Why Homeschooling Is Growing Faster Than Ever with Kami Wanous

Hello everybody, and welcome to the Parent Whisperer podcast. I'm Richard Ramos, your host, and today I am excited to introduce you to someone that I recently met, and I just am very impressed by what she is doing. And the thing I love about what she's doing Which I'm going to have her tell you and introduce her to you in a minute here. It is such a great partnership of what we do in Parents on a Mission. As those of you who listen to me and know me, we are so concerned and so tied into the parent-child relationship and mentoring parents. So my guest, she mentors parents with a slightly different focus, which I want to have her talk about. And I want to introduce you to— and her name is Cami. Let me get your name, last name right.

Juárez.

Juárez. Cami Juárez. And let me just read a little bit about Cami. I just recently met her and I was so impressed by what she does. She is the creator of Raising Leaders Roadmap. Which is a homeschool mentor. That's what she's going to talk about. It's great what she's doing. She is a credentialed teacher with over 7 years of teaching experience in the public school education, but she's been homeschooling not only her own kids from since 2008, but she is teaching other parents. Oh, I can't wait. You got to hear her. She lives in Northern California with her husband and her son. Her study and teaching background is in English. Leadership, freedom, and success principles. She has a deep passion for freedom and education, which is evident in her mentoring services and free content on social media. Cami, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks so much, Richard, for having me. I'm super excited to be here.

Listen, why don't we start? I, I Just want you to tell people what you do. But before we do that, just tell us a little bit about you, a little bit about your background and kind of how you got— what compelled you to do this, not only to do the homeschooling yourself, but to start teaching others.

Absolutely. That's such a good question because I was a classroom teacher. My husband is a classroom teacher. I taught high school English and it's like, why would you want to homeschool? In fact, even my mom is a retired teacher, but this is It's a different time and it's a different place, and I learned different things. And what I realized, what we tell people all the time, is we know too much. We know too much about the public school system. And one of the things that I was hit pretty hard with when I first started teaching was the fact that— and you and I talked about this, Richard— about not being able to help the whole family and, and being just helping the student in the moment, but then it's— we can't do more than that. And we felt this need to do more. And that's definitely something that I felt overall. And I also saw that education, the system, was failing our kids. They were— by the time they got to me in high school, they were apathetic. They didn't care. And the ones that did care only cared about grades. They didn't care about learning, actual learning. There's very few of them that did. And My whole goal when I was teaching was to try and re-spark that love of learning just a hair, just open the door a little bit to that. Because I knew if I could do that, then maybe they might read something that made a difference for them someday. Maybe they might read something that made a difference for somebody else. That would be so impactful and they could grow as a person, they could do so many more things. I just wanted to— my key to them was always like, I don't care what you read, I just want you to find something that you like. That happened over and over again. We have tons of stories of kids that their mom cried when they asked to take them to the bookstore for the first time. It was just really fun, but I did see the limitations. There were also— I did a lot of project-based learning, and I realized that was actually a better way to approach learning in a way that met every student where they were at and also allowed for collaborative Situations and also real-world application, which I felt was super important. What are we doing if not preparing them for the world, especially in high school? And my gosh, none of it was. So, that was my goal there. And then, when I started homeschooling, we were doing fine for a little while for kindergarten and preschool. And then, for some reason, when I was— we started first grade, in my mind, I thought, okay, now we're gonna really learn, right? It's time for real learning. I don't know what we're doing before. We were still learning, but I didn't think about it that way back then. So I got all these textbooks, workbooks. I got one of those Little Tikes desks, you know, the little plastic ones that had a little lift-up desk, and it was so cute. It had a little stool with a little red top, and I'm really excited to get down and start learning. And 2 weeks later, we were both crying every day.

Oh.

Because I had a 6-year-old. And then we sat down on the first couple days and I'm like, buddy, okay, we're gonna learn. He's okay, whatever. He does a little bit. He does about 15 minutes and then he gets up and starts to walk away. And I'm like, hold on, buddy, wait, we're not done. He's like, oh, okay, I didn't know. So he sits back down, he's a few minutes more, maybe like 10 more minutes, and he gets up and starts to walk away. And I'm thinking in my mind, oh my gosh, we haven't done math. We have to do math. If we don't do math, we're gonna fail at life. We have to do math. We haven't done very much. So I'm like, buddy, hey, hold on, look at this math. This is amazing. Look at— oh, this looks so fun. And he doesn't want to come back, but he's a good boy and he likes to please, so he gets and sits back down and he does about 10 more minutes and then he's done. You know what I mean, Richard?

Done.

The little kid done. And I'm not getting him back. And in my mind I'm thinking We just did 35 minutes. How is he ever gonna learn what he needs to learn for life in 35 minutes a day? This is huge. And I'm starting to panic a little, but I'm like, okay, maybe that was a fluke. Except next day it went the same. And then I'm trying to pull him back in and he's fighting me, he's resisting. And then it happens the next day, and pretty soon we're anticipating the struggle. And every day I get less and less out of him.

Wow.

2 weeks later, we're both crying every day. My husband comes in, he's, what is going on? I was like, I don't know, I don't get it. It's not supposed to be like this. This is not what I planned. I wanted fun, I wanted excitement, I wanted laughter and playing. And about— we stopped everything because I realized it was me, it wasn't him. He was 6 years old and he'd never been to school. And so I was like, I need to do something different. So I stopped everything. And what happened was I ended up realizing pretty quickly after getting a little bit of different information. And back then, especially here in California, Richard, we didn't have homeschooling. Homeschooling was not a thing. Y'all in the Midwest, you got it going on. You've been homeschooling for generations, but not here. So I didn't have any mentors and I could only pull what I had experience in the classroom. And I realized— I never used textbooks and workbooks in the classroom. Hardly ever. Hardly ever. Unless they had a whole work in them. Because who wants to do a workbook?

Nobody.

Who wants to do a textbook? Nobody does. And it really limits— it puts guide rails on what we're learning.

Yeah.

And so, I realized I was doing exactly what I knew didn't work in school with high schoolers. I was doing it with my 6-year-old. Hello.

That's the reason you pulled them out.

Exactly, right? So, oh my gosh, through that experience that I was able to say I was focusing on box checking and doing the things of school instead of doing what I really wanted to do and what I was trying to do in the high school, which was rebuild love of learning. So, we did it. We had to rebuild his love of learning, focus on that, and then I realized we had to create structure around that to make sure that we supported high level of love of learning all the time, because it was easy to fall back into that box checking, into that just going through the motions. And I had to create structure and systems to keep myself out of that. And I had to unlearn a lot of things. We'll talk more about that later, I'm sure. But basically it was that helped me realize this is not the way people learn.

Exactly. And that I want you to— I'm going to ask you, I have a question for you, but I want to go back to something you said, which is what Parents on a Mission is all about. You saw that when things were not happening for him, you said, it's not him, it's me.

Yes.

This is why what you're doing is such, such a— I called it a complete circle, a complement to what we do, and a complete circle because we're working for mom and dad. Hey, let's look at ourselves. The first thing we have to do is check ourselves. We have to grow ourselves. We have to make sure if we're having a problem that we are not part of that problem, or if we're part of the problem, what part is it? And let me work on myself. And so with the emotional maturity, emotional intelligence, personal growth, all of that stuff is so important. But then you're so As I always say, mom and dad, you are in the best position to influence your children more than anybody else, especially for the first 5 years. And then of course, when they go to school, but you're homeschooling. So now it's no, they're not going to school. They don't, they're not leaving your house 5 days a week for 8 hours a day, 9 months a year. So that I said, oh my God, this is even better. So I, I, anyway, I could go on and on about how I just think what you're doing and what I'm doing is just a great partnership. But what I want you to elaborate on, what you mean by lifelong learner. What do you mean by that? What are the key principles to becoming a lifelong learner?

That's such a good question. And this is tied exactly with what you are working on as well. So Expertly is working on creating that relationship, right? So that we're preparing them for life after whatever it is that their time is with us, right? So this— we're preparing young adults.

That's right.

That's what we're doing. We're raising young adults. We're not raising kids. We don't raise kids. We raise young adults. And that's— we have to think about that in our minds. So that's one of the things that I focus on when it's my teacher background, but also just makes sense. You can drive around in your car without a destination in the GPS and hope you're gonna get somewhere. Or you can plan on— you can just find where you're going and then work everything backwards to get there. And that's what I do that public school doesn't do. That's what any school doesn't do. And a lot of homeschoolers never even think about that. And so Lifelong Learner is really about creating a curious, hungry young adult, or just an adult in general, a kid on his way to being a young adult that really looks for learning everywhere all the time. That is the key theme song of a lifelong learner and what that allows them to do. Gosh, what doesn't it allow them to do? It allows them to do everything.

Yeah.

Because they can say, one time my son was, he was talking to my husband. I was upstairs folding clothes and he says, I hear him downstairs. My husband says, you're gonna need to learn this at some point. And I, and he goes, if I need to learn it, then I'll just, Find a book, I'll find a class, I'll find something, and I'll just learn it. I laughed so hard. I was like, yes, that is the theme song of a lifelong learner.

How many kids can say that and have that kind of mentality? And what I, what, and what I say to parents, what we teach is you're not just raising your children, you're raising citizens of the community.

Yes.

Mom and dad, the community does not build your family. Your family is building the community because where do citizens come from?

Hmm.

Go to church. They don't come from church. They go to school. They don't come from school. They go to work. They don't come from work. Where do the citizens of the community, a safe community, a healthy community, which is what we all want, they come from our home. And so that mentality is the same thing that you're teaching, that your parents to teach the kids how to be A responsible, ethical, learn for yourself, productive citizen, or as you said, young adult. And I that that is so important. Another question I have for you is what now? I would say I don't know how many parents that are listening. Those of you that are listening to this podcast, I don't know that any of you are homeschooling because I've never heard anybody ask me that question. So this is why I wanted you to meet Cami, listen to her story and what she's doing and the results that she has. Because it's all about the relationship, you guys. You know that. That is what it's about. It's the attachment and the connection that we maintain with our children wherever they go. But in this case, imagine what it takes mom, dad, or If it's just mom, the patience, the resilience, the creativity, and all of that to hold the attention of your child and as a teacher and then still maintain the relationship. And that, Cammie, what I want to ask you, given all of that, what is one or two or some of the main obstacles that you find parents have either in wanting to start But they don't start, or they do start, but then they say, hey, I'm going crazy.

Yeah, that's such a great question because it comes up all the time, especially in when we haven't had experience in any other form of education except for public school or private school or whatever the case. It's the should that I call it the educational should. So the educational should that sits on our shoulders and says, I'm not a teacher. I have to be credentialed to be a teacher. I can tell you right now, I have been a credentialed teacher for a long time. I know a lot of credentialed teachers, and I've worked with a lot of credentialed teachers that are on all ends of the spectrum, just like you have in any other industry. Some— they don't prepare you to teach kids in the credential program, I'm gonna tell you that right now. They prepare you to, to do a lot of things, but it's mostly pedagogical. It's mostly theoretical. It's not— Practical. And with the teacher shortage we have for the last 7, 8 years now, that it's even worse. So they're just taking everybody. So you can fall in the mirror, you can be a teacher, and you haven't been in prison, you can be a teacher.

They teach you to be a subject matter expert, but they forget the one subject you need is— and that's to like kids.

Yeah, yes, yeah. And no, a lot of people don't have intentions. So one of the things that I always tell parents is Yeah, guess what? You've been teaching your kids since they were born.

That's right.

You are a teacher. You already are, and you are their number one and most important teacher because you know them better than anybody else. You got to trust the mama gut. You got to trust the mama gut. You got to trust the daddy gut. You know when something is off, and whether you can identify it or not, you know that something is off or something is right. You can feel that. And another obstacle that parents have a lot is the money issue. I don't have the money. I can't quit my job. You know how many parents I've worked with and helped that actually work? In fact, most of the parents that I'm working with right now are working, either both or one of them is working. Either own— they can own a business, or they have different shifts, or there's— you know what's funny is that when you're homeschooling, You got to consider how much time they're actually learning in school. So, Richard, the question to you is, how many hours do you think 3rd graders are actively learning on a daily basis?

The only reason I would have a clue on that— all my kids are raised, they're all adults. I have grandkids that are older, but I do have one. I'm trying to think right now. I have one granddaughter who's 7 now. Yeah, my other— their other ones are older, and then I have great-grandchildren that are 2 little babies. I don't go to school yet. I would say, uh, a couple hours.

You're right, you're right, absolutely. 2 hours. So 2 hours in 3rd grade is their active learning time. And I would even say in today's classroom, it might even be less than that. So because today's— we're doing a lot of different things, and a lot of classroom management is happening, a lot of behavioral classroom management things. My husband is still teaching in middle school, and he says, and he spends a lot more time than he would prefer on classroom management. However, so we have to think about how much time that takes. Now, that doesn't mean that you have to do school hours. It doesn't mean that you have to, especially here in California. Many states don't have that. Many states don't have any sort of hour requirements. Some of them just say 180 days. What does that mean? They don't say how many hours a day is. So we do want to do our kids justice and make sure that they're prepared, but we also need to be realistic about what does learning mean? Where does learning happen? What do we need to learn? Those are important questions because they're not what you think. Doesn't have to look like school. And so the hours cut down a lot. And then the money-wise, you can spend a lot of money homeschooling, but you don't have to. I would rather spend— back then when I was starting, I would have rather spent money on somebody To help me not have that meltdown that I had and to have to rebuild everything back up and to figure it out through trial and error. I would have rather spent money on that than spend money on all the toys and the books and the everything. You don't need all of those things.

Right.

Some of those are helpful, but not all of them. And so it's important to understand that we don't have to be wealthy to be homeschooling. We don't have to do that. What we do have to have is the Which are the only people that you work with, Richard, I know, is the people, parents who want to have great relationships with their kids and to prepare young adults for success and want to be involved.

Yeah, no, that, that's— this is the key. Now I want to see if I can do this. I hope I can do this. I want to share my screen because I want to show y'all Or do I have your— I'm gonna show your website.

If I—

I don't know if I have one. Oh, let me see. Hold on a second. Yeah, I think I know how to do this. I don't know, maybe I don't. I may not know how to do this. Why? Okay, hold on. I'm not seeing your website. I had it pulled up.

I can put it in the chat for you if you'd like.

Hold on one second. Let me see. Oh, I know what it is. Hold on. Hold on, everybody.

It's thefreedomscholar.com.

It's only me. I don't have a—

I just put it in the chat for you.

Okay, there it is. I don't have a team behind me. Let me see. Can you— I don't know. Can you see that?

It's gonna go in a second. I— there you are.

Okay. Okay. If you wanna say something, Cami, go ahead. But I just want people to see, as you're listening to Cami, or she's gonna talk you through this, I just want you to see that what she's— she's a Freedom— it's called the Freedom Scholar, Raise Lifelong Learners. But I want you to see right here, this part right here. What do you need to know right now? So Cami, maybe just talk us through these 3 things and then over here, your podcast. But what happens in these 3 things here?

Yeah, so it really depends on where you're at right now, right? What you need and what your situation is in your family. That's why I like to talk to families one-on-one before we decide what they need first. And the first thing is you might be just starting out, you might be busy, you might be working full-time, your spouse works full-time, and you have— you just want to get it set up real quick. We offer one-on-one mentoring, so I actually work with you personally and help you get set up and help you. Or, if you're already homeschooling, and that's really who I love to work with too, because they are— they know the things that haven't worked, they know the things that do work, and then we can dial in what the culture is to really get that love of learning high again and support it long-term.

That's this here, this one.

We can do— we can either do it one-on-one mentoring or we can do it through the Inspiring Lifelong Learning Academy. It really depends on what the situation is. If you're— we do group mentoring. We also have a course in the Inspiring Lifelong Learning Academy. And then if you want to add on the individual mentoring, you can do that as well, or just use it that way and you'll get access to the academy always. But the thing that I love about the academy is that we have a community of parents who are doing the same thing and on the same road, and we're trying to create that culture that supports high level of learning. And you know, what the triggers are when it starts to drop, because it always does after a bit. Any family dynamic change, developmental change, anything that's happened, sibling rivalry change, whatever, you might need to have a little love of learning reset. You might need to know those triggers. I know you do. And after a while, you need to get used to, okay, I understand this is what it is. This is where it looks right now. Let's get it back up before we fall really low. Because when love of learning is low in your home, and what I mean by love of learning is, The desire, the hunger, the happiness, the, the curiosity. When that's low, everything is hard. Life is hard. Parenting's hard. Siblings are hard. When it's high, everything is easier. So that's what we do is to help you get it high and keep it there long-term.

Yeah, that's, that is so true. So I just wanted people to see, get a little flavor for you and what you're doing. This creator of the Raising Leadership Our Leaders Roadmap. It's great. So if you go to her website, you guys, you can find all this information, which I will put that in the show notes so you can find all of her contact information. Cami, how about a success for people out there that are like, I don't know if I can do this, a success story that you have? I'm sure you have plenty of somebody who was like, oh, I don't know, and then, and maybe now they're, they're thriving or they love it, or maybe they're even teaching others by now.

Absolutely. There are so many. And one of the moms that I worked with, I started working with her over a year ago. So it's actually been about 2 years now and she's so fantastic, but she and her daughter were fighting every day. They were homeschooling. They'd been homeschooling for several years, but they were fighting every day so much to where it was 8 o'clock at night and they were still doing their studies. They were still doing their bookwork. And I was like, girls. Just stop, put it away. Tomorrow's another day, man. But it's— but we had to look at what was triggering the fighting. What they would do is she and her daughter would— she'd get her daughter to do a little bit, kind of like how my son and I— they would do a little bit, and then her daughter would get frustrated and she'd give up and she'd start to freak out. And she'd say— the mom would say, okay, go outside, have a little break. And so she'd have a little break. And then they'd fight for another 15, 20 minutes, sometimes a half hour to get back. And then they would go through that over and over and over all day long. And so we— she was amazing because she took the ideas and she was like, okay, what do I need to do first? And she immediately started implementing. And within 2 weeks, she said her daughter got— went to the dining room. They all started to have dinner together because they weren't even having dinner together. They all started to have dinner together.

Mm-hmm.

And she said, okay guys, let's, let's everybody share what we learned today.

There you go.

She was like, what? What? What? We want to talk about learning? That's crazy talk. And now 2 years later, she's doing, she's, she says, okay, what, how much math are you going to get done today? And she's actually owning her own education. And she says, oh, I'm going to do, and she ends up doing way more than her mom would even ask her to do. Because she's just, oh, I get it totally. And if she gets stuck, she knows to ask for help. She knows where to find help. She can figure it out. And, or sometimes we just put it away sometimes and we try it again tomorrow. It just depends. But the idea behind the pressure being off of everyone, they're not frustrated, is so stressful. Another mom, she brand new to homeschooling and she just actually, she's one of our newest members. She just started and she pulled her kids out of school. She wasn't even sure she wanted to do it all at once. She has 4 kids and she was like, that's a lot. And I was like, girl, you— they're all going to want to come home. So once you bring one, they're going to be like, why do I have to go to school? Which happens all the time. So they brought all of them home. And because she did that, even though it's so close to the end of the year, I said, what are the benefits they're getting out of school? And she says nothing.

Exactly.

She was just trying to finish school because it was just what you did. And I'm like, but that doesn't have to be if it's not— if it's going to do more damage than it is going to be positive. So they were able to get an opportunity for her husband to work in a different place, and they've been traveling and camping in a trailer for 2, 3 weeks now, and they've got another 2 weeks to go. And she's, we've been learning so much, and they're learning to work Together as a family, which is what you're about, Richard, and what I love about what you do. They're working together. They're learning how to rebuild those relationships with each other. And she says, "And we're forced to in such a small space." And she says, "This is the best thing I ever did. We're learning so much more. We're having a blast, and I can't even believe." And she owns two businesses.

Oh, now all of you listening, did you hear that? This is the best thing I ever did. Her kids wanted to come. They didn't want to go to school anymore. They want to come home. All the great things that Cami mentioned, and she owns 2 businesses. So those of you know, you, if you listen to my podcast or read my books, or you know what I, how I feel about public education, I understand some of you have to do it. We We get that. We know not everybody has the option.

Yeah.

But this is why I wanted you to hear and introduce you to Cami, because this is— it's just full circle. If you can be in a situation where you are not depending— I talked to you the other last week on the social-emotional learning agenda of the World Economic Forum, and that's now what it's all about. Our children to be little good little workers, slaves, and they're not learning what they should be learning the way what Cami is talking about. So Cami, I can't thank you enough. Now, is there a question that I didn't ask you or something else you want to emphasize before we close out?

I think the last thing that I would say is that we really need to think about who we're trying to raise always.

Right?

So we need to think about what kind of person— that, that question happens almost daily in my home. So who are you trying to be? Who do you want to be? Who do you want to become? What kind of person do you want to be? That's a question for our kids when they're old enough to know those things. But in the meantime, we have to ask ourselves also, who are we trying to raise?

Yeah.

And we have to think about, is what we're doing now getting us to that place or is it not? And it could be undoing it as well. Like you were saying, Richard, the school system actually separates parents and kids from each other deliberately. And so we want to make sure that we're having more face time, we have more influence, and we can really develop intentionality. I am all about intentionality. And if we— who we're trying to raise is the question, then we put intentionality behind it with what Richard's doing and helping you become a better parent. And homeschooling. Oh, what a winner. We can raise leaders in the world.

Leadership. Oh man. Let's see. Do I, what do I, let me say this first and I wanna ask you how people can get ahold of you. Now, Cambria's having a masterclass on May 21st, 12:00 PM Pacific, 3:00 PM Eastern. And you can, can they register on your website?

Absolutely, yes. And it is so important to get this— the thinking— to change your thinking about the way learning works and the way learning actually works and the way education happens in your home, to really get the shifts happening, be able to think about how you can do it. One of the biggest things about— I love about the masterclass, it's the Inspiring Lifelong Learners Masterclass, and What I love about it is that it really takes us from, oh my gosh, I'm so overwhelmed, I'm so lost, to, oh, that's why this is happening. Oh yeah, that's why I wanna do that. That I can homeschool. I, that's why we're struggling every day.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I love it because now we can get out of it.

So the masterclass is free.

Yes.

But also, Cami, where else can people find you, your podcast, your web, everything? What, How can people get ahold of you for more?

Yeah, I'm super available on social, Instagram, Facebook. If you want to DM me, if you just want to look up The Freedom Scholar on YouTube, my podcasts are there. Homeschool Success with Cami Juannis is my podcast. And, or you can just go straight to the website that all the information is on there that Richard showed you earlier.

Yeah. And it'll all be in the show notes. So you guys can just look at the links there and click on those links. And, but I really want to encourage you to go to the masterclass, even if you're thinking, I don't know if I can do homeschooling, schooling, but just if you have time to just listen and just start to hear what it could be like and what Cami is talking about and teaching. Because again, you guys know I'm a broken record. I can't emphasize it enough how important You are in the life of your children.

Yes.

And this, if you can pull this off, first of all, here's the perfect mentor for you. But if you can pull this off, that really puts you in the driver's seat. And I don't want to go into my next podcast right now because, but so many things that are happening on a big picture scale. Whether the government, public education, on and on. This is why, Mom and Dad, you are the key to the future of our kids, and they are the future of the society and healthy communities and healthy neighborhoods. We cannot depend— I'm sorry, these other institutions, okay, they're there and we know we got to deal with it. But we cannot depend on them to support you and your values because parents are being undermined, as Cami mentioned, and you guys know they're being undermined away from your values and not necessarily— the school is not necessarily always supporting you the way you think that they are, unfortunately. And we learned that in COVID when parents were at home and they fought Found out, oh my God! What are you teaching my kid? We didn't know. But this program that Cami is doing is giving you the opportunity to be that influence and be the teacher, the mom, the dad, the relationship—all of it. So, Cami, I want to thank you so much for being on the show and for what you're doing. I don't know. I think we—I think we could have a good—we could help each other. And that's really what I want to do. So I really appreciate it. Is there anything else you want to close with?

I was just going to mention that I would love to give your audience a free gift. And it, I believe you have the link for it. You can put in the show notes that it's the Love of Learning, or I'm sorry, the, it's the Love of Learning Launchpad. I just renamed it recently. That's why it's the Love of Learning Launchpad. And it is basically an assessment. It's a little quiz. It's not very long. 15 questions or something, and you raise, you rate yourself and your family on the level of love of learning in your household right now. It gives you a little snapshot. And so it can tell you exactly, hey, how are we doing in the love of learning department? And it'll, by taking the quiz, you also see what are some of the cues that a high-level love of learning would have in our home. It's pretty fantastic.

Okay. All right, everybody. Thank you for listening. You've been listening to the Parent Whisperer podcast. And I want to leave you like I always do. Parents on a Mission is not for bad parents. It's for good parents like you who want to get better. See you next time.