Life, Health & The Universe
Welcome to **Life, Health & The Universe**, the podcast dedicated to empowering women in their 40s and 50s to embrace a vibrant and meaningful life. Join us as we explore the intersection of health, wellness, and personal growth, offering insights and inspiration to help you navigate this transformative stage of life.
Each week, we dive into topics that matter most to you— from holistic health and nutrition to mindfulness and self-discovery. With expert interviews, relatable stories, and practical tips, we aim to inspire you to live your best life, cultivate deeper connections, and find purpose in every moment.
Whether you’re seeking to enhance your well-being, explore new passions, or simply find a supportive community, **Life, Health & The Universe** is here to guide you on your journey. Tune in and discover how to thrive in this exciting chapter of life!
Contact Nadine: https://lifehealththeuniverse.podcastpage.io/contact
Life, Health & The Universe
Children First: Transforming Home Education for Families - MotherMinds Founders, Paige O'Donnell & Caitlin Field
What happens when two passionate mothers and educators decide the traditional education system no longer serves children's best interests? They create something revolutionary.
Meet Paige O'Donnell and Caitlin Field, the visionary founders behind Mother Minds Education, who join us to share their journey from disillusioned teacher and conscious parent to pioneers in the homeschooling movement. Their story begins with a profound realisation: the modern school system prioritises academic achievements over childhood innocence, emotional wellbeing, and the natural development of young minds.
Their approach to homeschooling is refreshingly different. Rather than adhering to a single rigid philosophy, Mother Minds blends elements from various educational methodologies, focusing on what genuinely works for each child. Their curriculum targets ages 3-7, building strong foundations in literacy and numeracy through engaging, pressure-free lessons that can be completed anywhere – even during a quick car ride.
What truly sets Mother Minds apart is their emphasis on community. They've created a haven where mothers find support, children develop at their own pace, and learning happens through play, inquiry, and genuine curiosity. Their program acknowledges a fundamental truth: between ages 0-7, children form their core beliefs about themselves and the world. By providing an environment where children feel safe to express themselves, make mistakes, and follow their interests, they're nurturing not just academic skills but confident, emotionally regulated young people.
If you've ever questioned whether traditional education is the only path, or if you're curious about homeschooling but intimidated by the prospect, this conversation offers a compelling alternative vision. Paige and Caitlin are proving that education can be joyful, connected, and perfectly tailored to each family's unique journey – what they beautifully describe as finding that "Goldilocks moment" where learning feels just right for everyone involved.
You can find MotherMind's full profile in our Guest Directory
https://lifehealththeuniverse.podcastpage.io/person/caitlin-and-paige
Welcome to Life, health and the Universe, bringing you stories that connect us, preventative and holistic health practices to empower us and esoteric wisdom to enlighten us. We invite you to visit our website, where you can access the podcast, watch on YouTube and find all of our guests in the guest directory. Visit lifehealththeuniversepodcastpageio. Now let's get stuck into this week's episode.
Speaker 1:Today, I'm joined by Paige O'Donnell and Caitlin Field from Mother Minds Education. Paige and Caitlin are guides in heart-centred homeschooling and family learning and therefore we welcome you to a space where connection, curiosity and family-centred learning comes first. First, paige and Caitlin are passionate mothers, educators, homeschooling advocates and the creators of a thoughtfully designed homeschooling curriculum that nurtures both the child and the parent educator at home, with stress-free curriculum and step-by-step, simple lessons. With a shared love for mindful education and authentic connection, paige and Caitlin bring warmth, insight and real life experience to everything they do, and you'll see that when you check them out on Instagram by finding them at Mother Minds. Thank you so much for joining me today. Guys, I'm really super excited about this conversation. I've told you that I homeschool, so right back at the beginning of this podcast, I did a couple of little mini episodes about my own experience, but I haven't had anyone on talking about homeschooling. Now I've got two pros and I'm really looking forward to having this conversation, so thank you so much for sitting through that introduction.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thanks for having us. You can probably teach us a thing or two as well from your homeschooling maybe yeah, because it's such a it's such a vast, open world where everyone does it so differently, everyone talks about it so differently, everyone has their different beliefs and values around why they want to homeschool and that's what makes it so unique is that it's tailored so specifically differently to every single family. So, hearing someone else's journey in their background, we'll have to go back and listen to that. We haven't listened to your homeschooling podcast.
Speaker 1:Okay, they're just a few short. They're kind of like almost personal reflections on my experience as we started getting into it, because my two kids are louis uh 10 and winnie's nearly nine. So we started two years ago. We pulled them out of school so like, rather than starting right out. Um, you know, with the homeschooling journey, from the beginning we had some experiences at school, but you know there's that whole kind of like undoing what's happened at school right.
Speaker 2:That's a great experience seeing both sides of it. You've been in the schooling system, you've come into the whole school space and you've got a great perspective of what both of them look like and how your children react differently to both of those different spaces.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally totally, it's uh coming to two years, because for yourself. You're touching because it's huge.
Speaker 3:It's two years into. That is yeah so much learning yeah, totally, totally.
Speaker 1:I think if I had my time again, I never would have put them in school.
Speaker 3:But you know, hindsight's a beautiful thing yeah, don't know what, we don't know, that's one of our favorite things yeah, always learning. Don't know what you don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah so, do you want to? So we've got a lot to talk about and, um, yeah, you guys are really pioneering some great stuff in the homeschool um community. What do I say? The home, yeah, just the world of homeschooling, um, which is amazing, and so we want to get the message out there for people. Um, but if you, let's start by like, with the basics who are you? I gave you a little intro and so obviously we know what we're going to be talking about.
Speaker 2:But if you want, to give us a little bit of background about what each of you, how each of you sort of came to this point. Maybe you start because I came into your world, ok. You've been doing this for a long time. Yeah, so maybe you start and I came into your world.
Speaker 3:okay, you've been doing this for a long time. Yeah, so maybe you start and then I'll join. Um, I'm going to try and do my short story here. Um, but I graduate.
Speaker 3:So I did my teaching degrees, my early bachelor of early childhood teaching, and I absolutely loved my degree where I did my bachelor's. It was a very heavy focus on play and play development and brain development. So taking that passion into my first few years of teaching was kind of put at a big halt because all that passion that I had throughout my degree kind of seeing the reality of what that looks like and our, our capacity as teachers to be able to make that a quality experience where there's a balance for teachers, where there's a balance for children, for little children I think it was reminding myself that these are four and five year olds, or even six and seven year olds or even eight, nine-olds. They're still little people. So it was a big, I guess, rush into it all as a teacher and not having that expectation of maybe what I thought it would be, but still having that identity as a teacher and absolutely loving getting to teach and guide and learn alongside children. But very quickly, I think the experience in working in the public education system took. It took it from my soul and it was so depleting, I think, in seeing what, how much is taken from children in such a short amount of time and the main idea of protecting children's innocence really was on my heart and on my mind when I just felt I was giving everything I could and it never was enough.
Speaker 3:And then I so I had my daughter. When I did my 10-week prac, my daughter was 11 weeks old. She was staying with her dad, so that was really great and a support for me. But I think that was the pivotal point of really having that realization that I love what I do. I know I'm a good teacher, but there is just never a point where even me as a teacher in the classroom that I would want my daughter in that environment and the same thing would go. I could look at the teachers around me and really be inspired and in awe about how much they put into what they do and how quickly that becomes depleted. So the equality for all stakeholders. I think you know all the way up the line and there is a lot of passionate teachers who do incredible work.
Speaker 3:But for my four years in different age groups in different schools. It never felt like it was the right thing for me, for children, and then I think that pinpoint was for my own daughter. So, just as COVID kind of hit, I was no longer able to continue working at my schools. So I decided to start Mother Minds, which started off under a big tree. It was the day that we were supposed to be wearing masks and we weren't supposed to gather, but there was about 20 mothers and fathers it was whole families who came to gather under the tree, who didn't wear masks but felt, you know, just liberating.
Speaker 3:And I think COVID was a really big pinpoint when parents started to have that belief in themselves that school isn't what it needed to be in that time when, you know, education was put on hold. They didn't want education to be put on hold. So there was a little bit of belief in themselves that they could maybe take back some of that power. And I think the growth in homeschooling covid was a big blessing. Try to look at the lights of those types of things in how many parents and families have reclaimed that power in their belief in themselves to be able to educate. So I think from that time Mother Mind's in-person program grew more than what I could ever hope for, and so did my belief in how quality teaching and my love of literacy and numeracy and early childhood learning as a whole process, as a whole child approach completely changed to what I knew. So the unlearning like children who come out of the schooling system into homeschooling there's a lot of unlearning for me.
Speaker 3:Probably feel, coming into the fourth year, that we're maybe just getting there. Now we use the term Goldie, which is when it feels right. The Goldie, the word Goldie, is when it feels right for everyone, for the kids, for families. There's huge trust, I think, especially for homeschooling families, when they've taken, they've reclaimed that power back and then giving that trust to others as well in that education and that it's right for their values and the strong beliefs that they have for their children and their families. But they haven't been to find, haven't been able to find anywhere else. And then along that journey, caitlin came with her daughter Callie, as a family and Callie had a little bit of a difficult transition away from mum because Caitlin had spent every second, I think, with Kelly since she was born and um, it's like three years of attachment parenting and then saying all right, we're going to start going to this homeschooling drop and leave program and she was okay.
Speaker 2:She was kind of okay for the first couple of times, and then she realized, hold on, mum's not here for several hours. Um, and I was raising our second daughter at the time. So, um, I was breastfeeding her and putting her down for her naps and it kind of worked really well that I could drop and leave and then give my full focus to my newborn. But then Kelly didn't really agree with that.
Speaker 3:So I had to listen to her and put trust in the process. So Caitlin stayed. So the transition was that Caitlin would just stay and be there with Kelly. So Caitlin had Skylar in the carrier and it just so happened to be that Caitlin, as she is, just was jumping in a part of all the activities.
Speaker 3:She would say, hey, I've got a really good idea, um, for next week, can I organize it? And I said absolutely, um. And it just got to a point where Caitlin was so involved in the, the interactions and, um, just everything, the, the way that she spoke to the children, the language. It just made sense for her to stay and for her to work, which was another vision of mine, I think, in you know the way that we do things and how it works for everyone, that mothers can work while we're caring for our babies and trying to advocate for ways that we can do that and also being able to listen to children when they want their person there. And then from there, caitlin and I have just kind of continued working together in the space of just trying to really bring quality to what we envision education and care to look like, within the boundaries that we have, because we're kind of in a bit of a gray zone with that um and then from there so came the vision of seeing the gaps.
Speaker 3:I think our girls are coming into our compulsory schooling age, so we'd be enrolling for homeschooling this year and seeing, I think, for me as a teacher over the last three years that I've had the same group of children for three years and seeing how less of informal teaching time sorry, formal teaching time that we're doing, but when I'm starting to compare the results or the learning outcomes if they were in a schooling setting, because I think that's a big fear of parents who are homeschooling sometimes in being able to advocate that while they're doing you know what, the outside view as just oh, they're just playing all day, but there's learning happening all throughout, that such quality learning and sometimes having something tangible to say you know, if they were in a school setting, this is what they should be sitting around, and not that you know there's any one mark or there's any one number, but sometimes having those measures are powerful as well in being able to advocate for the learning that we do and how different can look for children.
Speaker 3:Um, and I guess then came the decision for wanting to put the curriculum together to be able to continue, empower families to have that in hand if they need to. That was, I guess, the gap that we were seeing in wanting to continue to empower families to be able to homeschool. Whatever approach they are currently in, is it working? Or even if they're loving it, if we can take the stress off and overwhelm that a little bit more in what we have, you know, literacy and numeracy as a sub-subject to everything else that we we do within the program, and just how much the children love it and it never has to look a particular way, but how short it can be, how long it can be if they're really enjoying it one day and wanting to pass that on to make that accessible to other parents and to other families amazing, yeah, great.
Speaker 1:And Caitlin, do you, do you want to say that was brilliant intro? And I like had all these things going off in my mind. I'm like just stand a moment, I'll kind of go back to a lot of things to talk about. Yeah, I'll go back to when I first met Paige a little bit, got a lot of things to talk about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll go back to when I first met Paige, and a little bit of my side of that story as well was when I came into the space and I was doing the Drop and Leave program with my daughter, and I had been looking for so long for something. Actually, I'll backtrack a little bit more about why we had chosen this journey of, like, conscious parenting, homeschooling, attached parenting, all the things that we chose to do, raising our two daughters. Um, my partner and I were living over in bali for two years and in that time prior to children, this is a couple years before the kids um, when we were living there, we met this girl, henalia, and she was about eight or nine years old and she came to us and she was. We were sitting at the bar, one at, like this beach bar in changu in bali and she came up to us one day and had this adult conversation with us, fluently talking, beautiful conversation. We just thought how mature is this girl? She's just. We could ask her anything. She can confidently answer. She's holding herself incredibly well. So then we started to get to know her over a couple of weeks and months of being down there.
Speaker 2:We met parents. They were both very high in network marketing not sure what company, but they were very high in network marketing. They world schooled their daughter and they were living in Bali for several years with her and one of the things that we said to them is just how confident she is compared to all the other kids we've met. And what are you guys doing? What's different about Hanalia's life? And they said we've homeschooled her since she was three, four years old. We've exposed her to a different way of living. We haven't almost dumbed down the way of her education. We've actually influenced her education to be tenfold. And we were like, okay, what does that mean? Because, again, we weren't parents at the time, so we didn't understand this language. We're like what do you mean?
Speaker 2:And they said, instead of asking her what do you want to be when you're older, every day we ask her what do you want to be today? What do you want to do today? That is going to make an impact? And we're like you're asking a seven-year-old that isn't that like heavy or putting weight on her shoulders? And they're like no, it's allowing her to just be present, to live in the moment. If today, if she wants to be a dancer, we're going to put it on and we're going to rock out to dance music all day. If, tomorrow, she wants to be a fashion designer, we're going to work with fabrics and we're going to get her a sewing machine and we're going to find her passion at a young age so she can, from a young age, know who she is and build that belief and build her self-esteem.
Speaker 2:Kane and I are sitting there like holy smokes. That's the way we want to parent, and that was such a pivotal moment for us because we looked at each other and we were like, when we have kids and when we're ready, whatever we do, it's going to be that and we're going to take on board so much of what those parents have taught us in that 10, 15-minute conversation and we want to raise our children that way. So then, after two and a half years, we then had our little girl, callie, and we were still in Bali until I was about five months pregnant and I came back to Australia. And when we came back, we then said, okay, are we still going to follow what we said we were always going to do in Bali when we met Hanalia?
Speaker 2:two and a half years ago and it was just an absolute yes from both of us like nothing's going to change. Our beliefs are so strong in how we want to raise our daughter and how we want both of our children to be raised with their self-esteem and building their self-worth from a young age. So when we came back to Perth and Kelly was then about three and a half, so again fast-tracking a few years when she was three and a half, we were looking for a program to put her in and then I came across Paige. So, long story short, came across Paige and then once we did the Drop and Leave program and I saw Paige and I met Andrea, who was another facilitator helping Paige. I was like these women just as women are incredible. They're mums, they're working mums, they're juggling everything um, just incredible.
Speaker 2:I just really took my hat off to them and I was like, wow, these are the people I want to surround myself with. And when you talk about your circle of influence, and the people you spend the most time with are the people you become like. And I was like I love the way that Paige spoke to the children and I loved how gentle but playful Andrea was with the children and I was like I can see all of these elements of these women in me and I was like, wow, I found my people, I found my community. And meeting the other moms were very holistic minded, everyone was using homeopathics and everyone was just on this. I don't just like, wow, I found my people. So finally I felt really at home.
Speaker 2:And then I feel, when I then saw the program in action, I was saying to pagey, I've got these ideas and I love that, and can we do this different and can we like? And it was just this natural flow where page was so open to the communication and we realized that one of our biggest strengths together is communicating. We are so fluently open with our communication that nothing is left unturned. We can talk about everything with love and compassion, constructive feedback and it's all welcomed through our communication. Um, so then when page said, do you actually want to come and spend a few days here working with your daughter being here and have skylar in the carrier, it was like, yeah, absolutely, you guys are my people and I just want to spend as much time as I possibly can with you. Um, so then fast tracking that again to then where Callie is now at five and a half, uh, which is the WA registered homeschooling age.
Speaker 3:Paige and.
Speaker 2:I were going through different curriculums and we were looking and we were thinking what are the curriculums that align with our beliefs and what we're already doing with the mother Minds in-person program that would all align to be that next step for our families and our beliefs? And we couldn't find the exact, perfect fit and there was many different reasons. There was amazing programs out there, some incredible curriculums, but the ones that really just touched on the numeracy and literacy foundations for children between three and seven. We couldn't find the ones that felt right for us.
Speaker 3:So we looked at each other one day and we're like we've got the knowledge.
Speaker 2:Why don't we just create?
Speaker 2:it like let's just do it ourselves, yeah, and we'd already been doing it in the in-person program and with Paige's expertise in education and my background being business, we thought, well, we've both got the brains to put this together and make it come to fruition. So that's kind of where the curriculum came about. And then being able to actually do that now with our own children and see it play out in front of us has just been incredible. And then sharing that with the families that we also have in the in-person program, they take the curriculum home and they can do that and they can purchase it and use it wherever they want in their life and through their day-to-day life. So it's all coming to um fruition of what we envisioned. Um and the greater vision is it's still to come, but it's we're definitely about that later.
Speaker 2:Let's save that bit yeah, yeah, there's only so many hours in the day. That's what I'm talking about with the vision.
Speaker 1:It's like you just need more hours and more time in the day, but we are absolutely making headway with what we want to do the one thing that really set well, not the one thing, but one thing that really stands out for me from what you both just said is this idea of community. When I was with my friend, like because we I lived in sydney and you know everything's quite, uh, insular, I guess you know you're just everyone, the family units just doing their own thing, and I was spending some time, our family was staying with another family, and that this kind of interplay with the mums of, like I did the cooking, she took them to the park, she got them in the bath, I put them to bed and there was this like natural flow and it sounds like part of your process has been that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:It's like not just about the education the education is kind of um, obviously a really important part of it, because that's what you're about but but that community and that sense of like and like I know the men have a part to do with it as well, but the mum's really pulling together. They're the ones that hold the families together and that's something that we really miss in today's society.
Speaker 2:Right Like I, live away from my family as well, so even that you know grandparents, uncles, aunties, you really can feel that you're sort of creating those sorts of connections for your, for your family yeah, we have at the in-person program when some of the parents come in and I think I'm really, um, really good at this where I just like wrap my arms around people and I'm just like I've got you, I'm just gonna hold space for you, um, and there's been a few parents over the years that have just come in and I've just held them and just said are you? I'm just going to hold space for you, um, and there's been a few parents over the years that have just come in and I've just held them and just said are you okay? And it's just that really genuine, sincere, are you okay? I'm just going to hold space for you for a minute to just say whatever you need to say. And sometimes it's just been no, no, I'm not, and then it's like okay, let's, let's take this aside and let's have a chat and just make sure you're okay. Because it's not, it's not just about us holding space for the children in the program, it's making sure, like you said, that the community, the whole family unit and making sure that when the families come here, that they feel welcome and at home here just as much as the children do.
Speaker 2:You know, making sure that, yeah, we hold the space for everyone as a whole.
Speaker 3:There's been so many times and I think that there's these little moments that just pinch me kind of in what it is we have created where I sit with the children, kind of on arrival, and there has been just so many times that I can envision where I have looked up and just seen Caitlin giving a big cuddle to the family and I think in the space in you know, we talk about that we need a village to raise a child, but the truth in the fact of that is that there's often where is the village?
Speaker 3:Because a lot of families are isolated and that has been something on our mind a lot lately in ways that we can create more community and reprieve for mothers and the focus that has been previously is just in creating such an incredible environment for them to feel safe, for their children to come to, so that they can have that time and space. And I feel like going back to that word, goldie it's like we've been really just hitting that mark in beautiful transitions. The children just come in feeling safe and calm, so families are able just to transition as well into taking that space within the day and now that we feel we've got a really good lead on that. It has been reaching out more and looking at doing meal trains and looking at doing mum's nights, book clubs. It's all those simple things that I think in such fast-paced world, so simple things, even just a book club, in that you know, having that connection and something that you can all relate to, is missed, it's very much missed.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you nurture the mother and that nurtures the child more, so it's holding what we could do and it sounds like like you have this natural evolution where your families will be together and your children will grow together and there may be some that come and go, because I feel like sometimes, like homeschooling communities, there there can be a little bit of transience.
Speaker 1:you know there's some people that try it and then decide not to and whatnot. But yeah, that sense that you're going through that whole journey together as a people and that your children will know each other from like you know from what three or four, right up until they yeah, we have a few children who started with me when they were three and they're turning seven this year, and even my daughter.
Speaker 3:When they were three, she was one and she was coming with me to run those programs, so she's also grown with them as well. Um, and our girls, our girls may as well be sisters.
Speaker 1:They argue like they're sisters, but it's because there's that such comfort and such love and vice versa, the mothering that we do.
Speaker 3:sometimes it works better for me to kind of respond to that behaviour because they have the respect for both of us as well and that's, you know, I think, a space of allowing them to be who they are but feeling safe with the connections they've made with many of the adults that we've had in the space that are all safe people, and it is nice having someone else there.
Speaker 2:There's just days with my Skylar three years old, when she was two years old. So last year, when we were going through the program, there was just some days where, as a mum, everyone would relate Just like. I can't process your emotions, I can't deal with mine right now. It's just too much. And Paige would say that I'm just like whoa, I've put up a wall and I'm just like at my end of the tether for the end of the day. And then Paige would just step in and she'd be like Skylar, come with me, and then she would just breathe and she would sit with Skylar, hold her hand, give her a cuddle, and it's amazing to see, like when I just can't, that's where the village feels, like it's really comforting. You've got those people around you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it might make your head explode a little bit, thinking about like as your kids get older and what you're going to do with, how you're going to fit it all in with the younger ones coming through. Yeah, it could get big right.
Speaker 2:And that's the evolution of the program. Is really looking at how we're evolving the program or where that's going to go? Is it's going with the growth of our children as well? With my being five, layla being four and then scarlet being three, they're so close in age that the group will just the way that we will just continue. The homeschooling group will just be in the evolution of our children's age. Yeah, we will just enroll children at that same age group so we can keep the growth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, before you thought about that yeah, that's good, very thorough, we're very thorough.
Speaker 1:Well, I was just thinking, luna is yours, yours are kind of like in their teens, and then there's all these other people that want to do it like oh yeah how are we gonna?
Speaker 2:do that children will be done with us. By then they'll be like come on, mom, let's let us through.
Speaker 3:But I feel like that. That was the thought of even what you found as a mother in finding that support and that community there, and although this is what we've created, I do feel like it is still very rare, and so that has has been on my mind in as we do move through, and it's so, so lucky that we're able to service these families who we have the capacity for, but it is still that these options for families are quite minimal and the, the capacity and the how we're able to create more spaces like this is still quite restricted so that was kind of that main thing on now that we have just kind of, you know, in our little tiny context.
Speaker 3:But how do we reach that further? And I think, like you said, with homeschooling families coming and going, because it might not just work. That's where the curriculum came in and how can we support them so that it can work for as many families in different contexts as much as possible, whether they're on cattle farms, whether they're world schooling, whether they're unschooling, in just having something that is still, you know, everyone has to work with the moderators and have to show a plan and also having the parents feeling empowered in their capabilities but being able to further the reach outside of who are just within our inner circle too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you pretty much answered like in your intro, paige. You answered pretty much like what I was going to ask you a little bit about. You know why homeschool and I think as a teacher you answered that at the beginning. You know that that the, the system, um, doesn't really suit the needs of the teachers or the children very well. The system hasn't really changed and what we learn hasn't really changed for like 100 years. But, um, yeah, can you talk a bit about? Sorry?
Speaker 3:go. Sorry, I do I one thing in my short time, you know, say, five years max as a teacher. Uh, when I was in kindy and pre-primary, which is four and five year olds and five and six year olds, um, one thing that still shocked me was working alongside teachers who've been teaching for 20 years, um, and then saying how different it is. And I think what has changed is that there's been a huge pushback on that academic expectancy, um, and and less play and less, just again that the innocence of children. So, yes, the model hasn't changed, but I definitely think you know, at least within the last five years, ten years, there has been a big push down and you know what children were maybe doing in year one they're now doing it the start of pre-primary, what pre-primary children were doing they're now doing when they're four.
Speaker 3:And yeah, that's that. That is the big problem. I think that's a part of what isn't working, and it's not to say that it doesn't work for everyone, because you know, I'm really careful and sometimes parents' best option, for whatever reason, is to put their child in school, and it's not to say that it doesn't always work. But I think having the conversations on the potential impact and actually just having more conversations about ways we can support families if they're needing to look for something different is what's important yeah, yeah that's a big thing.
Speaker 2:We're not against parents who do choose to put their kids in school. We need to be really clear about that. We understand everyone is on such a different journey and path and every child is so different and their needs are so different. But from what we've seen and we've had families go through our program and then put it's a bit low, in minority, but they have put their children into the school system of whatever it looks like and they're doing so well, they're loving it.
Speaker 2:But what we reflect on is they've had a few years of the foundation being built here, where they've had the emotional regulation, they've had a deep understanding of the foundations of numeracy and literacy, so they're not fearful of learning.
Speaker 2:we teach the love for learning and we make that so play-based and they're constantly exposed, yeah, constantly exposed, yeah always using their voice and, um, if they have an idea, it's like yell it out, tell us your idea, like don't hold back and put your hand up, like just throw that at us, give us your ideas, give us your curious questions, um, and that's.
Speaker 2:It's so refreshing to see the kids just be themselves and that gets at some point it gets shut down within the schooling system. So a big thing of why we choose to go this way, and a big belief for both of us, I would say, is to help the children to regulate themselves, to have a great nervous system and self-worth before they go further in their schooling journey or whatever that looks like, if that's homeschooling groups, if that's public groups, if that's public schooling, private schooling, if they have that foundation built within themselves. It's between, as we know, between the ages of zero and seven is when a child builds their self-worth, their self-esteem and their beliefs, their CDs programmed in their brain between zero and seven. So those are the most crucial years for us to help influence the best way we can on these children.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, caitlin attack and this kind of connects that, these two things, that, because I think that you, um, paige, you mentioned that, the, the, you know the school teachers that have been doing it for a long time. They've seen a big change in how, how the system works. And I think, um, and, and this kind of connects with that idea of attachment, parenting. So, um, historically, back in the day a child would be, you know, when they went to school, they would have some attachment to the teacher. Right, gradually that has started to diminish, with higher expectations on the teacher to meet the requirements. But also, you know, there's that, that, um, I think that there's that sense that you, you have to kind of be a bit hands-off with kids right, yes, so much so I'm so opposite of that, and so your kids start to attach to their peers, which isn't healthy because the peers aren't I have to share this with you.
Speaker 3:It was written in a teacher training one time and I just almost I actually did say it. It was do not hug the children, and if they come in for a hug we put our hands on and slightly push back. I said I'm sorry, but if a five-year-old in my class is crying, the one and only thing they need is the cuddle and that literature. Having that writing there, speculating that, and I said this is we are not meeting, but even the rights of children for connection.
Speaker 3:And when they are, you know they're as much as they are eight hours a day, making that attachment to the other adult who is in their life and, yeah, even that of the, it's actually instructed um, it was in the meeting.
Speaker 1:I've had it in trainings and I've emailed back every time and saying I'm sorry, but this is not something that I can follow, because good on you, I need I mean everybody, and you can kind of understand it like, but there a there is a fair bit of fear attached to that as well, isn't there? Because you can understand it? You know we don't want our children to be, you know, abused or whatever.
Speaker 1:But that, but that's like a yeah, surely if a teacher's gone through a specific training and they've done their children's checks and that sort of thing, like we can feel confident that they're going to be in a position.
Speaker 2:There's not anything wrong with the teaching in the system. The teachers are just underpaid, burnt out and tired and exhausted of following the rules and expectations that are put upon them, the heavy curriculum that's put upon them to teach, and if the children aren't meeting the curriculum standards in their classroom, it falls back onto the teacher and then it makes the teacher, so the teacher puts more pressure on the children.
Speaker 2:The problem is not the teacher. The teachers are doing the most incredible job. It's the system and the support group around them that isn't supporting them. And we did an advert for someone. We were looking for someone to come and work alongside us. We just like on one of the teacher pages. We just send us an email.
Speaker 3:This is what we're looking for. We don't want to resume.
Speaker 2:We don't want to resume we just want a real person to come to us, send us an email about yourself. Just give us a bit, we're going to get on a video call with you and have a chat. And the amount of emails we got of teachers that were like I've left the school system, I'm trying to exit the school system, can you give me a job opportunity? It was like flourishing through and we're like, wow, the demand for what we've got here is what the teachers, the teachers want out.
Speaker 2:They don't know how to get out but they don't want to leave the children behind either they want to take the children with them, because they cherish and value what they can do changing children's lives.
Speaker 1:It's just some point of the red tape yeah all the red tape, yeah yeah yeah, that's a real shit, isn't it?
Speaker 2:it's a it's a it's a mess, right, it's a mess, yeah um, can you talk about that?
Speaker 1:uh, like, before we move on to, I want to talk about a whole bunch of things still the emotional well-being of a child you touched on that the difference it can make being in a homeschooling environment compared to a school environment. How they can learn to regulate their emotions or not regulate their emotions but have their emotions accepted, right for what they are and acknowledged and not shut down like what. What are some of the things that you do and the benefits of homeschooling for children and that that area of their lives.
Speaker 2:I'll start with one point which most people probably don't consider or even think about, and it's about the uniforms we have children come in every day and we've discussed about should we get you know, our program is called Mother Minds and the program is called Sunflowers so we're like should we get sunflower hats?
Speaker 2:should we get sunflower shirts? Should we do this? Should we do? But one beautiful thing that we really love is when the children rock up, and we've got one girl, sophie, my daughter Kelly, that's a few other girls and boys who rock up and they are in their element, like they've dressed themselves for the day, and the parents come in. They're like children have dressed themselves for the day.
Speaker 2:It's a bit mix match, but we love it because it's like this is their way of expressing themselves and having the children rock up in who they truly are, what they truly feel comfortable in. They, the children, rock up in who they truly are, what they truly feel comfortable in. They're not forced to wear something. Can you like I remember my schooling time, the amount of I went to a private high school, the amount of arguments I had with mom about putting on my tie, having my top button done. My skirt had to be perfectly pleated, everything had to be like. Your socks had to be the right height, everything was so like rigid so that created such a damp and on my um, such a damp and feeling on my nervous system.
Speaker 2:First thing, in the morning before I'd be getting to school, because I was having these arguments about my bloody uniform we shouldn't be arguing about that with the parents at home before you even get to school.
Speaker 2:Then you get to school and you're still being disciplined about it and you've got nail polish on that has to be taken off. You've got this, this, so these constant rules that you're abiding by, that you can't express who you truly are and you're almost limited because you have to fit into the box of what they want a student to look like. So the freedom that we give the children here is, and homeschooling, and homeschooling, yeah, yeah, to just fully express yourself and to have a space where they're safe to do that.
Speaker 3:And I think the language too. So a big, big part of whether I'm working in schools, I've worked at the children's prison. It's the same language that comes about. I use the zones of regulation, but it's giving children language and the knowledge and the practice and the modelling as parents to check in and to be able to identify where they're at, communicate where they're at and then take responsibility for the tools they use in moving through.
Speaker 3:So, for example, we sit down in the morning and I say to the children we have parts of our day. A part of the day is that we were at home, then we came to Sunflower so we had the car ride. We might have come in and we might have been feeling blue zone, yellow zone, um. So we talked about all those zones and the emotions that are in them. Can you sit down and check in now that we're having some food, checking with how your body's feeling? Sometimes we share it, sometimes we don't. If they want to share a lot of the time they do, um, I'll often say to them I woke up feeling really blue zone this morning, really really tired, but what I needed to do was have some water stretch my body.
Speaker 3:We might do a strategy altogether of a deep breath strategy and I think in regards to emotional regulation, and I think what is so important in what we can do with homeschooling is fill those gaps in the learning and the education, in what humans need or what our future needs or what the world needs. And for me, I think you know when, how I was raised and how our parents were taught to raise us where it was, you know, be quiet. Children are seen and not heard. It's explicitly teaching those skills of empathy. Explicitly teaching I mean it's within children, but of empathy explicitly teaching them. I mean it's within children, but also when they're experimenting what that looks like or they're experimenting if that's not being done to them. We get to have that opportunity for freedom in knowing the gaps in what children need to be confident and their self-esteem and their self-confidence and to really make that a part of their education and their learning too, and I think a big part of that is also that parents are educating themselves as well.
Speaker 3:And I think for homeschooling families we're with our children a lot. We're probably still taking on a lot of the household tasks, we're probably still supporting partners doing all of those mental load things. So part of that emotional regulation for our children, but parents putting in that practice as well, we're holding space for our children to do that as well, which I think is where homeschooling children get that opportunity a lot more. Um, but parents need that support and education in their self-regulation as well and what they need to fill their cup up yeah, yeah, cool, okay, I've got still got a really long list, sorry we both.
Speaker 1:Um, I think I think you've sold us on the homeschooling. I love it. Like it is hard sometimes. Like it's hard, like you like being with your kids all the time it's, but but like and I think that part of that is like there's like obviously you've talked about working and being able to have your children with you and like how you've created that and we've done that here as well but there's a big part of it where there's that you know, societal sort of expectation that you should go out to work and you and therefore you're not with your kids and so I have to kind of go hang on a minute. It's actually okay and it's actually quite normal to be with my children all the time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and they do drive you up the wall sometimes, but but like it's normal to hang out with your kids all the time and being around more people that that accept that and don't make you feel any particular way for how parenting looks for you at that point in time yeah yeah, yeah, all right.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about your styles of education, because there's a whole bunch of different styles and you've talked about your curriculum and that you were kind of, um, well, you created it because that you felt that there were bits missing, right? So we, you know, I think of styles like Montessori or Steiner, or like unschooling or child-led learning. Do you have a specific philosophy that you follow?
Speaker 3:I'm going to say no Okay.
Speaker 3:Because one thing that I be very careful when having conversations and, I think, growing a little bit more in this space in how we do it is that it's like in any context, it can be very clicky and very nichey to how certain people with certain beliefs think it needs to look and feel. And, for example, I love Montessori and when my daughter was one and two, I set her up dressing stations, self-feeding. Um, it wasn't really her interest and it got to a point where do I just keep sticking to it because this is how I envisioned that we would do things and she will learn to love it if I keep it, if I keep going with it, or do I just take the pressure of myself and respond to her and respond to me and having that approach with flexibility and not having it to look a certain way, and one thing that I feel also holds families back is the overwhelm of one. It needs to look a certain way, and one thing that I feel also holds families back is the overwhelm of one. It needs to look a certain way. I should be doing it like this and for me there's so many parts of different modalities and different pedagogies that are all amazing and what I find with having children be allowed to show up and learn as they need to at that point in time, we're constantly using different aspects of them or we're using inquiry based.
Speaker 3:Some children who absolutely love come and sitting and doing explicit teaching will finish their inquiry and then come and join me. I always think if I'm asking a child to come and sit with me to do follow our curriculum and they say no, what they're probably doing is is worth more to them and I'll get more out of that than if they. I stop them to bring them to me and then, nine times out of ten, once they're finished, they come to me and they say, hey, can we do that now? Um, so you know. And the same thing, I think, with the word curriculum and homeschooling, where the space of you know, finland is such a big kind of topic in that no formal education, and again, it's that no formal education.
Speaker 2:It's in seven.
Speaker 3:And for me, I've had children who their parents have really wanted them to do that, learning with me here, and they've had absolutely no interest or it's just been an exposure thing, and you know that. And then that change, that might change at five, it might change at six, but am I going to not follow that interest because of my belief or am I going to let them lead as much as what we're leading as well? So I, that was a big part of, I think, my unlearning as a teacher in being able to really pull from lots of different things that I love, of theories and of pedagogies and reflection is a big process and I think reflection for homeschooling families as well doesn't have to be one way and I think being able to honour how that changes in your life and for their lives too, and constantly asking questions.
Speaker 2:asking questions to yourself Am.
Speaker 2:I doing this Montessori for my two-, three-year-old because I want it to look this way, or is this? Or is the question is this serving our family right now? Is this going to be the best for this phase and this age? Or am I doing this because I'm trying to stay rigid in a box because the Montessori book said to do it this way, or the Montessori Instagram said this is the best way to do it? And what we've looked at is all the different methodologies and gone.
Speaker 2:Okay, we're just taking a little bit from everything that we really believe in and that we've seen work with the children and, like Paige said, some children will say, yes, I'm so ready to learn now. Others will say I'm going to come back in 10 minutes because I really want to finish building my lego inquiry and I really want to finish this construction and it's like great, that's what you are thoroughly passionate about. Go finish that. When you're ready, we're going to hold space for you and that's the freedom of our program too, and that we're trying to educate the parents with. The curriculum is to allow the love for learning with your child. One of our curriculum users has just curriculum members. Um has just come to us and said my daughter doesn't want to do anything else but the rhyming segment in our curriculum. And we're like, great, you've got the rhyming going.
Speaker 3:You've just like absolutely nailed rhyme teaching there, so just go with that for a little while If that's her love for learning.
Speaker 2:Start every session of your homeschooling with five minutes of rhyme and then get into the lesson and just make that through the day five minutes of rhyme and then get into the lesson and just make that through the day. And what you were saying before, paige, about the words curriculum. It can sometimes really dawn on people like a curriculum. That sounds like a heavy word, that sounds a little bit scary, but it's not. We have built this lesson plan with the vision that parents can do this on the go anywhere. I do it with my kids in the car most days before we even get to the Sunflowers program. We're doing it for that 10-minute drive in the car and that's all we have to do for the day.
Speaker 2:Anything additional to that. They're getting explicitly taught or they're having exposure to new modalities throughout the day, and that's all we want to do is educate parents in the homeschooling space between the ages of 3 and 7. We want to give exposure of learning and just create a love for learning between the age group. So when they're seven, eight, nine, ten, they have the foundations already built. They have a love for learning and they want to succeed.
Speaker 2:And just using the two subjects that we've chosen, with numeracy and literacy being the foundations. Children get so much exposure through their daily life, whether they're cooking with mum, whether they're doing mechanic work in the garage with dad, whether they're out with their grandparents, they're out in nature. They're getting so much exposure to natural science and natural physical education and all these things that they don't need in our beliefs, that this age group between three and seven, they don't need to be explicitly taught these subjects because it happens through life, and that's a little bit about the unschooling and a little bit about the life and world schooling is. We've kind of put in all those elements and gone. What are the core foundations?
Speaker 3:how can we make this one so simple for the child's nervous system to absorb all the information they need literacy and numeracy, language to communicate, to ask questions, to speak their voice, and that's how that's kind of it and numeracy the skills are to inquire, to investigate, to science, language too, but to be critical thinkers. And that's yeah, those skills as humans that just already come into literacy and numeracy and just so easily lend itself to all those other subject areas.
Speaker 2:So just building the curriculum to make sure it's simple for parents to follow, it's not overwhelming. We don't want parents to get the curriculum and go. This is so overwhelming. How am I going to follow this? Which is what happened when I purchased a few curriculums. I was like I can't imagine teaching my daughter that in a day we're not sitting at the table for two and a half hours at the age of five and a half. That's not realistic. We don't want parents doing that. We don't think that that's healthy for a child to be locked in a chair for that long period of time. So we constructed the lessons to be short, sweet, educational, hit the point that it's step by step for what the parents need to say to the child. It is just so simple and beautiful how it all came together. Yeah amazing.
Speaker 1:I think one of the things that I've experienced as a homeschool parent is that, well, louie and winnie both went to school for a couple of years, so when we pulled them out, there is that a lot of the unschooling. Was the parent unschooling? And I think, paige, you even sort of touched on that as a teacher you had to kind of unschool yourself for a bit, um, because there's all those expectations of what it should look like. But the biggest aha moment for me is like when my it's like that love of learning that they kind of lose when they're at school because they're made to sit down and just learn a whole bunch of stuff they don't have permission, irrelevant.
Speaker 3:They don't have permission, irrelevant. They don't have permission, no, to follow interest, or you know, I think if I was just sitting down to do something and Caitlin said to me come over here and start writing now, and I think I enjoy writing, but I don't really like writing now. And then Caitlin says well, you can't go and eat your lunch on the couch outside if you don't write right now, and that's just the. You know, we wouldn't put up with it, would we, as grown-ups?
Speaker 2:No, the discipline and pressure that the children are under is, yeah, anyway, long story short, that's what we're trying to alleviate yeah, giving parents the option If they're schooling at the moment, but they want an option of how can I have no idea where to start, no idea what to do. It's like, okay, we've got you at Mother Minds, we're going to teach you, we're going to show you the way, and that's amazing.
Speaker 3:But how did you? So did you? You went through an unlearning process for everyone having that break, and how did you find god? We?
Speaker 1:we. Well, I, I gave myself a really hard time at the start and I was like, oh, it needs to look like this and and we had our assessment, we're in new south wales, so we had like our assessment and she was like, oh, because I was like this is going to be amazing. We'll be able to learn about countries and cook and learn the language. And you know, do all of these things. She's like none of that will count. Cook and learn the language. And you know, do all of these things.
Speaker 1:She's like none of that will count she's like, yeah, that's great and you can do it, but it's not part of the New South Wales curriculum, so none of that will count. What are you going to do from the curriculum? So I felt this immense pressure to like be, be the teacher and know all of these things, and so there was this expectation from a parent point of view.
Speaker 1:Plus, then the kids were like you're not my teacher, like I don't want to sit down at a table and do all these things. So it just went out the window quite quickly and it took Louis, I mean. So we've changed things, we've tried different things and I've been pretty loose and I've gone like we need to do some things, so like let's just do this. And you know, um, and we finally, um found a tutor. So they go to a tutor, which is similar sort of thing to what you guys do, but for you know, for older kids, she's a. She's got eight homeschooled children and they go twice a week.
Speaker 1:It's amazing and they love it.
Speaker 3:They can't wait to go and, in terms of that, difference in their response, the fact that they love it and they only need two days. You know we do two hours over the whole day. Sometimes it's one hour and that's enough. That is honestly enough. And when you get that response back from them and you guys found how that worked for you and then you can see that that motivation engaged yeah, a year and a half before he started saying I want to learn about this or I want to try something new.
Speaker 1:A year and a half when he is nearly nine and she's only just started expressing interest in like can I do this? You know she wants to.
Speaker 3:She wants to learn how to do piping and it's like this is brilliant, like she's actually found something that she wants to do all the time and those skills you know she's probably researching and, yes, so all those things that can tie in or, you know, doing your writing about it or eventually, like it's, it's giving that space where they're going. Oh, I kind of get a say in what.
Speaker 3:I want to learn about and you might write about it all know all of those things come in and what that difference I think it makes on them in their own leader. Their voice and themselves is just yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 1:And like it's a real eye-opener to think that you know it's taken that long two years for them to rekindle their passion for learning.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but you did it, but you still did it.
Speaker 1:Yay, yeah, which is huge yeah it's great, it's so good to see, it's like a breakthrough moment when they say I want to do something. It's like, oh okay great, let's do it.
Speaker 3:But also trying to advocate that to your moderator oh okay, great, let's do it, and also trying to advocate that to your moderator too, in saying that they actually just need this time and it's going to happen.
Speaker 1:Yes, trusting that process. Yeah, I definitely got more confident with that whole moderating process as well, but I feel for parents that is a massive pressure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, We've tried to alleviate a little bit about having support documents that people can actually use, part of our curriculum, and we've got assessment sheets that go through saying from this particular lesson, what did your child learn?
Speaker 1:what were the outcomes that they and it's at the end of every lesson that they can actually have this reflection time to then show the moderator.
Speaker 2:This is the reflection from that lesson. No, my child did get the skills straight away, but after three times doing the lesson they got it and now this is where they're at and we don't want people to fear moderators or the assessors.
Speaker 2:We want them to love the process, because when you meet this person, they're technically working for you they need to come in and help you be the best homeschool educator you can be, so that the biggest thing I can say to parents is ask more questions. Yeah, if the moderator says no, sorry, learning about worlds and languages, that's not going to tick the boxes, say okay, how can it tick the boxes? What can I do and how can my daughter use her piping on case to tick off literacy, numeracy, science. How can I do all these things? Okay, she's measuring and baking and doing all these things that have scientific elements to it. Can she look at the formulas that go into baking and that's her science element? Then she's writing her own recipe, which is her literacy. Can she look at the different measuring cups and and change the recipe by?
Speaker 2:her different measurements and document all of that to see whether the recipe worked. And that's her mathematics like how can you help me along this journey? And that's what I want people to know their moderator and assessor is there to actually assist them and give them advice. Don't leave a moderating session feeling empty and as a failure. You've got to make sure, before that person leaves that meeting with you, you are confident and you know where you're going in your homeschooling journey and if you are like the wheels have absolutely fallen off the wagon.
Speaker 2:Your child doesn't want to learn with you. They don't want you to be the home educator. Say to the moderator how can you help me? What are the tips and tools that I can use and the language I can use with my child? Do you have anything that you can help with? Is there any educational support you can direct me to? Is there any YouTube videos or learnings and ask for that advice? The more questions you can ask as a parent, the better, and the children will hear that and also know it's a safe space, no matter where you are in life, to ask more questions and get help. Yeah, it's a big learning for the kids to witness Mum do that too Great tips your curriculum?
Speaker 1:you're in WA, Does it like, I think, that each state and territory seems to have, like its own regulations, expectations Like, from what I can gather, Queensland's pretty loose.
Speaker 3:Let's go to Queensland.
Speaker 1:New South Wales is like super, like strict. Melbourne's a bit in between-ish. I don't know what it's like over with you guys, but does your curriculum kind of work with all of those states or are you specific to your?
Speaker 3:I think, from an early childhood viewpoint. I think, no matter where you are, even with any curriculum or the curriculum from state to state are different, the order that we should teach children these skills should always be the same. So, for example, you know, if we're looking at literacy, the term one of literacy is more oral language skills. So before children are even picking up and writing and using a pen and paper, they are clapping syllables, they are saying rhymes by listening to rhymes, because all of these skills in that order will then help them for when they are now starting to decode sounds, um, or learn to, to read and write. So I think what the, the, what we would need to do, we have aligned it with the australian curriculum outcome. There's only way w sorry, at the start of the curriculum, just a minute ago.
Speaker 2:but at the start of the curriculum book it actually has WA outcomes. So the parents know exactly what this curriculum is ticking off in those which is their reciprocal outcome. It is ticking off all of the numeracy and literacy outcomes. So the moderator can also see that this curriculum is designed around the WA curriculum, which I think. But like Paige said, we have gone over the different states to see what their curriculum outcomes. But for this particular age it ticks all of them.
Speaker 2:It just your moderator may be extra strict on wanting to know and see assessments on particular skills at a particular time where maybe that's later in our curriculum, so they might want to see that earlier on and it's like well, no, that's in term two and we're trying to build love for learning, education for the child, yeah, but it wouldn't definitely ticks off most of the states.
Speaker 3:I would say all of them. I think it would just be a matter of and this is something that we should do in making it more accessible to that reach for supporting families. Just having one, that is, has the queen stage outcomes. Because for me it's the same thing and that's why the age range is so, so broad, from three to seven, because, depending on where you're starting, it doesn't really matter the age. It's that we need to be starting with with the same skills and just working through them, um from from at any point. And then it's great if kids are coming out of the system, um in looking at what gaps they have, and we just help them to pinpoint, okay, where we're going to go from there to bring it back to where they're feeling good about their learning too.
Speaker 2:And that's a really great point for the parents that have put their child in, maybe schooling around five or six or even seven, and the child has missed. Whether the child has adhd or there may be a learning difficulty or the teacher may have just not given that particular child enough attention to make sure they understood those skills. It's kind of nice to go back to the curriculum that we've started. Go from the very start with your child and see what they already know. If they already know certain things, just flick to the next lesson. Yep, yep, yep, yep, you're up to scratch with all of those skills. But if there's particular skills that are missed maybe their reading and writing is actually lacking no, they're not dyslexic, they've just missed their foundational skills of understanding how to decode words to fluently read. And that's what we want parents to do is go back to the very side of the curriculum. Don't start in term three, start in term one and go through the sequential order to ensure your child is up to date with those skills and you're learning alongside each other which is really, I really love as well yeah, I
Speaker 3:think that, totally, parents, they have that lack of confidence and that's been one of the the biggest things, one even for us and with our families and when we're having conversations, it's that parents don't feel confident. And I think, like what you said before it, we're not recreating a classroom, we're not being that teacher that we know of, and it's just how can we find how it's going to group for us, um, and, like you said, it might take two years, it might take, but you find it and then realize, okay, this is our way, yeah yeah, yeah, totally.
Speaker 1:I'm aware that we've kind of hit the hour and I've got a couple of other things. If you're OK to go over time a little bit, what was I going to say?
Speaker 2:Now I forgot oh gosh, what was I going to say?
Speaker 1:Oh, just in terms of development, right, so you might have a three, so you've got your three to seven year olds and you I know that you've got your amazing curriculum, so you're going to make sure that, like, all of these areas are being kind of done in in progress. But okay, maybe from a um, parent's point of view for a child that is in school, this is kind of what happened to us is that Louis started to fall further and further behind with literacy specifically, and so it just became more difficult because they're expected to be more independent learners and so you know, if you can't read the instructions, you're fucked, basically. So that was one of the reasons we pulled him out. But, like when I've done a little bit of reading and research around children's development, that kind of like linear learning, like some kids don't read, some kids can read when they're three and some kids don't read until they're 11 or 12. How do you work with that in your environment, or does it not come up?
Speaker 3:oh, it comes up all the time.
Speaker 1:So yeah, every child is so different.
Speaker 3:I always said, for example, when I had a pre-primary class, or let's say year one, and we have 30 children who are six years old, we have half of them who are working six years up, so we have half who are working at a 12-year-old level. Then we have the other half who are working at a below-Kindy level, for no other reason other than at this age. Their skills are so different and you can't ask you know a fish to come true, and one of the hardest things was having to assess so often and put that to a grade. Where we're putting that to, this is just where they're at now and when we're looking at you know, it's that there is progression. Are we seeing that if we are teaching them the same thing with repetition and in different ways and in ways that work for them, which, first of all, not possible in a classroom of 30 children who have such a range of skills in lots of areas, it's that we're seeing the needle move and are we seeing progress?
Speaker 3:And you know there's lots of research behind boys and girls and the certain play they have and the different strengths that they have in regards to their reading and their writing. Boys typically are more behind in writing below the ages of seven. Do we take that into account when we're having parent meetings and saying, oh, they're actually sitting at a D but you know, then, as three years progress, are they getting worse because they're not understanding it or because their self-esteem is just so low because we don't have the capacity to be able to read it out to actually see they do understand it.
Speaker 2:They just can't read that instruction and imagine how the child feels when it's like okay, mom and dad, you're getting called in for a parent teacher meeting because your child's falling behind. Imagine the child hearing that verbiage about themselves and how that is limiting their belief so much at that age. Thinking I'm not good enough, I'm falling behind, my classmates are better, I'm not smart enough, all of these beliefs start circling through their mind. Totally yeah.
Speaker 3:And I currently tutor with a family and to begin with the tutoring was solely around self-esteem and her approach to when she was in the call it the danger zone, where it's the safe zone, and danger when she's starting to feel, you know, first of all it's that embarrassment and that shame. And then it was the language on what to do when and again, girls, if they might not be understanding a concept, typically, um, they do very neat writing so the teacher may look like it's all happening very beautifully, but it was. It's the skills of regulation, of self-confidence in understanding what we can do to take responsibility and have the language. And that doesn't mean that there's not progress being made and that they're not successful. So I think you know, with curriculum in B it does sound very vast between three and seven, but I sit in the homeschooling room with a group of ten children and I have.
Speaker 3:Skylar with us most of the time. Who's three and we have a seven-year-old. They all can listen to that same explicit teaching and then when we start working individually, one child might be working at a little bit higher level in how they're applying that skill and mean skylar, she's kind of been a great, not to say experiment, but she has been in this setting.
Speaker 2:She doesn't know any difference.
Speaker 3:and you know, in regards to say, skills like, say, if I'm teaching them to generate rhyme or to manipulate the first sound, skylar can, 95 percent of the time, do it, and it's not because she she's a genius, but it's not because it's just because she has been exposed to it so much and and loves it. She loves being a part of that.
Speaker 2:So she loves being with the big kids and the big kids like being with the little ones and the middle age. So it's really beautiful seeing the dynamic between the three and seven. What we've done in our in-person program and that's why we ran the curriculum for that age group is because we can see how that works and for someone like what you said earlier about I think it was your daughter or I can't remember which child you said about, but they were falling behind in a certain subject.
Speaker 2:Yeah, louis, so that's where we would say to a parent, if they are in mainstream schooling, we would say instead of getting a tutor, or instead of doing that, would you look at the option of just looking at our literacy unit and teaching that explicitly to your child, not making it homework, not making it extracurriculum, not putting extra pressure on them, but saying hey, instead of you know, talking, communicating with the school and teacher, saying, instead of us bringing home homework, we're actually just going to focus on these particular skills in this curriculum to ensure my child, like you said, was falling behind where I'm actually taking responsibility for my child's education.
Speaker 2:We're going to explicitly teach this particular unit of literacy at home to get my child up to where they need to be to follow the rest of the class or to get following the standard.
Speaker 3:This is a hard thing because I think even when parents did take that responsibility, there's so many aspects that come into play in how they show that within that different setting and I think a lot of the time like it might be the gap in learning, because teachers cannot cater to all of the different places that children are at in different subjects, but we also don't have the time and space to hear how they can share their understanding as well.
Speaker 3:So, it's really hard, and I think that's where it's really hard for parents who are being told their children are not where they need to be. You know, I hated high school and didn't do ATAR, but then absolutely loved uni because it was my interest base and it wasn't because I wasn't a good learner, it wasn't because I, you know, I wasn't a strong learner, it just the setting wasn't great for me. And I think that's the case now of bringing that even back into these settings for children. That doesn't, it can't, it cannot possibly cater for their variety of needs and strengths and way that we learn.
Speaker 2:Yeah, then we give you a 25 minute answer to every question I love it.
Speaker 1:I don't say anything. Um, no, no, no, don't ever be sorry. It's brilliant, it's such good information and like this is like we just want to get get the word out there about what you're doing. It's amazing. Let's talk about you guys. Um, very briefly, cause we have gone over and I'm conscious that you know you're busy working mums and doing all of the things, uh, being amazing, amazing. Yeah, thank you. Let's talk a little bit about your mission. Can we talk a little bit, if we can, when it comes to mission?
Speaker 2:tell us about your mission like, because I feel like, like.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I feel like when I look at your Instagram, when I was writing my notes, I was like, oh my god. I feel like when I look at your Instagram when I was writing my notes, I was like, oh my God, I feel like this is big. Like I just feel like it's a movement and, like I said at the beginning, you're pioneers in this space and like the fact that you are on social media, you're educating parents about it, like it just feels like such an important point in pivotal point in like the world to have people like you.
Speaker 1:And I get super excited about it.
Speaker 2:It's amazing the transparency of the Instagram is coming through, then, and what we're posting on social media, because we do want it to be about real, raw parenting. That is not sunshine and rainbows, and homeschooling is not easy when you're juggling all of the hats and you're doing all the things as a mother, um, or even if your children are in the schooling system, you're still juggling all of the things being a parent, um. So that's firstly what I want to say thank you like thank you. It's nice to be recognized for that. I think so. Mission we.
Speaker 3:You know when you do, when you let, when your mum's trying to do a business and you're doing all these things they keep saying be really clear and strong in your mission. It's something we have struggled with because it is so, so multifaceted in who we want to, who we want to support and how we want to do that, because we focus on the children, then focus on the children. We're big believers. We don't know what we don't know and that's why we're wanting to put that power to families. Then we're wanting that reach to move out into actually looking at settings and how we can support teachers in moving away from these systems and creating what we do.
Speaker 2:So I think so mission is really to simplify education, to alleviate the pressure on the children's nervous systems, to give them a love for learning and to empower families that they can reclaim that they can be the educator of their family and it can be done simple and effectively without any pressure. And it may be a juggle of time and maybe finances, or you know working full-time and these families have a juggle we and maybe finances, or you know working full time and these families having to juggle.
Speaker 3:We have a choice. We have a choice.
Speaker 2:And giving parents those choices is just that they know that there's another alternative instead of mainstream schooling. That's what we really want to do Give people those options and choices and know that there is a curriculum out there that we are developing. From seven to 12 is our next age gap that we are developing, that that is in the process and that we can support people long term Once they've started the curriculum with Mother Minds. We want that schooling education to go right through their whole life.
Speaker 3:I think it's. The vision is to support and provide comfortable families and reclaiming the power in living aligned and how that always changes.
Speaker 2:How many times have we read the mission statement so many times and we keep going oh, we forgot this, we've got to add that that's so crucial. That's the bit, and then we're like we've changed.
Speaker 3:We have a choice, I think that is, that we have a choice.
Speaker 3:For me that is the biggest thing in that we have a choice. We have a choice, we have a voice and you know there's support in that too. I think that's what's missing, and parents feel like they don't have an option to advocate for their children and for themselves. So this was a small way that we could say this is how we can bridge that gap, and the outcome of that is going to be huge for the future of our children, for our futures as mothers. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's a really yeah, really interesting time and, like being part of you know the homeschooling journey as well for my kids, I feel like like I wonder if schools will even be a thing like eventually. It might take a while to get rid of them.
Speaker 3:Like I wonder if schools will even be a thing like eventually.
Speaker 1:It might take a while to get rid of them but to have more sort of niche. You know little pockets of communities where you have a. You've essentially got a school right, but it's a homeschool school.
Speaker 3:Yes, but we have, and this is the thing, and that's another thing. This is why I don't think schools will, because there is a purpose on why we want.
Speaker 1:They want children to be put into systems and taken away from you know from their parents, and that's why, having a school, I don't know if it's only in Western Australia, but you know there's now free kindy, full-time kindy, coming out.
Speaker 3:So there is a certain you know a funnel in how we're still wanting the economy to go and I feel like it will be a very, very long time before that's let up. And same with the language that we use. You know we're in lots of boxes on what that can look like. But yeah, we call it, we call it sunflower school, and then we've completely removed the word school because we felt like that had a connotation it's totally it's hard, isn't it?
Speaker 2:then we did sunflower program, and then it was sunflowers, and then it was sunflowers, co-op homes, home, uh, sunflowers, homeschooling, sunflowers, tutoring. We're going through the evolution of like what is that goalie? Where is?
Speaker 1:the goalie, the parents love the children.
Speaker 2:Love we love. It encompasses our vision. So, to be honest, the amount that we talk every day, we just evolve the mission statement what we're doing with the program, how it's going, and every day we do a reflection, every single day, without fail.
Speaker 2:We will do either a 20 minute voice message reflection. We'll be on the phone or we live six minutes away, so we just come to each other and we do the reflection in person. But that reflection is so crucial because we are so deeply passionate about evolving this space yeah, you can tell it's amazing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm bringing along everyone on the journey yeah, yes, brilliant.
Speaker 1:I am like super appreciative of you taking the time, because I know that you have had to kind of um, say no to it to some other interviews, just because you have got a very full schedule and you're obviously women on a mission. It's amazing like, uh, yeah, appreciate everything you're doing. We're going to get people to find you on Instagram. That's like the main place to find you, right, some really cool stuff going on there. I have no fucking idea how you have time to make reels Like I'm like they're doing all of these other things. How can they make such good reels?
Speaker 2:Thank you. Oh God, paige is the expert. She goes, she's's like there's the tripod and there's the phone, and then I'm like wait, what's happening? She's like right, this is what we're doing. Let's go and I'm like we're on with it, this is what we're doing. It's amazing.
Speaker 1:Okay, great, that's, it's amazing yeah, brilliant, like that's a whole job in itself. So, all right, guys, look, thank you so much. I love your work. It's been great to chat to you. Brilliant Thank you. Before you go, can I ask you a small favor? If you've enjoyed this show or any of the other episodes that you've listened to, then I'd really appreciate it if you took a couple of moments to hit subscribe. This is a great way to increase our listeners and get the word out there about buy me a coffee by going to buymeacoffeecom forward slash, life, health, the universe. You can find that link in the show notes. Thanks for listening.