940
that I'm good with. Good to do that. Right. So that's.

561
00:35:44,440 --> 00:35:46,700
That's part of what we got to think about as homeschooling, too.

562
00:35:47,500 --> 00:35:50,620
Okay. Do you need some food or you got some water?

563
00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:53,260
How about we make some iced tea and then come back to this? You know,

564
00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:56,780
whatever. You know, get them to make something. Hey, well, let's go in the

565
00:35:57,280 --> 00:35:58,820
kitchen. I'm going to show you how to make scrambled eggs. We're going to have

566
00:35:59,320 --> 00:36:02,060
some of that, then we'll come back and do math after that. Well, you're still

567
00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:06,610
learning. You just shifted gears a little bit, and that's totally okay.

568
00:36:07,010 --> 00:36:10,450
That example reminds me of our kids, you know,

569
00:36:10,950 --> 00:36:13,450
trying to do math, and especially on these, like, longer days or when they start

570
00:36:13,950 --> 00:36:16,650
to get fidgety. And I have one son in particular who just wants to be

571
00:36:17,150 --> 00:36:20,890
on his belly on the floor, like, doing his math problems. And we

572
00:36:21,390 --> 00:36:22,930
have had a little bit of, like, no, just sit at the table and get

573
00:36:23,430 --> 00:36:25,970
it done. But you're right. Like, why is that the. Is that the hill I

574
00:36:26,470 --> 00:36:29,570
want to die on today about where they're sitting to get their work done or

575
00:36:30,070 --> 00:36:32,490
just something to get their work done and be comfortable? And when I was that

576
00:36:32,990 --> 00:36:36,870
age, I probably was sitting on my belly reading books and kind of listening

577
00:36:37,370 --> 00:36:40,390
to music or doing whatever I was doing anyway, which is, as I say that,

578
00:36:40,890 --> 00:36:44,070
another thing, too. One of my kids does really well with,

579
00:36:44,570 --> 00:36:48,150
like, classical music in his headset or in my headset on his ears.

580
00:36:48,650 --> 00:36:52,310
Yep. Particularly because we have four kids. One was an

581
00:36:52,810 --> 00:36:55,390
infant in this past year. And so when there's a lot going on in the

582
00:36:55,890 --> 00:36:58,710
room, we still expect you to get your work done, even though it's tricky.

583
00:36:59,350 --> 00:37:02,950
And so we could really zone out, like, in a good way with

584
00:37:03,450 --> 00:37:06,590
just a little bit of music with no words. And then to your point of,

585
00:37:07,090 --> 00:37:10,590
like, how do we work? I actually do my best work that exact

586
00:37:11,090 --> 00:37:14,909
same way when I'm in Excel and I put on some relaxing classical music

587
00:37:15,409 --> 00:37:19,310
and I can't hear anything magically. And, you know, it, like, calms you

588
00:37:19,810 --> 00:37:22,870
and you get things done, so. And there's so much music available, like, study music

589
00:37:23,370 --> 00:37:26,830
or whatever. Different stuff. Pick Your style, it doesn't matter what it is. But it

590
00:37:27,330 --> 00:37:29,990
is important that there's no words, though, because that pings the language center of the

591
00:37:30,490 --> 00:37:33,750
brain, and it's very distracting. Your brain is constantly switching, trying to hear what's

592
00:37:34,250 --> 00:37:37,710
going on. So it's very helpful to have just music and

593
00:37:38,210 --> 00:37:41,990
no lyrics for studying, for sure. But get

594
00:37:42,490 --> 00:37:46,590
into a comfortable position. Some kids are more comfortable lying down or

595
00:37:47,090 --> 00:37:50,470
even just some subjects, they take a certain position, and a different subject,

596
00:37:50,970 --> 00:37:53,960
they take another position. You'll see that. And it depends a little bit on whether

597
00:37:54,460 --> 00:37:57,880
it's more of a logical activity or is it more of

598
00:37:58,380 --> 00:38:02,320
an artistic, emotional activity. You might see a different posture come

599
00:38:02,820 --> 00:38:07,000
out, depending on what they're doing, what they have to think about.

600
00:38:07,560 --> 00:38:11,480
Another one is doodling. Okay. Yeah.

601
00:38:11,560 --> 00:38:14,600
It used to freak out some students in my class once in a while where

602
00:38:15,080 --> 00:38:18,400
somebody would be doodling. As a teacher, I was always wandering around.

603
00:38:18,900 --> 00:38:21,490
I never stood at the front all the time. I tried to wander around a

604
00:38:21,990 --> 00:38:24,650
little bit while I was teaching. And so as I was doing that, I'd notice,

605
00:38:25,150 --> 00:38:27,890
oh, there's a kid doodling. And then they'd get all embarrassed, and they'd try to

606
00:38:28,390 --> 00:38:31,610
turn the page and cover it up. And I remember having several conversations

607
00:38:32,110 --> 00:38:33,770
with kids over the years where I was like, no, no, no, no, no,

608
00:38:34,270 --> 00:38:37,490
no. Hang on a second. Just. Just flip it open. Just. It's okay.

609
00:38:37,990 --> 00:38:40,850
Don't worry. I'm not. You're not in trouble. You're. You're. You're doodling.

610
00:38:40,930 --> 00:38:44,170
So I want to do a little experiment with you. And they could be

611
00:38:44,670 --> 00:38:47,810
like, okay. So I'd point to one of the doodles on the page,

612
00:38:48,390 --> 00:38:51,950
and I would say, what was I talking about in the lesson

613
00:38:52,450 --> 00:38:55,430
when you were drawing that? And they could usually tell me.

614
00:38:57,030 --> 00:39:00,150
And I would look at them and say, carry on. You're taking notes.

615
00:39:00,630 --> 00:39:04,230
That's so cool. Yeah. Try this experiment.

616
00:39:04,730 --> 00:39:08,750
Like you or anybody who's listening, try this experiment. Do a read aloud sometime

617
00:39:09,250 --> 00:39:12,390
with your kids and give them each a piece of paper and whatever crayons or

618
00:39:12,890 --> 00:39:16,800
markers they want and let them doodle or draw or whatever it is

619
00:39:17,680 --> 00:39:20,960
while you're reading the story, and then have

620
00:39:21,460 --> 00:39:24,080
them look at the drawing later and tell you what was happening in the story

621
00:39:24,580 --> 00:39:27,520
while they were drawing that. And some kids will draw what's happening in the story,

622
00:39:27,680 --> 00:39:31,400
but other kids will draw random stuff. They'll still be able to tell you what

623
00:39:31,900 --> 00:39:35,640
was going on in the story because it's somehow recorded in

624
00:39:36,140 --> 00:39:38,800
the act of that drawing. I'm going to try that experiment.

625
00:39:39,290 --> 00:39:42,810
There's like an old. I don't know if it's like a Chinese proverb or thing,

626
00:39:43,310 --> 00:39:45,170
but I remember when I was in high school, it came up and it said,

627
00:39:45,670 --> 00:39:49,610
if you use the pencil you study with on your test, the pencil will remember.

628
00:39:51,530 --> 00:39:54,370
That is so cool. But as you. Again, as you say that I am the

629
00:39:54,870 --> 00:39:58,570
kind of steadier where I don't need to study when I'm

630
00:39:59,070 --> 00:40:02,370
taking a test. In my mind, I'm going this word. But on the left side

631
00:40:02,870 --> 00:40:05,250
of the page, up towards the left. What was that? What was that? Was that?

632
00:40:05,750 --> 00:40:09,030
And, like, that's how I would recall when I took tests in school. So as

633
00:40:09,530 --> 00:40:12,750
you're saying that, I mean, I was taking notes that were, I guess,

634
00:40:13,150 --> 00:40:16,710
readable to other people. But it's interesting that doodling would have

635
00:40:17,210 --> 00:40:20,990
that same. I discovered that by accident in an

636
00:40:21,490 --> 00:40:24,670
education policy class, of all things when I was doing my teaching degree.

637
00:40:25,390 --> 00:40:28,270
And I thought it was going to be a boring class, but it was not.

638
00:40:28,750 --> 00:40:32,190
The professor was amazing at going through all these. He would tell these stories,

639
00:40:32,350 --> 00:40:35,630
and he had this great big double blackboard at the front of the classroom,

640
00:40:36,630 --> 00:40:39,910
and he would just randomly grab a piece of chalk and draw a little sketch

641
00:40:40,410 --> 00:40:43,550
as he was telling a story about something or trying to teach us some concept.

642
00:40:44,050 --> 00:40:46,830
And he would draw it over, and by the end of the class, there'd just

643
00:40:47,330 --> 00:40:50,630
be these little sketches all over the board. He never wrote anything down

644
00:40:51,130 --> 00:40:53,870
in terms of, like, notes, write this down, or anything like that. It was just

645
00:40:54,370 --> 00:40:57,710
this mess of cartoons and quick little drawings and all

646
00:40:58,210 --> 00:41:01,630
over the board. And I was trying to take organized, methodical notes

647
00:41:02,130 --> 00:41:05,600
in that class. And after about three classes, I realized, this is

648
00:41:06,100 --> 00:41:09,520
impossible. I can't keep up with this guy. So what I

649
00:41:10,020 --> 00:41:13,400
did the next day, I sat down in his class. I took out my piece

650
00:41:13,900 --> 00:41:17,120
of paper out of my binder, turned it sideways so it looked like the board,

651
00:41:17,360 --> 00:41:21,200
and I just duplicated whatever he drew on the board. Just these random little

652
00:41:21,700 --> 00:41:24,320
sketches. And then I found at the end of that class, I could look at

653
00:41:24,820 --> 00:41:27,040
that board and remember everything that he was talking about.

654
00:41:28,280 --> 00:41:30,920
And I was like, okay, this is a totally new way to take notes.

655
00:41:31,160 --> 00:41:34,840
It's not gonna work for every teacher or teaching style. But for

656
00:41:35,340 --> 00:41:39,440
this guide, this is how I remember the class. And it totally

657
00:41:39,940 --> 00:41:42,560
worked. And so I applied that when I had kids in my class that were

658
00:41:43,060 --> 00:41:46,200
doodling, drawing little, I'd encourage them, like, draw little doodles.

659
00:41:46,700 --> 00:41:48,920
Don't just write down. You know, I'll write some words. On the board to really

660
00:41:49,420 --> 00:41:52,040
make sure you have some, you know, something to hang onto.

661
00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:56,280
But if you need to draw a little sketch or a little

662
00:41:56,780 --> 00:41:59,560
doodle or a little cartoon guy in the corner to help you remember,

663
00:42:00,600 --> 00:42:03,760
that's the point. Notes are

664
00:42:04,260 --> 00:42:08,200
not to record the class. Notes are designed to trigger

665
00:42:08,700 --> 00:42:12,560
your memory of what you experienced. So if they're doing that in

666
00:42:13,060 --> 00:42:16,440
whatever form, then it's working for you. Keep going.

667
00:42:16,600 --> 00:42:20,530
You need to discover this about yourself. What kind of note taker are

668
00:42:21,030 --> 00:42:25,370
you? Are you methodical? Line by line, you know, standard documentary

669
00:42:25,870 --> 00:42:29,130
style? Or do you need to draw cartoons? I don't care.

670
00:42:29,630 --> 00:42:32,290
As a teacher or as a parent, I don't care which one it is.

671
00:42:32,370 --> 00:42:36,330
What I care about is, can you. Does it help you remember? And if it

672
00:42:36,830 --> 00:42:39,090
does, it's working. Don't mess with this.

673
00:42:40,210 --> 00:42:42,690
Oh my gosh. So good. So good.

674
00:42:44,050 --> 00:42:47,730
You know, it's a lot of learning now is going to online. As I get

675
00:42:48,230 --> 00:42:51,310
into this older classes, I still want my kids to learn how to take notes

676
00:42:51,810 --> 00:42:55,230
by paper. So I'm someone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, I work

677
00:42:55,730 --> 00:42:59,270
in technology and so I walk into meetings and a lot of people bring their

678
00:42:59,770 --> 00:43:03,470
laptops and they take their notes with their laptops. But I find anything I type,

679
00:43:03,970 --> 00:43:07,310
I don't retain. Well, not as, not as well. If as I'm

680
00:43:07,810 --> 00:43:10,190
listening to it, I type it, it doesn't click. If I come back later and

681
00:43:10,690 --> 00:43:13,110
I'm like typing things up, I will retain my to do list or whatever.

682
00:43:13,590 --> 00:43:16,670
And so for my kids, when I think about that in the future and how

683
00:43:17,170 --> 00:43:20,480
things are changing, like, yes, you can make all your lists on paper on the

684
00:43:20,980 --> 00:43:24,320
computer, and yes, you probably will use Google Docs or Word for

685
00:43:24,820 --> 00:43:27,680
most of your life and not have to write physical paper. But I want you

686
00:43:28,180 --> 00:43:31,120
to be comfortable with the pen in your hand. It's good to have that skill.

687
00:43:31,360 --> 00:43:34,680
Yeah, I'm the opposite, though. I can type as fast as I

688
00:43:35,180 --> 00:43:38,920
can think. And so whereas my writing is maybe 10 times slower

689
00:43:39,420 --> 00:43:43,400
than that. And by the time I've written five lines, I think even a doctor

690
00:43:43,900 --> 00:43:45,440
would have trouble reading it. So.

691
00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:50,820
It'S not optimal for me. But for other people, people, they have to have that

692
00:43:51,320 --> 00:43:54,220
feel of the writing on the paper. And that's okay,

693
00:43:54,380 --> 00:43:58,060
that's fine. Figure out that one kid's gonna be the,

694
00:43:58,560 --> 00:44:01,420
the writer and the other one's gonna be the typer and somebody else is gonna

695
00:44:01,920 --> 00:44:05,380
be drawing like they're all different. It's partly your privilege to

696
00:44:05,880 --> 00:44:09,180
figure out where their strength is, encourage them to Diversify their skills.

697
00:44:09,340 --> 00:44:12,060
Of course. Right. But you know,

698
00:44:13,500 --> 00:44:16,630
encourage them in the, the one that they're really good at.

699
00:44:17,030 --> 00:44:20,550
Give them, resource them for that. Like make sure they have nice pens.

700
00:44:20,710 --> 00:44:24,550
Like if, if you're gonna, if you're gonna encourage writing, then give them a

701
00:44:25,050 --> 00:44:28,150
pen that's not garbage. Give them a nice smooth writing pen that feels good.

702
00:44:28,230 --> 00:44:32,150
Cause it's probably something about the feel that is appealing to them

703
00:44:32,650 --> 00:44:36,430
if they like that, you know, so make sure they have good equipment to enjoy

704
00:44:36,930 --> 00:44:39,790
using and then they'll use it more. You know, you want your kid to learn

705
00:44:40,290 --> 00:44:43,920
piano? Well, don't give them a garbage piano that's out of tune. Right. Like you

706
00:44:44,420 --> 00:44:47,360
gotta equip them with something that's gonna be really amazing when they're, when they're getting

707
00:44:47,860 --> 00:44:51,360
good at it and they're mastering it. So that's important too. Oh, that's so

708
00:44:51,860 --> 00:44:55,360
convicting. Because you know, I have my very favorite pens and my

709
00:44:55,860 --> 00:44:59,800
husband has his very favorite pens and it's completely acceptable as adults for

710
00:45:00,300 --> 00:45:03,320
us to have our very favorite things. But when your kids are fussy about stuff,

711
00:45:03,820 --> 00:45:07,400
you wanna be like, no, just use what I gave you. Yeah, guilty.

712
00:45:07,960 --> 00:45:10,640
But instead put a few pens on there, on the, in front of them and

713
00:45:11,140 --> 00:45:13,680
say, well, which one of these do you feels the best to you?

714
00:45:14,080 --> 00:45:17,560
Right. And let them figure it out because they like to have some investment in

715
00:45:18,060 --> 00:45:21,920
their education too. You'll get more encouragement from them and you'll get more

716
00:45:22,080 --> 00:45:25,600
self motivation from them if they feel like they have a say in the process.

717
00:45:26,480 --> 00:45:30,000
Totally. Yeah. And so that, that there's more buy in that way.

718
00:45:30,400 --> 00:45:33,880
And so yeah, put it, get a. So what, you spend $2 on a pen

719
00:45:34,380 --> 00:45:37,280
instead of 75 cents, but they like it better and they write way more.

720
00:45:37,720 --> 00:45:40,920
Right? Oh, that's a good investment then. That's a great investment. Even if it's a

721
00:45:41,420 --> 00:45:44,800
ten dollar pen, that's a good investment. Right. I mean amortize that out over everything

722
00:45:45,300 --> 00:45:48,840
that they're going to write with that pen. Yeah. Oh, that's cheap then, you know.

723
00:45:49,400 --> 00:45:52,760
Well, and all the lack of tears, frustration and. Yeah,

724
00:45:53,560 --> 00:45:57,040
you bypass a lot of that. A lot. Yeah. Just by getting

725
00:45:57,540 --> 00:46:00,920
them a better pen or a nicer pad of paper. Like, you know,

726
00:46:01,240 --> 00:46:04,560
some kids like to write on graph paper. It's like, well, graph paper is

727
00:46:05,060 --> 00:46:07,920
a little more expensive. But okay, if you want to write on graph paper,

728
00:46:08,420 --> 00:46:11,200
here, here's a pad of graph paper, I guess like, you know, try it,

729
00:46:11,700 --> 00:46:14,640
see if you like it. When it stops working, do something else. But it's it's

730
00:46:15,140 --> 00:46:18,880
these easy things. You can, like, you, you have options

731
00:46:19,380 --> 00:46:22,160
as a parent. You can say, I want to try something different, you know,

732
00:46:22,400 --> 00:46:25,720
and always be a cognizant of the fact that your kids

733
00:46:26,220 --> 00:46:29,430
are different and they learn differently than each other and, and most of

734
00:46:29,930 --> 00:46:33,950
them are going to learn differently than you. And so what absolutely

735
00:46:34,450 --> 00:46:37,590
works and is super obvious for you, they're going to be coming

736
00:46:38,090 --> 00:46:42,030
at it from a totally different perspective. I saw this in organization because, you know,

737
00:46:42,530 --> 00:46:45,790
you have teachers all the way up into middle school who are just

738
00:46:46,290 --> 00:46:48,110
like, you have to have a nice neat binder and you have to have your

739
00:46:48,610 --> 00:46:51,750
tabs and your colors and, you know, everything in there. And they do the binder

740
00:46:52,250 --> 00:46:54,070
test, you know, where they pick up the binder and shake it to see if

741
00:46:54,570 --> 00:46:57,860
anything fell out. You know, it's like, now I know you're organized. I realized

742
00:46:58,360 --> 00:47:02,060
as a high school teacher, it's like, that doesn't tell me that

743
00:47:02,560 --> 00:47:06,180
you're organized. That just tells me that all the holes are pierced by the

744
00:47:06,680 --> 00:47:10,220
little clips in the binder. It doesn't tell me that you're organized. Like, I had

745
00:47:10,720 --> 00:47:13,540
to ask myself, what is the point of being organized?

746
00:47:13,700 --> 00:47:17,340
Why do you want a student to be organized? Well, you want

747
00:47:17,840 --> 00:47:20,500
them to be able to find what they need when they need it, right?

748
00:47:22,030 --> 00:47:25,190
So that's actually the test. It's not the pick up the binder and shake it

749
00:47:25,690 --> 00:47:29,350
test. So when I was testing my students for organization, I would

750
00:47:29,850 --> 00:47:33,310
just say something like, okay, so the green handout, you know, on the

751
00:47:33,810 --> 00:47:37,230
periodic table that I gave you, you know, last week, can you pull that out?

752
00:47:39,230 --> 00:47:41,870
And if you can go through your binder and find it right away,

753
00:47:42,350 --> 00:47:46,390
then I actually don't care what your binder looks

754
00:47:46,890 --> 00:47:50,670
like because your organization system's working. I remember

755
00:47:51,170 --> 00:47:54,270
this one kid, he sat in the back corner of my physics class and

756
00:47:54,770 --> 00:47:58,150
he walked in the first day and his binder looked like he'd rescued it from

757
00:47:58,650 --> 00:48:01,950
a recycling bin. Like it was one of These great big 3 or 4 inch

758
00:48:02,450 --> 00:48:06,190
wide binders and the panels were mostly off. I think he probably had it for

759
00:48:06,690 --> 00:48:10,270
three years. And these great big rings, and it was just papers everywhere at all

760
00:48:10,770 --> 00:48:14,880
different angles stuffed in there. But somehow if

761
00:48:15,380 --> 00:48:18,880
I asked him to find the green periodic table sheet, he would just

762
00:48:19,380 --> 00:48:22,600
run his fingers down the side and pull it out before anybody else

763
00:48:23,160 --> 00:48:26,640
flipping through their colored tabs had it. And then when he filed

764
00:48:27,140 --> 00:48:29,200
it away again, it looked to me like he put it in a completely different

765
00:48:29,700 --> 00:48:32,960
spot. But somehow he knew where everything was.

766
00:48:33,460 --> 00:48:37,480
He just maintained, you know, sort of this, this mad scientist, messy laboratory

767
00:48:37,640 --> 00:48:40,970
kind of, of thought, but he knew where everything

768
00:48:41,050 --> 00:48:44,610
was. Yeah. And so he had teachers all through

769
00:48:45,110 --> 00:48:47,770
his life telling him he was disorganized and, you know, he needed to clean up

770
00:48:48,270 --> 00:48:50,290
his act. And I think I might have been the first one to look at

771
00:48:50,790 --> 00:48:54,090
him and say, you're organized. More than half the people in this classroom.

772
00:48:54,570 --> 00:48:57,930
I love it. Not because it looks nice. I don't actually care what it looks

773
00:48:58,430 --> 00:49:01,410
like. And if you don't care what it looks like, then is there anyone left

774
00:49:01,910 --> 00:49:04,990
to care what it looks like? It doesn't matter. But the question is,

775
00:49:05,490 --> 00:49:09,270
if you can find what you need when you need it, then you're organized.

776
00:49:09,430 --> 00:49:12,670
If you can't, if you're always losing stuff, then you have to

777
00:49:13,170 --> 00:49:16,630
change your system. Right? Right. Here's a little piece of wisdom.

778
00:49:16,790 --> 00:49:19,830
Whatever system you're using to approach life or approach

779
00:49:19,990 --> 00:49:23,590
school or approach parenting or whatever your, your employment,

780
00:49:24,090 --> 00:49:27,630
whatever it is, whatever system you're using is perfectly

781
00:49:28,130 --> 00:49:30,470
designed to produce the results that you're getting.

782
00:49:33,590 --> 00:49:37,030
So evaluate the system by the results you're getting.

783
00:49:37,110 --> 00:49:40,910
And if you don't like the results, check and see what part

784
00:49:41,410 --> 00:49:45,070
of the system needs to be tweaked. Right. To make it produce what you

785
00:49:45,570 --> 00:49:49,470
want instead. So if you're, if you're disorganized, buying a bunch of colored

786
00:49:49,970 --> 00:49:54,110
tabs won't help you unless that system is

787
00:49:54,610 --> 00:49:56,790
going to jive with you and you're going to be able to use it.

788
00:49:57,280 --> 00:50:00,680
But if you're the messy mad scientist type, maybe you just

789
00:50:01,180 --> 00:50:04,080
need a bunch of folders or maybe you need some, like,

790
00:50:04,320 --> 00:50:07,840
zippered laptop cases or something to keep everything

791
00:50:08,340 --> 00:50:12,280
organized. I don't know what you need, but you need something that's

792
00:50:12,780 --> 00:50:16,360
going to change. Right? So change your system, change the results. That's generally how that

793
00:50:16,860 --> 00:50:20,640
works. Doing, Doing your system

794
00:50:20,720 --> 00:50:24,000
harder will not produce different results. It'll still produce the

795
00:50:24,500 --> 00:50:28,110
same ones. Yeah. Well, when my kids were little, when they were really

796
00:50:28,610 --> 00:50:31,590
little, I was kind of a new parent, and I had some of my friends

797
00:50:32,090 --> 00:50:35,110
who weren't parents, they asked me,

798
00:50:35,830 --> 00:50:38,230
can you summarize what parenting is like?

799
00:50:38,870 --> 00:50:42,070
Like, I challenge you to summarize what parenting is like in one sentence.

800
00:50:42,710 --> 00:50:44,790
And I had to think about it for several days.

801
00:50:45,430 --> 00:50:48,990
But as I observed what was going on, I finally. I think I

802
00:50:49,490 --> 00:50:53,360
got it. What's. It's a summary. I don't know if it's the ultimate universal

803
00:50:53,860 --> 00:50:57,120
summary, but I think it'll resonate with most of the people listening to this Podcast.

804
00:50:58,320 --> 00:51:01,360
If I were to stand on one leg and tell you in one sentence,

805
00:51:01,600 --> 00:51:04,160
what is parenting? Here's the sentence.

806
00:51:05,600 --> 00:51:07,600
You get interrupted a lot.

807
00:51:11,680 --> 00:51:15,440
Yes. Just that.

808
00:51:18,600 --> 00:51:22,480
Nothing is a straight lie. No, no, you don't remember

809
00:51:22,980 --> 00:51:26,080
the old Family Circus cartoons with little Billy trying to walk, you know,

810
00:51:26,580 --> 00:51:29,040
on an errand, and he'd go all over the town. His little footprints would go

811
00:51:29,540 --> 00:51:33,320
everywhere. Yeah, that's. That's an average day when there are kids

812
00:51:33,820 --> 00:51:38,000
involved. It is something that should. Should take 20 minutes.

813
00:51:38,500 --> 00:51:42,370
Will not take 20 minutes because you will be interrupted.

814
00:51:42,450 --> 00:51:45,930
Because you're going to get help. It always takes longer

815
00:51:46,430 --> 00:51:49,330
if you get help. Which true thing. Right.

816
00:51:50,050 --> 00:51:53,610
It's okay. That's fine. And they have to learn things. Actually, that has been

817
00:51:54,110 --> 00:51:58,050
something with our kids in this age that they are in like that mid elementary.

818
00:51:58,370 --> 00:52:01,610
Mom, can I help? Like, I want to help you bake something

819
00:52:02,110 --> 00:52:04,810
or I want you to wrap a present. Let's do it. Or I want to

820
00:52:05,310 --> 00:52:08,130
help you. Can I help you clean? Like I'm cleaning things up.

821
00:52:08,630 --> 00:52:11,980
We have guests coming. And yes, you know, I have to stop and say

822
00:52:12,480 --> 00:52:16,060
it would be more efficient, absolutely for me to do this myself.

823
00:52:16,140 --> 00:52:20,260
However, at what age in stage, kind of like the reading example

824
00:52:20,760 --> 00:52:24,540
before, is it magically okay for me to allow you to

825
00:52:25,040 --> 00:52:28,020
enter into this? Because you're going to fumble. Whether you start at 4 or you

826
00:52:28,520 --> 00:52:31,940
start at 9 or 12, you're going to fumble and not be efficient. So do

827
00:52:32,440 --> 00:52:35,620
we do this today? And sometimes it is not today. I don't have time.

828
00:52:36,120 --> 00:52:39,580
The best time to optimally, the best time to get them involved

829
00:52:40,080 --> 00:52:41,700
is when they express interest. Yeah.

830
00:52:43,300 --> 00:52:46,740
Yes. And it's hard. And you really have to, like, take a step back

831
00:52:47,240 --> 00:52:50,540
for me, take a deep breath and be like, okay, I. Yes, yes, we'll do

832
00:52:51,040 --> 00:52:53,740
this. It's not going to be as smooth. The thing may not turn out exactly

833
00:52:54,240 --> 00:52:57,780
like I want. I find somehow I tend to forget ingredients.

834
00:52:58,820 --> 00:53:02,300
Maybe there's a little too much baking soda when we're baking. Or. Or, you know,

835
00:53:02,800 --> 00:53:06,220
yesterday, my. My middle son, he wanted to help, and frankly,

836
00:53:06,720 --> 00:53:09,500
I needed the help. And I asked him to dust, you know, all the things.

837
00:53:10,000 --> 00:53:14,020
And he magically lived on in 30 seconds. And I know that not 30 seconds.

838
00:53:14,340 --> 00:53:16,900
So I said, well, did you do this and that and this and like.

839
00:53:17,400 --> 00:53:20,820
Oh, I thought you just meant dust like the 1 inch square, you know?

840
00:53:21,320 --> 00:53:24,860
Yeah. Yes. You have to clarify. You have to make sure they understand what you

841
00:53:25,360 --> 00:53:28,180
want from them. Right. For sure. But. But at the end, you know, after a

842
00:53:28,680 --> 00:53:31,860
couple more promptings of Are you sure you're done? Are you sure? Did you do

843
00:53:32,360 --> 00:53:36,060
this? Did you do that? At the end, he now knows. Next time, when I

844
00:53:36,560 --> 00:53:39,540
say, hey, can you help me with this? What the expectation is.

845
00:53:40,260 --> 00:53:43,540
Nobody's good at anything until they learn how. Right?

846
00:53:44,340 --> 00:53:47,980
Yeah, there's, you know, we have so

847
00:53:48,480 --> 00:53:52,420
much as we're having this conversation, it's like, so convicting because I feel like there's.

848
00:53:52,920 --> 00:53:55,780
There's so much grace that we have for other adults particularly. Again,

849
00:53:56,280 --> 00:53:59,610
I'm thinking in the workplace or in friendships, like, we have grace for one another

850
00:54:00,110 --> 00:54:03,770
as adults and for us figuring things out. But we really need

851
00:54:04,270 --> 00:54:07,850
the ultimate grace for our kids as they're figuring stuff out, because they,

852
00:54:08,410 --> 00:54:12,929
more than any of us, just don't necessarily have the tools or experience to

853
00:54:13,429 --> 00:54:16,250
know what to do at the right exact time in the exact manner in which

854
00:54:16,750 --> 00:54:20,610
you expect something done right. Unless you communicate that in

855
00:54:21,110 --> 00:54:23,650
a way that they can understand, that you're sure they understand, and you communicate it

856
00:54:24,150 --> 00:54:27,950
in pieces and some other piece of encouragement

857
00:54:28,450 --> 00:54:31,830
here. I've been a lifetime educator,

858
00:54:31,990 --> 00:54:35,870
a lifelong educator, and so

859
00:54:36,370 --> 00:54:39,390
I've collected all these pithy sayings, but, you know, so there's a.

860
00:54:39,890 --> 00:54:42,950
There's a bunch of clever ones, but one of them that I learned very early

861
00:54:43,450 --> 00:54:46,790
on in my teaching career, in fact, we learned it

862
00:54:47,590 --> 00:54:50,910
doing student teaching, where you get placed in the schools to kind of practice teach

863
00:54:51,410 --> 00:54:55,110
as part of your. Your degree. And I remember coming back and kind

864
00:54:55,610 --> 00:54:58,750
of having a huddle with the others in my class after, you know, a few

865
00:54:59,250 --> 00:55:02,870
weeks of doing that, and we were just kind of bouncing ideas off each

866
00:55:03,370 --> 00:55:05,830
other. Well, how did it go? You know, what did you learn from this experience

867
00:55:06,330 --> 00:55:09,670
and all that stuff? And we concluded that

868
00:55:09,830 --> 00:55:11,590
the first law of teaching.

869
00:55:13,110 --> 00:55:16,430
Is that no lesson plan survives contact with the

870
00:55:21,920 --> 00:55:25,800
And you like parenting. Yeah, I see

871
00:55:26,300 --> 00:55:28,800
that applies seamlessly to parenting. And,

872
00:55:29,280 --> 00:55:32,080
and you just, you have to become okay with that,

873
00:55:32,640 --> 00:55:36,400
and you come up with backup plans for your backup plans, and you're

874
00:55:36,900 --> 00:55:40,000
pivoting all day long. And that's. That's. That's how it looks, though.

875
00:55:40,160 --> 00:55:43,960
That is what's going on. That is how it's supposed

876
00:55:44,460 --> 00:55:47,030
to be. It. You try. You have a place you want to go, you have

877
00:55:47,530 --> 00:55:51,030
a trajectory, and it's going to get diverted. And how do you massage

878
00:55:51,110 --> 00:55:54,870
to get roughly where you wanted to go? But we're

879
00:55:55,370 --> 00:55:57,990
going to take this path instead of that path. So. Okay, that's fine,

880
00:55:58,390 --> 00:56:01,910
you know, and your, your successful days.

881
00:56:03,510 --> 00:56:06,390
Are going to be up and down. Your, Your experience,

882
00:56:07,030 --> 00:56:10,310
whether it's parenting, homeschooling, it's going to go up and down

883
00:56:10,810 --> 00:56:14,030
like the stock market, right? It is, yeah. But if you step

884
00:56:14,530 --> 00:56:17,470
back, there's a long term trend upward.

885
00:56:18,190 --> 00:56:22,230
So you're going to have days where you finished lower

886
00:56:22,730 --> 00:56:26,550
than you were yesterday. But in a week you might be

887
00:56:27,050 --> 00:56:31,030
three times higher than you were yesterday. It's going up and down because people

888
00:56:31,530 --> 00:56:35,110
have moods and things happen and you get stung by a

889
00:56:35,610 --> 00:56:38,870
bee and, and that changes your plans for whatever. Like you

890
00:56:39,370 --> 00:56:43,650
spill your ice cream. Are you tripping? Like so many things can go wr in

891
00:56:44,150 --> 00:56:47,370
a day and, and you can have a bad day if you like. Right.

892
00:56:48,410 --> 00:56:52,410
But the trend overall is an

893
00:56:52,910 --> 00:56:56,650
upward trend. They're learning things, they're getting better at things, they're gaining experience,

894
00:56:56,890 --> 00:57:00,530
they're gaining wisdom, they're gaining intuition. There's all kinds of stuff

895
00:57:01,030 --> 00:57:04,490
happening there. But in the micro, day to day, hour to hour,

896
00:57:04,730 --> 00:57:08,410
you might have some bad days and some bad moments. And it's

897
00:57:08,910 --> 00:57:12,720
not all you have to do. The challenge for parents is

898
00:57:13,220 --> 00:57:16,880
to step back from that and think strategically, think long

899
00:57:16,960 --> 00:57:21,040
term. What is this doing moment to moment recognize.

900
00:57:21,540 --> 00:57:25,239
You're going to have times when you're just absolutely on fire, everything's working and

901
00:57:25,739 --> 00:57:30,240
other times when it's a dumpster fire and nothing's working and you

902
00:57:30,740 --> 00:57:33,080
just have to roll with that and try to put that fire out and get

903
00:57:33,580 --> 00:57:35,600
back to where you were going to go slowly and it's going to take longer

904
00:57:36,100 --> 00:57:39,110
than you thought and that's okay. But strategic thinking,

905
00:57:40,550 --> 00:57:45,310
look there. One of the things I teaching in all,

906
00:57:45,810 --> 00:57:49,150
well, through my career and now to homeschool groups, I do some self

907
00:57:49,650 --> 00:57:52,630
defense classes or martial arts classes or some interesting things. If you want to do

908
00:57:53,130 --> 00:57:56,710
a sword fighting class sometime, we can go. It's really fun. It's really good.

909
00:57:57,210 --> 00:58:00,110
Family sword fighting classes, man, I'm telling. You, that's a good way to get out

910
00:58:00,610 --> 00:58:03,910
some aggression. Very appealing. But whenever I'm teaching

911
00:58:04,410 --> 00:58:05,910
those kinds of skills to students.

912
00:58:07,430 --> 00:58:10,670
They'Re always comparing themselves to each other. They're always comparing

913
00:58:11,170 --> 00:58:15,030
themselves to me. And I'm like, what makes you think comparing yourself

914
00:58:15,530 --> 00:58:19,070
to somebody who's done this for 35 years is going to give you any

915
00:58:19,570 --> 00:58:23,270
useful information at all? Right. And so what I tell students,

916
00:58:23,350 --> 00:58:27,670
I'm going to tell parents this too. The only valid comparison

917
00:58:27,830 --> 00:58:32,440
that you can ever make is to compare yourself today to

918
00:58:32,940 --> 00:58:34,000
yourself on your first day.

919
00:58:37,040 --> 00:58:40,640
That's the only way to get an accurate thermometer of

920
00:58:41,140 --> 00:58:44,640
how you're doing. And guaranteed, if you've been

921
00:58:45,140 --> 00:58:48,280
doing A thing for a while, guaranteed you're going to be doing it better

922
00:58:48,780 --> 00:58:50,560
than you were on your first day. For sure.

923
00:58:52,000 --> 00:58:55,760
Everybody, right? Yeah. You know, the kids at the co ops and

924
00:58:56,080 --> 00:58:59,990
so they're almost tired of me saying this, but I say it like once

925
00:59:00,490 --> 00:59:03,990
a week at least in their ears. Anything that you

926
00:59:04,490 --> 00:59:07,830
keep doing and you don't quit, you get better at.

927
00:59:09,990 --> 00:59:13,350
Truth. And it doesn't matter whether that's making

928
00:59:13,850 --> 00:59:16,630
oatmeal or woodworking or,

929
00:59:17,030 --> 00:59:21,070
you know, playing a musical instrument or solving a math problem or lighting

930
00:59:21,570 --> 00:59:25,190
a fire or whatever, it doesn't matter. Anything that you keep doing

931
00:59:25,720 --> 00:59:28,920
long term, strategically, again, good days, bad days, think the stock

932
00:59:29,420 --> 00:59:33,120
market. Right. But long term, anything you keep

933
00:59:33,620 --> 00:59:37,400
doing, you don't quit, you're going to get better at. And that's for. For homeschooling

934
00:59:37,900 --> 00:59:41,080
parents who are just starting out too. Right. By the time you're 10 years into

935
00:59:41,580 --> 00:59:45,000
this, you're going to be the person

936
00:59:45,500 --> 00:59:48,280
that you wished you were 10 years ago.

937
00:59:48,760 --> 00:59:53,000
Yeah. You're going to be that one. Or you look at homeschooling families, other families

938
00:59:53,340 --> 00:59:56,620
who have been doing it for a while, and you go, wow, I wish

939
00:59:57,120 --> 00:59:59,460
I could be like that. Yeah. In five or ten years you will be like

940
00:59:59,960 --> 01:00:02,500
that. Yeah. As long as you don't quit. As long as you keep going and

941
01:00:03,000 --> 01:00:06,340
you keep trying things and you keep. Stop doing the. Stopping doing the things that

942
01:00:06,840 --> 01:00:09,420
don't work and starting doing the things that do, you keep doing that, you're going

943
01:00:09,920 --> 01:00:13,260
to get better at it. Of course you are. Yeah. I feel like what I'm

944
01:00:13,760 --> 01:00:16,700
part of, what I'm hear you, hearing you say right now is like if.

945
01:00:17,200 --> 01:00:19,500
If you go into this and you're white knuckling your plan.

946
01:00:19,900 --> 01:00:23,050
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're going to end the day with frustration

947
01:00:23,130 --> 01:00:26,250
and it's, it's not going to feel like it's successful.

948
01:00:26,490 --> 01:00:30,010
But if you give yourself some grace and some leeway and flex

949
01:00:30,090 --> 01:00:33,530
and you again, stop doing what's not working and try to

950
01:00:34,030 --> 01:00:37,650
pivot with what is working and just keep showing up. Yeah. You know, you,

951
01:00:38,150 --> 01:00:41,290
you will see that progress and man, I mean, you see that too.

952
01:00:41,790 --> 01:00:45,290
Like, if you have more than one kid, everything's new with the first kid.

953
01:00:45,790 --> 01:00:48,890
By the time you get to the second, third, fourth kid, you just know what

954
01:00:49,390 --> 01:00:53,090
not to sweat anymore because, Right. You know, it's. And it's so

955
01:00:53,590 --> 01:00:56,530
different. And I think that's so true with homeschooling. Like what we were so worried

956
01:00:57,030 --> 01:01:00,410
about. In the beginning. You just don't

957
01:01:00,910 --> 01:01:03,570
even really will my kid Ever learn how to read? Right. We're not worried about

958
01:01:04,070 --> 01:01:06,530
that anymore. We've taught two kids how to read. I'm not really worried about the

959
01:01:07,030 --> 01:01:10,690
last two. I mean, barring, you know, maybe there's some dyslexia or something might show

960
01:01:11,190 --> 01:01:14,290
up on another kid, and we'll. We'll get some. And then you deal with that.

961
01:01:14,790 --> 01:01:18,200
You figure out how. What resources to get for that, and off

962
01:01:18,700 --> 01:01:21,640
you go. Right. Like, that's. None of it's easy.

963
01:01:22,120 --> 01:01:26,040
No. But you keep

964
01:01:26,540 --> 01:01:30,000
showing up. Well. And nothing in life, like, I feel

965
01:01:30,500 --> 01:01:32,840
like we say this a lot around our house. Nothing in life that's worth doing

966
01:01:33,340 --> 01:01:37,120
is really that easy. Like, not usually. Not usually. Like throwing

967
01:01:37,620 --> 01:01:41,400
up. I know there was this phrase that we threw at her a lot,

968
01:01:41,900 --> 01:01:43,720
and it was, you know, if you find something you love, you'll never work a

969
01:01:44,220 --> 01:01:47,440
day in your life. And. Well, I think to a degree that's true.

970
01:01:47,940 --> 01:01:51,600
I also think it kind of gave us these false expectations, because I

971
01:01:52,100 --> 01:01:56,600
will say growing a garden is a lot of work, but it's also very satisfying

972
01:01:57,080 --> 01:02:00,759
to eat fresh raspberries that taste like the sun or.

973
01:02:01,259 --> 01:02:04,800
Or fresh tomatoes. So would I not. Do I not love gardening because it's hard

974
01:02:05,300 --> 01:02:07,960
and I don't like to sing at the end? No, that's. That's kind of silly.

975
01:02:08,460 --> 01:02:12,420
So there's ebb and flow. Like. Yep, yep. You can't.

976
01:02:12,740 --> 01:02:16,500
You can't not have struggle, and you can't not upwork,

977
01:02:17,000 --> 01:02:19,860
and you can't. That's how we grow. That's how we change. And so.

978
01:02:21,540 --> 01:02:24,940
Yeah, I want my kids to find things that they love and do more of

979
01:02:25,440 --> 01:02:29,260
those things. But just because things are hard, even as a parent or

980
01:02:29,760 --> 01:02:33,140
as the homeschooling parents. Yeah, you just. You keep.

981
01:02:33,640 --> 01:02:35,620
You keep doing it, and you know that it's well worth it, I think,

982
01:02:35,700 --> 01:02:39,160
being really focused. And you've talked about a couple times in this conversation,

983
01:02:39,320 --> 01:02:42,040
and, like, what is our end goal? What are we trying to do? We're trying

984
01:02:42,540 --> 01:02:46,480
to develop lifelong learners. We're trying to develop human beings that

985
01:02:46,980 --> 01:02:50,560
are going to be wonderful contributing members to society. Which means I expect

986
01:02:51,060 --> 01:02:54,800
them to be polite. I expect them to be kind and thoughtful and

987
01:02:55,300 --> 01:02:59,000
generous, and I want them to have a strong work ethic. But whether they're artists

988
01:02:59,160 --> 01:03:02,960
or construction, into construction or into nature

989
01:03:03,460 --> 01:03:06,700
or sword fighting, like, yeah, those are all

990
01:03:07,200 --> 01:03:10,180
possible if those other character traits exist. Right. Like, that's at the end of it.

991
01:03:10,680 --> 01:03:13,940
At the end, that's what success looks like. And so that's what's. That's why

992
01:03:14,440 --> 01:03:17,780
you keep showing up every day and you keep making this decision to, to do

993
01:03:18,280 --> 01:03:21,580
the not traditional homeschooling approach. Right?

994
01:03:21,900 --> 01:03:25,100
Yeah. And whatever kids show interest in.

995
01:03:27,180 --> 01:03:30,540
You can resource them in that. And I

996
01:03:31,040 --> 01:03:34,300
really encourage homeschooling parents in this area. Here's a, here's another pithy

997
01:03:34,800 --> 01:03:38,940
saying, kind of a. One of those oh my goodness things I

998
01:03:39,440 --> 01:03:43,060
heard. It's quoted like this, if your kid struggles in math

999
01:03:43,860 --> 01:03:45,940
but excels in violin.

1000
01:03:47,700 --> 01:03:50,180
Make sure you hire a violin tutor.

1001
01:03:52,420 --> 01:03:54,900
Oh. Wow.

1002
01:03:56,500 --> 01:03:59,780
Now, not so much as a, as a sense of.

1003
01:04:02,830 --> 01:04:06,710
You, you, you, you do that instead of making sure they're resourced

1004
01:04:07,210 --> 01:04:10,830
properly in math. Right. So I think I'll qualify the statement by saying if they

1005
01:04:11,330 --> 01:04:13,550
need help in math, they still need help in math, but don't get them the

1006
01:04:14,050 --> 01:04:17,070
math tutor instead of the violin tutor.

1007
01:04:18,270 --> 01:04:21,750
If they need both, they need both. One, they need a tutor

1008
01:04:22,250 --> 01:04:25,750
to help them through the other, they need a tutor to help them

1009
01:04:26,250 --> 01:04:26,350
excel.

1010
01:04:30,250 --> 01:04:33,690
And that's something I've really noticed working with homeschool co ops and in general

1011
01:04:34,170 --> 01:04:38,690
is when you give kids space and

1012
01:04:39,190 --> 01:04:42,970
resources and time, they invent things.

1013
01:04:44,490 --> 01:04:47,530
It's so cool to see that they. Get creative,

1014
01:04:47,770 --> 01:04:51,370
they start building stuff, they do things on their own.

1015
01:04:51,870 --> 01:04:54,490
They just, they figure that as long as they've got the building blocks.

1016
01:04:55,730 --> 01:04:59,650
And you know, we, we brought in a bunch of hay bales

1017
01:05:00,150 --> 01:05:03,690
at one of the co ops that I'm working with last winter with the intention

1018
01:05:04,190 --> 01:05:07,570
of, you know, surrounding an area and putting a skating rink in.

1019
01:05:08,290 --> 01:05:11,690
But the weather was just up and down, too warm,

1020
01:05:12,190 --> 01:05:14,290
too cold, too warm, too cold, up and down. We couldn't ever get to that.

1021
01:05:14,610 --> 01:05:18,290
But it didn't matter because within,

1022
01:05:18,690 --> 01:05:22,010
within a day of realizing we weren't going to be able to flood this

1023
01:05:22,510 --> 01:05:26,510
rink. The hay bales were all gone. Like the kids had picked

1024
01:05:27,010 --> 01:05:30,550
them up, working together, they'd hauled them up and they built like a

1025
01:05:31,050 --> 01:05:34,590
giant structure out of. They built this huge fort with a roof made of pallets,

1026
01:05:35,090 --> 01:05:38,469
and they had two rooms, three entrances and, and they played

1027
01:05:38,969 --> 01:05:42,230
in it all winter long. That's awesome. Well, like, oh, well, that's kind of better

1028
01:05:42,730 --> 01:05:45,190
than a skating rink, I think, you know, but just, it was like real life

1029
01:05:45,690 --> 01:05:49,070
Minecraft. I told them it wasn't. You get to play Minecraft right now

1030
01:05:49,300 --> 01:05:52,620
at minus 20. It's really cool. And so they were doing it.

1031
01:05:53,120 --> 01:05:56,300
But, but again, same thing, give kids a bunch of sticks. Next thing

1032
01:05:56,800 --> 01:06:00,100
you know, they've built a structure of some kind out of it or they've

1033
01:06:00,600 --> 01:06:04,100
got a fire going Or. Or whatever, I'm teaching outdoor skills and survival skills

1034
01:06:04,600 --> 01:06:07,580
and stuff like that. So before anybody gets alarmed about kids just randomly going up

1035
01:06:08,080 --> 01:06:10,740
and getting tired, going, we do that on purpose.

1036
01:06:13,220 --> 01:06:16,890
We do that on purpose. We teach them to respect it and to be safe

1037
01:06:17,390 --> 01:06:20,810
with it. But if they're like, hey, can we. Can we get a fire going

1038
01:06:21,310 --> 01:06:24,090
and cook some marshmallows? There's the wood.

1039
01:06:24,590 --> 01:06:26,890
Here's a saw. There's a knife. Go ahead.

1040
01:06:27,850 --> 01:06:30,450
I've taught you how to do it. Now go ahead and do it. Now.

1041
01:06:30,950 --> 01:06:34,690
You can do it just because you want to, and they do, and they

1042
01:06:35,190 --> 01:06:37,490
get onto that all the time. It's just really funny watching them do that.

1043
01:06:37,990 --> 01:06:41,370
You give them resources, give them time and space to use the resources,

1044
01:06:41,950 --> 01:06:43,470
and they invent things.

1045
01:06:45,790 --> 01:06:48,190
I love it. Yeah. Pretty amazing.

1046
01:06:48,590 --> 01:06:51,550
It's so true. And, you know, one of the things, too, with homeschooling,

1047
01:06:52,510 --> 01:06:55,550
Time is part of that, right? Yep. And so your lessons,

1048
01:06:55,710 --> 01:06:59,110
you're able to get so much school done in such a short amount of

1049
01:06:59,610 --> 01:07:02,990
time. And so I feel like we're giving our kids back their childhood, in a

1050
01:07:03,490 --> 01:07:07,030
sense. They have time to be bored, and they have time to think about things

1051
01:07:07,530 --> 01:07:09,890
and time to pick up books and time to talk to each other and.

1052
01:07:10,120 --> 01:07:13,320
And times to go kick a soccer ball and times to hang upside

1053
01:07:13,820 --> 01:07:17,400
down and stare at a wall. Invent games. Like, they make

1054
01:07:17,480 --> 01:07:20,600
games up, and then they have to explain

1055
01:07:21,100 --> 01:07:24,160
to the adults how the game works. It's like, oh,

1056
01:07:24,660 --> 01:07:28,120
yeah, that's pretty good. And then what I've noticed is with the groups I'm

1057
01:07:28,620 --> 01:07:31,600
working with, if the kids invent a game, then they want to come and tell

1058
01:07:32,100 --> 01:07:34,720
me about, hey, we invented this game. This is how it works. Then I want

1059
01:07:35,220 --> 01:07:38,220
to listen to them talk about it and then ask some questions to clarify,

1060
01:07:38,720 --> 01:07:40,780
well, what happens if this happens? Or what do you do in this to make

1061
01:07:41,280 --> 01:07:44,380
sure they've got all the things nailed down? And then what I've noticed is if

1062
01:07:44,880 --> 01:07:47,780
I make a suggestion like, hey, what if you did it like this? What if

1063
01:07:48,280 --> 01:07:51,820
you added this into the game? Do you think that would be fun? And a

1064
01:07:52,320 --> 01:07:55,660
lot of times they're really open to taking the suggestions, even from the adults.

1065
01:07:56,700 --> 01:07:59,820
And that's really kind of cool, actually, because all of a sudden

1066
01:08:00,540 --> 01:08:03,800
they're understanding that they can get some advice

1067
01:08:04,360 --> 01:08:07,000
from the adults in their life that actually works.

1068
01:08:07,640 --> 01:08:11,320
And I think that might transfer to other things when they're looking

1069
01:08:11,820 --> 01:08:15,080
for advice. One of the hazards, and I think this is possibly one of

1070
01:08:15,580 --> 01:08:18,920
the most serious hazards of institutionalized education in any

1071
01:08:19,420 --> 01:08:24,360
form is that it tends to teach kids year

1072
01:08:24,860 --> 01:08:27,160
after year that your only valid peers.

1073
01:08:29,010 --> 01:08:30,130
Are the same age as you.

1074
01:08:33,810 --> 01:08:37,610
And that never happens outside of school for

1075
01:08:38,110 --> 01:08:41,570
the rest of your life. You do not play on sports teams

1076
01:08:42,070 --> 01:08:45,050
with only people the same age as you. You don't work with people on the

1077
01:08:45,550 --> 01:08:48,770
same age as you. You don't go to church with

1078
01:08:49,090 --> 01:08:52,850
just people the same age as you. You don't do

1079
01:08:53,350 --> 01:08:57,059
projects with just people the same age as you. It's. You're always surrounded by

1080
01:08:57,559 --> 01:09:00,899
a wide range of ages. And a skill of

1081
01:09:01,399 --> 01:09:04,459
learning how to interact with people of different ages is critically important,

1082
01:09:04,539 --> 01:09:08,299
I think. But that happens very naturally

1083
01:09:08,799 --> 01:09:11,179
in the homeschooling model. Yeah.

1084
01:09:11,819 --> 01:09:15,499
Kids can play with babies and then go sit and have a deep

1085
01:09:15,999 --> 01:09:19,899
conversation with grandpa five minutes later and all points in between, and they become

1086
01:09:20,399 --> 01:09:24,349
naturally good at that. Whereas in the age restricted,

1087
01:09:24,589 --> 01:09:27,669
these are your peers. These are the only people you talk to. You're in grade

1088
01:09:28,169 --> 01:09:31,909
four. You don't talk to the grade fivers because they're, you know, weird. And the

1089
01:09:32,409 --> 01:09:36,469
grade threes are so last year and, you know, just. Yeah. So you

1090
01:09:36,969 --> 01:09:40,589
end up reinforcing this model. And so it's funny how people always ask

1091
01:09:40,669 --> 01:09:44,029
the first question when they say you're homeschooling. It's like, well, what. How are they

1092
01:09:44,529 --> 01:09:47,429
going to get socialized? It's like, I can tell you how they're going to get

1093
01:09:47,929 --> 01:09:51,549
socialized, but don't think for a minute that in school they're getting socialized

1094
01:09:52,049 --> 01:09:55,890
only in a direction that you'd like. Like. Right, because they're getting socialized

1095
01:09:56,390 --> 01:09:59,890
to believe that at some level they're. They're only valid

1096
01:10:00,390 --> 01:10:03,970
peers of their same age. And not all

1097
01:10:04,470 --> 01:10:07,770
kids are going to experience that. Like, you know, your mileage will vary, but.

1098
01:10:08,730 --> 01:10:12,410
But that's the trend. And I've noticed with homeschoolers,

1099
01:10:12,970 --> 01:10:16,330
we. When our kids were little, they. We had. People would

1100
01:10:16,830 --> 01:10:20,720
constantly comment about how articulate they were and how. And how polite

1101
01:10:21,220 --> 01:10:23,520
they were and how they. They could talk to adults and they were playing with

1102
01:10:24,020 --> 01:10:27,760
kids, and they were able to just flex between different age groups and communicate

1103
01:10:28,260 --> 01:10:31,480
appropriately with them. They were always impressed by that. And then.

1104
01:10:31,980 --> 01:10:34,040
And then we would say that we were homeschooling, and then they would ask,

1105
01:10:34,540 --> 01:10:37,640
oh, what about socialization? It's like, I think you answered your

1106
01:10:38,140 --> 01:10:41,840
question before you asked it. I. I feel

1107
01:10:42,340 --> 01:10:46,120
like I could have said that exact thing has happened because that is 100%.

1108
01:10:46,860 --> 01:10:49,500
We're experiencing that as well. Yeah, it's like that.

1109
01:10:51,420 --> 01:10:54,740
It's so true. And I often remind people when they push

1110
01:10:55,240 --> 01:10:58,780
back on that. Do you not remember in school the teacher spends

1111
01:10:59,280 --> 01:11:02,740
so much time asking the kids to be quiet and stop talking. Raise your hand

1112
01:11:03,240 --> 01:11:05,620
when you want to talk if you have, you know, and I will dictate whether

1113
01:11:06,120 --> 01:11:09,100
or not you have something important to say or, you know, if it's the right

1114
01:11:09,600 --> 01:11:12,300
time to ask a question. And then the kids go out and they play on

1115
01:11:12,800 --> 01:11:16,200
the playground, you know, if they're in that age range for a

1116
01:11:16,700 --> 01:11:19,960
little bit a couple times a day. Yeah. And that, that is the

1117
01:11:20,460 --> 01:11:23,640
extent of their socializing. So I think I said to someone one time, if they

1118
01:11:24,140 --> 01:11:27,160
get 30 minutes outside a day times five days a week, if I can do

1119
01:11:27,660 --> 01:11:31,280
better than that, then my kids have had at least as good as

1120
01:11:31,920 --> 01:11:34,800
for sure what your kids are having and more like.

1121
01:11:35,840 --> 01:11:38,720
But yeah, we see that too. Like at church, the kids will talk to.

1122
01:11:40,360 --> 01:11:43,720
The more mature audience, you know,

1123
01:11:44,220 --> 01:11:47,120
the oldest folks. Oh, wow. Your kids know a lot of things and they're able

1124
01:11:47,620 --> 01:11:50,120
to tell us a lot about a lot of things. And they're very polite.

1125
01:11:50,280 --> 01:11:53,720
Thank you. And I'm glad, like, that is the goal.

1126
01:11:53,880 --> 01:11:57,080
That's part of what you're making. Right. So that's, that's huge.

1127
01:11:57,720 --> 01:12:02,120
Yeah, it's a. There's, there's so many reasons to try

1128
01:12:02,620 --> 01:12:06,440
this. I mean, so many reasons. And I, I to

1129
01:12:06,940 --> 01:12:10,240
that. I feel like we could talk for hours, Mr. Day. Absolutely.

1130
01:12:10,880 --> 01:12:14,360
I think we should do this again. And we should have you again for

1131
01:12:14,860 --> 01:12:18,040
sure. I'd be happy to do that. But we should probably, you know, wrap this

1132
01:12:18,540 --> 01:12:22,159
up just. Just to be conscious. Yeah. Of all of our podcast

1133
01:12:22,659 --> 01:12:25,240
time and all that stuff. Yeah. We don't want people bored, although I don't think

1134
01:12:25,740 --> 01:12:28,840
anyone's bored. You. I'm not bored. I'm not bored either.

1135
01:12:29,340 --> 01:12:32,920
This is such a good conversation. And if you think, if you go and roll

1136
01:12:33,420 --> 01:12:37,170
this around and think, okay, you want to hit a more

1137
01:12:37,670 --> 01:12:41,050
specific subject sometime and more. This is maybe introductory. Right. And maybe

1138
01:12:41,550 --> 01:12:44,650
you want to think drill down on something that, that triggered while

1139
01:12:45,150 --> 01:12:49,050
you were re. Listening to this again or something like that. Or perhaps you

1140
01:12:49,550 --> 01:12:53,370
might get some comments from your audience who might say, hey, we want to,

1141
01:12:53,870 --> 01:12:57,330
we want to know more about this or, or, you know, have the conversation about

1142
01:12:57,830 --> 01:13:01,490
that. They may have some suggestions. I think that's a good thing to invite.

1143
01:13:02,200 --> 01:13:05,200
I don't want to presume, but I think that's probably in line with what you're

1144
01:13:05,700 --> 01:13:09,200
looking for too. That is the goal. Yeah. So, like Invite

1145
01:13:09,700 --> 01:13:13,520
the conversation. I think it's really valuable for homeschoolers or people who are thinking

1146
01:13:14,020 --> 01:13:18,080
about homeschooling to connect with others who are doing it just

1147
01:13:18,580 --> 01:13:21,960
so you have a way to bounce ideas around and get ideas from each other.

1148
01:13:22,680 --> 01:13:26,080
You do it in community and that really works. And you get your kids making

1149
01:13:26,580 --> 01:13:29,910
friends with each other and having those opportunities to play together and invent

1150
01:13:30,410 --> 01:13:33,630
things together. It's wonderful. Again, the co op model that I, that I'm

1151
01:13:34,130 --> 01:13:38,510
part of is really phenomenal for that. I really like seeing that. But yeah,

1152
01:13:39,010 --> 01:13:41,190
I think even if it's. Just getting together with other families once in a while

1153
01:13:41,690 --> 01:13:45,070
to play great. Yeah, you shouldn't. If you're going to,

1154
01:13:45,790 --> 01:13:49,310
to homeschool, I don't think you should feel like you're alone. Like, absolutely not.

1155
01:13:49,810 --> 01:13:52,270
There are so many people now and there's so many resources,

1156
01:13:53,470 --> 01:13:56,310
and I think for the most part, most of us are pretty friendly.

1157
01:13:56,870 --> 01:14:00,390
And even if we don't all agree on the curriculum or on

1158
01:14:00,890 --> 01:14:03,030
the methodology.

1159
01:14:04,870 --> 01:14:08,910
Or, you know, different motivations for why we're homeschooling,

1160
01:14:09,410 --> 01:14:12,990
I think at the end of the day, we're all experiencing things and

1161
01:14:13,490 --> 01:14:16,950
we can really invest and motivate and encourage.

1162
01:14:17,450 --> 01:14:20,710
Encourage is the right word. And guaranteed, if you talk to somebody else who's homeschooling,

1163
01:14:21,230 --> 01:14:25,150
you're going to get a couple ideas that you didn't think of before and the

1164
01:14:25,650 --> 01:14:28,310
reverse will be true, too. They'll walk away from the conversation going, oh, that was

1165
01:14:28,810 --> 01:14:31,350
actually a really good idea. I'm going to try that. Of course. Well, that's how

1166
01:14:31,850 --> 01:14:35,710
this works. You don't have to invent the wheel yourself.

1167
01:14:36,590 --> 01:14:39,870
Lots of people have solved the problems that you might be running into, and you'll

1168
01:14:40,370 --> 01:14:43,430
get ideas and there might be 15 different ways to solve it. Try a couple

1169
01:14:43,930 --> 01:14:46,670
of them. If they work, keep doing those things. If they don't, try another one.

1170
01:14:47,630 --> 01:14:50,940
You totally give yourself freedom to do that. Yeah.

1171
01:14:51,260 --> 01:14:54,540
So if there was one piece of advice that you were to give to someone

1172
01:14:54,860 --> 01:14:58,220
right now, like, if you were just talking to someone and they said

1173
01:14:58,720 --> 01:15:01,220
they're thinking about it, they're not really sure how to get started or what they

1174
01:15:01,720 --> 01:15:04,540
should do, like, what would you say to them? Just what I told you just

1175
01:15:05,040 --> 01:15:08,980
now. Find somebody who's doing it and say, how's it going

1176
01:15:09,480 --> 01:15:12,620
for you? What. What are you experiencing

1177
01:15:13,120 --> 01:15:17,280
right now? Or. Or what advice would you give me? I mean, we are 20

1178
01:15:17,780 --> 01:15:19,520
years out from that. Right. You know.

1179
01:15:21,280 --> 01:15:24,520
My kids are adults and they're successfully doing all

1180
01:15:25,020 --> 01:15:28,320
kinds of crazy things. Very independently. So that's

1181
01:15:28,820 --> 01:15:31,760
a win. Like it worked. I could tell you it worked for us at least.

1182
01:15:32,079 --> 01:15:35,520
Right. But for somebody who's just in, you know, maybe a little bit ahead of

1183
01:15:36,020 --> 01:15:39,920
it, a little bit ahead from where you are building friendships with people

1184
01:15:40,420 --> 01:15:43,330
who are a little bit further on the journey and just being able to talk

1185
01:15:43,830 --> 01:15:47,610
to them about how things are going and to give you suggestions,

1186
01:15:47,930 --> 01:15:51,530
that would be huge. And it's also super encouraging because they're

1187
01:15:52,030 --> 01:15:54,210
going to be vulnerable with you and say, yeah, well, we didn't always know what

1188
01:15:54,710 --> 01:15:58,210
was going on, but then we tried this and it really worked. And oh yeah,

1189
01:15:58,710 --> 01:16:01,890
this might not work. Don't try that. And people are, yeah, people are

1190
01:16:02,390 --> 01:16:05,330
going to figure that out. Right? There's so many things that people have. Stories back

1191
01:16:05,830 --> 01:16:08,490
and forth are going to be very, very helpful.

1192
01:16:09,470 --> 01:16:12,870
And so if you're considering it, don't dismiss it. If there's

1193
01:16:13,370 --> 01:16:16,670
something in you that's suggesting that this would be something to

1194
01:16:17,170 --> 01:16:19,870
pursue, I would say follow that intuition.

1195
01:16:20,990 --> 01:16:24,190
Parent intuition should not be dismissed.

1196
01:16:24,750 --> 01:16:28,270
If you feel like there's something wrong with what's going on

1197
01:16:28,770 --> 01:16:32,510
in the public school system, maybe. I've talked to lots of parents. That's their

1198
01:16:33,010 --> 01:16:37,000
motivation. Don't keep going and dismissing

1199
01:16:37,640 --> 01:16:40,520
your sense that something's off.

1200
01:16:41,480 --> 01:16:45,280
You'd be much better to assume something's off. When you feel like something's

1201
01:16:45,780 --> 01:16:49,880
off, you won't be right all the time, but you'll

1202
01:16:50,380 --> 01:16:54,200
be right more often than if you keep dismissing your sense

1203
01:16:54,700 --> 01:16:58,200
of something's not right here. If you feel a nudge that homeschooling

1204
01:16:58,700 --> 01:17:01,230
is something you want to look at, or you feel a nudge that other,

1205
01:17:01,310 --> 01:17:04,830
more traditional school systems are going in a direction

1206
01:17:05,330 --> 01:17:07,150
that you don't want for your kids. Either way,

1207
01:17:08,430 --> 01:17:12,190
follow that intuition, pursue it and seek out

1208
01:17:12,270 --> 01:17:16,110
homeschooling groups. You know, there's groups all the time that are having get togethers,

1209
01:17:17,150 --> 01:17:20,910
matches, does a bunch of get togethers throughout the year and other homeschooling

1210
01:17:21,410 --> 01:17:25,270
groups where they are. Hey, if you're new to homeschooling,

1211
01:17:25,770 --> 01:17:29,330
come and hang out for coffee and you know, meet other parents and just

1212
01:17:29,830 --> 01:17:32,570
have a meet and greet and talk. Those kind of things exist.

1213
01:17:32,970 --> 01:17:36,410
Join, go to those, walk in, walk in.

1214
01:17:36,910 --> 01:17:40,210
You're going to be welcomed there and there's nothing. People who

1215
01:17:40,710 --> 01:17:44,170
are loving their homeschooling journey will be super excited

1216
01:17:44,670 --> 01:17:47,650
to talk to somebody who says, hey, I'm thinking about homeschooling. What do you know

1217
01:17:48,150 --> 01:17:51,450
about it? Oh, they'll tell you everything you have.

1218
01:17:51,950 --> 01:17:55,130
Like, get a pot of that, bring out the cinnamon buns

1219
01:17:55,630 --> 01:17:57,570
because you're going to need a long time. They'll talk to you about it.

1220
01:17:58,070 --> 01:18:01,310
They'll be excited, excited to share. And then you take. Take from

1221
01:18:01,810 --> 01:18:05,430
it what you will or leave it if somebody else's motivation doesn't align with yours.

1222
01:18:06,310 --> 01:18:10,310
But some of their ideas for how to mechanically make it happen are good.

1223
01:18:10,390 --> 01:18:13,550
Great. Chew the meat, spit out the bones. Right. Like, take what

1224
01:18:14,050 --> 01:18:17,390
works. And if it's not quite aligned with what you want, then go find somebody

1225
01:18:17,890 --> 01:18:21,150
who's more closely aligned and talk to them, too. Like, there's lots of ways to

1226
01:18:21,650 --> 01:18:25,000
do this and you can find people to go

1227
01:18:25,500 --> 01:18:28,160
with you on the journey. It's really easy. Reach out.

1228
01:18:29,120 --> 01:18:34,160
That's so good. It's so true. It is. There's so many. And I can

1229
01:18:34,720 --> 01:18:38,760
attest that we do like to talk when we're those who are enthusiastic

1230
01:18:39,260 --> 01:18:41,360
and, like, passionate about it and finding success and.

1231
01:18:43,120 --> 01:18:46,040
And yeah, we want to talk about it and share that.

1232
01:18:46,540 --> 01:18:49,880
And that is the whole motivation. That's why we had this conversation

1233
01:18:50,380 --> 01:18:53,850
today. So I hope that if you're listening and something struck a

1234
01:18:54,350 --> 01:18:56,850
chord with you, that you'd share it with us if you had questions or you'd

1235
01:18:57,350 --> 01:19:00,530
like us to talk to Mr. Dave about more things. I know

1236
01:19:01,030 --> 01:19:03,530
that he has a wealth of knowledge and we will ask you to have to,

1237
01:19:03,850 --> 01:19:07,170
yes, talk again. So shoot us an email or

1238
01:19:07,670 --> 01:19:10,770
leave a comment on one of our channels and let us

1239
01:19:11,270 --> 01:19:15,210
know. But thank you so much for your encouragement and your wisdom and your experience,

1240
01:19:15,530 --> 01:19:18,810
because it's great. It's great to look at those ahead

1241
01:19:19,310 --> 01:19:22,730
and say, yes, it was a worthwhile decision. Because not every day. Absolutely.

1242
01:19:22,890 --> 01:19:26,120
Yeah, absolutely. Not easy every day, but it is worthwhile.

1243
01:19:26,680 --> 01:19:30,440
Think strategically. It's going somewhere eventually. Right. There's a trajectory

1244
01:19:30,940 --> 01:19:33,640
that's bigger than the ups and downs of the day. Yes.

1245
01:19:33,800 --> 01:19:37,160
I love that. Thank you so much, Mr. Dave. You are welcome.

1246
01:19:45,880 --> 01:19:49,850
That was such a refreshing conversation, wasn't it? I love how

1247
01:19:50,350 --> 01:19:53,250
Mr. Dave reminds us that homeschooling isn't about doing it all.

1248
01:19:53,570 --> 01:19:57,090
It's about doing what works for your family. So if

1249
01:19:57,590 --> 01:20:00,690
something isn't clicking, whether it's a lesson, a routine, or even your

1250
01:20:01,190 --> 01:20:05,090
expectations, you have permission to pause, pivot, and to

1251
01:20:05,590 --> 01:20:08,610
try something new. That's not failure, that's wisdom.

1252
01:20:09,410 --> 01:20:12,730
If this episode encouraged you, it would mean so much if you

1253
01:20:13,230 --> 01:20:16,060
left a review or shared it with another parent who's feeling stuck or overwhelmed.

1254
01:20:16,460 --> 01:20:19,660
And don't forget, if you want a fun, simple tool

1255
01:20:19,820 --> 01:20:23,340
to spark reading habits, grab our free reading calendar in the show notes.

1256
01:20:23,840 --> 01:20:25,940
It's the same one we used when our kids were just starting to read,

1257
01:20:26,440 --> 01:20:29,580
and it really worked for us. Thanks again for listening.

1258
01:20:30,080 --> 01:20:31,580
Until next time. Be blessed.