Homeschool_For_Life
00:00:00.000 | - Hello everybody, it's Sam from Financial Samurai,
00:00:02.760 | and in this episode I have a special guest with me today,
00:00:05.760 | my shelter in place partner in crime, my wife.
00:00:10.140 | - Hello everybody.
00:00:11.400 | - Sydney, good seeing you.
00:00:12.680 | Thanks for joining us on this podcast.
00:00:14.920 | I guess it's us, it's just me.
00:00:16.860 | But in this episode I wanna talk about homeschooling
00:00:20.160 | and our dilemma of whether to send our three year old son
00:00:24.440 | back to preschool once school opens,
00:00:27.440 | or keep him home with us and homeschool.
00:00:30.640 | So just to start off with,
00:00:32.440 | you know it's a really tough time right now.
00:00:34.920 | Our school shut down mid-March 2020,
00:00:39.120 | and has not opened yet, and right now we're in mid-July.
00:00:43.160 | Originally they were thinking they were gonna open
00:00:46.480 | in the beginning of August,
00:00:48.080 | but now that seems to be getting pushed back to September.
00:00:51.400 | And you're also seeing a lot of other states push back
00:00:55.440 | their in-person schooling,
00:00:58.160 | or not have in-person schooling at all.
00:00:59.900 | San Diego, LA, even Houston I think,
00:01:03.400 | it's all online learning now.
00:01:05.720 | So it made us wonder, okay,
00:01:07.520 | maybe we shouldn't send our son to school
00:01:10.760 | because there could be a lot of risk.
00:01:13.040 | So I wanted to interview you, Sydney,
00:01:15.720 | and get your thoughts about homeschooling.
00:01:18.640 | So what are your thoughts?
00:01:20.360 | - Homeschooling is something we've had
00:01:22.400 | in the back of our mind,
00:01:23.560 | even way before the pandemic happened.
00:01:26.120 | You know, especially when we've been talking
00:01:28.000 | about the cost of education these days,
00:01:30.800 | and especially in an expensive city like San Francisco,
00:01:34.040 | sending a kid to private school
00:01:36.440 | can be over $30,000 a year at some places.
00:01:40.160 | - Tell the listeners how much we paid
00:01:41.640 | for preschool a month.
00:01:43.560 | - So we paid about $1,900 a month.
00:01:46.640 | - So originally it was $1,830 a month,
00:01:49.640 | and then the month before we sent our son to preschool,
00:01:53.640 | I think it was September 2019, right?
00:01:56.840 | - Yes. - They said,
00:01:57.680 | "We're gonna raise it to $1,950 a month."
00:02:00.200 | - Right, they raised it,
00:02:01.360 | and then he turned three,
00:02:04.360 | and we saved roughly $100,
00:02:06.600 | but we didn't get to take advantage of that,
00:02:09.600 | quote, unquote, "discount" for very long
00:02:11.680 | because the school shut down shortly thereafter.
00:02:15.120 | - Yeah, it's kind of funny that it costs more
00:02:18.360 | if you send your kid under three,
00:02:20.440 | but then you get a discount after three,
00:02:23.080 | so I'm assuming they're easier to manage,
00:02:24.800 | but based on our experience,
00:02:27.200 | managing or parenting a three-year-old
00:02:29.440 | has been quite a challenge,
00:02:32.200 | given his very robust personality.
00:02:35.440 | - Yeah, I can see how two-year-olds take more time,
00:02:39.920 | but kids are just constantly changing.
00:02:45.840 | - To different challenges at two versus three.
00:02:48.160 | - Right, so what do you think were the pros
00:02:50.480 | of going to preschool?
00:02:52.280 | - There are lots of different pros
00:02:53.720 | that I could see pretty quickly.
00:02:55.800 | He got to make friends, which was so exciting.
00:02:59.840 | He'd come home and he'd tell us
00:03:01.200 | about everybody's name in the class,
00:03:03.920 | and he would also do a lot of different activities
00:03:08.920 | that we weren't doing with him at home,
00:03:12.500 | and he got to interact with kids his own age,
00:03:16.580 | as well as kids that were several years older.
00:03:18.860 | The school goes from age two to five,
00:03:22.720 | and most of the day is with their own age.
00:03:25.980 | However, there are times during the day
00:03:27.760 | where they have mixed-age play,
00:03:30.420 | and that was really neat,
00:03:31.560 | and then there's a lot of extra activities that they do.
00:03:36.560 | - Like field trips.
00:03:38.340 | - Field trips, yes, the field trips were amazing.
00:03:40.460 | He would just love those,
00:03:42.940 | and the school did a great job
00:03:45.540 | with documentation and sending pictures,
00:03:47.660 | and we were involved with a lot of those extra activities
00:03:51.140 | around the holidays and the field trips.
00:03:54.000 | - Oh yeah, the holiday sing-along was amazing.
00:03:56.700 | - Yeah, he was having a great time.
00:04:01.380 | - That was great to have his grandparents over and stuff.
00:04:04.580 | And also another benefit was the free time
00:04:07.820 | that we could free up during our day
00:04:09.940 | to write, to do our own thing,
00:04:12.660 | to take naps, and to relax.
00:04:14.700 | - Yeah, and it was a huge benefit for me in the beginning
00:04:18.540 | because I was very pregnant with our daughter,
00:04:22.780 | and I had a hard pregnancy,
00:04:25.820 | so being able to have some time without our son all over me
00:04:30.820 | definitely helped me a lot.
00:04:34.860 | - Right, so preschool was a pretty good experience.
00:04:38.340 | However, after you gave birth in December 2019,
00:04:43.340 | we had a couple weeks of just our son, our daughter,
00:04:49.260 | all of us together, 'cause it was winter break,
00:04:51.580 | and then when we sent him back after winter break,
00:04:54.860 | he got sick.
00:04:56.300 | - He got sick within that week.
00:04:59.300 | - The first week.
00:05:00.140 | - Yeah, it was bad.
00:05:01.300 | He came home, and he had a fever that night,
00:05:07.540 | and fortunately his fever broke fairly quickly,
00:05:11.660 | but then he just was sick for at least one to two weeks
00:05:16.660 | at a minimum, probably was longer than that.
00:05:20.380 | It felt like forever, and then I got sick,
00:05:23.140 | you got sick, our daughter got sick.
00:05:25.260 | It was rough.
00:05:26.820 | - So everybody got sick, so I ended up writing a post called
00:05:30.220 | The Biggest Downside of Preschools,
00:05:31.580 | not the cost, but it's the perpetual sickness.
00:05:35.100 | And I know I've talked to a lot of people,
00:05:36.860 | a lot of parents who say, you know,
00:05:38.420 | you gotta get sick early.
00:05:39.500 | If you don't get sick early, they're gonna get sick late.
00:05:41.980 | You can't avoid it.
00:05:43.340 | You know, this is how you build your immune system
00:05:45.260 | and all that good stuff, but man,
00:05:47.140 | just all of us going down for the count
00:05:48.980 | is actually quite dangerous,
00:05:52.020 | especially if you have a newborn.
00:05:54.340 | Newborn, supposedly their immune system
00:05:56.340 | isn't fully developed until about six months,
00:05:59.580 | and it was such a bummer when our daughter got sick
00:06:02.300 | for, what, four or five days.
00:06:04.340 | - Oh yeah, it was so sad.
00:06:06.020 | I mean, she was coughing so hard that she would vomit,
00:06:09.900 | and oh, it was so stressful.
00:06:11.340 | - It was really stressful. - It was really, really scary.
00:06:13.820 | - And then I ended up getting sick for three months
00:06:16.220 | because I remember coughing and wearing a mask
00:06:19.820 | during delivery, which was kind of a bummer
00:06:22.660 | because I wanted to like snuggle and kiss my daughter,
00:06:25.980 | but I couldn't because I didn't wanna get her sick.
00:06:27.940 | So I was coughing from mid-December through end of February.
00:06:32.940 | So it was like a three-month sickness,
00:06:35.660 | and I was looking back at my notes,
00:06:37.300 | and it was saying I had chills,
00:06:39.740 | and I didn't notice a fever, but I had dry cough, dry cough,
00:06:44.220 | and then now looking back, I'm wondering,
00:06:46.060 | did I have COVID-19?
00:06:47.220 | I have no idea, and frankly, I hope I did,
00:06:50.300 | and I hope all of us did
00:06:51.500 | because then hopefully we'd have some antibodies
00:06:53.620 | and we won't be so stressed out when we're going outside.
00:06:56.900 | - Yeah, it's hard to know.
00:06:59.380 | - It's hard to know.
00:07:00.460 | So the biggest downside really kinda is the sickness,
00:07:05.340 | and if you are not in good health to begin with,
00:07:08.980 | it's gonna be tough.
00:07:10.420 | I'm proud to say that Financial Samurai didn't miss a beat
00:07:14.140 | during my three-month-long sickness.
00:07:15.700 | There's still three posts going out a week.
00:07:17.740 | There's still one newsletter going out a week.
00:07:19.620 | I still did the podcast, but it was tough, folks.
00:07:22.620 | So we've basically been homeschooling since mid-March,
00:07:26.280 | and now it's mid-July, so that's April, May, June, July,
00:07:29.020 | so four months now.
00:07:30.860 | How do you feel about homeschooling,
00:07:33.800 | and how do you think about homeschooling going forward?
00:07:37.260 | - In the beginning, it was hard
00:07:40.020 | because we hadn't planned for it.
00:07:43.700 | I think both Sam and I are big planners,
00:07:47.340 | and we actually pulled our son out a couple weeks
00:07:50.500 | before the school officially shut down
00:07:52.340 | because of the news, and we just felt concerned,
00:07:56.540 | and our immune systems were already compromised
00:07:59.980 | at that point, and we didn't wanna risk getting sick again.
00:08:04.980 | So yeah, it was hard in the beginning,
00:08:08.260 | but then it's almost like a muscle.
00:08:10.360 | You get stronger over time, you get used to it.
00:08:13.540 | - The routine.
00:08:14.380 | - Yeah, we just kinda developed a routine,
00:08:16.420 | and now it's hard to imagine him being gone again.
00:08:21.420 | So I think I would really miss him again.
00:08:24.580 | - I think we would miss him, and I think we would feel bad.
00:08:28.760 | We would really feel bad sending him
00:08:30.660 | before there's a vaccine.
00:08:32.540 | I mean, I can just imagine,
00:08:33.940 | let's say school opens up September.
00:08:35.940 | We drop him off at, I don't know, 8.30, 9 a.m.,
00:08:40.180 | and then we pick him up after his nap at four or five.
00:08:44.220 | It just feels bad because we both don't have full-time jobs.
00:08:48.060 | Now, we keep ourselves disciplined by writing,
00:08:51.420 | podcasting, and we have, obviously,
00:08:53.580 | a baby at home to take care of,
00:08:55.380 | but there is none of that outside pressure
00:08:59.360 | to perform at a job to earn money.
00:09:01.760 | At the same time, we still earn money
00:09:04.000 | through passive income and through our website,
00:09:06.400 | and that's something that we'd like to keep up with
00:09:09.160 | because we're in a global pandemic,
00:09:10.400 | and just it's better to have more than less
00:09:12.660 | during times of uncertainty.
00:09:14.200 | So we decided very recently
00:09:18.120 | that we would not send our son back to school
00:09:22.120 | until there's a vaccine.
00:09:23.920 | It's probably not gonna be until 2021.
00:09:27.200 | And what do you think about that?
00:09:28.720 | - Well, I will mention that we originally
00:09:31.600 | thought we were gonna do it.
00:09:33.280 | The school asked for, or the school announced
00:09:36.680 | in early July that they were going to reopen in August,
00:09:40.000 | and I had a big fear that if we pulled him out,
00:09:44.200 | we'd never be able to get him back in.
00:09:45.960 | Preschool in San Francisco is extremely competitive.
00:09:49.240 | It's ridiculous that it's so hard to get in
00:09:51.880 | to good schools. - Yeah, we got rejected
00:09:53.520 | six out of seven places we applied.
00:09:55.080 | - Yeah, and so I had this big fear,
00:09:57.640 | and I was like, well, you know,
00:09:58.840 | maybe we say we're gonna go,
00:10:00.520 | and then we just pay for the month of August,
00:10:02.680 | but then send him late in the month, yada, yada, yada.
00:10:06.560 | So we gave the school our decision,
00:10:08.120 | and then it just did not-- - Our decision not--
00:10:10.600 | - Decision to go first. - Oh, to go, to go first.
00:10:12.720 | - And then it just didn't sit well with either of us
00:10:16.080 | the more we kept thinking about it.
00:10:17.520 | - I talked to my dad, I was like,
00:10:19.240 | oh, we're gonna send our son to preschool in August,
00:10:21.360 | and he said, what?
00:10:22.200 | - What are you doing?
00:10:23.400 | - What?
00:10:24.240 | He's like, what are you talking about?
00:10:25.560 | Why would you do that?
00:10:26.840 | - Yes.
00:10:27.680 | - Aren't you afraid of the virus?
00:10:28.880 | - So we talked about it again after the deadline had passed
00:10:33.600 | that the school needed an answer,
00:10:35.480 | and then we came back the next day
00:10:38.560 | and told them we changed our mind
00:10:41.860 | because we just didn't feel right about it.
00:10:45.220 | We wanted to be more cautious.
00:10:47.560 | We have the luxury to stay at home with him
00:10:49.880 | and work on a flexible schedule,
00:10:52.900 | and that we'd hoped to be able to put him back in
00:10:56.640 | at a later date.
00:10:58.320 | The school told us they can't guarantee
00:11:00.120 | that he'll get back in, which is understandable,
00:11:03.120 | but that he would at least be on a priority wait list.
00:11:06.720 | - Yeah, and we kept on telling ourselves
00:11:10.120 | the what if scenario.
00:11:12.120 | What if we sent him back to school and he got sick
00:11:16.160 | and got us all sick?
00:11:17.200 | Well, that chance is probably 80% chance.
00:11:20.520 | Kids are germy, they touch each other,
00:11:22.980 | they sneeze, they cough, they don't wash their hands.
00:11:25.020 | So all of us getting sick again
00:11:27.180 | was probably an 80 plus percent probability
00:11:30.500 | within the first month.
00:11:31.780 | And I turned around that equation and said,
00:11:34.060 | how much would I be willing to pay
00:11:36.140 | not to feel sick for a month,
00:11:38.440 | not to feel sick for three months?
00:11:40.100 | I mean, I would pay a lot of money
00:11:41.540 | not to go through what I experienced earlier this year.
00:11:44.180 | It was the longest sickness of my life.
00:11:45.860 | - I know, and the other thing that went through my mind
00:11:48.220 | is 10, 20 years down the road, when we look back,
00:11:52.760 | are we gonna feel good about sending him back to school
00:11:57.400 | when we have the option to keep him home?
00:12:00.120 | No, I think we would be kicking ourselves
00:12:02.960 | and saying, what the hell are we doing
00:12:05.000 | sending him back when we didn't need to?
00:12:07.000 | - Yeah, we have an option.
00:12:08.280 | So the only reason why we would send him
00:12:12.320 | would frankly come down to parental laziness, right?
00:12:16.520 | Because we have the option to take care of him.
00:12:18.700 | So setting him would mean we need a break,
00:12:23.060 | we're just dead tired.
00:12:25.920 | I mean, after four months, it's been pretty difficult.
00:12:28.840 | But the groove has happened.
00:12:32.540 | - Yeah, we're used to it.
00:12:34.240 | This is our new normal, I think.
00:12:35.800 | - Our new normal, right.
00:12:37.800 | - We're fortunate that we can work on flexible hours.
00:12:41.960 | - Right, and we don't even really need to work.
00:12:44.960 | I mean, I have another problem,
00:12:46.320 | and that is I have this commitment
00:12:47.720 | to publish three times a week and do the newsletter
00:12:49.760 | and do this podcast,
00:12:51.040 | which I did take a couple week break, thank goodness.
00:12:53.640 | And it's just kind of hard to break free
00:12:55.840 | and not do it after 11 years now.
00:12:58.720 | - Self-imposed pressure.
00:13:00.080 | - Self-imposed pressure is just kind of brutal.
00:13:02.800 | And I'm just trying to figure out ways to just say,
00:13:04.960 | hey, just relax, we're a global pandemic.
00:13:09.040 | You don't have to get ahead, you can just kind of survive.
00:13:11.500 | But there's this inherent need or desire to provide,
00:13:16.500 | I feel, every time a child is born.
00:13:20.540 | I feel, uh-oh, I've got two kids now,
00:13:23.140 | we both don't have jobs,
00:13:24.980 | we got to, or I gotta at least provide the bacon
00:13:28.860 | because I can't feed my baby.
00:13:30.520 | So I gotta provide the bacon,
00:13:33.300 | and so I just need to be on the ball.
00:13:35.460 | - Yeah, and you've done a phenomenal job,
00:13:38.020 | and I think the readers definitely appreciate that too.
00:13:41.380 | - Thank you, I appreciate it.
00:13:43.140 | Can you leave a five-star review?
00:13:45.340 | - Of course, I already have.
00:13:47.420 | (laughing)
00:13:49.380 | - Anyway, so since we've decided to homeschool,
00:13:51.900 | at least until the vaccine,
00:13:53.340 | we've got to come up with a plan.
00:13:55.100 | And the plan has to have some structure
00:13:57.660 | because if it was up to our son,
00:13:59.060 | he would just play and go, "Ah!"
00:14:01.100 | And go out and all day long, right?
00:14:04.100 | So we've got to divide and conquer.
00:14:06.200 | We've got to divide and conquer on the fundamentals,
00:14:08.180 | we've got to research homeschooling.
00:14:10.180 | I mean, at three years old, we're basically,
00:14:13.540 | we're gonna teach him language,
00:14:15.300 | his communication skills, problem solving.
00:14:19.100 | - Problem solving, but there is still a lot of play
00:14:22.460 | that's needed at this age, which is easy for him,
00:14:26.860 | easy for us.
00:14:27.740 | - Compound interest rate calculations.
00:14:30.460 | - Not yet, but he is, I say he's quite advanced
00:14:34.140 | with math for his age, and he's reading already as well.
00:14:36.900 | - Right, well, let's just say that every single parent
00:14:40.140 | believes their child is advanced,
00:14:43.140 | and so we feel the same way,
00:14:45.060 | but the reality is we're probably just average.
00:14:47.900 | - Well, I will say that at the beginning
00:14:50.140 | of the preschool year, when we had the open house,
00:14:52.860 | they had a presentation on the goals for his class
00:14:57.340 | for the whole year, and one of the goals
00:14:59.620 | was to be able to count to 10.
00:15:02.300 | However, he was already counting
00:15:04.940 | into the millions, quadrillions.
00:15:08.500 | - He was counting.
00:15:11.820 | - He could count to 1,000, but we taught him millions,
00:15:14.180 | billions, quadrillions, infinity, and all that.
00:15:16.780 | - Yeah, and he also already knew his ABCs.
00:15:19.340 | He could recognize uppercase, lowercase letters.
00:15:23.100 | - Colors. - Yeah, colors.
00:15:24.460 | - Shapes. - Yeah, he--
00:15:26.740 | - He was pretty advanced.
00:15:28.460 | - But socially and emotionally,
00:15:30.380 | he definitely needs some work still.
00:15:33.700 | - But I think at three years old,
00:15:36.020 | it's all the me phase, right?
00:15:37.260 | Me, me, me, me, me.
00:15:38.180 | - Yeah, there's a lot of that.
00:15:39.220 | - Not so much sharing.
00:15:40.100 | - Fortunately, he never bit or hit anyone at class.
00:15:43.220 | He was the victim. - But he did get bit.
00:15:44.340 | - He was a victim, unfortunately.
00:15:45.860 | - That actually pissed me off.
00:15:47.540 | I was like, who is this kid?
00:15:49.300 | And who are your parents? - It's very common
00:15:51.300 | in all schools, but unfortunate, yeah.
00:15:54.940 | - So I think from a homeschooling perspective,
00:15:57.220 | it's much more efficient.
00:15:58.100 | Just like working from home,
00:15:59.260 | as many of you guys all experience,
00:16:01.100 | is much more efficient, it's more productive.
00:16:03.140 | I wake up 5 a.m., I can start cranking things out,
00:16:07.000 | starting at 5.30 and finish by 7.30,
00:16:08.940 | and I've got my day free.
00:16:09.940 | The problem with me is I just don't stop,
00:16:11.940 | and I need to stop.
00:16:12.860 | And I think a problem with many people who work from home now
00:16:15.100 | is they just end up working more and more and more.
00:16:17.460 | At least this is the feedback
00:16:19.140 | that I've gotten from many of my friends.
00:16:21.700 | So on the homeschooling front,
00:16:23.100 | I think we're gonna divide and conquer
00:16:25.020 | in terms of subjects.
00:16:26.700 | So I'll take, let's say P.E.,
00:16:29.420 | Mandarin, arithmetic,
00:16:33.100 | and what do you wanna take?
00:16:36.260 | Oh, I'm helping him with his reading.
00:16:38.640 | - Reading, yeah, and writing.
00:16:39.480 | - So we've been working on his phonics and sight words
00:16:43.560 | and putting together short sentences and reading together.
00:16:48.560 | And he's picked up on that really well.
00:16:52.080 | He's having a lot of fun with that.
00:16:53.360 | So I'm gonna continue on with that.
00:16:56.400 | And we do a lot of math games together.
00:16:59.160 | - Problem solving.
00:17:02.400 | - Yeah, problem solving. - Sharing situations.
00:17:04.480 | - Yeah.
00:17:06.160 | So I think, I don't know, for us,
00:17:07.600 | it's kinda, I think it's probably easier, right?
00:17:10.700 | It's easier to homeschool a three-year-old, I think,
00:17:14.400 | than homeschooling a 15-year-old,
00:17:16.140 | but maybe the 15-year-old is gonna be totally belligerent.
00:17:19.380 | - You can't compare.
00:17:22.320 | - I mean, who knows?
00:17:23.160 | - You can't compare the two.
00:17:24.440 | - I'm expecting 15-year-old son to be totally disciplined,
00:17:29.440 | listen to everything we say, or else no soup for him.
00:17:33.080 | - Yeah, right.
00:17:33.920 | (laughing)
00:17:35.720 | But here's the thing, the other thing about homeschooling
00:17:37.520 | is if you are retired early,
00:17:41.800 | or if you have an online business,
00:17:44.280 | I mean, what a great way to do both,
00:17:49.240 | and to also travel once travel restrictions are lifted.
00:17:52.040 | - Right, and once this whole social distancing thing
00:17:54.880 | goes away and we're not worried about the vaccine anymore,
00:17:58.080 | there are groups of other homeschooling parents
00:18:03.280 | that get together and let their kids socialize together.
00:18:08.280 | Yeah, that's just not really happening now.
00:18:11.080 | - Surely, there's gonna be a boom in homeschooling
00:18:13.840 | and these little pods of homeschool family get-togethers.
00:18:18.840 | - I would think so.
00:18:20.640 | - Yeah.
00:18:21.480 | - I mean, I don't expect everyone to do it by any means,
00:18:23.800 | but I think some families who were maybe on the fence before
00:18:28.040 | are probably--
00:18:29.440 | - There's no other option, frankly, sometimes.
00:18:32.160 | - Yeah.
00:18:33.520 | - So I wanted to ask you about the stigma that I hear,
00:18:36.600 | and maybe you guys hear about homeschooled children
00:18:40.120 | being a little bit more awkward and weird
00:18:43.120 | than the average person.
00:18:44.200 | What are your thoughts?
00:18:45.880 | - I will be frank that I did have a colleague
00:18:49.000 | at one of my full-time jobs who was homeschooled.
00:18:54.000 | - And--
00:18:55.000 | - Socially awkward?
00:18:55.840 | - She was an only child and she was very socially awkward.
00:19:02.040 | - But you guys hired her.
00:19:03.200 | - But she was, yeah, she was hired.
00:19:05.360 | I mean, I wasn't involved in that process.
00:19:08.000 | She did her job well, but she had a bad attitude.
00:19:12.480 | She definitely thought she deserved better
00:19:16.600 | than the role she was hired for.
00:19:19.120 | She was hard to work with.
00:19:20.360 | - Okay, those are all bad attributes.
00:19:22.840 | - So I had that bad experience with her alone,
00:19:26.840 | but I'm not gonna say that she represents
00:19:30.760 | all homeschooled kids by any means.
00:19:33.800 | - I just feel it's very dangerous to generalize.
00:19:36.680 | - I totally agree, and I have friends from college
00:19:41.680 | who, same age, but have older children
00:19:47.400 | who decided to homeschool,
00:19:49.040 | and it's been working out really well for them.
00:19:51.680 | And I think homeschooling now versus 10, 20 years ago
00:19:56.680 | is different too, I think.
00:19:58.400 | - Thanks to technology.
00:19:59.240 | - Yeah, I think technology makes a big difference,
00:20:01.440 | and I think there's just more families doing it.
00:20:04.920 | So there are more of these groups that come together
00:20:09.560 | and have interactions for the kids.
00:20:12.120 | And there's other ways that kids can participate
00:20:16.880 | in group activities outside of our typical classroom as well.
00:20:21.760 | So there's lots of avenues to explore.
00:20:23.560 | - So regarding that stigma,
00:20:25.720 | I've always heard that stigma, unfortunately,
00:20:28.000 | but I don't know if that stigma or that stereotype is true,
00:20:31.400 | because think about how many socially awkward
00:20:34.080 | and weird people there are who went to normal school.
00:20:37.200 | - That's very true.
00:20:38.720 | - Right? - Yeah.
00:20:40.160 | - I mean, so talk about, hey,
00:20:41.680 | maybe normal school is making you weird and awkward.
00:20:43.960 | - Yeah, there's weird and crazy people everywhere,
00:20:48.960 | just like there's normal, wonderful,
00:20:52.280 | phenomenal people everywhere too.
00:20:56.000 | - Yeah, so I think it's,
00:20:57.760 | so let's throw that stereotype aside.
00:21:01.640 | I mean, if you're homeschooled,
00:21:03.560 | you're probably getting more education more quickly.
00:21:08.200 | You get more love from your parents
00:21:10.120 | because you're spending more time with your parents.
00:21:12.760 | And I think times are different now
00:21:14.440 | than they were in the past.
00:21:15.560 | And I think attitudes towards homeschooling
00:21:18.360 | is quickly changing, just like the adoption
00:21:21.360 | of working from home or moving
00:21:23.480 | to a lower cost area of the country.
00:21:25.120 | - And I will say one thing that we are open
00:21:28.240 | to as parents is digital learning.
00:21:30.720 | I know some parents are very anti-device,
00:21:34.600 | electronic devices with their kids.
00:21:36.260 | And if that's the way they wanna raise their kids,
00:21:38.040 | that's great for them.
00:21:40.040 | For us, we're really open to it.
00:21:42.560 | Our son watches videos on the iPad every day,
00:21:46.920 | and he's learned a lot from it.
00:21:48.720 | There's some great educational videos out there for kids.
00:21:51.840 | - Right.
00:21:52.760 | - And how could we be against digital learning
00:21:55.120 | if we have Financial Samurai as the website,
00:21:57.520 | and then the podcast,
00:21:59.400 | and then whatever else we wanna create?
00:22:01.200 | I mean, we're definitely pro-digital learning,
00:22:04.160 | and it's a much more efficient and scalable way to learn.
00:22:07.480 | - Right.
00:22:08.320 | I think it's, I still think it's really important
00:22:11.240 | to have physical interaction with people.
00:22:15.220 | It's just been a great additional resource
00:22:18.920 | that we've been able to utilize with our son.
00:22:21.560 | - Oh, and there's this one other thing
00:22:23.200 | that I wanted to mention before we finish,
00:22:25.360 | 'cause it's been a long episode.
00:22:27.400 | And that is, if we're gonna homeschool for life,
00:22:29.560 | let's say we have the vaccine.
00:22:31.340 | We don't have the vaccine.
00:22:32.240 | Let's say it's COVID-19,
00:22:34.160 | and the next year is COVID-20, COVID-20,
00:22:35.360 | and 2021, it's like COVID for life, right?
00:22:38.200 | I mean, it's funny, but it's not funny.
00:22:40.040 | I mean, it's funny because it's kind of crazy
00:22:42.080 | that we've shut down everything for this virus.
00:22:47.080 | And one of the things to counteract
00:22:50.600 | that lonely child syndrome that might be socially awkward
00:22:53.160 | is maybe having a brood of children, right?
00:22:56.840 | Let's say you have five children.
00:22:59.480 | They can all learn to play together.
00:23:03.040 | You don't need to send them to school anymore.
00:23:05.000 | They need to learn to share
00:23:06.400 | and communicate with their siblings.
00:23:08.480 | - Okay, we're not going to have five kids.
00:23:10.960 | - I know, but I'm just saying, let's just, for example.
00:23:13.020 | So therefore, for those of you who only have one kid
00:23:17.360 | who's on the fence and wanna have another kid,
00:23:19.680 | or who has two kids and wanna have a third kid,
00:23:22.720 | hey, maybe this is a benefit
00:23:25.480 | so your children can share and play together.
00:23:28.040 | - Well, you know, that reminds me,
00:23:30.680 | way back when our grandparents were in school,
00:23:33.760 | at least my grandmother, she went to a school
00:23:36.560 | where there was one little schoolhouse
00:23:38.760 | way out in the country,
00:23:40.440 | and there were no separate grades based on your age.
00:23:44.920 | Everybody was in the same classroom.
00:23:47.200 | - Really? - Yeah.
00:23:48.320 | And so the teacher had to accommodate everybody.
00:23:51.720 | - Sounds messy.
00:23:53.240 | Sounds difficult.
00:23:54.080 | - Yeah, it looks messy, but I don't know.
00:23:56.440 | That just randomly popped in my head.
00:23:58.440 | - And then so finally,
00:23:59.960 | so our kids will become adults technically at 18,
00:24:04.360 | but they're probably still not adults mentally
00:24:07.340 | 'cause it takes, I don't know,
00:24:08.760 | you're 24, 27 before your brain fully develops.
00:24:11.960 | So mentally, I found that challenging yourself
00:24:15.560 | to do hard things,
00:24:17.600 | for example, writing three times a week for 10 years.
00:24:20.240 | It's hard, but if you mentally tell yourself upfront,
00:24:24.800 | okay, the most we have to homeschool
00:24:27.600 | is 15 more years for our son
00:24:30.680 | and 18 years for our daughter,
00:24:32.940 | that's it, we'll be free afterwards.
00:24:36.920 | - Yeah.
00:24:37.760 | - I mean, we just have to say
00:24:38.760 | that's hopefully the worst case scenario.
00:24:40.920 | - Or maybe even earlier.
00:24:43.720 | I don't know how hard it's like--
00:24:44.560 | - Oh yeah, why can't they graduate young?
00:24:46.920 | - If you pass whatever standards--
00:24:48.520 | - The GED?
00:24:49.480 | - I don't know what the standards are.
00:24:50.600 | - I mean, we had the what?
00:24:51.520 | Didn't Doogie Howser go to medical school at 16?
00:24:54.360 | - That was a TV show.
00:24:55.560 | (laughing)
00:24:57.560 | But yeah, I get your point.
00:24:58.840 | - Oh my gosh, that's right.
00:25:00.320 | We don't have to do 18 years each.
00:25:02.460 | Maybe we do 16 years each
00:25:04.560 | because we're gonna accelerate, they're gonna--
00:25:06.760 | - 'Cause some, even in traditional schools,
00:25:08.880 | some kids are able to graduate early.
00:25:11.560 | - Yeah, take college credit while they're in high school.
00:25:14.520 | - Right.
00:25:15.440 | - Oh, oh, I totally didn't think about that.
00:25:18.680 | That's a total no-brainer.
00:25:20.000 | It's like, why on earth is going to college
00:25:22.320 | still the same for four years?
00:25:25.640 | Hello, the internet was invented
00:25:27.560 | and now it's like ubiquitous.
00:25:28.780 | You can do a research paper and learn four times faster.
00:25:33.080 | I mean, colleges shouldn't be four years anymore.
00:25:34.680 | It should be two to three years max.
00:25:38.000 | And it'll be cheaper too.
00:25:40.320 | - That would be interesting.
00:25:42.480 | - Yeah.
00:25:43.520 | So anyway, so this is our lovely conversation
00:25:45.880 | on homeschooling.
00:25:47.160 | If you are thinking about homeschooling for life
00:25:50.120 | or at least for the next 18 years,
00:25:52.880 | sounds like a long time,
00:25:53.800 | but there could be a lot of benefits.
00:25:55.620 | There is also a lot of negatives, which is a lot of effort,
00:25:58.840 | but we have never failed due to a lack of effort, right?
00:26:01.560 | That is one of the key principles on Financial Samurai.
00:26:03.920 | We'd love to hear from you,
00:26:05.480 | either in the comment section,
00:26:07.160 | 'cause I'm gonna write a post about this as well,
00:26:09.260 | or you can drop a great review
00:26:10.920 | and leave a comment about the subject as well.
00:26:13.260 | We're gonna talk about this.
00:26:14.100 | We're gonna be parents for life,
00:26:16.200 | and we're gonna have a lot of these type of subjects
00:26:18.400 | going forward.
00:26:19.560 | So thanks so much for listening and take care.
00:26:22.040 | - Bye everybody.