Welcome, friends, to this episode of the Everyday Educator Podcast. I'm your host, Lisa Bailey, and I'm excited to spend this time with you today as we encourage one another, learn together, and ponder the challenges and the delights that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime. Now, whether you're just considering this homeschooling possibility or deep into the daily delight of family learning, I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.

But don't forget, although this online community is awesome, you'll find even closer support in a local CC community. So, go to classicalconversations.com and find a community near you today. So, listeners, this is one of our first episodes with video two. And so, my guest, Deb, and I are sitting here thinking, okay, don't scratch your nose, don't flick your hair, don't shift in your seat because people are watching us.

So, if I'm a little awkward, it probably means that I all of a sudden remembered that you could see my facial expressions. And so, they are sometimes speaking out loud. And I have a lot of feelings about the topic that we're going to cover today, finishing strong as we all approach the end of our CC year.

You know, community days are coming to a close. Our kids are in the thick of last minute projects and end of the year celebrations. Sometimes, mamas and daddies, I know, we're tired. And dare I say, sometimes everybody in our family is just the smallest bit tired of it. And so, we are here to encourage one another in how to finish strong.

And I have a dear friend, Deb Switzer, with me today. Deb has lots of experience as a homeschooling mom and as a homeschooling community leader. And so, we're going to pick Deb's brain about how to finish strong with your students and what you as a parent can do to help your student finish strong and bring your school year to what you'll consider a successful end.

So, Deb, I'm so glad that you're here with me today to talk about this. Thanks for coming. Thanks for having me and picking my tired brain as well. Because we're in the last five weeks of CC as well. So, it's fun though. Yeah, that's what I want people to know.

The podcast guests that I bring to you guys every week and my own perspective are not coming from a talking head point of view, but from the point of view of moms and dads who are in the trenches too. And so, you know, Deb is probably sitting here thinking, I want to talk to these dear folks, but I also have children who have XYZ Project and students who are working on a senior thesis or who are waiting for me to give them one more prod of goodness to the end.

And so, we feel your pain and we feel your delight as you are helping your students come to the end of a great year. We want to help you help them celebrate success. So, I'm going to go back. I'm going to let everybody see how credentialed you are, Deb, for this very thing.

So, I want you to tell people, how long have you been homeschooling? Oh, so I know when I was thinking about this, I started to age myself tremendously. Oh my gosh, I know. You just don't. What in the world? So, I've been homeschooling for 20 years. I've actually hit the 20-year milestone this year.

So, I've been homeschooling for 20 years. That's awesome. So, I've been doing CC for 15 of those 20 years. I came in five years into that. And I've been directing in the communities or tutoring or directing in the communities from the moment that I started. So, I definitely have been hitting the ground running all the way through.

Yeah. Yeah. It does feel strange when you think back. You think, well, I've been doing this for a few years. I probably have, you know, eight to 10 years of experience. And then you look back and you think, oh, no, it was 20 years. And so, I personally can't decide if homeschooling kept me young or has aged me terribly.

I don't know. Maybe it's a bit of both. That's right. I do know that it's been a blessing and that God has, I will say this, and this is a different podcast. We'll cover this at a different time. I feel like God has blessed me and grown me more than I was ever able to grow my children.

And so, homeschooling, you know, parents, if you're coming to the end of the year and you think, man, I feel like I was the one who was schooled this year. Just know you're in good company. And I really do think that homeschooling is the most refining and redeeming endeavor of a parent's life.

But that, like I said, that's a different podcast. So, let's think about this, finishing strong. As a parent, Deb, and as a director, which is harder for you, starting the year or finishing well, oh, well, I'm sure it all depends on personality. So, my personality loves to, I have a, I feel like I start well.

So, I'm a planner. And so, I'm able to like try to get all my ducks in a row. And I have all these great, wonderful ideas of how I'm going to start the school year. It's going to be amazing and all this different stuff. And then, I think finishing is always a lot harder.

I'm like, almost there. I'm going to make it. I'm trudging to the finish line and thinking about, yes. Pulling people in assignments after you on a big chain. And realizing which ones I've dropped and that that's okay. And that's okay. It's, you know, which ones have I been able to keep and what ideas stayed strong and which ideas fell off the wagon.

And that's all right. It's all good. It's part of the process. And, you know, just remembering it's lifetime. So, I think we can look at, you know, May as like, it's this hard finish line. And, you know, but it's, you know, every time I step back and say, hey, I'm in this for the long call with my children.

And this May, the end of this year, is like a mile marker on your journey. It's not, perhaps, for many of us, not the final destination. Now, we'll talk in a minute. For some moms and dads, this May, there's a definite finish line that they're crossing. But for most of us, you're right, we are trying to get across the finish line that looked so full of promise and so far away when we started.

I tend to be like you. I love the start of a school year. Even when I was a student, man, I loved the idea of new notebooks. There weren't any scratched out places in them. And all my pencils were sharp and all my pens were full of ink. And, you know, none of, I didn't have any of the little ratty, torn out pieces in my spiral notebooks.

So something, there's something fresh and exciting and turning a new leaf about the beginning of the year. The end of the year for many of us, like you said, just is a fight to the finish. It is, you know, you had all these plans and now you're looking and you're thinking, well, some of them are still doable or some of them are barely doable.

And some of those, is that what that was I left back there in the dust? And so it's just sometimes for most of us, finishing strong is harder because I think because we're tired and I think for some of us, our goals changed in the middle and we didn't recalibrate.

So we still, you know, on paper still have these goals that maybe we stopped really working toward. And all of a sudden we think, oh, I wrote that down and we're for sure not going to make that because it fell off the radar. And so some of us can beat ourselves up about that.

And so finishing strong, well, that makes it a challenge. What else, what else do you think? I want to talk about why is finishing strong a challenge? You know, what are the pain points? What are the issues that we feel in a lot of different ways? So what are the challenges to finishing strong at home?

So for people, I mean, not even what's due in community and what other people are expecting of you as a director or your children as community participants. What makes finishing strong challenging at home? I think, you know, as I think there's a whole sense of that there, you know, we want to be done.

Like if you're like my mind, I want to be done so I can have my season of rest. And because I, I take some, not everybody does, but I take summers off. And so for me personally, that concept at home of I, I personally want rest. I want my kids to be done so that I can have rest.

And so I think that I, um, sometimes I need to pull myself back and say, Hey, um, don't get so, yeah, don't get so caught up in the calendar, get, allow God's grace to really kind of come in during the season. And I think, um, different personalities handle things differently, but I definitely get into a place where I want it done so that it can be there.

And I, the calendar starts to dictate my focus and God spoke to me about just take your eyes off the calendar and put your eyes on me. Uh, and when I can do that, when I start to shift, I think that's probably my personal biggest pain point at the end of the year is that I'm looking at the counter.

I'm seeing all the activities, all the projects, all the assignments that, you know, my kids have and I just get zoomed in on the calendar and right. It all has to be done by this block. Yeah. And I forget to lift up my eyes and just say, uh, I need to lift up my eyes to the hills.

Where does my help come from? It comes from the Lord maker of heaven and earth. And to just sit back and say, you know what, God, you are in charge of this calendar. You are in charge of every single one of these things that I have color coded and lined up and everything else.

You're in charge of it. And some of these things may not be your plan for us this month, even though I think it is. And some are, and are things that we have to buckle down and do. And can you lead me, God, can I lift up my eyes from what I think we have?

And can I lift up my eyes and let you show me what we have the grace for in this season of life and what you are calling us to, to work hard on? What are you calling us to maybe let go of? Uh, what are you calling us to do the best that we can in at this moment and balance that for me, God, so that I'm not, I'm not running my family or like trying to show my family away.

That's made by, you know, man, but that's made by you. Um, and my calendar is helpful. I love calendars. Absolutely. It can keep us focused and moving ahead instead of just spiraling. Like, Oh, I don't want to be like, I don't want to be all over the place. I want to help my children by giving them direction.

You know, they need direction and they need, um, guidance, right? They need those boundaries during the season. So giving up focus to our kids helps remove the pain points a little bit. Cause they're like, I don't know what to do next. They need a little bit more help at the end of the year with all those projects and the different things coming in.

They need a little, let me walk you through this and show you how to manage your time and balance your time. So it's just, it's, it's just helpful for them. You know what? You have said so many wise things. I wish I could just like go back and replay it in slow motion.

I love, I love your testimony because I think a lot of us can feel it of, um, falling into the trap of having the calendar dictate our pace because we're so focused on this was the plan. And this is the date on the calendar. Here's my red X. All this stuff has to be done by then.

And then we start to feel it all piling up behind us like a tidal wave ready to crash on us instead of the gentle swell. That's going to take us along. I tend to fall into that too. Like once I have made a plan, it's really hard for me to accept a change to the plan.

And so if I think we're going to be done, then like, there's something in my spirit that has been pressing toward that. And, and I guess internally thinking I can keep going because there's the end, there's the end, but your counsel to stop and breathe and look up and ask the Lord it, that is, that is the end, but does it have to be right there?

We do want to accomplish these things, or maybe that's no longer ours to do. Maybe, you know, the focus has changed. And I think sometimes like there are things that are the hard deadlines and we know, but then sometimes God extends things out for us that in ways that we don't know that he's going to do.

I love this. My daughter told me this story when she was, and I use it for an analogy for homeschool all the time now where she had to go to, she went to summer camp when she was younger and she had to pass a pretty rigorous swim test. And so, you know, she was trying to get ready for it.

And this swimming is not our natural thing. We don't do a ton of swimming in our home, but you know, she was fine. Like she should be able to do it. And so it was a four lap swim test and then some other things. And so she said four laps.

And so she did up and down and up and down and she thought she was done. So she thought that that was four laps. And so she got to what she thought was the end and she realized, I'm only halfway. I'm only halfway. And all of a sudden, everything that she thought she could do in her own strength was gone.

And she said, she literally prayed, God, I need you because that mental block of I'm only halfway there and I thought I was done. And she had to just rely on grad's grace to do another full, you know, two laps. And, and she said, I felt something kick in, mom, you know, I felt something kick in.

And, and she passed the test and we talk about that all the time. And I say, I feel that way sometimes with school that, you know, we're doing all this, all this, you know, learning at home and these projects. And I thought we were done. And then I go and see, Oh, we didn't, we didn't do that as fully as I thought we did.

You know, like maybe we got to like a project and you did it, but Oh, all the, maybe some of that back work that was supposed to have happened. Maybe we were winging it a little bit and we have to go a little bit longer to just ensure that we finished that.

Right. And I was like, that's when God's grace kicks in. God's grace kicks in when we need it and that we don't have to keep trying to do it in our own strength. We can rely on God's strength to take us all the way through to bring it to full completion.

It is by God's grace that we do that. That is great. Hey everybody. We want to interrupt the show to talk to you about ACCU, where you bank matters and America's Christian credit union is proud to partner with classical conversations to provide a full suite of banking services to CC communities across the country.

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learn more about America's Christian credit union by visiting our episodes show notes. Let's get back to the show. That is really, that's very, that's very heartening testimony, Deb. And I appreciate it. You said one thing about your students that we're going to come back to in a moment. Sometimes at the end, when there are a lot of things that you're bringing to the end, bringing full circle, what our students need from us at the end is different from what they need from us in the early days and in the middle.

So we're going to talk about that in a minute, but what is, cause you've been a director for a lot of years also, and there are unique challenges to finishing well in community. What are some of those challenges? Yeah. Well, spring fever hits, right? And confidently felt that is a big thing across the whole community.

It doesn't matter the age, like spring fever hits, everyone senses the end coming and everybody's like the doing wild crew that I have sitting here before me. And so, um, helping everybody kind of, um, like capturing that energy, like how can we use that energy to actually, um, propel us forward.

And so, uh, you know, taking students outside, uh, if you have the opportunity in the spring and letting them relish, uh, the, the warmer weather, if you've been somewhere that's cold and still continuing learning, I think really helps the, the, um, the dynamic and community to be able to get out there and spend some time outdoors.

They need it. Let them run around for a minute. I don't care what age from four to 18, they still need to do it. They need to run around. They have a lot of pent up energy. Um, really sitting down and meeting with the students. Like, so I just had a touch point with all of our families.

I said, okay, so this is where we are. How do we finish strong? I said, let's make sure we see what's coming. Let me help you think through all of the stuff that's coming at the end of the year and what's vital for your family and your educational goals.

And I think that's a great question. Directors can ask families. Yes. Here's this, you know, here's what's left. Yeah. What's important right now? Like what's key in your child's education right now? What do, what does he or she need to improve in or focus on or thrive in at this point?

Um, and how can we not drop everything else, but put some focus there and tailor some of these other things to ensure that that sense of accomplishment comes, uh, at the end of the year, you know, we don't want to end the, the, the academic year and say, Hey, I, I feel like I didn't do anything right at the end.

Right. I made a mess of all of it. Yeah. Oh, wow. That is so good. Okay. Listeners. If your director has not done this with your students, you can do it, but you can also ask your director. Okay. Could you maybe help me help our, our community see what's left to do and, and help us prioritize.

That is what a blessing, Deb, you are to those families. That's really good because you're right. There's a lot going on in the community and for older students. Okay. So here's a real pain point. Usually our challenge students still have some weeks to go when our foundation students are done, done.

And so in the community now I can remember, um, sometimes my challenge students were actually kind of glad when all the hubbub of foundations and essentials kids were gone. It was a quieter campus. It was a quieter church building. The halls were not as busy. The bathrooms were not as crowded.

Um, they, I don't know. It's almost like the tone of the conversations went up when it was just the older kids left, um, in community. But it is a challenge, uh, for families that have kids that are done and families that have kids that are still working. And sometimes still working on the hard stuff or the stuff that is the showcase of all the skills that they have sharpened over the years.

So, all right. We've talked a little bit about what are the challenges for parents to finish strong. Um, cause it, you're right. As a parent, you're ready for a break too. I mean, I can remember being a student thinking about my parents. You have no idea the stress I'm under with all of these exams coming up and all these big papers and all these projects.

You just, I wish I had your life because you really don't have any problems. Spoken like, or thought, thought like a true teenager, but there are things that are difficult for us as parents. Some of it, some of the problems for parents in finishing strong is that juggling of all the needs of all of your children at once.

speak to that Deb and, and, and the other challenges that parents feel about finishing strong. Yeah. Well, I can definitely just say like, I, I have been reduced to tears numerous April and May months, you know, not because. Oh my gosh, me too. Just cause it just, it can just, there's so, there are so many things happening and, you know, as much as we want to be relying on God's grace, there are just times and seasons where you're just like, I cannot do this.

Right. And yeah, you want to say to your kid, you have these three things, but so does your sister and your two brothers. And I have all 12 of them. Yes. It's like, you know, and somehow we're going to do this. And, um, and I just remember when I had, uh, so my son was doing memory master, my daughter, I had a, I had a daughter in challenge for a son and challenge two.

And I was directing, I had a daughter in challenge a, and a son doing memory master and essentials and faces of history. Oh my word. It's all coming at once. And I was like, I was like, and they're all like, mom, I need this. Mom, I need this. Everybody needs it at the same time.

And I'm just being stretched, you know, here and there and everywhere. And, uh, just, you know, I think I would normally, um, have a mental breakdown and then after I had my mental breakdown. After that five minutes of allotted time. God would gently remind me again, this is not about you.

Uh, and that, you know, my grace is sufficient for you in this. If your grace is sufficient for Paul, then your grace is sufficient for me. Uh, and so then I just, uh, one of my tips was that I always just tried to schedule at the end of the year, like make sure I had individual time with each.

You know, like sometimes we're doing the, you know, with a, the one room school house and we have everybody together and we're used to that. Uh, but during the end, um, it's important that they get individual time was my big takeaway that I need to really spend some individual time with my youngest.

So if he's doing memory master and faces, I, and my olders too, like we get so used to their independence as homeschoolers, we're like, you have just been sailing, you are independent, you're doing this. And then it frees us up and we're just having these conversations with them. But at the end of the academic year, from the youngest to the oldest, they all just need some individual time of just, Hey, let me sit down with you and see how the, see how this project is coming along.

Let's make sure we're touching base on this one and that we're looking at your schedule and how your time is going and what's distracting you, what's helping you. And, uh, they just need that. So my biggest takeaway in my really busy time when all four were doing this thing at once was, um, pull back Deb for a minute and just make sure you're having that individual time because then they can take it and they can, they can, they can run more.

Right. And so I need to equip them to run the race. Um, and so that just requires a little bit more individual time. Yeah. At that end of the year. Yeah. That is really, really good. That's wise counsel. And somehow Deb, it's counterintuitive because for, for those of us who have multiple children, who are freaking out about multiple different things all at the same time, we think, okay, I got to sit you all down and get everybody, they're marching orders.

And, but you're right. What they need is the individualized attention for their specific freak out moment. What's yours? Yeah. What's yours? Yes. So, because sometimes it is, um, an older student who sees this huge task still to go, I am here and I have to get here and I don't have very long.

And, and I had a daughter who was paralyzed by those, she would such a good student, but she would get to a certain point and there's like a week left and she knew what to do, but she's like paralyzed. And so she needed me, even as an older student, she needed me to say, and she knew all this, but in that time she needed me to say, okay, honey, I think that you need to work on this for an hour.

And then I'm going to need you to take a 10 minute break, run around, go walk the trail, go get a drink, go check your email. And then I'm going to need you. I think you need to come back and work for 45 minutes and then we're going to have a check-in time.

And then I need you to work for an hour and then we're going to have lunch and we're just going to, and I would say, and she knew that she needed to work and break and work and break, but she almost needed somebody to tell her, she needed a schedule to say, okay, because this is going to help me move forward.

And then at the end of the day, she could look back and be heartened that, okay, so I did bite off those pieces and I did chew it up and I am farther along. And so you're right. They just need individual time and sometimes they need help that you think they've grown past.

Yes, because that executive function paralysis that you're talking about is real. It is a real thing. It's a real for them and it's real for us, right? So I, that's why I was like, I would get in that mode. And when I'm in that mode and I'm like, I'm just looking at it.

I'm just looking at my calendar and I'm looking at everything. And you don't know how to start. Like 20 minutes have gone by and I'm still looking at my calendar. What on the world is going on? And so pausing ourselves and remembering, we're like, that's what we need to do is remember we need to go for a walk as homeschool mamas.

We need to go out in the fresh air and take a minute and just let God order our thoughts for a little bit. And then we can come back and help our children get out of that paralysis as well and say, hey, you need this too. This is so important for you, right?

To be able to just take a, take a breath and remember. And then just that resetting just helps so much to let some other things go and just get reset. Okay. This is what I'm going to do right now. Yes. And, and what we want to do for our children is call them back to the joy of learning.

So if, when you get caught up in the spinning, I have so much to do, then it just becomes something to finish, not something to relish and learn from. So let's think about, okay, what's the challenge for our younger kids? So let's think about like for foundations and essential students, many of them are coming to the end and they are interested in becoming memory masters, maybe, or subject matter experts for kids who are going to choose a strand to memorize.

For essential students, a lot of them have one last big paper that they're showing what they've learned. Faces of history has come up. How, what are the challenges for our younger students? And, and how do we, as parents help them? Yeah, I, you know, that, uh, again, I think that individual times, so for memory master, there's, there's no way that a child's gonna be able to get through all of that.

If they're working at it without mamas or a sibling's guidance. And so that's the blessing of, uh, you know, larger families is that we can have an older, older, uh, child say, Hey, help your younger child by going through the questions, uh, and being able to create that family dynamic, which by the way, has the added bonus of your older children who think they know everything going over the memory again.

Reminding themselves that's perfect. Let's remember that timeline and all those fun history and science facts. So that actually works out really well. And with, uh, with the larger families to be able to do that, but, you know, and then just encouraging them. Like, I remember when my, um, my son wanted to do memory master, uh, you know, just saying, you know, I, first of all, I was like, you don't have to do it.

Cause he saw an older sibling do it. It's like, this is not a requirement of you. This is one thing we're learning as we go. This does require more work on your part. Do you want to do it? And when he said yes, then that was more of his, like at a young age, starting that personal ownership.

And I said, all right, let's set it up for you. Let me find some ways to make this. And that was more pre-work type of thing so that the end could go a little bit better. Just setting up those things that they could be like, I'm just going to practice this.

And I have a sheet to practice on, or I have a way to practice. But at the end, as they're going through that, that time with mom, dad, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, neighbors, uh, who are all willing to kind of help in with that. It reminds me of, um, the movie Akilah and the bee when she was doing the spelling bee.

Yes. All the people in the neighborhood helped her. Everybody can use those resources. You can only do so much mama. So, you know, use all those resources and let everyone help you along, uh, in that memory master drilling. And, you know, I think Deb, one of the best things that we can do for our children at the very end is to remind them of why they wanted to do it.

Um, instead of just feeling the stress. So what excited you about this? What do you enjoy? What have you enjoyed about the year and reminding them that it's not all about performance and it's not only about the destination. It's about the journey and your attitude about the journey and what you pick up along the way that you never expected to get along the way.

You know, and just as an encouragement, because there is so much that happens if, you know, whatever you're doing, whether you're a subject matter expert, if you're going for memory master or whatever it is, my son, my oldest son, uh, he struggled with, you know, some dyslexia and things like that.

And he always struggled when he was younger, not feeling like he could do things. And at some point, uh, he decided that he wanted to do the memory master. And at the end of it, he looked at me and he said, mom, I'm smart. Isn't that the best? Crying, bawling my eyes out.

Because before he was so down on himself and did he do everything perfectly the first time? No. And that was okay. He was seeing that he could learn, that he could, that he could understand things and express things. And all of a sudden his whole, his whole attitude toward education changed in a major way because he was like, I can do stuff.

And that changed everything. Then I was like, well, remember how you did this? You can do that with writing too. You didn't think you could do it, but you can. And he's like, you're right, I can do it. And was it perfect? No, but he could do it. And that's, I think, part of the beauty of the journey.

Yes. Part of finishing strong is remembering it's a journey. Even when your challenge for a student graduates and walks down that aisle for a cap and gown, it's still a journey. Right. That was not the last exit on your journey. Yes. Yes. You know, it's one season ending, but the learning journey has not ended.

And to know that we're creating that lifelong learning, I think it just gives a little bit of a sigh of relief. It does. Finishing strong does not mean that everything was checked off at the end of this year. Finishing strong means that my child is learning to love learning and is learning how to learn in the process.

And that's finishing strong. And I think if we can help our students realize that, like you said, that end is a false finish line. Yes. It's going to keep going. But that the beauty of crossing that finish line is in the looking back to where you started and seeing the progress that you made.

One of my daughters was like your son in writing. She just said, she would say to me, I don't think that way. I don't. She asked me one time, do you just think in five paragraph essays, mama? And I thought, I mean, yes, I kind of do. And do you not?

And the truth was that it was not, she said, I don't, words don't flow like that for me. It was a real struggle. And as a challenge A student, she just never felt like she was a good writer. In the last paper she wrote, though, she had worked hard.

And this was at a point where they were, they were still doing a lot of writing instruction in challenge A. And so she got to the end of the year and she read her paper to me and her daddy out loud. And she looked up at me and she just had this amazement on her face.

And she said, I am a good writer. And that was another one of those bawling moments. And she was able to look back and she was able to say, at the beginning of the year, I couldn't do this. And now I can do this. And was it, you know, she would look at it now and think, well, that was really mechanical and that was very stiff.

But as a child, she was able to look and see where she had come from. And so crossing that line was a huge celebration for her. And we celebrated that she could see herself in a different light. That's what we want for our children at the end of the year.

Finishing well doesn't mean they won all the prizes and maybe won the $10,000 National Memory Master Prize. It is, can they look back and see how far they came? And how far we've come as moms, as a family, did we come? Because now we know what to celebrate and we know what better assessment is and what a blessing to our students.

I think one of the best ways to finish strong, to bless your family, is to take time when you can, to pause, like when the breath comes, but pause and spend some time reflecting on the year. Spend some time looking back at what did we start? Where did we start?

How did we start? What were we trying to learn in this strand or in, you know, like what did, what facts did we memorize if we were younger or what paper, what paragraph did we write to this year that stands out? And to take the time to celebrate with each, each of your kids, the, the process that they went through for the year.

I mean, you know, my son is like, when can, when I finished challenge one, can I burn my Henley book? You know, like, so like these are the things that, you know, but I was like, no. And instead let's think about what concepts we actually, you know, what do you know now that you didn't know and what did you learn in economics that you didn't know?

You just finished your policy debate. Let's talk about what you actually discovered. And that let's celebrate the fact that you just did an incredible speech that you didn't think you're going to be able to do. You did a rebuttal. Right. Right. In the world, you did it, you know?

And so, um, all of these things and just celebrating with them and just saying, you know, all of these things are worth a celebration. You've, you've done so much. And instead of them thinking, I didn't get that paper done and I didn't finish that assignment or, you know, or I rushed this or, right.

Cause we all do, we all do, you know, and there's always room for growth. You can set new goals. You can change things around eventually, but celebrate, really celebrate the, the, the goodness of God, the truth, beauty, and goodness that you've discovered, uh, in this, in this year, the one that you've had, there is goodness in it.

There's beauty in it. There's so much truth in it. So celebrate it. Uh, enjoy that moment with them. That's so good, Deb. And I love the idea of looking back to see how much you've learned and what you've learned and how you've grown. And parents, I want to encourage you that doesn't happen just in your academic subjects.

It's not just that you did a rebuttal for the first time or that you wrote an actual senior thesis or that you participated in a mock trial and did a great job of all your speeches. Maybe it's looking back. Okay. What did God teach you this year about perseverance?

Yes. About pride, about mercy, um, about being kind. If we can look back and help our students see how they have grown in taking ownership for their own work and not passing blame, um, what a great, the spiritual aspects of growth that that we see in our children, um, are sometimes overlooked, especially by our kids because they're so eager to finish their work and they don't see that really that's what blesses our hearts.

When we can see that the Lord has grown them in maturity and we are celebrating that, but I think we need to help them celebrate what God's done in their hearts. There's so much discipleship that is happening through homeschooling, right? That it goes so much deeper than academics. There's so much growth.

I know. I can't even imagine my life without homeschooling in the way that I've personally grown, let alone seeing the change and the transformation in my children and just knowing the work that God's done and the good and the bad and the ugly, it's all been working together for his good and his purposes.

And I just, I'm so thankful that we have the right, the freedom to be able to homeschool our kids and be able to have an opportunity, not just to teach them, but to disciple them that what a, what a gift from the Lord, uh, to be able to have that in our families.

That is so encouraging. And so I sort of want to say at this point, and that's how you finish strong. You, you stop, you take a deep breath. You have one-on-one time with your kids. You assess what, where are we and where do we still want to go and map out some steps for how to get there.

But also one of the ways to finish strong is to look back and see where the Lord has brought you and be sure that you include celebration. Deb, thank you for all the, you have given us so much to think about and so much good wisdom, but also some really good practical tips that I feel like we're all going to go and massage over the next couple of weeks as we finish strong.

So thank you, Deb. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Awesome. All right, guys, we'll see you next week and, um, go celebrate something today with your kids. Yes. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.