Homeschooling Community Q&A with Manisha Snoyer

Foreign. Hi everyone and welcome to Teach youh Kids. I'm Manisha, I've been a Pre K through 12th grade teacher for the last 20 years and I'm the founder of Teach youh Kids with which is a podcast, an online homeschooling community. On this podcast we talk about the future of education, whole child development and modern day homeschooling. Over the last couple weeks I have been surveying listeners about what types of topics you'd like to see me talk about on the show and you gave me so many great ideas and questions. So today we're gonna have a special episode where I'm going to try to touch on all the questions and the pain points you brought up in the survey. So we're going to be talking about scheduling and time management. A lot of you had questions about that confidence and how to measure progress, community and making friends both in person and online. We're going to talk about curriculum and resources including decolonizing history, finding interesting activities for your kids, staying motivated when it gets hard, and then we're going to address some very more specific questions about special needs screens and a few questions from people who are not currently homeschooling. And if you have a question and didn't get a chance to fill out the survey yet, please do. We'll include a link in the show notes and I've sent it to most of you already and we will definitely address your questions in future episodes. So without further ado, let's start with the big one, scheduling and Time management. One of you wrote to me and said you just love to hear about how families structure their learning day to day. How do you set schedules? How do you do time management, organization, discipline? And people were curious to know how do you find that balance, that sweet spot between honoring and trusting your child's autonomy while also nudging and encouraging them to build their competence and skills and just trying to find out that right balance between academics and free exploration. So I love this question and for those of you who haven't read it or seen it, I wrote a blog on this topic called Mastery Hours because for the last seven years I've been studying what works in the secular homeschooling movement and I have found certain patterns that emerge. And so I want to talk about those patterns. But I also want to preface this by saying I really encourage you to find out what works for you because you've made this decision to homeschool. Well, most of you have, and that gives you a lot of freedom and you probably have some Great gut instincts about what works for your child and you might have some fear that you're not trusting yourself. So I would much rather prefer that you listen to that gut impulse about what kind of structure your child needs and what kind of structure your family needs and really trust that, because that's pure gold. Trust that rather than thinking, I'm the expert who knows best and if you follow this way, that's the perfect way. So now that I've said that, there is a pattern that I've observed among homeschoolers who are getting really exceptional results. And what I mean by exceptional results is their children are doing very well in all academic subjects. They love learning and they have that wonderful quality of self reliance and independence that we all want to cultivate in their children. So what these parents generally do is they pick one to two hours a day when their child is most fresh. For me, I would say that's probably around like 9 or 11 in the morning. And they use these hours for one on one mastery learning. So one on one learning, pretty clear it's one person teaching someone else or someone guiding their own learning at their own pace. And mastery learning is an idea coined by Benjamin Bloom, and we will definitely devote a whole episode to this topic. But I've also written a blog called Mastery Learning. And the concept is essentially that your child is moving forward at their own pace. They're not slowing down for anyone else, and they're not being held back while other people are speeding ahead. And there was actually a really interesting research published recently about how all children are basically learning at the same pace. Even though it seems like sometimes someone is going ahead quicker than someone else. It kind of balances itself out in the end. But so mastery learning, choose a time when your child is really fresh and do an hour of math and an hour of language arts and choose a high quality curriculum. I've written extensively about what curriculums to choose for which types of learners, but make sure that it's vetted and accurate and based on scientific understanding. And then the other time should be spent learning how to read, because these are really the foundations. And if your child knows how to read, knows how to do math, they can do anything. So that's really key is those two hours of focus time. And there's evidence that shows that Even in a 40 hour workweek, there's only a couple hours, maybe one or two or two or three hours a day where adults are highly focused. And the Annenberg Institute has actually done a lot of research on work one on One tutoring and the enormous impact it has. And what they've seen is that for example, children who are the elementary age, their periods of they really do best when they have 45 minute sessions. An hour and a half session doesn't help them learn better. And then when children are in middle school, they can do longer focused periods of time. So really remember that more is not necessarily better when it comes to that highly focused time. And you really want your child to be in that spot where they're loving learning. They're really engaged, they're really focused. This should be something that happens after a good meal or maybe if they're more focused in the afternoon after they've had an opportunity to play in the park. The other component that all children need is three or four hours of self directed time. So when we think about scheduling in this balance of freedom and structure, I want to really start with what's essential. So this hour or two of math and English language arts and and then that huge period of self directed time. And when I'm talking about this, I'm really kind of focusing on children who are 7 or older. There's been a lot of research on early childhood development and play versus structured learning. Some of you know that in Finland children don't even study reading until they're seven. It's totally fine if your kid wants to learn how to read at 3 and totally fine if they don't. But this is kind of around age 7 where you should really be thinking about having this hour of math and English language arts. And you can do it earlier if they seem to show an interest earlier as well. So those mastery hours and then three or four hours of self directed time, this could be playing outside. I just love to bring kid outside, let them just play and explore. It could be, you know, if some kids are more social, it might take the form of a play date. It might be time when they're in their room, perhaps using art tools. It could be a trip to the library. But the idea is that they have a certain set of tools available to them to learn. It's an environment that is comfortable and where they're at ease, but you're not really directing the learning. And one thing, this can actually be a great period of time for you to get some work done as well. You know, especially if children know they're going to have these three or four hours where they are exploring their interests and you are exploring your your own interests. And that's a concept we often refer to as strewing. So it can be completely undirected time, it can be time where they're playing outside, it can be time in a library. But what we're really to do is not structure this time too much. We're going to talk a little bit about screen time later, but I do think it's important that there are three or four hours a day without screens because screen time, and there are many different varieties of screen time is not necessarily self directed time. It's time that's being directed by that technology. So it depends. I mean, an extreme example would be Fortnite, where kids are really just kind of addicted to this game. And there's more creative games such as Minecraft, which are super educational and wonderful, but it's really good for children to have that space to explore the world on their own. So two hours of mastery learning, lots of self directed time. And sometimes I get a little bit of pushback with this from parents because they say, well, my child really needs a ton of structure or the problem is my child gets bored or my child gets needy. And so I would really encourage you to allow space to question those assumptions. You know, it might be that your child is bored for a couple weeks and then all of a sudden they discover what they're interested in. Um, I had a meditation teacher who used to say that boredom is really a sweet spot. I mean, I remember times I was meditating and it just felt like the most like fiery boredom. You could describe it as where I was just so frustrated in that space of boredom, but from within that just something beautiful grew within me. So a safe space, a comfortable space, a space they feel good and that time to explore. It's just so vital for creative problem solving, for learning how to learn, for discovering their interests. So, so you have those, those two times. And then the other component that you know is really valuable is just family time. And I know that there's, there's a family I know who I think really structures this beautifully in that they wake up every morning and as a family, they live in San Francisco, they walk to the beach, to the gather, and they have time on the beach and time together to have breakfast and then they sit down for two hours and that's table time. And this mother was a teacher in Switzerland, so she uses the Swiss curriculum with her children. There's lots of other curricula you can choose from. And then the rest of the time is really divided between either going out and playing with friends. Extracurriculars. They have park days where they're in the forest all day. And I would even say these mastery hours don't have to be every day. They can be four days a week, with Friday as a day that children go to a hall, homeschool, co op, or maybe they are just kind of, you know, meeting up with friends or, you know, in the park, whatever it might be, whatever they're gravitating towards. So just make sure you get those four hours of, four days of mastery hours with the self directed time built in. And your children are going to start taking more and more possession of what that self directed time looks like for them. Especially if you have a child who has strong emotions, a child on the spectrum, and they really need that time. You know, sometimes we call it downtime or quiet time. It's just, it's a beautiful space to explore. And you know, young children do find their way rather easily within that space. When they're three or four, they really need to be around you all the time. And that's, that's good and normal. But you know, sometimes if a child is in high school, I guess they're a teen if they're in high school and then they come into this environment where they have all this space to explore, it can be a bit overwhelming and they might get bored and frustrated. But I would just say, as much as you can, try to resist that impulse to entertain. It's so intense as a parent, and I think in many ways we are really culturally conditioned to want to entertain our children, especially a gifted child, with this intense need for intellectual stimulation. We have this impulse as a parent of, oh my gosh, I need to, I need to entertain. It's my job to entertain them. And I would say it's not, it's not your job to entertain them. You know, you need to keep them safe, happy, well nurtured. But if you give them that space, they will learn to entertain themselves, actually, which is going to be a really great advantage to you as they get older, especially if you want to work and you want your child to be able to do more independent learning. So it would say, you know, so just kind of through the developmental stages, when your child is quite young, 2, 3, 4, they really do need a lot of time with their mom and dad and a caregiver. And then as they get older, you know, you know, suss it out, you know, your child, five, six, seven, you know, try to start carving out more of those periods where they can work independently. Maybe you're at the desk writing and they're drawing a picture and you know, whatever Feels good to you. Maybe, you know, there's time that you're in the office and they're working independently. But you know, just find that level of comfort for your child. And if you do have a child who's particularly, I guess you could call needy or wanting attention, there are ways to work with that but, but still with the goal of finding that space for independence and self directed learning. And you know, and, and that can also be something that you are involved with. I mean, you can go to the park with them and you can play with them in the park and that is also self directed while honoring your own needs as well. Playing with a young child can get kind of boring. And it's okay to say that you're bored and you just need to sit out for a while and read your book. That's you can take care of your own needs. So we have the one or two hours of math and English language arts or math and reading. It's vital that your child knows how to read. Handwriting is vital, math is vital. So there should be that time for intensive study. And you know, different children have different capabilities. So you find out what's the best time to start teaching those skills to your child. There is not a rush. I would say if your child gets to be about 10 and they don't know how to read or write, then that might be a reason to kind of push that a little more. But before then it's really fine for them to learn at their own pace. And then I would also say it's great if you can integrate some practical life into the day. And that what I mean by that is when you're cooking a meal, maybe choose a meal that's simple to make that your children can make with you. Involve your children in helping clean up. This is a really big part of the Montessori curriculum. And it will also be great for you because then you won't have to do as much cooking and cleaning because your children are, or getting involved with that. I've even seen very young children, two or three, learn to chop apples and carrots. And that kind of stuff is so great for them and great for you. That's what I would advise in terms of schedule. And it can be actually pretty simple to set up. You know, choose a time when your child is really fresh and get those one hour of math, one hour of English language arts a little bit less. If they're in elementary school, try to see what their focus is like. Some children have the ability to focus for a little longer and Also, I've even observed in my own experience, we've had so many children that I worked with during the pandemic and other teachers worked with through 30 minutes of math, 30 minutes of reading. Within six months they had gone through the whole K through 8th grade curriculum. So you have the right curriculum. Your child can really move quite fast in this approach. So what happens though, if you have multiple children, especially multiple young children, how do you find the time to focus a bit on each one of them? This is a great question and you know, it's really highly dependent on what your situation is. I do think that it's valuable for each of those children to have their own one on one time. So I would recommend choosing a curriculum that works best for each of them and carving out that space to give each of them those 30 minutes of math, 30 minutes of reading. You can either do it one on one or you could have everyone gather around the table and you can take turns. I mean, it's very easy. You know, if a child is working through math, you can give them a quick five minute lesson, have them get started on the homework and then give them support as needed and then get the other child started and give them support as needed. Or if you have a baby, maybe that mastery learning happens when the baby is sleeping and that's when you teach your six year old. Or maybe, you know, the four year old really isn't learning math and literacy yet, so they're just there watching while Sarah has her lesson. The other thing I would say about multiple siblings, and we're going to go into this in more depth because it is trickier if you have multiple kids, although it can also be easier because they can play together. You know, if you have three kids, two of them can go play while the other one has their lesson and the children can also model behavior after older children. But I would say that often in homeschooling, child care is really underrated as a solution. So for, you know, you can absolutely have one child go to a homeschool co op while you're helping the other child. And so in that way you can find ways to focus more on each child. And you know, there are also, you can do swaps with other parents. And so when you are going to school, it's kind of natural, like, okay, maybe we need an after school sitter if I work, maybe we need to find someone for date night. But in homeschooling we often don't realize, okay, well I'm not using school as my child care solution anymore. Maybe I'll find a different child care solution that allows me to curate these experiences with the children. So, for example, I spoke to a dad the other day and he has a two year old, a three year old, and then a six year old. And so the six year old is more the one that needs that math and reading right now. So, you know, for example, in his case, you know, it's while I would love him to be able to, you know, kind of be bouncing a baby and teaching math, you know, at the same time to a six year old, it might be, you know, a good idea in that situation to, you know, wait until nap time and then work with the six year old or maybe wait until his partner gets home from work and then choose that time for the mastery learning. Another element of scheduling that I don't think gets talked about enough in the homeschooling community is getting that time to yourself. So especially in a situation where one parent is really focused on homeschooling, or might even be a single mom and the other parent is working, it's really, really critical that the parent who is doing the homeschooling gets a break. And, you know, often it gets to the point where they're constantly with their kids, constantly with their family, and saying, oh, gosh, I just am desperate. I need a day to myself, I need to go to the spa. And so when you wait for that moment of desperation, it gets kind of overwhelming. And so what I suggest is, you know, you think about yourself. Are you a person who needs a lot of alone time or not as much? And try to carve out at least three hours a week when you're maybe going to the library and just writing for three hours, you know, or maybe, you know, whatever you like to do, whether it's go play soccer or golf or just meditate, but go outside of your house, swap childcare with another family and get the time you need to restore. You deserve that time and you need that time. And unfortunately, a lot of times I don't see homeschooling work when that parent who's responsible for most of the homeschooling doesn't take those breaks. And if you're splitting it, make sure that you have that time to yourself. That may be as separate from work time. And that can also help with a lot of the concerns of, well, what if this parent is like not mommy anymore, they're just teacher? It just can help you really return to yourself and your own identity and your own needs. So just give yourself that time. Your children will Learn better. Your whole family will learn better if you do. And it can be as simple as posting to our group or another Facebook group and saying, hey, does someone want to swap child care three hours a week? Moving along. A lot of people said they would like help for admin. This is kind of something I laugh a bit about because I think that a lot of people would like me to build a startup that does admin curation and management of homeschooling. And there are definitely people who have tried that and failed. And you know, so. And I, I guess my interest is not so much in the admin of homeschooling, even though I have done it. You know, other people say they're just looking for continuity and trying to piece all these disparate pieces together, you know, fill up the progress reports. And so it's a bit of a tricky one. But I would say with admin it really depends on the family. Some people are very interested in finding tutors both in person and offline, and that can take a bunch of time. But there are really great resources for finding tutors. You can check in with your local college or university, you can post your homeschool group. I use indeed. And then in terms of managing what's happening, one of the things I like to remind parents is what is actually taking up the most time for you and are there ways that you can solve that besides through a homeschooling consultant? For example, I notice a lot of parents spend time driving places. So, you know, if that's your case, you don't really need to have a professional homeschooling consultant drive your children places. You know, you can have, you know, maybe someone who is another homeschooling parent drive them or maybe they just don't need to do as many activities. So that's something to keep in mind. There's also this kind of, and I'm not saying the admin isn't important, but there are other ways you can kind of manage your house. There's virtual assistants that can help with a lot of the, you know, payment aspect and finding tutors aspect. Again, I have this great blog on how to find tutors that's very easy for someone to follow who's not a professional, who might just, you know, be used to being an assistant, a virtual assistant. So even filling up progress reports and you know, ChatGPT can be helpful. But what I would also say is that there can be this kind of obsession with finding interest, engaging activities instead of giving your child this big space for self directed learning. And so some of that concern that everything is so difficult to manage is just because you're trying to fill up your child's schedule too much. And then the last thing that I would say is that this is hard for everybody. I mean this is every parent's summer, it's every parent's after school. It's really the same when you're homeschooling and the same when you're sending your child to school school, just managing their life. So what, what I would really suggest you do is just think about how you can scale back and, and optimize those things that are important like math and English language arts. Instead of feeling like you need to fill your child's life with a million things and, and, and then just let things happen organically. A lot of the in person experiences are advertised in homeschooling groups. That's helpful. And as your child gets older, I would really encourage you to give them some responsibility over this in finding their tutors, in managing their schedule and their life because they're going to be much more self reliant adults if you do so. All right, so confidence and measuring progress. We talked a little bit about how choosing a strong math and a strong English language arts program will help ensure that your child has the tools that they need to thrive in life. So it might just be as simple as that. You can use the curriculum planner I built. Find a solid mastery based curriculum that ensures that your child is moving ahead at the right pace. Mastering one concept before they move on to the next. That they know how to read, that they know how to write. The curriculum might be enough to measure how well that they're doing. I want to talk about some of the questions you asked in particular though. So one parent said, I want confidence that's going well. I really feel for you the am I doing enough or am I doing too much questions. I need better ways of measuring feedback to figure out how things are going. One parent said, I need goals. I don't know what goals they should be. And then there's also this social awkwardness of other parents like oh my gosh, you know, telling people that I'm homeschooling. Am I failing my child? So first of all, I just want to recognize that you have made a really bold choice by choosing to homeschool. The homeschooling population is growing very rapidly, so it's becoming less controversial to homeschool your children. The number one way to feel confident as a homeschooler when you're operating from that place of fear. Am I doing enough? Am I doing not enough? Oh, my gosh. My aunt and uncle think this is a terrible idea. How do I tell people about this? The number one thing that you can do is join a community of homeschoolers. I cannot emphasize this enough. If you are doing something as counterculture as homeschooling, you need to be surrounded by a community who supports you. It is too hard to be alone and to be doing something that your family disagrees with, because not only are you going to have people to support you, you're going to be able to exchange ideas and say, is this a good idea to educate my child in this way? I'm worried that they're not moving forward fast enough. Is this a legitimate concern or should I feel okay? And you can interact with people who are two or three years ahead of you, you know, who will give you advice and say, yeah, you know, if they don't know how to write at that age, you might want to consider hiring a writing tutor and here's someone we know who's affordable. Or oh my gosh, you feel overwhelmed. Hey, I can take care of childcare for you on Fridays. Or they're saying, oh my gosh, I'm only doing an hour of math and an hour of English language arts. Is that enough? And they'll say, oh my gosh, yes, that's what we did. It worked really well. You're going to be fine. So surrounding yourself with a community of like minded individuals when you are making a controversial decision is vital. If you don't have that, you need it today. And you can join our community, you can go on Facebook and find local communities. But that is the number one thing. If you're even considering homeschooling, you need to be part of a community that can help validate your choice and carry you through the rough times. The other side of am I doing enough? Am I doing too much? Is simply taking a test and finding out. You know, I mean, we, a lot of us chose to homeschool because we don't like standardized tests, but there are actually great exams out there that can help us measure children's progress. And I would suggest, number one, the one I like the best is called the Maps Growth Test. And what's great is that it's not just a test that measures your child in comparison to other children their age, because we know there's so many developmental differences that go beyond the number of age. It actually looks at your child's individual strengths and weaknesses. And a lot of children who have been diagnosed on the gifted spectrum actually take this test that's called a MAPS growth test. And the easiest place to get it, I think is homeschool boss. I know the founder, she's really wonderful. And, and your children can take this test pressure free and you can get a realistic sense of what they need to work on and where they're strong. I mean that, you know, it's true that just having numbers like this to measure your child's progress can be very reassuring. Number three. And I keep returning to this not because I'm some kind of wishy washy hippie, but because I do believe it is true. And evidence based on is that, you know, your gut has so much information about what your child needs right now and in the future. The skills that children need for the future are changing so fast and you might look out and say, oh my gosh, there's all this artificial intelligence. Should I be teaching my kid to code? And your gut might just say, you know what, no, I don't think that they're going to be interested in software engineering. Or your gut might say, you know what, I really feel like this would be a vibe valuable tool for my child. And then you can introduce the idea to your child of learning how to code and find a good app. So when we approach this question of am I doing enough? Am I doing too much? Return to your gut, see how you feel. See how your child feels. You know, I interviewed Naval Ravikant and he said he's an entrepreneur and angel investor. He said parents should trust their evolved instincts that have come through billions of years of evolution. It's only very recent that we decided to outsource our child's education. And you, amazing human being, have decided not to outsource the most core thing that you can give your child. I mean, if you were building a company, you would not outsource the core competency for your family. Educating and raising your child is the core competency. Don't outsource it to someone who doesn't care as much. So you have decided not to outsource that. Feel confident in your choice with ease. Think about the skills your children might need, how you can support that. You know, it'd be cool if they knew how to build a budget. I think I'll offer them an allowance and you can layer these in and see how they respond to them. If they know how to read, if they know how to write, if they know how to do math, they know enough to succeed. The other aspect of this, which is A little bit complicated is natural consequences. And I do emphasize a lot that self directed learning time. And there's more that you can read about strewing and how to structure an environment conducive to self directed learning, which I'll share. But it's really kind of vital that you aren't enabling your child because it's very difficult to learn self reliance if everything is handed to you with a silver spoon. And so that's why, first of all, just with the math and English language arts, really allowing your child to learn at their own pace, to be stuck on something for a while, to help direct them towards tools for learning instead of explaining to them and getting them involved with cooking meals and cleaning up after themselves. And if they made a commitment to you and they don't live up to their promise, there would be natural consequences for that. I think an allowance is great for experiencing natural consequences. They get a budget each week and that's what they have to spend on the things that they want. And if they run out of money, there's no more money to spend along with that. I highly encourage every family to volunteer with their child, especially really, I mean, any income level you are at, I think volunteering is really healthy, good for mental health. But especially if you're an affluent family, your child might just not understand resources the way that a child who grew up without resources understands that they're not infinite. Right. So to order for your child to understand that resources are finite and to understand their own privilege, it's just vital that they volunteer. They're just, they need that in order to experience what the world is really like and what kind of role they want to play in helping people's lives better, make people's lives better, what kind of possibilities are available to them, how hard you worked to get to where you are today. They just, it's hard to teach that in a book. You kind of have to live it to experience it. So you can go volunteer as a family to serve food to people who are homeless. A food bank is a great place, a soup kitchen perhaps if your child has a big concern about a certain issue like climate change, you can get involved in climate education, climate action. I really like it when parents take their kids to town halls to learn about civic engagement and politics. Just understand how the world works. So that's another layer that I would bring. So in terms of confidence and measuring progress, don't obsess. I mean, one thing I have to remind people about is that a child is not a tech startup, a Child is not a product and you are not making them. They are born and you are keeping them safe and nurturing them and loving them and supporting them. But you are not there. You're not creating them and molding them. They're a human being and they are, they have a life of their own. So you can't really optimize them. It's not like there's this perfect test that measures every single aspect of social, emotional intelligence, academic intelligence, potential leadership. And you can just create the next Bill Gates or Elon Musk or Scarlet Johansson or Meryl Streep or whoever you imagine as the perfect person. It doesn't work that way. And I kind of hope a test like that never exists because it's a bit of a shame to see a child in that way. And I know that we are all kind of anxious about status and I couldn't say, oh, it's, you know, oh my gosh, it's just so stupid that everybody is interested in status. And I mean, I also care about my rank in the world and if I'm successful. And so I really resonate with a family who wants to their child to be as successful as possible. But really if your child has the tools of self reliance and learning and if they care deeply about the world, they are going to be an extraordinary human and contribute so much. And the reason I say this is because children are born with this incredible fire within them, this fire to learn and to grow. And really the worst thing we can do as parents or educators is to quench that fire. If you really pay attention, it's that fire through which they learned how to walk, they learned how to speak, they became interested in reading because reading in many cases is something that needs to be taught. But the interest, you know, oh my gosh, I'm interested in learning to read. I want to be able to communicate that is so, so intense within a child. And if you can ease into trusting that natural desire to learn and trust your child's ability to achieve things in the world, to act, there's just no place they can't go. And so when we come back to this idea of measuring progress, it's really about setting a few simple goals. I want my child to the third, have the foundations, math and English language arts. And I want to nurture their independence and their love of learning and surround them with the tools to honor that learning. And the way that where natural consequences come in, for example, is that you don't shield them from the fact that they're people who are starving in our world, that the climate is changing and we as a world are going to have to take action in order to build a sustainable planet. You don't shield them from going to a library and discovering all these amazing books and asking questions about them. You don't shield them from having to clean up after themselves or else their room gets messy. And from there, that's where this intense desire and excitement and passion for learning gets nourished. And there's nowhere they can't go with that passion inside them. So outside of academics, social is always a challenge. And this family says that's because of our lifestyle. We live on a boat and are constantly moving. You know a bit about making friends when you're traveling around the world. And another parent who has been homeschooling for a very long time said, I work very hard at creating community and have been able to maintain groups for long periods of time. But only one or two groups. Groups are truly collaborative and take advantage of collective skills. Creating groups like them without having to pour in so much energy and time is the ongoing challenge. So let's start with the sphere around socialization. I have devoted a very long blog post and a whole episode to why I think homeschooling is a better social emotional environment than traditional school. And I will mostly say that the number one reason is because you are spending time with family, you have more time to play with friends. There's so many vibrant homeschooling communities, especially as the homeschooling movement has grown. And the way you find them is really joining a Facebook group or joining our group. We'll match you with people in your area. There are some areas where it's a little bit harder to homeschool, like, for example, this family on a boat. So I will say my approach to making friends when traveling abroad is to join the Facebook groups and the WhatsApp groups. So whenever I go to a new country, I look at, okay, what's the Facebook group for Madeira, Portugal? Or, you know, I don't know, Asheville, North Carolina. And I just go in and I say, hey, I'm around here for a few days. Who wants to meet up for a play date? Or I look and see if there's an existing meetup. If you're in one place, what I recommend is consistent events. Every week you have a board game night at your house. You announce it to the local group, people come. You can even get creative, maybe have a targeted Facebook ad for homeschoolers in your area. But consistency is really key. Plugging into existing events and really just diving right in and starting to meet people and realizing friendships sometimes do take time to form, but it's just so great being able to choose your own friends and being in these mixed stage groups. So if you're just starting homeschooling, I would not be too worried about socialization. If you're already homeschooling and you're having trouble finding offline group offline activities, I think first of all, you can get involved in after school activities. Yelp is a great place to look. The Facebook groups are great. Just start plugging into those events and you can even start your own. And then addressing this question of this woman who I know her and she's extraordinary and she has built a so many incredible groups. It can be quite fatiguing being the one who's always leading the groups and no one else is getting involved. And first of all, you really have to appreciate the magic of when it works, when you find a community that's truly collaborative, where people are exchanging skills, where everybody comes to the weekly events. I think of hugs in San Francisco every Friday. They meet up at the same playground, they bring snacks, some mixed age group, everyone has a great time. They're spontaneously forming all these classes, a professor teaching chess, whatnot. Those groups are just magic. It's a gift when that happens. And you really have to appreciate it. If that's not the case in your area, what I would recommend is that what you do is start your own group. But you have to make your expectations very clear from the beginning. So I'm part of this group of leaders and see homeschoolers and what they say is that, you know, you can put out a notice, like to your local Facebook group and say, hey, I really want to start this group. But here's what's important to me. I want parents to be teaching. Everyone has to teach one class, do one childcare swap. I want it to be really cooperative and collaborative. Or you can say, hey, we're going to have this group. Everyone's going to pay and we're going to have an admin who organizes stuff. And that's another way to operate. But what I would also suggest is always involving people in the mission of the group and in the expectations of the group. So what I recommend is you can say, hey, you know, I would love to start a collaborative group. We're going to have a meeting on Monday at my house and we're going to talk about what's important in this group and we're going to Write it down, because often if people are involved in deciding what's important to them, they're more likely to commit later. So I definitely want to have an episode on creating community, but I just want to emphasize that making those expectations clear in the first meeting or several meetings and having members involved in saying what's important to them will take you quite far. And you can make it very collaborative. You can have one person in charge, you can hire an admin. All of these things are possibilities. The group can be big, it can be small, you know, so keep it simple. But those are some things that are helpful for building community. And I do want to return. You know, I said. I said earlier that if you feel embarrassed about, you know, being a homeschooler, plugging into a community is so important. And if you can, the best way is just to see, is there a group in your area? Is there a meetup you can attend? That's kind of the best way to get started. But then a lot of people also ask me, how do we talk about our decision to home educate without coming off as anti school or without people judging us? And, you know, the first thing that I would say is focus on the positives. You know, we have decided a homeschool because we believe this is the best educational experience and social, emotional experience our child can have. And we feel so privileged that we're to able. Able to offer this to our child because some people might even feel kind of a little jealous that you can do this and they can't. We're so privileged that we can do this. You know, we've done a lot of research, looked at the schools in the area, and we just feel like this is the best option for us. And then you can add, we might be wrong, but we've decided to try this out. And then people can see the positive outcomes that happen when you start homeschooling. And I always find even, you know, when people say, like, why are you an entrepreneur? Why don't you have a job? Or why aren't you building a tutoring platform? Why you have a podcast? I say, you know, I thought about all the options. What I want to do is expand access to education. And based on what I know now, I think this is going to be the best path to do it. I could be wrong. So it's hard to argue with integrity. You know, you did your research, you're going to try this, and you have the humility that you might be wrong, but you made the best decision you could with the information you had. At the time. And I think that's really the key thing to relay to people who might be questioning you. The other thing I would say is just honestly, who cares what they think? Who cares what they think? It's your child. Parents receive so much external judgment from others saying how they should raise their own child, from people who know nothing about raising children. You all have more external judgment and criticism than any member in society. But ultimately it's your child, and you really want to surround yourself with people who are judging your own educational choices. I mean, I know it can be harder if it's your mother in law or, you know, an aunt or your own mom, someone in your family, or maybe your spouse, and you're having trouble figuring out if you're going to do this. But if it's just your neighbor or some other friend who's judging you, it's really none of their business, and they shouldn't be approaching you in that way. And that's where you really start to lean in your homeschooling community for support. So you can, you know, not feel like you have to hold that all on your own, and you have people around you to encourage you. So when you talk to other people, just say, you know what? We did a lot of research. We feel like this is going to be the best decision for our child, both academically and socially. It's good to emphasize those two points and, you know, we could be wrong, but we want to try it out and see what happens. And that I don't think anyone can argue with that. A lot of you said that you enjoyed the curriculum and resources that we recommended, and we're definitely going to keep on recommending curriculum. A couple people said they'd love to see a focus on decolonizing homeschooling. Some people might not know this term, decolonizing homeschooling. So decolonized history is an approach to studying the past that challenges traditional Eurocentric perspectives, dominant historical narratives. A lot of you have chosen to homeschool because you want to expose your children to more black history, Asian history, women's history. You just don't feel like the history in schools is covering it. And I don't think that's, you know, woke or weird. It's really true. I mean, most of history is just about what the Europeans did, that they settled this land. There's so much more history that informs who we are beyond just that one narrow story, obviously. So if you want to find decolonized history resources for your children, Joy Hakeem is great The Stanford History Project is wonderful. Zinn's US History of the United States. We're going to do a whole episode on this. On this topic. Blossom and Root has a wonderful US history program. Currently we are actually in 66 countries. So I know a lot of you don't even really need to know about U.S. history. You're looking for Indian history or Australian history. And one really great resource for history is actually colleges and universities. A lot of them have an Africana Studies department, other types of resources that are available to families. You could even maybe hire a grad student or ask them to teach a class for free. Another thing that's kind of fun is that there are books and articles about history that might be from more of a perspective. If you're from Vietnam, maybe Vietnamese American approach. And you could take those articles and just put them in chatgpt and say, hey, could you explain to me this as if I was a five year old or an eight year old and there you have a curriculum for your child. Documentaries can be great, but I really think that leaning on those colleges and universities can be especially interesting and exciting. And you can use Google and YouTube and all these great resources. So if you are thinking about your child's cultural identity and wanting them to learn more about it, there's so much fun research that you guys have can do together. And that's a really great way to explore history in terms of other books and tools that people are using. We do have a curriculum finder. I spent three years developing this, going through all of the most recommended secular homeschooling resources, vetting them for accuracy, seeing if they're fun for which types of children. And you can use our curriculum finder and identify math and English language arts that could be good for you. And I just have a ton of blogs on the site about different topics. Financial literacy, science, YouTube channels, you name it, that you can. You can just use a search on our site and you can see all the different topics that I've covered. And these are just curriculum that have been recommended by parents that our kids have used. We have ones that use screens, ones that are offline and just a lot of ton wonderful stuff. And just know. I mean it's a good question because a lot of homeschooling curriculum are terrible, they have inaccuracies. But we have done a lot of the work of vetting them for you. So I'm happy. Also, if there's a resource that is not recommended on my site, I have over 200 different archetypes of Kids and over I think a thousand different resources that I have vetted and recommend. But if there's one that you're curious about, you can always email me and I can take a look at it and tell you what I think of it. And then I would also say for curriculum that it's really important to find curriculum that your child loves and that helps with their motivation and perseverance. And I know you can find something, something out there. Many of you said that a challenge was finding activities, interesting activities, ways to inject novelty while keeping structure and routine. Probably there are more activities online, someone said that we'd like to participate in, but we're not really exploring them, just more tips and inspiration. So the first thing I'll say, and this might not be a surprise, is that when you have those three or four hours for self direction learning time, there's not a lot of extra time for interesting activities. And I would be very cautious about this excitement of this excitement around entertaining your children. Just question it a little bit because I really have doubts on how good it is for them for you to be feeling like it's your job to entertain them or it's your teacher's job to entertain them. And I've even heard a lot of college professors saying there's kind of a disturbing trend where kids are just sitting back in their class kind of having an attitude of as if they're watching a movie, eating popcorn, eating in class. They don't, they're not really the drivers of their education. So I would say your child doesn't need all these interesting entertaining activities. And as they get older they can take responsibility for finding them themselves. They can actually be the ones who are looking for activities, hearing activities from friends in their homeschooling group. And that's by the way a place that you're going to be hearing about activities. But you know, obviously there's a gazillion different online activities. There's outschool, we have some cool clubs ourselves on teacher kids. You know, there's, there's plenty to do. Museums are a great place to do activities. But if you guys can be comfortable with boredom and your kids can self direct and you have a couple friends that are available for playdates, you don't need that many activities. So kind of be wary of this activity culture. You know, if you want to find activities, I'm not going to tell you, don't find an activity, don't do something extra. Just don't clog up your kids time too much. And what I usually do is I go on Yelp, I look for the word homeschool and I always find a bunch of offerings. There's a lot of after school centers that offer homeschool activities in the Facebook groups. People are always recommending stuff so they're not that tricky to find. I have a whole process for how to find homeschooling programs. A huge blog on this. You can hand it to a virtual assistant, they can help find activities. But you know, it's just don't overload your kid and don't be, you know, don't have too much fomo. Like this fear of missing out, like, oh shoot, I should be listen, looking for more activities. Just try not to drive your child's learning from a place of fear. These were kind of the bulk topics and now I want to talk about a few very specific questions you asked. The first is around motivation. Motivation and perseverance. And I wasn't really sure if the parent meant this for themselves or for their child, but it kind of falls into the same bucket, which is first of all, you know, like if you have a curriculum that you love, your child is going to be motivated to do it. And it's okay if they take a day off here and there, especially if you're doing it year round. So if they're not motivated, it might be that you didn't really choose the right tools to help motivate them or didn't really give them enough context for why they're doing it. Or they might just be doing too much stuff and you need more of that self directed learning time. Where you really need their motivation is in these one or two mastery hours. And it might be too early for them to be motivated. You could wait till they're seven or till they're eight. And the second thing is, if they're sitting around bored, not knowing what to do for three hours a day, that's okay, even if it lasts for a couple weeks. That is the richness through which they find their motivation. But you know, go to the park, find a couple friends that I highly recommend. And in terms of your own motivation and perseverance, please remember to take those three hours of week for yourself. You need that time to rest and restore. I do believe you can carve out an hour or two a day to do mastery learning with your child. But please, please, please make sure that you carve out that time for yourself. I think that's going to be most critical for your perseverance. And don't underestimate childcare because so Many people say, well, I'm burnt out, this isn't working, I'm just going to default to school. School. It's basically like sending your kids to daycare. There are other options. There are childcare swaps, there's a co op one day a week. Find the child care that you need to support your homeschooling, curate it to fit your needs instead of just going back to the school default. So one parent wrote to me and I think she'll be okay with me sharing this, not telling her name. Her daughter is 2E. She has pathological demand avoidance and she's on the same spectrum. A lot of times these learning disabilities are kind of working together. So her daughter's unpredictable mood and her intense anxiety and need to be in control, you know, this is very common. Her daughter is kind of experienced a burnout after being in school. And what I would say here is if your child is having really strong emotions and upset and frustrated, this is a really good opportunity. You need to take some down time. All of that nice self directed learning time where they can de school, calm, heal from the trauma, find out what they love. They don't have to do anything for the first year after school. It could be a couple months, it could be a couple weeks, and then gradually, one at a time. You can layer in math, layer in reading when they're feeling really fresh and good. So just remember for your autistic child, having lots of that time to be in places where they don't feel anxious or upset, where they're well fed and calm and nourished, and you can kind of start to learn more about their needs and they can have opportunities to articulate their needs. We did a wonderful episode about meditation and one of the things we start with is trying to talk to your child about their emotions when they're feeling calm. What do you love? What are you excited about? Hey, you know that other day when you started yelling at me, what were you feeling? What started getting you upset? And you can start understanding how your child learns where they feel good, where they feel less good, and from there you start your foundation for learning. So there is a huge range of parental views about screens and obviously there's a bunch of different types of screens. There's educational engaged screen time when you and your child are working on a learning app. There's playing Fortnite where your child is alone for five hours, addicted and feeling violent. There are educational TV shows, there's watching educational TV shows with your children. There's trash, there's social Media, which can be really harmful for teenagers. There's all these different types of, of screens. There's having a wonderful conversation with someone on a screen, as I'm doing right now, talking to you, very healthy and nurturing. I hope so. There's all these different types of screen time. Right. And we had Nir Eyal on the show and what he said is, you know, when you think about screens, don't think about what you need to take away, but think about what you need to add and do this with your child. You know, talk to them and say, okay, how much math time do you need? How much English language arts? How much self directed learning time, how much time with friends, how much physical activity? Okay, how much time does that leave for screens? And then you can decide that together. And near even had his daughter decide a method for measuring it. So she wanted to use an egg timer and I believe. And so they use the egg timer to measure screen time. And she has been involved in making her own choices about her relationship to screens. Now we also had Jeremy Howard on the show and his daughter does of a lot, lot of online classes and we've set up this really wonderful ergonomic space for her to learn in. So she's actually more comfortable and active on the screen than she would be in a typical school environment. And their screen time is very engaged and educational and that works really well for that daughter. There are some parents who choose to use almost exclusively nature based learning. So when we talk about keeping children away from screens, the first thing I would say is let's talk about what to add in before we subtract. And Nir would say it's about self determination theory. Do they have enough autonomy in their life? Are they able, are they able to, are they have enough relatedness and connectedness with friends in their life and are they having the sense of accomplishment in their life? And if they're not, maybe they're turning to screens. But as some parents point out, that is kind of like a little bit naive if you're kid is like super addicted to video games. So. And not naive because it's a great framework and it might take time to hone and to figure out what these psychological nutrients as near called are needed for your particular child. And then also talk to Samantha Snowden from Headspace, which is a wonderful meditation app. Her approach in terms of screens is just starting with engaging with the child in a very positive way. So when they're playing on the screen, you're also there. You notice when they're Happy? What made you happy? Here you notice when they're upset, oh, what's causing the stress? Oh, that would cause me stress too. And so it's no longer kind of just the child on the screen. It's the child, the screen and you. And it will help you identify some of the things that they're getting from the screen that you can help them get elsewhere. And, you know, the other thing too is, you know, finding this balance of authority and keeping your child safe and their freedom is always a dance. I mean, anyone who believes in a purely hands off approach to child rearing is in complete denial. Because first of all, no parent would let their two year old run in front of a car in the street. They would grab them and force them not to do that. And yes, a social media app can be like a car in your teenager who's very prone to, you know, the impact of other people and what they think of them and these disturbing images. So we have to keep our children safe. And sometimes that means taking the phone away and having a huge temper tantrum. It doesn't mean that that's not coupled with an explanation of why the phone is taken away. But the children are in our homes, they are vulnerable. They are at this stage of development where they need extra support and it's okay to make a decision like that. So it is a bit of a dance in terms of these screens, but I know that you can get there. And it starts with engaging with your child and the screen. It starts by involving your child and the choices around screens. And it can take a little bit of time for you all to find your way. And we are here to support you as you do it. So if you're having trouble and you, you know, you listen to Nir, who's amazing, and you feel like this advice does not apply to me and my child. Or if you listen to Samantha Snowden and say, oh my gosh, like, I love meditation, but seriously, I tried to engage with my child and they just slammed the door in my face and screamed at me. Then you come to us and we talk to you about how to navigate this individual situation because you're not alone. And returning to my previous point, you need community in order to homeschool your child. And there are just so many wonderful homeschooling communities out there. You need your support network. All right, so I want to kind of wrap it up by just addressing two questions from non homeschoolers. And one of them said, inability to supervise my child or two working households who need to Leave the home to work. And both incomes are equally valuable child care. This. I just keep drumming this point again and again because there are so many families who homeschool with two full time jobs outside the home. There are full time working single moms who homeschool. There are people who both work at home, There are people where there's a stay at home parent school does not provide a perfect childcare situation. There are so many ways that you can give your child those four hours or three hours of self directed learning time and those one or two hours of mastery based learning. And that is not school. You cannot give your child those two hours of mastery learning after a day when they are exhausted, sitting at a desk, being stuffed with useless information that they're going to forget tomorrow. You cannot do that after school. And even I have started telling people that I won't tutor, I won't get tutors for their child if they are going to school all day because I feel like it's borderline abusive. So if you want the benefits of homeschooling, you can't send your child to school. School, you have to homeschool. And I'm sorry, because I see a lot of posts, people saying, oh, can I get the benefits of homeschooling and go to school? And I'm afraid that the answer is no. You cannot get that one on one support. You cannot get that ample family time. You cannot get that self directed learning time, you cannot get that curated curriculum, you cannot get that time for service and work. If you are also sending your child to school six hours a day. And even if it's a space that is, you know, self directed, how are you going to get that one on one tutoring time at the time that they're most fresh, using the curriculum that works best for them? There are schools that cost $100,000 a year where you can do that. But in those schools, their child are not being exposed to a diverse community and they're not getting time with you, the person who loves them the most. And that relationship between a parent and a child is what builds a child's healthy social capacity. And I can guarantee they are not being exposed to diverse viewpoints and perspectives if you're paying $100,000 a year for school. Another family said, we're not homeschooling, but more like complementing challenges, priorities in terms of school, homework, free time, activities and lessons. Yes, obviously if you're sending your child to school, you're going to not be able to fit all of that in the homework the free time, the activities and the lessons. Lessons. You're not going to get enough of it. I'm sorry. And so right now I'm kind of moving away from a point where I'm saying yes, you can benefit. All the benefits that homeschoolers have developed. You can integrate this into your school. You can't. You are have to make a choice. Either you decide that you're going to take back the power in your child's education and you are going to take ownership over their education, give them the self directed learning time they need, give them the one on one mastery learning that is going to allow them to do 10x better than their peers. If that's what's important to you, is that they learn all that they can possibly learn as fast as they can and you're not wasting their time. That is the environment when they can get that one on one mastery learning when they're fresh. And the only thing that you need to solve is childcare. You can do that. As a single mom, I know a mom who took her two kids to Bolivia. They work on a farm in Bolivia. The kids are learning Spanish. She's doing one on one mastery learning with them. They were living on welfare in the US before that. That mom found a solution to help her children thrive. There are other parents who actually send their kids to another family's house to homeschool while they're at work during the day. There's nurses and truck drivers who rotate turns. And so the thing is, these families are relaxed and happy and doing well. Some of them have shifted the work they've done. They went from, you know, being a teacher at a school to being a stay at home dad. And the mom works. That's choice they made. And it's just so worth it to them to spend that time nurturing their child's development and helping their children be all that they can be. I realize that this is a little bit of tough love, but unfortunately if your child is coming home exhausted after school every day, they're not going to be, have be able to have that same quality of one on one mastery learning as they are if they are homeschooling when they are most fresh and if they don't have time in their day to explore and be self directed and they're constantly being told what to do. They're not going to develop that kind of independence and problem solving skills that they could if they are homeschooling. And third, there is no substitute for you. You are the person who loves them, who cares for them, who knows them, and that bond is what helps them develop their social and emotional capacity and be strong and know how to make friends and know how to get along with others and feel secure and well. So if you see the benefits of homeschooling and you want to try it out, just know the only thing that's stopping you is childcare and that is a problem that you can solve. It has been such a delight to get all of your questions. I think that this has just taken up taken our whole podcast up a notch and I just so appreciate the generosity you gave me in sharing the thoughts and challenges on your mind. I hope that you have many more questions and challenges after this episode and that you will send them to me. You can find me by going to teach your kidspod.com Sign up for the Newsletter Just reply to the message you get when you sign up and ask me your questions. There's also a survey in the Show Notes and on Teacher Kids Pod. If you go to the newsletter you can fill out the survey. I've been right now I'm responding to every single survey so you're going to get a nice juicy response from me. And I really do hope that this has been helpful. And what you can really take away from it is that your homeschooling can be simple. You don't need to do a lot for your child to thrive intellectually with this one to two hours of math and English language arts, those two hours of mastery learning. If you want confidence, the best thing you can do, the essential thing you need to do, is join a community that can be a community in your local area that you find through Facebook. It can be our community. We're here to help you and support you and take you through this. And homeschooling has just so many benefits for your child. Thank you for being part of our community and I hope you have a beautiful day.