The #1 Homeschool Habit That Changes Everything

In this episode of HOMESCHOOL REVOLUTION, I share what I believe is the single most important habit for raising successful, creative, emotionally connected children, reading together as a family. After spending the weekend with my daughter and watching her read constantly to her own children, I was reminded how powerful reading aloud has been across generations in our homeschool journey.

I talk about how reading together became one of the greatest tools we used in our home, not just for education, but for connection, emotional healing, critical thinking, and family bonding. From toddler picture books to chapter books, classics, scripture study, audiobooks, and family discussions, reading became the heartbeat of our homeschool environment.

In this episode, I also share:

• Why reading aloud matters even for teens
• How books strengthen family relationships
• The difference between “good books” and shallow entertainment
• Why struggling readers need MORE read-aloud time, not less
• How audiobooks can help dyslexic and reluctant readers
• Practical ways to fit family reading into busy homeschool schedules
• Why meals are the best time for family discussions and learning
• How sensory experiences help children remember what they learn
• Favorite homeschool resources like Magic Tree House, PragerU, Epic, Starfall, and Prenda
• Why summer learning should still include reading, writing, and math habits

I also answer questions from homeschool moms about balancing schedules, encouraging independent learning, helping reluctant readers, and creating meaningful family routines around books and learning.

This episode is a reminder that homeschooling is not just about academics; it’s about creating a home culture where curiosity, conversation, imagination, and connection thrive together through stories and shared learning.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Homeschool Revolution. I'm Rebecca Stromstorfer. Homeschool Mama Five for over 20 years, and I've been coaching moms just like you for decades. I've done this messy, done it wrong, and figured it out as I went. This podcast is for the working mom, single mom, stay-at-home mom, and yes, dads too. Any parent who is done with the old way and ready to raise creative, confident kids who actually change the world. This isn't just homeschooling. This is a revolution. Let's get into it. All right, good morning, homeschool family. Welcome to my homeschool village. I'm Becky, homeschool mom to five kids for over 25 years and here to help out. So today's topic is going to be about reading. So I've been spending the weekend with my daughter. Our oldest daughter has two small children, and she is reading to them. Um, we just spent the weekend at her house. Our first granddaughter, second child just turned a year. So we're here for the weekend. I've been watching my daughter. It's fun having homeschooled my children their entire lives to now see what it's affecting or how it's affecting the second generation, which has been absolutely fascinating. And watching what my daughter has now repeated, what she's added, how she's changed things, how she's fixed things, and what she repeats. Hi, Tresh. Uh sitting down with her three-year-old and her one-year-old. And my husband and I are just spending all of our time reading books with them. Like they love books because my daughter and her husband read, read, read with her kids. And it made me remember what we did in the early years. And it reminds me what, in my opinion, is the most important thing you can do to be a successful homeschooler. I think it's like the number one. Like, I don't care what curriculum you use for math, I don't care what you're using for science and whatever, you've got to be doing this one thing. So we'll talk here in a minute, and I'm going to talk about the one thing you need to be doing to raise successful, creative, intelligent children. Um, before I do that, let's see who's popped on here. Hey guys. Welcome, Janelle, welcome, Lizzie, and welcome, Trish. Hey guys. So the number one thing I have learned, and I'm reminded of it because my older kids now are 14 and 16, and they are readers, they're avid readers, but they weren't always. And some of my kids read early and some of my kids read late. It just depended. But the one thing we did for all of our children was read to them every single day. Now, sometimes it was mom reading to them in the morning. Um, at our peak when our lives were in the best place, when all the five kids were home. Dad read to them almost every night before bed. Like almost every night. He would gather them together. Dad read, we started out with little books, kid books, and as they got older, we got bigger books. And then eventually we started like actual chapter books. And the kids would look forward to this every evening. And I wouldn't say seven days a week. It was probably like four or five days a week. Dad would come home, we'd have dinner, and right after dinner, it was out loud reading time. Dad would sit down with a book, and when they were little, they'd cuddle in. When they were older, they would pull out Legos and art. And that's how we caught them a lot of classics in their head. That's how we did a lot of self-help books. We did a lot of books that they wouldn't read on their own that way. We just helped them fall in love with reading. And I think that was the number one thing because what happened, what I didn't realize, is what happened is they didn't just fall in love with reading, they fell in love with their father's voice, his calm demeanor. They fell in love with the situation, the time spent. They bonded together. It tended to be like the best therapy we could have possibly given our children because our lives aren't perfect. We have issues, and that reading time is therapeutic. Now, when husband was traveling, we went through some phases where my husband was traveling. Yes, Janelle, this one's for you. I knew I had to pick up the pace because the whole point of him reading the evenings was to give me time off. So he did the reading in the evenings, so I could like go do anything else, which I loved. But when he traveled, I knew he couldn't leave that hole. And so I did reading, but I did it during lunchtime. Okay, because I knew that by evening I did not want any more time with my children. I needed a break, but I knew I had the energy during lunch. So I would do it during lunchtime. Here's why we would wake up in the morning, let them play. Then after breakfast, once they started acting grumpy, we would have breakfast. After breakfast, we did reading, writing, or like math, writing the things they didn't love. And then after that, they would sit down to lunch and I would pull out a book. Now I liked reading to them out loud the like chapter books and stuff that I knew they wouldn't normally pick for themselves during lunch because their mouths are full, they're busy, and I could get more into them, and they would sit and they would read and they would calm down. And then it made after lunch. And so that's that's what I did was I would take over or I would make it and add it to the afternoons or the noon times. And then when my husband came back, I would maybe skip it or still do it and maybe read this book and then the evenings he'd read this book. But what we found was there is a magic in reading. There's something spiritual about it, there's something connective about it. It's a way to get good education in your kids, yes. But the whole point is to build the relationship between you and your child. And that's when it really happened. That's when discussion happened. I liked to find books that made them think and then made them ask questions. It wasn't just fluffy, dumb books that meant nothing. Like I'm a big book fan. There are so many bad books out there that have no depth. And so I got really picky about what I picked and what I read to my kids. And my husband and I both were like, there is so much junk out here. Like just so many books that have been removed, like the morals have been removed. So we always tried to pick books that we read out loud that were scripture or they were morally clean, like they taught a moral or they taught something, but then that we could discuss together as a family as well, that would create family discussion, that allowed them to challenge the thoughts of the book, that we could discuss, that we could argue back and forth. And those things have created a relationship. It's created a space for my children to know that they can come to us with things, that we can disagree and still be friends. Um, it's taught them to negotiate, it's taught them to critically think. It's taught them, in my opinion, all of the things that a homeschool family or anybody really needs in their life. And so I was just reminded of that this weekend, spending it with my daughter as she's reading to her kids. Her son, my grandson, we're sleeping on their living room floor. They live in this tiny townhouse. They don't have room for us really, but we're making it work. And the first thing he does is at 6 a.m. He he comes and climbs in between Poppy and Nana with a book, and we sit and read for hours. And he loves it, and we love it, and it's just been this most amazing thing. And he has this vocabulary because he's read to so much by his parents, and he discusses the thoughts with his parents, and he's three and a half, and so it can be done. And you still read to your kids. What about if they're 14, 15, 16? Oh no, keep reading, read like crazy, keep reading out loud. Just because they're older doesn't mean you stop reading. This is just a chance for you to like expose them to stuff they wouldn't want otherwise. So we read to our kids until they left the house. My husband actually we read to the kids, and and I realized it's just been since we've moved, we got out of the habit, and I just realized that this weekend we're not reading to the 16 and 14-year-olds anymore. Why aren't we doing that? It's time to set that back up. And so we're gonna go home and we're gonna reset and we're gonna put a book back in where the kids are gonna sit and listen again. It's much better than TV and computer time, let me tell you. So much better. So we're gonna get that back in there. But um, anyway, so that was my that's my spiel. Hi, Priscilla. So glad you made it. Welcome, everybody. So hi Beth, hi Janelle, Lizzie, Priscilla, Sarah, hi, and Trish, you're all here. So, welcome you guys. I am sitting outside my daughter's little townhouse inside South Carolina, getting totally attacked by little gnat thingies. But I can't go inside because the baby's asleep, and there's like what do we got? Eight people inside a tiny little townhouse with no room. So as soon as this live is over, we're hitting the road and driving back to Alabama. It's an eight-hour trip. So um, I didn't want to miss this live today. So I thought I'd come in and do this first and then um we'll head out. But so any questions or any um thoughts on this? How many of you are currently reading to your children on a daily basis? Whether it's scripture, whether it's really good books, classics, and people find it all the time. There's lists out there of people who have are like these are the books that will teach morals. Homeschoolers, if you go to a homeschool conference and a speaker, they will tell you one of the best books you can read as a family is Louis Lemour, because it was so full of good moral standards and it's about evil fighting good and good always winning, but good, the moral issues that this cowboy has. And but if you find the Louis Lemour books, grab them, read them out loud to your kids. Great story, great moral base. So if you don't know like where to start, you can do that. I'm a big read descriptions as a family fan, especially really discussing what's in it, not just reading it and being like, y'all believe this, but to be like, let's talk it through. What do you think? How can we apply? How does this affect our lives? Those kind of things are what really help our kids. Anyway, I just had like this new testimony of it this week, watching my daughter start that with us, like, and to watch it hit the next generation was like, oh, it's beautiful. Um, Priscilla says I was actually telling my husband we should get together at the end of the week and share what we read during the week, hoping to get it done. Nice! I love that. Like, yeah, because you should have a family book. And sometimes I even like when assignments were hard, we would just fall back on reading. So sometimes when we were really doing well, we would do noon book, which might be something I want to teach them. Maybe it's the life of Benjamin Franklin, maybe it's whatever we found in the library. Um, sometimes it was a classic. This is when they would we would read like Little House on the Prairie, or right in the afternoons, um, especially in the winter time. We went through a lot more books, and then in the evenings would be scripture time. But then the kids should each also have a book of their own. They're also getting through. So at any given moment, they should be reading three books, and that's normal and that's good, and they should find that to be part of their lives. Like you should have a good story to disappear into. You should have a book that teaches you something and enlightens you, and you should have something you can discuss and debate. And if you can really get all three of those, I'm not gonna say we do it all the time and we're not perfect at it, but that's ideal and has really, really just influenced our lives. So good luck with that, Priscilla. Um so that's all I really have to say on that is read to your kids, especially if they're struggling readers, especially if they're late readers, especially if they're dyslexic, right? Because you they've got to be hearing, they've got to hear language more. If they're struggling to read it themselves, then it means that their base for understanding the language is not there yet. You need to read out loud more. And when you get tired or you can't read out loud, put on audiobooks. It's what they're for. It doesn't always have to be mom reading. Sometimes we just turn on an audiobook at lunch. And and I counted that because let's be honest, there's a lot of days. It's a lot of days, we're just not up to it, and that's okay. So, yeah, so I'm you're gonna have to forgive me. We are cutting this one short today because we do have to get on the road. But questions, thoughts? Uh, how are we doing? On I'm looking at the people in here. You guys don't need any help with the program, correct? Or do you? Sarah, I've been thinking a lot about how to read more. I read to the kids individually and they have independent reading time, but we don't do a family reading time. It's the hardest one. So let me tell you some of the things we've tried. Like, I grew up with parents who got us up early in the morning to read scripture, and I'll tell you, we hated scripture because of it. It just made us like dread scripture time because we were pulled out of our sleep to sit still and listen and fight staying away. And so that didn't work for us. My parents thought it did, we hated it. Um, so I would not do that to my kids. As an adult, we tried to do evenings with my kids. What we found is when they got older, they started having activities, theaters, whatever, and that got in the way. And so we would have to shift. So you'll have to shift reading times and family times as your children are different faces. But what we're doing now is we have discovered that night or um dinner time reading. So our scripture study right now is during dinner because we talk all day, but then we sit down and we'll we'll trade off reading, whoever doesn't have their mouth full, or right after dinner because they're already there. Now, once your family scatters, to bring them back to read feels like one more fight you don't want to do. So I always like to plan any family group reading time around a meal during lunch, during dinner, right after dinner, right before so you right after breakfast. So if you put your reading right next to a meal, they're already gathered. They will gather for food without a fight while they're there. Make sure you get some form of reading into them, whether it's your scripture time or whether it's a classic, whatever it is. I personally have found that's when we get the most attention from our kids is around food. Maybe it's because I'm a foodie and I like to eat. Maybe they have taken after their mother. I don't know. But that has been what has worked the best for us. We have found. And so you can try that. But remember, I have always found the most important things to teach that I want my kids to know or do must go with food. So a friend of mine actually taught me this, a little off topic, but kind of. We did a lot of uh field trips together, and we would go places and do things, and she was the one, this was like a world traveler, this friend of mine. They hit so many places. She'd been to so many countries with her kids. And here we are in DC at like the spy museum. And she says, and she goes in and goes, Okay, everybody go pick your treat. And I'm like, How can you afford that? She goes, I don't I see it as how can I not? Because she said, What she's realized is when she would take them out on a field trip, she would make sure all their senses got touched. See, feel, hear, smell, taste, right? And so she said that was her big thing because if she didn't get all their senses, she couldn't, they didn't remember it and they couldn't decipher. So they would pick a tree. So even at the spy museum, you know, yellow ice cream like this is five bucks or ten bucks or whatever. She goes, I always budget for it because I've noticed that as they have that taste in their mouth and they're looking around, they remember because they tasted, smelled, and looked at the same time and heard. She says, and so I would I would be like, Hey, do you remember when we went to the spy museum museum? They'll be like, Oh, that's when I had the strawberry ice cream, that's when I had pineapple, that's when we had fries. And she said, and that's what helped her kids remember where they were, what they did, because they hit all five senses. So that when I started doing that, I like immediately, I was like, all right, guys, everybody go get a treat. And yeah, it was more expensive, but I discovered that it made the trip deeper. And so my husband and I, after that, it was like, what food are we gonna get? Because it just, I don't know, something about bringing it in. So don't know if that helps you guys, but I thought that was absolutely wise. And ever since I adopted it, sure enough, my kids remember by the treat to go with the activity, and it just jogged their memory better. Um, Sarah says we've watching the unit studies during lunch. Good idea, but I might move that to dinner for when I'm more tired reading over lunch. Sounds good. Okay, amen to that, Sarah. Homeschooling is about taking the things, right? Like I have energy in the morning. That's when I'm gonna teach you math. That's when we're gonna practice writing, that's when we're gonna do the things that I have to be active with. Afternoon is for things that I don't have to be active with, but you still gotta learn. My homeschool village classes, right? That's when I like to put them on the Prager You kids, or maybe they're typing, or the stuff that they can do without me that they know needs done. Sometimes I'll do it that way. Just because it's like, look, it's morning, there are some things you're not getting. We got to work on these, let's do it in the morning. And then afternoons are for individual work, it's for art time, it's for the things they don't need mom for. So amen to you, Sarah. Totally agree with that. Hi, Alana. You popped in here. Welcome. Okay, thoughts, ideas, questions. Um, we don't have anything added to school or to my homeschool village right now. I don't know how many of you you saw. Um, I added the Prager You and I added the Prenda. So, uh Prenda is especially good for dyslexic children and difficulties reading. So we have three reading programs. Don't know if you guys saw that. We've got the Starfall, the Epic, and Prenda in there. And it's because Starfall is perfect for out on the go, play some reading games and some math games, so that if you're traveling, you're waiting at the doctor's office, and you need to keep your kids busy for a minute, you really don't want them like surfing anything. These are Starfall is excellent for that when they're under the age of fifth grade and they need to just work on some skills. Starfall. Now, Epic is a library, it's where they can actually go in. Now, Starfall does have some library in there, by the way, and worksheets. Epic is for library. I want to read the next book. I need the book read to me, and mom doesn't have time. That's what where Epic really shines is I need the book written to me or read to me. Yes, love Epic. Prenda is for I have a struggling reader, dyslexia. They just they're not getting the words right. So by using all three, you should have some pretty dang strong readers. But if you only um, but if you do, you don't need to use all three, is the point. So it just depends on where your child is and what their needs are. Also, check out the good and the beautiful for their free summer books. Very wholesome if you want to get some new books. Love that. Thank you. Do they have an online library? Is it online or is it just a list? Because they used to just have a list. I haven't looked at the good and the beautiful for a long time. When you say free summer books, I'm assuming that means online. Oh, they're sending out free books in the mail? No way. Very cool, very cool. Yeah, I know they sell physical books. Their printer was actually down the street from me, and I happened to find out. Was like, I walked through, it was a printer I used as well. I walked through, I'm like, you're printing for good and the beautiful. And I went through, looked at all the books. I'm like, dang, yeah, that's pretty cool stuff. I wanted to say something about that. Oh, have you guys seen? Do you guys read Magic Treehouse with your kids? Or did like when my kids were young, we used Magic Treehouse. One of my kids went all the way through it. My younger two didn't even know what it was. Good job, mom. But I have rediscovered Magic Tree House. Magic Tree House has now come out with a graphic novel. Now, I'm not a big fan of graphic novels. Novels, a lot of them are crap and the stories don't follow, and they tend to just ramble and they're kind of messy. And some of them are inappropriate or scary. But the Magic Treehouse book, graphic novel, I am in love. My son, my we got it for my three-year-old, or my daughter got it for my three-year-old from the library. So I've been reading it to him all weekend, the same book over and over again, book one. And I immediately got on Amazon. I'm like, there are eight books out right now. That is all. They've got the first eight books in graphic novel on Amazon. I am gonna put a link in here under or something. Um, because I'm in love. I am gonna own them all. I'm gonna buy them for my kids. I think Magic Tree House is one of the best for my kids to be reading on their own. But the graphic novels, beautiful artwork, bright colors, very clear story. Help them read. So if you have a child who's struggling reading, maybe go look on Amazon for Magic Tree House right now because so good. Hi, Tony! I didn't see you sneak in. Yeah, love Magic Tree House. Um, loving Prager U, though. I have been putting my son on Prager U and requiring more than one video a day of him. And he's going through it and he's like, Mom, this is really interesting. I'm learning some cool stuff. And he's coming back to me and teaching me about government things that he's learning. I'm like, nice. So make sure you're using Prager U, especially if you want to teach your children government rights, like that kind of stuff, Prager U. If you're looking for history, oh, their history is so good. Make sure you're doing it. They also have a finance class in there. So, so good. Prager you. So make sure you're using that as well. Um, Leia Viz, love us and Prager U. Um, states and capital mix up are fun too. Oh, we haven't tried that one. We'll go in and try that one. Yeah, those are so, so good. So we're putting it in there. They do have like a whole school system version, which I haven't signed up for yet. I'm waiting for you guys to get in there. Test out the Prager Use, see if we like it as is. Do I need to go in and sign up as a school? Do we get extra benefits? We'll see. Um, oh, what is that, Tony? Youth on Course. Golf with us, all level welcome. Okay, Tony just shared a link here, youthoncourse.org. I've got to look at that. Okay, would you post that in the group? Because now I'm a big fan of golf. If your children want to get ahead in the world, they should be playing golf. I have a brother who my parents signed him up for golf when he was a kid, played really well. Now that he's 35 and he's a business owner, he makes a lot of deals on the golf course. He goes, I keep up my golf because I got a lot of people who will be like, hey, let's go golfing. And as women, the men are out golfing. And if we women want to be able to talk to these men and make the deals, we got to be on the golf course too. Join them, right? If you can't beat them, join them. I'm a big fan of golf. I'm trying to get my own children signed up for golf. I want them golfing. I'm not a big fan of group sports just because number one, my kids are not athletic. They're just not. Number two, I'm not a big competitor. I don't like teaching my children to compete with each other. We're more about compete with yourself, not the world. Not that I'm anti by any means. I have most of my family are like all into the sports, and that's fine. And they've they've learned great things from it. I'm a big fan of making sure my children know swimming because they need that for life. Uh, I want them strong swimmers, so like swim teams for me is is. Great golfing because they can use that for life. Pickleball. I'm a big fan of them learning sports they can play until they're 100. And so we personally focus more on can you play that in at your in your 70s or are you kind of like done at 15? Like there are some sports that unless you're going pro, by the time you're 18, you're done. So I try to make sure that my kids have sports that they can do until they're 100 by themselves or with one or two people. And those are my favorites that we teach personally, but that's just a that's just a personal thing. Uh Sarah says independent sports hobbies will serve them so much better. I agree. You can do them forever. I I'm a big fan. I have nieces and nephews. Their dad was a big competitive sport. They all played, they played baseball, football, and basketball year-round. And those boys, uh, there's seven boys. My uncle had seven boys, athletic, all through junior high, high school. Like that mom was running like crazy with all seven boys in all three sports. They never were home. All they did were those competitive sports. But then I watched them grow up and become adults. Now they don't know what to do with them their lives because they're not running from sport to sport to sport. They've all gained a hundred pounds and are extremely unhealthy because they eat like they're in sports, but they don't exercise that way anymore. And they seem to be like everything's competitive. Everything's about I'm better than you. Everything's like, and I've watched this and I thought, you know, I don't want that. I don't want my kids raised that way. I don't want them to not know how to treat, take their own time in their hands. I don't want them to not know how to take care of their bodies because sports did it for them. It just, I didn't like what that turned out to be personally. And so I kind of went the opposite on that. But once again, personal preference. Uh, and here in Arizona, it's over 100 degrees more than six months out of the year. So sports is not on our agenda. Amen to that. I lived in Tucson for several years. I love Arizona, but boy, the heat. Yeah. Um, Sarah says, Tony, that's cool. There's free summer bowling in Texas for youth. Do they have that in other states too? It's called Kids Bowl Free. Oh, cute. Love that. I have never looked into it, to be honest. Anybody else have a free program? Free summer bowling. Didn't think about looking into that. Maybe I will. I don't know. Yeah. I'm in a different phase of life, guys, but it sounds awesome. Okay. Link added. Thank you, Tony. Thank you, thank you. Right there. We're still trying to figure out where the bowling alleys are and all that is even near us. Trish says we did that one year. I think it only goes up to 12. Yeah, I'm not surprised. Most of those things only go up to 12. Which makes it hard for those of us with older kids. Amber! Hi! Welcome. They moved it to 18. Hallelujah. Well, I guess we'll find out for sure. Okay. This right here tells me I got about five minutes. Oh man, I didn't think about the age limit. Ours through a main event, so there's other fun stuff to do there. Yeah, and you know what one of the problems is with those age limits? Is like you're homeschooling, you got five kids, and now child one is now 13. So the other four go free, so I gotta pay for child one. Oh, now child two churn 13, so I gotta pay for two. And then very quickly, you can't do it anymore because what are you gonna do? Leave two kids home because they're not free or keep paying. Yeah, it's sure nice when they're all under though. Okay, anybody have any questions, comments? I'm gonna, I'm sorry, I'm kind of rushing through today, but between the bugs, the noise, and the fact that I need to get on the road. Any questions for me? Janelle, um, and then Amber, you're you're one of our newer members. Come on in. Does anybody have any questions about the program? What's going on? Oh, Tony, when will we see the summer schedule? That's coming up, right? In June 1st, our new summer schedule is starting. So we should be seeing that summer schedule for our classes soon. Sorry not to put you on the spot, Tony. I know you guys are working on it, you're working hard, and it's not easy. You guys, our moms, oh, tomorrow wife. Wow, that's sooner than I thought. Thank you, Tony. Tony. So, for those of you who don't know, Tony is the principal. So, yes, I am the admin, but Tony is the principal of our live classes, and she is constantly coordinating the moms. Every teacher we have is a homeschool mom, and their children are here in the group. And so they are also homeschooling, they're also sometimes working, they're also, and so to get everybody coordinated and make sure it keeps working and flowing for you guys can be a little difficult sometimes. And Tony works it and works it and works it. And sometimes we have internet go out, and some of our moms live in the boondogs and have a hard time getting to the class because of the internet. And if their internet goes out, they can't tell us. So please be patient with our live classes and the way they go. It's real life. These are real women living real lives trying to make things work. And so there are days it doesn't work, and some days, and generally it does most of the time. But yes, Tony is an absolute miracle worker. I will tell you honestly, a year ago, my homeschool village was about to have to shut down. My business partner, I had started my homeschool village with a business partner and it was not working anymore. We had different visions, and so we decided to split. And I wasn't sure I could keep up with my homeschool village, especially the live classes. And Tony called me and she said, I will do it. If you will keep my homeschool village running, I will run the classes, I will make them work. And in the last year, that's exactly what she's done. These are the best classes I've ever seen. They're so good. I even had a mom message me the other day and said that quit a year ago for another company and is coming back because she said the other company's classes aren't as good, the teachers aren't as good, the kids aren't as well behaved. She's like, We're coming back. I'm like, there you go. Yeah. Tony runs a tight ship and she does it beautifully. Beautifully. I'm getting questions from my kids wanting the summer off because their online friends have the summer off. Any advice I would say that I thought that I may not have thought of, oh, I got you. I'm so glad you kept going. You've been a lifesaver for me, Janelle. Thank you. Yeah, I'm gonna have to shut down in a minute. I did not know they were mowing behind me today. We'll make this quick. Okay. Um, okay, as far as getting the summer off, here's what I tell my kids. I did that one year. One year I let them have the summer off. You know what I found? All of their friends who had the summer off in public school still were required to get up, do a job. They slept in, they did a job, and their friends could never play before like 1 p.m. anyway. So I was like, well, why are we sitting around doing nothing waiting for other kids to play? Because my kids got up earlier. And so I'd be like, all right, we might as well keep doing our homework. So I would be like, I made their schedule less, but I still gave them the kind of things you don't want them to lose, the information you don't want lost over summer. I kept giving that reading, writing, math. You don't get out of that ever, in my opinion. Like, I want you journal writing every day, I want you doing your math every day, whatever. So um I don't believe in you should take three months to make it up. And so I'm a big fan of no, you get to earn your playtime with your friends. If you've got to teach your kids to earn their free time, this is a life skill, it's an adult life skill that they need in their lives. You do the have-to's before you do the get-to's. I don't care what the rest of the world is teaching. And that's a really important stance to take as a parent, as a mother. You have to go. I don't, and my mom would tell us this, I don't care what the neighbors are doing. My kids do this. And that's, I remember hearing that from my mom a lot. And sure enough, we are all hard workers. We are all business owners and hard workers and go-getters because my mom would say, I don't care what the world is doing, my kids do this. So, you this is what you do. I don't care what the world is doing. My kids do this because I hold you to a higher standard, and I want you to be better than the rest of the world. And your mother will not put up with mediocrity. So get back to work. They deserve a mom who loves them enough to put them to work. So get them to work in the morning. If they want to plan the afternoon, great. But these things have to be done. And if at two o'clock they come over and they say, Mom, my friends are all getting online. Can I join them? Your first question is, Did you get your list done? And if they say no, then you say, You said no, so I have to say no. And so you put it back in their court. If they say yes, hey, did you get your list done? Yes, great. You said yes, I get to say yes. So who comes up with the answer? Put it in their court. So they learn that very quickly. It's in your court. You want to play tomorrow? You know what you have to do. If you don't do it, it's a no. You want a yes tomorrow afternoon, you know what you gotta do. So set those standards and stick to them. And they will eventually, you won't have to stick to them. They'll just start to do it. Does that help, Janelle? Good. Okay. Guys, I'm gonna go. I'm sorry. I would do, I can't even do the giveaway today. I will promise you maybe we'll do a double giveaway next week, okay, to make up for it. Promise a double giveaway next week. Thank you for being here. Love you guys. In the meantime, if you have any other questions, let me know. But anyway, have a great week. Bye guys. That's the wrap for today. I hope you're leaving with something real, something you can actually use. This is a long game. You don't have to get it all right today. Just show up tomorrow. That's enough. If this episode helped you, share it with another mom who needs it. And if you're ready for a village to do this with, find us in the show notes. Until next time, keep going. The revolution starts at home.