When You Think You Can't Homeschool

Summary:

Have you decided to embark on the homeschooling journey but feel overwhelmed with where to start? Do you have feelings of doubt or lack of confidence in your ability to homeschool? Whether you're just beginning your homeschooling journey or looking for fresh insights, you’ve found the right place for valuable advice and resources to help you navigate and thrive in your homeschooling adventure.

In this episode, Erin and Joe emphasize the importance of building on a child's interests, making use of resources like the library and YouTube, and fostering a love for learning. In combatting every typical answer to the “I can’t homeschool” question, the episode covers topics ranging from teaching advanced subjects, such as biology and chemistry, to laying a solid foundation of character and time management skills. Listeners will find reassurance and inspiration as Erin and Joe address doubts and uncertainties, encouraging parents to trust in God's guidance and take proactive steps to find support within the homeschooling community

Cristy Stebelton, Podcast Editor:  Podcast With Faith
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Transcript:

[00:00:00] Erin: What's the first thing you hear when you tell someone that you homeschool?

[00:00:10] Joe: I could never do that. I can't do that. I don't know how you do that. I don't have the patience for that. I'm not a teacher.

[00:00:19] Erin: I don't have a degree. I didn't do good in school myself. There's no way I could teach my kid I hated school.

[00:00:25] Erin: Let's talk about those things because. Those are the common things we hear when we talk about homeschooling, and I'm sure if you've homeschooled for longer than two seconds, you've heard someone say, just that I could never do this. I can't do this. So what is it about us that we think we could never teach our kids?

[00:00:46] Erin: Because when you have a baby, everyone talks about how they're, they don't come with an instruction manual, right?

[00:00:56] Erin: So you have figured it out. Right? Right. So that's exactly what you do with homeschooling,

[00:01:00] Joe: right? I mean, you've been, when you have a baby and you bring them up, um, you know, through to what? Pre, uh, pre-K or preschool or kindergarten. You've been home educating that whole time. Right

[00:01:14] Erin: able. You taught them to talk, I mean, you taught someone a whole language, right?

[00:01:18] Erin: Not just how to read. You know? That's the big fear. I couldn't teach someone how to read. Right. Well, you taught them how to talk, so how did you figure that out? Well, you probably

[00:01:26] Joe: taught them some how to read before they started school. You taught them how to use the bathroom. You taught them how to tie their shoes, maybe ride a

[00:01:33] Erin: bike, manners, character, all of those things.

[00:01:36] Erin: And is home education. Right. So when you hear someone say that, or maybe you've said that, I said that at first too. I couldn't homeschool. I don't think I can do this. And a lot of, we've said that later, right

[00:01:48] Joe: after we've been homeschooling for years, I can't do this, right? I can't do this anymore.

[00:01:53] Erin: So, but when someone's first starting out on this homeschool question, can I do this?

[00:01:57] Erin: Can I figure this out? I just really wanna encourage, if that's you and you're in that position of thinking, I, I just can't do this. I, I've tried this. It's not working really well. Let's talk about why that is. We lack confidence. Yeah. We lack the ability to see what our strengths are sometimes. Um, but in our experience, If God calls you to something, if you feel led in the direction of home education, God's not just gonna say, here, I need you to homeschool this kid that I gave you.

[00:02:34] Erin: Um, but I'm not gonna tell you how to do it. I'm not gonna give you resources or people put in your life, or, you know, I'm not gonna help you out. You just, you know, figure it out. You know? Right.

[00:02:43] Joe: He's suddenly not the perfect father that he says he is in scripture and says, well, it's all on you now. Here, I dropped you off at, um, you know, the location.

[00:02:52] Joe: You figure out everything else from here and I'm not gonna give you anything. I'm not gonna provide anything. That's absurd. We know that that's not true, but that's how we act,

[00:03:02] Erin: right? So one of the first things you can do if you're in that position or you're feeling discouraged already out of the gate of, I can't homeschool, I can never do that, is who do you know that does?

[00:03:15] Erin: If you know someone, most people at this point, especially after Covid, have someone in their life that they know that homeschools. Right. Talk to that person. You know, that was the first step that I took. I didn't know anything about it. I did some Google searches to see, you know, if there was, I. Tips or books that I can read.

[00:03:34] Erin: And I did get a lot of books. So books are another great place to start. But that can also be overwhelming because you go to the library and there's a whole section on home education. Um, you can find tons of blog posts or, um, Resources online or curriculum things to look at. And I don't suggest starting at curriculum to figure out how you can homeschool.

[00:03:58] Erin: No, you need a friend or a trusted source. Someone that you know in your life personally, or if you don't personally know someone, ask someone who does so that you can connect. Um, And that's gonna be important later on when you are, you know, finally in that thick of homeschooling, when you have someone that you can have as a mentor, uh, that's really, really important.

[00:04:20] Erin: So when you're thinking that you can't, another part of that, like we said, is some people are like, well, I didn't do well in school. I hated school. I didn't graduate from high school. I dropped out. I could never do that. Um, homeschooling is not the parent teaching every subject. It's direction of the education.

[00:04:40] Erin: It is facilitating how and who and what is being taught to your child and being confident in that. So if you're not confident in your ability to teach every subject, you can find resources. Uh, you can look online, you can talk to people, you can find a support group. There are so many resources out there.

[00:05:02] Joe: Right. And I think we've touched on this in previous podcasts where there was a temptation on, at least my part was to just mimic public school at home. And that's not the case at all. And I think people, uh, if they're not familiar with homeschool, just basically feel like I. We're just gonna take school out of the building and put it at home with all of its textbooks and worksheets and grading, um, and having to feel like you have this, have to have this deep knowledge of each subject to be able to teach your kids effectively.

[00:05:33] Joe: And that's not it at all. Um,

[00:05:37] Erin: Right. When you were in school, what did they do? It was like a feast laid before you. They had this subject, this, this, this subject, this subject. And it wasn't really ever a deep dive. It was through one year of get through Western siv and then you move on to American history

[00:05:54] Joe: and something else that you figured out.

[00:05:57] Joe: Um. Over the years was, if I don't know a subject or I don't know it well enough, or I feel like I'm, maybe, you know, you, you don't have the confidence like you spoke of to um, actually discuss the subject or teach it is you just learn alongside your kids.

[00:06:13] Erin: Right? A lot of the education my kids are getting, I'm getting alongside

[00:06:17] Joe: them, right?

[00:06:18] Joe: And some, some subjects and some years. It might be a little bit difficult, but I'm kind of reminded of, um, I'm a little bit of a World War II buff where I followed the whole Band of Brothers Easy company thing. And I had read the books as well that gave more detail and trying to make this short. But the officers, uh, during training sometimes were only like a day.

[00:06:42] Joe: Ahead of their soldiers that they were in command of as far as having to teach them new skills, maps, radios, German equipment, Japanese equipment, or whatever. Again, just barely a day ahead where they had to present the information, like they knew exactly what was going on the next day. Mm-hmm. And that was okay.

[00:07:01] Joe: They got the job done. You didn't have to, like you said, have a super deep knowledge of everything to make it effective. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you just facilitate. That's a

[00:07:09] Erin: really good point. As long as you're a day ahead of your kids. You can teach your kids the thing that you learned the day before. Uh, and I mean, we talked about this before too.

[00:07:19] Erin: If you have a library card, a YouTube connection, you can find information on any subject. Yeah. Very easily. And probably free. And you know, that's the thing is the confidence comes through through experience. Right. You're not gonna gonna ever feel like I can teach. Art to my kid without first. Okay, let's, let's dig in.

[00:07:45] Erin: I'm gonna learn about art with my kid. You're not gonna feel confident teaching art if you don't start teaching art, right? If you never jump out there and say, I'm gonna do this subject with my kid. Right? So the confidence comes through doing so. If you're in a place where you're like, Uh, the school year's coming up.

[00:08:02] Erin: My kid hasn't started or I've pulled my kid out of school and we're about to jump right into this school year, but I don't know what I'm doing. Take a deep breath. It's gonna be okay. Yeah. As long as you want to give your child the best education, you are gonna find the resources to do that. And it's maybe not gonna look like my homeschool.

[00:08:22] Erin: It's not gonna look like public school, but it's gonna look like you figuring out and modeling for your child. How to find what they need, because ultimately that's what the heart of home education is. It's not making your kid a genius at one specific subject or all the subjects. It's giving them a taste for.

[00:08:43] Erin: I have a curiosity, I'm curious about something. So you take your curiosity and you research and you find the answers about the thing you're curious about, and then what naturally happens when you do that? You talk about it with other people and you say, Hey mom, I, I found out about this turtle that I really thought was cool in the you in the road, and did you know that there's these other turtles in the world that.

[00:09:04] Erin: Swim in the ocean. I read that in this book because I was interested about that. So what you're modeling for your kid is I'm interested in home education, so I'm gonna read this book about it. I'm gonna talk to this firsthand source here and I'm gonna get the information about it, and then I'm gonna relay that to my kid because I'm excited about it.

[00:09:21] Erin: And I think

[00:09:22] Joe: that's a really good point is modeling for your kids the desire to learn. Mm-hmm. To keep learning that it's exciting. And if you can show them that and do it alongside them and they see that excitement, I think that goes a long way. And like the example you just gave, that's basically a lesson in marine biology right there.

[00:09:41] Joe: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:43] Erin: Right. And that could have come from your kindergartner, it could have come from your high school because that's the thing too, grade level is arbitrary. Someone somewhere decided that this child at this age needed to learn American government. When? When you know you could have a kindergartner who's interested in American government.

[00:10:01] Erin: Yeah. But that's not a kindergarten topic. In homeschool, any topic is a homeschool topic. Yes. And it doesn't have to be broken down by a 12 year old needs to learn this at this time. Yes. There are times when you go deeper into a subject, but when you are. Creating a learning rhythm in your home. That rhythm, it's like a heartbeat.

[00:10:20] Erin: It pulses, you know, sometimes it speeds up and you're gonna be learning something super fast with your kid because they're super interested in it. You are interested in it, and sometimes like that heartbeat is not as excited. So what does the heart do when it's not as excited? Not overused. It's, it starts to be a little bit slower.

[00:10:36] Erin: Well, sometimes things get hard and you're gonna slow down the pace of learning to match. The ability and skill level. So maybe you're slowing down a little bit, you know, you're resting in something and you're, you're gaining traction there.

[00:10:50] Joe: And I think that kind of touches on for me, is the subject of, I think some parents, uh, I mean, the unknown is scary.

[00:10:58] Joe: Mm-hmm. So you don't know exactly what it looks like. That's why we're creating this podcast and this business and stuff to try and show people homeschool. But my point is, is that you have a God-given right to educate your child in the home and you, along with that comes a lot of freedom to do exactly what you just said.

[00:11:19] Joe: You can pick the topics, you can pick how fast, how slow you go. You can pick the curriculum and don't let these things overwhelm you. It's an exciting thing. That you have the freedom to do what's necessary, and you don't have to be, I mean, depending on your laws and your state mm-hmm. You don't have to be, um, you know, underneath some sort of public school program or teacher necessarily.

[00:11:46] Joe: Again, check your laws. But, uh, homeschooling generally gives you the freedom to do what you need to do and when you need to do it

[00:11:56] Erin: Right. And. The curriculum piece can become quite overwhelming. So I would suggest if you're just starting out, it's still summer. Maybe grab your kid, go take a fun trip to the library, maybe grab ice cream on the way back and pick out a couple of books and just, you know, give them free roam with caution, because there's a lot of crap and garbage out there right now that's targeted at our children.

[00:12:21] Erin: Yeah. But grab a couple of books on what they're interested in. And read them with them. Let them read them to you know themselves, and then ask them questions. You know, narrate back to me, what are you learning from this book? Or, what was one thing you found interested? And you start from there and you build on their interests.

[00:12:40] Erin: Because I think a lot of times what we tend to do is we feel obligated to teach something in a certain way at a certain time. We suck the life out of our kids because we focus on things they're not interested in at all.

[00:12:55] Joe: And then you suck the life outta yourself, right? And your husband. And your family

[00:12:59] Erin: and your homeschool, right?

[00:13:01] Erin: So then we get to the second phase of, I can't do this. I could never do this. And that's when you've been doing homeschool for a while and you have been doing it and you've found things that have worked and you've gotten to know your kids and what their strengths and weaknesses are. You know, your strengths and weaknesses.

[00:13:15] Erin: And now you're at a place in your homeschool where maybe life threw you a real curve ball and you are really struggling and something has offset that rhythm that you've created. Now what? Right? Things aren't

[00:13:30] Joe: going well. You want to give up. You're basically saying, I can't do this. I can't do this anymore.

[00:13:37] Joe: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:38] Erin: So sometimes that's a relationship struggle with one of your kids, or maybe you're struggling with your spouse. Maybe that's a death in the family. Maybe it's a big move across the country. It could be any number of things that get you to a place where you. Your confidence is struggling. Well, what about

[00:13:57] Joe: when my kids go to middle school?

[00:13:59] Joe: Mm-hmm. Or they start high school. We do hear a lot, right? Uh, there's definitely some nervousness around middle school, but then there's some knees shaking when we get to high school for some people. Right? I, there's just no way I can go back to algebra. I can't teach that. I cannot teach trigonometry or calculus or advanced biology or physics, chemistry.

[00:14:21] Joe: Oh my gosh. You know, I'm sweating already. Right. Even thinking about this. And

[00:14:24] Erin: that's when you take your other deep breath that you took earlier. You know, when you're saying I can't because they're in kindergarten and I could never teach them to read. And now they're in middle school and I don't know about these lab experiments.

[00:14:34] Erin: Mm. And now they're going into high school and we've seen so many people who homeschool confidently. You know, I can do the, the younger years it's art and it's playing and it's nature based, and all of these things are good, but then they get to middle and high school and they feel like this extra pressure.

[00:14:50] Erin: Well, the pressure spoiler alert is always there because you are in charge of your child's education. If you don't lay a good foundation. In the younger years, then you aren't setting your kids up for success or yourself. So one word of caution is, you know, make sure that you are laying a, a firm foundation with your kids when they're little with, with the basics, and, and then you just build from there.

[00:15:14] Erin: And if you've taken the time to. Get a good rhythm, get a good philosophy, find curriculum that works for your kids' individual needs, and works for your schedule. Then you head into the high school years and it's really just the best piece of advice that I have for you There is. What did you do when you first started, right?

[00:15:34] Erin: You researched, you talked to your friends, you read books, and you looked at the law and you looked at the recommendations from other people and you made a decision. So the decision fatigue in high school can be challenging. Sure. Um, you know, we've got. Kids that are interested in college or not interested in college.

[00:15:55] Erin: It's really arrogant of parents, and I hear this a lot, especially from people who have not done this a while. Well, I know my kid is going to college. You know, my family, we've gone to this college for generations and they're gonna go to this school and they're gonna be this. Or my kid has wanted to be this since the time they were little.

[00:16:12] Erin: Well, we do not know, and we cannot say what we're exactly preparing our kids for, because we're not fortune tellers, right? Only God knows what holds what, what the future holds. So what? What do we know we can do? What's in our control? And that is to set that foundation of education in our home and prepare them for learning.

[00:16:32] Erin: Figuring out how to learn something if they don't know it already, where to find the information, how to research something so that they can get the answers that they need. Time management. Time management character. Character building. Yes. Those

[00:16:45] Joe: of things working outside the home or within the home.

[00:16:48] Joe: Right. You know, more and more responsibility as as the age progresses.

[00:16:52] Erin: Right? And it's laying those foundations of character and responsibility and time management, those things, because whatever they choose to do or whatever, you know, you don't know what's gonna happen with your child at any moment. And.

[00:17:08] Erin: What I just wanna encourage parents is not to, to live in fear under that, that we don't know and something could change the course that we're on, but just to lean into God knows. So we just take everything to pray to prayer, right? Uh, take it to him and then, you know, he will guide you, you listen to your kids with, if they're complaining about, A subject that you're doing or a way that things are happening, or a time that you're doing something, listen to that and say, not that you give them control over every aspect, but if you see a pattern of arguing with a specific child over a specific task each day, there's a reason for that.

[00:17:46] Erin: And it could just be that they're hungry. It could be that they're tired and you're asking them to do something that they struggle with. At the end of the day, it could be as easy as a schedule shift.

[00:17:56] Joe: Right. Or it could be as tough as something like laziness or a character issue that has to go

[00:18:01] Erin: deeper, and that's where it takes discernment on our end.

[00:18:04] Erin: And we are serving an awesome God who can tell us and gives us the insight and discernment and the wisdom to know what is going on, especially when we're in his word. Listening to that and ruminating on it and meditating on it, then we can have confidence there. You know, I don't wanna think, I don't want you to think that it's all on your shoulders, right?

[00:18:28] Erin: Because ultimately, let's go back to what we said. God is in control, and if he is calling you to this, You can make decisions and go in a way, but he might change the course of that, and we have to trust that that's okay. Right?

[00:18:44] Joe: If he's the perfect father that he says he is, he will provide the resources for you.

[00:18:49] Joe: He'll provide the strength, the wisdom, the discernment. Um,

[00:18:54] Erin: And it takes a humility on our end. I'll absolute be real frank with you. Absolute. There's been times where I have been the problem. It's not the kids, it's not anything else. It's that I stayed up too late for a long time and I'm tired in the morning and I don't have the, my own self-discipline to get up and get started or.

[00:19:13] Erin: I haven't managed my time well and that's why things are going bad. So it doesn't ever hurt to pray and ask God, show me if, if this is something that's on me, or if it's just, you know, like I said, maybe the kids are just hungry again and it's time for a break. Right.

[00:19:29] Joe: I think as you go through this, you know, these podcasts with us, I think you're gonna see that it's not always a.

[00:19:37] Joe: Formulaic, step-by-step. Uh, if you do these five things, you know, everything's gonna turn out really well. I think we're trying to encourage people to, like you said, humble. Humble yourself. Spend a lot of time in prayer and discerning what God has for you and your family, each of your callings. 'cause your kids' callings could be different than yours, but it's gonna have to take, um, a lot of humility to walk through.

[00:20:06] Joe: What he has for you and do it out of rest in him. Do it out of rest in his provision instead of out of fear or human striving or comparison to other families. Mm-hmm. Uh, what they're doing or while their kid is really successful with this, or, oh, they graduated two years or earlier and I struggle with that.

[00:20:25] Joe: Like, oh man, if our kids aren't to a certain point, I. Others are, you know, what did we do wrong? What am I doing wrong? You know, it's, that's dangerous. Mm-hmm.

[00:20:36] Erin: So, to recap and close out this podcast episode, we really wanna encourage you when you're feeling like you can't or you think that you can't look at the things within your control.

[00:20:47] Erin: Can I talk to a friend? Can I. Check out a book. Can I borrow a book from a friend? Can I join a co-op or a a, something that's gonna put me around other people who are doing the things that I think I can't do? Can I gain confidence from that? Because while comparison is a bad thing, trap to get into.

[00:21:07] Erin: Sometimes it can be a helpful tool. You know, you're looking at yourself and you're saying, you know, I really would like to model after someone. You know, you're comparing what, what you lack, and you're finding that someone's doing it well, and so instead of being jealous or hard on yourself and thinking, I can't do that, maybe it's a, it's time to humble yourself and say, Hey, could you meet with me for coffee so we can talk through homeschooling or how you homeschooled through high school or middle school or through death or through this crisis?

[00:21:38] Erin: Because I'm really struggling.

[00:21:39] Joe: So what it sounds like you're saying is that it takes community. Yeah. Is that you cannot be sitting here alone in your house, right. Struggling by yourself. We're not

[00:21:49] Erin: islands.

[00:21:49] Joe: We're not islands. No. Correct. So it's, it's not just about, um, schooling by yourself. And feeling that pressure of, if you can't do it, Um, but it's, it's getting out.

[00:22:02] Joe: I think a big thing for us was the local support group that you were a part of. Mm-hmm. As well as your, you know, one-on-one

[00:22:08] Erin: conversations. Right. I know H S L D A has a list of all the state organizations, so that might be a helpful place to start to get connected on a more local level. So do you check out your state and a lot of times they have in the state organizations, lists of local communities or outreaches sources.

[00:22:27] Erin: Things that you can be participating in, in your state or in your community. Another place that I have found great encouragement is Sarah McKinsey's book, teaching from Rest. It's so short. You look at it and you think, wow, you know, this is really small there. What can I get out of this? And it's packed with so much good biblical wisdom.

[00:22:48] Erin: On my, how to get your mind around teaching from rest and it, it sounds contradictory that you would be teaching and resting at the same time, but she really has a way that she's put it together. So we will link that in the show notes. We really appreciate you tuning in. We hope that you come back next week.

[00:23:07] Erin: I would also like to say thank you again to Cristy Stebelton of Podcast with Faith for her help in launching our podcast. We are extremely grateful for her talents and skills behind the scenes to edit and manage our podcast during this launch. So we will link her information in the show notes as well, so that if you have podcast needs, you can get help from her as well. We really, really recommend her.