014 || Behind the Curtain: Your Homeschool Questions Answered

What do you do when your routine falls apart, your curriculum starts to feel wrong, or you can't stop second guessing a decision you already made? In this episode Sarah is answering the questions her audience actually asked her on Instagram, no script, just real questions from real homeschool moms.

She walks through getting out the door on time, breaking bad habits, and staying consistent even when it's hard. Then she gets into homeschool specific questions: keeping the house tidy with kids underfoot, choosing curriculum, knowing when a switch is worth it, and handling a child who resists school. She closes with a few behind the scenes questions about building her business around a homeschool schedule and why she started sharing online in the first place.

If you've ever wondered the same things, this one is for you. Share it with a friend and follow along for more.

Links:

•   Free Starter Glue-Print

•    Chore and cleaning system episode

•    Curriculum choice blog post

•   Instagram activity bins highlight

•    Shop all resources

•    Follow on Instagram

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I recently asked over on Instagram what you actually wanted to know, and you guys did not hold back. I heard from a mom who cleans all day and still feels like her house is never tidy. I heard from a mom who's trying to figure out if it's time to switch curriculum or if she's just wanting to switch because something is shiny and new. I heard from a mom who's always second guessing and doubting herself. And so many more moms I heard from. And today I thought it would be fun to take some time and answer your specific questions straight from you that I asked for over on Instagram. So let's jump in. Glue. It's messy, it's sticky, it gets everywhere. But without it, nothing holds. Homeschool life can feel messy too. We have the loud days, the mental overload, so many moving parts. But we don't need is more curriculum or more pressure to do it all. We need something that holds. Simple systems, steady rhythms, the kind of structure that makes homeschooling easier instead of heavier. Hi, I'm Sarah, a homeschool mom of four, and this is the Homeschool Glue Podcast. Each week we have an honest conversation about real homeschool life and the simple systems that help overwhelmed homeschool moms clear the mental clutter, build rhythms that actually stick and create the peaceful lives we are all craving. If you're tired of carrying everything and getting nowhere, you are in the right place. Grab that load of laundry and let's get started. Welcome back. I am so excited for this episode. I just thought it would be fun to take a break from my planned content here on the podcast and take some time to answer your questions. I have been doing a weekly, I guess you could call it, series on my Instagram stories where I've been answering questions, and there have been so many good ones that I thought, you know, why not take some extra time to answer some of these questions by doing it on the podcast? I can explain a lot more, and just hearing it from my voice instead of me writing it out or having one minute to answer in my stories is just a lot more helpful, I think. And so I put a call out for questions in my story saying I'm gonna do a whole podcast episode answering your questions, and so many people responded. And so I'm very grateful if you were one of those people, and I hope I can give you some helpful answers. Keep in mind, I am not a homeschooling expert, I am not a parenting expert. Um, I am just a mom, but if you follow me, I'm guessing you um are interested in what I have to say, and I have my own unique perspective. I do really uh I don't want to say pride myself, but I do really take the time to think about answers, and I am a very thoughtful mom, um, which I'm sure you are as well. I just really like to analyze things and um find the best way to do things. And so I am gonna share my advice, take it with a grain of salt. Um, hopefully it will have some wisdom in it. I prayed before recording so that I could give good advice, but um I just want to keep it real that I am not a homeschooling or a mother mothering expert, but um I have gotten some of the best advice from imperfect moms just like me. And so hopefully this can be helpful. Um, and I'll share what I do, but it may not be what works best for you. Um, and I love learning from you as well. So if I share something and you vehemently disagree, let me know over on Instagram, hopefully nicely, so I don't cry. Um, anyway, I have grouped these into a different few different topics based on kind of where they fall. So that way I can kind of answer similar questions alongside other similar questions. But we're gonna get into system structure and time management type questions, homeschool related questions, and then there were some business or behind the scenes questions of how I do what I do. And so let's jump in. I don't want to take a ton of time rambling at the beginning. So let's start with the system, structure, and time management questions. So the first question: how do you get out the door on time or quickly? It's always such a battle in our house, and I always end up stressed and late. Um, okay, I will preface this by saying I am a chronically early person. So I think that makes me qualified to answer this, but also it's just how I run. I hate being late, which I'm sure everyone listening does not like being late. So uh, but I I think because I'm so on it with time that I end up getting places early because I'm always afraid of being late, and so I overcompensate and then I'm early and have to like drive around before I go places. Um, and so some things I do, I always, and this is just like a life tip. Um, I always assume I'm gonna be late and I always assume I'm gonna forget things. That doesn't really fit with this question, but it's just something I've actually been thinking about as I've been analyzing how I live my life. I always assume I'll be late and I always assume I'll forget everything. And so uh I keep that in mind when I'm doing my day-to-day life. And so if I assume I'm gonna be late, I end up getting ready to leave way earlier than I actually need to leave. Um, is it annoying to show up early to places? Yes, but I'd rather show up early than late. And so I usually um give my kids, you know, let's say we have to be somewhere close by and it'll take like five minutes to get there. I assume like actually getting our shoes on 15 minutes before is still cutting it close. And so what I'm trying to say is I leave a lot ex like way earlier than I need to. I always assume it's gonna be a struggle when we get out the door. It often is. I'm not a mom expert. It's we still have lots of issues. I don't know what it is about leaving the house, but it's always like the time when people are crying and upset about something. And so I usually on a good day, like if everybody's in a decent mood, if I have to be somewhere that takes me five minutes, I leave at least 15 minutes early because it takes time to get the shoes on, get out the door, deal with any issues, you know, um, and whatnot. And so now let's say something takes a half hour to get there, I will leave at least 45 minutes early because leaving is not quick. Like the shoes and all of that takes time, and so I always build in extra time. I don't know if that's helpful just to leave way earlier than you think, but I do end up early to places, so it must work. Um, so always add like a 15-minute buffer because with kids, you just never know. Um, sometimes I forget something, I have to run home quick. Um, you know, sometimes we have to have a little conversation in the car, if you know what I mean, because of attitudes or people not wanting to help or whining or whatever. Um, so I always try to build in that extra time so that I very rarely am like, oh my gosh, we're gonna be late. Gotta hurry because I don't like that feeling. Um, plus, I'm trying to teach my kids like, don't hurry, just get there late. It's not worth driving too fast for. Okay. Second question. When something throws your daily routine off, how do you get back on track? Um, pretty much every day something throws my daily routine off track. And so I don't even, at this point, I don't even stress about it. This is another thing. I just assume my day's not gonna go how I want it to go. I just assume the worst, I guess is what I'm trying to say. I assume I'll forget everything. I assume I'm gonna be late. I assume my day's not gonna go how I want it to go. And so I'm always pleasantly surprised when things do go well. Um, I don't know if that's like a life thing. I'm just realizing this now. Maybe I'm very pessimistic. I don't know. But when life uh gets thrown off track, I go, oh, guess it's just another day and I get back to it. Um I try to remind myself that um routines are meant to be flexible. I I have had people say, like, you must plan out every minute of your day. No, I absolutely do not because nothing would ever happen correctly if I did it that way. I do have in mind like time blocks and what I want to get done at certain times, but I am shifting things all the time. The babies had a blowout, so now we didn't get to that, or this kid is sick, so we didn't get to that. I just roll with the punches and I remind myself, I'm living the life I always dreamed of living. I'm with my kids all the time. It's never gonna go how I want it to go, but there's so much beauty and there's so much sanctification and learning to adapt on the fly. And so when my daily routine gets off, I shift things. I am constantly moving things around. But the beauty of having an overall rhythm to your week and your day, as I talk about a lot on this podcast, is that if I shift one thing, it doesn't mean everything needs to shift. It's just a couple of things shift, everything goes back to how it was, and I just move on with my day. I might have to take a second at night and go, okay, if I move this over here, that means I won't get to that. So where am I going to shift it? But because the whole week has a framework, it's really not hard to shift things. So I would say if your daily routine getting thrown off, thrown off throws off your entire life, then I would assume at first, at least without knowing any details about it, that there's like a system issue because one thing shouldn't throw off every single thing every time. And so it should be pretty easy unless there's like a mind shift, you know, mind shift thing, a mindset shift that needs to happen about you know feeling down on yourself about it, which is a whole other issue. But if your daily routine is throwing off your whole life, I would guess that you don't have like a flow to get back into. You kind of have to reinvent everything then, which is is really stressful. And I would recommend having a framework to your day and your week so that if one thing shifts, it's not the biggest of deals. I mean, I've gone through some major stuff that shifted my whole life, turned my whole life upside down. Yes, that required some reframing my whole life because you know, my dad was in the hospital, stuff like that, really big things. But if it's a small thing like we didn't get to that reading, or um, you know, I've had times when I forgot we signed up for something. I wrote it down on the wrong day, and so oh shoot, we got to run over there, and that kind of threw things off. Well, I just move things. Um, and it's it's really not that big of a deal. I think it's either probably a mindset issue or you have a systems issue, um, which I like to teach about. So listen to my other episodes and I can help you hopefully get on track. And I have some great things coming down the pipeline too that could help. Okay, suggestions on how to break bad habits. Uh, first of all, there are two books I would really recommend reading. One is Atomic Habits, the other is less known, and that book changed my life, which is called The Slight Edge. Both are about the power of habits, how to create habits, how to shift from bad habits to good habits. So there are two whole books on habits and the power of them and how to break bad habits and implement good habits. I would say, with me, when I am trying to break a bad habit, I'm usually having to replace it with a good habit. And so, for example, a bad habit, bringing my phone to bed and then not getting to bed on time. So, in order to break the bad habit, I can't just stop looking at my phone. I can't get myself to do that at night. I have no willpower at the end of the day, and I just want to like numb out with my phone. And so breaking that habit is just not possible like that. Like, I yes, I could do that, but I know I'm not going to. I know I'm not gonna break it just by not doing it. And so instead, I implemented a new habit of plugging my phone in outside of my bedroom. That new habit does it implements what I want, and it's also breaking the bad habit because I just don't even have the ability to look at my phone at night, if that makes sense. So I would recommend creating a new habit to replace the bad habit with. Um, that would probably be my number one way. Another thing, like you can, I like tracking habits when I'm new to them, but that's more about implementing new habits. So I would say find a habit to replace the bad habit with without knowing what your bad habit is. Um, best tip to stay consistent when it's hard. Um, I feel this. I don't love doing a lot of the things I do. I don't love cleaning. I don't love cooking all the time. I don't love meal. I hate quite honestly, I hate meal planning. But how do I stay consistent with those things even when it's hard? I'll tell you. I remember how I feel when I don't do these things. I feel chronically overwhelmed. I feel chronically scattered. I'm short with my kids. I am not the mom I want to be, I'm not the wife I want to be. Everything starts to feel hard when I am not consistent in most of the time with most of my habits. I'm not saying I am perfect, absolutely not. Like I fall off with all of my habits throughout the week in at some point. That's normal. But in general, consistency over time, like 90, 95% of the time, really helps keep my life running and helps me stay present with my kids, helps me be in the mindset that feels like I don't know another way of saying it other than like flow. I can really, you know, be in tune with the person God created me to be, which is a overall pretty happy, optimistic person, faithful, you know, really present with my kids and just a light-hearted kind of person, which is what I am naturally, if I'm not super overwhelmed all the time. And so my biggest tip for staying consistent when it's hard is to remember why it matters to stay consistent. Because if you're not consistent, then you're going back to all the old habits and you didn't like doing that because it's stressful and it's overwhelming and you're not the person you want to be. And so the biggest thing to do is remember why you're doing it. Like, for example, we do our weekly cleaning um as a family. Do my kids like doing it? No. Do I like doing it? No. But I remember why we do it. First of all, if we do it all together, then I don't have to do it by myself and take up my own time to clean our house. Secondly, it's teaching my kids very valuable lessons about owning the responsibility for the home that you use. It's it's not just teaching them the skills of cleaning and things like that, but it's giving them that power of responsibility and ownership. And it's affecting other parts of our day because they don't want to dirty everything as much because they have to clean it. And so they're being more mindful of how they use the space and all of these things. It's teaching teamwork, um, it's teaching obedience, it's teaching so many things. And so if we don't do that consistently, then they're not learning those things, at least not in that way. And so by staying consistent and just doing it, even when I don't want to, I reap the benefit. And after our house is clean, I say to my kids, wow, it smells so nice in here from that mop, mopping we did. Oh my goodness, look at these rooms. Doesn't it feel so good to have a clean house? Oh my goodness, I it feels so tidy. I just love having a tidy home. And I truly believe all of those things. My mind is less cluttered when our house is tidy, and so I do it consistently, even when I don't want to, because of all the benefits. So I try to keep that in mind. Um, I'm not perfect at this all the time. There are probably going to be weeks where we don't get to it because it's really busy, but I don't let that become a new habit of just not doing it. The next time it comes up, we do it. Um, because I remember what it felt like to not do that and the ownership being only on me and how my kids reacted to that and how they weren't cleaning up as well after themselves because they didn't have any ownership over it, and so on and so forth. Okay, next question. Daily rhythms and making time for the care of the home and mom working out. So, this is not necessarily a specific question, but daily rhythms and making time for the care of the home and the mom. So I will actually link um the whole episode I have on our chore system in the show notes for you guys. Um, I'll have more content out about that. I actually have an Instagram post that I just posted last week about it as well, really breaking down the system. So I will link that as well for you. But um I could say so much. I could have so many podcast episodes about this one thing. But for example, working out, that has been one for me that is probably the hardest to get myself to fit in. And notice how I said that to get myself to fit in. It has not been hard to fit in, it's been hard to get myself to fit it in. And those are very different things. So it's not hard to fit it in. Like I already get up at 4 a.m. I have plenty of time, I could fit it in. I'm home with my kids all day. I have quiet time every day. I have time at night that, you know, I could fit in three to five workouts a week if they're 20 to 30 minutes. Like that's actually not hard. What's hard is getting myself to do it and not just getting myself to do it because I'm lazy, because I don't consider myself a lazy person, and I'm sure you're not a lazy person. Um, I mean getting myself to not do something I find very valuable so that I can work out. Um, at night I joke that I'm useless to the world after seven because I do get up at 4 a.m. and so I am. I'm very useless at night. I can't get myself to do much of anything, and so that's just out. I just know at night I'm not going to motivate myself to work out. In college, yeah, I did it all the time. Now, not so much. I'm feeling my age now and I'm tired at night and I I don't want to do stuff like that. I want to read, I want to cuddle up, um, maybe organize something because that brings me joy. But working out, though I enjoy it after I've done it, it's not something that brings me a lot of joy if I'm just being honest. And so that really just leaves nap time or the morning. And during the morning, I'm doing my Bible reading and I'm doing my prayer and I'm working on my business. And in the afternoon, I'm working on my business, and I really love my business and I love being productive and I love getting things done. And so getting myself to give up on those times has been very hard. Um, and so I'm guessing finding the time, like obviously, there are seasons where actually finding the time to work out is difficult. I'm not gonna gloss over that. That's true. However, I think we often actually have the problem of getting ourselves to give something else up when we could be doing something else and work out instead. And so what I have done, and this is just what works best for me right now, so I could actually fit it in. Um, we have started, my kids get up, they're able to come out of their rooms at 6 30. They're usually up just before then, if if not right at 6 30. They can come out of their rooms then. My little guy gets up at 7. And so I was coming upstairs and being present with my kids at 6:30. But I'm like, okay, my little guy isn't up till 7. My three daughters are five, eight, and 11. They are perfectly capable of hanging out for half an hour on their own. Um, they're even capable of making their own breakfast. I was having them do that. But um anyway, so from I was, you know, up at four doing my Bible time and stuff like that, and then working until six, and then I was taking from six to six thirty to get ready, you know, make the bed, get dressed, start a load of laundry, that kind of thing. And so I shifted that back half an hour. So now I am still working until six, and then from six to six thirty, I now can work out, and from six thirty to seven now I get ready. And so I shifted that back half hour, and that way I actually have time to work out. I'm not taking away time from my work, which I was just having such a hard time getting myself to give up. Um, and then my kids are able to play and they hang out and they play and they have a slow morning, and then I come up at seven. Uh, my oldest was making breakfast for a while there and they were helping, but it just three daughters sometimes they don't always get along. So I just decided, you know what, I'll just work on breakfast at seven when I come up, and they usually help me. And I get my little guy up and we start the day at seven instead of 6 30. And so I fit my workout then. That may not work for you, but I'm just sharing one example of how I could shift things around a little to open up some time. Um, because we only, I mean, I was thinking about this last night. Like, I wish I had more hours. It just goes so fast. There's so much to do, and I never get to everything I want to do. Um, but that's how God designed the day. We only have so many hours and we have to make the most of it. And so uh finding pockets of your day, shifting things around, trying different things. I am often trying out different things just to see if as seasons change and kids change and grow, if we can shift things around. Like a year ago, I had a baby and now I have an 18-month-old. Like, so much can change in just a few months as a mom. And so um, maybe think about things from a different perspective of when you could fit some of these things in. Okay, moving on to real homeschool life. Um, I had a couple questions about keeping the house clean. Um, and ke and uh one person said I clean all day and still feel it's never tidy. I've shared a lot about cleaning already in this episode, so I'll link that full episode about cleaning and chores, like I said, but I do want to talk just briefly about uh cleaning all day and still feeling like it's never tidy. I have realized that that's just life, especially as a homeschool mom. Your kids are home, you are home, it's never gonna be your standard of clean until they're out of your house. Um, and that has been a hard lesson for me as somebody who really thrives with like a clutter flutter-free home and not having dirt and crumbs and all the things everywhere. It is hard for me to have to adjust to that. But I've realized now 11 years in, that's just my life. And so I think some of these things like we see social media or we go into somebody else's house and we think that's how their house always is. And maybe it is, maybe somehow they have crazy amazing cleaners in their house, and their kids are just naturally tidy and they barely have anything, and they don't do crafts that get everywhere, and they don't make a mess when they eat. I don't know. Maybe that's the kind of kids they have. Or maybe when you look at social media, like I was looking at pictures of my own house and thinking, wow, it looks really clean. You can't see the crumbs under the dresser in that picture, or you don't see the stuff's on the wall in that picture because that's just the way things photograph better sometimes. You know, houses seem to photograph better, whereas the camera adds 10 pounds to us. I don't know how that works. But anyway, what I'm trying to say is you don't see what a mom sees when she looks at her house. Like when you look at a picture of a house, you're not seeing what the mom's actually seeing in her house. And when you go to somebody's house, most likely they have tidied and cleaned before you've come over. So you don't really know what their house looks like on a day-to-day basis. And honestly, we should not be comparing ourselves to everybody else. Like, their kids are not your kids, they are not you, their life is not your life, so it may not work out for you as well to have a perfectly tidy house. Maybe you have little ones and they have teenagers, and so all their mess is in their bedrooms or whatever. I don't know. Um, everybody's kids are different, and so I just want to encourage you that I have a great cleaning system that's working really well for us, and my house is never as clean as I want it to be. It is never as tidy as I want it to be. There are six of us here, a lot of like five of us here all the time, six of us here a lot of the time, and like meaning my husband, and so it's never gonna be perfectly tidy because we're living here. Like, what house is tidy as you're living in it? Like, what kitchen is clean as you're cooking in it? No kitchen. What dining table is clean as you're eating at it? No dining table. What bedroom is clean as you're getting dressed and going about your day until you have time to tidy it? No bedroom. And that's not to say, like, I have routines where we clean up after every meal and so and that kind of thing. But even after we clean up, then they get out of craft, or then we go to the living room and we play with toys and we get those out. Like it's there's always things out, and so yes, we're putting them away a lot, but it's never gonna be as tidy or as clean as you want it to be. And I think part of that is we just have to come to terms with it instead of trying to fight against just what's gonna happen, if that makes sense. Okay, how do you choose the the year's curriculum for each child? Whew. Um, okay. First of all, I have a whole blog post about what we chose that kind of gets more into why, and so I'll link that because I'm not gonna break down every part of the decision. But for me, um, the biggest thing when we first started homeschooling was figuring out kind of our methodology and philosophy towards education. And I knew right away I leaned very Charlotte Mason. And as I read a lot more of her methodology and met with other moms who follow the same and just have, you know, really started into that method of homeschooling, it's just become even deeper. But I have tried a few different curricula over the years, and I think how I choose is just kind of trial and error. Like I started with Heart of Dakota. I wanted an open and go Charlotte Mason type of curriculum that would really walk beside me and hold my hand at first, and that did so well for us for two years. Then we did the peaceful press for two years, and now we're going into our second year of doing Simply Charlotte Mason for history, geography, bible, and like language arts, and then I'm mixing in Ambleside Online for a lot of the other subjects, and so I just kind of follow those two and go with it. And so I don't really have a great answer for that. I just have really gotten a sense of what works well for us and what I want for my kids, and then I found curricula that kind of fit with that. I wanted to do as much family style as possible and then add in extra things that kind of fit each kid's age level and development for the subjects that I feel like they need that for, or the subjects that need to be more individual, like language arts and math and things like that. So that's my really general answer for that question. Okay, a question. I had my kids redo their grades after pulling them from public school to make sure there are no gaps in their educations. We are behind now, but they are testing above grade level. I would love to take a break, but I also feel compelled to keep pushing through the summer. What would you do? I would absolutely take a break. Um we get into this rut of thinking we have to finish everything. And I am just as guilty of this when as a school teacher, I didn't finish everything. I didn't finish the textbooks, I didn't always finish the books that we were reading depending on timing. Um, and so it is okay to not finish stuff. You can pick back up later, like take a break. I think breaks, I'm taking a break this summer. I needed it so badly, and so did my kids. Like we were hustling hard all year by business and school and so many things going on, and we needed a break. I am absolutely pro-break if you feel you need it. Um, there is no reason to keep pushing through just because of an arbitrary uh label of a grade, and just because your kids haven't finished the books per se, they're testing ahead. Like, even if they weren't, like it's okay to take a break. That's actually good for their education to not overdo it. Okay, how do you balance knowing when a curriculum switch is needed versus um that other curriculum just looking shiny and new? Um, I posted a reel recently that I thought was hilarious. Um, and a lot of people did too, and related with it. It showed a person running and then another person running behind them, chasing them, and the person that's being chased keeps running faster, and the person behind them keeps running faster to catch up. And I labeled it something like how it feels as a homeschool mom when you finally picked your curriculum for the year, and then you start to see every other curriculum out there, and so you start second guessing, and so many people relate it with that because it's so true. There are always gonna be other companies, other resources out there that would be great. And so I think most of the time we just have to pick it and kind of put our blinders on. That is what I tell my kids when we're at the store. Like, if they have money to buy something, they pick what they want and then I tell them to put their blinders on because they're gonna see a million other things that they want to buy. But when they've decided on what they're picking, they need to put their blinders on. And so I try really hard not to look at a lot of other stuff once we're in the school year. Like once I've bought what we're getting for next year, I may see a curriculum in a reel or something, and I might just kind of jot it down somewhere that I want to look at that next year, but I'm not gonna go redo everything. Um, unless it's like absolutely not working for my kids, I'm not changing it. That's just how I do it. I don't want to waste money. I want to see it through. Like we've I this is my third round of trying something new, but we went the whole school year each time, like two school years per the other ones that we tried, and they worked great. It wasn't that they weren't working great. It's that I wanted um, you know, when we switched from heart of Dakota to Peaceful Press, I wanted something more family style. Once my second daughter started homeschooling with us, and then when we went from peaceful press to simply Charlotte Mason and Ambleside Online, I wanted something a little more rigorous, and I wanted um just I guess a little bit more rigorous, but I still wanted that family style like we were doing. And so that's why I switched. At this point, like I love what we're doing. I don't foresee switching anytime soon unless something happens or it's not working for us, but I think in general, we're usually looking at that other thing because it's shiny and new, and we're not really giving what we're currently using a chance. Um, that's not to say I have changed like phonics programs just because I haven't tried a whole lot. And so uh I used the good and the beautiful for my oldest, didn't love that, if I'm being honest, and then I used um explode the code with my secondborn who absolutely loved it, and then I started using that with my third daughter last year, and it just was kind of tough for her, and so now we're using dash into uh reading with my third daughter, and so every kid's different. So I switched, but I kind of switched. I didn't really start, you know, I try I did start explode the code with my third, but I didn't invest a ton of money into it, they're not that expensive, and so if something's really not working, change it. That's okay. But if you like have bought all of the books and all of the curriculum and it's overall going well, but you just want to try something else, uh, I would say definitely research it if maybe think about it for next year. But I I would be compelled to not not go that route because then you'll get that one and you'll see something else that looks interesting. And so it's it's a slippery slope. Um, thoughts on a designated homeschool space. I am not against a dedicated homeschool space. You know, do what works for you. I will share that when we decided to start homeschooling, we took our playroom, which is down a level from our main living space, and I turned that into our homeschool room, and we used that for a year, and I think it was into the second year, I want to say. I don't even remember exactly, but the next year, or at some point, I realized like I I hate this. Like my younger kids want to go upstairs and play in the living room or do a craft next to the kitchen, and I have to run up and down all the time, and there's gates everywhere, and I'm just getting really annoyed being stuck in this room. And so we decided to move everything up to our dining room. Um, and that's where we do most of our homeschooling, at least our family subjects. We sit around the dining table, we read. Um, my toddler now will sometimes sit on my lap. He will wander around and he like this floor is fully babyproof, and so he has a lot of, he has three different rooms he can wander to, and I can see him in all of them. And we have the kitchen right here, so if we're painting, I can grab water and it's easy to clean up and I don't have to worry about rugs and things like that that I did in the playroom. And we're just we have way more access to stuff, and so sometimes we'll go sit at the couch, sometimes I'll bring stuff up to my kids' rooms, depending on what we're what we're doing. Um, but in general, we mainly use our dining room, and so uh homeschool space that's just for homeschool could be great. I love the idea of it. Like if my house was laid out differently, like maybe if I had an extra room off of my main level, I would do it because then we're still like within a couple steps of everything else. But having it on a different floor for us personally was really annoying. Um, and so now I'm building a library in there, which is really exciting. I just bought six bookcases, so follow me on Instagram, see that. But um yeah, we could still homeschool. Like we have I have taken like math down there and done that with a daughter at some point, but it's not like our main space anymore for homeschool. Okay, any tips to avoid second guessing yourself? I bought curriculum now, second guessing. Yeah, this kind of goes with what I was talking about before, but I think what I was talking about as far as like your home never being as clean as you want it to be, and you just kind of have to come to terms with that. I think in general with homeschool, we are gonna second guess ourselves. And I think at some point we just kind of have to take that thought captive and let it go. Give it to God because there are so many options, and now with social media, you're constantly seeing what everybody else chose. And like, I'm not gonna feel guilty about sharing what we use. I'm not trying to get people to second guess what they're using. I just find it helpful, especially at the beginning, to see what other people are doing and thinking, oh, would that work for us? So that's why I share. But if it's causing you to second guess everything you're doing, don't look at my content about curriculum. I don't want that for you. Um, I think we just have to come to terms with in life, sometimes we're going to see things and it's we either can constantly be re-assessing what we're doing, or we're gonna have to just say, I'm gonna trust God that this is what curriculum I'm supposed to be using right now. And if he wants me to use something else, he can hit me over the head with some kind of idea that that's what I need to choose. But otherwise, I'm just gonna stay in my lane and use this until it's time to reassess for the next year. Um, I think second guessing is just what's gonna keep happening unless you decide I'm just going to be confident in what I chose. Because I think part of it, it's like parenting. I second guess my parenting all the time because there's no manual on how to parent my specific children every situation. Um, and so it is so easy to think that what you're doing is wrong, even when it's not, just because there's nobody telling you exactly what to do. And so with homeschooling, there are so many ways you can homeschool a child. And so you have to just decide this is what I'm trying for right now. I can always change my mind later, but I'm not going to second guess everything I chose just because somebody is doing it differently, or just because something else looks shiny and new and great, which it probably is, but that doesn't make what I chose less shiny and less great, if that makes sense. Okay. Um, do you set up activities for your toddler to keep him busy while you focus on the olders? I did try this a bit last year, but he is 18 months. Like he was only, you know, well, younger than that during the school year. And he is just not at the age where he can sustain any activity for more than 20 seconds. Um, and so no, I have toys available to him, I have books available to him. Sometimes if he's getting kind of squirrely, I will like wrap toys in tinfoil or I will get something out. But um I decided to wait on doing like I've done my activity bins. If you have seen on Instagram, um, I have a whole highlight about those over there if you want to go check out what I'm talking about. But for my third-born daughter, um when she was younger during homeschool, like it was really hard, you know, when she got to about two. And so I started making activity bins for her, and that worked wonders. And I plan to do that again for my toddler once he's at the age where he can do an activity for more than 20 seconds. And so right now he's just opening drawers and getting stuff out and looking at books and wandering around. Um, I will get play-doh out for him. He doesn't, he's thankfully knock on wood. He's a kid that does not put much in his mouth, which I don't know how that happened, but that's just the kid he is. And so um, I can trust him with homemade play-doh. I mean, if he ate it, it wouldn't hurt him, but um, and stuff like that. Like, but in general, he kind of just wanders around and we cuddle with him here and there. Uh, but I don't I don't do specific activities with him pre-planned yet. I do plan to make activity bins for him when he gets a little bit older. More, and that worked really well for my youngest daughter because she was just really fighting for my attention and fighting for it in all the ways that would get my attention, which was negative at the time. Um, and so I built in a lot more positive attention at the start of our homeschool, and then I started making those activity bins so she would have these special bins, these like magical bins that I got out um during homeschool time. And to her, this was like a huge deal at two and three and four that I made every month. And so they were special and only for homeschool time, and so I would get those out, and so that really helped because she was at that age where she really wanted and craved my attention and was looking for it in all the negative ways. And when I'm homeschooling, I can't always give her my full attention. And so by building it into the beginning of the day by reading and cuddling with her before homeschool time and then creating those bins, it really helped her feel special and she was still part of our homeschool, but obviously was too little to be, you know, doing a lot of the stuff we were doing, and so that gave her something special and and kind of filled up her cup. So I do plan to do that with my little guy when he gets a little bit bigger. How do you deal with a kid who resists anything school related? Um, I've had somebody ask a similar question on my Instagram before, and I don't have a child who resists all school, but I definitely have children who have had bad attitudes, who resist for that day or resist the certain subject. And um, it really depends on where it's coming from. Um in general, like if they are not getting enough sleep, or if maybe we need to revamp the way we do this. Maybe I'm asking them to sit for too long and they need to be up and moving. Maybe they're really struggling with a subject. And this may be an area where I would look at um approaching that subject from a different perspective or a different curriculum if it was like really causing issues with my child and something else could be a little easier for them or could uh fit with their learning styles a little bit better or something like that. Like I haven't had to do that, but it would be something I would look at. Like I guess I kind of have done that actually. Um, the good and the beautiful language arts for my oldest, as a former English teacher, um I was worried. I was worried because she was hating phonics, she was hating reading, and I was just like, this is awful. Like, I can't have my kid hate reading. I'm an English teacher. Um, and so I realized the huge focus on all of the rules that I never learned, or if I did, like do not remember, and I was having a hard time keeping them straight, I realized that just wasn't working for her. And so, and it was causing issues, and she was hating it, I was hating it, like it just wasn't going well for us. That's not to slam the good and the beautiful language arts, it's just for us, it didn't go as well as I wanted it to. And so by switching to something that was a lot different, um explode the code, it did wonders for us, and so I would consider that if if I thought that could help my child. The other thing is like I I I struggle with this question because you know, some kids. Kids have learning disabilities, some kids have defiance disabilities or issues or however you would say that, I don't know the exact terminology for it. But um in general, though, like if I have a child who's really giving me attitude about something, I will remind them school is your number one priority in our day. And so if that one priority is not, you know, if the expectation of finishing it isn't met, then you're not gonna go play with your friends, or you're not gonna get screen time, or you're not gonna do X, Y, and Z that you wanna do because you have not done what is required of you. Um, just like I would not let my kids not go to school for long, you know, multiple days just because they didn't want to if we were in public school, unless obviously like they're getting bullied or something, that would be a whole different story. But if they just didn't want to go to school because they were just resistant to it, we would be finding a way to get them to school, you know? And so I really look at homeschool as this is their number, like this is their job is to be educated. And so um, if there's not some deeper reason for why they're resisting, they just don't feel like it or they don't want to, um, they're not gonna get to do a lot of the fun stuff because that's required of them. Um, just like if I don't, you know, if I were working outside the home and I didn't show up for work, I'm not getting paid and I'm gonna lose my job. And so I I would kind of take the tough love route for that. Um, but that's without having any other information about the child and things like that. I would definitely have a heart-to-heart with them about it, see if there's something going on that's deeper that we could relate with. Maybe they're not getting enough one-on-one time, maybe they're feeling overshadowed. You had a new baby and you, you know, you're they're feeling neglected in some way. Like that doesn't mean that all their feelings are necessarily valid and true, but I would I would take that into account and see if there's positive ways we could attack this as well. Um, okay, lastly, uh our business and behind the scenes questions. How do you find time to build homeschool glue while homeschooling with a side job as well? And so I don't know if I've shared this on the podcast, but I, you know, I do homeschool glue. I homeschool my kids. I have a part-time job outside the home that's pretty flexible. It's it's only a few hours a week, but definitely is something that I have to make time for every week. And then I also do social media a couple hours a week for a friend's business. How do I do this? Um, I am very diligent about my systems and my time blocks. Um, I get up at 4 a.m. and I work until six, you know, minus Bible time and stuff like that. I have a daily quiet time where my kids entertain themselves and my toddler naps and I work. Um, I have a work day every week where my kids go to my parents' house for, you know, six or seven hours a day for that day, and I get a ton of work done. Um I say no to a lot of things. I I mean, this is how I'm why I'm consistent because I have to be to make everything work and to not get super overwhelmed. Um, I yeah, and I think I remind my kids that I do need to make money to be a homeschool mom. Like my husband's income does not cover everything. And so it is very important that if we want to continue this lifestyle, that mom needs to have that time to focus on her business. And I I think that's good for my kids to see, um, to know that I am sacrificing things to be able to homeschool. And we value their education so much that I'm willing to do that. And I think it's good for them to see that um not every part of my day fully revolves around them. Um, and they have they are able to, and it's good for them to find things on their own to do. Um, does that mean it's always easy? Absolutely not, but that's how I build it in. Systems are huge because they allow a lot of things to run kind of on autopilot. I don't have to worry about them until it's time to do them. Um, let's see. What made you start sharing this online in the first place? Um, so okay, I don't know how much I've shared about this, but I I have been in the online world since middle school. Like I was building websites for fun. Like I learned HTML, like I Googled how to do HTML before they were like you, I don't even think YouTube was I don't even know when YouTube started, but I graduated in 2007 and this was long before then, and so I don't think YouTube was a thing. I don't know. So I was Googling how to build websites, like I was coding by hand, I learned Photoshop, like I asked for Photoshop for my birthday, and we got like this copy that we thought was legit, but it was like a bootleg copy on eBay and all this thing. It worked. Um, and so I was learning all this stuff just for fun. Like I just thought it was fun, and I would put poetry up online, and then in college I started a blog, which led to like another blog, and I don't even know. Um, and then and I was talking about being a domestic person in college because I love to cook and like I just wanted to be a mom long before I ever became a mom. And so then I got married and I started a YouTube channel where I shared a lot about homemaking and planning and things like that. And then as I became a mom and ran a daycare, I shared about that. Um, and then I started homeschooling, and so I shared about that. And so I've kind of it's morphed over the years, but I think I just I just like sharing. I don't really know. Um, I just remember a few years like long before I became a mom, I was in college, it was summer break, and I was talking to a friend, and I remember thinking, I just really feel like I'm gonna be a jack of all trades. Like I'm gonna have a lot of different things that I do, and I'm not gonna have like a normal job. And I just had that sense. And I tried teaching for a few years and I did not love it. And I knew I wanted to be home, and then I ran a daycare and did all this on the side, and now it's slowly building. Um, still not a full-time income, but uh it is it's growing, and I'm very appreciative. I absolutely love being an entrepreneur, I love creating content, I love helping people and connecting. I am an introvert, but I love that I can connect with people and be myself without having to like be in front of a million people. Like I don't ever anticipate speaking in front of hundreds of people or anything like that because that's absolutely terrifying to me, and I think I would just die. Um, but I love that I can talk in my dining room on my microphone like I am right now and connect with people um in a different way. And it's it's a beautiful thing. And I think uh I have a passion for moms, and I have long before I even became a mom. It's just something I've always wanted to be. And I have a passion for education, hence why I was an English teacher. And um I have a huge love and passion for systems and manage managing time and productivity, but for the sake of being able to show up for the things that truly matter. Not that our house doesn't matter or the cleaning and the meal planning doesn't matter. They do, but the hearts of our kids matter. And if we are so bogged down by all of this extra stuff that not even extra, all of the requirements of being a mom, you know, if we're so burnt out by just the daily grind of all the things we have to do just to keep our kids alive, like we aren't accessing their hearts and we aren't shepherding them and we aren't um, you know, getting them to the point that really makes a difference. We're not helping bring them to salvation, we're not helping make the world a better place. And so I have a huge passion for this topic in in particular, and it's taken me quite a few years to really realize that's what I'm good at and can really help people with, especially in the homeschool world. Like, I don't think I I don't know of anybody actually specifically topic talking about this, and so I feel like it's a gifting that I have that God has called me to share with others from this little house in this little city in Minnesota, and um even though I'm introverted, like find a way to make a difference in this world. And so is it scary to put myself out there? Absolutely. Do I have support from everyone in my life? No. Um it's something I struggle with. I know there's people who have their own judgmental thoughts about what I do, and and that's definitely hard. But when you feel God leading you somewhere, you're gonna go. Um, or you're not, you're gonna go against it. And I have chosen to just go, even though um not everybody's the most supportive. I have amazing support. That's not to say like nobody's supportive. I have some amazing support in my life, but it is incredibly vulnerable and scary for me. Like, if nobody at all in my personal life could know what I'm doing, that would be amazing. Like it, and if nobody, if I could not show my face at all, that'd be great. But I have, and so I'm okay with it. I'm okay with looking like a silly person online. I'm okay with not being perfect and sharing my flaws. Um, if it means that other moms feel okay with that too, because there's just so much of this perfectionism online. And even when we're not trying to portray ourselves that way, it still comes across that way. And so I'm willing to um be vulnerable if it means, you know, helping other moms and helping support my family. I'm willing to do that. So, anyway, that's a little peeling back of the curtain if you stayed to listen to this point. Um, I will put links to whatever I said I would put links to in the show notes. I really appreciate you making it through this episode. Um, I want to come back and do this every you know few months because I think this is really fun to answer your specific questions. Uh, I hinted a little bit at something earlier coming up where I will be able to help people more one-on-one and also have um, you know, some resources and things to really truly help you um beyond what I already offer here for free. So look for that. I would love to say so much more, but I can't yet because it's not ready. But um stay tuned for that. Thank you so much for listening. Make sure you come back in a couple weeks. I am taking a little break this summer and just posting every other week, but I plan to be back every week in the fall, every Tuesday. So check back. And if if I'm not here, then check over on Instagram. I'm very active over there. So thank you so much for listening. I'll talk to you next time. Happy homeschooling. I pray this episode blessed you and gave you something useful that will make homeschooling easier or more fulfilling. If this episode made you feel seen or gave you one thing to change this week, would you please share it and leave a review? That's how more homeschool moms who are struggling with overwhelm can find something that actually helps. You can always find me on Instagram at homeschoolglue where we talk simple systems, rich learning, and the real version of homeschool life. You don't need to do it all, you just need systems that stick. I'll see you next week. Happy homeschooling.