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Everyday Educator - Ready, RE-SET, Go!


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00:00:00.000 | (soft music)
00:00:02.420 | - Welcome friends to this episode
00:00:06.760 | of the Everyday Educator podcast.
00:00:09.240 | I'm your host, Lisa Bailey,
00:00:10.960 | and I am excited to spend some time with you today
00:00:14.480 | as we encourage one another, learn together,
00:00:17.760 | and ponder the delights and challenges
00:00:20.440 | that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime.
00:00:23.600 | Whether you're just considering
00:00:25.840 | this homeschooling possibility
00:00:28.060 | or deep into the daily delight of family learning,
00:00:32.160 | I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.
00:00:35.960 | But don't forget,
00:00:37.320 | although this online community is awesome,
00:00:40.560 | you'll find even closer support in a local CC community.
00:00:45.420 | So go to classicalconversations.com
00:00:48.660 | and find a community near you today.
00:00:52.580 | Well, listeners, I can't believe it
00:00:54.520 | and I bet you can't either.
00:00:56.400 | It's January again.
00:00:58.960 | A whole new year is here again.
00:01:01.820 | I hope that your family was blessed by fellowship
00:01:06.400 | and deep conversations over the holiday.
00:01:10.880 | But I know that a lot of us are looking 2024 in the face
00:01:15.560 | and thinking, oh my goodness,
00:01:17.960 | now I have to get started again.
00:01:19.600 | I don't know if I have it in me.
00:01:22.080 | You do, and we're here to encourage you.
00:01:24.740 | And I brought one of the best encouragers ever.
00:01:28.140 | One of my best classical learning compatriots,
00:01:33.140 | Jennifer Courtney, is here with me today.
00:01:36.340 | And we are gonna encourage you
00:01:38.600 | so that we are all ready to get started again.
00:01:41.500 | Jennifer, thank you for coming in today.
00:01:44.280 | - Oh, thanks for having me, I'm excited.
00:01:46.640 | - I know that you and I have been through
00:01:50.600 | a lot of ready, reset, go moments
00:01:54.780 | in our long years of homeschooling.
00:01:56.800 | How long, I want you to tell the listeners,
00:01:58.640 | how long have you been homeschooling?
00:02:01.760 | - So I have been homeschooling since 2005.
00:02:05.960 | Three of my kids have now graduated from my homeschool
00:02:09.480 | and one of them has graduated college
00:02:11.960 | and is in the workforce.
00:02:13.780 | - I think, listeners, that you're probably thinking,
00:02:16.960 | oh my gosh, she has the wisdom of the ages.
00:02:20.600 | And she does, she has lots of wisdom.
00:02:23.480 | But I happen to know that just like me,
00:02:26.480 | lots of Jennifer's wisdom was hard fought for.
00:02:30.040 | And we did a lot of the wrong thing
00:02:34.080 | on the way to finding a better way.
00:02:36.600 | Jennifer, would you agree?
00:02:38.660 | - Yes, and it seems like every year,
00:02:41.720 | you might think, well, I made a couple of mistakes
00:02:44.780 | in all the years I was homeschooling.
00:02:46.080 | But really the truth is,
00:02:47.440 | it's a little bit of an experiment as you go,
00:02:50.120 | finding out what works with that particular child
00:02:52.760 | in that particular season.
00:02:54.020 | And so usually, I love your title for this podcast
00:02:57.120 | because every year I found that I needed,
00:03:00.060 | I would make all these great plans in August
00:03:01.880 | and then after the Christmas holidays,
00:03:04.340 | I needed to definitely reset for the winter.
00:03:09.140 | - Yep, it's just there's something different
00:03:12.200 | about restarting at the beginning of the second semester
00:03:17.200 | than the beginning of the year when everybody's fresh.
00:03:23.300 | And it's like Anne Shirley used to say,
00:03:26.200 | every day is fresh with no mistakes.
00:03:28.260 | And so I always felt more like that
00:03:32.560 | at the end of the summer than I felt in January.
00:03:36.240 | So why is hard?
00:03:38.160 | Well, I gave it away for me.
00:03:40.260 | I was gonna ask you, which is harder
00:03:42.820 | for you beginning the year each fall
00:03:46.220 | or restarting the academics after the long holiday break?
00:03:51.220 | - For me, it was always restarting.
00:03:53.320 | I'm in your camp 'cause it felt like in August,
00:03:57.400 | I live in Oklahoma, it's hot.
00:03:59.780 | And by August, we had been through a lot of summer
00:04:02.460 | and we were tired of swimming
00:04:04.520 | and tired of not having a schedule.
00:04:07.100 | And we were eager to dive into our new books
00:04:09.700 | and use our new school supplies and all those things.
00:04:12.040 | So it was pretty easy to get us started
00:04:15.340 | in August or September.
00:04:16.600 | But coming back after Christmas can be very brutal.
00:04:20.320 | - I like what you said.
00:04:22.140 | In the fall, we are maybe not tired of summer,
00:04:28.780 | but we're tired of being hot.
00:04:30.680 | We've done all the swimming that we can do.
00:04:34.640 | We've been on all the vacations our family's gonna take.
00:04:37.560 | We're ready for something new.
00:04:39.160 | But you know what?
00:04:40.700 | Nobody's really tired of being off.
00:04:43.080 | Nobody's tired of having three or four weeks of vacation.
00:04:47.180 | And the other thing that you said that's really true is,
00:04:52.780 | you're excited about fresh notebooks
00:04:55.720 | and sharpened pencils and new textbooks.
00:04:58.140 | Well, none of that is new.
00:04:59.960 | When you come back in January, it's just a different page
00:05:03.740 | and the pencils need to be sharpened.
00:05:05.660 | And you've already looked through that book
00:05:07.760 | and you know what's coming
00:05:09.360 | and not all of it is what you want to see.
00:05:11.600 | And so, yeah, I agree that it's harder to start over.
00:05:16.600 | Why do you think that is?
00:05:19.200 | Why is after Christmas so hard?
00:05:21.640 | Actually, okay, let's be real.
00:05:23.820 | Why is January so long?
00:05:26.880 | Why is January so hard?
00:05:29.640 | - Yeah, I think partly,
00:05:32.280 | so you and I have some mutual friends
00:05:34.200 | who live in New England
00:05:35.240 | and they always say that this time of year,
00:05:37.000 | your brain is addled because you're full of cheese.
00:05:39.560 | - That's right.
00:05:41.520 | - So I think the lack of good habits over the break
00:05:46.260 | probably have something to do with it.
00:05:48.900 | The lack of good sleep schedules
00:05:50.840 | and normal food and all those things.
00:05:52.860 | But so I think just getting out of our routine
00:05:56.080 | makes it hard.
00:05:56.900 | And then for some people, it's just the weather.
00:06:00.120 | Kids are cooped up in the house.
00:06:02.240 | I can remember when my children were small,
00:06:04.020 | making my son run laps around this one part of our floor plan
00:06:08.500 | because otherwise I could not live with him.
00:06:11.300 | He needed some exercise and it was too cold to go out.
00:06:14.400 | So some of it's that just lack of routine
00:06:18.380 | and then also just the weather, I think.
00:06:20.060 | - Yeah, yeah, I think that,
00:06:22.100 | and we're gonna talk about this
00:06:24.300 | 'cause y'all, this is not gonna be a podcast
00:06:26.620 | where we're all just bemoaning our fate together.
00:06:30.180 | 'Cause while it does make you feel better
00:06:32.780 | to think you're not alone in your misery,
00:06:35.020 | it's even better if we can think of some positive antidotes,
00:06:40.020 | some positive things to do.
00:06:41.680 | So we are gonna encourage you to maybe think outside the box.
00:06:45.620 | I mean, like Jennifer,
00:06:47.180 | maybe you need to suspend your don't run in the house rule.
00:06:50.720 | And maybe you actually need to have your kids
00:06:54.220 | running up and down the kitchen floor,
00:06:56.440 | picking up peanuts or dust bunnies
00:06:58.500 | or whatever you put on the floor
00:07:00.600 | just to get the wiggles out,
00:07:03.240 | especially if you have little kids.
00:07:04.680 | And it may be that with older kids,
00:07:08.160 | you need to switch the chores up.
00:07:10.000 | Everybody gets a new chore assignment in January,
00:07:12.780 | something they don't already know how to do
00:07:15.740 | so that they have to use their brain
00:07:17.420 | for something besides schoolwork.
00:07:19.440 | So we'll give some of those good ideas too.
00:07:24.440 | I think that a lot of us, parents included,
00:07:28.960 | just feel tired when we're starting out again.
00:07:33.960 | Why do you think that is, Jennifer?
00:07:37.700 | - Yeah, I think some of it is just repetition of things.
00:07:42.380 | So the analogy that I've used in the past
00:07:45.820 | is that I come from a long line of Oklahoma farmers
00:07:49.780 | and several of them farmed cotton
00:07:54.340 | right through the Dust Bowl years,
00:07:56.000 | which was a very difficult year to be.
00:07:59.440 | And my grandmother would tell me these stories.
00:08:01.660 | So I really became curious after I was assigned
00:08:04.060 | to read "The Grapes of Wrath" when I was in high school.
00:08:06.800 | But she would tell me these stories
00:08:09.020 | about how she and her sisters and her mom
00:08:12.540 | would dust the house.
00:08:14.620 | And then an hour later,
00:08:16.540 | there'd be an inch of dust on everything again,
00:08:18.860 | 'cause there was dust blowing across the prairies
00:08:21.320 | and the houses weren't well insulated.
00:08:23.780 | And so they had to tie handkerchiefs around their faces
00:08:27.580 | to keep from breathing it,
00:08:28.460 | and they just had to dust once an hour.
00:08:30.500 | I can't even imagine.
00:08:31.800 | - Me either.
00:08:32.800 | - But I think sometimes that's what we feel like.
00:08:36.400 | We're just dusting and then we look over
00:08:39.660 | and there's more dust.
00:08:40.500 | So I think it's a good analogy sometimes for our homeschool.
00:08:43.780 | One thing I always remember is when my kids were little
00:08:46.860 | and I was teaching the third and fourth one to read,
00:08:50.120 | that when they get to the word "the"
00:08:52.800 | and they say things like "to her,"
00:08:54.340 | you're like, "No, still 'the.'"
00:08:57.420 | - Nope, still "the." - It was "the" yesterday,
00:08:59.600 | it will be "the" tomorrow.
00:09:01.880 | - Yes, yes.
00:09:03.540 | - It's just some of that, I think, repetition,
00:09:06.240 | that constant dusting and knowing you have to do it again.
00:09:08.580 | So you can use that analogy for their struggles in math
00:09:12.520 | or their struggles in reading, fill in the blank.
00:09:16.300 | But one of the things that I think was true for my ancestors
00:09:22.120 | is that they kept on going because they loved their home.
00:09:27.060 | They loved the farm and the land and so they kept laboring.
00:09:31.780 | And I think that's true for us too.
00:09:33.180 | We love our kids, we love our homes, and so we keep dusting.
00:09:38.180 | - Right, we keep doing what we believed in
00:09:43.140 | in September and October and November.
00:09:46.560 | We keep doing what we believed in.
00:09:48.480 | And if you've had one child already,
00:09:52.020 | you know that the repetition,
00:09:55.300 | while it seems relentless and on some days fruitless,
00:10:01.700 | it's not, because you do see the fruit,
00:10:05.040 | that repetition, duration, intensity over time
00:10:09.100 | is what brings mastery of math problems
00:10:13.040 | and reading words and everything.
00:10:17.180 | And so I think that we have to give ourselves permission
00:10:22.180 | to be tired, but we have to remind ourselves
00:10:28.220 | that there is a rainbow on the other side of the gray clouds.
00:10:33.460 | - And it happens suddenly.
00:10:36.340 | I think your analogy is a good one, Lisa,
00:10:39.300 | because I can remember with my firstborn,
00:10:44.240 | just practicing, practicing, cultivating the habits,
00:10:47.720 | checking the work, inspecting, having the conversations,
00:10:52.020 | working out the frustrations.
00:10:53.480 | And then it really felt like all of a sudden,
00:10:55.960 | there he was in a suit and tie presenting a senior thesis.
00:10:59.520 | - Oh my gosh, that is so true.
00:11:01.560 | That is so true.
00:11:03.720 | - It was over and he was grown
00:11:06.700 | and a beautiful human being standing before me.
00:11:09.940 | - Yes, yes, it's become such a trite statement
00:11:14.940 | that we've heard and we've all said it.
00:11:19.080 | The days are long, but the years are short.
00:11:22.040 | But I discovered that even trite statements
00:11:24.780 | have a lot of truth in them.
00:11:26.280 | When my girls got, they grew up and it did seem sudden.
00:11:31.280 | Now there were lots of days that I thought would never end
00:11:35.760 | and lots of ditches that we seemed to take a long time
00:11:40.760 | to climb out of, but all of this sudden, it was done.
00:11:47.040 | And they were beautiful young women
00:11:51.100 | that the Lord had allowed me a hand in nurturing.
00:11:53.940 | And it was all worth it in that shining moment.
00:11:58.240 | It is all, all worth it.
00:12:00.920 | - And then they get to be adults.
00:12:03.380 | And I don't know about your experience,
00:12:04.880 | but my oldest two particularly now will come
00:12:07.560 | and tell me thank you for things that we worked through.
00:12:10.760 | And they'll tell me they're so grateful that we homeschooled.
00:12:15.760 | And they didn't always say that when they were 14,
00:12:19.000 | just to be clear.
00:12:20.200 | - Yes, yes.
00:12:21.360 | - You work for CC and you're so committed,
00:12:23.940 | your kids just must love it.
00:12:25.300 | And as far as I know, they're kids just like everyone else.
00:12:29.940 | - My kids also beg not to do the one AC.
00:12:33.520 | - Oh, yes.
00:12:34.780 | - Yes, I mean, I had kids who said,
00:12:36.880 | "Please, can I stop with the Latin
00:12:38.720 | "or do I really have to do advanced math?"
00:12:42.860 | And so, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:12:46.320 | We are the same.
00:12:48.660 | - Yes, and I had one that really was very fearful
00:12:52.460 | of public speaking and just for years,
00:12:55.480 | begged to get out of speeches and debates.
00:12:58.840 | And then her last year in Classical Conversations,
00:13:02.340 | she just gave, she won her team policy debate.
00:13:06.540 | - Oh my goodness.
00:13:07.780 | - And she gave a beautiful advocacy speech.
00:13:09.880 | And it was just really fun to see that we made,
00:13:14.880 | that we made the right decision to keep pushing
00:13:17.860 | into something that she didn't feel comfortable with,
00:13:22.460 | yet she conquered it.
00:13:24.200 | - Right, the Lord honored her effort
00:13:26.640 | and honored her obedience to you.
00:13:31.840 | - And that was beautiful for you to see, I know.
00:13:35.200 | Okay, so let me ask you this, in your experience,
00:13:37.880 | 'cause Jennifer, you haven't just been a homeschool mama,
00:13:41.940 | although that's never a just, okay?
00:13:44.520 | But you've also been a curriculum developer
00:13:47.760 | and a state manager and a practicum speaker
00:13:51.360 | and all these other things.
00:13:52.560 | So I know that you have talked to people,
00:13:55.420 | well, all over the country, but all over the world as well.
00:13:58.600 | What is it that you have heard, what is hard
00:14:03.340 | and why is it so hard for mamas,
00:14:05.700 | for us weary mamas in January?
00:14:08.480 | What is it that's hard for mamas?
00:14:10.800 | - Well, one thing I can say is that the children
00:14:14.600 | may be resting and having fun over the holidays,
00:14:17.360 | but moms are usually working triple time
00:14:19.560 | to make the holidays happen.
00:14:21.800 | The cooking and the entertaining and all of those things
00:14:26.880 | that made it hard even just to get the laundry done.
00:14:29.260 | And so moms come into January tired
00:14:32.680 | because they've spent at least three weeks on overdrive.
00:14:36.360 | And so I think one thing is just to take a minute
00:14:40.480 | to rest yourself and sit still and think about
00:14:45.480 | what you wanna do for the second semester.
00:14:48.080 | And then also as my kids got older, I sat down with them
00:14:52.480 | and said, let's assess our first semester.
00:14:54.600 | What went well, what do we need to do better?
00:14:57.440 | Do you have any suggestions for something new
00:14:59.560 | you would like to learn and do you have suggestions
00:15:01.840 | for how we can tackle the thing that you just said
00:15:04.000 | needed to go better?
00:15:05.280 | And I've had kids in my home tell me all kinds of things.
00:15:08.280 | One of them said, I really think we need to start
00:15:10.460 | this science book over.
00:15:11.800 | I did not understand it, I would like to start over.
00:15:14.680 | And so that's what we did.
00:15:16.020 | I thought that was a reasonable suggestion
00:15:17.940 | for a 14 year old to make.
00:15:19.280 | - Good, all right, so those things are hard.
00:15:24.480 | Yeah, I think you're right, that's actually very profound.
00:15:28.640 | Moms come into January and we're just tired.
00:15:33.280 | December was not a vacation.
00:15:36.420 | It was different, but it wasn't a vacation.
00:15:40.240 | But then I also love what you said.
00:15:42.520 | Sometimes January is hard because we have been pulling
00:15:47.520 | an 800 pound load uphill by ourselves
00:15:52.920 | and it wasn't the right load.
00:15:54.880 | We need to redistribute the load or get some fresh horses
00:15:58.080 | or something, you're right, that we sometimes,
00:16:02.440 | January is hard because contemplating doing more
00:16:07.120 | of what we did in the fall, we know is not the right thing.
00:16:11.240 | And we just need to do something else.
00:16:14.260 | That's really good.
00:16:15.100 | Anything else that you think is just hard for moms and why?
00:16:22.440 | - I think when we're tired, so generally speaking,
00:16:26.400 | after years of working with homeschool families,
00:16:28.680 | I think that there can, one of our besetting sins
00:16:32.960 | is that there's a lot of fear that we're gonna do something
00:16:35.880 | that will ruin our kids or that we are gonna make a decision
00:16:39.280 | causes them to miss out on something amazing.
00:16:42.020 | And so when we're tired, those doubts and fears,
00:16:47.080 | we're even more likely to listen to them
00:16:52.320 | because we're tired.
00:16:53.200 | And so, resetting our time in the word
00:16:58.200 | and getting some friends to encourage you
00:17:01.020 | becomes super important in those moments when you're tired.
00:17:05.140 | So I always counsel people to get,
00:17:08.620 | to have their classical conversations directors
00:17:11.360 | pray for them.
00:17:12.200 | They are standing by wanting to do that thing.
00:17:15.220 | They want to pray for all the members in their communities.
00:17:18.600 | And so being transparent with each other
00:17:20.960 | is important at this time of year when we're tired
00:17:23.600 | and those fears creep in.
00:17:25.200 | - That's really good.
00:17:26.880 | That is good.
00:17:27.720 | And you know, I think it's wise that we recognize
00:17:32.600 | that when we get still again after being so busy
00:17:37.200 | through the holidays, we can hear those niggling fears.
00:17:41.120 | We can hear those, but what if this is not working
00:17:45.680 | and what if I'm not doing the right thing
00:17:47.880 | and I haven't seen the results I thought I would,
00:17:50.180 | is it my fault?
00:17:51.620 | When we get still in January,
00:17:53.720 | that's when we hear those fears.
00:17:55.980 | Really, really good, Jennifer.
00:17:57.600 | All right, so why is January hard for students
00:18:00.980 | and how can we help them?
00:18:02.920 | - Well, I think they've had a complete lack of routine
00:18:07.280 | for three weeks.
00:18:09.660 | They've had no sleep and tons of sugar.
00:18:11.980 | It's a bad combination.
00:18:13.960 | And so I always used that first week in January
00:18:18.240 | when our community wasn't meeting
00:18:19.560 | to try to reset what we were eating and how we were sleeping
00:18:23.100 | and to try to ease back into the school schedule
00:18:26.600 | of getting up and at least doing some math and reading
00:18:30.740 | and just getting us gently back into the routine.
00:18:34.820 | - I like that.
00:18:36.380 | Y'all, you heard it here.
00:18:38.020 | You have permission to ease back in to January.
00:18:43.020 | I think that that is a kinder, gentler approach
00:18:47.580 | to second semester and it will bode well
00:18:51.140 | 'cause the truth is we are all off our schedule.
00:18:55.180 | Most of us did bend the rules of everyday life
00:19:00.180 | a lot for the holidays.
00:19:03.180 | We stayed up later, we did more, we ate more poorly.
00:19:06.940 | We let the kids go, go, go and watch, watch, watch
00:19:10.300 | and do, do, do.
00:19:11.700 | So now we have to get back to the reality.
00:19:15.300 | And if we make it a comforting routine
00:19:20.300 | and a privilege to start slow,
00:19:27.140 | then I think our children will appreciate it.
00:19:30.020 | - Yeah, and I know you and I both are strong believers
00:19:33.980 | in reading aloud to our kids.
00:19:35.440 | So I always tried to find something really charming
00:19:40.300 | to read in January and February
00:19:42.400 | so that we could turn on our gas fireplace
00:19:46.220 | and have something warm to drink and read
00:19:49.320 | and start our day reading scripture
00:19:51.560 | and then reading something either cozy or funny
00:19:54.920 | or something that just helped us be excited
00:19:58.400 | to get back in our rhythms.
00:20:00.160 | - That's really good.
00:20:01.280 | I think that's good.
00:20:02.120 | It entices our children to thinking
00:20:05.520 | and deep conversations again and that's a good.
00:20:09.600 | All right, so let's be super practical.
00:20:12.600 | What can moms and dads who are listening to this,
00:20:16.080 | who are heavily involved in homeschooling,
00:20:19.440 | what can we do to encourage ourselves?
00:20:23.760 | How do we encourage ourselves in this dark winter season?
00:20:28.760 | - Yeah, one thing besides the prayer
00:20:32.360 | and the getting back into reading scripture
00:20:34.140 | that I've mentioned is that I was always encouraged
00:20:37.000 | by finding a mentor whose kids were older than my kids.
00:20:42.000 | It's one thing to sit around and air your frustrations
00:20:45.400 | with your friends who are in the same trenches with you
00:20:48.440 | and that's not a bad thing to do
00:20:50.320 | but it can be more helpful to do it with someone
00:20:52.240 | who's just a little farther down the road
00:20:54.060 | so you can get their wisdom.
00:20:55.720 | And so I was doing that one day with one of my,
00:20:58.360 | and I've had several great mentors who I'm so grateful to.
00:21:02.280 | But I was grumbling a little about some complaining
00:21:06.160 | and some other teen habits and this wise older mama,
00:21:11.160 | even though she didn't know about my dusting analogy,
00:21:13.960 | she said, "You need to wait and pray and keep working
00:21:17.760 | "just the way you're doing and they will come around.
00:21:20.860 | "They are not quite who God intends them to be yet."
00:21:24.120 | And she was right, they did come around.
00:21:27.520 | And so I think having a mentor is extremely important.
00:21:34.040 | - I like that and I like what your mentor told you.
00:21:37.880 | Give yourself some grace.
00:21:41.320 | Give yourself permission to wait on a result.
00:21:46.320 | I think that our world today is the instant gratification
00:21:51.880 | and we're gonna try this plan
00:21:54.280 | because it promises instant results or fast results
00:21:57.800 | and when we don't get fast results,
00:21:59.920 | we feel like we're failures or that that plan was not for us
00:22:03.480 | or that we were definitely not for that plan.
00:22:06.240 | And so that is real wisdom, to wait and persevere
00:22:11.040 | and give yourself grace that just because everything
00:22:15.560 | has not righted itself in the first week
00:22:18.720 | does not mean that it's not coming around.
00:22:21.960 | - Yes, and we also, besides the instant gratification,
00:22:25.400 | we also can't think that it is a straight upward line
00:22:30.840 | that marks the progress of our home education.
00:22:34.120 | You're tempted to think it's a graph
00:22:36.200 | that just goes right up at a constant and steady pace.
00:22:39.800 | You do your work and the development comes in kind
00:22:43.040 | and it's not like that, it's more like a scatter plot.
00:22:46.100 | - Oh my goodness.
00:22:49.040 | - Ups and downs and going gangbusters for a while
00:22:52.160 | and then hitting a wall and falling flat.
00:22:54.440 | - Oh, that is so good.
00:22:55.840 | Okay, so listeners, you might think that's not encouraging,
00:22:59.160 | that's not encouraging, but it is, okay?
00:23:01.720 | We're not, we want you to know that it's natural
00:23:06.200 | that things don't always get better, you know?
00:23:10.560 | It really may, there may be a season or a subject
00:23:15.560 | of three steps forward, two steps back with you
00:23:19.160 | or with one of your students, one of your children.
00:23:21.760 | I like that, things are sometimes a scatter plot.
00:23:26.600 | Yes, that is so true and you just realize,
00:23:30.280 | but in your own life, mamas and daddies,
00:23:33.080 | think about the things that you have been pursuing
00:23:35.240 | that you have wanted to get better at.
00:23:37.800 | Is it always a steady clear upward climb?
00:23:42.800 | Do you just keep getting better and better
00:23:46.000 | or do you stay at this level where you're not very good
00:23:50.860 | at something for a long time and then you have a breakthrough
00:23:56.040 | and then it unravels a little bit and then you go forward?
00:23:59.640 | I think that's really wise, that's really good.
00:24:02.960 | All right, tell me some creative things
00:24:08.320 | that your family has done to fight the doldrums, Jennifer.
00:24:13.320 | I have shared before, one of my daughters,
00:24:17.240 | we hit a wall and it may have had something
00:24:21.820 | to do with the weather.
00:24:23.880 | It was cold and gray, but one of the walls we hit
00:24:28.320 | was in challenge A when there was so much
00:24:31.840 | to memorize geography-wise and spelling was not her forte
00:24:36.840 | and having to memorize the names of all of these
00:24:41.680 | world capitals and spell them correctly,
00:24:45.240 | it just took a toll on her soul.
00:24:48.360 | And so we had some days where things just seemed
00:24:52.120 | very bleak to her and it wasn't just the geography,
00:24:55.640 | it made everything else seem covered in gray too.
00:24:59.400 | And so one thing that we did, and you'll laugh,
00:25:03.120 | Jennifer, I still have the candle of happiness.
00:25:06.560 | We called it the candle of happiness and we went
00:25:10.640 | and we picked a scent that she really liked.
00:25:12.920 | It was a really warm vanilla scent and when we were having
00:25:17.920 | a bad day, we would go, we would light the candle
00:25:20.920 | of happiness and we would sit really close to it
00:25:23.840 | and we would ease into the day and ease into our subject.
00:25:28.560 | And so that sounds like a silly thing, but I will tell you
00:25:31.800 | it made a huge difference in her outlook and I'll be honest,
00:25:36.800 | I'm not sure if it was the candle of happiness scent
00:25:43.240 | that made the difference or if it was just the relationship
00:25:49.920 | that we built, I honestly think it was that she saw
00:25:54.560 | her type A, make a list, go, go, go mama be willing to say,
00:25:59.560 | wow, we need to take a step back and a deep breath
00:26:05.120 | and you know what, it's okay if we just sit together
00:26:09.240 | and work on this as we're able.
00:26:11.880 | I think what made the candle of happiness a success
00:26:17.640 | was that she felt heard and important and she had a partner
00:26:22.640 | and it was her mama.
00:26:26.980 | - Yeah, I think that's so good and for us in our house
00:26:31.320 | it was running the gas fireplace all winter.
00:26:34.560 | We moved school mostly into that room and it just made
00:26:39.600 | cozy happy feelings and my husband got over the gas bill.
00:26:43.960 | - Yes, yes.
00:26:45.600 | - Wasn't sure we needed to run it as often as we thought
00:26:48.040 | we did but it made us feel, it made winter special.
00:26:53.040 | We have good memory of having the fireplace on
00:26:55.900 | and lighting some candles and eating something warm in there.
00:26:59.020 | So and then I think you're right, breaking the routine
00:27:03.560 | sometimes is super important.
00:27:06.360 | So one of my, I'll never forget, one of mine was doing
00:27:10.240 | a math lesson on fractions and I am a type A list making
00:27:13.900 | kind of a person and let's get through things and move on.
00:27:18.160 | And so she brought me the math book and said,
00:27:21.100 | "Look, at the introduction of this lesson there is
00:27:23.840 | "this recipe for molasses cookies, can we make it?"
00:27:27.680 | And I thought, I technically know that fractions
00:27:31.740 | in a recipe are math but it feels wrong.
00:27:34.160 | - Right, it feels like it will not help us get to the end
00:27:37.200 | of this lesson.
00:27:38.280 | - Exactly, and we made the molasses cookies.
00:27:41.440 | I think she was in fourth grade, she's now a freshman
00:27:43.440 | in college and we still make those molasses cookies
00:27:47.040 | in our family because it was such a special yes
00:27:49.720 | that I was able to say, yes, we can stop in the middle
00:27:52.520 | of our school morning and make a cookie.
00:27:55.120 | And so that, just sometimes stopping and doing something
00:27:58.100 | that they want to do is really important.
00:28:00.680 | - Yeah, yes.
00:28:02.240 | And I think, and it doesn't happen just in January,
00:28:07.240 | I think our children from time to time need to be reminded
00:28:12.200 | that the homeschooling for us is because we're choosing
00:28:17.200 | to invest our lives in them knowing the Lord
00:28:24.200 | and learning about his word and his world.
00:28:27.840 | And we're not invested in them getting a college scholarship
00:28:32.120 | or finishing the textbook or becoming the valedictorian.
00:28:36.500 | I think that they need from time to time to be reminded
00:28:40.640 | that we chose homeschooling so that we could be with them
00:28:44.880 | and we are glad to be with them.
00:28:46.800 | We are glad to be learning together and they just need
00:28:51.460 | that reminder instead of we're all slogging through,
00:28:56.040 | be reminded that we're all learning together.
00:28:59.700 | - Yeah, absolutely.
00:29:01.400 | And one of the ways that we do that without throwing out
00:29:04.100 | the lesson plans altogether is when a subject is hard,
00:29:09.100 | like let's take the challenging cartography
00:29:11.720 | that was for that child.
00:29:13.520 | And sometimes I would just set a timer and say,
00:29:15.460 | you know what, I know this is hard right now,
00:29:17.980 | but it's important for us to have good habits.
00:29:20.620 | And so instead of me saying, you're going to draw
00:29:24.560 | and label this entire map today, I'm going to set a timer.
00:29:28.100 | And you have to judge on your child and where they are.
00:29:31.740 | So, or I would do this with Latin a lot of times
00:29:34.500 | when things are hard and I'm just gonna set a timer.
00:29:37.800 | And as long as you work diligently while the timer's on,
00:29:41.080 | then when it's off, we are through
00:29:42.600 | with that subject for today.
00:29:44.260 | No matter where we are, which was really hard for me to do,
00:29:46.680 | I feel like we need to-- - Yes, oh my gosh.
00:29:49.220 | - But if I was just willing to make that deal with them,
00:29:52.440 | that if you will form these habits with me
00:29:54.400 | of working a little bit every day,
00:29:56.360 | even if we're struggling with something,
00:29:58.860 | we can't finish where we thought we should be for the day,
00:30:01.220 | we have cultivated the habit of doing a hard thing
00:30:05.100 | for a little bit of time every day.
00:30:06.780 | So. - Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
00:30:09.300 | That's really good.
00:30:10.960 | Cultivating habits are important.
00:30:13.900 | So there are things, listeners,
00:30:17.500 | we all know the right things to do.
00:30:20.020 | Okay, let's not pretend.
00:30:21.460 | We all know that we need to get enough sleep.
00:30:25.620 | We all know that we need to make good nutrition choices.
00:30:29.780 | There are things that, you know,
00:30:33.860 | if my kids ate too much sugar or too much carbs,
00:30:38.580 | they were not alert, shall we say.
00:30:43.580 | It made them want to just nap and watch movies
00:30:49.140 | or curl up with a book that was of their own choosing
00:30:53.420 | and not necessarily something that was gonna help them
00:30:56.420 | with a group conversation later.
00:30:58.860 | And so there are things that we know.
00:31:02.180 | What are the things?
00:31:03.500 | What are some simple things, Jennifer,
00:31:05.740 | that you know that we all know,
00:31:08.660 | but things we need to remember
00:31:12.180 | that will help us get back on track in this new year?
00:31:16.580 | - Yeah, well, I know that like most of our listeners,
00:31:19.540 | I listen to a lot of podcasts and it's so interesting.
00:31:23.380 | So when you and I were first raising our kids,
00:31:25.580 | I think we didn't have that.
00:31:26.960 | We had books and friends. - Yep, yep.
00:31:29.820 | - These are sources of information.
00:31:31.500 | We can go to the Christian bookstore
00:31:33.620 | and get a good book on parenting,
00:31:34.800 | or we could listen to some other mommas at church.
00:31:37.760 | But I've been listening to a lot of podcasts
00:31:41.400 | and not surprisingly, they echo a lot
00:31:43.380 | of the practical things we've said today,
00:31:45.140 | which is that they see a national epidemic
00:31:48.300 | of kids not getting enough rest,
00:31:50.700 | not getting enough exercise,
00:31:52.700 | not getting enough time to play freely
00:31:54.920 | without being directed by others,
00:31:57.420 | and not enough responsibility and too much screen time.
00:32:00.580 | So I think when you said we all know what to do,
00:32:03.740 | you're right, and so I had to really concentrate
00:32:06.540 | after the holidays on those simple things
00:32:08.800 | of an hour before bedtime is we don't,
00:32:12.820 | we can't concentrate on bedtime at bedtime,
00:32:14.920 | no matter how old we are.
00:32:16.180 | We need to do the things that signal to our bodies
00:32:19.140 | that the day is winding down.
00:32:20.780 | And so whether you've got teens or babies,
00:32:24.420 | that is still true, is just getting that sleep to me
00:32:27.620 | was the number one thing in January.
00:32:29.300 | Let's get back on our sleep schedule
00:32:31.140 | and then eating and exercising.
00:32:33.960 | So it is much harder to exercise in the winter.
00:32:37.760 | And so either my kids learned to bundle up well
00:32:41.340 | and go on outside when I,
00:32:43.060 | or we figure out something to do in the house
00:32:45.180 | to move our bike.
00:32:46.420 | - Right, and those are good things.
00:32:48.680 | And parents, your kids are not naturally,
00:32:52.820 | they're not necessarily going to naturally embrace
00:32:57.060 | all of these things.
00:32:58.500 | And so you are going to have to force the issue
00:33:02.140 | and set the example.
00:33:05.540 | 'Cause it's not just our kids that have most likely
00:33:08.900 | gotten out of good routines, it's us too.
00:33:12.620 | And so we need to be getting enough rest.
00:33:16.060 | We need to cut back on our screen time.
00:33:18.900 | We need to eat better.
00:33:21.340 | We need to exercise.
00:33:24.260 | We need to go back to our good habits
00:33:27.080 | of folding the clothes as soon as they come out
00:33:31.020 | of the dryer.
00:33:31.980 | We need to get back to the good habits.
00:33:34.460 | We need to give ourselves rewards.
00:33:37.900 | We need some unscripted free time as well.
00:33:42.580 | What do you think, Jennifer?
00:33:44.620 | These are all great ways.
00:33:46.380 | You have helped us all to have good ideas
00:33:51.380 | for creating a reset plan for our January,
00:33:56.740 | for our homeschool and for our homes.
00:33:59.280 | What does a plan like that teach our kids?
00:34:03.660 | - Well, hopefully, just like we're teaching them
00:34:08.860 | academic content, let's say, for lack of a better word,
00:34:12.220 | we're also teaching them how to live well.
00:34:14.180 | Every time we give them responsibilities around the house
00:34:18.240 | or every time we demonstrate simple things like,
00:34:21.040 | you know what, we got off track here and we need to reset.
00:34:24.040 | Then when they are older and out of our homes,
00:34:27.900 | they are equipped to know when they have gotten off track
00:34:32.060 | and to be able to reset.
00:34:33.460 | And they know how to make a plan to do it
00:34:35.480 | because we are modeling that for them
00:34:38.900 | while they live at home with us.
00:34:39.980 | And I think that is super important.
00:34:41.560 | I mean, I know when my kids would call stress from college,
00:34:45.220 | that's exactly what we would do is talk back through
00:34:47.780 | just what you and I have talked about today,
00:34:49.460 | what you need to do to get back on track
00:34:52.140 | and make this manageable.
00:34:53.680 | - Yeah, and really and truly, parents,
00:34:56.760 | isn't that why you're raising your children?
00:35:02.240 | You're raising them to be, not lifetime homeschoolers,
00:35:07.240 | you're raising them to be successful adults.
00:35:11.500 | You're raising them to be people who know
00:35:13.620 | how to manage their own lives well.
00:35:16.600 | And so, I think you're exactly right, Jennifer,
00:35:20.580 | that learning to put together for our families
00:35:24.920 | and ourselves a reset plan teaches our children
00:35:28.220 | that starting over is a good thing
00:35:31.880 | and that there are simple ways
00:35:34.440 | that we can get ourselves back on track.
00:35:37.280 | That's really good.
00:35:38.260 | Thank you so much.
00:35:39.400 | - Can I say one last thing?
00:35:40.600 | It'll be quick. - Of course.
00:35:42.200 | - As you're assessing how your first semester went
00:35:45.680 | and getting ready for the reset,
00:35:47.400 | it is super important not just to look at the things
00:35:49.840 | you feel like you're doing wrong,
00:35:50.960 | but to take a moment to put your feet up and sit still
00:35:55.200 | and think about all the great fruit
00:35:57.020 | that you have already seen in the first semester
00:35:59.340 | because if you will allow yourself time to dwell on that,
00:36:02.440 | you will think of many successes that you had
00:36:05.800 | and that will give you a great boost
00:36:07.720 | to count your blessings before you try to make a new plan.
00:36:11.720 | - Oh, that's so good and this is the funny thing.
00:36:14.720 | The next podcast is going to be about assessing
00:36:19.800 | as we begin a new semester.
00:36:22.020 | So that is a perfect add in to that.
00:36:25.080 | I also, I want to thank you, Jennifer,
00:36:28.500 | for being such an encourager
00:36:32.480 | to homeschool moms and dads everywhere.
00:36:34.620 | The weary homeschool parents
00:36:36.840 | who are turning the corner into January
00:36:39.300 | have been blessed by your encouragement.
00:36:41.700 | But I also want to ask you about a program
00:36:43.980 | that you are part of every week
00:36:47.060 | because I think that this might be a shot in the arm
00:36:51.580 | that some of our parents might like to receive in January.
00:36:56.580 | Tell us a little bit about
00:36:57.780 | the Words Aptly Spoken Book Club.
00:37:00.780 | - Yeah, so Lee Bortons and Tim Knotts and I
00:37:04.620 | and sometimes members of our team, including Lisa,
00:37:07.060 | will gather for an hour a week to go through
00:37:10.780 | and just discuss the books
00:37:12.580 | that are in the Classical Conversations curriculum
00:37:15.020 | and also the parent resources.
00:37:16.860 | And we have a blast and we laugh and we cry
00:37:20.260 | and we have great conversations together about books.
00:37:23.720 | So if you just need a break
00:37:24.980 | and you want to grab something hot to drink
00:37:27.620 | and put your feet up and listen in
00:37:29.620 | as we have these book discussions, it is a bundle of fun.
00:37:32.940 | And they can be found on leebortons.com
00:37:36.280 | under the Words Aptly Spoken tab
00:37:37.980 | or you can also find them
00:37:39.440 | on her YouTube channel @leeebortons.
00:37:42.460 | - That is wonderful.
00:37:43.900 | And you guys would love it.
00:37:45.800 | It would be a good way to reset your brain
00:37:49.060 | and your thinking for the new year.
00:37:50.880 | So hopefully you guys will take advantage
00:37:54.340 | of the Words Aptly Spoken Book Club.
00:37:55.940 | Thank you, Jennifer, for telling us about that
00:37:58.700 | and for being here with me today.
00:38:00.800 | - Thanks for having me, Lisa.
00:38:02.140 | - All right, see you guys next week.
00:38:04.060 | (gentle music)
00:38:06.640 | you
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