What 200 Homeschool Families Taught Me About How Kids Really Learn

What does your child actually need to learn—and how much formal homeschooling do they really need?

When I started The Homeschool How To Podcast, I wasn't even sure I was going to homeschool my own kids. I had a lot of the same fears so many parents have: Would my kids miss out? Would they have friends? Would they fall behind? Would I actually be capable of educating them?

More than 200 homeschool family interviews later, I've changed my mind about a LOT.

In this episode, I'm sharing what I've learned about homeschooling, socialization, curriculum, learning readiness, and what children actually need from us.

I'm talking about the fears I had when I started, why I no longer worry nearly as much about whether my kids are “on track,” and why I don't believe homeschooling has to mean sitting at the kitchen table with textbooks every morning.

I also share what homeschooling actually looks like in our house—including my son's completely unexpected opportunity to learn about horses several times a week because he wanted to. That experience has become one of the clearest examples of what I hoped homeschooling could be.

If you're considering homeschooling, you're a new homeschool parent, or you're constantly wondering “Am I doing enough?”, I hope this episode gives you a little more peace and confidence.

And remember: there is no one right way to homeschool.

Ready to homeschool but wondering where to start?

📘 Grab my book, So You Want to Homeschool? Everything You Need to Know Before You Start

🎓 Need a step-by-step plan? Check out Cheryl's mini-course, How to Work and Homeschool 

📚 Still wondering, "What do I actually teach?" My guide walks you through exactly what homeschool families focus on by age and subject.

If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave a review. It helps more homeschooling families find us!

Transcript

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Why Homeschooling Was Not The Plan

SPEAKER_00 0:02

I didn't plan to homeschool. I started asking hard questions, realized how little control parents actually have, and made the hard decision to leave a government job to homeschool my kids. Now I interview other homeschooling parents to learn how this all works. I'm Cheryl, and this is the Homeschool How-to Podcast. Let's learn this together. Welcome to the Homeschool How-To Podcast. My name is Cheryl. I'm actually your guest this week and your host. I wanted to take just a minute before we start the new school year to introduce myself to anyone who might be a new listener and to thank everybody who has been listeners because this has been a really cool journey. I started this podcast three and a half years ago, not expecting it to ever roll into what it has today. I was actually sending my child to daycare, an in-home daycare at the time, and it was during COVID. And let's see, three and a half years ago. So I guess, I guess we had kind of gone through the initial part of COVID, but they were not masking three-year-olds at that time. Okay. So I was working for the government. I knew I had a pension coming my way. I had a really good salary. I had worked my way up. Um, I had been there for, you know, 13, 14 years at that point. And I just did what everybody else does for the most part. Okay, here's uh in-home daycare around the corner. They follow all of the state rules, state mandates, they get audited by the state. So it's gotta be a good decision, right? The best decision I could possibly make for our family. So, uh, and we did love the daycare, but I do remember just like most moms or dads, when you drop your child off and drive away, they are crying because they miss you, and you're kind of crying because you feel like something with this just doesn't feel right. But everybody tells you they need to be socialized, they need to be learning all day long, and it is the best thing for them. So, who am I to question what everybody else has already vetted, right? So when COVID hit, I was told by the daycare they would not be masking my three-year-old child. Because, you know, I I mean, that's just asinine in its own, and we can get into all the reasons why, but I don't think I have to, because I know you guys are pretty smart. And we, when Cuomo passed in New York State, where I live, that three-year-olds in daycare would now have to be mandated to wear a mask. My daycare said, We're really sorry, we don't want to do this, but we have to. And I said, All right, that this is crazy. I am his mom, his father. Also, you know, we both agreed this was not gonna be something we ever do to our three-year-old child who is like learning emotions, learning speech to put a mask over his face and a mask over the daycare provider's face was just it blew our minds. But I think that was the first realization that I had to, wow, I literally have no say as the parent in anything about my child when they are in these institutions, even though this was a private in-home daycare. But because they were certified with the government, they had to follow the government rules. So from there, I I pulled him out. I worked from home at that time because of the COVID era stuff, and I kind of hid him in my house. I remember being on a call with my boss, like running down my driveway because he's standing in there screaming in the kitchen. And I was like, ah, you're need to just be quiet for two minutes. Because she couldn't know that he was there. I was so worried about him not being socialized as a three-year-old. So I started going to meetups with anybody that was getting together. And the only people that were getting together during COVID were the homeschoolers. They were not afraid of this virus. They were, they were out there breathing in fresh air, getting their kids out in nature. And I was like, all right, let's go make friends. So I really didn't go into these meetups with any sort of intention of like becoming a homeschooler. I just was like, okay, well, right now this is considered homeschooling, right? Because he's not in daycare, he's home with me. So it just felt natural. Now, I'm not gonna lie to you and say that every single meetup or group that I met with, I was in love with. That was not the case because people are people, whether they're in the public school system or whether they are homeschoolers. You are always going to find people who you might like for the most part, but something about them bothers you. You might like them, the the adult, but you don't like the child. You might like the child, but you can't stay in the adult. Like this is just life. So, whatever situation you have been exposed to with homeschoolers, don't think that that's the end-all be-all. I'm sure there's things about me, in fact, I know there's things about me that our homeschool co-op does not like. Like the fact that I can't make it there every single week, and the fact that I don't vote the way that they do usually. But but that's beside the point. I'm not really there for me, I'm there for my kids, I'm there for the experience. But we'll get into that after. So I met somebody with a podcast at my son's wrestling, because I got him into wrestling because I was like, oh my God, he needs

Mask Rules And A Wake Up Call

SPEAKER_00 4:45

friends, he needs activities. And I've learned since then that is not true. But um, I had him in wrestling because it was something he could do without being affiliated with a school. And from there I met somebody who had a podcast. And I was like, that is a cool job. Like, what how do I how do I get that job? And he's like, Well, you just do it, it's a hobby, and then you can maybe start making money with it someday. And the concept to me was so foreign, and I look back on that now and I'm like, man, I was trained for 12 plus four years of university, years, 16 years that like to make money I had to work for somebody else. It never dawned on me to, and and I was, I also on the side was a Zumba instructor and that sort of thing, but I never went off on my own and and created my own dance style. You know, I stayed with the Zumba name and made sure I was loyal to pay their $40 a month to use the name. You know what? It's just like that sort of thing where I have to work for somebody else or somebody else's idea. I I it never dawned on me to just create my own. So I was like, all right, I am gonna start a podcast. And my initial idea was I'm going to interview someone from every state in the country and just learn what the different homeschooling laws are. Well, uh, that idea kind of flew out the window because I just started from the get-go hearing these amazing stories about people's homeschooling experiences. And actually, the laws flew by the wayside because it was like, well, the laws didn't even matter. They just weren't relevant to what I was learning about the homeschool lifestyle. So at this point, I now have a newborn baby. I'm learning how to put together a podcast, find people to be on the show, record it, edit it, publish it, and then I had to learn how to market it, which was a beast all on its own that I'm still learning about three and a half years later. So I started the Instagram account. I had my daughter home with me. I had my son home with me. And yes, this was very difficult to do. My daughter was six months at this time, my son was four years old. And again, that that fear of the socialization just uh it gets us all right. Are we going to mess up our kids? Are they gonna be socially awkward? Do they not know how to play with others because we homeschool them? I had not decided to homeschool when I started the podcast. The podcast was teach me about homeschooling and help me decide if I should homeschool my kids. And it didn't take long. After interviewing, I don't know, say maybe 10, 15 families, I was like, wow, there's a whole other world out there, a whole other way of life people are living. And it's beautiful. And none of us that are doing this mainstream life are living it. And it's that's so sad. So then I kind of got on the bandwagon of like, I just want to let parents know that this is possible. If you don't want to homeschool, that's totally fine. But I want you to know that this is out there. And and and as I learned the history of the education system and where it came from, I really wanted to inform parents because I feel like if most people knew what was behind it, the model came from Prussia. They used this model with their soldiers. They wanted to create obedient soldiers. And then Horace Mann and John Dewey sort of implemented it in the United States, starting in Massachusetts. And then the Rockefellers in the early 1900s got involved with their money and they invested millions, which was so much at that time, into the Board of Education. They created the Board of Education. Now, again, we're not taught to think outside the box, but something in me said if an oil tycoon wants to take millions of dollars and create a board of education, why? Why would they want that? They are making a ton of money. Why would they want to create a nation of smart individuals that would one day be competitors to their industry? And it just didn't make sense to me. But it does make sense when you think of it in terms of well, we took this model from Prussia where they were creating obedient soldiers. And we have these people on record, and I don't want to quote it, but to the effect of saying things like, We want a nation of obedient workers, we want the worker be, um, we want them smart enough to do the job, but not smart enough to question it. And you can definitely see the logic in why they would invest and create the board of education and how they're rolling out education, going from that one room schoolhouse where like maybe Miss Betty, everybody's voted on her to be the teacher because we like her values, we like what she's teaching our kids. She teaches them reading, writing, and math. And then they come home and they learn the rest of the work on the farm. Pretty much how to grow food, find water, build shelter, you know, make the community go round. And that model, just about 100 years ago. And when you think about the history of humankind, recorded human history, it's about 6,000 years, and we've been here even before that, but just the recorded civilization is about 6,000 years old. In only the last 100 years has this model that we have today taken effect. That's mind-blowing. We think we send our kids to school because we think that's the way it's always been done. Somebody smarter than me vetted that system and said that is the best way for children to learn to become the most successful they can be in life. But when you know the truth behind it, oh my goodness, it got my blood boiling. And I never thought of myself

Finding Homeschoolers And Starting A Podcast

SPEAKER_00 10:00

as a very rebellious teenager. I was pretty by the book, I stayed in line, I didn't cause too much havoc. And somehow, when it came to having my own kids and hearing this, I said, hell no. And I'm sorry, I don't, I don't swear on this podcast ever, but that is how I felt with my children. You are not going to do this to my children. Oh my goodness. So, and when I had people on my podcast like Dr. Peter Gray, who wrote the book Free to Learn, he researched where did the model come from. And the model that we have today was not based on any sort of studies or statistics on how kids learn best. It was never what it was intended to do. To break up every subject, reading its own subject, vocabulary, its own subject, spelling its own subject, writing, its own subject, history, its own subject, math, own subject, science, different subject, geography, all of it. Different subjects broken apart with a bell. And they did that bell because that's exactly what they wanted to prepare you for for the industrial revolution. And if you have been doing that bell thing, sit in your seat when the bell rings, go to lunch when the bell rings, leave for the day when that bell rings, you would already be used to it as an adult, so you would not push back on it. So that, my friend, is how we got to the system that we have today of the public school or just the traditional school model. Okay, so learning this, I was like, yeah, I don't think I can send my kid to school. I was really worried that they were going to resent me for not being part of the football games, the prom. And that was really hard for me to get over. I don't know if you're dealing with the same thing. I'm sure some of you are, especially if you're not homeschooling yet. So I started talking to more and more families about that, asking them questions. Do your kids resent you? Are they like upset that they're not on that school bus every morning hanging out with their friends, switching classes, eating lunch with friends, hanging out in class all day with friends, doing the prom. And what I learned was that no, most homeschoolers, if they want to go to a prom, they can be invited to the school prom, or there are so many homeschooling proms on their own. Sports. Nowadays, a huge thing is travel sports, and you don't have to be equated with a school to do those. Some states even let you do the sports at the school. So you can be a homeschooler and be on all of the teams. Not in my state of New York though. Number three, the friends. There are so many meetups, so many homeschoolers, at least in New York. And from my interviews, it seems like they're everywhere. I get it, they might not all be centered around right where you live, but let's just look at it this way. I live 45 minutes from pretty much anything. It takes us 45 minutes to get anywhere, but we still have tons of homeschoolers. Even right here in the country, part of New York, I can go 10 minutes and be at a bunch of different homeschoolers' house in any direction. And what I love is that over the years, I this has been so cool to learn from my guests. So many of them have created their own schools right out of their home. It's amazing. I actually wanted to do it for a little bit of a time and then I realized that my kids don't like groups of kids, which makes total sense because I really don't like groups of people either. If someone's inviting me over for game night or a fourth of July party, I'm like, I really don't want to do that. But if someone's like, hey, do you want to come over and have a cup of coffee? I'm like, yeah, I would love to sit and just chit-chat with you. I don't know if it's the fear of missing out. Like, I I know I'm talking to you, but they look like they're having a good conversation over there, and I'd rather be over there seeing what that's about. Like, I don't know if that's my group issue. I definitely don't have a problem in front of people, but I don't know. I just enjoy the intimacy of like a one-on-one get together, or you know, me and two people versus a big group. And I have that has been one of my struggles with my son, if you've listened to the podcast over the years, where I bring him 45 minutes every time to homeschool meetups, and he goes off by himself all the time. But I realize and it it drove me absolutely nuts. And I'm sorry if I am going off on a tangent here, but I was talking about socialization, so I think we're good. We are good. But it was such an insecurity of mine. Sometimes it still does, it still gets me. And he's eight years old right now. But he would, I'd bring him to these groups of people and I'd see these kids fishing, and I'm like, oh, he loves to fish, and I want him to learn to fish, and they'd be doing their thing, and he goes off by himself, you know? And it was very easy for him to say, like later, like, oh yeah, they were mean to me or this or that. But honestly, it is just groups are hard. Okay. So, like, my recommendation to you if you are trying to break into the homeschool community, the groups are hard. You can meet families there, but like, ask one that strikes you as like, these are cool people. My kid gets along with them, or I get along with a parent, ask them to go hang out one-on-one. Like, ask them to go to the park, ask them to come over for coffee, do something just together one-on-one because that has made my life so much easier. And it fills up your week when you have like a play date with one family on a Monday and a play date with another family on a Thursday, you know, versus okay, let's everybody try to get to someone's house. There's just always problems with that. And that brings us to co-ops, where I did do a co-op. I personally found it stressful, but so many people love co-ops. It is just one of those things, right? That it's like, it depends on the co-op, it depends on the people involved, it depends on what they're doing in the co-op. I was given a gym teacher, that's what I had to be. Yeah, hello. I teach Zumba. So that's a little bit different than gym. I was chosen last in gym class every single time. I sat in the weight room and just tried to chit-chat with my friends the whole time. I would actually wear my clothes underneath my gym clothes because I was like, I'm not gonna play or sweat anything at all, anyways. Cheerleading, dance, those are my things. I'm not teaching that to a church co-op. So yeah,

How Modern School Got Designed

SPEAKER_00 15:40

the co-op stressed me out. But that does not mean that every co-op would stress everybody out. You have to kind of grow with them too. So if it's a new co-op, don't be afraid to put in your input and try different ones. Like if it doesn't work out, if it really doesn't work out, there are so many different ones. And the best advice I've been given in this arena is start your own. If you can't find what you're looking for, chances are people will come and you can make it the way that you want. Granted, it's a lot of work, but you don't have to, you don't have to have crafts every week. You know what I do? The co-op that we actually do. It's it's called a co-op, it's not really though. They meet up once a week at a different park, and sometimes we throw in field trips. Like uh last month we went to the local airport and we actually toured the firehouse within the airport and the millionaire airport. So, like, not the traditional where Delta and United fly into, but the ones that the the little airport that like the people with money that they use, and that was cool because you know, I was looking there like, how did you people afford this? This is crazy, and you're trying to see if I see uh any famous people, but that was cool. So I love that style of co-op, and that is something so easy to create. You know, all you have to do is go to a homeschool Facebook group in your area. You could put in your zip code, your area code, your town. Put go to one of those Facebook groups and just say, give me a list of your favorite place that you've visited in a 45-minute radius or a one-hour radius, right? You're gonna get so many people commenting things like trails, museums, hikes, uh, monuments, battlefields, airports, you know, uh firehouses, amusement parks, the movies, Chuck E. Cheese on homeschool day, roller skating, ice skating. There's so you you take 40 of them, plan them out for the year, and that's all. Because you probably won't do it every week, depending on, you know, holidays and whatnot. But like, how simple is that? Give it a try, one year commitment, and I guarantee you you'll find your people somewhere in there. The bad ones will fall out, hopefully. Or you have to have that difficult conversation. You're not invited next time. But you know what? That is life, and it's all a learning experience. There is no right or wrong way to do this, but if you don't try, you're never going to sort of find all of the wonderful things that homeschooling has to offer. Okay, with that. So that was the fear. The fear was I was gonna be afraid that my kids would resent me for missing these football games, these prompts. So, so many homeschoolers across our nation have homeschool proms. Or, like I said before, they can just be invited to the school prom. Most of the homeschoolers probably won't even want to go. My husband actually just told me that he didn't go to his prom. And I'm like, really? For three years, I've been worried that my kids are gonna resent me because they are not going to go to the school prom. And you're telling me now that you didn't even go to yours. So that was pretty funny. And then I thought too, like, how great was prom? Like, but I'm pretty sure I was disappointed. The food was terrible. It was just like a lame wedding that, you know, you didn't have to watch the ceremony of bad music. Like it was, it was more the event of planning it, where you're gonna get your hair done, where you're gonna get your nails done, what's your dress gonna look like. Like, that is what was fun about the prom, not the actual night itself. So I think we have to think about that as we are thinking of, or even if your spouse is worried about, like, oh well, they're gonna resent us, they're gonna miss out on the football games. Like, no one is at your local school saying that you as an outsider can't go to the football game, right? You can't get a get another family that you enjoy hanging out with and say, want to go to the football game this weekend? Or just go and your kid might just play with other kids there. Like, it's not that hard. Oh, my son is eight. We're not even a sports family, but my son has tried t-ball, soccer, wrestling, boy scouts, swimming, BMX, mountain bike riding, a wilderness class that he's been doing for years in the spring and fall, and that's actually a drop-off program. And he goes to learn how to do fires in the woods, and which actually he's outside right now with his friend doing a fire in the woods. So, I mean, I don't know if this is the best parenting right now that I'm demonstrating, but that's what he's doing right now. Fire in the woods. It's contained. Yeah, so he's done all of those things just to try the sports. Does he like them? Does he not? So when people say, like, oh, you're a homeschooler, you won't be able to do the sports, it's like, what it has not held us back whatsoever, even in the state of New York where he cannot participate in school sports. I we have friends at homeschool that do hockey, lacrosse, golf, these extreme downhill biking, like that's all one family, too. But so there are so many opportunities for sports, church groups, book clubs. My son takes ukulele. And then if you do live in a state where there are ESA funds or vouchers, mine does not, so I don't know a whole lot about it. But you might even be able to pay for this stuff with that. Although I have to say, homeschooling really doesn't cost me anything. You know what costs me a lot of money? The school taxes that I have to pay, even though my kid doesn't go there. That's what costs a lot of money. But yeah, these sports might be like a couple hundred dollars, but it's for a few months. And, you know, when you break it down per session that they're at, it's maybe 20 bucks. You know, when you think about back to school clothes, and if your kid is of that era where they're now getting cell phones and now you have a monthly cell phone bill because your kid, God forbid, can't be without a cell phone because all of his friends have one. You know, you don't have that stuff with the homeschool community. You at least for the most part, not that I've encountered. You don't have the keeping up with the Joneses. It is much more you have control over what your child sees, wants, requests, video games. Like my my son has my husband's like Nintendo 64 from the 90s, and he just thinks that's the greatest thing. And he doesn't play it that often, but when he does or has a friend over, he likes to play Zelda or what Mario Kart. And yeah, he's never asked for anything. It's not even like we're against getting him something better. We just he's never asked. So whatever, we're not doing it. But that's what I mean. There's so many benefits to homeschooling. I'm naming a couple right now. But when I think about where I came from three and a half years ago, like I was nervous to even tell people that we were homeschooling, right? Like I remember being out in a crowd, and people generally say to you or your kids,

Socialization Myths Prom Sports Friends

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Like maybe we were at soccer. Oh, where do you go to school? And I remember being nervous, being like, oh, we homeschool. Kind of saying it under my breath. Like I was nervous about it. But now that I've been saying it for a couple of years, the amount of people that say, Oh my God, I'm so jealous. Oh my God, I would love to homeschool. Oh my God, you're so lucky. You don't know what we deal with with the school system. That is what I hear more often than not. I don't know if I've ever had someone say to me, I couldn't be with my kids all day. I probably said that before I started homeschooling, but I no one's ever said that to me. I mean, maybe jokingly. But yeah, it's hard to be with your kids all day. I am not going to lie. It is hard to be with your kids all day. But you know what was hard too? Getting my son up at 6 30 in the morning when I knew that his body needed more sleep. I knew that his brain was growing and making connections and his body was might have been fighting off a illness or, you know, his bones were growing, and I had to get up early and I had to get him out of bed at 6 30 to get him to the daycare by 7 to, you know, make sure all his healthy food was packed for him throughout the day and not know if he needed me during the day, which I guess I never really thought about because I just sent him off and did it. But then when I had my daughter and I was with her every day, oh my God, she needed me so much throughout the day. Even just to like hold my arm that gives her comfort. She always says, Can I squeeze your arm fat? Yeah, it's great, isn't it? But little kids, they never lie. So it being home with my daughter made me think of all the times my son needed me and I wasn't there. And I can feel that connection sort of having been severed between him and I. A much closer bonded with my daughter, and it kills me because, and I'm not saying this is the same for everybody. I know I I've had Erica Komazar on the show to talk about exactly that. That she had such wonderful information. And no, the bond is not severed forever, but there are things that we can do as the parents who have sent our kids away to help with that situation. Okay, other things that I have learned from interviewing homeschooling families. Well, I think this one has got to be one of the biggest. Your kids don't need nearly as much educational instruction as you think. Every parent is going to think, I'm not doing enough. I'm not doing enough. Let me tell you, I did so much with my son. Oh my gosh, from the time he was four, I was like trying to drill in him phonics and you know the alphabet, and these are the capitals, and these are the lowercase, and why can't you identify the capital? He is eight. He still cannot identify after some. No, he's getting better. He's just now starting to read. But it's because he's cognitively ready now. Where my daughter, I don't do anything with her, I don't do anything formal with her. Maybe play Barbies. So when I was doing the schoolwork with my son, we were butting heads. I mean, he did not want to sit there and learn A is for Apple. Like, what does that even mean? A is for Apple. Like, think about that sentence. It doesn't even make sense to an adult. Why would it make sense to a child, nor why would they care? So as I was talking to these homeschooling families, over 200 now over the last three and a half years, I have definitely eased up and realized that the kids are gonna learn what they are interested in learning when their brain is cognitively ready and when they have an interest in it. And let that be something that sinks in. I'll say it again because it is so important. Your child will learn what they are interested in when they are cognitively ready. If you're trying to teach them A is for Apple, they're not gonna care. Not even if they're eating an apple, they just don't care. But you know when my son did start to care? When he started playing with Oregon Trail, because we're big watchers of The Little House on the Prairie, we should be readers of the books. But like, I'm not gonna lie, I am here to be completely honest with you. We had so much fun watching that. The original one with Michael Landon. But now we're watching the Waltons, but like we I relate so much of what I teach my kids to hey, this is when Laura was about eight years old, about your age, or hey, this is when Laura was an adult, or this was before Laura was even born. So they have a reference point to what the world looked like at that time. So that I think has been a humongous benefit to us watching that. So chances are at some point in your homeschooling, or if you're not already there, you're experiencing that pushback from your kids. And that is inevitable. It's going to happen. Kids, I mean, even if you were to tell your kid to go take out the garbage, like there's going to be pushback on chores, on anything you ask them to do at some point. It's because kids want control over their lives and we want control over the situation. So there are a couple things that I have been asking my audience and asking my guests about what they do. And this has been real fun. I'm excited to share this information with you, but I'm gonna get into further details with it in uh some future episodes because I I invited a few of the parents to come onto the podcast to talk about it. But little things like explaining why we're educating, why are we doing this? You know, I want what's best for you. That means I want you to be able to take care of yourself when you're older. I want you to be able to take care of your family. I don't want you to have to get just any job that will be offered to you because you're not educated enough to handle anything more complicated. I want you to have your choice of jobs. I want you to know all the jobs that exist or create one that you love doing. That's what I want for you. And that's why I am trying to give this information to you so that you can get there one day. But I need you to meet me halfway. Just even having that conversation that, you know, it's gonna be harder with the younger kids. But again, there are places like Finland that do not do any formal education until age seven. They do not, they're not asked to recite the alphabet, nothing like that. Just fun and play until age seven. And I think from my experience, like knowing what I have done with my son, I think my daughter is going to even blow by him by the time she's eight, even with me not doing anything formal with her. I don't have not even sat down, other than singing the ABCs. Sometimes, if I hear her start to sing them, I'll start to sing them with her. But she knows them and I don't know, I assume she heard them somewhere and retained it. But it's funny how much they pick up like a sponge. So let them learn what they're curious about learning in these younger years, because they are learning every minute of the day. They are learning. It's just they're not learning what's in that curriculum book. And I'm gonna tell you right now, the curriculum's awesome, it's helpful, but it doesn't mean that's what your kid has to know by every age. And this is another thing I learned from my guests on the podcast is that the curriculum that they're teaching in school, like when I went to kindergarten back in the 80s, might have been 1990 that point, it was a half-day kindergarten and it was all play. Now we have full-day kindergarten. We have pre, what is it called, universal kindergarten now for four-year-olds, and that's a full day every single day of the week. So the thing is that they are taking more of our tax dollars to pay for this. They're offering the meals so that parents don't even have you don't even have to send your kid with food. We got it. The government has it. You don't have to worry about any of it, parents. They're taking them from age four all the way up until age 18, and then they're demanding your money to pay for it. And the thing is, they just need something to show for what they've done all day. So if they say, hey, these four-year-olds know their alphabet, it's because that is a statistic that they can stick behind to show why they needed the money to collect from the taxpayers to justify what they've done all day with your child. Okay. And that goes all the way to age 18. So, you know, what kids are learning by each age, it I do have a guide where I kind of like show what's going on in the school system so that you can compare, but it by no means means that you have to do this. But some people do like to have that little guide of like, well, I don't want to miss something huge, you know, even though the school system misses misses huge things all the time. But yeah, that was very interesting for me to sort of think about like, why do we think reading has to happen by age seven? Like it doesn't. You should read to your kids every day. And I think that, you know, read aloud revival. Sarah McKenzie has beautiful book lists, she's much more vetted in what good literature is than

Less Curriculum More Real Learning

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I am. Because I'm someone like I literally asked them on in my podcast, I was like, What is literature? I don't is it a book? Like, what is literature? And I don't even know if I still if I have that answer yet, but I know that I use Sarah McKenzie's book lists all the time. And Schoolhouse Treehouse, Lindsay, she has beautiful unit studies that I have used. And they, you know, say these are the books that we recommend you get for your child age, whatever. And you kind of put in their age, you put in what they're into. It might be a season. It's fall right now. I just ordered a bunch of books for fall and apples and this and that. And I go onto my library's website, order the books, they come right to the library, it's all free. And now I have literature to read with my kids. Where, like, if it was the me without, you know, these resources from these amazing women, I would be like, we're gonna read the cat in the hat again. Because nobody read to me as a kid. I'm just gonna say that right now. How many people read to you as a child? Now, some of you might have had really good parents and they read to you every day. And I hope you're successful in life. I literally, no, but I don't even remember teachers reading to me. Maybe the librarian would come in like once a month and read a book, or we'd go to the library once a month and read, maybe once a week. I don't know. That made of might have been elementary school, but like nobody read to me as a kid. My mom was watching Law and Order, out playing poker somewhere. Um, I did not have people read to me. And I I turned out okay, guys. I did. I can read I read books now, but oh, you know what I just read? I just read The Great Alone from Kristen Hannah. I do want to go to Alaska. I'm sure a lot of people went to Alaska after reading that book. So good, so good. But anyway, I digress. I think the point that I just wanted to get across to you guys was I started out this podcast saying, these are my fears around sending my kid to school, and these are my fears for homeschooling my kids. And I am on a journey to sort all of that out. And I can tell you now, I'm at episode like 180. This this one might be 180, uh, 180 something. I am so confident that I literally could do zero curriculum with even with my son for the next two years. And I think he would still graduate at 18, knowing more than most publicly schooled kids. We involve our kids in just conversations, daily life. My son, even though, like I said, he's just starting now at eight to be able to read, you know, a little bit more, read on his own. You know, he needs help with this word or that word. But he's just now like really starting to be able to read books on his own. But I look at what he can do. Like my husband said the other day, he they had to change a oh yeah, he got a new tire for his four-wheeler. My husband was busy talking. My son put the four-wheeler up on the jack, he took off the tire, did like whatever with the bolts. And of course, I my my content creation mind goes, Why didn't you call me? I would have taken a video of that. But my husband was amazed. He was like, one, he just went and did it on his own. And two, like he knew how to do that stuff just because he watches me do it all the time in the garage. And that is something that I can say this kid is going to go places with creating things and just being a doer when it comes to something that he wants to do. And I'm gonna tell you this last story before we finish up. I remember getting into the homeschool world and meeting this family, they were from Poland, but their their children, their oldest, he would go down the street to a farm and he would like learn on the job training basically from the farmer. And I was like, oh my god, I think Colin, my son was like five at the time. I was like, I'm so jealous. That opportunity will never be given to me. I'm so jealous that this kid gets to learn all this stuff. That's what I want, but I don't know that stuff to even teach my kid. And I'm am I gonna have to get cows and goats so he can learn this stuff. Well, a couple weeks ago, uh, you know, in the beginning of July, we were at a fourth of July party. There were horses. And uh, because a couple people like that, that family just owns horses. So both kids got up on the horses, they loved it. And my son worked out with the one woman there, because her horse stays just next door to us at her mother's house. But my son worked out with her because he's completely comfortable talking to adults. He said, I want to come help take care of your horse. And if I come learn how to help take care of your horse and help you with that, will you teach me how to ride? And she said, Yeah, I would, I would love the company. I'd love to teach that to you. Well, I thought, okay, maybe that'll happen like once. Oh my goodness, my son has been going multiple times a week for the last eight weeks. He did a horse show with her, and this is just exactly, exactly what I pictured for our homeschool. We do not get up every day and rush out of the house to go to this group meetup or that group meetup. We do not wake up in the morning and sit and open our textbooks. I wish, I wish I could be that organized. But the truth of the matter is, I'm still trying to work out a schedule. My day looks like I try to get up between five and six in the morning. I come down to the basement where I have my office. I try to figure out what emails do I need to send, what posts do I need to make? Is there a product I'm working on? Is there, you know, do I have to respond to people? Do I have to edit a podcast? Do I have to edit something? And I work on that for a couple of hours. The kids wake up anywhere between eight and nine usually, where then I'm like pulled because I'm trying to finish something up and go upstairs to make sure that they have breakfast. Some days my son will just make breakfast if it's if my daughter's still asleep and I won't even know that he's up until I go up there. You know, he has a list of chores he's gotta do, which we are still working on getting him to make sure that he does them every day before he does anything else. Take care of the chickens, take care of the dog, clean up the dog poop, and give him water, put away any of his clothes. And, you know, then I will try to get to some schoolwork, but some days we are meeting the co-op at a at a park somewhere to play, or we are going to a friend's house for a play day, or he just wants to ride his bike outside, or we have BMX that night, and you know, or we want to go visit the monument nearby, or just like play outside and do chores. You would think my garden would look better than it was with having this schedule, but it doesn't. It's terrible. But you know, and in in a couple weeks, his wilderness class is starting, and my daughter does gymnastics, and there's always a friend or a neighbor popping by, even though we're in the country, you would think

Daily Rhythm Confidence And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 36:10

like there would be nobody for miles, but there's always somebody around somewhere. And you know what? On a day where it's just like, hey, it's all of us just in the house doing our own thing, even if it's just sitting on the TV, sometimes that happens, and it is so okay. And I've I am so appreciative of that. I definitely have that fear of missing out bone in my body where I'm like, oh my God, but I saw on Facebook my other friends were, you know, on kayaks and canoes or, you know, going to a concert or going to an amusement park or whatever, trying out a new playground and uh a zoo or taking a day trip to wherever. And yeah, that's great too. And I'm sure if you look back at your life or your photo reel and your phone, your photos app, you'll see that you do that stuff too. But it does not need to be every day. And with the back to school photos coming up, do not let that discourage you. You are giving your child so much by homeschooling, you are being with them all day. You are experiencing a huge part of your life that you would not have gotten to witness had you sent them to school. You are getting to see them light up when something like horseback riding really sparks them. And you're getting to find those loves in, you know, seeing what you see what your children are interested in and getting to talk to them about different jobs that they could have someday or different things that they could create. And the homeschool community is nothing short of amazing when it comes to being inventive and really getting our kids the experience of what this world has to offer them. So I hope this gave you a little bit of peace and confidence in your decision to homeschool. There will always be the naysayers, but that is only because they have never researched homeschooling themselves. Guys, thank you so much for being listeners. If you could leave a review for the show, that would be so amazing. I would thank you from the bottom of my heart. I will try to put the link in the show's description so you could just go right to Apple or Spotify and leave me a review. It's been three and a half years. I worked so hard at this, and I just thank each and every one of you and tell your friends about it. And let's grow this homeschooling community because if there's gonna be a revolution in the world, it's gonna start with the parents and it's gonna start with taking them out of the education system. Spread the word. Thank you for listening to the Homeschool How To Podcast. If today's episode helped you, please be sure to follow the show and leave a review. It's the best way to support the podcast. And if you're just getting started or need a reset, head to thehomeschoolhowto.com and grab my free 30-day homeschool quick start guide. Until next time, keep learning, keep questioning, and thank you for your love of the next generation.