Latest / The Christy-Faith Show / Ep. 124 - The Homeschool Boy Episode Every Mom Needs | Remembering Durenda Wilson

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Ep. 124 - The Homeschool Boy Episode Every Mom Needs | Remembering Durenda Wilson · The Christy-Faith Show

• 0:00
  Christy-Faith: Hi, friends. Welcome back to The Christy Face Show. Today, we're bringing back a favorite from the archives as part of our Throwback Thursday series. And this one feels especially meaningful right now, because we recently lost the wonderful Durenda Wilson. She gave so much to the homeschooling world for over thirty years, and revisiting this conversation feels like a gift.
• 0:20
  It's all about raising and homeschooling boys with Durenda, a mom of eight, including five boys, and decades of homeschooling behind her. If you've got a boy bouncing off the walls right now and Summer has a way of cranking that up, this episode's for you. So whether you heard this when it first came out or it's brand new to you, I hope it encourages you right where you are today. Alright. Let's get into this Throwback Thursday episode.
• 0:57
  I am so excited about our guest on The Christy-Faith Show today. We have Durenda Wilson. With more than thirty years of home education experience, Durenda Wilson is a trusted voice and resource at homeschooling conventions and on the Durenda Wilson podcast. Durenda and her husband, Daryl, have eight kids, seven graduated, and 10 grandbabies. As an author, speaker, and podcaster, her greatest joy is reminding parents how doable and effective homeschooling is and that they are, in fact, qualified to do the job.
• 1:34
  We're kindred spirits, girl. Her books include The Four Hour School Day, love that one, The Unhurried Homeschooler, and Unhurried Grace for a Mom's Heart. That's a devotional, isn't it?
• 1:45
  Durenda Wilson: Mhmm.
• 1:45
  Christy-Faith: She also has a new book coming out, which I wanna talk about today. If you have a boy, listen up today's show, because she is gonna come out with a book on homeschooling and raising sons. I'm thrilled to have you on the show today. I wanted to ask you about your book on homeschooling boys. Why did you write it and tell us about it?
• 2:08
  Durenda Wilson: Okay. Well, I get a lot of questions about boys because I have five boys, and I've done several podcasts on them. I've done, I did a series, on homeschooling boys on my podcast, and it's been super, super popular. And I think that because I don't really feel like there's anything out there on homeschooling boys. There's books on raising them.
• 2:35
  I just really have a heart and a passion for encouraging moms who are raising sons specifically because we are in such a need for men in our culture. And so this is something that I talk about in the book in terms of just we I think that we've lost the appreciation for manhood in our culture because we're not running for our lives anymore, right? So for centuries, it was about survival. And we needed those men to protect the women and children. We needed them to provide.
• 3:08
  We needed them to do all those things. And in our culture, there's so much affluence, and there's so many possibilities and so many opportunities that it looks as though we don't need them. And that's absolutely not true. We absolutely need them. We see political overreach happening.
• 3:23
  We see moral overreach happening. And, you know, I think that men should be at the front of the charge when it comes to that. So I think not that women can't participate in that, but it's, I think it's just, it's such a, they're so wired that way. They're so wired to conquer, to build, protect, provide, and lead. And they're not encouraged to do that while they're growing up in our And so this is where I want to encourage moms to understand, Look, you're, you're never going to fully understand your son, because you're not a boy or a man.
• 4:00
  So for those of us who are homeschooling, that's a big deal, because we're actually educating our boys in a somewhat feminine environment, unless you have a whole pastel of boys like we did. So you have to make a point of getting your son, involved in things that are boy related and encouraging that and getting your, you know, encouraging your husband to spend time with him and to have them do guy things and just how important all of that is and just the different ways that they learn and how to accommodate that. Just kind of how to enjoy them. Like this it's wild. It's wild, but it's so much fun if you learn to just go, This is what they do, you know?
• 4:42
  Like, I don't understand it, but kudos to you, you know? I mean, when you actually see it for what it really is, that all those wild things that they do are typically them attempting to lead, protect, provide, conquer, build. They want to do all of those things. And usually when they're doing some crazy wild thing, it's because they want, they're trying to do that in their own way, you know, on almost at the detriment of their lives. And you know, this is one thing I say in the book is like one of your biggest jobs is just get them to adulthood alive, you know, like still breathing and all of that.
• 5:21
  So, but they are so much fun and having, you know, kind of walk that out with our boys. And I share so many stories that will really probably put your mind at rest when it comes to your boys. And now I'm down the road and I've got these men in my life would defend me to the death. Know, like I've got a really good protective husband, I know that if anything happened to him, these boys would take care of me. These boys would step right in, and I would be protected.
• 5:52
  That actually brought tears to my eyes when I was sharing that with them a while back because it was like not everybody has that. Part of it, it started back at the very beginning by respecting and honoring their differences. Instead of being annoyed by them or exasperated with them, just recognize that, oh my goodness, they're wired beautifully for what they're called to do. And so just being able to encourage and nurture that. We wanna nurture that nature in boys.
• 6:22
  And so that's what I talk a lot about, how to nurture that nature.
• 6:25
  Christy-Faith: And what a beautiful reframing, right? Often we look at our kids and there may be some character traits that maybe do need a little honing in.
• 6:34
  Durenda Wilson: Right? Right. Of course. But on
• 6:36
  Christy-Faith: the flip side of this, what else can we see that is a gift? That is how they're wired and that is really cool and how do we see this playing out later in their lives as an asset? And I think that what's difficult is with the day to day and moms, particularly homeschooling, because we do add extra burden to our lives by making this choice. It's extremely sacrificial. Managing our day to day, the laundry, the meals, and then kids bouncing off the walls, it's so easy to forget.
• 7:05
  Wow. Okay. I'm being driven nuts right now because it's been too noisy all day. Yes. But okay.
• 7:11
  So go outside and scream. Right. Exactly.
• 7:14
  Durenda Wilson: And you know I those boys had all of our kids had time outside every day, and margin for the boys specifically between their school subjects was really important to say, okay, soon as you're done with math, you can go outside fifteen minutes, jump on the trampoline, ride your bike. I always just set the timer so I wouldn't forget about them.
• 7:32
  Christy-Faith: Right, I know because yeah
• 7:34
  Durenda Wilson: Yes, because lunchtime rolls around you're like
• 7:38
  Christy-Faith: Right, you're like, Wait a minute, the house is blowing quiet for an hour. Why?
• 7:44
  Durenda Wilson: Oh my god. So yeah so that margin for them that understanding their need to get that energy out and then they can focus again. Know just giving them lots of margin in the afternoons for lots of outside play and just hobbies and all that kind of stuff. Know, they that margin is so important in their day. It's something I talk about in all of my books.
• 8:06
  You can't have your kids so scheduled that there's no margin for them to be kids. We've gotten so far away from what education actually is. What parents don't realize is that your kids are quite capable of self educating. They really are. Like they need guidance and direction, boundaries, that kind of thing.
• 8:26
  But on the whole, they are smarter than we are about what it is they're ready to learn and not learn. That's one of the tricks of being a homeschooling parent is being able to let go of something, set it aside, and understand that, you know, okay, this is what they're interested in right now, and then just work from that place, you know.
• 8:45
  Christy-Faith: I love that. Let's talk a minute about educating boys. Because something that I When I heard that you were coming out with a book on boys, it's been That was interesting to me because one of the things when I started the center very early on in my career, I just A lot of parents hired me to teach their boys how to write and how to do language arts. That was kind of my specialty. My specialty is And in the I got a lot of success and results.
• 9:15
  I could teach, you know, a kid who was struggling learning how to write a thesis statement. I could get it done in fifty minutes. And the mom's like, what? You know, it's been three weeks in the school environment and they haven't you know, this was one of the little tidbits that led to my deconstruction of the school system. Like, wow, you can accomplish so much one on one.
• 9:32
  But Durenda, let me tell you. I was like, I got this adolescent boy thing down. It's not gonna be a problem for me. And you know, moms would be in my office crying, just take him. Send him back when he's a junior in high school.
• 9:48
  Durenda Wilson: Right. Right.
• 9:49
  Christy-Faith: We were hired. We were you know, we ran a homeschool. We tutored. We did all sorts of stuff. And we had a lot of boys who were bouncing off the walls.
• 9:56
  A lot of them, you know, overdiagnosed, over medicated, that whole thing. But it is different. I am finding the journey to be so much different when it is my own son. Just because it's challenging and it's not like when I taught other people's sons. Right.
• 10:13
  Doesn't mean I shouldn't be doing it. Doesn't mean, and I'm gonna figure this out. We're gonna figure
• 10:19
  Durenda Wilson: You this have to have that attitude. I feel like it's one of those things where
• 10:24
  Christy-Faith: Homeschooling four kids means I'm juggling roughly 24 different subjects at any given time. And a few years back during a particularly busy season, I hit a wall. I needed some serious help with the heavy lifting of teaching everything myself and managing schedules for four kids. That's when I found BJU Press Homeschool, and we've loved their courses so much that we keep going back. Some families use them for everything and love it.
• 10:46
  I use them for certain subjects. Either way, total mental load relief. Here's what my mornings look like now. Let us take science for example. My three girls do that one together.
• 10:56
  They fire up the lesson taught by a real teacher, well produced, actual teaching, not just click through busy work. And I sit there with my coffee, watch them, or make breakfast, and we discuss the big ideas. Every BJU Press homeschool course prioritizes critical thinking, a biblical worldview, and hands on learning. I just guide the conversation and pick which activity or pages or projects we want to do, and everything's already planned out. They have an online platform included for you called the Homeschool Hub, and it keeps everyone on track, both me and my kids, without micromanaging or nagging.
• 11:27
  And when I have questions, I call my Homeworks consultant. These people don't just help you get set up. They're available for you whenever you need them. It's like having a homeschool expert on speed dial. Go to bjupresshomeschool.com or click the link in the show notes to find out more.
• 11:41
  I wanna talk about homeschool math for a minute, specifically CTC math, who I'm so glad is sponsoring this episode because you need to know about them. I'm picky about curriculum, and there are a few subjects I won't compromise on, and math is on the top of that list. CTC math is what I use with all four of my kids, and it's an excellent k to 12 math program. Rigorous, thorough, comprehensive, everything I want my kids to have in their math education. But without all the stress, the tears, and me having to learn long division all over again.
• 12:16
  Here's what happens at our house now. My kids log in. A real math teacher walks them through the lesson four to nine minutes clear, step by step. They do their lesson and finish up with practice problems. The program grades them, and I don't have to remember how to do fractions with unlike denominators or where exactly they left off last week, which means I get to be the mom in the room.
• 12:37
  I can sit nearby, listen in, encourage, fold the laundry, and watch math get done beautifully. Easier on mom? No sacrifice on academics? Yes, please. Join me and tens of thousands of homeschool families using CTC math for their go to math curriculum.
• 12:56
  Links in the show notes. Grab your free trial today, and you'll see why we love it for our kids. You have to
• 13:02
  Durenda Wilson: go into homeschooling like that. Like, I'm going to figure this out. Because if you're constantly questioning yourself and constantly looking for the possibility to opt out, you're not going to be your best creative self. You're not going to be creative because you don't have the motivation. If you say to yourself, I would tell myself because I knew I did not want my kids in public school.
• 13:24
  I didn't even want them in a private school. There wasn't anything close by anyway. And we couldn't afford it. I was like, this is it. This is what we're doing.
• 13:31
  And because of that, that made me just go, okay, I have got to, we've got to figure this out. I talked to my husband a lot when it came to the boys because he thinks like them. So the thing is, men and women, boys and girls, they don't think the same. They can be doing the same task, and this has actually been proven on PET scans. There's a book called The Minds of Boys.
• 13:53
  I wouldn't recommend it unless you want to read a really thick book. But there's one chapter that I would say is worth the price of the whole book. It's, I think it's Chapter six, and he talks about the difference how boys learn. And I think there's another little section that talks about the scans that they did. And what they did was they had the boys and the girls doing the same exact activity.
• 14:16
  Almost completely different parts of their brains were firing.
• 14:20
  Christy-Faith: Fascinating.
• 14:21
  Durenda Wilson: So why as homeschooling moms are we trying to teach our boys the way we learn and the way most girls learn, because that's not how they learn. They need a lot of hands on. They need a lot of like just diving in and participating, know, and they certainly need to be interested. I think I've become much more of an unschooler as the years went by because I got more and more comfortable with the idea that my kids really can self educate and real life teaches them more than anything, any curriculum out there. However, when I started out, I was like, I can't quite do that.
• 14:56
  But I just wasn't there. And so we had a little bit of time every morning where we would do actual book work, you know, workbooks or reading out loud or whatever. And we did very little to nothing to start with. And then we slowly increased as the years went by. When I wrote The Unhearried Homeschooler, that's the process that I talk about in that book.
• 15:16
  At the first sight of it, it looks like your kids are behind, quote unquote, if you're going to compare yourself to the scope and sequence and all that. I learned to ditch that a long time ago.
• 15:25
  Christy-Faith: Yes.
• 15:25
  Durenda Wilson: But what we found out was that our kids catch up really quickly at a certain point. Pressing in too much with bookwork to start with is counterproductive. Usually kids are burned out by the time they're older because we have pushed them too much. But kids have a propensity to learn very much on their own. And so that was something that I think I got more comfortable with over the years.
• 15:47
  But I did leave a good amount of margin in the afternoons. Kind of looked at mornings as more directed learning and afternoons as more self directed.
• 15:54
  Christy-Faith: That's fascinating. And that leads right into my next question, which is in four Hour School Day, you talk about simplicity in homeschooling. We often, especially if we're in our first five years of homeschooling, we think we gotta have all the things, we gotta do all the things. Right. Know, we want the composer study, the music study, we wanna read the poetry, we gotta do the read aloud, we gotta do this, we gotta and all of that.
• 16:19
  But you take a different approach, and I find it so refreshing and so encouraging, and especially coming from a woman whose kids turned out okay. I thought they did. Go figure. So will you speak a little bit to everybody listening about what it means to have simplicity in your homeschool?
• 16:39
  Durenda Wilson: Yeah. I think I've been describing a lot of that. For us, just what it looked like was to get up in the morning and there were chores to be done. Responsibilities, because we want to teach our kids responsibility. We want to start that at a very young age.
• 16:54
  And then there was breakfast, and then usually a few more chores, and then I actually had a time of inspecting chores. You can't expect what you're not willing to inspect because the kids aren't going to do. They're not gonna do a good job or they may not do it at all. So your kids know they're gonna get checked every day. It would look something like this.
• 17:11
  I would go in their room. My kids thought if the middle of the room was cleared off, their room was clean. All the stuff could be on the side. So they had to be taught. And the way that I did that was instead of just telling them, Oh, you need to clean all that stuff up, I would walk in the room and I would say, Okay, the middle of the floor looks great.
• 17:27
  There's a praise right there. And then I would say, Do you see anything here that isn't right that needs to be fixed? To training their eyes to see where the mess is and what needs to happen. They're now they're having to own what they're doing. And that's another really important thing.
• 17:42
  And then they would tell me, you know, Okay, get that taken care of. And then you tell them one other good thing that they did. So kind of like a sandwich of praise,
• 17:49
  Christy-Faith: a little
• 17:49
  Durenda Wilson: bit of critique because you, we do want to teach them like they need to know what a good job looks like. Get done with that and then we would go into our schoolwork. And for the littles, it was a lot of playing outside, building blanket boards, baking, you know, all the stuff that, you know. I have some podcast episodes on the essentials in early education, and that's really all that's involved. You know it's really them just doing stuff with us, doing things with their siblings, and kids just again they love to play at that age anyway.
• 18:14
  So that imaginative play is super helpful. So we would do that whatever amount of bookwork. And the kids knew that they knew exactly what they needed to do every day. And so they knew that when they were finished with that, they were done. So the sooner they got it finished, the sooner they were done.
• 18:31
  And the boys have told they tell me to this day, and they're, you know, like coming up on 30 years old now, they're like, That's what motivated me to get through this morning stuff is do the harder thing first, which is, again, teaching resilience discipline and doing what's hard first. And they knew that they would get that time outside every single day. And they loved that time. So that was their motivator. They loved it.
• 18:54
  Now there weren't computers when we first started parenting. There was not screens to compete with. My advice to parents is avoid that for the screens for as long as you possibly can. Let your kid be a kid. I am all about traditional childhood, a traditional childhood.
• 19:10
  And what that looks like is doesn't it really involve screens? It involves a lot of play outside, baking cookies with us, going to the post office, going to the library. We have no we just don't even realize how much our kids are learning from all of that. All the things that I needed to do as a wife and a mom and all of that, the kids came with me. And so that was part of the simplicity as well.
• 19:33
  It's like, I have to do these adult things, but I'm going to take my kids along with me, alongside me, and they would see how I conversed with people. They watched what kind of manners I had. They helped me put stuff in the cart at the grocery store. We could count things there. We could have conversation in the car.
• 19:50
  I mean, that's where the bulk of our kids' education comes, is doing everyday life with us. And so for me, able to encourage moms that, you know, as you're just walking out your days, just have your kids with you and engage them in conversation. So much learning happens through conversation, at least it did in our house. Through games and playing and all of that. We've made education harder than it needs to be, more complicated than it needs to be.
• 20:18
  And the other problem is it becomes so disconnected from life. Real learning doesn't happen apart from real life. Our kids are wanting to learn things that they can actually do, and that's why they want to model us. That's why you give them a bunch of toys, and they want tools like dad, or kitchen utensils like mom. And that's natural and that's normal and that is what they should be doing.
• 20:43
  So take our cues from them more and less from the scope and sequence chart and all the other things we're seeing on social media and all that.
• 20:50
  Christy-Faith: Then what they're supposed to know for their grade. It's funny when I I do lives, that always pops in. What is my kid supposed to know? They're in fourth grade.
• 21:00
  Durenda Wilson: Well, it's become about performance instead of purpose.
• 21:03
  Christy-Faith: You hear that and I hear the anxiety behind that. Mhmm. Mhmm. And I'm like, oh, man, can I sit down and have a coffee with you? Let's ask ourselves.
• 21:13
  This is the main question. Oh, which I wanted to talk to you about too, because you had one main question that that completely redefined what an education is for you, and I had that as well. As we were in the midst of running this successful center, here I was deconstructing, it led us to sell our business actually, because we felt like we were enabling system that we no longer believed in.
• 21:34
  Durenda Wilson: Right.
• 21:35
  Christy-Faith: You wrote, if there is no way to know what our kids might one day do for a living, how in the world can we prepare them? And you mentioned that this question became the catalyst for change in your perspective on education. And this is so vital that, of course, we already know we're broken records when we say education is in the filling of a bucket. It's igniting a fire. You actually stop to think, wait a minute.
• 22:00
  Can my kid actually learn everything they need to know before they're 18? Parents just stopped for a second, they would realize how absurd of a Right? Question that So tell me more about that deconstruction for you.
• 22:14
  Durenda Wilson: Well, me, when I asked myself that question, I realized it was really dominating my thinking with our oldest son. The girls I can just relate to, you know, we have so much in common. Love language arts and writing. So the first two were girls. He came pretty naturally to teach them and to kind of get into a groove with them.
• 22:33
  And he was just a completely different animal altogether. And I realized, wait, he was gonna have to have a career of some sort. Like, he was going to be working throughout his adult life. And how would I know what it is that he was going to do? And at the time, it was really interesting question because there was hardly anyone out there who were software engineers.
• 22:53
  I didn't even know what that was for years, you know, like it was way in the future. It wasn't something that was really a thing then. Right? But that's what he ended up being, was a software engineer. So I couldn't guess at all.
• 23:04
  And it's the same thing for us. The jobs that our kids are going to have don't even exist.
• 23:09
  Christy-Faith: Right?
• 23:10
  Durenda Wilson: So there's no way for us to dot all our i's and cross all of our t's. So we're going to have to take a different approach. And for me, I thought, Okay, what's important then? If they need to be able to pivot and learn whatever comes their way, and and I want to make it possible for them to do that, there are some things that need to happen. And so what formulated out of that was, number one, I wanted them to be lifelong learners.
• 23:32
  The main way to do that is to not burn them out on schoolwork and forcing on them too many things that we think they should be learning instead of listening to them and their interests and, you know, whatever they had to contribute. This is something that I learned to do a lot with my kids is talk to them about their education. Like, what are you liking? What are you loving? What are you not liking?
• 23:58
  And is it something you can keep doing even if you don't like it? Or do you think we should do this a different way? Or, you know, when you're doing your schoolwork, how do you best work? And some of them needed music in their ears, noise going on, others needed quiet, some needed to be you know sitting in a tree or reading upside down on the couch, whatever they needed to do. But they had the freedom to do that in our house because we were homeschooling and we were open to that.
• 24:24
  All that to say we want them to be lifelong learners. We want that relationship with learning to be positive. So that means, you know, yes, there's some things that they have to do that they don't like. My ratio was eightytwenty. If they're enjoying 80% of it, and 20% is kind of like, Okay, we just got to get through this, that's a great ratio.
• 24:42
  When that started to tip the other way, we needed to make some tweaks and some changes. So always being open that this is a continually evolving experience. I just told myself every year is an experiment. And when I started doing that, it took the pressure off, you know? Right.
• 24:58
  And this is the thing I want to point out. The traditional school system tends to look at performance rather than purpose. Now performance, we can tell, is not actually getting the kids where they need to be. Right? But if we have purpose, we understand the purpose of this math lesson that we're doing today is not just to learn addition, subtract, or whatever.
• 25:20
  This is also following directions. This is, you know, owning what we're doing. A lot of things. And so understanding that the purpose of what we're doing is to raise lifelong learners. If we're going to raise lifelong learners, they have to have a good, healthy, positive relationship with learning, and it's our job to help create that environment for them.
• 25:39
  The second thing is to be resourceful. They want to learn. They've got a drive to learn. Do they know where to find out what it is they need to know? Also, do they know how they learn?
• 25:52
  That's another part of being resourceful. Well guess what? My kids learn how they learn during that playtime and that free time that
• 26:00
  Christy-Faith: they had
• 26:01
  Durenda Wilson: because they were pressing into all the things that interested them and pursuing them all the way to the end. Okay? Because they had the margin to do that. We weren't running from one thing to another. And so they know how they learn.
• 26:16
  And it was funny, 20 my one year old daughter, she was telling me I always had my kids I had a very simple language arts thing. And you know, you're a language arts queen, so this might make you go, Blah! You know. But here's the thing. I just had to keep things simple.
• 26:31
  And this is another part of the answer to the question about simplicity, is the main thing that I had them do for their language arts was to read for twenty to thirty minutes, sometimes less if they were younger, of course, and then write a summary of what they read. That's it. And we would go over the summary every single day. So we went over it, you know, like I had them read it out loud to me, because when you read it out loud, you realize, Oh, that doesn't sound right. Yeah.
• 26:56
  Fix it, right? So you learn to edit, they learn to edit their own work. And then we would go through it for punctuation and you know, grammar and spelling and all of that. And it didn't take very long, like five minutes, maybe, maybe ten, and have them fix whatever if there's too many things wrong, and that was it. Right?
• 27:13
  And she said that has been the most helpful thing for her. She loves to study theology and so she now studies these things and she said the best way that I remember it is to write it out in a summary. So it was just it's just interesting to see, you know, when
• 27:30
  Christy-Faith: you said mom
• 27:31
  Durenda Wilson: instinct. And I think that's
• 27:33
  Christy-Faith: so important. And I like to tell people a lot of people like to, oh, you're a classical homeschooler. Oh, you're a Charlotte And I like to shout from the rooftops, a good idea is a good idea. No one owns it. Right?
• 27:46
  That's right. And quite frankly, Charlotte Mason was right with the narration piece. Oral narrations when they're young, and then when they're older, written narrations also, and then going into the public speaking piece is so vile.
• 28:00
  Durenda Wilson: And we'll get back to your question. So it's raise lifelong learners, teach them to be resourceful, and the last thing is work ethic. This is super important because your kids can have a desire to learn, know how to learn, but if they don't have the persistence, the resilience to carry it out, they're not going to take it nearly as far. So we want to instill a strong work ethic. And I don't just mean bookwork wise.
• 28:23
  In fact, our biggest emphasis in a strong work ethic was family projects, things like that, that, and they automatically carried that persistence eventually over into their schoolwork. I didn't even have to try to make that happen. Like it felt like it happened pretty organically. But again, that real life learning. Learning isn't disconnected from real life.
• 28:44
  So we start that learning, purposeful learning that we want for them in real life. And they'll carry it over into any intellectual things. You know, like our son who became a software engineer, he started college at age 16. When he was 12 years old, I was panicking because he hated reading. He was a horrible speller, and he hated language arts.
• 29:04
  The whole language arts thing just was not his thing. He didn't like it. He didn't like writing. He didn't like any of it. I just did the summary with him for the most part, and I branched out a couple times into a couple other little things.
• 29:14
  But I just felt like I was going to lose his love for learning if I forced too much of this on him. So then fast forward and he is taking his interest exam at college and I am sweating bullets because I'm thinking He's gonna fail this. I do. He comes back to the car. I'm like, How did it go?
• 29:32
  And he's like, Oh, I aced it. I'm like, What? You know, trying not to look too surprised, but I think she was surprised too. He goes, Mom, you taught us to speak well at home, and you had us write summaries. That's actually all I needed for that entrance exam.
• 29:44
  So, and then he fast forwarded into his first, quarter of college, got a B plus on his first paper. I read it. I was amazed. It had footnotes. I didn't teach him that.
• 29:54
  He just picked up all of that stuff when he needed to. Yes. Like when he was motivated, he wanted that degree, he wanted to be a software engineer, he knew to get there, he had to do this first. Yes. And all of a sudden he was willing to do whatever it took.
• 30:08
  Yes. And he did, you know? And so fast forward, he graduates, and he works for Amazon now. And he is telling me the other day, like, for a long time, all he had to do is write emails. That was it.
• 30:18
  Like, it's just have to be able to communicate. And this again goes back to purpose in writing. What is the purpose of writing? It is to communicate clearly to the other person what we are trying to say. That's what it is at its very core.
• 30:31
  So if they can learn to do that, and I think it starts in conversation first, then eventually they'll be able to get it out on paper.
• 30:38
  Christy-Faith: Can I
• 30:38
  Durenda Wilson: tell you the spelling story real quick?
• 30:40
  Christy-Faith: Yes, please do.
• 30:41
  Durenda Wilson: Okay. So I told you he was a horrible speller, and I was like panicking. Okay? I'm like, I don't know. I know that if I add a spelling program, I just could feel it.
• 30:50
  Like I almost got sick to my stomach when I'm thinking about it. Cause I had seven other kids who were trying to homeschool and I was like, we've got a great rhythm. This is going to stress me out and he is going to hate it. So I don't know what to do. I personally am a woman of faith and so I prayed.
• 31:06
  I was like, Lord, you gotta help me. You gotta intervene here because I don't know what's happening. I don't know what to do. So I just waited to see what would happen. It wasn't long after that I noticed in every conversation he was having with people, he was doing something with his finger.
• 31:19
  So when I got him alone, I say, I noticed that you're doing something with your fingers when you're talking. What is that? He goes, Oh, well, I was kind of watching Brittany, his sister's video. She was watching videos on sign language, learning sign language. And so he was just like, Eve's watching.
• 31:36
  I don't know. It wasn't, it wasn't his assignment, but he was still watching. And he learned the alphabet in sign language. And so he was picking words out of the conversation and spelling them with his fingers. Wow.
• 31:48
  And his spelling after that dramatically improved. And I was like, I could have never thought of that. I would have never thought of that. And years later we were talking about it and we realized like Jake is the kind of person who has to be doing more than one thing in order to take in. And I can't understand that.
• 32:08
  I can't like give me one thing at a time. But for him, his brain is just so going all the time that he's got to have something going on over here in order to get this thing done over here. And so that's how it worked for him. And so I've actually shared that story many times, and I've had mom send me pictures of their kids who were having trouble with spelling and started doing that and it helped them dramatically. There you go.
• 32:33
  Christy-Faith: Okay. Before we go any further, I need to tell you about something that has saved our family a ridiculous amount of It's Summit HealthShare, my husband's company, and it is one of the most amazing organizations. Thank you for sponsoring this podcast. Now, if you're not familiar with health sharing, here's the short version. It's not health insurance, but it does replace it.
• 32:54
  What it is is a community of people sharing medical costs, and it's well established and safe. It's actually been around for over a hundred years. With Summit HealthShare, families who move over save between 40 and 60 percent on what they were paying for traditional health insurance. And they have 98% customer satisfaction. And what's cool is you can see any doctor you want, even holistic ones.
• 33:15
  There are no networks, no permission slips. And there are different plan options depending on what your family needs, including just major medical only. On our plan, which is a little bit more robust, we get free prescriptions, free labs, and no co pays. And our family of six saves a thousand dollars a month. And I know it sounds too good to be true, but it's not.
• 33:34
  It's actually how health care should work. It's just not how insurance companies do it. So here's what to do. Go to summithealthshare.com. I'll put a link in the show notes.
• 33:43
  Take the savings calculator. You can do it in under two minutes, and it will tell you what you should be paying for the care that you need. And when you see that number and how much lower it is than traditional health insurance, you will sprain your ankle running to the phone. And when you call, they will walk you through everything. And please tell them that you listen to the show because I want you to have the VIP treatment.
• 34:03
  So you know how when you meet another homeschool family, you end up talking for, like, an hour? Swapping recommendations, sharing what's working, telling them about the pediatrician who actually gets it, or that you go and see this speech therapist or that OT. That's just how we are. We love to take care of each other. That's the whole idea behind The Christy-Faith List, which is entirely free for homeschooling families.
• 34:23
  It's a directory of colleges, businesses, doctors, reading specialists, any kind of business, you name it, who share our values and want to work with homeschooling families. All those recommendations that you're always passing around, now they're all in one place. And if you're a business owner or part of an organization that loves to work with homeschooling families and wants more business from us, sign yourself up. We wanna know who you are, and we wanna support you. Search the Christy faith list today and find the people who know you, get you, and want to work with you.
• 34:53
  Let's support the people who support us. I will put a link in the show notes. There you go. It's interesting because I I assign very weird reading in my homeschool, like how to win friends and influence people. I love to especially when kids get around junior high, they're curious about themselves Yep.
• 35:12
  How their brain works. And I recently assigned how am I smart to my son, and, oh, he has been having a blast. He's analyzing everyone in the home. The conversations now that we are able to have about his curricula choices Yes. What we're doing in our home because he is involved in that.
• 35:31
  Our children in our school system, both public and private, are literally told to be quiet for twelve straight years. We don't wanna hear what you have to say unless it's exactly what I am expecting you to say. My goodness. What that can do for motivation when you simply ask a kid what's working for you. Right?
• 35:51
  It sounds so simple. But because I think parents are scared. They're scared that their kid might not be prepared for college or won't get into college or what if, what if, what if, what if. And I think that addressing our own anxiety about that first.
• 36:07
  Durenda Wilson: Yes.
• 36:07
  Christy-Faith: Yes. It's like, look, these are gonna be adults. If we set them up, well, yes, we're gonna make sure they can read. You know, of course. Yes.
• 36:16
  Yeah. But ultimately, there is going to be a point where they, hopefully will take charge of their lives and achieve the goals that they wanna achieve. And I know it sounds very unschool y, but it's actually brain science y as well. Right? Like, there are great ideas in all of these different styles, including unschooling and Charlotte Mason and classical.
• 36:37
  Do we miss anything? Because it's like a master class in homeschooling talking to you.
• 36:41
  Durenda Wilson: I jotted a couple things down because they came to mind, and I was like, you know what? I'm gonna share this. Okay. There was a point at which you feel this pressure. Should we do this?
• 36:49
  Should we do that? Should we do this? All these questions. Yeah. So one of the questions that I asked myself early on that was so incredibly helpful.
• 36:57
  If you took fear out of the picture, and you took away whatever expectations I thought I had or other people had, if you took all of that away and there was no fear and there was no worry and I wasn't concerned about the future at all, I knew that they were gonna be okay, what would I want to do with my kids? And that told me a lot right there because it tells you, like, what's in your mom heart to do with your kids. We all love our kids. We wanna do right by them. Like, it comes from a good motivation, but unfortunately, it's motivated by fear.
• 37:29
  And so now it's like more people are running away from something. And with good reason, like really good reason, totally understandable. But we need to not let it stop there. We need to say, okay, I'm running from this. I know what I'm running from.
• 37:44
  What am I running to? Like, what do I want for my kids? What do I want to do with my kids? You know, because we only have them for that short amount of time. Cozy time with your kids is really only like maybe the first twelve years.
• 38:01
  Okay. And you first spend the first few just trying to keep them clean, fed, and alive. School time, it's like you're talking maybe seven years of where you really got that have this opportunity to make those cozy memories with your kids. And it's not just, it's not just for us, like it is something that it grounds our kids to have a happy childhood is to give our kids a gift, Like to be able to give our kids the gift of a childhood is huge. And my adult kids have thanked me so many times for giving them space, for giving them time and space to do the things that they were passionate about, things that they love, to be able to be creative, play together, unstructured time, all of that.
• 38:44
  We had a lot of structure in our home, but we had what we call planned structured unstructured time, you know, so a couple hours every afternoon. They knew they were going to get that. And that was one question I asked myself. If I could do it any way I wanted to, what would that be? So when you can answer that question, that's going to start to give you direction as to how you want to homeschool your kids.
• 39:07
  The other thing that I heard that was incredibly comforting everything your child needs to learn to go into higher education, so into high school, they can technically learn in two years.
• 39:21
  Christy-Faith: Yes.
• 39:22
  Durenda Wilson: So take your kindergarten to eighth grade and cram it down into two years. Now take that two years and spread it out over kindergarten to eighth grade. And what have you got? You've got margin.
• 39:32
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. And you've
• 39:33
  Durenda Wilson: got time and you can relax and you can stop worrying about what isn't getting done. You
• 39:40
  Christy-Faith: know, you can take December off and just sell Christmas for a whole Exactly.
• 39:47
  Durenda Wilson: And just enjoy your kids. I can't tell you how many times life stopped our homeschooling or what most people would call your school part of your day. But our kids never stop learning. Okay, so we've had crises that we've had to go through. Our youngest son was in the hospital for the first two months of his life.
• 40:08
  Open heart surgery at three days old, six and a half hour surgery. We almost lost him several times. So there was not just those two months, but it was more than that. Because by the time we brought him home, there was all this care he needed. And I had to let go and just recognize that my kids were learning so much just by being together through a difficult time and me making the time to just sit with them and read to them and leaving margin in the day for them to share their grief, their emotions, that kind of thing that they never could do if they walked to a classroom into a classroom every day under those circumstances.
• 40:43
  We could make that time so fruitful just by being together and walking that out well. We can't just like dump that off to the side and just go, We gotta get our schoolwork done. That's craziness. Like this over here, this is real life. There's love, and there's loss, and there's pain, and there's joy, and there's all these things to celebrate.
• 41:07
  Let's take the time to do those things and to do them well. For the sake of our children, they're learning from us how to live life well. That's up to us. We're showing them what is the good life. Right?
• 41:18
  I read that in a book early on. However we're living our lives, we're communicating to our kids what the good life is. Okay? So if they think that the good life is only we have to be in book work all the time, like how is that helpful to them? Right?
• 41:34
  Let's show them a balanced life. Work and we play that balance of that.
• 41:39
  Christy-Faith: Well, and doesn't that also mean decisions that the outside world will will think are so absurd? Absolutely. Like one that comes to mind for our family is Scott and I, we've always been a united front on this. This is just our personal choices, and I have very close friends who make a different choice than me because this is what they want and they love But our personally, we have chosen not to do travel teams. There's a lot of reasons.
• 42:02
  The time, the traveling, the expense, the actual chances of a child actually getting a college scholarship for all that you spent all the those years. I mean, there's a lot of reasons why we have made that decision, but we're so careful with extracurriculars. That's one of the I love the book by Kim John Payne, Simplicity Parenting, because he has a whole section in there on he talks about simplifying everything, clutter, all that. But Right. His part on time, We and I think that as homeschooling moms, because we are constantly given the message that we are not doing enough, we're not socializing enough, they're not around other kids all day.
• 42:41
  What do you mean? That we tend to over involve ourselves in extracurricular activities. Right. And ultimately, haven't we just created that same prison that we left? Right?
• 42:51
  If we're Mhmm. And in my last workshop that I taught, I emphasized that real life is between the lines. Mhmm. That's why you hear of moms of high schoolers and their their most precious memories with their kids are when they're driving them to and from practice. Well, why do you think that is?
• 43:10
  It's be it's between the lines. Right? It's from that one busy thing to another, that's the moment that you actually have connection together and just tell valuable Yeah. Just slowing down.
• 43:21
  Durenda Wilson: It's that margin. It's that margin. Margin. Yeah.
• 43:24
  Christy-Faith: Exactly. And it's gonna look like decisions. So, yeah, we literally are making the decision that we're probably not gonna have college athletes. Check it off. Yeah.
• 43:33
  Okay. We're gonna do other And we're okay with that. Yes. Exactly.
• 43:36
  Durenda Wilson: That's so good. You know, I talk actually talk about this in the book on boys. I addressed the the topic of sports just because it is such a thing. You know? Every person has to make the decision for themselves, obviously, like you said.
• 43:47
  But it's something we need to think through and not just assume. I think that's kinda what you're saying.
• 43:52
  Christy-Faith: Like, don't just assume. I love doing this show and doing all this research and bringing it to you week after week. It is so fun and it's meaningful for me, and I love that it's free to you. So if you've gotten any value out of today's show, would you do something for me right now even while I'm talking? Would you engage in some way?
• 44:08
  Maybe hit the subscribe button so that you get notified when my show drops. Maybe give me the five stars, of course, if I've deserved it. Please comment, ask a question, encourage another mom. And why am I asking you to do this? Well, it's because the robots, the algorithm is what decides if a show is worth pushing out, and engagement is their currency.
• 44:27
  I know you guys out there, some of you make sure to engage in two or three ways every single show. Girl, I see you, and I love you for it. Thank you so much.
• 44:36
  Durenda Wilson: We're gonna make unpopular decisions. Sometimes they're even unpopular with their own kids. But at the end of the day, I don't know about you, but I wanted to get to that point in my life when my kids were grown that I was overall content with the decisions we had made, with the direction that we had taken. I have peace about that. I think that's unusual.
• 45:00
  It only happened because we were willing to say, This is what's important to us. This is not important to us. And we just moved on, you know. But it's so important to understand that every family is unique. I think this is something that is just not, there's such a disconnect in our culture when it comes to like, first of all, that families are a thing.
• 45:26
  Like they're not just a bunch of individuals coexisting. Right. We're actually a unit, you know, and this is why we want to encourage teamwork within the family. We want to encourage like everybody participating when it comes to housework and yard work and all of that. A kid should be participating.
• 45:44
  They should be doing those things and doing them with us and doing them separate from us. We should be setting an example. This is another way that we're teaching them about real life. But understanding that each individual family has its own flavor. Like, that's the way it's supposed to be.
• 45:59
  That's what makes the world unique. That's what creates this new generation of kids who are just unique and have different callings and purposes, and we get to nurture that. But we have to understand that family life is a very, very important part of That is an anchor for our kids for the rest of their lives. You know, I talk about sibling relationships. Actually, it's probably the next book I'm gonna write is
• 46:22
  Christy-Faith: Oh, well, that's an next question I'm gonna ask. It's right here. Ask your question. You had a lot of kids, and I'm sure not everyone got along every day. No.
• 46:31
  Nope. No. I wanna talk about sibling fights because and sibling tensions and tattling and all of that. And I know that's a big nut to crack. There are moms listening today that are literally at their wit's end because they are they've dived into this homeschooling thing.
• 46:48
  Maybe they're within the first five years, and they don't yet have every tool that you you know, you've been doing this thirty years. Mhmm. What would you say and I know you can't answer the question, but maybe you can say what's the first step. A lot of people say homeschooling is easy and I just flat out disagree. I think at times homeschool can feel really hard and part of it is the weight of the responsibility to not mess up our kids.
• 47:13
  We are often riddled with self doubt, second guessing, and feeling overwhelmed with excessive amounts of information out there and all of the option. And at the same time, we love our kids. We don't wanna mess this up. So how do we build a homeschool that our kids will thank us for later on down the years when they are adults? Well, the first step is joining Thrive Homeschool Community, where you find the eight step homeschool success framework.
• 47:38
  This helps you build an undeniably successful homeschool that gives your kids what they need now, that also prepares them for their future, and helps you in the day to day as well. Each year and each kid presents us with uncharted territory. But with the right plan, you can rest in the security and confidence that you are doing a great job. The path is easy. Join Thrive, say a quick hello to all your new friends, start right away, the eight step homeschool success framework, and kiss anxiety goodbye.
• 48:08
  It's risk free, no contracts, You can cancel anytime, no questions asked. What would you say? And I know you can't answer the question, but maybe you can say what's the first step?
• 48:19
  Durenda Wilson: I think that the first thing is expect your kids to fight. Right? Your kids. Right? They fight they don't get along and they're selfish and they have to learn to be unselfish and they have to learn to be other oriented and they have to learn to think outside of themselves.
• 48:36
  So one, expect it and two, see it as an opportunity. This isn't an obstacle. This is an opportunity. For a long time, I was like, okay, can we just all get along so we can get our schoolwork done? Or we can get these chores done?
• 48:51
  This is ridiculous. We're wasting time. This is dumb, you know? That's, that was kind of my and all of a sudden it was like, okay, this is happening, and it's happening a lot. I need to do something, you know?
• 49:02
  So, of course, what do I do? I pray. And I realized, oh my goodness, there's an opportunity here to teach my kids not just how to love each other and how to get along, but teach them what healthy relationships actually look like. So that when they go into relationships outside the home, whether it's friendships or marriage or whatever, they know when something isn't right, when someone is treating them poorly.
• 49:34
  Christy-Faith: Mhmm.
• 49:34
  Durenda Wilson: So if we're letting our the siblings talk to each other in a disrespectful way, and we don't do anything about it Mhmm. We're basically saying it's okay for you to Right. Talk to each
• 49:45
  Christy-Faith: we just scream like, just stop. Right? We're not actually helping.
• 49:50
  Durenda Wilson: We're not Right.
• 49:51
  Christy-Faith: We're not. Yeah. We're not
• 49:52
  Durenda Wilson: teaching them, okay, what's going on here? So my first question was always, are you treating him the way you want to be treated? And are you treating him the way you want to be treated? Every time the answer was no, there was an opportunity to talk about how, you know, even if this person comes at you, you have a choice to say, to come back with a softer answer, not to come back with a bam. For me, that was all rooted in Scripture that talks about a soft answer turning away wrath.
• 50:23
  So I could bring my kids to that and say, Look, a soft answer turns away wrath. So if you can not react and instead respond, you actually have control in this situation to diffuse this whole thing. You're not a victim here. The point is we want them to have self control, right? That's what it comes down to.
• 50:45
  And you having a soft answer to turn away wrath does not happen overnight. It takes practice because it goes against our nature, right? So every time it happens, we have the opportunity to help them retrain themselves to have self control. You cannot have back to back activities and expect to handle those situations well. These things take time.
• 51:09
  You've got to have the time to work through the conflict with your kids. I'll give you an example. Two of our boys were fighting over a pair of handcuffs. I was like, Okay you guys, figure it out. You know, give them a chance to figure it out first.
• 51:23
  I think that's important. They need to practice it because then they own what's going on. Right? And they were not working it out. So I grabbed I said, come here.
• 51:31
  Hand give me the handcuffs. I took the handcuffs, and I handcuffed them together, and I gave them each a sponge and cleaner, and I brought them to the bathroom, and I said, I want you to clean this bathtub handcuffed. Okay? It's kinda like the get along shirt thing. Yeah.
• 51:44
  And they were like, what? And I was like, yeah. You gotta clean this thing together. Teamwork. Dream work.
• 51:50
  See you later. And I went in the other room. Eventually it got done. They did beg me about halfway through to take the handcuffs off, I said, No, you need to do this. And so they did.
• 52:00
  A lot of scenarios like that where you just got to get creative. Training sessions. That was a lot of it was training sessions. I remember another time I had the two oldest girls, they were like night and day, they still are polar opposite personalities. They could not speak to each other without fighting.
• 52:16
  I mean, it was so bad. And finally, I just looked at them both, and I said, Are you guys enjoying this? Like, are you okay with the way you're relating to each other? And like, No, we don't like it. We hate it.
• 52:27
  We just don't know what to do about it. I was like, Okay. And I would say, Okay, I want you to tell her what happened and how that made you feel, like what you were seeing in the situation briefly. Don't go on and on because girls can do that. And then I would have the other one tell her what she heard her say.
• 52:47
  The first time they did that, she didn't hear anything the same that I heard coming out of my daughter. Right? It was just there was like they were speaking different languages. And so this drive through talking, All right, say it say it again in a way that she can hear what you mean. Because sometimes we have to do that.
• 53:05
  We have to kind of adjust our words and our tone in order for somebody else to understand what we're saying. So their relationship greatly improved after that. It was not perfect. But they had the tools to work through the conflict. I did not go into this knowing how to resolve conflict.
• 53:22
  I did not have classes on it. I you know, I just basically said, like you, I'm gonna figure this out. You are going to figure this out.
• 53:30
  Christy-Faith: I'm not liking, you know, I often say like, okay, I'm not enjoying life right now. Let's target why. Just those Yeah. Simple
• 53:37
  Durenda Wilson: Yeah. So this and this kind of upset and upheaval in our home, I was not okay with it. We get to set the atmosphere in our home as moms. So we can decide this is not okay, and we're going to take the time to work through it. So just going back to how we're treating each other, I would look at them and say, Would you ever treat your friend like that?
• 53:57
  They would be like, No. And I would tell them, Look, the most the hardest place to do the right thing and work through things in relationships is at home with your own siblings because you live with them all the time. This is the hardest place to do it. If you can pull it off here, you can pull it off out there. And they never forgot that.
• 54:17
  And they as adults, they'll tell me you were right. Like that was hard. This is easier. So it's a really great training ground. Like we want our kids to know this is what a healthy relationship looks like.
• 54:29
  This is what healthy conflict resolution looks like. And for me, being a woman of faith, I went to the scripture. I went to the New Testament that talked about like, be patient with one another, bear with each other's weaknesses, Appreciate and respect each other's strengths. So these are all things that we want to encourage in those sibling relationships. So hopefully that was helpful.
• 54:51
  That's incredibly helpful. I hope you loved this throwback as much as I did,
• 54:55
  Christy-Faith: and you're walking away with something you can actually use in your homeschool this week. If we mentioned any resources, you will find them in the show notes. And if this episode encouraged you, would you pass it along to another homeschool mom who needs it? That's how we keep this community strong. Thanks for spending this time with me, and I'll catch you on the next one.
• 55:14
  You have my heart.