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Overcoming 7 Main Homeschool Obstacles {Episode 65}
95 Plays5 years ago
If you're having difficulty overcoming homeschool obstacles, you need this episode! Bonnie & Audrey discuss teh 7 main obstacles parents are faced with when homeschooling. They offer helpful advice and their tried and true tips from their 35+ years combined homeschooling experience with each of their 9 kids.
#1 Obstacle - Lack of Time
#2 Obstacle - Kids won't listen
#3 Obstacle - Lack of patience
#4 Obstacle - Lack of energy
#5 Obstacle - Lack of money
#6 Obstacle - Lack of support
#7 Obstacle - Lack of socialization
Mentioned in this episode:
Episode 12 - Intentional Parenting
Episode 25 - How to Afford Kids
Episode 26 - Interview with guest Rachel Kovac
Bonnie's blog post on how to know if it's right for you
Bonnie's blog post on the biggest gift of homeschool
Bonnie's video on her daily homeschool schedule
Never miss another episode by subscribing to our weekly email HERE!
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Transcript
Introduction to Homeschooling Obstacles
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to episode 65 of Outnumbered the Podcast. Today we're going to discuss overcoming homeschool obstacles. We've got seven common obstacles that people face when starting to homeschool. And keep in mind that we recorded this episode about a month before the current worldwide pandemic situation.
00:00:18
Speaker
hit. But we still think there's enough really good advice in this episode and maybe even more so now that so many parents are being forced to homeschool. So we hope that you enjoy what we have to say on overcoming these seven common homeschool obstacles.
Meet Bonnie and Audrey
00:00:40
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Outnumber the Podcast. I'm Bonnie. And I'm Audrey. We're experienced moms to a combined total of 18 children. Our mission is to help overwhelmed parents find peace in parenting and humor in the chaos. Come join us as we attempt uninterrupted conversation about parenting with joy and intention.
Encouragement for Homeschoolers
00:01:05
Speaker
Hey guys, welcome back. Today's episode, we are talking about homeschool, and this is one of our favorite topics, so we hope you guys like it too. This is not just for people who are currently homeschooling, but it is for anyone who has maybe felt the nudge.
00:01:20
Speaker
and not gone through with it because of all the many obstacles they see in their way, right? So the point of this episode is not to convince anyone that homeschooling is right for them, but rather if you have felt drawn to it at all to help you overcome some obstacles. So we hope that it's helpful for all you guys listening.
00:01:38
Speaker
Okay, so we are going to start with a kind of funny, heartwarming little quote that I found on Instagram.
Perceived Failures as Happy Moments
00:01:44
Speaker
I found it on an Instagram account called homeschoolquotes and it's by Sarah. She says, growing up, my absolute favorite dinner was plate of little things. My single mom would slice cheese, apples, crackers, hot dogs, dry cereal, whatever, and we would eat it in front of the TV. I told her that recently and she gasped. What?
00:02:03
Speaker
Those were the nights I failed. I didn't cook a thing and I was too tired to talk to you guys. That's ridiculous. Goes to show it may be just when we fail that our kids feel the most happy. Oh, cute. That's really cute. I thought that was perfect leading us into a topic that makes so many of us feel overwhelmed sometimes, but we still feel led to do it.
Bonnie's Homeschool Journey
00:02:29
Speaker
Okay, I'm going to start us off today with a really nice quote I found that is applicable to today's topic of homeschooling. It's by C.S. Lewis and it says, children are not a distraction from the more important work. They are the most important work.
00:02:49
Speaker
And then I also find a funny quote. It says, don't question your ability to teach your child. Question putting your child into the same institution that left you questioning your ability to teach your child. OK, so we're going to start out with sharing our own personal things that we had to overcome before homeschooling. Just like there's probably hundreds we could share, but
00:03:13
Speaker
Just a short overview, one of my obstacles was that I was going to school for elementary education, but I didn't finish my degree. I stopped after two years, and as I like to joke, I got my MRS degree.
00:03:29
Speaker
I got married. Yeah. So then I thought, well, okay, can I really do this? Like, do I have the qualification, et cetera?
Learning Alongside Children
00:03:38
Speaker
Well, so one thing I did was I attended a homeschool convention, a really, really big one in a convention center. And that totally turned my idea of teaching because I had been going to school to
00:03:53
Speaker
to teach in a public school, going to college to teach in a public school. And it turned everything upside down on its head. And I realized after attending this homeschool convention, just walking through the vendors and listening to the lectures and doing some of the hands-on things and visiting with other homeschool families, what I realized was it's all about obtaining knowledge. It's not all about using the knowledge you currently possess.
00:04:21
Speaker
So when you go to college, you kind of specialize in, let's say you're going to be a geography teacher, and then you, for the next 20, 30, 40 years, you share your knowledge with all the students that come through your class.
00:04:36
Speaker
My homeschooling is completely different. You can't possibly possess all the knowledge. And so you learn right alongside your kids. So our homeschool model motto is learning to learn. And that is how I overcame my insecurities and my doubts about being able to homeschool my kids was when I realized that I was going to be on this journey right along beside them and it was going to be awesome.
00:05:02
Speaker
Okay, I'm glad you shared that because one of the obstacles I actually didn't add to this episode that we're gonna talk about is the fact that you're not a teacher. That is one that I hear as well too. Well, I'm not a teacher. Well, I don't know math. I don't know science. And so I'm so glad you brought that up because it is all about learning together. And there is so much that my kids have learned that I never knew. There's so much that we've learned together that I'm learning right along with them. So, so, so, so good.
00:05:29
Speaker
Um, I personally had my own obstacles, pretty much a little bit of all the ones we're going to discuss today. Um, but I will say that my number one reason for homeschooling, what made me finally decide to do it was that I just felt like it was the right decision. I just felt inspired to do it. And, um, you always know that it's like a thought higher than you when you go into it kicking and screaming, right?
00:05:53
Speaker
or that your brain is creating excuses while the thought keeps coming back and back. So that's how it was for us. And now I am so grateful and I see so many wonderful things that have come from it, but it does not mean that it's pretty or perfect or that I don't have days every week where I'm like, what am I doing? But I'm definitely seeing that so many obstacles that I had a problem with.
00:06:15
Speaker
were really irrelevant and how vital it's been for my kids to follow this path. So we're just hoping that if you feel the nudge to homeschool or look into it more that maybe you'll get some answers today.
Time Management in Homeschooling
00:06:26
Speaker
Right. So we're going to discuss six obstacles and our refuting answers to those obstacles or how we have come to reconcile these obstacles in our own homeschool situations.
00:06:39
Speaker
That's right. So the first obstacle I'm going to bring up is time. So most people do not think they have enough time to homeschool because it takes public school like six to eight hours a day to teach your kid everything. So what do you have to say about that Audrey? I have to say that if Bonnie and I with nine kids and homeschooling and running our own businesses and having a podcast, if we can do it, you can do it.
00:07:06
Speaker
No, but when I was going back to when I was in my teacher training in college, they told us this was a long time ago. They told us that we would have 10 minutes per day of direct instruction. So use it wisely at the third grade level. And then we would have 15 seconds of one-on-one time with each kid per day in a 30-student classroom. So take advantage of it.
00:07:31
Speaker
And so sometimes, some days when I'm having, you know, really off day or I've got to run errands or whatever, like, well, at least I gave my kids 10 minutes and 15 seconds. So they're good. They at least got a public school education today. But if you are familiar in with any homeschool kids, you realize that most homeschool kids are ahead of their peers. And this is because
00:07:57
Speaker
That student-teacher ratio is so much smaller and there's less disruptions even when there's eight other siblings running around. And so they're getting more education in a shorter amount of time.
00:08:13
Speaker
And then the final answer I have to this obstacle is that we know a dad who homeschooled his kids after work from kindergarten all the way through high school. And he went and worked a very intense job, eight, nine, 10 hours a day. And then he would come home and homeschool his kids in the evenings and weekends. So if he can do it, you can do it. Wow, that's incredible.
00:08:37
Speaker
I love that. That just gives me chills. Yeah. And my thought about this is that we have so much more time one-on-one with our kids or in small groups than they would ever have in a classroom of 20 to 30 kids, that we are able to focus on the essential things that we want our kids to learn. They don't waste time waiting in line, waiting for other kids to catch up, waiting for people to pay attention.
00:09:01
Speaker
waiting for the bus, so much of the time they spend away from home and school is wasted. It's not on education at all. So I actually have several blog posts about homeschooling, and I'll link to all of them at the bottom, but one of them is about the biggest gift that homeschooling has given us. And I'll just tell you now, the spoiler alert is that that biggest gift is the gift of time.
00:09:21
Speaker
I really feel like we have so much more time in our schedules than all of our, all my kids peers who go to school because of everything I just mentioned. We just stay home and are able to get a lot of things done.
00:09:36
Speaker
agreed that I couldn't agree more. Plus the flexibility of the schedule.
Children's Listening and Patience
00:09:41
Speaker
You can take vacations when you want. You can choose to go to Disneyland when everyone else is not on spring break and et cetera. So you, you, the flexibility of time is such a beautiful thing about homeschooling.
00:09:55
Speaker
Yeah, and along those lines, I just had to mention that you can follow the ebb and flow of your family, right? Like when I had twins, many people asked if I was going to put my kids in school so that I wouldn't have to deal with newborn twins and these little kids. And I thought, no, because then I have to wake up early and pack lunches. Thank you. So we stayed home and we did not get any traditional schooling done that year. I can attest to that. But we learned a lot about babies and we learned a lot about caring for mom and all of the other things that were essential that year.
00:10:23
Speaker
I would challenge any parent who has a child in public school to in the course of one week, time yourself how much time you spend helping them with homework. And you'll realize how much time you do spend helping your children with their education. Okay, obstacle number two is my kids would never listen to me. What do you have to say to that, Bonnie? My kids don't listen to me either.
00:10:52
Speaker
makes me laugh a little bit because I'm like, Oh, boy. Yep, we deal with that too. So much so. And we're going to talk a little bit about the patient's aspect of this soon. But I just have to say that
00:11:07
Speaker
Teaching and learning is just life, right? So me as a parent, I understand my kids better than anyone else in the world will, simply because I'm their parent and I've lived with them since day one and I understand them, right? So a stranger would almost never be more qualified to teach them. And the trick is to instead of acting as a public school teacher would, which is do this, do X, Y, and Z and bring it back and you get graded.
00:11:34
Speaker
because my kids don't listen to me like that, but instead I try to inspire them to learn the things that I want them to learn. So this is so huge. It's at the crux of all learning. Every child has to eventually figure out that they want an education, right? You might be able to shove some things down their throat here and there, but by the time you get to college, if you don't want an education, you're not going to go to college, right?
00:11:57
Speaker
So the earlier kids can learn this, the better and more well-rounded education they will get regardless of where they are. But unfortunately, I think that school often does a lot of the work for them, and so they come to this realization later on in life. Whereas homeschool kids, I cannot force my child to do things they don't want to do, whereas a teacher might be able to because they have this different authority, right? And they have grades hanging over their head, right? So instead, I have to
00:12:26
Speaker
teach my child responsibility early on or else he won't get an education. And I think that's pretty healthy. I'm actually really grateful for that, even though it takes some kids a long time to figure it out. Yeah, I would ask someone who said my kid would never listen to me, I would say, well, do they ask
Everyday Teaching and Multitasking
00:12:42
Speaker
you for homework help? And then do they take your advice and listen to your answers? So maybe they are listening to you. But then going back to what I said about our homeschool model,
00:12:54
Speaker
motto being learning to learn. If you're learning right along with them, the source of knowledge is not you. So they're not listening to you. They're listening to the author of the book or the writer of the curriculum. And it makes the pill a little easier to swallow if the knowledge isn't coming from mom, it's coming from outside of mom. And, you know, this renowned scientist wrote this book about chemistry and why wouldn't they listen to them, right?
00:13:21
Speaker
Right, exactly. And then that leads us right into the obstacle number three that I alluded to, which is I could never have the patience to homeschool. So what do you think about that, Audrey? Well, I didn't have the patience to homeschool either. And some days I still don't.
00:13:37
Speaker
But I'm learning that patience isn't something you have or you don't have. It's a learned behavior. So if I want to be patient with my children in the future, I have to start practicing patience with my kids today. So it means maybe a little 10 minute session with them where I am extremely patient and then it might mean
00:13:57
Speaker
10 or 15 minutes where they play outside and I take some deep breaths and drink a little sip of something nice that makes me feel better. And then we come back and do it again and practice again. I don't believe patience is something that because I don't have it today, I can't have it tomorrow. I feel like this is something that I have to learn every day to be a little more patient. So you don't have the patience.
00:14:22
Speaker
learn it. Yeah, that's kind of the point of life, right? Is to improve and constantly be better. When people bring up this obstacle, I have to be completely honest, it makes me feel really stressed out because then I compare myself to
00:14:37
Speaker
the best example of patients I've ever seen and I fall so short that I think, oh, well, maybe I shouldn't be homeschooling. I yell at my kids all the time, I get very impatient and they don't do what I want, et cetera. But like you said, being separated from them is not how I practice patients. I practice patients by being with them day in, day out. And Audrey and I talk a lot about self-care. And when you homeschool, this must be number one because
00:15:04
Speaker
your patient's getting tested day in and day out, all day long, you have to take care of yourself or you'll go crazy. And so that's something that we have developed. We have office hours and walks we take alone and hiding in closet or whatever it takes to take care of ourselves so that we are fully present when we're with our kids practicing these skills to develop patients. It's not easy, but I'm so grateful for the skills that I've learned by being with my kids all the time.
Resourcefulness in Homeschooling
00:15:31
Speaker
And I'm not saying that you can't develop those skills if your kids go to school, but I just think that that is such a trial by fire kind of a thing, you know, like you're all in it together. Let's figure this out. Let's work it out. And you have so many more experiences to develop wonderful skills together. I think that I think that the purpose of families is is to develop these skills were put together to learn and grow together and to stretch each other. Expensive chocolate, Bonnie, it all comes down to expensive chocolate.
00:16:01
Speaker
Yep, I got some of that, too. Self-care time. You just nibble, reward yourself with a little expensive chocolate and it's all good. Oh, no, seriously. Going on to obstacle number four. I don't have the energy to be a mom and a teacher to my kids. What do you say to that, Bonnie?
00:16:24
Speaker
Well, I think we alluded to this earlier too. I think we need to stop thinking about school as anything separate from just life and parenting in general, right? We don't, you know, if we're stay at home moms with young kids, we don't separate our day into, well, this is discipline time right now. And now I'm going to, now this is showing love time.
00:16:41
Speaker
You know, it's just all part of motherhood. Sometimes they need discipline and they need an extra dosage of love and sometimes they need some playtime outside and sometimes they need to be independent. That's just life. And when I started to, when I got this and started to see school as life, like
00:16:59
Speaker
The school of life is that when we're gardening, we're learning about the plants in our yard and we're learning about dirt and we're learning about worms. And when we're cooking, we're learning about fractions and we're learning about chemistry and all these other things. It just kind of blew the lid off what I thought homeschooling was. And it's been so much more pleasant ever since then.
00:17:19
Speaker
Yeah. I would ask somebody who says they don't have the energy to be a mom and teach her to the kids. I would say, well, what are you using your energy for and how can you manage your energy better? Okay. So here's the time I'm going to refer to the Live Free Creative podcast in this episode. She has a really good episode. We'll link to it in the show notes all about energy management.
00:17:46
Speaker
So what are you using your energy for and how can you preserve it? What better purpose could you use it for than to help your child with their future? So in my opinion, teaching doesn't take much more energy than helping with homework. And I have heard from my friends who kids go to public school how much time they spend helping their kids with homework. And it is hours, hours a night. And I don't think that teaching
00:18:15
Speaker
takes more energy than that. The difference to me between helping kids with homework and teaching kids as the homeschool teacher is that you choose the curriculum so you will be more excited and enthused about it instead of reading some
00:18:33
Speaker
in a textbook that somebody else has chosen and everybody's forgotten who the author was and nobody was excited about it in the first place, you get to choose the curriculum. So you're gonna be excited about it and you're gonna get enthused in it. And like I've been saying this whole episode, you're gonna be learning right along beside them. So I agree completely with what you said that everything is learning, everything you do can become learning. And the difference is that you will be excited.
00:19:02
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. I remember when we talked to Rachel Kovach and in her guest episode, she talked about her own specific strengths that they were different from anybody else's. And instead of comparing what she was teaching her kids with what other kids were learning and oh, I don't have the skill to teach them X, Y, and Z. Instead, she was focusing on the things that she was passionate about, that her kids were learning sewing and knitting and crochet and these wonderful handicrafts that she was so skilled at. And they might not have sports skills.
00:19:28
Speaker
And that's okay because that was what she chose to focus on. We can't teach everything and that's true of any kid no matter where they get their schooling. But if it's something you're passionate about, that's gonna radiate onto your kids and they're gonna pick up that passion and probably have some of the same passions. Yeah, I remember what she was saying too and how that really struck a chord with me. Okay, so obstacle number five, we do not have the money to homeschool. We don't have the money for books or other resources.
00:19:57
Speaker
What thinking? Well, our most popular episode is how to afford kids. So I know a lot of people are looking for this kind of information. But if you listen to the episode on how to afford kids, that's the same way all those things apply to how to afford homeschooling. So you make it work because it's your priority. But there's so many ways that you can homeschool.
00:20:27
Speaker
on a dime. As the saying goes, there's the library. And if the library in your town is small, try the library in the next bigger town and make a once a month trip and stock up.
00:20:38
Speaker
We did that for years. The library was our biggest source of books, whatever we were studying. Civil War, okay, we go and stock up at the next bigger town. And yeah, when you are buying books and supplies, don't look at the cost and think about, wow, I'm spending 130 bucks on a microscope for one kid. No, actually I have
00:20:58
Speaker
10 kids or 6 kids or 4 kids and so divide that among 4 kids and it's actually really not that expensive once you factor in using it across multiple children. That can be a way to help rationalize spending money on homeschooling. Find other homeschoolers and share resources.
00:21:17
Speaker
We go through history on a four-year cycle. The other three years that we're not studying, I'd be delighted to loan those out to people and have them come back in because they're just sitting in a box in the basement while we're going through the other years. I'm sure every homeschooler is the same way that they have years
00:21:39
Speaker
um, ages, curriculums, things they're not using, or you can share a microscope or you can share, there's lots to share. And then I did want to share, um, there's tons and tons of free online resources, but I wanted to share one specifically. It's called Khan Academy. Do you guys use Khan Academy at all?
00:21:55
Speaker
Yes, yes, we love it. It started out just math and then he added in science and then he added in a whole bunch of other curriculum areas as well. It is an incredible resource and I still cannot believe that it's free. Like he's got a donate button but I cannot believe the amount of good
00:22:15
Speaker
information that is just free on his website. It's videos for math. So it's like a teacher teaching. And anytime, like we don't use Khan Academy exclusively for our math, but anytime my kids is struggling with a concept, I send them to Khan Academy so they can hear it maybe in a different way than I'm teaching it and it'll click for them. So definitely highly recommend Khan Academy, not only because it's free, because it's really, really good.
00:22:43
Speaker
Yeah, it totally is. I'm blown away that it's free too. I'm like, I love this day and age that we live in. It's amazing. It's amazing. I love all your resources too. And I have to just say right at the outset that right now, the time of life that we live in is the information age. So if you've studied the industrial age and all those other historical ages, technological age, whatever, this is the information age, which means that we have unlimited information at our fingertips. And sometimes we get a little jaded and we forget that this is not
00:23:13
Speaker
normal, right? This is not no people in the history of ever have had anywhere near even like a tiny fraction of the information that we have accessible to us on our computers and in our pockets. It's amazing.
00:23:27
Speaker
Yeah, I think you'd have to say that it would be impossible for one person or even one family or one homeschool to ever conquer all the information that's out there. Yeah, absolutely not. Never, ever, ever. And so think about the difference between sending a kid to a classroom with one teacher and one brain
00:23:45
Speaker
shoveling out knowledge for these kids to absorb versus your kids going out and finding the information for themselves amidst this smorgasbord of information. There's so, so, so much. I just want to piggyback on yours, the sharing of the resources.
Socialization and Homeschooling
00:24:02
Speaker
Just about every town in America has homeschoolers in it.
00:24:06
Speaker
And homeschooling communities love to share resources. So there are people that like to lend them out. There are homeschool book swaps. So we've been to lots of those where we bring curricula or classics or whatever that we're not using anymore and we swap them around. There are also schools, specifically charter schools. I've heard of charter schools that are willing to allow you to borrow supplies just like a library. So a friend of mine does this. She lives in Utah. So that's something to look into. There are also very often
00:24:36
Speaker
scholarships or state appointed funds for homeschoolers if you're not using the public school system. So there are so many resources out there if you just go looking. We personally use public libraries a lot. We use ebooks a lot, which are great because they never get banged up and they never get lost and they never get torn and kids can just, you know, you just pass them down to the next kid.
00:24:59
Speaker
Do you remember the time when people came door to door, Audrey, and tried to sell encyclopedia sets? We're dating ourselves here, but you used to have to buy a set of 15 to 20 books as big as the Bible, each of them, to learn anything, and now you just turn your computer on.
00:25:19
Speaker
So I just feel like it can be done so inexpensively if we really search for resources. And we absolutely can spend money on supplemental supplies. There are so many cool science kits and art supplies that you can buy for your kids, but we absolutely do not have to if we're trying to do it affordably.
00:25:38
Speaker
Yeah, we could probably do a whole episode about how to afford homeschool. Okay, so the last obstacle we're going to talk about today is number six. My mom, neighbor, friend, husband, fill in the blank thinks I'm crazy and couldn't pull it off.
00:25:56
Speaker
What do you think, Bonnie? I like this one because I don't know a single homeschooler who has not encountered some sort of resistance from friends or family members and very often from a spouse, which is tricky because you got to actually listen to your spouse when it's their kids too. But I just have to say that
00:26:14
Speaker
buy their fruits, you shall know them. So if you are struggling to decide about homeschooling or you feel strongly about it but your spouse is struggling, then I would recommend meeting some homeschoolers, finding some in your community. This was a big one for me because like I said, I felt inspired to do it, but I had my hesitations. So I went to a homeschooling conference just right at the beginning of our journey. And I sat in a room with a panel of teens, young adults who'd been homeschooled,
00:26:42
Speaker
And they sat up on this stage and they fielded questions from a room full of adults. And I was blown away. I just thought, if my kid turns out half as eloquent and smart and well-adjusted as any of those kids on that stage, then my job is done, right? And so I was just so inspired by seeing other kids who had gone through the same thing. So I just say, have faith in yourself. Have faith in your knowledge that this is the right choice for you if you've gotten to that point.
00:27:10
Speaker
And I think that your children's development and their amazing education will be proof enough eventually. And that's for the people who, it's not really their business, whether or not it's your homeschooling, right? Not necessarily your spouse, like the neighbor, grandma, et cetera. But when our friends think it's weird, sometimes we have to have the courage to stand alone, right? In episode 12, we talked about intentional parenting. And very often we've had to make those hard choices of standing alone as homeschoolers while everybody else is doing something else.
00:27:39
Speaker
because we feel it's right for our family. And then lastly, I would say if it is your spouse, you can always ask, hey, would you be willing to do a trial run? Let's do one semester. Take one semester off school and see what happens. And you could be very pleasantly surprised where your husband or wife or whoever comes home and goes, wow, the kids are really different. We really see some great fruits.
00:28:04
Speaker
All right. My advice is pretty similar. I think all your ideas are really great. My first suggestion would be to go to a homeschool convention or conference and take the doubting Thomas with you so that they can see like.
00:28:21
Speaker
If this is just, if their opinion is going to affect you, if it's like your neighbor and they have no influence over you or your, your kids or your family or whatever, you know, who cares really what they think. But if you, if it's somebody who you really want on your side, go to a homeschool gathering and, and have them have them go with you so they can see.
00:28:44
Speaker
At a homeschool conference or homeschool convention, they have tons of vendors. What will really open
Homeschoolers' College Preparedness
00:28:51
Speaker
the eyes of the person that's doubting you is to see the amount of colleges
00:28:59
Speaker
that are there recruiting homeschool students. And this is because I stopped at a homeschool convention the first year that I saw how many colleges were there. And one guy, he wasn't talking to him and he said, hey, what's the deal? How come all these colleges are here? And he said, you know what? Colleges are realizing how much better prepared homeschool students are to attend college than public school students are. We don't have to take
00:29:26
Speaker
that first year and bring them up to college readiness because they're already there. They're already ready. And this is so valuable to us. Not only do they know how to learn and have the knowledge, usually some schoolers, a lot of homeschoolers come in with credit already. He said, but they they're more. Hmm.
00:29:49
Speaker
OK, I'm just going to say it. He told me they said there that homeschoolers are more mature and advanced than their than their peers socially. And they know how to interact better. They engage the professors. And he said colleges are heavily actively recruiting homeschool kids. So that might help persuade somebody who thinks you're crazy and can't pull it off, that homeschooling actually is a good idea.
00:30:18
Speaker
Yeah. Our last obstacle we wanted to confront is the one we hear most often, hands down, don't you think, Audrey? Yeah. And that is, aren't you nervous your child will be socially stunted or not have the social skills to succeed? How will he get his socialization? Oh my goodness. This one just really, I have to work at being nice about answering this question because we get it so often.
00:30:48
Speaker
I guess the conclusion I've come down to, the best way to get people to really think about this question is I say, so are you happy with the socialization that your public school child is getting? And always, 100% of the time, the parent responds, oh, no. And they start telling me all these bad stories about what kind of socialization their kid is getting in public school.
00:31:14
Speaker
And I just have to say, you know, you answered your own question. I am extremely happy with the socialization that my children get in homeschool because they interact, they socialize with all ages, not just their own peers. And I was explaining to my teenage daughters the other day,
00:31:33
Speaker
how they might be different had they been socialized through public school as opposed to socialized through homeschool. And they were just like, they were in disbelief. But I said, even your mannerisms and your facial expressions would be different because you would be constantly exposed to this from your peers around you. And
00:31:55
Speaker
Yeah, I just think my children are better socialized because they can interact with people of all ages than just their own peers, being able to interact with anybody as opposed to just being able to be good at interacting with their own peers, which my public school friends are telling me their kids aren't good at that either.
00:32:18
Speaker
You know, I think that one of the reasons that this is such a concern for people is because I'm sure many of us know some homeschool family whose kids turned out strange, right, with different social nuances or whatever. But here's the thing, are all public school kids, quote unquote, normal socially? No. So for some reason, because there's fewer homeschoolers and public schoolers, people think, well, I knew a weird homeschooler once, so that must be why they are weird, because they are homeschooled.
00:32:46
Speaker
That's not the case at all. In fact, I had a friend who was homeschooled, and when we were first making the decision, I asked her, I said, you are totally socially savvy. Why do you think that's the case? Everybody keeps telling me that if I homeschool my kids, my kids are going to be weird. She's like, if the parents are socially savvy, the kids will be socially savvy. That's just whether they're public schooled or homeschooled. If a kid turns out weird in public school, it's probably because maybe his parents are a little bit off.
00:33:11
Speaker
The fact of the matter is we have so much more control over the socialization as homeschoolers, right? We don't have to worry about the bullying we don't see happening or all of the negative stuff that might happen out of our eyesight and earshot in school. And I love that my kids can talk to adults just as comfortably as they talk to kids their age. They know how to interact with small children, with older children. There's really nothing
00:33:37
Speaker
lifelike about sticking a bunch of kids in a room with peers all their same age and having them work it out, right? Are you ever going to replicate that in real life? No, never. There's no other situation in life except maybe a nursing home.
00:33:51
Speaker
Still, you could still be 20 years apart. Did I just seriously compare public school and nursing home? Just the socialization aspect. Maybe you ought to edit that out. I don't know, but it's true. It is true.
00:34:07
Speaker
And I love that, you know, sometimes I will say that on times when we've been home a lot, I feel like my kids aren't, you know, seeing enough friends or seeing enough people outside of our home. And so we'll go to the library and I'll say, you need to go check out this book by yourself. So they have to go ask where it is and they have to figure it out and they have to go to the scary lady at the desk and ask her questions. Or I'll say, I'm going to drop you off at somebody's house, you're going to go knock on their door and ask if their kid can play.
00:34:33
Speaker
right? So, we get to control these scenarios and offer them whatever they need to develop them and every kid is different. Some kids are so socially savvy, they don't need any help and others need a little bit of encouragement. So, yeah, there's just there's so many reasons this is not a real concern but it for some reason it seems to be a big one. Right. Actually, I tell I often tell people when they ask me that question I say, you know, being in control of socializing my kids is
00:34:58
Speaker
one of the main reasons I'm homeschooling. And that also gives them thought pause to think about the kind of socialization that kids are getting in public schools or aren't getting in public schools and on school buses. Oh my goodness. What a nightmare. This is true.
00:35:15
Speaker
Okay, so my final thoughts are just that if you are feeling the push to homeschool, but you're looking at the obstacles, I would encourage you to turn around and look at the benefits.
Focusing on Homeschooling Benefits
00:35:28
Speaker
Mostly in this episode, Bonnie and I have focused on
00:35:32
Speaker
the positives about homeschooling. We haven't really discussed a lot about the negatives of public schooling, but we've focused so much on the positives of homeschooling because there are so many and it's such an amazing thing. And so if you are focusing on the obstacles and they're real, I mean, you know, we get asked them a lot.
00:35:53
Speaker
But if you're focusing on the negative and on the obstacles, maybe it's time to turn around and focus on the positive and what it could do for you. And like Bonnie said, you know, just give it a try, give it a trial, run and see what happens. Every single public school on on planet Earth will take homeschoolers back if it doesn't work out. There's no public school that's going to turn you away. So give it a try. Yeah, it's pretty low risk, that's for sure.
00:36:21
Speaker
Yeah, one final thought I wanted to share is this. Public school is a relatively new concept. Even private school, the act of congregating a bunch of kids of the same age in a classroom and teaching them, it's really relatively new. And so if you feel fear like, oh, I'm not qualified to do this thing, just realize that many millions, billions of parents before you have done it and they have done it successfully. That always speaks a little bit of peace into my heart when I get nervous.
00:36:50
Speaker
So we are going to include some resources that we talked about already in the episode. But in addition to those, I'm going to add two blog posts that I wrote several years ago about homeschool. One is showcases our daily homeschool schedule, and it's constantly changing. But it's a little snippet in time in case you're curious about what that looks like. And the other one is an article on how to know if homeschooling is right for you. So I found lots of friends asking me questions about it because they're thinking
Supporting the Podcast
00:37:13
Speaker
about it. And this is just kind of like a step by step process to walk yourself through the thought process if that's something that you're thinking about.
00:37:21
Speaker
Thanks so much for tuning in. Did you know you can help the podcast in several ways? First up, we're on Patreon, and there are three different levels to support us there. Just head to patreon.com slash outnumbered. Next up, if you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a written review on iTunes. It helps other parents find the podcast and receive the help you're enjoying. And finally, you can follow us on Instagram at Outnumbered the Podcast. We're always having fun over there too.
00:37:47
Speaker
As usual, if you have any questions or ideas for future episodes, you can reach us at outnumberthepodcastatgmail.com. Thanks for all your support. We'll talk to you next week. I'm going to let you start with your, if you have an experience or something, because I've just been talking a lot. Okay. Bonnie, you're too conscientious about how much you talk. I talk a lot.