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The Homeschool How To
I don't claim to know anything about homeschooling, so I set out on a journey to ask the people who do! Join me as I chat with homeschoolers to discuss; "why are people homeschooling," "what are all the ways people are using to homeschool today," and ultimately, "should I homeschool my kids?"
The Homeschool How To
#135: Unschooling Success: How One Mom Built a Profitable Business While Homeschooling 4 Kids | Real Family Routines & Screen Time Rules
Join host Cheryl as she interviews Raven Kramer, a homeschool mom of four and successful online marketing entrepreneur, who shares her unschooling journey and family-first lifestyle. Living in a 1,000-square-foot house in Florida with no debt except their mortgage, Raven and her husband have built a life centered around their children's education and their family business.
In This Episode, You'll Learn:
- What unschooling really looks like: Daily routines that balance core subjects with passion-led learning
- How to work from home with kids: Raven's strategies for building a marketing business while homeschooling
- Screen time boundaries that work: Why her kids get only 30-60 minutes of TV daily and no phones until they have jobs
- Real family rhythms: 5+ hours outside daily, morning and afternoon outings, and structured quiet time
- Social media and kids: Her approach to family content creation and setting boundaries with neighbor kids who have phones
- Preparing kids for an uncertain future: Why she focuses on reading, writing, math fundamentals over rigid curriculum
- College alternatives: Teaching kids about trades, entrepreneurship, and real-world skills
Key Takeaways:
- One-third of kids learn to read easily, one-third need more help, one-third need lots of help - and that's all normal
- Living below your means enables one-parent income and homeschool freedom
- Kids don't need constant entertainment - they need freedom to be kids and play
- Reading aloud to children and emotional regulation modeling are the most important "subjects"
- Progress over time matters more than grade-level expectations
Perfect for: Parents considering homeschooling, current homeschoolers looking for encouragement, families interested in unschooling approaches, and anyone wanting to balance entrepreneurship with family-centered living.
Resources Mentioned:
- Tuttle Twins books and curriculum
- "Good Pictures, Bad Pictures" book for internet safety
- Raven's Guide to Homeschooling e-course
- Reading Horizons curriculum
Raven's E-Couse: Guide to Homeschooling E Course
And check out: Raven's Instagram
Cheryl's Guide to Homeschooling: Check out The Homeschool How To Complete Starter Guide- Cheryl's eBook compiling everything she's learned from her interviews on The Homeschool How To Podcast.
👉 15% off Tuttle Twins books with code Cheryl15
What is the most important thing we can teach our kids?
HOW TO HANDLE AN EMERGENCY!
This could mean life or death in some cases!
Help a child you know navigate how to handle an emergency situation with ease: Let's Talk, Emergencies!
Instagram: TheHomeschoolHowToPodcast
Facebook: The Homeschool How To Podcast
Welcome to this week's episode of the Homeschool How-To. I'm Cheryl and I invite you to join me on my quest to find out why are people homeschooling, how do you do it, how does it differ from region to region? And should I homeschool my kids? Stick with me as I interview homeschooling families across the country to unfold the answers to each of these questions week by week. Welcome, and with us today I have Raven Kramer, homeschool mom, and other Tuttle Twins affiliate. So if you didn't see my Tuttle Twins ad, you've seen hers. Welcome, raven. How are you?
Speaker 2:I'm amazing. How are you? I am amazing, how are you.
Speaker 1:I'm good, it's so cool to finally like talk to you in real life, because I feel like I know you, because I always see your Instagram reels and I see you doing the Tuttle Twins stuff and see your family on there, and then I was kind of like oh, wait, yeah, I haven't met her yet I feel like I know her, though Weird world that we live in, yes, same, oh my goodness. So how many kids do you have and what got you into homeschooling?
Speaker 2:So I have four kids. I have a nine year old, a seven year old, a five year old and my daughter is just about to turn four. And my husband and I have always known we wanted to homeschool before we even had kids. Like when we were getting married I was like we're going to have 12 kids and we're going to homeschool all of them. We stopped at four.
Speaker 2:That felt good, but we've just always known that we've always really had a big priority for our family and it didn't make sense that the traditional model is to immediately send our kids away for eight hours a day when they turn five years old. That didn't make any sense to either one of us, and so homeschooling made sense as the default, and it's like if this default doesn't work for some reason, then we can look into other options. But it was always our default, whereas I feel like culture is more their default as, like, traditional school, and if that doesn't work then we look at other options. We kind of had a different view of like this is our, this is our standard, and if we can't hit that, that's okay, we can pivot, but this is what we going to do.
Speaker 1:I don't feel, like many people go in knowing that's what they want to do, what clicked for you? That just like we're going to take this untraditional route.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've. Like I said, we have a really big priority for our family and that has was always driven us to like I own my own business. My husband works from home. We homeschool our kids. I joke that we couldn't do anything outside the home because we just really prioritize our family and know that that's like the most important thing for us.
Speaker 1:So homeschooling made sense because we all got to be together and it's it's so true because, like you send your kids off, I mean I remember I was quote unquote lucky because I got to take six months off of work, even though it was like my own time I was using. I didn't get like a paid maternity leave or anything. They're like we're letting you take six months to be with your baby, thank you. And like sending him to daycare at six months, and it was just like, oh, this is just what people do. But it was so sad when they tell you like, oh, you're supposed to cry and they're supposed to cry like no, nobody's supposed to cry because you're not supposed to do it. What the hell. But I mean, I went through what I went through, I know what I know I changed it for my daughter and it is, you know, crazy seeing both sides, everything that I was there for with her. I'm like my God, I miss this with my son, like I feel so bad. And if you always send your kids to daycare, you never knew what you missed and your kids don't know what they missed either. So it's not like the end of the world. But then when I saw it with my daughter, like just she'd wake up from a nap, but it was just because something woke her up and she wanted to be nursed and put back to bed and they didn't. They can't get that in daycare Like she just wanted.
Speaker 1:Mom, she has this thing where she just rubs my arm. It's the weirdest thing. She's always done it and it's like a comfort blanket for her. She's like I just, mom, can you roll up your sleeve? I need to rub your arm. I'm like what? Okay, it's so weird. But like those are the things. I don't have that bond with my son and I don't know if it's just because the the boy mom thing, or just our personalities, or because I was, I didn't nurse him, I wasn't there with him those critical years, uh, all the time. But we definitely have more of a divide in between us, a butting of the heads, if you will. So I wonder if that's why, but it's so true. I wish more people went in with that innate feeling like this doesn't feel right. Send my kids off and then do something about it. And it's hard. Was it hard to like? Think we're all just going to work from home and start our businesses from home.
Speaker 2:So originally, when my husband and I first got married, we had always planned our lives off of one income. We live in a thousand square foot house, we have one car, we have no car payments, no credit card debt, no debt besides our mortgage, and my husband has a little bit on his student loans. So we've always lived a very well within our means lifestyle. So originally it had planned of like you're working from home, I'm like staying home home, like just, you know, being a mom, being a stay at home mom originally. And it wasn't until like four years ago that I started to grow my own business.
Speaker 2:Because the recession hit, things became, even though we were living, very small groceries were rising, prices were rising on everything, insurance, all the things. So that's when I kind of avenueed of like, okay, I need to do something, what can I do? And I had started to kind of dabble. I own my own marketing business online. So I had started to dabble into social media marketing and I told my husband I'm like I think that if I take this seriously, I can really make money with this, and it's become an amazing business, for our whole family now is involved in this family business and it's been an incredible stream of revenue for our family. So we didn't necessarily go into it of like we're all going to I'm going to homework and you're going to homework.
Speaker 1:We just kind of would pivot as needed to make it work for our family. So, and we'll get into the homeschooling in a minute but I wanted to ask you that question too, because there's is controversy between, like, letting your kids be involved in the content creation on the social media. You know, and I know you do it, I do it as well. So how did you, did you guys, come to that? Really, you obviously plan ahead. You think about things before you do them. How did you come to the realization that, like, we're going to do this, this is a family business and we're all going to be kind of involved and, you know, be okay with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like, because we just kind of slowly pivoted over time, it was never like this thing of like, like this is what we're going to do and this is what it's gonna be. You know, I feel like my vision at first was kind of smaller, and so, and originally, when I had like you got to think like eight to 10 years ago, no one would have ever thought you can make money on social media, right, like that wasn't even a thing that, even like five years ago, you wouldn't have thought we can see now how things can be manipulated and change with AI and how it feels sometimes a lot more scary to have pictures or videos of our kids online, and so I totally understand that.
Speaker 2:I totally understand why some people choose not to show that at all. For me, I genuinely do have faith in a higher power. I know I have a deep sense of all things are going to work out, it's all going to be okay. All things are going to work out, it's all going to be okay. And I feel like the number one thing people approach me with with that is what if your kids grow up at 18 and they say I did not want to be online, I didn't want my video shown, like this was an invasion of my privacy, and at that moment I'll just have to own up and be like I am so sorry, and at the time I did what I thought was the best that I could and I'm so sorry. You feel that way now. I think, too. Also, the reality will be how many kids in 50 years are not going to have their stuff online? You know, it's just so common that kids are online now.
Speaker 2:So, I can own my mistakes in the end. And also I say because my kids work for me at 18, they will graduate with significant incomes and bank accounts that they will come into to be able to buy a house, start a business, pay for therapy if they need therapy. So I also have that of like they do work and they do make money and I give them like petty cash, like five, 10 bucks, and they're happy with that, but I'm putting like 50 bucks, a hundred bucks every time in their investment accounts. That is going to be, Lord willing, well over six figures by the time that they graduated 18.
Speaker 1:going to be, lord willing, well over six figures by the time that they graduated 18. Oh, wow, yeah, I signed my kids on under me as employees as well. So we just do kind of like whatever we would have contributed to, like uh, I think when I worked for the government I'd had like a 503 B or something like I don't know it's called, where you put money in to set aside for college. We instead took that money and we put it into, uh, I think it's a roth ira. So just every week money goes into that account and it's a write-off for our business expense and it is income for them that's not taxable under a certain amount of year and under a certain age. So, yeah, it like when you're smart about it. It's like can you really be mad at me because you have all this money now? I don't know, I don't know that they're really gonna have all this money, but they won't have six figures from my business yet.
Speaker 2:A couple more ebooks couple.
Speaker 1:More ebooks need to be sold, but so would you consider yourself an unschooler? Yes, all right. Explain to the audience what that is.
Speaker 2:So unschooling is just more child-led learning and self-directed learning, and I definitely consider myself more of an unschooler because when I see what the traditional homeschoolers are doing, I'm like, yeah, that's not me. Not that every single homeschool mom is like this, but I would say the decent majority of homeschool moms plan, they lesson plan, they have the teacher books, they have usually a schedule. Whereas I don't look at the teacher books, I do use a workbook for math, but otherwise I kind of make up, like not make up, but we are learning things based on their passions, so like, and we are practicing. I'm very big on the foundations reading, writing, math. I'm a really big advocate that my kids need to be strong readers. Good mathematicians know how to write. I think that those skills, no matter what happens in the future world, are going to be really crucial, really important. But I'm not giving them a handwriting book and saying, here, do this worksheet. We're writing stories about Pokemon to learn about math. We're playing multiplication games.
Speaker 2:You know, science is we, you know, live on the beach, so science is. We're going outside. We're going to look at all the different types of marine biology and we're going to talk about them and whatever you love, we're going to get books on that. We're going to read all about it. We're going to get like my son is the biggest shark nerd you will ever meet Like he could tell you every single species of shark, how big they get, what they eat, what waters they live in, like all those things. He's like science, geeked out on sharks. And so unschooling is really just passion led learning of like my kids learn what they want to learn and we're getting in those basics, we're getting in those foundational skills, but we're doing it through more passion led than through specific curriculum schedules. I follow far more of a routine. We have a general routine in our day, but I am not a schedule person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you're down in Florida, right? Is it St Pete's?
Speaker 2:Yes, I live, technically in a town called Gulfport. I literally love Gulfport. It's my favorite place ever. But St Pete is kind of the bigger. It's literally I could throw a rock and hit St Pete. I'm that close to St Pete. Gulfport's very, very small and then, like Tampa, is a big city near us too. It is Clearwater near there. Yeah, I'm like 35 minutes from Clearwater. I'm close.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I've been there and I think I you had a video up the other day at Ford's garage and I swear I ate dinner there. Like I think that's the same place I went and I was trying to find. I was going through my phone like when was I in Florida? When was I in Florida? And trying to get the AI to pull up Florida pictures, because I was like did we take a picture at this place for dinner? But of course it was like one of those random you know your phone wipes out everything that you need because it only gave me two pictures from Florida and I'm like I took more than two pictures iPhone, but I think I was a google phone at that time so maybe I could find it in there. But I'm like the videos you were showing, I was like I was there. Um, yeah, it's down. Like I remember having to like go down a couple of one-way streets to get to the area that we were going to and then we ate dinner at ford's garage. Does that sound?
Speaker 2:there's some one-way streets down there there are, but I wonder if you were in clearwater not st pete's, because I bet they have locations at both.
Speaker 1:Okay, I don't know. I stayed in some place called treasure island, which is actually meant for gay people, and I didn't know that so there's a southern beach, sunset beach that's known as, like, a gay beach.
Speaker 2:Hilariously, I go there all the time. I'm heterosexual, so it was.
Speaker 1:It was fun. But my husband was like why did you pick this place? There's so many men and speedos here. God, I didn't know this coming in. I guess I should have known something called treasure island. That was a treasure, but it was beautiful. I guess if I lived there I would not go in an office either. I would be like heck. No, I am working from home. My kids are staying home. How could you put a kid in school when you've got the ocean right there outside your window, you know, and beautiful weather, yes exactly, and even when it's hot, I'm like, no, still go outside.
Speaker 2:We're still spending five to six hours a day outside. I don't care if it's a hundred degrees, yeah.
Speaker 1:You get used to it, all right, so give us an idea. What is the typical day for an unschooler or for you guys? What does it look like?
Speaker 2:so we wake up. I usually go to the gym. My kids have free play. They wake up at like 6 15. My kids are very early risers. They're early betters too, so that's kind of nice. Um, they wake up and they have free play to like 9 9 30, and then around 9 9 30 is when I'm like, hey, we're gonna do a couple of like core subject things. We'll do like some. Like you know, know, I have two different grades.
Speaker 2:So I have one son who you know will like read. He's actually really into medieval times right now. So right now we're reading a medieval times book. He's like in the medieval times book they have little questions you can write, and so sometimes I'll have him right there. Sometimes he's writing. He, like I said, he's making a Pokemon book, so sometimes he'll write a few sentences in this pokemon book.
Speaker 2:Like I said, I do use a math curriculum. I use curriculum far more as a guide than as like a schedule. We need to do this because if he's flying through stuff, if he knows that I'm skipping that chapter, if he is not necessarily mastery, mastering this of this concept, um, like my first, my younger son has been struggling with subtraction, with remainders or carrying over, and so we spent a lot more time on that than the book gave us. It's totally okay. There's no ahead, there's no behind, we're just looking for I'm looking for progress over time. So we spend literally an hour or less doing our three core subjects, which for me is reading, writing, math, and then we usually have like a morning outing. That's the library, the, the beach, a nature preserve, anything like that.
Speaker 2:My kids are big into fishing so we do a lot of fishing. They're really big, like I said, marine kids, so like we're creature adventuring, we're doing all sorts of things. We come home, we do lunch. We usually do a read aloud with our lunch. That's when I read to them out loud. I'm a big advocate for reading out loud. If all you do in your homeschooling is read out loud to your kids and learn to emotionally regulate yourself, and then them see you emotionally regulating yourself and they learn that your children will be golden. You don't even have to worry about the reading, writing, math. Probably you'll just be fine and get them outside for five hours I've got number one, definitely not emotionally regulating.
Speaker 1:Over here today I was like oh my, one percent it's like all those days like birds chirping in your ear. Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, oh yes, but uh, you know one step better than my parents, they probably would have thrown something at me at that point.
Speaker 2:That's what I say.
Speaker 1:That's what I say thinking about homeschooling, but don't know where to start. Well, I've interviewed a few people on the topic actually 120 interviews at this point with homeschooling but don't know where to start. Well, I've interviewed a few people on the topic Actually 120 interviews at this point with homeschooling families from across the country and the world, and what I've done is I've packed everything I've learned into an e-book called the Homeschool How-To Complete Starter Guide. From navigating your state's laws to finding your homeschooling style, from working while homeschooling to supporting kids with special needs, this guide covers it all, with real stories from real families who've walked this path. I've taken the best insights, the best resources and put them all into this guide. Stop feeling overwhelmed and start feeling confident. Get your copy of the Homeschool How-To Complete Starter Guide today and discover that homeschooling isn't just about education. It's about getting what you want out of each day, not what somebody else wants out of you. You can grab the link to this ebook in the show's description or head on over to thehomeschoolhowtocom.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, we'll do it real loud. And then they do one hour of quiet time every single day, and this doesn't have to be a time where they have to be quiet, but it is one hour where they cannot bother me. They have to play unstructured, without me, without my help, without my interference, without my refereeing, for one hour a day. If they come get me, it adds five minutes every time. I do have a four-year-old and a five-year-old. Sometimes I do have to get involved, but then they add five minutes and that's really helpful for me because, like I said, I own my own business. So that's when usually I'm working during that time.
Speaker 2:And then we usually go do an afternoon outing Again. We're going to the park, we're going to the library, we're going to the beach, we're going to the bay where we are going out and doing something, or they're even just outside riding their bikes, riding their scooters. Like I said, my kids spend every at least five hours outside a day, every day. I'm a really big like get kids outside. Kids. Being kids in nature makes the world a better place. And I say a lot of times to kids being in nature is far more valuable at this age than them doing a math lesson, like it is just so crucial for kids to be outside, it's so good for them on their emotional, physical, mental, emotional health, everything all around. Get your kids outside and then usually you know 430, my husband gets off work and we start, you know, dinner, bedtime, routine type of stuff, because my kids wake up early. They are in bed by like 730, which is such a blessing and, yeah, that's our day. That's about our routine.
Speaker 1:Okay. So how do you, if you get that one hour in the afternoon to maybe do some work, when they're in bed at 730? I mean, is that when you're like I have to get back to work, or how do you regulate it? Like, no, I have to also have time for me, have time for my husband, or just cleaning the house, laundry that stuff? Like how do you manage that? Because it's very hard when you have your own business and you don't have a babysitter or somewhere for your kids to go to. You know, manage that time, how do you do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so one hour. Like I said, their quiet time always one hour. I always get that, probably five days out of seven. They also get a half hour to an hour of TV time. That's it. I don't do any any screen time outside of that. We don't do iPads, we don't do tablets, we don't do phones, we don't do video games, something like that. So if it is a day where we don't have a big afternoon outing plan, they are allowed to watch like a half hour to an hour of TV.
Speaker 2:I'll work that shift too, like I'll sit next to them. They're watching TV and they are usually watching like classics from when we were kids, so like hey Arnold, catdog, powerpuff Girls, curtsy, carly dog, the old pokemon even new pokemon is pretty good. But I also work during that time. Sometimes at night I will work an extra hour and then one day a week I actually work like a three hour, like little time block, and my husband does like dinner, bedtime, everything. So on thursdays I work from like 3, 30 to like 6, 30, maybe sometimes seven, um, and thankfully I've structured my business where just doing a few hours every day I can do enough that it pays the bills.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I find hard is managing the time. So, yeah, my husband would love for me to get up and work out with him at six, but I'm like I gotta get this podcast edited.
Speaker 1:I'll get there. You know you're right, it all falls into place because different projects come up at different times. Sometimes you're overloaded, sometimes you're not, and as you do it too, I think it gets easier Like, ok, what kind of flow. You know you have a certain kind of flow when you make your reels, like this is what works, this is what my audience likes. So, so, when you're still in kind of the guessing game, like what works today didn't work tomorrow, and then every now and then, instagram will just like block me from getting any new followers. And it'll be like you're at this number for a month and I'm like, oh, all right, I guess the gig's up. Nobody else likes my stuff, so I'll just stop. And then it'll be like, oh wait, we want her back now. So it'll say like you got 100 new followers. You got 100 new followers. So then I'm like, oh, I better create some content again.
Speaker 1:It's there's a movie called was it the Social Experiment, I think, and how like it plays games with you like that to get you coming back. And it's an actual thing. How do you OK, this is a good question, I think, for somebody who you don't have your kids using social media or ipads or stuff like that, but you're allowing them to be on it like, and I'm the same. I'm the same, right. Like my kids don't have phones.
Speaker 1:My son has an ipad but like he uses it to listen to spotify, like old country music, and he thinks it's new. He thinks it's new country music. So he had his friend in the car a couple weeks ago and he he's like, listen to this. And he hooks up to my hot spot and he plays, like I don't know, toby Keith or something. He's singing along with it and I'm like, holy crap, we are homeschoolers, we are homeschoolers. This is it. The kid's looking at him like, are you for real? So yeah, it's funny. But then today he played pretty fly for a white guy. So I'm like, oh lordy, okay, well, he is though but yeah, but yeah.
Speaker 1:How do you like? Will you ever be? What is your long-term goal? Because, with ai coming in their lives and, first of all, it's never been easier to keep your kids away from electronics and social media than to homeschool, because you don't have to deal with it. These kids are on a group chat and they're leaving your kid out because your kid doesn't have the phone. Meanwhile they're all 12 years old and Snapchatting and this and that, whatever app, is the thing. Now, if you don't know if you want to homeschool for this reason alone, if you don't want to have to deal with the social media and all of the pressures from AI and them targeting you and telling kids to hurt themselves and it's just, it's crazy out there, homeschool for that reason alone.
Speaker 1:But what is your goal? Will you ever let them have that stuff?
Speaker 2:So I have told that because so we live on a block with 12 kids. All of them are public schooled, and it's very funny because exactly they, since they were like six years old, all had cell phones. And so I remember when, about three years ago, when the little girl across the street she's like, when will you let Cephas get a phone my oldest son, who was six at the time because she's six and I laughed and I said, well, one day, when he has a job, I'd be willing to get him a bark phone, but until then he won't have any smartphone. So that's kind of always been my standard with my kids and, to be fair, my kids, all their friends, their close friends, are homeschooled kids who do not have cell phones, who do not have their very low tech, low screen kids like my kids, so they don't interact with kids who are like having these phones, doing these things. I think that's super helpful. But also my standard is exactly when you get a job at 14, 15, 16, 17, and you need to communicate with me, to like coordinate rides or, honestly, hopefully you can get a job you can just bike to, or something like that would be my goal to make them equipped enough that, if you get a job you can figure out all your own stuff. But I'm willing to get you a bark phone that doesn't have any internet access, that I can see every call and every text that you are doing and that just is very like calling, texting. That's it. I would not let any child on social media period.
Speaker 2:So when my kids are 18, if they have a job and they want to go get their own smartphone and they want to download social media, go for it. You're an adult and, lord willing, I've equipped you well enough at that point that you know not to go on certain sites. So when certain things come up because they will come up if your child has access to a screen there is a PORN site within 10 clicks of that website and it is just going to happen that something will pop up and my children by 18, even now they're very well equipped. We I actually would highly recommend, if anyone does let their kids on any sort of screen, to read a book. It's called Good Pictures, bad Pictures.
Speaker 2:You can find it on Amazon. They have a junior version, an older kid version, and it, in very childlike terms, explains what PORORN is in childlike, very, very on par with their age. Not scary, not weird, nothing. But it talks about how there are good pictures, great things for our brains that we like to see, and that there are bad pictures. That's like picture poison for our brain and we don't want to look and see those things.
Speaker 2:So, anyways, a longer story made short. Lord willing by them Actually, I won't even say Lord willing, lord willing by them, actually, I won't even say Lord willing by then they will be equipped to know how to handle the internet, to understand that exactly the Instagram algorithm works on shame. It wants you to think that what you do is who you are, and by 18, my goal is that my kids are firm in their identity of I know who I am, outside of what I do, outside of what the world says that I am, outside of anything. I know who I am because this has been imparted to me for the last you know 18 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it sounds crazy like, oh, they're not going to have social media until they're 18. But I'm 41. I didn't have social media until I was with it didn't exist. I was in college when Facebook was created and you had to have a college email address in order to get on it, because I remember years later my mother being on it and I'm like, how the heck are you on this? You need to be in college and then they were letting all the grandmas on and stuff. So it's like we didn't have it and we're fine.
Speaker 1:So the majority of us raising kids today never had social media until we were 18. So when we think about even how much damage it did to us in our like 20s and stuff affairs that were created from that, you know our kids, they don't have a shot if they're on this stuff at 8, 9, 10 years old. And the biggest thing for me now I don't know if you're dealing with this at all. I mean, probably because you have kids right in your neighborhood that have social media but like, just if they're around, other kids that are showing them a screen, this, and you know, and then this next one pops up, like you said, the sites that you don't want them to see are just within 10 clicks and probably not even that far.
Speaker 1:So if you're watching, for instance, youtube shorts and they're just, you know, watching funny cat videos, and then something comes up that you don't want your kid to see, it's not even that other kid's fault. But that's where I'm struggling right now, because, like, kids want to have sleepovers or they want to. You know, we all go camping and they want to be in a tent alone together, and I'm like the bad parent that's like no, you're sleeping with me, no, you sleep at home at night. Because I don't even want even an innocent enough child showing them something that they can't control, because the next click, the next swipe is going to be something inappropriate.
Speaker 2:Exactly. And actually it's so funny because our family has had a rule, and it's been a rule since the very beginning, that we don't do sleepovers. And my kids no kids who do get to sleepovers, and they're like but so-and-so gets to do a sleepover and I'm like, yeah, and this is our family rule and this is how our family runs, and you have to trust God that he has equipped me to be your mom, not Jones's mom, like I'm your mom and so this is our family rules. And so you, I totally understand what you're saying of like coming up against that, like you're not a bad mom. I'm not a bad mom, maybe not always the fun mom, but I feel like you and I are making up for it another way. So it's all going to work out in the end.
Speaker 2:So don't worry and that's also why our household too all the neighbor kids know this who do have phones. Phones are not allowed on our property. Like, if you want to hang out with your phone, go do it at your own house. Like you know, I can only control my property and my kids and that's why under no circumstance would they hang out with kids who have phones unsupervised. Because no way. Just because, like you're saying, even the most sweet, innocent, not trying to be weird child, it can just pop up, it can just pop up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there to be weird child. It can just pop up. It can just pop up. Yeah, there was that lady. She has the site scrolling to death on Instagram and she said, like in a third grade classroom she went on her daughter's computer laptop, like in the school, in the classroom, and swiped and like got to the PORN site that you're talking about right in the classroom. Her daughter just had to do a couple of clicks, or she, you know, the mother did it, but it's not like she typed anything in. Even she was honest. It was allowing YouTube and that shouldn't even be allowed in the school.
Speaker 1:And then the school was like sorry, we didn't know, and now we'll do something about it. Like we would think that those what do you? You know, shelters are in place, like what's the word? Like those sort of codes, like you can't get in access. Those sites are already in place before the teachers roll out. You know, here's your classroom assignment, so and that's another thing in schools now they're in. And yeah, and you're, I assume, probably more on the conservative side, what do you think about? Like they're rolling out AI down from like kindergarten. Now it's like who's controlling the world? Because that's why this is weird. And RFK who wants a universal vaccine. Now, like what is going on with the world.
Speaker 2:Dude, I wish I knew and that's actually probably why I don't keep up with like any world events type things, which is I'm sure some people would be like, oh my gosh, that's so irresponsible, selfish. I don't know what avenue people would throw me under. But I'm just like bro, all I need to do is manage my own nice number one, manage myself, because reality, that's all. The only thing I can have control over is myself and steward what I have well, and I'm just like let the world burn. It's the world is going to do what the world's going to do.
Speaker 1:Well, and that is brilliant advice, and I think I had to come to that conclusion and just say like, yeah, there are people in control way above you know, whatever we see. So what can I control? Can I teach my kids how to find fresh water, if they needed to, how to build a house, how to, you know, find food? Can they fish? Could they hunt? Could they, you know, skin a deer and process it? Not yet, but hopefully soon. You know, that's on the bucket list. It's like these things, you know, are I want to make sure our family doesn't need FEMA in a hurricane or tornado or a flood or a whatever aliens approaching. I don't know what they're gonna throw at us, but it's like, yeah, these are the things you can only control within your home, so you do have to let that other stuff go. Yeah, what about our? Is college something that you think you would influence your kids towards? Or are you kind of on the like let's not waste our money, let's figure things out before we get there?
Speaker 2:It'll be so interesting to see what college looks like by the time our kids get to even college age, because I think we're already starting to see the radical shift of like people are realizing college isn't worth it for many jobs. Obviously, I want my surgeon going to college. I don't want my surgeon getting through medical school because he AI'd his whole, you know tests and peppers and all that type of stuff. So I think that college is going to look very, very different by the time our kids get into college and honestly, with the personnel, I have three boys and a little girl. I just with their personality, like my one son wants to be an alligator hunter. Well, thankfully you don't have to have a college degree to be an alligator hunter. My other son actually wants to train dolphins. Funny enough, you don't need a degree to do that. I actually asked. We went and swam with the dolphins and I asked do you need a marine biology degree to learn to do this? She's like oh no, like you can turn internships and do this and this and this and I'm like that's so cool, like that actually is a job I thought would need college, but you actually don't even need college for that. So all this to say if my kids have careers where you need higher education, you're gonna have to do that. That's okay.
Speaker 2:I'm also a huge fan of like the trades. I say all the time I'm like we could use a mechanic in the family, we could use an H that guy in the family like my collection, and in the 90s he was making six figures. So like jobs in the trades fields are very, very lucrative, very, very good for, like hands on kinesthetic people. My kids are not, I don't think, going to be sitting in the office work type people. Maybe they will. I don't want to put a label on them. They can do whatever they want to do. But they also are very aware. Thank God because the total twins if you want to go to college, it has to be for a like a college career. Like you want to be a surgeon, you want to be a doctor, you want to be a nurse, you want to be you know, something that needs specific higher level training.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, yeah, same here. My husband is HVAC and it's yeah, he has a T-shirt he's had for a long time that says death to cubicles. Even when I was working for the government like now I understand, because I didn't know any better I was in like the prison that I made for myself in the cubicle, so I just walked there every day, sat in my cubicle, 10 o'clock. I take my break. At noon I take my break, and at two I take my break and then go home and you know, like, even if I had no work to do, just sat in my cubicle and like it's so weird, now that I'm out of that matrix, that I'm like holy crap, why were you doing that? Like why there's a whole world out there, there's so many things you can do, and I didn't feel that there was anything I could do other than sit in a cubicle and get government money, which is basically a glorified welfare recipient.
Speaker 1:Put it plainly I did what they told me to do and then I got taxpayer dollars for it. So, but you know, I didn't think there was anything else because school kept me so busy all the time with just busy work, that I didn't care about. I never actually found a passion of my own and I never would have said like, oh, I could be a podcaster, because I was never bored enough to do that. Or, you know, make reels on Instagram or write an ebook or whatever write a children's book because I was never had the time to do it or the time to even find anything that I liked to do. So that's something that homeschool definitely allows your kids to do, and us as the parent.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:What is your favorite?
Speaker 2:title to this book Medals of Merit. It made me cry the first time I read it.
Speaker 1:I literally cried the first time I read it Because of the girl in the wheelchair.
Speaker 2:Because of how well they described like Marxism, principles and how it's like this is not actually equal, and I was like this is not equal. And how do a kid like that you know that this is like in our culture like more people are like universal health care, socialism, this and this, and I'm like you have no idea what those things could actually bring and how. That's actually not. First off, the world's not fair. Let's just start there. But that that's actually not fair. That's not true equality. True equality is free markets where we can all compete and be able to pull our best resources to be able to do the best work that we can do and be rewarded for that work. Yeah, so I love that.
Speaker 1:And it's so true, and I just had Del Bigtree on. You know no shout out to myself there for getting Dell on. But but he said that he was like the reason that vaccine manufacturers do not have to compete there because it's mandated on people and it's you. Most people have to get them to go to school, or at least they make you think that you do, in all the states. But, like my state, my kids would have to be vaccinated with everything in order to go to school. So if it's already mandated on people, the pediatricians are are your advertisers. You don't have to pay for marketing, you don't have to compete because there's, they have to get it. That's the one on the market. So nobody's competing for a better product. Like, why would Pfizer say I am going to improve my product when they're already getting the millions of kids to take it because it's on the CDC schedule, right? Like if it was an option? And they and it was like do you want this product today? Well, I don't know. Show me all the safety studies.
Speaker 2:If you have them, and you know, maybe they'd have some at that point, show me just the ingredient list, look at how much aluminum is supposed to be in a human body and then look at the amount of aluminum that's put in vaccines that they are, you know, have a shelf life. That's actually what kind of started me down the rabbit hole that is. Someone just sent me the ingredients and I was like what? I had never thought about.
Speaker 1:This Like yeah, you don't know what you don't know. It's true, it's so true. Have you taught your kids what to do in an emergency? It's a conversation we shouldn't put off, and it's a conversation we should have often. That's why I wrote let's Talk Emergencies, a book that covers everything from dialing 911 on a locked cell phone to staying safe online water safety, fire safety and more. The most important lessons we can teach our kids are not reading, writing and math. They're how to keep themselves and others safe In today's world of uncertainty. Give them the tools they need. Grab a copy today. Check out the link in this episode's description. So that's your favorite book. I'm going to name a Tuttle Twins scenario, and you got to tell me what book it's from.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, they go to Germany Vacation vacation. Yes, okay, we got. We've got another one here. Emma had a theater. This is a hard one. I know this is a hard one. Let me see what else. Oh, she had a ballet theater. Why hard one, I know this is a hard one. Let me see what else. Oh, she had a ballet theater why am I thinking?
Speaker 2:the miraculous pencil, the spectacular show business? Yes, the history books. My kids will just pick them up and read them, like all the time, like they love to leisure read those history books. They're so into them because they're written in the storybook format.
Speaker 1:I genuinely love those books so I genuinely love those and it's funny because I'll be like reading them to my son as part of his curriculum, but it'll be our nightly read and then if my husband's putting them to bed and I hear him pick up like where I left off, I'll be mad. I'm like do I wanted to know that part? Stop that's. I want to to learn it. So I have to go back the next day and skim through.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that's what I love about the tuttle twins is we learn right alongside them because they do such a good job of explaining the things that we were not taught as kids. Like I didn't know about the creature from jekyll island, I didn't know about these people who printed, you know, money out of thin air, that we didn't use the gold standard anymore, that you know because of that, our money is like valueless. Like those are good things to know, I need to know what to invest in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think when I read the miraculous pencil is when I was like whoa, like there are so many moving parts and so many jobs we just don't even know about. And then we're sending our kids to school for eight, you know, six hours a day, six plus hours a day. They're away from us eight to ten hours a day, you know, 180 days out of the year. And then college, where they get into two hundred thousand dollars of debt and they don't even know that. There's like a lady looking for what is it lacquer in Egypt or something. And it's like these are all jobs that you don't need all that schooling for.
Speaker 1:Like you said before, apprenticeships you know, you learn this stuff. We're at a dolphin exhibit. Do we need to have a degree for this? Like, you learn it when you decide that it's something that you want to do. And even, like you were saying, education will be different when our kids get there and college will be different when our kids get there.
Speaker 1:But the jobs will be so different that even going to, like going to my husband's HVAC school, what he learned back in 2000 is so different than what you would learn on the job today. He's had to roll because there are like computers and everything. Now this morning he was just telling me he goes. They want me to sign in to this job to like remotely do stuff on the computer, but the place is 20 minutes away. I could just go there and fix the problem. But they're like making them do all these steps that they think help, like, oh, just sign in. Then he's got to do all these steps that they think help, like, oh, just sign in. And then he's got to write all these reports about what he found when he signed in and but he can't actually fix it because he's not there. So it's just a crazy world. And I agree with you completely as far as the higher education, because what jobs are even going to be available if they're not in the real world?
Speaker 2:they'll never know, oh yeah, and literally nobody could say what jobs are going to be like in 10 years. Like we genuinely have no idea it's going to look vastly different than what we have now. Does the ai scare you? No, but I'm not easily shaken and I've seen some of the benefits and I just see how it doesn't like always like do a great job. Like I just use chat gpt like very casually, and sometimes I'll ask you things and I'm like bro, this is not, this is not it. This is not helpful. Like you, you are not doing a good job on this Because, especially like I work in online advertising, marketing, social media people like are you afraid I was gonna take your job?
Speaker 2:I'm like heck, no, they couldn't do my job. Are you kidding me? They can't even write my caption right half the time. Like they're not going to be able to edit videos and sync it to the music and do this and find the right clips. You know you can easily pick out AI art versus actual art, right, like we can all super see of like something that's using like AI for advertising versus real advertising, and most people are drawn to real advertising. Real pictures, real art, real, you know, whatever.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I've looked for that. I'm like, okay, there's gotta be some sort of program I can just pay for monthly that like takes like the text I want to put in and fits it all nicely in a one, you know, 30 second, one minute reel and puts it to the beat and puts in or like a podcast episode, you know, and puts in overlays. But yes, I've looked for AI programs to do all that stuff for me and it doesn't exist. And you're right when I put in stuff like AI is great for hey, I have these ingredients in my fridge and my pantry. What can I make for dinner in the instapot? It will give me a good meal. But yeah, I've put in stuff before, asked it something, and then like I'm like, no, that's not true, can you try again? And it'll be like, oh, you're right, thank you for being on top of things. And it's I could see it's like trying to groom me to be its friend.
Speaker 2:we're not buddies yeah, yeah, I actually asked it today to make me a headshot because I had a photo, but I wanted it of just my face. It was like a full, like more body photo and I'm like, oh, I'll ask ai to just like, and I assume they just like crop my face, make the background nothing, whatever. They literally instead like, drew like a picture, like a digital art of me, and I'm like this doesn't even look like this is for you to generate this photo, thinking that you're actually to do what I'm asking you've also with your work.
Speaker 1:You have a cup, you have like a course, right? Can you tell us about that?
Speaker 2:yes, I have a guide to homeschooling e-course because, exactly when I I share homeschooling on my instagram and I would get so many people asking so many questions curriculum questions, how do you homeschool? Questions, routine questions like how do I homeschool? Like, what do I need to do all this different types of stuff and so, instead of answering every single person which I just got to the point I could not do that anymore I was like, okay, I'm gonna make a guide. And I actually co created this with literally the most brilliant woman that I know. She's an absolutely incredible person.
Speaker 2:She was a teacher turned homeschool mom. Her husband was a homeschooler, so her kids are second generation homeschool kids and she is just a wealth of knowledge and has seen the background of like the public school and the private school. She taught in both and then now as a homeschool mom, so she has a lot of educational background and then the actual homeschooling like knowledge and as well, and so her and I tag team and made this and it is just truly very helpful for anyone who is just getting started on homeschooling or who needs, like even clarity on their homeschooling of like why am I doing this? Like, why does it matter if my kids go outside like they're playing for how wheels for three hours. Is this a problem? Spoiler alert it's not. They're actually learning while playing how wheels. You don't have to worry. That's probably the best thing that they can be doing right now.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it is to help anyone get started on their homeschooling journey or just get clarity, encouragement of like where you're at in your homeschooling journey, like I feel like so many homeschool moms are, like am I doing enough? Am I failing my kids? That's probably like the two biggest fears I hear. And like you are enough, you are not failing your kids. Like if you are trying, if you are even just doing read-alouds, if you're just being intentional with your time with them, it's just not possible. It's not possible for you to fail your kids in that way. So that is my guide, and I mean I'm biased, but I think it's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm going to put a link to that so people can just head right to the description, click on it and it's everything that they need. So easy, easy way. And I'm going to link your Instagram too, so people can follow you along on your journey. And I, you know, I know, yeah, and I know, like for the people that aren't even in homeschooling yet, like for me, I was like what would we even do all day? But it's funny how these things like it sounds overwhelming when you're like I have an outing in the morning and an outing in the afternoon, but it probably happens more naturally than that. Right, like what, now that I'm in it, it's like life, my, my son.
Speaker 1:You know we had a neighbor move in a couple months ago, so their 11 year old is home for the summer and, you know, my son is seven. But they like ride dirt bikes to get. Well, I took away the dirt bike because they were getting a little nuts, but they ride four wheelers together and they've been working for the last two weeks endlessly on building tiny houses in the backyard. So I love that. Like today, like my son got in his tractor which is from his great-grandfather it was his great-grandfather's tractor. He gets in tractor and he's taking all the wood that we just built this podcast studio down here in my basement and all the leftover wood they're taking in. They're bringing it up to the neighbor's house and I hear them out there pounding on nails and I'm waiting for the screams and he's like ah, I got my finger, but I haven't heard that yet. Knock on wood, but it is. It's so funny how, like when you just let them live, they naturally do stuff that they want to learn.
Speaker 1:Now my daughter, on the other hand, she just wants to watch Blippi all day long. But so like you got to cap it and like I lost the remote every now and then, and you know. But so I sat with her and we were playing the matching game that she got for her birthday that last weekend. So you know it was cute. It was like the first time she could actually play a game like and get it. You know where she's not just moving pieces effortlessly or aimlessly, but she was like oh yeah, I got a match too for me. And she gets so excited and I'm like all I had to do was like stop cooking, stop trying to get podcasts edited. Stop trying to do laundry and just sit with her and like it does. You're right, it just so naturally comes and I need to be more intentional about that, for sure.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, exactly. My outing is not always fun stuff. It's like we're going grocery shopping once a week. Me and all my kids are going grocery shopping. You're going to come to the store, you're gonna learn how life works. It's not always like these super fun things. And, like you said too, so many people like I couldn't entertain my kids all day long, bro, neither can I. I'm not doing that. I am not doing that at all.
Speaker 2:They are going to find their own things to do.
Speaker 2:They're going to naturally, go play. They are going to their children. They are literally built and made to play and when you kind of set up the routine, when you kind of have like the baseline of, like you know, like you go, do you not to say I don't play Monopoly with my kids all the time? I do, they love that.
Speaker 2:I actually am a big advocate for game schooling. That's like one of the best ways for your kids to learn math and so many other skills. But a lot of time they're just like they go, do their own thing. They're out. You know my kids four wheelers are so cool. That's so cool that you do that. But my kids are, like you know, playing with the mud kitchen in the backyard, which is just a plastic kitchen that has totally been destroyed and is just mud and gross now. Um, and like literally old pots and pans that we're just like using, because we finally had to get new pots and pans because like they were nonstick and like you know I know now nonstick is not the best right um, all this to say exactly they go, they do their own thing. We are not constantly entertaining our kids. We're not constantly, you know, micromanaging everything they do. They have the freedom to be kids yeah, when you give them that freedom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I, I'm guilty of it, we're. It's all a work in progress, like you said, you know none of us are perfect? Oh my God Right, none of us are perfect. We might have to say some apologies some days, but are we doing it better than our parents did?
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly, and me and my husband are doing like way better. So I'm sure you are all the time we're before, but we don't. We don't use that consequence very often. But we will look at each other a lot of times, like today my son broke a fan, like literally broke a hole, like you know, it has like four little spinny things. He literally broke a whole thing off and I was like we looked at each other and we're like this is why our parents beat us, like this is why people used to beat their kids, you know, and we gotta hope them is somehow gonna be a little bit better.
Speaker 1:On beating them, try to regulate those emotions exactly. It is hard and I find too like my son will do things that like trigger my childhood, so like he'll just be loud and yelling and stomping the feet and it it does it like put you back and like the trauma, and it took me for a little while to figure that out and that's probably why we butt heads too. Because I remember one time just chasing after him as he's hopping along, running like the little kid from home alone, right, and he's running and I he like ran into the bathroom and I opened the bathroom door and I smacked him in the head with it. I didn't mean to yeah, it's hard.
Speaker 1:You know what life does not come with a handbook. It is all right. Oh, I'm gonna link everything to this episode. We're already up on an hour. Is there anything, any lasting words you want to say to the homeschooling parents that are thinking about homeschooling, or prospective homeschooling parents, or just starting out on their journey?
Speaker 2:if you're just starting starting out, if you want to, you are so equipped to do this. You taught your kid how to walk. You caught your kid how to talk. You can teach them to read. You can teach them to write. You can live a thriving family life and have more joy and freedom than you could have ever imagined, than being in the bubble. And if you're even slightly considering it 1000%, take the jump because you are literally going to love it. You genuinely love it, and let go of all your expectations of it needs to look like this, or she does. Ginny does it this way, so I need to do it this way. Follow the flow of your own family and all you're looking for is progress over time. It doesn't matter how long that progress takes. If it takes your son three years to learn how to read, that's okay. Like it's going to be okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're on that three-year journey right now. Like I'll look at him sometimes I'm like dude, are you dyslexic? He is totally going to be in therapy one day. But where I think we're finally on the journey. Now I found Reading Horizons and he's doing well with it.
Speaker 2:I'm'm, we're liking it. One third of kids get reading right away very easy. One third of kids need a decent amount more help to learn to read and the other third of kids need a lot of help to learn to read. Oh, I, my firstborn, was a very fast, easy reader. He literally picked it. I did. I barely even taught that kid how to read, like he was like a ab, and I'm like oh, good for you, like, look at me, I'm such a great homeschool mom, you're getting it. And then my second son I'd be like this is a. It makes an ass sound. I'm like what letter is that? He's like q. I'm like what. I'm like what sound does that make? He's like buh. I'm like what? Like something different. And so if you have that situation happen, it's totally okay. A third get it. A third need a little bit of help, a third need a lot of bit of help and it's totally okay.
Speaker 1:And in Finland they don't even start any of that formal stuff till age seven. So what's it for anyway?
Speaker 2:Yeah it's not. I don't push reading right away. Not very young.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as long as you're reading to them, like you said, most important thing. So grab a Tuttle Twins book and sit down tonight with your kids. Thank you, Raven, for being here. It was so nice meeting you and chatting with you. I look forward to seeing more of your videos on Instagram.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you so much for having me. It's such a joy to be here, and same I literally love your videos too Well.
Speaker 1:I copy some of your formats. It's like looking in a mirror. I love that. Thank you for tuning into this week's episode of the Homeschool How-To. If you've enjoyed what you heard and you'd like to contribute to the show, please consider leaving a small tip using the link in my show's description. Or, if you'd rather, please use the link in the description to share this podcast with a friend or on your favorite homeschool group Facebook page. Any effort to help us keep the podcast going is greatly appreciated. Thank you for tuning in and for your love of the next generation.