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Homeschooling 4 Kids Like a Boss w/ Amanda Schenkenberger
140 Plays1 year ago
Amanda shares some of her homeschooling wisdom, with lots of experience in the trenches! As a home-schooled child and homeschooling mom of four, she brings a lot of depth and experience to the beauty of this process.
Connect with Amanda:
Wbsite: https://homeschoolfamilylegacy.com/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/homeschoolcoachingmama/
Christian's links:
Health Consulting (book your free 15-min session with me): https://christianyordanov.com/health-consulting/
Children's health consulting (autism, ADHD, gut dysfunction etc.): https://christianyordanov.com/childrens-health-consulting/
Pregnancy preparation and recovery health consulting: https://christianyordanov.com/pregnancy-preparation-and-recovery/
Get my book Autism Wellbeing Plan: How to Get Your Child Healthy: https://amzn.to/43ah6yD
Use this link to get a discount on my Detox Workshop: https://members.christianyordanov.com/detox-workshop?coupon=CM25
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Transcript
Introduction and Free Consultation Offer
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome back to the Children's Health Podcast, Christian Ordonov here. Just a quick reminder, if you or a loved one are suffering from a chronic health complaint that you've been unable to get help,
00:00:14
Speaker
through conventional means, please check out my website, book a free consultation. And let's talk about how I can help you with that. You don't have to keep suffering in silence. There's a lot of healing opportunities that we can discover with some lab testing, nutrition and supplementation strategies. So get in touch with me for your free call. And again, don't suffer in silence.
Guest Introduction: Amanda Schenkenberger
00:00:37
Speaker
Now, today we're going to be tackling the topic of homeschooling.
00:00:41
Speaker
And our guest is Amanda Schenkenberger. Amanda, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me on, Christian. I'm very excited to be here.
00:00:52
Speaker
Yeah, I'm excited to hear about your story. So you were homeschooled and you have four boys between, you know, they're small. I don't, I'm not sure if we, if you want to talk about their ages, but, uh, yeah, four small boys and you're homeschooling them all and you don't seem to be clinically depressed or hiding it very well.
00:01:15
Speaker
So let's talk about
Amanda's Homeschooling Background
00:01:17
Speaker
that. Tell me about your story as your experience of being a homeschooled child and how that translates into your homeschooling mom experience. Yeah. So way back when I was being homeschooled, it was very much still considered weird. Whenever I would tell people that I was homeschooled, that I was meeting for the first time, they would always reply with,
00:01:44
Speaker
but you're not weird. And I was at seven, eight, nine years old. I'm like, why is this a thing? And I had known other homeschoolers and they weren't weird either. And so my experience with homeschooling was I was an only child until I was about nine. And then my little brother entered the world. So I wasn't kind of like an only kid. We lived.
00:02:09
Speaker
out in the country, my mom and dad bred horses, Appaloosa horses, and then Jack Russell Terriers. So we had like a ranch going on. And so I got to spend my days out with my favorite horses, playing with my dogs, adventuring on our land out in rural California when I was really young.
00:02:35
Speaker
My parents, I remember my dad taught me how to read. We used Hooked on Phonics, and I remember that. And I learned some basic math skills, but mostly I was just outside playing by myself, and it was glorious. And then my parents and I, we moved to, my brother was born, and then we moved to a different state here in the United States.
Transition to Public School and Academic Success
00:03:00
Speaker
And unfortunately, my parents' marriage started to fall apart
00:03:04
Speaker
And so my homeschooling kind of fell through the cracks and they were like, well, what are we going to do with Amanda? Right. You know, I wasn't receiving any, any kind of educational skills. We were getting rid of the animals and I'm a highly productive personality. And so not having, I can't even imagine having me as a tween without giving me something to do. I would have, I was sure I was driving my mom nuts.
00:03:31
Speaker
And so my parents decided to put me in public school. So I had this glorious, like glowing childhood, got to do what I want, spend all my time with horses.
Decision to Homeschool Her Own Children
00:03:41
Speaker
And then things transitioned and I went to public high school. And I remember of course being terrified.
00:03:50
Speaker
Having grown up on a ranch, I didn't realize I knew a lot of biology, lots of helping horses have babies, helping dogs have babies, lots of biological science happening on at our house. But I was terrified. I was like, I've never taken a science class. I don't feel strong in my math skills, never written a paper.
00:04:12
Speaker
And so, of course, I got I got started and a couple months in they posted, you know, everybody's grades on the wall. And I'm a freshman in high school.
00:04:23
Speaker
And I go to my science class, the one I was most nervous about. And I'm at the top of the class. And I go to my math class. I'm at the top of my class. I go to my language arts class. I'm at the top of my class. And there, as a freshman in high school, I was like, I spent my entire childhood outside playing, basically. And I'm doing better than all these kids in here.
00:04:50
Speaker
who have been chained to a desk, if you will, for their entire childhood. And I made the decision right there. I was like, I'm never going to send my kids to public school.
Critique of Public School System
00:05:02
Speaker
I'm in a homeschool. I was homeschooled. And that was like a requirement in my husband that he was on board with that. So I was like, I know when I meet this guy, he's got to be on board with this. So that's kind of that's my. I should have had that with my wife before we started dating. I should have asked her.
00:05:19
Speaker
Not that it would have changed anything, of course. I have to be very careful what I say she's going to be listening to this. Yeah, it's important. Let's honor her. Of course. We don't really see eye to eye on this homeschooling thing, but I think the
00:05:35
Speaker
the COVID stuff where there was actually some memes going around social media of these masked up kids with these kind of plastic barriers between them and their social distancing at the playground. And it was written something like, don't homeschool your kids, they said. They will turn out weird, they said. And you see these kids on a playground masked up and social distancing. If that ain't gonna turn those kids weird, I don't know what will.
00:06:04
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think nowadays, you know, back when I was a kid, being weird meant you were socially awkward. You didn't communicate well, maybe no eye contact and you didn't know how to talk to people. Well, now looking at the present state of our children, at least in the United States,
00:06:26
Speaker
They don't make eye contact well. I have my children introduce themselves when we meet new people. And they're always like, oh, your kids are so well spoken. Oh, that's unusual. That's not a thing. Kids don't do that. No one taught them to do that.
Advantages of Homeschooling
00:06:44
Speaker
And so now what will make my kids weird, I'm actually, well, I'm glad they'll be weird because they're
00:06:51
Speaker
exceptional simply because they have good communication skills, you know, they haven't been staring at a tablet all day, or we have real conversations, right? Whereas kids in public school, they might not have the same access to in-depth conversations as we do with homeschool. Yeah, I mean, and look, there's so many
00:07:15
Speaker
so many things wrong with public schooling. First of all, the fact that the whole modality was designed to create factory workers. So it's 150 years outdated.
00:07:33
Speaker
Yeah, never mind the fact that these kids are inside, cooped up under fluorescent lighting. You know, if you look at the myopia or short-sightedness epidemic, a lot of that is due to not getting enough
00:07:49
Speaker
Sunlight during the day and there's so many other things now all these schools have Self cell phone towers because everything is going, you know on tablets Wi-Fi so Soon I'm sure lots of schools already have 5g towers. It's just a
00:08:07
Speaker
very toxic environment for children, especially the building materials that they use. God knows are they using glyphosate on the lawns and all sorts of pyrethroids or whatever other pesticides. I would literally go blue in the face
Emotional Challenges of Homeschooling
00:08:23
Speaker
listing the things that are terrible about the schooling system. But I'll let you talk because we want to get your insights and wisdom from the trenches. Tell us how does
00:08:35
Speaker
Let's say the people that are skeptical about homeschooling, especially for moms, because they have to do a lot of the work. Will they have time? Will they have a mental breakdown? How would you alleviate a lot of those concerns that a lot of parents will have?
00:08:55
Speaker
Yeah, so let's go first with like academic, right? Focusing on academics. Now, statistically in the US, homeschoolers score between 15 to 30% higher on
00:09:09
Speaker
standardized testing than public school children do. And that's across the board across the United States. So academically, when we're tested, homeschool kids do a better job. Now, if we want to look at my kids, in particular, my oldest is two grades ahead. He is 10 years old and he's doing sixth grade material. And he is asking me, no, he's begging me to do college prep science classes.
00:09:38
Speaker
because he loves science so much. Okay, let's look at my eight-year-old. He is a grade ahead. He's doing fourth grade material. And we had him tested at the end of the last school year. And he is reading at an eighth grade level. He's eight, reading at an eighth grade level. Hemingway, right? What was that? Is that Hemingway level now? Hemingway,
Christian's Homeschooling Enthusiasm
00:10:04
Speaker
no. Like high school, high school books.
00:10:08
Speaker
Like we don't read Harry Potter, but like he reads like this dragon series that I read when I was in high school. And so, so he's reading eighth grade material. My seven year old, he's a grade ahead. And oh, by the way, I'm teaching my three and a half year old to read right now.
00:10:28
Speaker
So just some of the beautiful things that you can do academically with your kids and how easily they excel with that individualized attention, right? So academics statistically across the United States, homeschoolers do better.
00:10:46
Speaker
My own home is an example of this, my personal experience, right? Having lived, basically learned the basics and then played outside the entire time of my childhood. I came into a public school environment and did very well. I actually graduated nine out of 300 kids and I had no formal education before that, right? So statistically we do very well academically. Now thinking about
00:11:14
Speaker
mom, right? This typically falls on mom's shoulders. And you know, not having nervous breakdowns or all that comes along with pouring yourself into somebody. I really like to think of homeschooling as a beautiful way to discover your limitations.
00:11:38
Speaker
Right? For us mostly, we don't typically struggle with a learning disability. We don't really have any of those in our home, but we struggle with interpersonal communication or regulating our emotions or things of that nature. And so what homeschooling does, it's kind of like that thought that iron sharpens iron and sparks will fly and sometimes fires get started.
00:12:03
Speaker
Right? And so what it causes me to do as a homeschool mom is to look inwardly. And I'm thinking, okay, I've got to own my emotions. My children are in charge of my emotions. I'm going to own my emotions. I'm really frustrated right now. And then I think, why
Hybrid Homeschooling Models
00:12:21
Speaker
am I really frustrated right now? Typically for me, that looks like I'm not being listened to.
00:12:26
Speaker
all right let's go from there and then I facilitate either okay guys do we have a miscommunication are you distracted right it it is the best model to to have like self personal self-growth in for a moment I don't know a better model because we have
00:12:46
Speaker
like continuous opportunities to work on ourselves. And the more children you have, like it's exponential, right? And so it's, if we approach it that this is going to, first of all, be beneficial for my children academically, developing their mind, but also like nurture their hearts and our communication and foster an intimate relationship between the two of us or the three or four of us.
00:13:15
Speaker
When we approach it that way, we can see that every moment of resistance
Parenting and Educational Philosophies
00:13:20
Speaker
is another opportunity for connection. So it's time to do school. Mom, I don't want to do school.
00:13:27
Speaker
Okay, buddy, like I hear you. Why don't you want to do school? Oh, I want to keep playing. Well, what is it that you want to play? I was building this really cool thing and now I'm upset that I have to stop. Okay. Well, how much time would you like to continue building that really cool thing? Right. And so there's, I'm getting to know my child. What he's doing through building is actually learning that STEM, right? We typically play with Legos, right? It's, it's all about, I want to encompass that.
00:13:58
Speaker
If a mom who's stressed out about what this is gonna require of her, think about the benefits. What are you gonna get out of it versus what is it gonna take from you?
00:14:10
Speaker
And if you genuinely as a mom, you don't want to get to know your kids better, that's okay. I want to have my life over here and have them separated over here. If that's where you're at, then let's be real with that. But if you want to get to know your kids better, you want to give them an edge academically when their mental performance and helping them grow their mindset. And you're comfortable with being uncomfortable
00:14:37
Speaker
then there's no reason to not homeschool. Obviously, laws like in Portugal are a little bit different, but thinking about the mental burden, it forces you to up-level your game as a mom. And if you're okay with being challenged, then you're gonna love homeschooling.
00:15:00
Speaker
I like that. Yeah. I was buying books from my daughter before she was even born. So while my wife was still pregnant, I bought close to 50 books that were up to the age of eight in terms of the level. And I drip feed her the occasional book. I got Asterix and Obelix in Portuguese, and I'm now slowly getting the English ones. I love those as a kid. So she's already loving it.
00:15:31
Speaker
yesterday or the day before, I introduced a Pictionary to learn English at a basic level with over a thousand words. It's amazing. For example, every two pages, it's a different letter. Everything starts with B. We opened up B, for example, yesterday. She's like, oh, bear. She knows the bear. She's not even two. She's bear. Then I'm teaching her bat, badger, whatever else it was, butterfly.
00:16:01
Speaker
And then she's remembering today she counted to five on her own.
00:16:09
Speaker
And I'm always like trying to teach her counting in like, I don't know, the last couple of weeks. And every day it seems like she's able to count to one more. You know, it's so amazing. So for me, yeah, for me, it's going to be an adventure and I'm really looking forward to at the very least supplementing what she does in school. I want to spend time with her and teach her what I know of the various things I've learned over the years. So, um, what, what about, uh, what, what's your kind of take on the hybrid model? If your kids are.
00:16:38
Speaker
in school or preschool.
00:16:40
Speaker
What advice would you give to a parent to augment their education with their own experience? Because I mean, who better to teach your children life skills than you yourself? You love them the most. I mean, who's going to put more effort than you at that? Absolutely. Absolutely. There's no one more effort invested in the quality of a child's education, in the quality of their relationships than a parent.
00:17:10
Speaker
And it doesn't matter how good of a teacher you have for your child. No one's going to stick their neck out further for them than mom or dad. And so in my opinion, that's what qualifies you to educate your child well. And so if you've got a hybrid model, like that's all that's available to you. I think a hybrid model is
Amanda as a Homeschool Coach
00:17:30
Speaker
really great. And so if they have like they're going to school like eight hours a day during that time at home, you get to be
00:17:40
Speaker
very intentional. And one of the things you mentioned is life skills, right? And so really focusing on what kind of life skills you want and quality character qualities you want to instill in your children. And so that comes back to, well, what are your family's core values? Every family is different and these not a core value that's more important than the other in the broad sense. But what's important to your family?
00:18:06
Speaker
Like for us, it's developing a love of learning. And that's for a lot of parents out there, right? So how do I develop a love of learning? And there are really strategic ways to go about that. And one of the easiest, there's two easy ways. One is to ask them what they wanna learn about and go learn about it with them. And then two, talk with your children. Like ask them questions.
00:18:35
Speaker
right? Obviously, two is a little bit, maybe, you know, not very deep questions. But as your kids get older, what's it all about? Yes. Yeah. As your children get older, even at her age, though, right, you can begin talking about social emotional learning, which is really important. So if she's frustrated or mad,
00:19:00
Speaker
Hey, honey, what are you feeling right now? What emotion are you feeling? Teaching her to name what she's feeling because haven't you ever been terrified when you don't know what's happening in your body? Think about that, like a two-year-old's perspective. They become consumed with an emotion so much they throw themselves on the floor. That sounds scary when you don't know what's happening with your body.
00:19:22
Speaker
you know, and thinking about that as you get older, maybe there's tummy issues, or there could be so many things, right? You know about that sort of thing.
00:19:31
Speaker
And so at an early age, talking about labeling her emotions and how that feels in her body. Like if she's angry, does she feel hot? If she's sad, does she feel like she's being pulled down? Or if she's stressed, does she feel tension in her chest, right? Teaching our kids how to label emotions and the way they feel in our bodies is a great conversation starter.
00:20:01
Speaker
for young kids. And then as they get older, opening it up into topics they want to learn about and that relate to your family's core values, just being really intentional. But when you do spend time together, that's what you guys focus on. Love that. So you got boys. Have you told them that they may have periods one day? I have not because that won't happen. Their wives will.
00:20:32
Speaker
Are you sure though? I heard on the news on mainstream media that they can, some men can. Nope. No, we actually, that's one of the things that from an early age, we're about to start this with my eight year old and we've already done this with my 10 year old, but we have a specific curriculum to take them through.
00:20:53
Speaker
what it's going to look like as they being a man being a boy that's going to transition into manhood because that's what happens when you don't add hormones to your body.
Environment, Diet, and Learning
00:21:05
Speaker
what that's going to look like, what that's going to feel like. And then also here's what happens for girls as they transition into womanhood naturally. And they, you know, we're actually pretty open in our house and I've nursed all my kids. And so like, just like here's what mommy's body does. This is a mouth duct, right? And this is what this is for. And so we've, we introduced it in a very biological sense.
00:21:33
Speaker
until they reach an age where like, okay, now we can talk about the emotional connection that happens during something like sex. Right now you know about the biology, but yeah, nope, they won't be having periods one day. Yeah, I feel like we can joke about this with you just because, but yeah, I think probably this is one thing homeschool parents are really glad
00:22:02
Speaker
that their kids won't be, their minds won't be polluted with these, you know, gender ideologies at such an early age. Yeah, I was just listening to some of in Massachusetts, which is on the east side of the country.
00:22:17
Speaker
but some of the holidays that they're implementing and right off the bat, like there's pansexual day, like my kids don't need to know about pansexualism. They just don't, I can talk to them about that, thank you very much. There's multiple pride days, and then they're getting into like, okay, here's binary, here's non-binary, here's, if you don't even wanna have a romantic relationship, I'm like, why are we,
00:22:47
Speaker
What are they going to school for? Is there math in there? Because I'm not hearing any math. Can we have a math day? That would be great. That's one of the things, having chosen homeschooling from a young age before these things were brought up. If I hadn't chosen it at this point, you can be sure that I would be choosing it now and figuring out how to pivot my life so I can bring my kids home because
00:23:16
Speaker
This is something that they're literally brainwashing our children with and not teaching them critical thinking skills, which you mentioned before. The education model that is employed in most countries right now wasn't made to create critical thinkers. It was made to create followers and factory workers. And you do what I say and you listen and obey, right? Not critical thinkers. And yeah, that's a whole other topic.
00:23:47
Speaker
I mean, I could bash the school system for again, like I said, for hours. But yeah, I think the COVID stuff, this gender ideology and just really the sexualization of children and they're not ready for it. They're not absolutely not ready. This stuff, like we have to keep their innocence for as long as possible. The world is already polluted enough with all this other stuff.
00:24:16
Speaker
they're going to get plenty of that in their adulthood. This is truly an agenda that is very, very nefarious. And the COVID thing, this thing, I think it's pushing a lot of families into homeschooling and they're reevaluating the cost of
00:24:39
Speaker
conforming to society. There is a cost. To get the acceptance of society, you have to conform. But when society has become this sick and perverted and distorted, one has to start wondering, is my sanity and my morals and my ethics and all that stuff, is it worth just so I get acceptance from a profoundly sick society, as was it Krishna Murti said? Yeah.
00:25:09
Speaker
Yeah, and I think, I mean, you hit the nail right on the head there, right? What's the cost going to be and is it worth it to me? And would I rather downgrade my entire life and get rid of my income so that I can prioritize my children? Well, yeah, absolutely I would. That just goes without saying. And I think it is causing a lot of parents to wake up.
00:25:37
Speaker
that once this has been thrown in their face, then they begin to see these other inconsistencies. People thought homeschooling was weird. Well, if we look at it historically, homeschooling is actually the norm. This educational model we've been using for the last 150 years, that's actually weird.
00:25:55
Speaker
because that's just a spit of time. Whereas before apprenticeships and home education, that's what they did, right? And so then people begin to see this and then they start seeing like, oh, my kid, of course they would do better with individualized attention rather than sitting in a classroom of 30 other children, right? Even if you have the most amazing teacher at the front of the room, I definitely want to make sure people know, like not against teachers,
00:26:24
Speaker
But I can teach four people a lot better than someone else can teach 30 people. And I don't need formal training for that. You know, it's just, that's logic. So go ahead.
00:26:39
Speaker
If you tell me you also gave home birth to your kids, you're going to enter the Hall of Fame immediately of the podcast. Well, so I gave birth
Homeschooling Neurodivergent Children
00:26:48
Speaker
at a birthing center with no medical intervention interventions. Home birth was an option, but we live in an apartment complex and I'm a loud birther. So I gave birth to them in the tub. No medical interventions. They're pretty hippy midwives.
00:27:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's that's a whole nother like that's such a rite of passage into womanhood and motherhood and is just an incredible experience. And it's so empowering. Like, oh my gosh, my body not only created a human being but can push one out like I don't
00:27:28
Speaker
That sounds like a miracle because I don't know how that works, but I've done it four times now, so it happens. Yeah, I am a little bit on the crunchy side with that. Yeah. We also did a home birth and it's quite the adventure. You don't realize as a dad what a big role. I imagine if it was in a hospital because I had to Hoover
00:27:57
Speaker
the place, set up the pool, clean up and try to like coordinate things, walk the dog, try to get my wife to eat. She didn't eat pretty much for the 17 hour labor that she did. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say how long it was actually. Anyway, she had a little bit of watermelon that was all and then she puked it out and that was, she didn't eat the basically for 24 hours. And then anytime she's like down, I'm thinking, you know, like,
00:28:25
Speaker
Why are you down on yourself? You literally went 24 hours without food to give birth to a human being. Like if that's not strength, I don't know what strength is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was having, I remember I was at a
00:28:42
Speaker
my friend who had a baby in a hospital and she, you know, she gave birth. Everything went normally. And then they gave her crackers and peanut butter. Like that was her only option after she had her baby. And I was like, she just like, she just freaking climbed a mountain and that's all you're giving her. And so the birth center, you know, by my house, they're like, you can order sushi. You can get like fried chicken. You can get whatever you want, honey. And as much as it is. And so after I have babies, I eat a meal.
00:29:13
Speaker
But yeah, it's crazy just thinking about modern medicine and just in the context of birth, how much power that they've taken away from moms and how scary they've made it when women have been doing it since the beginning of human beings.
00:29:30
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. I'm pretty sure we're good. And again, obviously, lots of women died before in childbirth, so I'm not against medical interventions, but I do think that there's quite a few extras
00:29:44
Speaker
Simply because of the mindset they put mom in and I can't even like when I give birth to a baby, you know things I don't know we made things dark I had my music going I didn't have you know 15 different people cycling in and out not attached to a machine I got to walk around the room, you know, they're like listen to what my body was telling me not somebody who's not in my body telling me I
00:30:10
Speaker
So yeah, it's, I mean, I love home births. I think they're, I think they're the way to go. Yeah. And I think really I'm not like bashing on men. Men are definitely suited for certain roles better than women, like women are suited for other roles better than men. But to, to have most, mostly men deliver babies.
00:30:34
Speaker
is beyond redonkulous. I think that is just, I don't know why there isn't like a worldwide women's revolution about this shit. You know what I mean? It's unbelievable. And again, I'm not trying to suck up to women or anything. I believe men will make better at certain jobs than women. And likewise, women are better suited. And I don't believe a man
00:31:03
Speaker
has sort of the empathy, the experience, just not having a vagina, it kind of should disqualify you from attending. Not attending births, but even attending births, apparently, you can actually stall the labor if a man is present from what I read back when my wife was pregnant. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's one of the big reasons why I wasn't ever going to have a hospital birth. I don't go see male gynecologists.
00:31:34
Speaker
I'm not comfortable with it. And this is also the fact that it's in such a sterile environment steals the sacredness of the moment. And so the only man that was there was my husband.
00:31:48
Speaker
And there we had like three different midwives kind of rotating in and out, but I had gotten to know them right here in the United States. You get whatever doctors on call like, Oh, I've never met you before. Here are all my private parts. I'm in the hardest moment of my life.
00:32:04
Speaker
Right? I don't know. That would definitely stall all of my births. I need to be in a comfortable, homey environment surrounded by women that I know have knowledge and that empathy factor who can look at my body and they'll be like, oh, look at my position. You look like you're in pain. Can you try doing this? Oh,
00:32:28
Speaker
Yeah, that helps, thank you. But yeah, so again, obviously there's a place for men in birth, but I don't think people handling the birth should be men. Sure, absolutely. Anyway, it was my fault we're diverging from the topic of homeschooling. So talk to us about what do you do? I know you have some courses, so can you tell us how you help
00:32:57
Speaker
parents adjust or prepare for success as homeschool parents.
00:33:04
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So, um, I'm a homeschool coach and so I work in group settings and with individuals, mostly mom, like I really do try to pull dad into it as much as possible. Typically I'm working with a mom who's just homeschooling and then dad's the sole provider. So he's not available all the time. However, I do think being a father, uh, having a father's presence inside the homeschooling,
00:33:31
Speaker
dynamic really changes things for the better. Really like pulls things into structure and positivity and like you like just having like dad root for you is so powerful. So I honestly like tell men that I work with their wives and like you really matter. I just want you to know that you really matter and as much as you can be here I want you to be here.
00:33:56
Speaker
So, but I mostly work with moms and, um, I have a program with a community where I help you calm the chaos, create a schedule and build strong bonds with your children. And so that can, that can mean your homeschooling takes place online or it's hands on or you're unschoolers. Like it doesn't really matter how like your, sorry,
00:34:23
Speaker
your style of teaching, it's, well, what do you do when so-and-so doesn't want to do homeschool? Or what do you do when the siblings are bickering at each other? How do you handle having a consistent routine? There are so many things I want to do. I don't want my kids to miss out on opportunities.
00:34:42
Speaker
And how do you balance all that? How do you have boundaries? You know, so it's honestly what I do is a lot more on the side of parenting coaching versus homeschool coaching. But I mean, having been a homeschool kid myself, I'm like, Oh, they're having a problem with that. Like, why don't you try this tweak? So I do that inside my my program and community where we do group calls and private coaching as well.
00:35:09
Speaker
But then I talk to people online. I host lots of online workshops. I host about at least once a month, once a month. I think I've hosted three this month. I mean, we're jumping into the school year, so putting extra attention out there. But I host a lot of free workshops about topics that are really relevant to homeschooling moms. So right now, obviously, it's
00:35:33
Speaker
getting into the routine. So I hosted one on Monday about jumping into your fall rhythm. So that's another way I help moms. And then of course, you know, I'm, I'm on Instagram sharing, sharing about, uh, encouraging moms. And then like, here's why again, you don't want to put your kids back in school. So, and then of course what we're doing for homeschool, I share that too. That's awesome. Yeah. I think a lot of.
00:36:03
Speaker
coaching when it comes to families is coaching the parents because the implementation will be so unique to every home, every family. So if you give them those kind of skills, it's almost like meta coaching or coaching the coach kind of thing. So if you can tool up, if you can give them the tools, it's like with my book, I like to give parents the tools around implementing, you know, cleaning up the environment.
00:36:35
Speaker
dietary things, supplementary things, sleep hygiene, sleep environment improvement. So once you have those tools, it's amazing how what people can do with it and where they can take it themselves.
00:36:51
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And again, it gets back to that philosophy that I think you're the best person to educate your child. And like you're saying, you just need some extra tools and somebody on your team being like, Hey, why don't you try tweaking this a little bit? And then you get into a flow and everything starts to come together beautifully.
Conclusion and Contact Information
00:37:09
Speaker
And one of the things you mentioned was diet earlier and like cleaning supplies and
00:37:14
Speaker
you know, thinking about another reason to homeschool. I know you help people on the health side of things, but like at our house, I'm really particular with our cleaners that are in our house or present in our house. I'm kind of oily. And so I'll usually have some kind of spicy vinegar and water cleaner that I use in our house so that we don't have, my kids aren't exposed to these extra chemicals. We also eat gluten-free and dairy-free and really limit sugar.
00:37:45
Speaker
preferably natural forms, but in a public school environment, my kids are gonna be tempted every single lunch to swap lunch with somebody. So I've got kids that eat salad, love cucumbers, choose fruit for a snack, not fruit snacks, for a snack. I'm monitoring how much protein they're getting.
00:38:12
Speaker
And so that puts so much power back on me. And with power comes great responsibility. Yes, Peter Parker, Spiderman's uncle says that, but it's true. It gives us great responsibility and that's good.
00:38:29
Speaker
because then we are in control of our children's diet and their atmosphere and then we can give them something far better and far more personalized to who they were created to be and their interests and their skills and really develop a whole person rather than hear some information for your mind. And I would argue right now there's not a lot of information for their mind being
00:38:57
Speaker
in like present in schools it's that agenda that they're pushing but homeschooling is really a holistic approach to education it talk we talk about their minds their academics but it's also nurturing their heart and their character and their physical bodies my side note
00:39:18
Speaker
my 10 year old, as school started back up in our area this week, he's like, you know, mom, I feel really bad for those kids who have to get up at like five o'clock, five 30, six o'clock to get to school on time. And then what we see them get on the bus. Well, they're typically still sleeping. I see them get on the bus and then the school bus rolls back up for 30 PM. Your kids are gone for so much time.
00:39:48
Speaker
And so he was just commenting. He's like, I wish everybody could be homeschooled like I am because like I get enough rest. Right. And so, you know, there are so many benefits.
00:40:02
Speaker
Absolutely, especially when these kids become teenagers, their chronotype kind of changes for a while, so they need that extra sleep. In any situation, waking up to an alarm is a punishment, whether it's for a job or for whatever else. It's not how we were designed. We're designed to wake up
00:40:27
Speaker
somewhat naturally, whether it's needing to pee or the sun coming up or some birds flying or hearing potentially the noise a predator might make. It's not an alarm at a specific time every day because every time you fall asleep at a slightly different time, you have different sleep cycles. So this is another thing that keeps the human in a state of
00:40:54
Speaker
chronic low grade stress. And this is very detrimental to the adrenal hormone milieu, to the sex hormone milieu. So literally that stress of the cortisol, when you're young, you're really resilient to it. But the older you get, the more habituated you get to that stress, it literally atrophies your brain if it gets that bad.
00:41:19
Speaker
Like literally it shrinks your, the cortisol will shrink your brain and other organs. So the more we can protect our children from these very unnatural things, I think the better off they will be. And I think the, you could even take it a step further is once you do the homeschooling thing, if you were one of the more awake people out there, you might realize that maybe
00:41:45
Speaker
maybe living in a big city is not such a good idea either, especially like yourself. You've experienced the amazing and I myself when I was a kid.
00:41:55
Speaker
I'm from the capital city of Bulgaria, but our village was nearby, 20 kilometers or 10, 15 miles away. So in the summers, I would go there and we had goats and pigs and chickens, and I would play with other kids in the dirt, we'd go on adventures. And it was such an amazing experience. And to be able to give that to kids is a gift of unimaginable, like you cannot put a monetary value on that in my opinion.
00:42:24
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely whenever because right now we we don't live in the city, but we do live in a suburban area. So I take them as much as possible. We live in a beautiful area of of the United States.
00:42:39
Speaker
got the Pacific Northwest. And so we've got parks and trees. And sure, I can take my kids to a park, but then there's still like pipes under the park, you know, like electricity flowing under the park. I want to take them out in nature, like, okay, let's not venture too far from like a beaten trail. But like yesterday, we went to this amazing waterfall
00:43:02
Speaker
a crystal clear water and you hear the rushing and my kids are climbing on these logs and these rocks and then they found this cave and they went in and explored it and found a really gross bug. They come out all muddy and I'm like, I'm so happy for you, please don't touch me. But we take up our shoes and we ground and we didn't drink any of the water, but wash ourselves with it and it's just so refreshing.
00:43:31
Speaker
Right? It's just so refreshing. It's so good for our bodies, our mental health.
00:43:38
Speaker
our emotional health, right? No screens, no screens. And people are so habituated to being inside or in a city that they've forgotten what it's like. In fact, if you get out in nature or you go to the beach, if you haven't been there for a while, you might even feel weird, almost jarring. But if you do it habitually or you stay long enough, let's say you're on a holiday camping or something or in the mountains, once you get used to that,
00:44:06
Speaker
When you go back to the hustle and bustle, I'll tell you, my nose is so attuned or sensitive now to, to, um, exhaust fumes. I can smell when we live in a cul-de-sac and in the middle of it, there's a playground. So kids play there. But when I go out there, I can, because there's car sparked around the playground.
00:44:30
Speaker
Because when the car stops, there's stuff that seeps down from the engine, bits of fluids and metal. And I can smell this. I'm like, Jesus Christ. I'm trying to not even breathe deeply moving in that area. I'm like, damn it, kids play here. It's not the right environment for children to grow because
00:44:53
Speaker
They don't, you don't see the detrimental effects of, of, of these minor toxic exposures. You only see them when the quote unquote straw that breaks the camel back moment occurs when they develop overt symptomatology and people think, Oh, it has to be like a physical thing. No behavior or things, things related to the mind. That's how.
00:45:23
Speaker
dysfunction, physical dysfunction in the body, it can manifest solely as behavioral, solely as skin, solely as neurological, headaches, any you name it, it can manifest it doesn't have to be specific physical symptoms. That's what people have to remember. Yeah, my husband actually, well, he between the ages, I believe, 11 to
00:45:48
Speaker
26, yeah to 26. He had unexplained nocturnal seizures.
00:45:55
Speaker
unexplained nocturnal seizures. And the grandma seizures, they could kill him. It was so jarring. It was so awful. And based on the research he's done and correlating all the things in his life, and he grew up out in Montana, out in the woods. His dad was a logger. So it wasn't environmental for him. But looking at what came up before that, he really thinks for him,
00:46:22
Speaker
it was vaccines that gave him the seizures. I think he had a doctor's appointment like a week before it. I can't remember what. Did you say he was when it started? I believe he was 11 when it started. I mean, if he's living out in the woods, I'm sure that was 20, 30 years ago. So what else could it be? What else could it be?
00:46:48
Speaker
Right. Yeah. They were Borough, Montana, which is like cowboy country and his dad was a logger. So yeah, he was out in the woods a lot and
00:47:01
Speaker
It was a really hard time for his family. It was too much sunshine and fresh air. It must have been it, Christian. The doctor will tell you, you know, you have to come back in the city, get your 5G dose and everything will go away. Yes. Yeah. And did they sort of resolve that you said?
00:47:19
Speaker
They resolved themselves. He started changing his diet when we had our first born. We really kind of got into a more, like beginning to learn about a natural, like healthy eating, like what that actually is and natural products. And so he shifted his diet a lot. And so even now he's a little bit more, he eats basically like carnivore with some fruits and vegetables and then like raw dairy.
00:47:47
Speaker
So that was a big shift, yeah, for him. And so since then, he doesn't have them anymore. So I'm very thankful. But knowing that for him, that's, you know, well, if my kids get overloaded on X, Y, or Z, this is something I have to look out for.
00:48:10
Speaker
I'm very careful what we expose them to food wise and, and in the environment wise and what we put in their bodies, whether you want to say that's in a syringe or not. Like we're very careful. Oh yeah. Because it, it's literally like when he did have them, it was like my heart was getting torn out every single time. Like I don't, like I hope he lives through this.
00:48:36
Speaker
Right? And so he did, so a little bit more information. He did take medication for it and that did help. However, he stopped taking it because he's like, I don't feel like myself. My brain is fuzzy all the time. I don't feel like, I don't feel good. Like I would rather have the seizures and be myself than take this medication for the rest of my life.
00:49:02
Speaker
And so that was a choice I supported him in, but it was, it was hard. It was really hard. Yeah. I think back then they still had a lot of mercury in the, like feelings and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, they can definitely cause, um, I think it causes excited toxicity in the brain. So yeah, you know, this is the, one of the,
00:49:30
Speaker
if not the biggest travesty and criminal act of, I don't even know, evil beyond comprehension of our time. I don't even know what's more evil and heinous than this, but that is a topic for another episode for sure. Yeah. Yes, that would be, but that's another reason for us to homeschool.
00:49:56
Speaker
to limit exposure to these other things, especially diet, what they're putting in their bodies all the time to make sure their body can regulate well and we don't have any issues like seizures or anything else along those lines.
00:50:13
Speaker
Yeah, because God knows what they're putting also in those vending machines. It's all garbage in schools and those school cafeterias. You can you can just bet your bottom dollar that they're eating tons of polyunsaturated omega six poison. And it's it's absolutely it's I believe it's it's the right decision for anybody.
00:50:39
Speaker
You know, I know some people can't do it because both parents work and stuff like that. But if it was me, I don't know, especially in the States with all the craziness going on, I would have I would do a lot to start homeschooling my kids. Anyway, let me ask you, do you do you know?
00:50:57
Speaker
much about how you would approach raising neurodivergent children and homeschooling them? Would anything change in the protocol? Yeah, so one of my kids, we think he's twice exceptional.
00:51:15
Speaker
He's just as smart as a whip, but he has a lot of anxiety. And so like way more than a kid's age should. And our other children don't exhibit those same kind of behavioral issues and the things he like says that he's worried about. And I'm like, buddy, why are you even thinking about that? You know, like that's not your responsibility.
00:51:41
Speaker
That definitely changes. He moves through school a lot slower simply because most of the time we're working through tears and mindsets and trying to figure out what works for him and working with him to communicate, okay, what's actually happening? What aren't you understanding? So my approach when I sit down with him is way different than his other brothers.
00:52:10
Speaker
The other guys were really focusing on, okay, comprehension, let's fix this problem. We're really quick and snappy. But with my other son, we work a lot on the social-emotional learning end, like I said, to do with your two-year-old, naming emotions, and really working hard on shifting his mindset about himself. Because for him, he just very easily gives up on himself.
00:52:40
Speaker
And then what he does when he doesn't feel like he can manage himself, he micromanages other people.
00:52:47
Speaker
Nope. None of us like to be micromanaged. So there's some sibling dynamics that we deal with on a regular basis. So yes, to answer your question about neurodivergency, I think homeschooling is the best option because nobody's going to know your child any better than you do. I would say if you have a child that's like got really strong neurodivergencies working in tandem with a supportive occupational therapist,
00:53:15
Speaker
can work can help you like in such wonderful ways. So that would that would be my suggestion if you were if you had a very neuro divergent child, and I would approach homeschooling less academically and more with an unschooling approach, meaning
00:53:34
Speaker
asking them what they wanna do and allowing them to lead even more. Because what's happening, one of the beautiful things about homeschooling is you're giving a child space to learn how their brain works and to learn how to move through and problem solve with academic, you know, with academics. So like maybe I solve a math problem differently than you would solve it simply because my brain's wired differently.
00:54:03
Speaker
And so it gives them the space to do that and learn themselves well because if we want them to be successful adults and they're different from the normal bell curve, then they need to know how to navigate that world from their own experience. Not that I don't fit, I don't fit, I don't fit. It's what are my strengths and what can I bring that would be different and give even an edge.
00:54:31
Speaker
So yeah, if you have a neurodivergent child, that's something like I would handstand say you should really be homeschooling because the structure of the public school, like trying to fit them in a box of a really bad box that doesn't work for most people, but trying to fit them in that box, they're, they're not, they're not going to thrive in that. And if you want to see your child thrive,
00:54:58
Speaker
then you've got to remove a lot of mindsets on your part about what education looks like, but even more so so that they can have this space to discover how their body and mind works so that when they're adults, they can then function well with people who are different from them. By the way, if you want
00:55:21
Speaker
If you get some very basic blood work that you can get at any clinic and optionally we can also do some hair testing to test for certain minerals. And so there's a couple of other tests that we can do. If you want to do those, I can offer some insights because with kids with anxiety, very often it's a nutritionally or let's just say there's
00:55:46
Speaker
mineral and potentially vitamin imbalances that we can very easily correct in a few months and they tend to respond really well when they're young. So if you want, we can discuss that and I'd be glad to help out if you'd like. Yeah, I'd be very interested in that because at the amount of work, for more or less the amount of effort we put into
00:56:10
Speaker
him developing his mindset and speaking words of life, affirmations. I do think that there is something else we could do that would help these other things we've been doing work faster, work better, work more longer lasting for him. So yeah, no, I'd be super interested. Yeah. I mean, as I write in my book, some of the listeners may know
00:56:35
Speaker
The zinc and copper ratio imbalance is literally the most common imbalance in autism. It's very common in ADHD. It's very common in depression, postpartum depression, schizophrenia, a number of psychiatric conditions. So just being able to correct that.
00:56:59
Speaker
zinc to copper ratio alone with a few, a few minerals and a couple of vitamins. That alone is enough to get kids like being able to concentrate. Literally a lot of kids that may, you, you, you, you, you, they're not necessarily diagnosed with ADHD, but the, you know, certain kids have more ADHD type tendencies, let's say, like I used to have that.
00:57:20
Speaker
Literally, that can all go away just by correcting that one thing. Not always, because often there's other things at play, but that is so powerful and it's so simple. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, definitely be open to learning more about that. Cool. Well, let's wrap up with you telling us where folks can
00:57:43
Speaker
join your community where they can find you on the internet, how they can get in touch with you if they need help with the homeschooling coaching side of things, and any other stuff you want to plug, let's do that.
00:57:55
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So if you want to learn more about my program, if you go to my website, homeschoolfamilylegacy.com, I'll have more information there talking, I'll talk, I talk on there about homeschooling, like starting pressure free because a lot of parents feel pressure. So how do we start off pressure free, how to foster intelligence through meaningful conversation.
00:58:19
Speaker
Lots of freebies on there, but also my program is on their Homeschool Family Academy. And then if you want to connect with me on Instagram, that's where I'm mostly present, you can find me at Homeschool Coaching Mama. Homeschool Coaching Mama, you can find me there. You can always obviously DM me or email me. You can just straight up email me at amanda at homeschoolfamilylegacy.com.
00:58:48
Speaker
I won't make you spell my last name. Yeah, you could have like a prize giveaway, whoever gets it right first time gets a course or something. Yeah. That's awesome. How many letters is in the name?
00:59:05
Speaker
Oh, 12? Is there 12? Maybe? Wait, 2, 4... I couldn't fit it all on here. 8, 10, 12, 14. 14, 14. Yeah, you couldn't even fit it. I couldn't even fit it. It just says Amanda Shink and Bernie. That's all right.
00:59:22
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, like these guys, come on. People have long names, guys. I used to work for this company. I used to work for this company and they wouldn't allow one letter. They have to enter more than two characters for a name. And a lot of Chinese people were real pissed off, I tell you.
00:59:38
Speaker
Yep. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That makes sense. Amanda, this was really fun. I love your energy. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for your wisdom. You have a lot of it on various topics and subjects. And you're welcome to come on again in the future. It will be a pleasure to have you on again. Well, thank you so much, Christian. I really enjoyed it. Thank you. Thank you.