Introduction to Show Me Homeschool: Our Story

Summary:

In our first episode, "Our Story," we dive into the importance of community support, leadership, and embracing homeschooling as a lifestyle. Join us as we share our own experiences, challenges, and victories in homeschooling our four amazing kids. From curriculum to character building, we've got tips and tricks to help you thrive.

Cristy Stebelton, Podcast Editor:  Podcast With Faith
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Transcript:

[0:08] I’m Erin. And I'm Joe. We're the hosts of the Show Me Homeschool podcast, where we guide parents through the wilderness of home education.

Each weekly episode will focus on supporting and encouraging homeschool moms and dads, through conversational interviews with like-minded Christian leaders in the homeschool community.

We want you to be able to take actionable steps after listening to implement in your own homeschool in a way that fits your family culture.

In our experience, we've seen the lack of resources and support available for homeschool dads.

So we want to address that by covering relevant topics concerning husbands and fathers as they lead their families through this lifestyle of home education.

We understand the need for creating connections and building authentic relationships to sustain, a healthy homeschool environment for yourself and your children.

Our goal is not to show you how to replicate our homeschool, but to show you how you can create a home learning lifestyle that is sustainable for your family.

Show Me Homeschool is here to come alongside you, Guiding you through the wilderness of home education.

[1:11] Hello and welcome to Show Me Homeschool podcast. I'm your host Erin. And I'm Joe.

Some of you may recognize my voice as I was just finishing up a podcast with my good friend Amanda called Goat Homeschooling with Erin and Amanda. As you may have heard from the last episode there that Joe and I had plans to start a podcast together. So here I am. Here we are.

We wanted to start off with just letting you know about our story, how we met, why we homeschool, our homeschool journey, and why start Show Me Homeschool? Why are we doing what we're doing?

So, we met through YWAM, which is Youth With Some Mission, and it's a Christian non-denominational organization that focuses on discipleship and missions, and we were in the Paisley location in Scotland, so where we met, and we've been married for 18 years.

Years, yeah.

After getting back from Scotland and getting married and having our first child, this topic of how we were going to educate came up occasionally. I had been exposed to homeschooling.

[2:23] Growing up. I was in a military family and had known people that had homeschooled or went to private Christian schools, and that had always appealed to me as a method of education, although I was public schooled growing up.

We moved throughout the Midwest.

I think I counted 11 different moves, multiple different public schools that I went to, lots of different experiences, overall pretty good.

But by the time I got to high school, I was so bored with school.

I remember a conversation with my mom just saying, I need to just homeschool.

You should just homeschool me because I can get done in two to three hours, what I'm doing at public school, and then I could have time to just read the rest of the day.

And I didn't realize at the time, but I am very much an interest-led learner.

And I had no idea at the time that that was some homeschool methodology that you could find, this whole interest-led learning or unschooling or whatever you want to call it.

I was always curious, always reading books, always trying to get more information.

I just, I love to learn.

And so that was kind of my background into homeschool and my experience with that.

[3:38] Right, and mine is a lot different. Was not in a military family.

So I grew up in the middle of Wisconsin, stayed there my entire life growing up, same school district.

So I was a public school K through 12, had zero exposure to homeschooling.

I cannot remember a single person that I met that was in the homeschooling community, knew nothing about it, didn't think anything of it.

For the most part, it had pretty good experience in public school, a lot of good memories.

So again, really until having met Erin and sharing about her desire to homeschool, you had also worked though in like before and after school program, correct?

Right, right after high school as I was going to community college before we had met and we went overseas, I had been working at a before and after school program through the public school district that I graduated from.

And some of the things that I was seeing at that time, you know, this is early 2000s, just some of the things that I heard the teachers telling the students about their beliefs and some of the things going on, you know, behind the scenes within the school, the politics of the school and seeing some of the way that the teachers would talk to the students or or about the students or about the parents was really concerning to me.

So when we got married and I was still working part-time at that job.

[5:05] We were pregnant with our first, and that's when that desire again became very strong for me to look at what are the alternatives here, because I'm not comfortable with this situation having worked in that system for five years. Right. I think that was when the conversation that I remember first really started to roll around with us. But again, that was when you were just pregnant with our first, so we didn't really have a serious conversation, I think, until he was going to go into kindergarten. It was the summer before. So, we were going to put him in a, just to kind of try it out, I think, right? It was going to be a summer program.

[5:45] And we tried it because we lived right across from an elementary school. And we put him in.

And it didn't go bad necessarily. He had some allergies, and he was kind of separated at lunch from everybody else. So, kind of the odd thing that you thought maybe he was going to be able to socialize with his peers and stuff like that. And the times that he got to do that, he actually didn't do some of this, you know, right. I remember picking him up, near the end of the summer school program at the end of the month. And he was sitting in the back seat. We were going to the grocery store, and I asked about his day, and he said, well.

[6:25] At our lunch table, we play who's the quietest table. Well, my table one. And it's because I was sitting by myself and I was like, what? So, I didn't know the whole time because he didn't communicate that to me, and the teacher didn't communicate to me that he had been sitting alone at a lunch table because of his allergies and not even getting to interact with the peers.

And everyone's always concerned about socialization. And when I'm finally understanding that one of the main times you get to socialize at school without getting told to be quiet, it's not time to socialize is at the lunch table. And he wasn't even being able to participate in and that it was really frustrating and that kind of solidified for us, like, hey, this didn't seem to work out.

He came home exhausted every day, was super tired, grumpy, was missing out on the activities I was doing with his younger brother.

And we just felt like it was just maybe something worth trying to look into homeschooling.

So I only knew one person at the time that was homeschooling, and she was moving the next state over within a couple of weeks.

So I frantically made a call to her and I said, hey, can I come over to your house.

[7:34] Just talk about homeschooling and what that looks like for your family?

And she was so gracious and kind and said, sure, come on over.

So we sat at her kitchen table for probably four hours with me asking a million questions about home education, what that looked like, the practicality of it, what kind of support she had.

And she led me in the direction of a local support group.

[7:59] So I said, well, I don't live in that town. And she goes, oh, no, no, no, it's for the whole community.

You don't have to live in the town to be a part of that community.

You can go into the meetings. They had monthly support meetings specifically for the moms.

And I went to that first meeting in September when we were starting fresh with our homeschool.

And I came home quickly and told Joe, I have to go to these meetings every month because this is like therapy for me.

This is a lifeline for me to understand what I'm even doing or trying to do.

Right, and it was so important that you got support from that veteran homeschool mom and especially that support group because I remember when you approached me about this, again, having zero exposure to homeschooling, it felt like a really lonely place.

Obviously, I didn't know anyone. You hardly knew anyone. We didn't know what it would look like.

Can we do this financially? Can we do this legally?

[8:53] For me, I had a ton of questions, so I think you getting involved with that local support community was probably made it for us. I mean, if you didn't have that, I'm not so sure that we would have kept going through it. It's hard to say.

Definitely. I think had we not had the support of that group, at the time, there were well over 300 families in the group. And not that everyone came to the meetings each month, but there was a solid, you know, 50 to 60 women and sometimes husbands that were looking into homeschooling because of the way that the meetings were set up was the first part was a 101 and just kind of new homeschooling informational. And then the second part was for the members that were more seasoned. And so, we'd have speakers come in and we would have topical discussions.

We would talk about curriculum and all the things that come with home education.

So yeah, that was my lifeline. Had we not had that support; I don't think that I would have been able to continue homeschooling because I would have been so overwhelmed. And a lot of of times I was still overwhelmed, but at least I was able to talk to other women who were, in the same situation, who loved homeschooling, who had done it for, you know, 10, 15, 20 years at the time, who could talk me through my fears and my concerns and my insecurities.

And so, and then you were able to answer my questions, my thousand questions that I had.

[10:15] Because again, how does this look or what does it have to look like legally?

What kind of curriculum are you going to use? Can you even do this, Erin?

What freedom do we have to do this?

Or are we just going to be strapped down to some kind of public-school program that we're not aware of or something?

We didn't know the law. So I think when you came home from those meetings and answered my questions, I think that was really kind of the trigger that helped me, you know, say yes, pull the trigger.

So that's kind of our story at the beginning, I think.

And briefly, maybe can you share?

You know, where do we go from there? We have four kids. Two of them are the oldest and the youngest girls were adopted through foster care. We have two biological boys.

Dr. Sarah Lichtenberger Right, because making the choice to homeschool wasn't crazy enough. We decided to start fostering the same year that we started homeschooling. So, we were having different kids move in and out. We had a lot of appointments. The structure of our day was constantly changing. But the one thing that we always did was the read-alouds on the couch. And the curriculum that we're using is very literature-based, and that's still.

[11:26] Our preferred method of educating our children is literature-based, hands-on living books, hands-on experiences, field trips, those kinds of things. So in the midst of trying to get our feet wet with homeschooling and getting our rhythm there, we were also constantly in a flux of change with different kids and situations and trauma and trying to help our biological children navigate that while, you know, being the hands and feet of Jesus in our home.

Pete It was a huge upheaval.

Kirsten It was huge. And so, there were a lot of things that we would do differently now, but it was a huge learning curve for us. We're so thankful that we had the opportunity to do that and through that the blessing of two more children in our family.

So, our oldest, as we mentioned, just graduated this May and I helped coordinate the graduating class for the year, which was a huge undertaking, but so worth it because one of the big concerns.

[12:25] That we hear from homeschoolers that are new to homeschooling or thinking about homeschooling is the concern that their children won't have the same experiences that a traditional upbringing in public school have such as prom and dances and school pictures and social activities and graduations and all of those opportunities, sports, but we can tell you because we're living it.

You managed it. You helped manage all of those things. You made all of those things possible.

[12:56] Multiple proms, multiple dances. Well, that's with the help of the community.

Correct. Of course. that is any encouragement to you all that are listening. If there's a program available for homeschoolers already, awesome. If there's not, you can always take the mantle of leadership, and we're here to help guide you through that. We've been there, we've done it. We want to encourage you as you listen to our story and don't think as you're listening, gosh, these people, they seem to have made it. They've been there, they've got it together, they know what they're doing. Every year, every child, there's always something that changes.

So, that's a little bit. So, our oldest graduated, she's now doing a discipleship school.

Pete- Through the use of admission.

Katie- Yep. Through the organization we met in a different location. Our second oldest, which is our first biological child, is going to be in 11th grade this year. And then our Our third child is going into ninth grade, so we have two high schoolers at the moment.

[14:00] And our youngest has quite an age gap. So, she's six and she just finished up her first year of school through kindergarten. So, we had a kindergartner and a senior last school year, and we will be here for a while homeschooling. So that's our family and a little bit of our story.

And you heard a little bit of why we homeschool. The public school situation just wasn't a fit for our family. At the beginning, we'd say, yeah, we're taking it year by year.

We can't really screw them up in one year, right? There's always like, you know, you can go to school for a year after kindergarten, see how it goes. But we really fell in love with the lifestyle of homeschooling. So why do you show me homeschool? So first off, what's with the name?

[14:46] So one of the main questions we get asked or statements is, I just, I would feel better about homeschooling, if someone could just like show me what they do or show me their day or, you know, if you could just show me what it looks like, then maybe I could do it myself. We also live in Missouri and our state motto is the Show Me State because we want to know and have concrete evidence that something can work or it's what you say it is. So, it's kind of a two for one deal there with the name. We don't just serve Missouri home educators. We want to branch out and reach other homeschoolers throughout the country by offering support and coaching and things like that. But really, I think for me, Show Me Homeschool is really birthed out of just my.

[15:36] Experience over the last 12 years homeschooling.

And serving in the homeschool community locally and just seeing a great need for really strong Christian content that isn't watered down by the culture because we're seeing so much of that.

[15:53] It's hard to find something that you can trust and we want to be a trusted source for you to find those things. But ultimately, our heart is really that anybody can homeschool if you feel called to do that. If you have a desire to do that, there's ways to make it possible no matter what your situation. We know friends that are single parents living on a very low income, on one income, most people that we know. There's lots of different dynamics there that are at play.

[16:24] But homeschooling is still possible. And we want to help you have that confidence that no matter what your circumstances are, where there's a will, there's a way.

Right? And I think another aspect too is something that we've seen is there's a lot of resources and community out there for moms but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot for dads. We'd really like to get Show Me Home School a really excellent resource and community building, platform for lack of a better word for homeschool dads to be able to really engage with their families, engage with other dads, and feel just as encouraged and supported and maybe not as lonely.

[17:08] Because I certainly have experienced that over the years. So, what are some of the things, as we've been in this homeschool world for the last 12 years, that you wish you had access to from the beginning? What would have helped you as a dad, as a major support role to me as the primary educator in the home.

So something like this, you know, podcasting and resources like that were not as popular back when we started. So, I think this would have been really helpful. I think like what you had yourself was more of a veteran homeschool mom kind of take you under her wing for a little bit and then also introduce you to the local communities and families. I think if there There were more resources like that for dads, where there may be more classes or more speakers, focused on dads.

I think that would really help. I think there is a temptation in the homeschool community, some dads, is that, well, if the wife decides that she wants to homeschool, or even if they decide as a family, there's still kind of a temptation to say, well, that's her thing.

She's going to handle that, I'm going to go, you know, especially if I'm going to be one income family now, I've got to really focus on my job or my own business or whatever he does.

[18:29] I think it is easy to kind of say, well, you do all the homeschooling, you just tell me how much it costs and then kind of leave it at that.

But I think our homeschool really started to blossom when I became a lot more engaged and supportive of you.

You still make, you know, quite a bit of decisions around curriculum or do a lot of the research, but you do come to me with a lot of, you know, I'm your sounding board a lot.

We do pass through all the financial decisions as far as curriculum costs or field trips or whatever.

You know, I think we really try to be on the same team, but that takes me wanting to be on the same team instead of saying, well, that's your thing. So, I think we need to really try to encourage dads that it's not just her thing, it's a mindset, it's a lifestyle for the entire family.

It cannot be compartmentalized like, you know, maybe public school or even private school can be at times where you kind of trust other people to do what your child needs and then they come home.

For us, it's both parents need to be engaged, not just academically or sports, but character building, spiritual growth, and emotional, mental support for each other. I think if you had not been getting out to the local support groups, not only right away, but over time, you know, we probably would have been in real trouble.

[19:50] Katie- Yeah, I don't think I would have continued homeschooling. It would have been too much a burden it would have felt like because I wouldn't have had that.

And yeah, I think what you mentioned about the shift and the success of our homeschool was when I would come to you with a question or a complaint or our day didn't go so great.

At the beginning, you would just say, well, why don't you just stop homeschooling?

You know, is it worth all the stress or all this anxiety or all this frustration in your day if I come home and I hear that you're upset or you're crying?

Because, you know, that was just such a rough day.

When I finally was able to communicate to you, I don't really want to hear that, I don't want to stop.

I'm not asking you to tell me that. I'm just looking for you to maybe give me ideas of what's not working. What are you seeing?

And there's sometimes we had some really hard conversations because you were seeing things in me I didn't want to see.

And I didn't want anyone else seeing about my own attitude or my own actions.

And you were there to really rally and support and say, say, hey, I'm seeing this as maybe a reason why your day's going down the tubes.

And maybe if you change that saying, things will go better for you.

And then when I would follow that advice and really pray about it and seek God to say, is this true?

Am I really, you know, like, is this who I am?

With things that I need to work on in my own character.

[21:13] Then I was able to say, all right, I humble myself and go back in the next day and we would have a better day and it would make a difference.

So what I didn't need was for you to tell me to stop doing something that we both felt called into doing for our family.

Right. Well, sometimes it was probably me throwing up my hands saying, I don't want to deal with this after a long day myself. You don't need your crying wife to come meet you at the door.

Right. you talked about humbling yourself when it became apparent to you that there was something that you needed to tweak or maybe change in yourself, you know, different habits or thought, mindsets, whatever.

There's also definitely a lot of humility that I needed to walk into as well was just what we said, I have to stop telling you when things get hard, we'll just put them in public school, just give up.

That's terrible advice. And I think it was also even a step further was I have to stop and listen and seek to understand when you were having a bad day or needed a sounding board or just needed to rant.

You were with young kids all day long, you're exhausted, it was a terrible day at homeschool because those are going to happen.

[22:26] You just needed me to be there for you as a husband and I failed at that sometimes but But when I started to do it, when I started being there for you more so than I wasn't, that's when things started to blossom and flourish I think.

And my trust in you grew, your trust in me grew, and I think that just kind of encapsulates the whole thing about homeschooling is you can't just decide to maybe get some desks, maybe get some textbooks and make it look like public school because that was a temptation for me was just, okay, Aaron, make it look like public school, this should work, fine, right?

It obviously wasn't. So, I think if you can get out of that mindset and see that this is something that is a lifestyle, that helps tremendously.

Yeah. Well, we are going to wrap up this episode. We will begin again with part two, just kind of going through our story in the next episode. So be on the lookout for that.

[23:26] I definitely want to pause for a second before we wrap up completely and just say a big, big thank you to Cristy Stebelton of Podcast with Faith for her help in launching our podcast. She was our editor and guru on our previous podcast, Goat Homeschooling, and she's been so gracious to help us launch this podcast. So, thank you to Cristy. We will link all of her contact information, where to find her on social media and her website. If you have podcast needs in your life and you would like to look into her services, we will link all of that in the show notes.

We also want to encourage you to check out our website, www.showmehomeschool.com and sign up for our newsletter so that you don't mess out on any of the things happening, you know, with this launch, with our podcast and our website and our business. There's a lot of new things happening, and we want to make sure that you are informed and aware and excited with us because this is a really exciting adventure for us. So, thanks for listening and we will talk to you next time.

[24:54] You can email us at info@showmehomeschool.com.