Well This Wasn't The Plan!

3. Working Full-Time + Homeschooling... Are We Crazy?

• Carson and Teran Sands • Episode 3

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We've decided to homeschool our three kids while maintaining our full-time careers as CPAs. How exactly are we planning to pull this off? This episode dives deep into our strategy for working and homeschooling!

The surprising truth we discovered? Most homeschool families complete their core curriculum in just two hours daily—far less time than traditional schools require for the same material.

Beyond reading, writing, and arithmetic, we're passionate about teaching practical skills traditional education often overlooks. Our curriculum includes cooking real meals, managing household responsibilities, understanding personal finance, and even launching small businesses. These experiences prepare our children for independence while fostering creativity and critical thinking. We're also prioritizing outdoor adventures, family book clubs, and one-on-one time—things we could not do when our kids were in public school.

But we're under no illusions—this transition won't be seamless. We're starting with ambitious plans while fully expecting to adjust as we discover what truly works for our family.

Whether you're considering homeschooling while working, curious about alternative education models, or simply interested in our family's adventure, join us as we document every triumph, struggle, and unexpected lesson along the way. 


Have thoughts or questions about our approach? We'd love to hear from you!

Speaker 1:

We're working. So where are we going to get these hours that they are generally at school when we're working, and that's what we had to figure out. So step one for us was to change our work schedule up a bit. We're two full-time working parents who just made a crazy decision.

Speaker 2:

After four years in public school, we're homeschooling our three kids and documenting the whole thing.

Speaker 1:

Never in a million years did I think we would be homeschool people.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to well, this wasn't the plan podcast.

Speaker 1:

I'm Slate and school's in the kitchen.

Speaker 2:

now I'm Scotty, we say start when I say so, I'm Sailor and this whole podcast was my idea. This podcast is our real-time journey, unexpectedly juggling homeschool jobs, parenting and everything in between.

Speaker 1:

Follow along each week as we document how it's going and share the good, the bad and the ugly, because we know some days are going to be ugly and we're not holding back. We're learning to expect the good, the bad and the ugly, because we know some days are going to be ugly and we're not holding back.

Speaker 2:

We're learning to expect the unexpected, so let's get into it, let's go.

Speaker 1:

We are going to homeschool our three kids while also working full-time, so let's talk about that. How are we going to do this? I didn't realize that so many people are working and homeschooling their kids. I think I just assumed that if you homeschooled, you had to have one person at home that was dedicated to doing school for kids, but upon further research, we've actually figured out that that's not really the case.

Speaker 2:

So there are a lot of things to get done in the day, so obviously we have to have a schedule. I'm not a big fan of schedule sometimes, but it seems like it's kind of like a budget. People feel like a budget is bossing you around about what you can do with your money, but it's not. It's actually freeing. It gives you permission to spend right, that's what we always tell people. Well, I feel like the schedule I'm starting to feel that way about it. Instead of bossing me around, it frees me up. It's like okay, these are the hours we're doing, whatever things, and so then I don't feel guilty when some of those other hours I'm actually relaxing or doing something fun.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. I think for a couple of years now, I felt like there's all these things that I wanted to be doing, these things that I thought I would be doing as a parent, and we didn't have time for them, and so now I have a list of all the things we're going to do when we homeschool and actually it's like probably like way too many things, but we need to go through all of them and figure out what's most important to us so that we can fit the things that are actual priorities in our day.

Speaker 2:

Right, we will have to rank those in order, because there's no way we're going to get through all the things you have on your list.

Speaker 1:

No, and before we, I'll share what's on my list. But before we do that and we work through our little schedule for the day, I do want to point out that we own our own business. We work for ourselves. We do have to work, but that obviously gives us some freedom to figure out when we're going to work and as long as we get the work done, we can still have our job. So I do know that not everybody can do that, so I'm very thankful. But we've had to just make some changes in our business over the last 18 months so that we can do this, and it wasn't easy, but we are thankful that we're able to do it.

Speaker 2:

Owning your own business is a lot of responsibility, but it does give you the freedom to choose when you have to fill those responsibilities to some extent. I mean, I can't tell clients I have to meet with you at 5 am or at 10 pm. I can work at those times and I do a lot because that's when you know my kids are asleep. But you know I do have to take meetings during normal work hours sometimes.

Speaker 1:

When we first started talking about this, you, like I said I was surprised that people did this, but you were like, no, like we work, like when the kids are at school, like we work the whole time.

Speaker 1:

Um, and a lot of times my time is being taken by things that I need to do for the school, for the kids, but we're working. So where are we going to get these hours that they are generally at school and we're working? And that's what we had to figure out. So step one for us was to change our work schedule up a bit, change our business up. We made our business more where it's just all phone calls, all remote, we're not going to be seeing clients in person, and it took some time and energy to get all of that sorted out, but we had to do that in order for this to work. That was our first step. Now what we're trying to do since we homeschool we start homeschooling very soon is just figure out the schedule, and that's been hard. But since we do have to work, like you said, at certain times and be available, we do have to have a schedule, and I know a lot of homeschool people don't like to have a schedule.

Speaker 2:

For our kids. It would be necessary, even if we didn't have to take work into consideration, because it would never get done. You know, or we get done at the end of the day, when we're all at our worst and most pissy oh, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

That is one thing, like looking into everything and researching that we both found out is that we need to do the schooling like earlier in the day, and we actually, I feel like, already experienced that because we have been helping our kids with school. It's not like all of a sudden we're going to help them. We've been really focused on reading the past few years and they've had like spelling tests and sight word tests and things like that which we do at night, literally right before bed, and it is the worst now we'll do it when everyone's brain is at the freshest starting our day.

Speaker 1:

We at least know that we're gonna work in the morning, we're gonna get up early before the kids get up, and we're going to put in four hours, so we're gonna work from six to ten right.

Speaker 2:

Specifically on mondays through thursdays. This is going to be the schedule six to ten. We'll be working. The kids won't up that early but they'll get up sometime in that window. They don't sleep till 10.

Speaker 1:

Ben. We've been practicing over the summer, so they kind of already know what their expectations are when they wake up. They can't come in our office and ask us for anything unless it's an emergency and they can make a simple breakfast. So I think, starting out, we have to make them a list of things which are okay to make breakfast which is just going to be like oatmeal toast cereal yogurt, fruit, all the good things.

Speaker 1:

Simple, easy breakfast that they're not actually cooking. And then I did tell them like if they need help with breakfast, then I would be the person to talk to, because you're going to be on meetings with clients and we opened up client meetings for the mornings. So that's the first part of the day.

Speaker 2:

Right, and they're also going to be in charge of cleaning it up, which is part of homeschool for us. That's a life skill. You know, they're making breakfast and they're cleaning it up, leaving the kitchen how they found it. That's the plan.

Speaker 1:

I do like that because I think every parent struggles with that. You want your kids to learn those things, but you also don't want them to make a mess, because then you're having to clean it up. So for them to go in the kitchen and make their stuff like they're probably going to spill some milk, they're probably going to make a mess, but we're not rushed. So when we get finished up I can be like hey, look, here's the mess that you made, Like you got to clean it up, and we can teach them that type of thing as we go. And I feel like the way our lives are. In the past we were too stressed and in a hurry to stop and teach those little moments that they do need to know how to do chores. They need to know how to clean up after themselves. I don't want teenagers that are going in there making stuff and then leaving a mess for me Like I'm not doing that.

Speaker 2:

But that was the problem is that you know we couldn't have them clean up their own breakfast when we have to get to school because it's going to take them 30 minutes.

Speaker 1:

Now, if it takes them 45 minutes to clean up the kitchen, it doesn't matter, but before I had to do it in five off cleaning up too. But also this last year, the kids are really struggling to get out of bed. So we asked them, like do you want to stop having like, I guess, different, like breakfast that you sit down and eat every morning, or do you want us to make, like you, a protein shake and you can get up a little bit later? And they, they all said that they wanted protein shakes instead because they were just really tired trying to get up.

Speaker 2:

As they got older, the sports stuff started going later and later. You know, at least they had some respect for the kindergartners and the first graders, where practices were at like 6 PMm or whatever. But then we got to where we were having practices at 8 or even 9 pm. We're not getting home till 10. It was just crazy.

Speaker 1:

Then we were trying to like help with them, school and stuff and it just wasn't working trying to get them in bed a decent hour. So they're looking forward to having not like bacon and eggs and like a full breakfast, but at least different breakfast every morning and something that they can try and fix themselves. So they're looking forward to that, like some independence in their day.

Speaker 2:

But the other days Friday, saturday and Sunday we're not doing it on the same schedule and I think those days I'll be able to make, because I like to cook breakfast I'll be able to make bacon, eggs, sausage, pancakes, you know, whatever more complicated breakfast for everybody. Also, in that window from six to 10, I mean the kids, they're not going to spend that whole time just eating breakfast and cleaning up unless they happen to sleep in, but mostly they won't sleep in that long, so they'll also be able to play and kind of have their own independent free time for a while, maybe even go outside, especially in Texas, in this, you know, or in August. It's a good time for them to go out in the morning because it starts to get really hot.

Speaker 1:

But then in the winter we're going to have to adjust that because it's too cold in the morning and it's better to go out in the afternoon. So that will just be an adjustment later on in the year. But they will have, like, their responsibility while we're working and they're pretty good with that. They did a really good job with that this summer.

Speaker 2:

So, moving past 10 o'clock, from 10 to 12, tentatively, our plan is that that's when we're going to do school for the most part. What I mean by that is that we'll already have the lessons printed out. We'll have a plan, as you know the parents and teachers and so at 10 o'clock we don't just say, okay, we're going to think about starting. No, at 10 o'clock we're going to get on it so that we don't have to spend all day on it. That's the plan.

Speaker 1:

So it's early in the day, which will be best for the kids. They'll have hopefully already had breakfast and got outside a little bit, so that they are in like a really good mood to like focus, and then we have two hours set aside every day. Now that doesn't seem like a lot of time, two hours. I get it. They're at school a lot longer than two hours, but we've done a lot of research and, surprisingly, most people are getting it done in two hours.

Speaker 2:

And at school they're not spending two hours actually on academic curriculum no, which actually was shocking to me.

Speaker 1:

I mean, I know now that I think about it, like the teachers have 20 plus students and they are cycling through recess and pe and all of these things, lunch and music and technology and all this other stuff.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, they cram a lot into a day. So the actual academic learning part is two hours and then we're choosing the other things that they're going to have in their day. But the learning part is that and I have I could not find this like statistic, but I've came across it a few times Kids only get like a minute or two of direct instruction from their teacher a day, and usually that's only as a direct result of them asking a question. So if you especially if you have a quiet kid, like we have one, and they don't raise their hand and ask a specific question based on what they're teaching, they get no one-on-one time. So if you can commit two hours in your day to homeschooling your kids, then they're actually way better off than the instruction they're getting at school, because they're over the course of a month aren't even getting that two hours right, which was shocking to me, yeah but I, I mean, it's like something that we all kind of know.

Speaker 1:

But just to hear it like that, I was like okay it, it just gave me more, like okay, we can do this, and then I don't think we're doing Fridays right, are we doing Fridays?

Speaker 2:

Right, we're not doing Fridays. We think we're not going to do Fridays. What my plan is is is that before we were doing Fridays uh, where we need to get back on this, since we've been on vacation we didn't do this. But Fridays we clean clean the house, that's a life skill and we all help. You know we all have our assigned jobs for that Friday. And then you know it probably takes like an hour or two of cleaning with everyone and then I would take the kids and we'd go do something fun and then mom would finish, you know, doing things with no one in the house, which makes it a lot easier for her to do. You know, the things she's trying to get done Doesn't really sound fair, because then I get to go have fun with the kids. But you know that's just how we set it up and she agreed to it.

Speaker 1:

I actually really like it and this is coming from someone who we've had our house cleaned by someone else since we've been married and I love our new Friday thing. We stopped. We didn't get anyone to start cleaning because we're in the house 24 seven and it just seemed like, okay, how are we going to get everybody out of the house for the whole day for someone to come clean? Like, let's just do this ourselves and teach the kids these chores that they need to. Everybody gets a laundry day. Love that our oldest can do her laundry start to finish. So now with the cleaning, we give the kids their jobs, so they have to like strip their beds, get their trash, clean their bathroom and get it like ready for me just to come in and vacuum and mop the floors and stuff, and I get uninterrupted time at home to like crank up the music and clean, which I actually really like, and you guys go do something fun, and now it could be something homeschool related.

Speaker 1:

There's a few things that we found we might do, but that just I feel like it's a win-win the house gets cleaned, I get to do it the way I want to do it and the kids have to help. They've never had to do that. They've never had to do sheets or anything like that. I did actually think, maybe yesterday. I was thinking that it would be cool if we rewarded them with certain field trips, like, like they wanted, they really want to go to Six Flags, okay, and we want to take them, but why not let them work together to earn something like that? Or if there's something else that they have been wanting to do, it's like okay, guys, we all have to work toward this. We get in, we get our, our stuff done and we do that. By the end of whatever the six weeks or however we break it up, they get to earn that together.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's a good idea too.

Speaker 1:

I thought that's something that comes up for me and we kind of tackled that in the summer. But you know, you don't have to discipline your kids when they're at school all day, you know right the school does that for you, whether it's the, the goofy thing where they they move colors the clip chart.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, the clip chart or one year they had like right in the folder you're all day, you're not having to do anything like that. So our discipline was really only in the mornings, like how do we make sure they get out of bed and stuff? And then at night, how do we make sure that they are doing things like take a shower and get in bed and read? But there's a big gap in the day and a lot of the year where you're not having to do that. So the things we were doing, quite frankly, we just weren't working. I don't know. We had done a lot of different things and we were just like it just doesn't work. It doesn't seem like what we're punishing them or the consequences weren't working. So we this summer did try, or before school was let out, actually, we started a star chart and I think it went really well.

Speaker 2:

Actually, yeah, they respond better to rewards for good behavior than punishments for bad behavior.

Speaker 1:

And if there's anything that we talk about that you guys would like a copy of our like the star chart or like the cleaning checklist reach out to me. I'd be happy to share it with you guys. But the star chart basically is so we have to specifically find them doing something good and they get a star. I think it made us realize how much we weren't saying good. So it made me realize that I wasn't saying good things to them. I was only pointing out when they were doing something bad.

Speaker 2:

Right, yeah, and it. You know it feels better too as the parent. So, and I'm not all hokey, pokey, crunchy granola person and this does kind of sound like that, but it's. I'm more of a results person and the results speak for themselves. It works better. So I don't know, you might try it. That's not to say that. It's more like you reward them for the good things. There's some things that are just bad, though. If your kid hits somebody like that's just bad.

Speaker 1:

I mean, they need something, they're still getting consequences.

Speaker 2:

You can't just be like I'm going to reward you if you stop hitting people. No, you got to be like okay, you can't hit people, you need to go, I don't know, sit by yourself for a while, or whatever, so that you stop doing that. But other things that are just simply annoying, like like leaving your shoes out that one. It's not necessarily a bad thing, and you don't have to punish them for leaving their shoes out. Instead, you can choose to reward them for putting them away.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think it gets more of the good out of them. The schools have, you know, discipline plans in place for a reason, like you have to have something, and so that was a big thing that I knew we would have to do, and that's going to be what we try for now.

Speaker 2:

Right. So within the schedule, within the 10 to 12 time when we're doing curriculum I mean that's going to look like quite a bit of time on math and reading and we're planning to do those all four days. And then Spanish. We think we want them to learn Spanish, so I'm going to start at least with them doing that a little bit every day. I do think that you know you only get 15 to 20 minutes of good learning when you're learning a language, and so we'll spend less time but more days with that. And then science and social studies we're going to alternate, so those will be just two days a week each, at least for now, and then if one of them shows a significant interest in doing something in the sciences, then we might up that or do some additional outside camps or something like that to help stimulate that.

Speaker 1:

You're really more focused on, like the actual academics. I'm not like. Obviously I want my kids to do well in all those subjects, but I am more focused on what they can learn that they don't get. They don't get the opportunity to learn in school because it takes up all of their time. So that's what. My list of those things that are outside of the two hours is a mile long and I don't know how we're gonna like get all those things in in a day or a week we'll see, but I think it's very doable.

Speaker 2:

So much of what they do is repetitive and unnecessary in a normal schedule.

Speaker 1:

So you know, we'll see so there are a few things that we will obviously be cutting out of their day. We have a whole list or I have a whole list of things that I want them to learn, because they're homeschooling.

Speaker 2:

And don't take that to. You know that we don't think music is important. It's just that we're not going to have a specific class for it. The kids can take guitar lessons or piano lessons or singing lessons, whatever they want. Yeah, they want to, I mean, I'm a musician, I play multiple instruments so it's important to me, but you know playing the recorder or you know whatever they do it just doesn't feel that important to me.

Speaker 1:

It just checks off a box. It's not real music, like that's not what they're getting, like we can fill that time, like now Slate's doing piano lessons, so he'll be able to do that and we don't have to squeeze it in after the time they get out of school.

Speaker 2:

So that's nice, they can do it during the day. Just do it in his free time, either in the morning or after we're done with school.

Speaker 1:

So I wrote a list of things I want my kids to learn during homeschool. One of them is cooking, and our idea for that is to let one kid cook with us every single day, because they're always fighting and it's really hard to cook with all three of them, so we'll rotate and for one day they can help with all the meals. So that's what our plan is, at least Now. Just keep in mind we're talking about the plan because we know full and well we're going to come back and a lot of this didn't work and we'll tell you what didn't work. Chores we've already talked about that, budgeting and shopping. So I want them to be like very involved in our shopping and budgeting for, like groceries and things like that, because I think it's a huge life skill in fact that's part of the schedule.

Speaker 2:

I wrote down that. You know on sundays we're going to you make our meal plan for the week and grocery shop based on that.

Speaker 1:

And the kids will have a say so on the meals. So we've always kind of done that, like Carson's been in charge of it, we've flip-flopped our roles and we just we haven't stuck to anything very well. But I think the kids helping us with like okay, y'all tell us, like what are y'all hungry for this week? And let's say, scotty picks spaghetti, like she's going to be so excited to have spaghetti because she picked it right. So they'll help us because that, if anything, is something every single human, especially parent, has to do. That. So that is a skill.

Speaker 1:

And if we do have to go to the store, we do grocery orders a lot from Walmart. And if we do have to go to the store, we do grocery orders a lot from Walmart. But if we do, we're just going to make sure that like we take a kid with us and have that as like a teaching moment on, like you know, adding up what it is and just knowing how much things cost and things like that. Trying to stick to a budget Like this is how much we spend on groceries a week, like look at the two prices and things like that. I think that is so important. But it doesn't happen when you have three kids and you're just trying to do things as quick as possible. So I want to make sure that we're sending kids. Like, if you go run an errand, I want to send a kid with you so that you have the patience to teach just one kid about whatever you're doing. What if you have to get your tire fixed? Like that's a great learning lesson.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's true. You take it into the tire place.

Speaker 1:

You're making fun of me, but this is brilliant. Okay, that's a good one. Go ride it down.

Speaker 2:

Oh no, I'm already looking forward to those with the car.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to make them do all the car stuff themselves, but I'll I'll ride along with them but help as little as possible, because I want them to know how to do this stuff change tires, change our flat, you know, and get their own gas, get their old, change all of those things. Also, obviously, budgeting, that's just big for us, that finance as they get older. We want them to know all of that because we suffered poorly for not knowing all of that. So that's going to be a big thing.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, we're not going to have them working at, you know, like a minimum wage job. We're going to have them start their own small business whether it's babysitting, cutting grass, poop scooping, I don't care what it is, but something like that and they're going to have a budget. They're going to have a P and L for their business. They're going to learn how to do all of those things.

Speaker 1:

And marketing and all of that. I feel like that's a really good way to get your feet wet and or I'm so excited about that. Sailor is even really excited about that. She's 10, so she'll be. She'll be there before we know it and they'll be saving up for their cars. We already have their savings account and we put in money. Every time they put in money, we match it. So they get a hundred dollars for their birthday. Then we match that hundred. So they're slowly saving for that and it's so important for us that they learn that type of thing, which they don't teach at school, so I'm glad we're going to have extra time to teach them things that are that are important to us.

Speaker 2:

Right, yeah, and because we we don't want them to have a beater, that's not safe, but we also want them to have some skin in the game so that they understand the value of you know a vehicle or spending money on a vehicle. So that's where we came up with that idea to you know that and Dave Ramsey to match, whatever they save up for their car will match it.

Speaker 1:

So we already talked about music a little bit, but Slate's doing piano lessons. I know the girls had mentioned like doing guitar lessons or something. So we will work that into our schedule, because people are asking, like what are you going to do the rest of the time If it only takes two hours to to school your kids? Like what are they going to do? So these are, these are the types of things that I wrote down and we're just now we're trying to figure out when, when we do what. So if we tell Slade okay, on Tuesday and Thursdays, you're doing your piano lessons, when are we going to fill the rest of this in? Another thing is just getting them outside. A lot at school they are not getting outside. So that is just really important to us, and that might be in the morning, that might be afternoon, but I think we want to do something together as a family, right? Whether it's a walk or For sure.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's in the schedule, you know, and it depends this time of year, they'll need to get outside in the morning and then we might, you know, find a gym that has family stuff that we can all go to, cause, you know, at 5 PM, when we're probably going to be doing this, or 4 PM this time of year in Texas it's, you know, sometimes 115 degrees, so we can't really go outside then. But uh, we'll do something active and and when we're able to outside, for sure and we're going to travel a lot this year.

Speaker 1:

We don't know how long this will be our thing or if we're going to see it through till they graduate, but this year we're going to travel and I feel like that they they learned so much traveling and I'm really looking forward to that part of it that ties into homeschool for two.

Speaker 2:

One, we're able to do it more because of the homeschooling and we're able to go when it's not so busy and expensive because of homeschool. But number two, it's one of the things we are teaching them how to not just what they learn while they travel, but how to travel even whenever we're not in a super big hurry, like we're about to miss our flight or our plane. I was having one of the kids lead the way hey, we're looking for this train, it's on this platform. Watch the signs and get us there. And they'd lead the way and we'd go and they're learning that. These are things that when we went on our honeymoon whenever I was how old were we when we got married?

Speaker 2:

I don't know in my twenties and I didn't know how to do this. I couldn't have found a train or figured out any of this stuff, and I'm thinking by the time my kids are 18, they're all going to be proficient at that.

Speaker 1:

And then I have a whole list of like things that I swear probably sounds so crunchy granola. I would love for the kids to have like specific goals for the semester, whatever that is maybe it's a goal for sailor wants to get like her overhand serve over, or if it's a goal for spanish or piano, like some sort of goal and we work toward it because I feel like it's such a life lesson to learn that things don't happen overnight. Big things happen because you take little tiny steps every day and they can pick their goal. But I want them to have a goal maybe every semester I don't know if it should be more frequent but I think a goal with sub goals?

Speaker 2:

sure, because that's how you do it you break it into smaller pieces and okay, right backwards.

Speaker 2:

You know, if I want to get there, then I need to be by this day. I need to be at least this far. And and you the thing is, you can do that for everything, whether it's it's fitness goals, whether it's job goals or CPA exam goals. If you want to be CPA or you know whatever it is, and it's something that you know, it was a skill I acquired later in life. Uh, I think part of that was because a lot of things that didn't have to set goals for maybe I was when I was younger, I was good at school and I was bigger than other kids at the time, so I didn't have to try that hard at a lot of things and so I didn't really learn the skill of okay, this is a goal, it's something hard and these are the 10 things I have to do to get there. So if I have 10 weeks to get there, then after one week I have to at least have done this, and breaking a goal into smaller pieces, like that yeah, we're all good at setting goals.

Speaker 1:

I can tell you a hundred goals right now.

Speaker 2:

Right, but they're not goals because a goal without a plan is just a dream right. That's the quote, and so sitting down with them and figuring out what they want to do a realistic goal and then figuring out what you have to do to get there.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we talked a little bit about okay. They're going to have morning tours cleaning up after themselves and then afternoon tours every day, and for me that was just at the end of the day. Everybody works together to like reset instead of just mom and dad, which is what we were doing before. We were just rushing through the evening because we had to. We only had so many hours in day and they didn't really help a lot with cleaning up after dinner and all the things. So, especially us being home a lot, our house is going to be trashed. You know they can trash a house so fast, but they're to the age where they're going to help clean it up before we start the next day. And then I wrote down lunch dates with mom and dad. I think something that we were lacking right now is one-on-one time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, when we have all three kids it's just not so hard. Well, it's not usually quality time, that's the problem. You do need to split it up a little bit. Even when you get one-on-one with one of them and then the other parent has them two-on-one, that can be quality time Even with the two-on-one. It's just that because two kids get along well, three kids, three, there's always somebody left out or fighting, and so, yeah, I think that's a really good idea.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so, and then this was your idea a family book club. So reading is super important to us, and kids are not getting enough reading at school, which means that if you're not having them read every night before bed, they're not where they're supposed to be reading. They're just not, and most of the kids in their classes aren't.

Speaker 2:

And we didn't get to that part of the schedule. But that is in the schedule. It's not in the two hour like main curriculum window. There will be some afternoons that I have to take phone calls as well, after the normal work window, so definitely during that time they'll all be, you know, in their rooms having a private reading time for at least an hour every single day.

Speaker 2:

And that's mandatory and other days, even if I don't have the meetings. I mean, I think they're going to need to do that and I'll probably do other stuff work related. And speaking of work, I wanted to mention from what we said at the very beginning. It probably sounds like I was just saying I'm going to work four hours a day, four days a week, and that we can run this business working 16 hours. That's not the case. That's the schedule. But I'm also taking phone calls in the afternoon and even though we're not doing school on Friday, I'm actually working six to 10 also on Friday, and I'm also working six to 10 on Saturday and Sunday.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we imagine we'll have to do it seven days a week, but we've been doing this job for years and years now and that actually feels better to us, getting a little bit done every single day. I don't know, I don't. It doesn't feel that bad to me. It sounds worse than it is, I think.

Speaker 2:

Well and I know it sounds weird to some people because they're trending towards four 10 hour days, which, yeah, if you have to get up, get showered and get dressed up for work and drive an hour each way in traffic to get there, I mean you're saving yourself three hours by not going on Friday and I totally get that, and depending on what kind of work you're doing, that might be fine.

Speaker 2:

But my work is brain intensive and so I'm not my best self for 10 hours, I'm my best self for four hours, and so that's why that six to 10 hour window it's mostly for getting number heavy work done tax returns, tax projections, things that are hard, and then meetings later in the day when my brain maybe isn't as fresh, uh, but but that's not as big of a deal, but anyway that that way I'm getting, you know, 28 hours of solid, uninterrupted, no meetings, just work done every week by doing that. That's. That's how the schedule is going to work.

Speaker 1:

And we're looking forward to that, just because we get to do our work before the craziness starts.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Sometimes they're hardly even awake for most of that window and even if they are, they're not like ready to talk to us and stuff.

Speaker 1:

I mean no, they're really good about getting up. Slate loves to read in his bed, the girls love to play, and just they're not hard during that time period. That's a great time for us to work. I'm so excited to get the work done before my day gets crazy, because the way it was before was that we wake up I'm like packing lunches, like all this crazy part of my day trying to get the kids to school. Then I got the kids to school and then we get home and it's like 830 or if I went to work out it was later, and kind of feel like super frazzled, you know.

Speaker 2:

Right and my brain wasn't working.

Speaker 1:

when I finally got to sit down, it was like all of this stress crept into my day and then I had to start work.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, that's true, and and it then it feels like you've already exhausted your brain before you even get to do anything.

Speaker 1:

I was kind of already over it before I started.

Speaker 2:

I pour my cup of coffee and go straight to work. And you know those eight hours I get from four hours on Saturday, four hours on Sunday. I'm useless to the kids in that window, they're sleeping most of it. And that four hours on Sunday. I'm useless to the kids in that window, they're sleeping most of it and that's not going to be good quality family time, no matter what. Now I could use those four hours each morning for selfish things because I'm up anyway. You know we wake up at six o'clock all week. I wake up on the weekend too.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we're old.

Speaker 2:

Waking up at six is not going to be hard I might as well work in that window so that I don't have to do those eight hours of work during other times when I am useful to the kids and can have quality time with them, and, of course, during tax season. Since we are CPAs, we'll be working even more than what we've said here and we don't know the plan for that.

Speaker 1:

We're just going to have to like fill it out and if we're drowning, we will get like babysitting help, right, we don't have family that's going to watch the kids. I know that's something that people have asked. And if you're working full-time and you're homeschooling your kids, some people have like a grandparent watching them during the day and then the parent homeschools them like at night. No, that's, our kids are going to be with us 24 7, but we are open to getting someone to come in during our busy time of year, which which is going to be January through April. So we haven't got that part figured out, but we think that we'll need some help during tax season, but we're going to play that by ear. The other thing that we'll be doing during the day or, I guess, late afternoon, is we will be signing them up for some things.

Speaker 1:

We did not get into a co-op. I know that's a big thing. We didn't get into a co-op for the semester, so we did not get into a co-op. I know that's a big thing. We didn't get into a co-op for this semester, so we're not doing that. We don't know if we're co-op people or not, but we'll try that next semester it's just one day a week, so it's not like a significant thing. And then I'm signing the girls up for homeschool gymnastics, which is like at 3 or 4 pm. I like that option because we're not doing it late at night. It's not going to eat into our family dinner time and so they still get out of the house. They get to be around some kids, make some friends, and then we're home in a decent hour.

Speaker 2:

Right, we are looking forward to that part. Not every sport they play will be necessarily through a homeschool specifically, but when it is, it's going to be great because we won't have to have practices at 6 pm, 7 pm, 8 pm.

Speaker 1:

Well, we're being very picky this year and we haven't talked about that yet, but we have done the sports thing. It has been eating me alive with three kids. If you have three kids, that means you have six practices during the week, two for each kid.

Speaker 2:

And then three games on Saturday Three games on Saturday.

Speaker 1:

Just letting them do one freaking sport takes up your whole life, and I'm not here to say that sports aren't important. I played sports my whole life, but this year we're being so choosy, so we're gonna do the homeschool gymnastics we'll probably play basketball we're playing basketball.

Speaker 1:

If something is, we're just I don't know. We're just gonna be really picky. I'm not saying that they're never gonna do more sports or more serious sports, but this year we're not. We're we've been doing that hasn't been working. We're gonna try this for this year and the kids are aware of that. Like we've talked about that. We're gonna do like some lower commitment things and see how it goes. And I think one thing that we haven't brought up subject that people don't like to talk about, but it is the elephant in the room and this conversation is just like screen time with the kids. And first, obviously from the standpoint of is, are the kids are going to be doing it on like a tablet, like the homeschool or tablet or anything, and for the most part.

Speaker 2:

no, I don't think we did talk about it, we. I think we mentioned in the previous episode that we liked me academy because you have the option to print the pdf of each course and so the practice quizzes are in there, all that kind of stuff. I might have at least the older kids do their tests on there, because then it auto grades it. I mean there's an answer key and I could grade it. They could do it on pencil and paper and we might experiment with both and just see. I mean we're not against screens completely, you know we just we also don't want them to sit on the screen for the whole two hours of their schooling every day, because then I feel like okay, well then they can't watch a show tonight or do anything else, cause they've already had two hours of screen time. That's already enough.

Speaker 1:

I mean you say that, but compared to most people we're pretty particular about screen time. We're not screen time it's the devil. We don't think that and we're not zero screen time. But our kids don't do screen time during the day.

Speaker 1:

No it's a non-negotiable. They do not wake up and watch cartoons. They do not watch a show during lunch. They do not have tablet time. The iPads only come out for two circumstances, and somebody pointed this out on social media the other day, so I need to make sure that I say that too. But when we travel so we had a 10-hour flight recently they got their, they got ipads to watch movies and stuff. When we come home, they're put away. The kids never touch them again until we travel. And then the other exception which is why I said that is that Slate does do piano lessons on the iPad. So there's a simply piano yeah, simply piano.

Speaker 2:

We love it and Scotty's been doing those special reading lessons on the iPad as well yeah, we've been using what is it?

Speaker 1:

learn to read or I don't know. I need to look it up because it's helped her a lot. But it's like daily lessons 10 or 15 minutes a day, depending on the lesson and it is on the ipad. So, yes, those are supervised by us, though, so they're not like doing anything else on the ipad. It literally is just that, and we're pretty picky about it. I don't want the kids to have an ipad. I feel like that's like if you're giving your kid an ip, you're giving them a phone, like they have access to all the things.

Speaker 2:

So they don't have. But when we're traveling they don't have access to the internet on the iPad.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

So they only have what we downloaded on there for them intentionally, and then, when they're doing their other stuff, like Taryn said, we're sitting right there, so we know that they're only using it for the piano lessons or the reading app. So yeah, so we know that they're only using it for the piano lessons or the reading app.

Speaker 1:

They never have their iPad alone in their room. That just doesn't happen. And the screen time we've been doing this for so long. Once we realized that it was not good and we needed to make a change, we haven't let them do screen time during the day. When I say screen time, I just mean TV. We haven't let them do that for years. So, like, when I say screen time, I just mean like tv. We haven't let them do that for years. So it's not a battle at all.

Speaker 1:

Like they know, they don't get to watch a show or anything until the end of the day, and the thing with that is that all the important things have been done you have done reading, you have done your math, you've got outside, you've spent time with your siblings, you've helped with chores, you've done everything and they wind down and they can pick a show and watch at night.

Speaker 2:

And the reason for that is that we don't think TV is evil or we wouldn't let them watch at night before they go to bed. But for me personally and for all of my kids, and probably for a lot of people, because the studies show that this is the case for a lot of people but once I've watched something, then the rest of the day my brain is so much more distractible. It's harder for me to focus on things. So you know, watching before we are going to do our curriculum, or watching before we even go let's say, you're on the basketball team and before you go to basketball practice, and then you're supposed to go focus and you know, run around hard and everything while you're there. I just don't think it's conducive to doing a good job at those things. So we, but at the end of the day, when we're not going to be doing anything else anyway, it's okay. Once you've cleaned up from dinner and you've brushed your teeth, you're ready for bed. Then you can watch until you know bedtime and we're okay with that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we're not crazy people. I just wanted to point that out because a lot of people are assuming and they're saying like negative things about homeschooling that the kids are just sitting on their iPads all day, and I just wanted to point out that's not what they're doing.

Speaker 1:

It's not what they're doing to fill their time. You know, like we've talked about all of these things they'll be doing and we're just. We're not screen people, but also we're not crazy people. We do a lot of movie nights together. We try to do a movie night at least once a week. So we don't think screens are the devil. We also don't want that to be our whole family thing, like we only watch TV together, like we want to like do family dinners and like go for walks and have game nights and things like that. So once a week we will do movie time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and that's. That's always fun because we do it together. And if there's music during the movie, the girls usually get up and dance during it, and I don't know that's. It's just a totally different thing than everyone sitting on their iPad in their room by themselves and I don't know it's different.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's a community thing versus everyone doing their own thing. And the kids like go get all their blankets and they set up and Taylor usually makes popcorn and it's a whole thing and we get to talk about the movies. They'll bring it up all the time Like oh, we watched, honey, I Shrunk the Kids and we'll talk about it it. So I just wanted to mention it because people will ask like what, what time of the day do they get their tablet time? Or like are they just sitting there watching while y'all are working? And that's not the case. But our kids have done this for years, so it's not like we're changing anything. This is what our normal thing has been and they're really good with it. Since they were like little, we've been doing like quiet time in their rooms. So now we're just switching that to what is it? Deer, deer time?

Speaker 2:

Drop everything and read Drop everything and read.

Speaker 1:

We had that in second grade and I absolutely loved it, like it was one of my favorite things. But the kids now they don't really read at school, like they don't have reading time. Like get your book out and read for 30 minutes or whatever, but not a lot, not consistent, or you know, that's our kids, that's what our kids tell us. We don't know actually we never know and so I'm looking forward to that.

Speaker 1:

They're they've already been used to like having time, to like be by themselves in their rooms for a little bit in the day, just like break up, like being with us and being with each other. I think it's good, and then, hopefully, I plan to read during that time. Sometimes, if I don't have anything to do, I want to read too I'll probably be on meetings.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, of course I'll be in meetings I mean I might be working some of those days, but I hope that I can do dear time with them because I think that them seeing, like me, read this last year I've been reading a lot actually has been really good. So that's all the hopes and dreams for this. So I know that's a lot. That's over an hour of us just rambling on about how we're gonna make this work. But we've obviously been talking about this a lot and we know a lot of this isn't going to work. So we're here to tell you like these are our hopes and dreams and then you'll hear from us later and we'll tell you if.

Speaker 1:

If it worked out. Like, are we doing the family book club? Are we going for our family walks together? Are we going on lunch dates with mom and dad and getting some one-on-one time with the kids? Like the chores, all of that. It does seem like a lot to pack into a day, but we'll let you know how it goes. We we are definitely starting starting out strong with a lot of things on our list, but and if you wanted to get a very structured, straightforward schedule out of this.

Speaker 2:

I know we went off on a lot of tangents, so we probably will put together a I don't know a PDF or a spreadsheet or something of our schedule once we've worked out all the kinks, and make that available for people.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm going to make one to where it's like the kids can like a visual schedule. Then kids can see this is the time you're supposed to be like reading, this is the time that you're supposed to be doing your morning tours or afternoon tours, so I will share that. If there's anything else that you think that would be useful, let me know and we will report how it goes and update you guys along the way. And we have no idea how to end our podcast episodes, because we have another podcast about finances and accounting for our CPA firm and so we're just going to end it. That way Seems like it's been going well for us for a couple of years, so why not? Okay, all right, then, until next time. Thank you so much for listening to.

Speaker 2:

Well, this.

Speaker 1:

Wasn't the Plan? Podcast. Thanks so much for listening. If you would please do us a solid, take two minutes and leave us a review on our podcast. Let us know what you enjoyed about it, because that really helps us get in front of other people.