Homeschooling for Middle School

I knew my daughter would be homeschooled for middle school.

Once we completed her middle school homeschool time, I knew the boys would be too.

Emotional intelligence isn't taught in school.

Bullying isn't addressed as teachers are at their capacity as is and aren't trained in areas you think they might be. They're of course brilliant, but kept back from their passions through the system.

Dive into why I decided to homeschool (if no other time than middle school).

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Okay, well we're back with another episode and I have kids home, so if I get interrupted or if something, you hear something. Oh wow. I mean, we're living life. Okay. There's no, let me just find the most perfect moment. Who cares if I have something to say? I'm gonna say it right now. I'm not waiting for moments.

Um,

I'm so sick and tired of living in a digital age where everything is like. Let's make it perfect. Let's curate it. Let's do this, let's do that. Yeah. I get some things. We want to be beautiful, but we also have to remember the human experience isn't perfect. So our craving for perfection is just not gonna say not natural, but it come, there's, there's a reason it's there.

Um, and it doesn't serve people naturally. Anyway, I wanted to come in, 'cause I was talking about, uh, homeschooling. And middle school, and I knew if I ever had a daughter that I would homeschool her in middle school. When I was done with my middle school experience, as [00:01:00] soon as Olivia was born, I was like, you'll never have to go to middle school.

And now, of course, being a parent, and some, some of you will understand this, and even being a child of, so you have a parent, you'll understand this. Obviously I'm not like, oh, you can't do this 'cause this will happen to you. Like, the same things won't happen, right? Like, I'm not, I'm not gonna fear that she's gonna meet a boy and her whole life will change and she'll follow him and do everything and all the same experiences I had.

When I was dating Right. And younger before I met my husband, but so I know it wouldn't be the exact same, but I knew on some, I think the more I did research too and the fundamentally, like just foundationally, I knew that that age is such an age of growth and. Um, exploration into who you are and where you fit into the world a little bit.

Like that's, I mean, we're talking if you'd start sixth grade, maybe seventh and then eighth, right? That's an [00:02:00] age where everyone, everyone is afraid. Everyone is wondering what other people think of them. Everyone is in this way, but none of them will admit it. So we're, they're all living this experience.

But none of them, and we don't teach in the public school system to be vulnerable enough to know we're all feeling it. Will I be accepted? Oh, that's okay. 'cause the person you think is cool and popular also worried if they'll be accepted. The person that you think has it all together and everything like that.

And everyone loves them. Yeah. They're also worried about how they look and what they're doing and everything under the sun. But we don't, they don't understand that because in schools, no one teaches emotional intelligence. No one teaches conflict resolution. No one teaches. We're just like, here, memorize this.

Learn some math and science and, yeah. Let's get you as compliant as well. Anyway, don't even get me started into public school anyway. But I knew middle school specifically, because what happens is people start being vicious and mean and does the school pay attention or do anything about it? Not really.

Now [00:03:00] that's a lot of kids for one adult to keep an eye on. And that's also interchangeable because you'd change classes. So it's more kids, right? And parents aren't doing the work like my parents taught me. You know, from a very early age, like, hey, if a kid ever smells, you don't know what's happening at their house.

You don't know if they even have running water or money for soap. If a kid has clothes that they grew out of and they look funny, or they don't have new clothes, you don't know if their parents could afford new clothes. You don't know if they're being neglected, like you don't know people's home life.

And so I've always had this understanding of not judging other children and being open. Um, I had an emotional intelligence at a young age before my peers did, and that made it very, very, very hard for me to be around the cruelty and what they had learned from their parents, because I'm telling you, even now looking outside at what I see, there's parents to this day that are still just having a hard [00:04:00] like.

Uh, they're not, I don't even know how to put this into words because again, everyone's experience here, like you can only do what you can do with what you know. But it's amazing that today, now being an adult, I can very much see the type of children that I'm talking about. And how their parents are because I can see their parents and what they're teaching their children.

Like before I was just a child seeing the children and wondering, okay, I guess their parents didn't teach them this. Now I'm an adult. Seeing the adults lack of understanding and helping their kids see a different way. Right. Um, and that, that to me is so interesting. It's just so I don't, I don't know if I try to understand it as much as I just have a lot of grace for them.

Right. Um, because it's okay. It's okay not to understand things. And it's okay to accept people where they're at and to just love them and [00:05:00] guide them, and hopefully you're that shining light that shows them a different way or a cooler way, or a way that's like. You know, just, just something different. And being an example, leading by example, which is really what we're all about, right, is just lead leading by your own truth and your authenticity and such, be so raw that other people see that and it inspires them to do the same.

Um, but yeah, so middle school was just not the place where I knew she would be emotionally taken care of or spiritually or mentally. Um, and so we, it just so happened to be right after COVID. And it was so easy because I was like, I'm not doing virtual school. First of all, are you kidding me? So not only is it public school, but now it's public school at home where I am figuring out technology and facilitating everything.

I was like, no. Um, and shout out to my mom who has been homeschooling them. Since almost day one. I was doing it in the beginning and then she [00:06:00] came in and it's been amazing. So yeah, so through through middle school she homeschooled and then we always knew she'd go to high school 'cause she wanted to. And I was like, okay, you want that experience?

I was like, are you sure? 'cause you could be done like next year. And she's like, no, I want to. And now here we are. She's in school. And her junior year going to community college and getting her associates pretty much paid for, 'cause she could do it at the same time she's getting her high school diploma.

It worked out great. The boys are still homeschooled. They're in school and, um, homeschooling, but they've been homeschooling since Olivia did in middle school. 'cause we all decided to do it together collectively. And so they've been homeschooling since I think third grade. Did they do second grade? Might have been second.

And. Now they're in, they're going into technically seventh grade this fall, and they'll continue to homeschool through middle school and then they may choose to go to high school. But I have a feeling neither of them will do that. [00:07:00] They might, I don't know. That's still like two years away, so, but for now they won't.

And is it the best decision I think I've ever made? Yeah. Do I still raise resilient children and. Yeah, because I think there's a difference between children going through hardships and becoming resilient and then putting them in an environment where they're going to, I don't know, be traumatized, absorb a bunch of limit.

Like I just knew I didn't want my kids being raised by their peers because that's 40 hours a week, right? That's their waking hours. They come home and my kids actually have a bedtime, so. They'll be in bed a certain time. So if by the time they got home that leaves what? Hmm. A couple hours. The point is their waking at time is mostly at school and I wasn't prepared to have their peers and people who she's, that was my [00:08:00] phone ringing, that have people.

Who are close-minded and afraid of what they don't understand, raising them and putting their beliefs on them. And it was, and when we did try it, they did go to fifth grade for a couple months and that was just, honestly, it just solidified why they weren't there in the first place. You had teachers that couldn't handle people getting picked on or bullied or take, like, I don't know if it was a cognitive load.

I mean, they have enough of a load as it is without having to worry about that. So I can't imagine the extra, like that's the problem is this is not a teacher issue. Of course, we can all agree. These people are like, they're so passionate about teaching and could you imagine having your passion just destroyed and ruined by systems?

Like, that's so sad. Anyway, and. But, and then they'd have like some of the kids would like say things and things that my boys didn't understand 'cause they've never used that in a way to belittle someone like derogatory terms and [00:09:00] things like that. And it was just so funny 'cause I'm like, yeah, this is how kids are and can be, but not all of them.

And not everyone. And we sure as hell hope they grow out of it to not be adults like this. Because that would kind of. Be a little bit of a downer, but in the end it just comes down to like whether or not you went to school in middle school, whether or not you're homeschooled, whether or not whatever happened to you in your childhood as an adult, you get the choice to be open to healing, to be open to, um, facing your ego and diving into the shadows and what triggers you.

You're open to opening your mind. You get power and control over that now. And so if there was anything I could just tell people. It's that you can't help how you were raised. You can't help. I mean, you were a child, right? We cannot control certain things in our life growing up, but we sure as hell can take them, learn from them, and rebuild, right, and reconstruct and redesign and [00:10:00] curate.

How we want to feel and how we want to think the type of people we want to be. And that comes with intentionality. And I've been talking about that a lot this week actually, and we'll get into that on another episode. But being intentional about life and living, and it's, it's a beautiful thing when you can do that.

It can be hard at first, but once you get past that, it's like you can't unsee it and you live like that. You know what I mean? And anyway, all right. Love you all and thanks for listening. This one was just more of a, a chill. Just had to get my thoughts out there, you know, and I appreciate that. I appreciate you listening and as people keep reminding me to say, um, please leave a review, like, I guess if you want to, and also, um, keep an eye.

Oh yeah, I'm supposed to talk about stuff I'm doing on here too. Because I just come on here to talk and to give wisdom, right? It's just a way for me to connect with you guys, give you different perspective into [00:11:00] things. But I'm also supposed to be saying, um, my unedited community is coming about. I'm so you guys this, see, now I'm gonna like, get all hyped up.

It literally brings instant energy to me as soon as I mention it. Um, this safe space where you're just pretty much gonna feel seen, heard, understood, uh, come together and gather and have insight and guidance. A yes. And it's just for you to be raw, authentic, not this, you know, it's, ugh. I'm so excited.

There'll be more on that on my Instagram and on here. I'm sure I'll talk about more in depth once we get things closer to the launch date. And then of course you can join my email list. Oh, I should probably put a link in there for that. It'll be a link in show notes maybe, or just DM me or I don't know, whatever.

Just find a way. Just go on a journey to join my email list. Um. And then of course the [00:12:00] expression edit is coming. And this is so fun. This is just all things expressing yourself, embodying expression, like regulating yourself, feeling safe to express yourself. Just fun, fun things coming. Um, and then of course we still have the boundaries, playbook.

That though is not currently out, so ask me about it if you need. But that also I think will be popped up in the community shortly. So that's, things are getting moved around. So I don't actually know where certain things are linked at the moment. Um, 'cause we're. Getting it all situated, and that's what happens.

Right. It's okay. We're giving Ruhi some grace now, right? As we organize and figure it all out. All right. That's it. I think that's everything. I think my plug at the end of this podcast was genius and I'm so good at it. I'm just kidding. Okay, I'll talk to you all later, blah.