Latest / The Christy-Faith Show / Ep. 97 - The Belief That Nearly Broke My Homeschool // Behind the Screen (Part 6/6)

Transcript

Ep. 97 - The Belief That Nearly Broke My Homeschool // Behind the Screen (Part 6/6) · The Christy-Faith Show

• 0:00
  Christy-Faith: Hello, everybody. So you know I've been doing this series on the podcast right now called Behind the Screen on my show. It's basically been me pulling back the curtain on my real life. It's been hard and fun. I don't think I have prepared more for episodes my entire life than these six.
• 0:19
  So although I am really excited about how these shows have resonated with all of you, there is also a part of me that's ready to breathe for a hot minute because it's hard to divulge all your inner struggles publicly. But I thank you for coming along for this ride. It has been a really good time. So far in the series, the first episode was me kind of pulling back the curtain of what a homeschool day is really like. I did a whole series on Church Hurt, why we had to leave the church that we thought would be our forever church.
• 0:52
  I did an episode on why Scott and I walked away from authoritarian parenting and what we found on the other side, and no, it's not gentle parenting. And then I also did an episode on the two times I almost lost my faith. We'll put a link in the show notes for all the other shows in this series. There are six episodes total, and they're all stuff that I don't normally divulge on social media. So enjoy.
• 1:15
  But it really has been a great experience, I think, for both of us. Don't you think? Let me know in the comments if you've been enjoying this series. And today is, drum roll please, it is the final episode. And out of all of the six episodes that I've worked on and published so far, this is the one episode that I think could be mis interpreted the most.
• 1:38
  Just the intro alone, I've already rewritten eight times, and I still don't think I've got it right. So, Grace, please, because this show is about my why. It's why I do what I do, why I even have this podcast, and why I started Thrive Homeschool Community. And it's about what I've learned about homeschool moms and about myself and what I can't stop thinking about and how all of us have one big fat stinking problem that's really hard to get over, and it's something that I have myself. I have worked on it, and I'm sure you guys are too.
• 2:13
  It's kind of an elephant in the room. So stick around because we are going to get into it. Okay. Welcome back. Now I'm gonna start today's show with a story.
• 2:33
  But before we get into that and then into my why, and I hope I don't get too emotional on this show, I do wanna do a quick shout out to our amazing sponsors. And I'm so thankful for these sponsors because they allow this show to be free to you. And it's such a blessing blessing with my sponsors because they truly help families in all sorts of ways. So if you are paying even 1¢ to traditional health insurance each month, you need to go to summithealthshare.com and take their savings calculator. I think it takes under three minutes Because chances are you might not need health insurance.
• 3:07
  Yes. You need health care, but you might not need health insurance to get it. And a much more cost effective way to go about it is health sharing with summithealthshare.com. We're on Summit, and we cut our prices in half per month. We were paying $2,000, and now we're paying $1,000 per month.
• 3:24
  It's how health insurance should have been all along. And depending on the plan that you choose, you can have free prescriptions, free labs, pick any doctor you want, and stop fighting for every single claim. And with Summit HealthShare, they encourage your medical freedom, meaning you can choose the path that you want, including holistic care. That's fabulous. So go to summithealthshare.com.
• 3:44
  I'll put a link in the show notes. Take that quick calculator quiz, see how much you really should be paying for the care you need, and then you'll be so blown away. You're gonna wanna pick up the phone and talk to them. And guess what? It's not an AI bot that answers.
• 3:57
  It's a real person who will answer all of your questions and concerns. Go to summithealthshare.com to find out more. Okay. Hi. If you just stumbled on this show and you don't know who I am, hello.
• 4:08
  I am Christy Faith, your host. I'm also an author of the book Homeschool Rising. It's behind my head right there. I am a speaker, and I am the founder of Thrive Homeschool Community. That is where I help homeschool moms deliver the best possible education for their kids and in alignment with your values.
• 4:27
  And we make all of it so much easier because we give you the training and support that you need. So that's a little bit about who I am, which ties really well into this show because everyone asks a person, if you've known them for five minutes, hey, what do you do? But you know what fewer people ask? Why you do it? And as I was thinking about how to explain my why to you, made popular by Simon Sinek, if you know who that is, you know.
• 4:51
  He's super famous for helping companies and individuals find their why. It's their core reasoning for why they do what they do. And it's really important for all of us to have clarity on our why. And my why just happens to be the hardest part of my job, and I'll tell you why in a minute. But to do that, I need to start at the beginning, how I ended up Don't worry.
• 5:13
  I won't take too long, but it's important. Because as you know, and if you've been listening along to the series, I didn't set out to be an influencer and an author. I didn't set out to become something. My past is I spent twenty years in education. First, I was a classroom teacher, then we ran a learning center and consulting firm where we helped the kids of the rich and famous be successful in their education.
• 5:35
  A lot of that was getting them into the colleges that they wanted to get into and even the high schools and the elementary schools because that was even competitive in Los Angeles. I was an interventionist. I read thousands of IEPs. I was constantly in meetings with educators, teachers, counselors, parents, psychologists, principals, you name it. We were the people that were called when a kid was struggling and no one knew what to do.
• 5:57
  Like I said before, I read all the IEPs. We would build custom plans ourself. We would create our own teams to help kids succeed. And I sat across the table from a list celebrities and billionaires and told them exactly what their child needed and how we were gonna execute it for them. And they listened.
• 6:15
  That was my life. And we were really good at it. And as many of you know, I have a history of infertility, and we were older parents. So we were running the center for several years, more than several, before I had our son who is now a teenager. And I remember this one day as I was holding him while he was still a baby, and I looked around our center and all of the kids there and bustling with tutors and interventionists and kids, and it was just everyone really busy, a lot of people stressed out.
• 6:43
  And I really looked around and I thought to myself, here these kids are. They were at school all day, and then pretty much after school, they come straight to us for tutoring at night if they didn't have sports. If they had sports, they went to sports first and then came to us. It was a center full of exhausted, burnt out kids under a tremendous amount of pressure that you can imagine with the type a parents that we had. And I could see it in their faces.
• 7:09
  These kids didn't love learning. They were going through the motions, trying to get the grade they needed, and surviving at best. And I had this thought that I just couldn't shake. I asked myself, is this the future I want for my child? At the time, I only had one child.
• 7:25
  This grind, this pressure, this system that chews kids up and calls it an education. And I also thought to myself, where's the childhood here? Isn't childhood supposed to be these wonder years? And I came to the realization in that moment, like, I couldn't do it. I wasn't going to.
• 7:41
  So long story short, the answer was we decided to homeschool. And honestly, I thought it was going to be amazing. I had twenty years of educational experience. I knew child development and psychology. I knew the curriculum.
• 7:55
  How hard could it be? Of course, I'm gonna succeed at this. And the hilarious thing is is I was really drawn to the classical model at the time because I hadn't deschooled myself much yet. Now I'm not saying the classical homeschoolers aren't deschooled. Don't extrapolate that.
• 8:08
  But what I will say is I was attracted to that pedagogy for the wrong reasons initially because you gotta remember, I was a go getter. I was an achiever. All of our clients, you know, they were Harvard grads, Princeton grads, Stanford grads. So that's what I wanted for my kids, and I was attracted to the classical model because if you view it wrong, you kinda think that your kid's gonna become some sort of a savant. Now that is not true, but I will say that in an unhealthy way, that is what drew me to that model initially.
• 8:36
  Now by the way, I'm I still consider myself a classical educator at the core. So anyway, back to the point. So I start homeschooling. A couple years later, I have the twins and I have another baby. We moved to Colorado, and here I am not standing in front of a classroom with a structured curriculum and a planning period, but I am at my kitchen table with a messy house, crying toddlers, multiple grade levels, sibling fights, you name it.
• 9:02
  And I had this crushing weight on my chest. It was a constant pressure of me wanting to make sure that I got this right. Because I wasn't new to education, but I was new to the classical model and new to homeschooling. And it is a totally different ballgame, ladies. If you know, you know.
• 9:17
  I found myself cramming way too much into every single day because I was terrified I would miss something. I now do a talk on this. It kinda was born out of it. It's how to give your kids everything they need without overwhelming them or you. It's a very popular talk that I give at conferences.
• 9:32
  That was kinda born out of that moment. But, yeah, I was terrified I would miss something. And then when we didn't finish everything that I wanted to finish, I felt like a failure. So I'd buy another curriculum. We'd try another method.
• 9:43
  Maybe that would fix that nagging feeling that maybe I'm not getting all this right or I'm not doing enough. And guess what? It didn't. I'm sure you saw that coming. And then what was happening in the process is my oldest, though only one in, like, true academics at the time when I think of this particular moment, he was starting to burn out at such a young age, and I could see it happening.
• 10:02
  And I knew that if I didn't change something, we might not make it through the long haul. Something had to give. There was something I was getting wrong. And if you know me at all, this kind of stuff lives rent free in my head constantly. I'm always analyzing life and big ideas and execution of those ideas.
• 10:20
  But anyway, so of course, I started going down that rabbit hole for myself and my own brain. But it was a good endeavor because something hit me, and it goes back to all that experience at my learning center. We were known for getting amazing results with basically every kid that walked through our doors regardless of their struggles, and it was not because of any particular program that we used. In fact, with the tutoring in particular, we had to use the program that the schools were using. Our success was in how we trained our staff in a very specific and intentional way that equipped them to lead well and be inspirational.
• 10:57
  And then I thought, okay. Well, then what if the secret to a thriving homeschool isn't the curriculum at all or a certain program or a certain co op or anything like that? What if it's mom, the leader, the head teacher? We're so quick to look at external fixes for a lot of our problems, like the next book or the next method or the next program, but what if the answer was in here? What if the answer was with me?
• 11:22
  And once I made that shift, once I stopped searching for the perfect thing out there and started pouring into myself as a leader in leadership development, that's when everything changed. My kids were happier. I was happier. Our homeschool became everything that I dreamed it could be. And no, not perfect.
• 11:40
  You know that's not what I'm saying. But it really turned things around in an incredible way. And from that moment to when I started Thrive Homeschool Community, I started developing the six pillars of homeschool success. And it's so exciting because that's what Thrive is built on, and I get to talk to moms every single day and pour into them, which I won't get into today. If you ever are interested in Thrive, you'll hear all about it.
• 12:02
  We even have the six pillars posted in Thrive, but that's what's so exciting. Now I get to talk to moms every single day in a way that actually solves their problems. Moms with struggling learners who have special needs, moms navigating behavior issues and emotional challenges, moms facing academic problems that they don't know how to solve, And I get to make sure mom has all the tools and the experts that she needs right there when she needs them. It's so cool. And with the moms who we work with in Thrive, the transformation is incredible.
• 12:33
  But please, I just wanna stop right now because this episode is not one big Thrive commercial. This episode is on my why, and how I execute my why is through this podcast and through Thrive Homeschool Community. So if you would just please give me a little bit of grace because I think one of the reasons why I rewrote my introduction eight times is I was like, oh my goodness. I do not want to sound salesy in this at all. And the fact is is you don't need to solve your homeschool problems.
• 13:02
  We make it a lot easier, but you don't need to. And in fact, I'm deliberately airing this episode when Thrive not only is closed but will not be open for many months because I don't want anything misconstrued about this being some sort of a sales pitch for what I offer people. Okay. So I just need to get that out there right away. And think what you want, but this leads into the hardest part of my job and what I have learned about homeschool moms, including myself.
• 13:27
  It is really hard to convince a mom that she is the homeschool. Not any curriculum, not any method, you. We shout this from the rooftops. There is no one on this planet more important to your homeschool than you. No one else is gonna execute the best possible education for your kids.
• 13:47
  It's only you. And until moms really see it and then they see the ramifications of what that means, and I see this every day, she'll keep pouring into everything else except herself. And that's the wall that we hit every single day. And underneath it is a pretty sinister lie almost every time. And I'll get into what that lie is, and I will consider this episode a huge success if you walk away today seeing yourself differently, seeing how important you are, seeing that pouring into yourself to get this homeschool gig right isn't an extra.
• 14:24
  It's not a nice to have when you get around to it. It's the oxygen mask that you have to put on first. And honestly, I don't care if you choose me to go on that ride with you or not. And you can certainly piece it all together by yourself. That's totally an option for you.
• 14:39
  That's what all of us had to do ten years ago, and you can do that. But let me tell you what I've seen and why it breaks my heart. There's a researcher at Duke who did something that completely stopped me in my tracks about why we feel the way that we do as moms and the psychology behind why we continually put ourselves last in our own lives, and we will get into that nitty gritty after this. 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.
• 15:10
  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. I use them for certain subjects. Either way, total mental load relief.
• 15:28
  Here's what my mornings look like now. Let us take science for example. My three girls do that one together. 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.
• 15:44
  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. And when I have questions, I call my homework's consultant. These people don't just help you get set up.
• 16:09
  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. People are always curious what curriculum I use for my own family, and honestly, it changes. We've tried a lot over the years.
• 16:26
  Some work for a season and some completely miss the mark, but there is one that's stuck, CTC Math. It's a full k to 12 online math curriculum, and it's won oodles of awards for a reason. It's just that good. I use it for all four of my kids, and they couldn't be more different when it comes to math. Finding one curriculum that actually works for all of them, that's been nearly impossible.
• 16:48
  You know that pit in your stomach when you realize the curriculum that you just invested in isn't working again? Yeah. That was us until this one. The genius behind CTC math is that it's adaptive. The questions adjust to each kid's level in real time, so they're always challenged but never crushed.
• 17:06
  And mama, it does the teaching and grading for us. Yes. You heard that right. That's a homeschool mom's dream. Well, especially for me when it comes to math.
• 17:15
  I would think it's too good to be true if I hadn't been using it myself. And it's not just me. Here's why it's become the go to for thousands of homeschool families. Free diagnostics show you exactly where to start, access to all grade levels so your student can fill in any gaps or move ahead, short video lessons that keep your children engaged, automatic grading with instant feedback, and progress reports so you know exactly what's happening without hovering. Math used to be our hardest subject.
• 17:43
  Now my kids do it independently. Here's the best part. Our listeners get 50% off. Use the link in the show notes to do a free trial or to get that half off deal. Don't spend another year kissing math frogs.
• 17:54
  This one stuck for us, and I have a feeling it's gonna stick for you too. Okay. Welcome back. So you probably already know the lie. Maybe you haven't named it yet, but you certainly feel it because it's unavoidable.
• 18:06
  And if there are any misogynist husbands listening right now, you might wanna skip ahead for the next thirty seconds. You're not gonna like me. But I read this quote from a researcher at Duke that stopped me. She was studying why care work isn't valued in society. Globally, women do 75% of unpaid care work.
• 18:24
  75%, statistically, this is data. And her conclusion is that one of the reasons why care work isn't valued in society is because it's women's work, and anything women do is devalued. Now do I think that care is only women's work? No. This is how she was expressing it.
• 18:40
  And please, no. I'm not trying to get political here. It is just math, though, because here's why. When you don't count something, it's also not valued. And we've been not counting motherhood for a really long time.
• 18:53
  That felt a little edgy. Was that edgy for you guys? And here's what that does to us. When your work isn't counted, when it's invisible, you stop seeing yourself as the contributor that you are. And unfold that even further, that means you start feeling guilty, for example, about spending money on yourself.
• 19:11
  You feel like you haven't earned it. Okay. So look at it this way. A family who has resources will easily spend $15,000 or more a year on a private school without even blinking, and they'll know this is an investment in our kids. But when it comes to moms spending money on training themselves, the actual educator, that feels selfish to us a lot of times.
• 19:31
  It feels indulgent. It feels like something that's really hard to justify or that we even have to justify it. As you know, Thrive is usually closed, but when it does open up, I always get an email or two that says, hey, Christy. I really wish I could join. It sounds amazing, but we just can't swing it right now financially.
• 19:48
  And that's totally fine. I get it. Right? She's not my girl. I understand.
• 19:52
  But it does break my heart a little bit each time. Because if you're just looking at money, we save families thousands per year just on wrong curriculum choices and so much more. But also, I know that mom. I was that mom. She's not being irresponsible.
• 20:06
  She's not being bad with money. She's doing the math the way she was taught to do it. And in that math, she comes last. Support for herself feels like a luxury and extra. That's a thing that you do when everything and everyone else is taken care of and only when you have a really big problem, even when it costs less than one Chick fil A run through the drive through with your kids.
• 20:27
  And I think what I'm trying to say here is that it's not anyone's fault. It's not her fault. It's the lie doing its job so well. And like I said, I'm airing this episode when Thrive is closed on purpose because I'm not trying to sell you my community. I'm trying to get you to see yourself.
• 20:43
  And there are so many ways to invest in yourself. You don't necessarily need me to do it. Okay. So to drive this home even further, think about what we actually do. Okay?
• 20:53
  We are raising humans from scratch. We're shaping how they think, how they learn, how they feel about themselves and see the world. And on top of that, we've taken on the burden of their entire education, every subject, every grade level, often multiple kids at once. So people did the math on this. And did you know that a stay at home mom's labor is worth about a $140,000 a year?
• 21:18
  And then this next number made me really sad. The average teacher salary is about $70,000 per year. Man, talk about being underpaid. For the sake of numbers here, if you are a homeschool mom, you are doing both jobs. That is $210,000 worth of work a year that often you are doing with no training, no salary, and very little support on how to execute those jobs well.
• 21:43
  And then we're expected to figure it out with Facebook advice and a prayer. It's like deciding on a Friday that you wanna be a surgeon, and on Monday, someone hands you a scalpel and a patient and says, good luck. Teachers get degrees. They get paid. They get continuing education.
• 21:59
  They get mentors. They get professional development. And us, we get a Pinterest board and a curriculum fair. And I'm gonna get worked up here because this is why I started Thrive. What I had to charge for individual consultations was just way too much, and I racked my brain for almost a year figuring out how I could give moms the help they need at an affordable price.
• 22:19
  But, yeah, anyway, back to society. And then when we struggle, when we're overwhelmed or when we're burning out or when our kid isn't improving or things get hard and we can't figure out what's going on with our homeschool, who gets blamed? We do. Of course, society gives us nothing and then act surprised when we're drowning or struggling or not doing well. And instead of offering a hand, it points a finger.
• 22:43
  So if that's you right now, if you're feeling like you're not doing enough, not measuring up, not getting it right, I want you to hear this. It's not you. You're not failing because something is wrong with you. You're struggling because you were set up to struggle. You were handed one of the most complex jobs in the world and told to figure it out on your own.
• 23:02
  No training, no framework, no support system. But what's so cool is you're still here. You're still showing up. You're still trying to do right by your kids, and I think that is so cool. I mean, talk about grit and resilience.
• 23:16
  Man, we are some of the most strongest women, aren't we? Do you know how rare that is? Do you know how many people would have quit by now? So when you're struggling in your homeschool, I want you to know that it's probably not you that's the problem. It's the lack of support that's the problem.
• 23:30
  And the lie says that you should be able to figure it out on your own through Instagram Reels and freebies. That's the problem. This is a complicated, multifaceted job that spans over years and years. And, yes, even on our worst day, we're still protecting our kids from real harm. That's why we're doing this.
• 23:50
  But that doesn't mean that it's easy. And it doesn't mean that things will just magically fall into place because our hearts are in the right place. Those are two things to hold intention, aren't they? Because I think there is a false belief in our society, especially in the homeschooling space, that if our heart is in the right place, things will fall into place. And I just don't think that's right.
• 24:08
  The fact that you're still here, still showing up, still trying to figure this out, still listening to a podcast to get better at this, your kids are so lucky to have you. You have a growth mindset and what a gift you are giving your kids by modeling that. So please know that you are not failing. You're doing something really hard with a lack of training and support. Let me know in the comments if this episode is hitting you on a day where you're really struggling, where that public school down the road looks like an all inclusive resort.
• 24:37
  I really wanna know because I want other moms to support you in the comments, and we see every single comment. And let me know if you're having this mindset shift right now that this is not a character flaw. This is not your failure. This is kind of a setup, and we need to be done with gaslighting ourselves, telling ourselves that we're not doing enough, that we're not enough, that we should be further along, or that my child's behind because of me. None of that is true.
• 24:59
  There was no one on earth that is better equipped to educate your children than you. So if your only takeaway from today is that you walk away a little bit closer to seeing how amazing you are and how important you are and how brave you are and how smart you are. I will be so happy. I also want you to see what white knuckling it is costing you. Meaning, if you don't have this mindset shift about yourself, what are those ramifications?
• 25:25
  We'll get into that after this. Don't go anywhere. Is your child struggling with attention, memory, reading, writing, or math? If you're experiencing this, you know how heart wrenching it is to watch them face these hurdles. You've poured love, time, and attention into their education, yet the struggle persists, leaving you feeling stuck and desperately searching for answers.
• 25:43
  You guys, I want you to know about LearningRx, a proven program designed to help your child's cognitive skills, enabling them to think faster, learn more easily, and perform at their best. I'm talking getting real long term help here with things like ADHD and dyslexia. LearningRx is backed by thirty five years of research, and their results are transformative. Use code HOME 50 for $50 off your cognitive skills assessment. Go to learningrx.com or click the link in the show notes.
• 26:11
  Welcome back. Okay. Real quick. As you know, this show is free because of our sponsors, but the way it gets seen by lots and lots of homeschool moms like you is your engagement. So if you're a regular listener of this show, you know exactly what you need to be doing right now.
• 26:28
  If you're new here, hey. I wanna explain to you a quick second about how podcasts work. It's the robots that count everything. They count the comments, the subscribes, the shares, the likes. So if what I'm sharing today is resonating with you at all, would you engage with the show in some way?
• 26:45
  If you're not subscribing already, please subscribe. If there's a mom in your life right now running on empty and doesn't know why, maybe send her this episode. It might be exactly what she needs to hear. If you're a seasoned mom listening saying you can encourage some moms in the comments, please hop in there and do that. Any type of engagement counts, and it's what helps our show grow, and it's completely free to you.
• 27:06
  So thank you so much. Alright. Back to that cost that I was talking about earlier. So here's something that I want you to think about. What is it actually costing you not to invest in yourself as your homeschool's primary educator?
• 27:21
  And I'm serious. I'll add it up for you. That curriculum that you bought that didn't work and then the next one that also didn't work and then the next one financially, how much is sitting on your shelf right now that you're not using? Learning how to choose the right curriculum for your homeschool is a skill that can be trained. Think of the hours that you've spent scrolling, searching, piecing together advice from strangers on the Internet, hoping that something sticks.
• 27:44
  How much time is that? What about the mental energy of second guessing every single decision, never knowing if you're actually doing it right, lying awake wondering if your kids are behind, worried that you're missing something? The burnout, the anxiety, the isolation, all of it compounding. And the research shows moms who constantly sacrifice themselves are significantly higher risk of all three that burn out that anxiety and isolation. That's not my opinion.
• 28:09
  This is data. And what about your relationship with your kids? What does constant frustration do to that bond? What does it feel like to fight through school every day instead of enjoying it? To not being able to get to the bottom of concerning behaviors that you see.
• 28:23
  And here's what breaks me. I watch moms quit homeschooling when their kids get older. They burn out. They give up. All those years of investment, gone, and their kids end up back in the system they were trying to protect them from in probably the worst years for them to be there.
• 28:37
  And think of your kids right now. What kind of education could they be getting if you weren't just trying to survive the day to day? What are they missing because you're running on empty? It's really hard to trust a leader who is always second guessing him or herself. Have you had a boss like that in the past, one that you couldn't really trust because they weren't steering the ship?
• 28:56
  Here's what the research shows. There was a sociology professor who spent eight years studying homeschool moms, and she found that the homeschool moms who connected with community, who got support from seasoned homeschoolers, they were the ones who avoided burnout. They found what she called role harmony. That's the term she coined for it. Basically, they stopped white knuckling it alone and started actually thriving.
• 29:19
  And the ones who tried to figure it out all by themselves, they burnt out. Okay. So even to take this a step further, the teachers who get quality professional development, did you know that their student's academic achievement goes up 21 percentage points? 21. So you might think that you're saving time or money by not investing in yourself, and you're not.
• 29:39
  You're paying way more than you think you're saving in money, in stress, in wasted curriculum, in confusion, in self doubt, in tears, in lost years, in the education your kids could be getting but aren't. You're already paying. You're just not getting anything for it. So you're probably thinking right now the things that you need to support your yourself. Yay.
• 29:59
  I'm so happy about that. Go after those things. Maybe make a goal in the next week. Maybe two things that you think you could do to become a better homeschooling parent, and actively pursue just two things in the next week. And please consider that the struggle that you might be feeling right now maybe isn't a sign that you're failing.
• 30:18
  In fact, it's not. It's a sign that you're doing something really hard without the support that you need. Because you and I both know as soon as you know how to do something, you crush it. Right? We're smart ladies.
• 30:28
  So the hardest part of my job in Thrive Homeschool Community and beyond is convincing moms that pouring into yourself is actually pouring into your kids. And when you do that, the entire family ecosystem and homeschooling experience is better. And then what if when you do this and you act on this with just small goals right now? What if a year from now, you're navigating like a seasoned homeschooler, confident in your decisions, clear on your priorities. And when something hard comes up, you have somewhere to go.
• 30:59
  And what if you actually enjoyed this? Because I think and I want you to hear this out of everything that I say today. I think with homeschooling, we can have our cake and eat it too. Meaning, we can give our kids the best education possible and have this incredibly rich family life and give our kids a fabulous childhood at the same time. We can do it.
• 31:20
  And what if the only thing right now standing between you and that version of your homeschool is the belief that you don't deserve the help? That belief isn't yours. You inherited it, and you can choose to put it down because you are doing the most important job in the world, and you deserve to be equipped for it. And that's what I wanted to say today. That's why I do this.
• 31:44
  And, man, is it an uphill battle? Because I'm not just giving moms homeschooling support and a lot of how to's, and we do that. I am fighting some serious psychological battles within. And some days, it's so hard, but we are not giving up. And one thing I love about the Thrive mentors is when there is ever a break through moment in office hours, they are so sweet.
• 32:05
  Even if it's late at night, they voxer me a message about the incredible breakthrough that this particular mom had or that mom had or how it was an amazing group experience. And those moments really helped me because they know how hard this can be, and I love them for that. This was the final episode of my behind the screen series. And if you've been with me through this whole thing, I've gotten real about my homeschool, my church, my parenting, my faith, my calling. But this one, this particular episode, this one was more about you.
• 32:35
  And at the end of the day, truly, what I consider myself is a child advocate. That's what I've always been. At our learning center, we got amazing results with kids. But do you know how? We invested in our staff.
• 32:47
  We trained them. We supported them. We taught them how to do it really, really well. And that way had nothing to do with how the system was doing it, but we made sure they didn't have to figure it out on their own. That's the secret.
• 32:59
  It was never a program or a curriculum. It was about the person delivering it. Now that person is you. I'm still training teachers, just a different kind of teacher. And here's one last takeaway that I want you to walk away with.
• 33:12
  The curriculum doesn't teach your kids. You do. The schedule doesn't adjust when your kids are struggling. You do. The method doesn't show up every day when it's hard.
• 33:21
  You are the secret sauce. You are the one that holds it all together, and you are brave to be doing this job, and you are capable, and you're doing something that matters more than you know. This decision of yours to homeschool today and to preserve your kids' love of learning and their childhood, that will last generations. You can't even imagine the incredible change that you are doing right now today. So I do have a quote of the week for you today.
• 33:49
  I got super excited about this one. You don't have to write it down, but you can. But I will give it to you on a beautiful little note card. You can just put it on your coffee maker or on your mirror or on your car dashboard to be reminded of this little nugget of wisdom, and it is this. And I want you to read it to yourself.
• 34:06
  I am the most important part of my homeschool. Everything else is just a tool. That's right. Don't minimize yourself. That's not helping you.
• 34:14
  It's not helping your kids, and it's not helping the homeschool that you're trying to build. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'll see you next week. You have my heart.