The Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast
The Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast
Homeschooling isn't what you think it is, and it might actually be better. With Linsey Knerl
Every now and again I am lucky enough to talk to someone who educates me about a subject I know very little, or have preconceived ideas about.
This is one of those times.
I am very lucky to be joined by Linsey Knerl this week as we're talking home schooling.
Lynsey is the author of the Homeschool Hacks book" How to Give Your Kid a Great Education Without Losing Your Job (or Your Mind)" and she basically spent an hour explaining to me that homeschooling is soo much more than exhausted parents sitting around the kitchen table trying to drill knowledge into a child that doesn't want to learn. And that it's also not "crazy people telling their kids the dinosaurs never really existed".
She explains that homeschooling is not just for the Well-to-do, it can be done on a budget.
We're also talking about curriculums, the benefits of modern technology.
How you don't have to have all the knowledge yourself to homeschool, you just need the right network.
I learned a tremendous amount during this chat and I'm sure you too will gain a completely new take on home schooling.
And much, much more.
you can find Linsey online;
And, again, get her book here
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BUT, if you decide you want to do the rest of the program, after only 5 months of paying $10/£8 a month you now get FREE LIFE TIME ACCESS! That's $50 max spend, in case you were wondering.
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Playing us out this week; "Blessing or Cure" by Oliver Penny
Hey, welcome to the Healthy Postnatal Body Podcast with your postnatal expert, your very ill postnatal expert, peter Lap. That, as always, will be me. This is a podcast for the 16th of March 2025. And I, when I was healthy, when I was still fit as a fiddle, I spoke to Lindsay Knerl about homeschooling. She's an author of something called Homeschooling Hacks, a book called Homeschooling Hacks how to give your kid a great education without losing your job or your mind, and and this is one of those things that I knew nothing about homeschooling I always think, thought just a bit of a weird american-y kind of thing, and after this conversation, I I gotta tell you, if you do it the way Lindsay does it, I'm kind of sold. I'm convinced that you can get a really superb probably better education out there. So this is one of those. I had to change my mind a little bit and I'm very happy that I spoke to Lindsay and I'm sure you'll be delighted for listening to it. So, without further ado, here we go. So why homeschooling? Isn't that a lot of work?
Linsey:Yes, it is a lot of work, but what I find is most things that are good and that add a lot of value to my life tend to be a little bit more difficult, kind of the road less traveled and all that kind of the philosophical view.
Linsey:I think the other thing is just that there are two camps of families. There's the families that come to it out of a limitation of any other options. You know they've tried everything else and they just need to either think about the health, the safety you know certain issues there, so it's not really a matter of is it difficult? But it's, what choice do we have? And then you have another segment of homeschoolers who kind of come to it from a more idealistic. You know these are the things we see education being, and homeschooling seems to be the most flexible or customizable way to get us there. Neither way is better and they're both difficult, but I think you just have to have something strong enough to push you through those little daily challenges that you have, much like parenting or marriage or starting a business or any of those lofty things that grown-ups do all the time that maybe we don't think about the whys until we're well into it, and by then it's too late.
Peter:That's definitely definitely true, so have you found that because obviously, like you said, a lot of just sometimes this is forced upon you almost, and that's definitely what we found during the pandemic, right that everybody, at least in the uk, schools were just closed so you weren't going anywhere, so you had to, you had to do the homeschooling bit, um, even though there was a bit of guidance from school. So have you found that there's been a huge uptake since the pandemic of just people just saying now my kids aren't going back to school because this actually works better for us?
Linsey:oh, definitely. Um, you know, I think there's again a couple of reasons for that. One, things have gotten a little contentious in the united states, especially politically. Um, parents, for one reason or another, feel like um having their family's ideals and values instilled in their children, or maybe their definition of education or maybe it's just that schools have gotten kind of political or they're just they don't want any of that right?
Linsey:So that's one reason. The other reason is we just have so many new options for technology-based learning small, almost like village schools. They're called co-ops. I don't know if you have those where you are, but it's just like-minded parents, maybe with some higher ed experience, getting together. A lot of times they're ran by former retired teachers and they just said you know, let's get back to that one school room model that we had kind of in the earlier days and see if we can't make a go of it that way, and so I think that that is kind of allowed the numbers to grow. I did read a stat. I don't know if I believe it, I feel like it's a little ridiculous, but the claims are that by 2030, like one in three students will be in the United States educated through one of these alternative models. That feels like a stretch for me, but you know it's moving at locomotive speed here, so it's, it's, it's a possibility. I won't, I won't doubt anything at this point.
Peter:Yeah, no, those, those stats, they, they come out regularly and I can, I don't know. By 2030, the UK will be carbon neutral Never happens. The China will overtake the US as the world's largest economy. I think we're supposed to have hit that 20 times already. Again, never happens. It's always based on exponential growth, right? If this trend keeps up as it is now, then by 2030, xyz will happen, and usually the trend slows down at a certain point. That's kind of how it goes.
Peter:So, yeah, we don't have the politicization of the school curriculum as much as you have in the States. So I think most of my listeners are UK and US based. So, guys, we're going to split up a little bit here, so we don't have that much of an issue. But the interesting question then is, of course so where do you start? When you're thinking, okay, homeschooling is it? Do you start with the curriculum? What do you want your kids to learn? Or is there, I'm guessing, in the States you have a curriculum you have to teach to, or at least a base curriculum that has to be, that has to be followed, some sort right?
Linsey:actually, you know it's state-based. So, lovely america. We've got 50 states, 50 rules, um, depending on where you live. You know some of our states are more um I, rigorous and you have to show more things to the state to demonstrate that you're moving forward. Other states are very much, you know. We trust you to figure it out and then whatever consequences come of it.
Linsey:I know that our literacy rate is not potentially, you know it's our lowest. So I think a lot of parents are like, yeah, well, can't do worse than some of the schools with like an 80% failing literacy rate. But I know that we have really encouraged parents to bring your student home and spend some time with them first, because you don't know your child maybe as well if they've been in school 8 to 12 hours a day and so you haven't had a chance to hear some of the struggles they've had or maybe goals they've set for themselves in their own words, and that can take some time to come out. The other thing is there's this emphasis on de-schooling. It's a new version of the word, but it basically is like letting kids decompress a little, especially if you brought them out of a situation where there were some stressors they might just need like almost a little sabbatical to kind of get into a mindset where they're ready to try some things again, and every family that that's different. It could be a week, it could be a month, might be a great time to take a vacation and visit a great aunt on the other side of the country. You know, whatever you decide and then you do want to start looking at curriculum options. But because we have hundreds, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of options here, it can be really daunting and it can be very expensive to just try one, pull the trigger, spend hundreds to thousands of dollars and then find out it doesn't work.
Linsey:So I really encourage parents to pick one subject that might be their student's favorite subject, that they've already demonstrated some success and proficiency in, and start with that they have some confidence. Pick a curriculum that's kind of well-liked and accepted in the parent group that shares the same values as you. So for some you might want a faith-based education, for others you don't. So find the parents that match your values and ask them what have you liked? A lot of curriculum providers will give you some free samples, whether that's online access to a course or some printables, so you can kind of get a feel for what it's like and try it for a time.
Linsey:But yeah, I would start with the one course and then, after a week or two, blend in another and then another until after about six weeks or so you're kind of back on track with a three to five subject curriculum and you know you're going to you, you're gonna make some changes as you go. Parents are notorious for just end of the year saying we hated that, that didn't work, let's try something else. And kids are pretty flexible, you know. Think about the public school system. They have a new teacher every year with a different personality and a different style. And so what consistency maybe you don't provide in curriculum at the onset. You can provide with community and just the relationships that you have with, with you teaching or maybe finding some, some tutors to help.
Peter:Yeah, cause that's an excellent point when you talk about the community element of it, cause I think for a lot of people listening to this, the idea of homeschooling, especially people of certain generation, as in and it always comes back to me, right, 50 year olds, right? So people of a certain age they think of homeschooling as you as a parent, child at, say, the kitchen table or something like that, and that's it. There is no community element there other than you tell your kid to read the book. But I guess there's a lot more to it than that these days.
Linsey:Absolutely and almost to like a detriment. I have a homeschool family who they have many children, I think, 11 or so. They each are all in different activities and the parents were kind of lamenting that you know I haven't had a day at home with my family in probably 20 some days, so we can get overscheduled very easily and there's always a new activity, a new company, a new service, a new, I guess, offering specifically to homeschoolers, trying to capture that audience, kind of pulling us in the direction of oh look, we have homeschool vocal and we have homeschool debate and we have homeschool basketball and we have, you know, there are just as many activities and learning opportunities for homeschoolers as there are for, you know, the larger student population and it can be a little hard to kind of actually push that away and say, no, we're going to stay home and just kind of like clean the house and take care of ourselves and rest and, you know, hang out with the cat, whatever. We need that right. Get back to to the basics, I guess sure so.
Peter:So do you then find that the the school day, so to speak? Because you know some of my clients and the kids in private schools, some go to state schools and they start at half past eight in the morning, they finish at four. The private schools tend to finish a lot later because they're like boarding type schools, so they tend to finish at seven, eight o'clock at night, and all of a sudden. So they're long, long days. Do you find that almost your days are shorter just because you control the curriculum so much and you set the pace? You know?
Linsey:I feel like it should be shorter. But then we have my family who really like to like sit around the table. It's very you know, they do their online courses or they go to their, their workshops or things throughout the week. But we have a lot of this like oxford style tell me what you've learned. Checking for understanding that happens over the kitchen table, why we eat. Or you know we'll be watching a tv show together. We pause it. We're like you know, was this historical figure? Is this really how tv is portraying it? We'll go, we'll search, we'll get some books. It's this curiosity that's built into everything that I find happens a lot with homeschoolers not all and it makes your days actually a lot longer, especially if you have teenagers. But it's just this continual. There's not like a hard stop where you're like school's over for the day.
Linsey:Maybe they're done with, like their worksheets, or they're done with their reading. But I'll often find a child you know, designing something on their computer and in a CAD software, another one is polishing rocks, or one has decided to prune trees or whatever. They find their little interests, that are um little passions for them, and they carry that on through the day and they're continually asking you for things and it just never really shuts off. I think that happens in curious families and maybe not all families kind of live that value. But if you don't start out that way, I feel like you often get that way after a certain amount of time. So maybe your official schoolwork only takes three to four hours a day, but it's kind of at least in our family stretched throughout the day and kind of broken up with a lot of different activities and projects and conversations. It's very relational.
Peter:Yeah, cool, they see, that sounds awesome. Because it sounds like. In that situation I remember in the olden days, so to speak, when I was growing up, if I didn't know a word, I said, yeah, go ahead, there's a dictionary, go find it. And you had to physically grab a dictionary, because I'm not old, right. The Internet just wasn't a thing, so you couldn't Google the meaning of a word, meaning of of of a word. Um, and my parents are very much. I can never quite tell, but they just didn't know. I couldn't be bothered telling me or what they thought it was a good idea if I learned to look things up for myself. But it was one of the three. Let's assume the last one. Let's be generous and and because that created an understanding of that especially like what, what you said with regards to what you're watching.
Peter:When you're watching television shows, historical figures, when you're watching the news and all that type of stuff, don't just believe what you see or what you're told. Look information up for yourself and then come to some sort of conclusion. And it sounds like for your kids and your family that sounds like the ideal sort of scenario, because they're curious enough. So do you find that the kids that currently don't have that. So they sit in schools and I'll be very for any teachers listening and I know there's some I'll be very harsh here for a little bit and then just say they don't just sit there like little worker drones as in these. Guys will be good accountants one day. Right, they know two plus two is four. They'll stick to the rules and they do what they're told and they're nine to five in it and all that sort of stuff. They're not raised in that way at all. Do you find that kids that tend to be like that a little bit turn into the curious kind when they're, let's say, encouraged to go in that direction, when you're homeschooling them?
Linsey:yeah, and I think it's a little uncomfortable and I think, uh, parents have a hard time. You know, I say this after homeschooling.
Linsey:I'm 46, so when you say 50, I'm just like you're my husband's age like that's not old, um, but you know, the way I feel about it now is a lot different than I felt 20 years ago when we started. You know, I was very worried that my kids were going to turn out to not know all the things they needed to know, and I was very. My curriculum was very precious and my choices were very precious. My choices were very precious and now I have. You know, kids have graduated college and they have very fruitful, lovely careers and you know they're succeeding in the things that I had hoped for them, not because of my curriculum, but often just in spite of what I tried to do, because we had more of those life skills that helped you navigate.
Linsey:I will say that we, especially with our kids, with the schoolwork. They love their electronics. You know it's a fight. It's a fight to be like no more video games, no more. You know TikTok or whatever it is. It's just natural I struggle, we all struggle, but I think it's not a matter of just get off your phones. Here's some books. Go crazy. Maybe we'll seek out something on YouTube and say, wow, look at this guy, he's showing you how to draw. Or look at this guy, he's showing you how to cut wood with a chainsaw. I mean there's so many interesting things online and then taking that that my kids would watch for hours and bring it back into some real world application, reading a book about it or going and finding someone in the community who can teach them. It's kind of pulling it offline and I find all children are curious. They just don't know how to pull that into a more personal, I guess, use or a way that it touches their physical world. And that's kind of the challenge with this generation.
Peter:Yeah, sure, because I mean, the internet is amazing. Right, it just is. But it's also Well. I know I struggle to control my YouTube use. Sometimes I have things to do, but also I have YouTube and there's hours and hours of nice short clips. So it's very easy to get sucked into the, to move away from the, say, useful YouTube channels and then to spend a lot of time on the more, just sit there consuming YouTube type channels. And the same goes for all social media. Um, social media. So do you find that the? Do you? Because I'm guessing that if, if you're homeschooling, you spend more time. The kids spend more time looking at a computer screen of some sort than they would do in a normal school, because surely most of you can't be buying all the books all the time, right, you can't have a huge library around the corner, so you need to use a computer a little bit more.
Linsey:Well, you're asking the wrong person probably because, we have a bit of a book problem, but I don't know that it's a problem. I will say American schools are very attached to their Chromebooks, so a lot of the school's program delivery, assignments, all that have to come through. And I've seen some school systems use computers for a lot more than what I would feel comfortable with, and we also have some schools that don't hardly use them at all. We do a mix of some online. You know, I like to find teachers for my children that are passionate about what they're teaching. I am a writer by trade, so I handle a lot of the composition, the grammar, all that. But I'm also a working parent and so I try to find courses for my children that are taught by enthusiastic masters in their field, because it's a privilege to be able to do so. So why would I not? And that gets them a couple hours of computer time, but then the rest is largely book based.
Linsey:And, um, like, my kids had a debate one year. They had to. The resolution was rationalism versus empiricism, and these are two terms I was not very familiar with. And they got online and they googled and they asked ai and they watched a bunch of youtube videos and in the end the kids that won their cases won because I happen to have, like, the Kant dictionary and some Kierkegaard. You know, it's just I'm a book fanatic. I may never read someone, but if I find it interesting I'll buy it, and so we are one of those lucky families with more books than you know wall space, and so my kids do have a rich library. They need something. I'll go on eBay and buy it or I will get the ebook copy. So I'm probably the exception. But I think that as you start to do that more, your increase of love for literature and books and I would say first person accounts and original sources really starts to grow and you begin to appreciate that. And so where you get your information largely changes over time too.
Peter:Well, because the bit here that sounds amazing is the enthusiastic school teacher, because I mean, I went to, obviously I went to school and I don't know I had one teacher who cared on any level about the subject they were teaching and everybody else was like a jaded cop waiting for their retirement, yeah, that type of thing. And that lasted until well into uni. Because at university, even then, you don't necessarily find um, find enthusiastic teachers. You just get whomever you're assigned to, um or for whatever reason. So that definitely sounds, that definitely sounds nice.
Peter:So, um, how do you then deal with the, the knowledge gap, so to speak? Because I don't know about you. But when I see a 12 year old, I Because I don't know about you, but when I see a 12-year-old, I mean I do know about you because you'd be better at this than I am now, but when I see a 12-year-old doing maths, I'm already lost, because the maths they learn now is different from the way I used to do it. It's probably more advanced than this stuff and I hated it as a subject, and therefore do you know what I mean. So how do you, how do you deal with that?
Linsey:yeah. So actually this is very, very real for me. Um, I did all that math, but I don't know how and I don't remember it. Um, and my kids do like a video base where they watch a video and then they, they do their math and it's very kind of self-led. But they always come to me with like I don't know what I did wrong. Here I can kind of watch the lesson and figure it out.
Linsey:My husband is more the mathematician in the family, but we also have within our homeschool groups kind of some parents that we've identified as being able to kind of answer those questions like oh, if you have a math question, send it to me, I'm available. There are some AI tools that are not terrible where you can ask it a question, say, hey, you know this was supposed to be the answer. I came up with this here. You know you can take pictures. Some of the tools that are available for students with learning disabilities are very high tech. You can take a picture of a problem and it can kind of walk you through. The other thing is just older siblings. So we kind of forget that in college, all those resource teachers or the tutoring centers are just staffed by students that are a little bit older.
Linsey:And so when we say, well, it has to be a grown-up that solves this problem. If there's a student that has been successful just a year or two prior in that subject, it's fresh in their mind. They remember how they got there. They're often very, very, very good at teaching in a way that another student would understand. They're approachable, they don't come off as better than, and they kind of can build this rapport. So we really do encourage older students teaching and tutoring younger students, if not in your own family, then within the community.
Peter:Yeah, no, that makes sense, because I think that is a question that's on a lot of people's minds, as in I just I don't know. And I saw this, I saw this a lot during the pandemic. I had one or two clients that were really engaged with with um, with their kids, educations, and, like I said, sitting at the dinner table, couple of kids uh, one in the corner, one in the other corner and the parent in between struggling to keep up because they, they did know, and I think what you were talking about, that community element, wasn't there at the time. I'm not quite sure what the teachers are doing, other than because everybody was really everybody from, let's say, the established or conventional schooling system was very much not used to having to do things via Zoom Right, and I think your community was probably much, much more ready for that.
Peter:So the thing is, you're already using all that type of stuff, but I did see a lot of my kids sitting at the table going, you know, three times five is 13. It's not 13, it's 15. Why is it 15? And they just didn't get it. And that's what I was like to do with Boston. Not that simple, but it's phenomenal. So how do you then deal with that as a parent, because there's only one or two ways that I can think of how to explain it and after a while I'm starting to lose my patience a little bit, even if I don't want to lose my patience. Do you know what I mean? So how do you find out?
Linsey:Well, I actually went to college to be a teacher and after so many classes in it I realized I don't want to teach other people's children, and part of that was classroom management and trying to figure out how to communicate, I think, with your own children, you know. Okay, simplifying this is that most homeschool problems are parenting problems. Right, like most classroom problems are not learning problems, they're classroom management problems or problems with getting the parent involved. They're relational. So I don't, you know, I can't say here's how you connect with your child in a way where you have some meaningful dialogue.
Linsey:It's very similar with teaching them anything where they think they know more than you, or they're frustrated, or they don't want to listen, whether that's driving or how to clean up their room or any of these things, I think, because it's math, we feel ill-qualified. But if it's three times five is 15, you're more than most parents are more than qualified. So now it's a matter of how do I teach them this important thing in a way that doesn't frustrate them and cause um friction? And you would handle it the same way you would handle don't hit, don't bite, we don't do this, we don't do that, um and you would parent your way through it, um, but. But some parents are not, are not able to even handle those issues, and those are the parents that homeschooling would be difficult, if not maybe even ill-advised for okay.
Peter:So if you can't do that, send your kid to school or have someone help you. Yeah, have a professional deal with it. That makes that makes sense, right? It's always like, as I always say, I'm the useful idiot on this thing. I ask stupid questions and people like yourself can explain to me. Yeah, pete, you don't have time?
Linsey:for your kids.
Peter:You don't have time for your kids, Don't homeschool them, Because this is an interesting one. So you mentioned that and this kind of ties in with what we discussed earlier. You mentioned that in your family the curiosity almost never stops, and there's no hard stop. But how do you separate home mom from teacher mom, so to speak? How do you go about that?
Linsey:Or is it?
Linsey:just the same person yeah, it's the same way I separate, uh, business mom from home, mom from wife from I mean, you know, I try to be present whatever activity it is that I'm doing, which can be very hard, and try to do the best I can at that that I'm working on. That's right in front of me and I have a lot of lists I make. I'm a list obsessed. I've got apps with today. I think I've got like 32 things I put everything from like make sure kid changes cat box hug said kid that loves hugs. I mean, I am very much.
Linsey:If it's not in front of me it's hard for me to keep track of. So I know the systems that I need to be able to function in all of my different roles. But I think that, just as you wouldn't say and that's again, homeschooling is parenting you wouldn't say, well, I'm not a parent. After 5pm, go to someone else with your problems. You probably wouldn't say the same for, like mom, I don't know what this word means, can you help me? Well, it's seven o'clock and I'm off the clock. Yeah.
Peter:Yeah.
Linsey:So you know and we've we've lived in a society where homework has been a kind of a staple for a long, long time and I don't know, do you have rules at home, kind of a staple for a long, long time? And I don't know, do you have rules at home? I've never sent my kids to like a regular school, so I don't know, do you have rules for like, don't bring me your homework after?
Peter:eight. No, but what I do find is that for a lot of parents that send their kids to a conventional school kid comes home and say five o'clock, random time. Five o'clock, they have a bit of time to themselves. They, five o'clock, random time. Five o'clock, they have a bit of time to themselves. They have a meal, then they go and do their homework. And they do find, with a lot of the doing the homework is almost a solitary activity, because the much more so than when I was growing up it's that the child is doing it by themselves in some sort of effort to create a level of independence. Do you know what I mean? Yes, on that, obviously they're clearly positive. But I'm guessing as a homeschooler you're much more involved in that element because you're so involved during the day, do you know what I mean? So the kids are much more used to coming to you it did.
Linsey:You know, it depends on how you define your role as a homeschooler, and this is kind of where I say you know homeschooling can be you as the teacher, the administrator, you know both. It could be you as just the administrator you bring in tutors or you do online or you do co-ops. Um, it could be you, as I see myself more as a curator, I guess I I kind of go out and I find the things that match my children's passions and I vet them and I bring them in and I kind of tie them all together Like a museum creator, right.
Linsey:I want to create this aesthetic or this thing. And if you're just an administrator, there may be less of that, because you're not the person teaching the subject, so you don't know anything about it and you can just say ask your teacher in the next class, and they have that channel to do that.
Linsey:So you know if you're following that kind of early nineties model where the mom buys the same books that they teach at the private schools and you bring it home and you sit down with your little dining room whiteboard and you teach them all five subjects where you have to stay up every night learning what you're going to teach the next day. That's, that's possible and I, you know, I applaud the people who did that because they they paved the way for us to do what we're doing now, but that's very difficult. I have no interest in doing that and I don't know that that would be best for my family. So there's a wide range of flexibility and how far you go from that older model to the newer model where the kid is getting all their instruction elsewhere and you're just checking it and checking grades and making sure they're not failing and then you pay the bill kind of like a private school situation.
Peter:Yeah, see, because that sounds good, that first model that 1990s. See this shows you how old I am. Model that that 1990s. See this shows you how old I am. Because when you say 1990s, because that is my, my initial reaction of I homeschool my kids, is that right that? That's the image I have usually encouraged by television shows where a kid got suspended from school and mom has to teach him.
Peter:Teach him for a week, malcolm in the middle style so yeah, that's another way to show my age, but that that's that is what I picture when I see homeschooling. When you're talking about like really modern day homeschooling where you're talking, um, that you can say, but the one of the options is that you just say, no, we've tutors for absolutely everything. Or you're working with people for almost almost everything, and then you are still the, the parent that the child can come to for the occasional question, but you're not the main source of information.
Linsey:Yeah, and you're still responsible. And you know I find too that as they age, you know, when they're very, very tiny, we taught them to read. Sure, when they were very tiny we got out the workbooks and we taught them. But little tiny children shouldn't be in school for eight hours. Yeah, and so the burden was light because you know you're teaching things you know very well, it doesn't take very long. It's mostly play at that age. Play at that age when I was recovering with each of my C-sections, with my little ones. I did not have time or space or energy to do much and we would just snuggle up on the couch and read really good books together. That looks different than what a high schooler needs, who wants to maybe be an engineer and needs calculus too. So expectations change as they grow. I would not want to be at the kitchen table teaching calculus and I couldn't and I wouldn't pretend to yeah, no, then that's a good point.
Peter:So when you're then talking about the, the tutors and all that sort of stuff, does it then not become an expensive way of of educating your kid where? What? What are the? Do you find there's a way to to homeschool on a on a budget, so to speak?
Linsey:yes, and you know obviously the cheapest. You know we kind of have this cheap, fast, good. I don't know if you've heard that we're like three table legs.
Linsey:You get two of them, but you don't usually get three. We kind of opt for good, easy. That means it's not going to be cheap. We might spend less than the average family and something I tend to spend more in activities and courses that we really value and courses that we really value. So I will have a debate coach, teach my children, or I'll have a. You know, I'll take courses in literature, philosophy for the kids that are interested in that.
Linsey:Not every kid gets the same because they don't all have the same paths and you can kind of figure that out. But you know there are ways to do. It's like you shop for groceries. A lot of the places we buy courses from have buy one, get one on Black Friday or student discounts for people in the same family. Or we will come together as a homeschool group and try to get a bulk discount on a piece of software where we can have 20 kids enroll. So there's a way to kind of hack it from, almost like couponing. And the other way is just to understand that there's a cost to sending your child to school. That's maybe not hard currency, but you're taking time to get them in the car and drive them there and wait in the line and do this, and they'll say we have to have this craft and this snack and this. They're asking you to spend money throughout the year as well Uniforms or sports supplies or whatever that may be. So it's not free to send your kid to a public school.
Linsey:We just kind of pretend like it is. And you know you can do it for a lot less if you borrow books from libraries. We we find that you know, the average, I think, is $600 a student in the U? S. That's very high for some people and then for others it's very, very low. And that's why it's an average, because if you lop off the ends I don't know that there's anybody right there in the middle your means are obviously going to determine it, but I wouldn't let cost unless earning power is a concern, obviously not going to work Earning power outside of that, which is real but not what we're talking about. You could do it for very little, especially in the young, young, young years. You should be spending almost nothing for first through fifth grade.
Peter:Yeah, because, as one of my favorite comedians always used to say, you're just babysitting really first and fifth grade, aren't you? You're not really teaching much. I know I'm going to get emails about that. I shouldn't have said that, but I thought it was funny, so I will stick with it and I believe this. So how useful do you find for instance, I know a lot of.
Peter:When you're talking about tutoring and you're talking about, like the, finding good teachers, how useful do you find sites like I don't know masterclass or something like that? How useful do they tie in with what you could be doing? If you say your child is interested in engineering, would you personally, or are you like? No, there are proper sites aimed at children rather than you know, wannabe adults. Oh, this looks like fun. I'll never use it. But do you know what I mean? Basically, masterclass, because I consider it a little bit like the like like people buy an exercise bike, right, it's great for a week, and then it just gathers clothes in the corner and people use masterclass. Do you find that it's like that? Did you say no, but get something that is really aimed at teaching kids.
Linsey:Both. So I I'm one of those that had the masterclass for two years, and I just forgot I had it till my credit card got charged Right.
Linsey:Which is which is a strong marketing game they have there. I did when we had it. I let my kids, I think I looked through all of them and I you know they're teenagers there wasn't anything there I would be really concerned about and I said you know, we have this, take a look. You know, some of the kids kind of dabbled with the classes, much like I had, and they they realized, oh, game theory is interesting. I might want to learn more about this from you know.
Linsey:In a more formal setting, I had a child that you know was doing some vocal lessons at the time and that got us to go and check out a real homeschool vocal program with a college professor that taught the vocal techniques. I think it's a really great way to try things and see what your child is interested in before you go and spend the money, versus spending the money and trying it out and realizing your kid really hates chess. You know, that's, that's how I see it. And then you know Duolingo is perfect example of an app that you can do all the lessons and still not be able to speak a language.
Linsey:But it tells you with, if you even can. You know, I took Danish in high school or college. In high school and my family was Danish and some people just cannot get all the little sounds of the Danish language and that's a terrible thing to know after you spend a bunch of money on a real life teacher. So try the app and see if you even have a capacity or an interest for it.
Peter:Um, it's a really good way just to refine your interests, I think I see, because that's that's a really interesting way to do it, because that obviously it's a good way to keep costs down.
Peter:Right, it's the the the not just randomly throwing money at the problem in the hope that something sticks, but to actually go and and curate this and and, like you mentioned earlier, sit around, sit around the table and actually ask the child whether it's something they're genuinely interested in, before you proceed with spending six months, six, nine months or a year teaching them something that actually you know it's not directly useful, but it's mainly just something they're not actually that bothered about. Because, like you said, the the great benefit of homeschooling is that it just affords you much more flexibility, right? So how, then? The last one, that is obvious, seems obvious to me how do you keep your kids socialized when you know homeschooling again, I have that 1990s idea, and you already said that it's not like that anymore, but it's different being homeschooled than surely than it is sitting in the classroom with 30, 31 kids, however many there are. How do you make sure they still see people regularly?
Linsey:Yeah, well, it's definitely different, because my kids were just so, I guess, appalled when they learned that you had to raise your hand and ask permission to go to the bathroom the first time. They were in like a larger learning setting. That's when I realized, oh, what we're doing here is very different In a good way, but also in a way of like there's a little bit of an understanding gap of how the rest of the world works. I wouldn't say it's antisocial so much as it is just different. I know that once my kids get out into the world to work or even in college, they tend to be more social and they have less of a perception of age gap or age differentiation.
Linsey:When my children first went to a camp with a lot of other kids that were not homeschooled, I taught them the kids are going to ask you two things. They're going to ask you how old are you, right? And they're going to ask you where you go to school. That and they said that's weird. Why would they do that? And I said because this is how kids figure out who their their peers are. They are, they, they form peer groups by age in school kind of tells them like where you're from or like what your environment is, and so we don't have that because we have mixed groups, different ages, you're you're in a class based on ability or interest instead of age, so we have classes with kids 13 to 19 together working together.
Linsey:That can seem weird and antisocial. I'm finding it makes kids especially social. So one of the things I tell parents is find a mixed age group for your children to interact with. They'll learn how to be gentle with the younger children. They'll learn how to kind of, I guess, be more bold when talking to adults.
Linsey:That's the best thing that you can do Aside from you know, pick a sport, pick an activity, go to a co-op one time a week, I think if you don't do anything else, being in some ongoing mixed age group, whether it's a learning or social or activity based, kind of fills in a lot of those gaps that we've maybe seen from and someone that's not your siblings and your, your parents right, because you need to learn how to broach sensitive subjects with other students and not talk about politics with people you just met, all of these pleasant things that we used to kind of do in the world before the internet, um, that actually make you more social and then just understand some kids are not especially social. Um, if there's a weird homeschool kid, that might have just been a weird public school kid oh of course, but you're noticing it now.
Linsey:Um, because he's homeschooled right and we give kind of a hard time yeah, no, no, that is very true.
Peter:I mean everybody knows the kid because everybody went to school with that kid, right?
Peter:it is uh, it's nothing whatsoever.
Peter:I mean some, some, some people are just a bit more awkward in in social settings, just for some reason. The idea it's interesting that you mentioned because I never considered that Indeed kids, especially in the UK, because the UK is very different from what we have really in the UK, because I'm Dutch originally and we have very strong, we have very strong ties, whereas in the UK everything is separated socioeconomically. Everything in the UK, especially private schools and all that. The mayor's kid doesn't go to school with the carpenter's kid. They just don't. They go to private school so they only learn to hang out with people of the same socioeconomic background and the same five friends they make when they're eight years old are the friends that they have until they're 30, 40 years old, if they never leave the town that they grow up in and all that sort of thing. And I think it's interesting you said that for homeschooling that kind of falls away then, where you actually get much more used to dealing with people from different backgrounds and different age groups and all that sort of stuff.
Linsey:so in a way you're much more comfortable functioning in a normal society yeah, you know, there are some some ways you can price certain families out of certain things, right, you, you have some some activities that are just, you know, my kids aren't going to do, um, nascar racing. We can't afford something like that, right? So there's some some ways to make sure that your children only associate with other people of means. But that will happen, um, that will happen regardless of your schooling model, um, and I think, and I think too, it doesn't always come up in social circles in the same way as far as, like, what kids are wearing or you know, because they're kind of creating their own path anyway, and so I think they feel a little more comfortable doing their own thing.
Linsey:You know, you get in a group and you can find the two, the two kids that, like Minecraft, will find each other within a minute. You know, it's just kind of this, this radar that they, they, they pick up from children who who, like similar interests, have a similar energy, have a similar personality. You know, they, they, they, they. Almost because there are no rules on who you can and can't hang out with, you kind of start to connect with people over different connecting points than how much you make or where you're from, or that sort of thing.
Peter:All the boring stuff, Okay. So final question, because this is fascinating to me. This is fascinating to me. So do you then find that there is less peer pressure amongst homeschool kids than there would be? And I'm not saying there isn't any peer pressure, I'm just saying do you find that there is less than you would say to kids that hang out in a conventional school all day?
Linsey:You know it's a different peer pressure. I will say that you know, if you're you're have a high achieving student and you're putting them in a group with a lot of their high achieving students and they're all taking college classes in high school and they're, all you know, on the fast track to STEM degrees and they're you know, comparing ACT scores and having tutors, you know there's there's that element of it. I think there's. There could be more pressure, but it's just on a like a micro scale, cause you you see that in public and private schools too, and I think you know you know kids all feel pressure. You know we didn't do dating in high school just because we were like it's an, I told my kids it's another activity, it's like a 40 hour a week job and if you have time for that, and I just said, you know I don't have time for that um.
Linsey:So you know, we just we didn't push that. But, um, you know, kids get around, we have homeschool proms and we have homeschool valentine's day parties and kids feel the pressure like, oh, should I be dating or should I have a girlfriend? So there's that natural coming of age stuff that happens um, and you don't know what kids are are pressuring each other to do within that. But there's definitely not a an element of you know, pressure for the sake of pressure. Um, all the kids are doing this and we don't know why. Yeah, exactly.
Peter:Exactly, that's the I have to buy these trainers I have to buy, because everybody in my school, everybody in my class, has a new iPhone 12. I need the iPhone 12. If you're homeschooling, you don't know what. You have an iPhone 10 or 12. Do you know what I mean? And that is because I know for a lot of people, a lot of my clients, that is huge. That is one of the biggest struggle I find that parents have with their kids is the peer pressure element of it.
Peter:Yeah, it's different, it sounds like this is a good way around it.
Linsey:Yeah, it's different but it's it's and you know. And then when they get into the call in college setting they'll see all that kind of element. But the hope is that you know you're not shielding your child from things. It's not a you know you're not trying to put them in a bubble. You're trying to let them safely fail throughout their teenage years so that when they get into adult settings they can handle it and not have their mental health or their physical health be affected in such a way.
Peter:Yeah, exactly. So by the time they go to college or uni or something, they're already a semi fully formed, they know what they like, they know what they care about, because when I was 10, 11, 12, I had no idea. I just cared about the things that my friends cared about. Do you know what I mean Exactly? And then I had to go home and I need a new bike because my bike is blue and red bikes are cool this year. Do you know that type of thing? And if you've never experienced that at that level, then by the time you get to uni or college, whatever you want to call it, I suppose okay, it might take some getting used to, but at least you're already more aware of where you as an individual are, rather than you as a part of the collective, so to speak.
Linsey:Yeah, the formation looks very different. I think yeah.
Peter:I see now that to me, that's the big selling point. To be fair, that sounds amazing to me. Cool, we've covered quite a lot of ground. Was there anything else that you wanted to touch on that you're like. You completely missed this. You jackass.
Linsey:No, no, it's interesting. You've asked me more thoughtful questions than I've gotten in a long time and I don't know if it's it's you know the, the cultural difference. If it's just you know, you didn't. Your exposure to it's been different, but I think that you know if anybody's thinking about it. You definitely want to connect with other parents who are, you know, doing it, but make sure you seek out parents who share your values, because there is, just as there's, a different religion and political party and and philosophy you know, hundreds of different variations.
Linsey:Um such there is also with homeschooling, and so you don't want to try to get into a facebook group with beginning homeschoolers who don't believe in I don't know. Maybe they they don't believe in I don't know. Maybe they don't believe in reading certain books or they don't believe in you know certain, and then you don't find the curriculum or the solutions you're looking for. There's so much choice out there. It can often be a little too much at times, but shared values, I think, is a really good way to start, and then, as you kind of find your footing, you can explore other things and meet up with other parents that don't maybe agree the same way with you on certain things. But you'll at least not get into a curriculum and realize, oh, we don't believe this or it's lacking this or it's not literature rich or whatever it is that you want to find.
Peter:Yeah, you don't want to end up doing some sort of thing where they go ah, dinosaurs, never existed, that type of thing. It's really difficult to get a STEM degree if you believe that, by the way. So you know if your kid wants one, that's probably not where you want to be. I take it Homeschool Hacks. Your book kind of covers that.
Linsey:Yeah, it's a lot of what we talked about today with just like the mindset and spelling, some of the myths, and I did interview quite a few parents from different walks of life.
Linsey:We have a military family and a family that owns a business and just some of the different perspectives Also acknowledge the work situation, because most families do need two incomes or more depending on you, know where you live and you know my husband and I did shift work and and shared our time home with the children when we were first were married, so that we can make sure we both worked and yet our children were able to be home with us. So there's just some examples that might give parents a little inspiration on how to engineer that for their own lives.
Peter:Yeah, I think that's a good idea, like you said, just getting some because, like you said, it's, it's, it sounds like it could be massively overwhelming. When you think about it, you think it's a good idea, it seems a good idea, but then you have the internet and then you have to look for stuff. And looking for stuff on the internet is tricky because every search, google will give you 125,000 pages of answers. So I always like to say you know, read something that is written by someone that has some experience, like yourself, that doesn't come at this from a from a uh, a strong, uh, ideological angle, as in oh, education sucks, real work for the man, like that type of thing. But it just goes, listen, this is for you. These are some of the considerations you might want to want to throw out, so that's yeah it's a very personal choice, you know it's.
Linsey:I think that's what there's a one size fits all. And homeschooling isn't going to be right for everyone and it's definitely not going to look the same from one family to the next. And that's good individualism and just, you know, finding out how you want your family to look in the day to day. That's only you can answer those questions, yeah no, absolutely Couldn't agree more, more.
Peter:And on that happy note, I will press stop record here. And press stop record is exactly what I did, as I always do. Uh, thanks very much to lindsey for coming on like I said, that was one of those conversations, that that was a bit of an eye-opener for me, because I'm not at all familiar with the world of homeschooling beyond what everybody had to do during covid, during lockdown and the massive shower of doo-doo that turned into for a lot of people. And you know I think she has a really good point that there is so much. The technological advances that we have are now such that the wealth of information at our fingertips is absolutely phenomenal. And if you find specialists and experts and all that sort of stuff that you can work with and and and all that sort of thing, then there, then there's a lot to be said for it, uh, for, for, for quite a few people. And if you find that this is something that you might want to consider, I will, of course, link to the Homeschool Hacks book, which is Lindsay's book. It's just full of tips on how you go about homeschooling, what the legalities are, how to balance educating your kids with your own schedule, whether that's work or other stuff.
Peter:Highly recommend it. If you're at all interested in it, have a browse right, have a little read through that, because it'll be well worth it. That's my friends. Is it for a week? Like I said? I it'll be well worth it. That's my friends. Is it for a week? Like I said, I've not been well this week.
Peter:I'm lucky to get this podcast out in time. I obviously I always send the episodes out to the guests first so they can, they can have a listen to it and a read through and all that. And I think I'll just about make this with the seven day deadline. But that's why I sound a little bit choked up, guys. Why do you care, right? You don't care? Peter at HealthyPosnate on Buddycom. Any questions, any comments? Rate the podcast. Do me a favor If you're listening, go rate the podcast Just a little. Five-star, two-star, even Just anything, just go well. Actually, this episode sucked Also fine. Five star, two star, even just anything, just go well. Px in. This episode sucked also fine. Just give us a rating. Anyways. New bit of music. You take care of yourself. Right bye now. I've been waiting for my time Staring at the moon at night and I wonder if I ever crossed your mind.
Linsey:Is it a blessing or a curse? To be honest, we are this heart, even though we might try to come and die. Is there a blessing or a curse in our best heart? Ooh. Is there a blessing or a curse to need your touch? Ooh, I need your touch, ooh.