Latest / The Christy-Faith Show / Ep. 81 - Homeschooling Preschool: How To Get The Most Out Of The Early Years

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Ep. 81 - Homeschooling Preschool: How To Get The Most Out Of The Early Years · The Christy-Faith Show

• 0:00
  Kathy Eggers: When a young child is learning a new concept, if they're learning it through rote memorization, flashcards, worksheets, it could take them up to 400 times for the brain to make that connection. 400. However, that same concept you're trying to teach them, if you teach it through play, guess how many times? 10 to 20. I want you to fall in love with your children.
• 0:24
  I want you to get to know your children and realize that the connection between you and them is greater than any curriculum you will ever, ever buy.
• 0:44
  Christy-Faith: Welcome everybody to today's show. We have a guest today. Whoo. We have a guest, Kathy Eggers on today. She is a passionate advocate for young children and a leading expert in child development.
• 1:00
  With over thirty years dedicated to the well-being of little ones, she brings a wealth of experience as a former teacher, administrator, and homeschooling mom of many. Kathy is the acclaimed author of The Homegrown Preschooler, A Year of Playing Skillfully, A Summer of Playing Skillfully, 101 Easy Wacky Crazy Activities, and more. Welcome to the show today, Kathy. This is gonna be such a treat for so many homeschooling moms.
• 1:29
  Kathy Eggers: Hey, Christy. I am so happy to be with you, and you know you're right. I am passionate and love to talk, so you feel free to shush me if we need to.
• 1:37
  Christy-Faith: I don't think so. And by the way, if you guys don't know this, Kathy was invited to teach a master class in Thrive Homeschool Community where she was able to go a lot deeper on the stuff that we're gonna talk about today. So and at the end of the show, we'll also let you know how to reach Kathy in all the ways, whether it's social media or through her curriculum. But this is what I wanna say, Kathy, is way back when I was brand new as a homeschooling mom, I went to a homeschool convention, and you were one of the speakers.
• 2:07
  Kathy Eggers: Have I voted this to You you mentioned it. You mentioned it. You did.
• 2:10
  Christy-Faith: Okay. Okay. And you were one of the speakers, and I was just so amazed. And I remember, I don't know how long you did this because it was a big hot mess, but you had those water beads at your booth. Did you do that a while?
• 2:24
  Kathy Eggers: I did it for a while, but I have gotten rid of the water beads. Yeah. There's so much controversy and There is. Some true well, not only controversy, there it's proven that they're dangerous, and there's so many great sensory things. But, gosh, I loved them while we had them.
• 2:36
  Christy-Faith: I know. Fun. Yeah. Yeah. It makes complete sense, and we ended up being a water bead list family ourselves.
• 2:43
  But here's what I want the listeners to know is that I used your curriculum with my littles, and we absolutely loved it. So this is just really cool to have you on today. It feels like a full circle moment. And what's neat is you have you've been really diligent in making sure that your curriculum is always updated, following best practices, following the latest research. And so I haven't looked at it recently because my kids are now older, but I just think it's exciting what you are doing and how you're taking care of the brains of our little ones, but also this combo of we wanna love this life.
• 3:19
  We wanna love this homeschooling life. Right?
• 3:22
  Kathy Eggers: Oh my gosh. That is it. Like, it is so much more preschool. I'll be the first to tell you. Preschoolers don't need a curriculum.
• 3:28
  It's just true. They don't. They need play. But mamas, we need a guide sometimes. But the guide is not about the, really, the activities.
• 3:36
  It's really about the way you can connect with your kids and enjoy this and build these memories and this foundation of a love for learning, not only for them, but also for you because you matter too in this journey. I mean, it's not just about them. It's about all us.
• 3:49
  Christy-Faith: Yes. And that's my community, Thrive Homeschool Community is all about supporting that mom because really we have to take care of ourselves first. Right? We need to and and that's what you gave me way back in the day because I'm not an artsy crafty. I'm an academic.
• 4:03
  I taught college. Right? And so here I was homeschooling, you know, littles thinking, okay. Can someone just tell me what activity to buy? I'll just go to Michaels.
• 4:12
  And you did that, but you also gave me the why. So let's back up for a minute because that's really important to today's show. First, I wanna start with, can you share with us your journey into homeschooling advocacy and child development?
• 4:26
  Kathy Eggers: Yeah. I would love that. I'll try to make it as brief as possible. Listen. I am one of those people I think I was born for this truly.
• 4:33
  I remember as a young girl, I would just walk in around young children, and they would just come up to me. And then as I became an adult, it to this day to this day, I will be somewhere, and kids I don't know will walk up. There's something that God gave me to just connect with young children. I get them. Maybe that's why I stopped academically.
• 4:51
  I don't know. But I get them at such a deep level, and I have such a love for children that that really is the root of all of what I do, why I do it. Went to college, knew I wanted to work in the field. Didn't necessarily wanna be a classroom teacher in the public school system, but knew I wanted to work with children. So that led me to child development.
• 5:11
  I was a teacher, then I was an administrator. I started schools. One of the best things I did is get involved with an organization, NAEYC. And I became a mentor and a validator for them where I would go check schools and child development centers for quality. Were they being appropriate, developmentally appropriate practices is what it's called?
• 5:30
  Were they running their classroom, taking care of the children socially, emotionally, physically, and cognitively? And then when I moved into homeschooling, which I also knew I wanted to do from a young age because my siblings had friends who were homeschooled, like, back when it was weird, but I thought it was cool because I loved the the family dynamic. I would watch this family interact and travel and explore and ask questions and be curious. And I thought, I want that lifestyle. I want to be the one to witness the moments.
• 6:02
  So I did that as a homeschooling mom, homeschooled my children. My youngest is now a sophomore in college. So I am through with that journey. However, I got the privilege to merge the two worlds together. I got to witness, hey.
• 6:15
  No one's really teaching our homeschool moms about play back when I started this. Now there's many more people doing it. But when I started, literally, there was no one. And so I wrote the homegrown preschooler. It's kinda bringing in my child development expertise with my homeschooling expertise and merge the two, and out of that came the other curriculum and books.
• 6:32
  So that's
• 6:33
  Christy-Faith: how it started. Yeah. That's fantastic. And I mentioned previously that you recently taught a master class in Thrive Homeschool Community. And in that class, you discussed the profound impact of play on our neural connections.
• 6:48
  Is that the right term?
• 6:49
  Kathy Eggers: Neural connection? Neural pathways. Yep.
• 6:50
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. Neural pathways. Could you elaborate on how different types of play contribute to cognitive development? And here's and here's the ledge that I'm hoping that you can keep, you know, keep bombs off of is we are especially a brand new homeschool mom. She is so insecure, and she doesn't wanna mess this up.
• 7:09
  And Yes. Heaven forbid that we give our kids a bad education, and maybe we have family members who are kinda side eyeing us. Like, what are you doing this homeschooling thing? And then here a mom comes along and she's like, we play. Right?
• 7:23
  And that's what she should be doing in those earlier years, but it's really great for moms to be empowered with some language regarding why that play is so developmentally important and how that is not sacrificing academics. It's actually contributing to it. And I would love for you to take a moment and speak on that.
• 7:42
  Kathy Eggers: Gosh. I love this question. And the research is there. I mean, if you do it, one of my favorite child development specialists, Karen Purvis, she's no longer with us. She has done so much work out in she did so much work out in Texas.
• 7:55
  And I think the research she did on neural pathways, pathways, speaking of, do you know that when a young child is learning a new concept, if they're learning it through rote memorization, flashcards, worksheets, it could take them up to four hundred times for the brain to make that connection. 400. However, that same concept you're trying to teach them, if you teach it through play, guess how many times, Christy? 10 to 20. 10 to 20 versus 400.
• 8:25
  So if we just start there, if we just say, okay. Well, that just makes my day a lot easier. You know, if they're in that's why even in our curriculum, we repeat activities. I encourage you to repeat them because kids do need it repeated even in play, but the concept that we graph so much quicker through play than it is through rote memorizations. The other thing is every area of the brain is developed through play.
• 8:49
  Listen. Executive function. Do you know the best way to develop those problem solving skills? Through pretend play. Literally, when we're doing kitchen and we're making recipes up, and we're saying we're gonna make spaghetti and meat sauce, but we're gonna put syrup in it or whatever.
• 9:04
  That is the brain actually strengthening the executive function, that prefrontal cortex. It's amazing what it does. Find motor skills. That helps them get ready to write. If they're not playing with Play Doh, if they're not squishing in the mud, when we when we wanna look back of what childhood used to be, when it was outside all day, when kids were in the creek, when kids were digging in the mud, those kids were strengthening fine motor skills to hold a pencil to write later.
• 9:30
  So not only are you giving them what we would say is fun, it is the way the brain was wired to be developed. You must do it through play if you want it. In fact, when you choose not to do it through play, the brain actually has to develop a workaround. It has to go, wait. This is not how I'm wired.
• 9:48
  I can figure it out, but that's part of why it would take 400 times to get that same information in the brain. Some of it right there.
• 9:55
  Christy-Faith: And, you know, that message is really hard to hear for a lot of people because we live in a culture where play is not valued in this particular way. I mean, leisure time is valued. Right? We we work really hard so that we could have play. Mhmm.
• 10:09
  But play is not considered the work. And that's something really hard even as we're deschooling women that I coach that just because something is fun doesn't mean that it didn't count as learning. Can you speak to that a little bit?
• 10:25
  Kathy Eggers: Yeah. And I wanna be real careful with this too because again, I go back to not here to push my curriculum at all. In fact, again, you don't need it, but the reason we do it is people get overwhelmed. I think parents get overwhelmed with, okay, what does that mean? It's just chaos that I just like go check out on my phone and they're over there learning as they're beating each other up and Legos are flying across the room.
• 10:46
  It's not that. So sometimes it really is in uninterrupted. That is true. They don't need us in the middle of their play, but sometimes we do need to set up an invitation to play. We do need to set up you know, I wanna see about some color mixing, so we're gonna set that up and invite them to come in.
• 11:03
  Often, will change it, and that's the key. Even if you set up an invitation to play Christy, be flexible that the children are change it. I remember just recently a friend, she posted something on TikTok. She bought this cute little case, and I'm like, oh, that would be so cute for Barbies and Barbie dolls. And then another person commented and said, well, my daughter said it'd be perfect for all of her kitchen utensils and her pretend food.
• 11:26
  And I thought, yeah, that is better. Like, kids do it better. They naturally they naturally do it better. They figure it out. So as you're playing, really let them be invested in that play.
• 11:40
  Your role is a facilitator. Whether you're in play or even as they get older, you aren't supposed to be coming in vomiting information on your children. You are facilitator to help lead them to that information. You help spark the curiosity. That's your role.
• 11:58
  Christy-Faith: Yes. And I think the core of this, and you and I, I think, are in such alignment on this is we have an understanding that an education is not content. That's not an education. At its very core, an education is the cultivation of a human being. It is developing skills so that our kids can do whatever they want to do in their lives.
• 12:22
  Right?
• 12:22
  Kathy Eggers: Spot on. And when you don't do that through play, there are gaps in that. Because often, if you're doing it, let's say, a worksheet, you a worksheet or a flashcard, you're not working on the social emotional skills, and those are huge. You've got to develop we're seeing so many kids who lack coping skills today because those social emotional skills were not developed in the early years. And I'm sure you know this, but that stuff is developed by about age seven.
• 12:51
  Seven. So if we skip it and say, oh, but I'm teaching them to read. I know we do our flashcards every single morning in morning basket. We've got our flashcards and we do the weather. But are you teaching them to process their feelings when they're feeling sad or anxious or scared?
• 13:05
  Christy-Faith: Are you
• 13:06
  Kathy Eggers: giving them the opportunity to write that down to say this this hurts, this you know, when you did this, it felt this way. That is just as much apart, if not more important, I think, than some of the other content we wanna put into our day.
• 13:21
  Christy-Faith: Yes. Absolutely. And it's interesting because in the past ten years, they there's been a lot of research done on, okay, what makes a child successful in life. Right? And Mhmm.
• 13:31
  First, we ask ourselves, well, how do you define success? But we'll leave that there. Employment. Employment or whatever. Okay.
• 13:37
  But the studies were saying that it was primarily they used to say it was primarily involved parents. That is what moved kids along. They were able to reach their goals. They were getting the college degrees. They were gaining employment, you know, whatever that success looks
• 13:53
  Kathy Eggers: like. Sure.
• 13:54
  Christy-Faith: So but what's interesting is the pivot that has happened, and the latest research is so fascinating to me because, but I think it supports the previous research. It just didn't get right to the bottom of it yet. They're now finding that the key predictor for academic success is emotional regulation.
• 14:13
  Kathy Eggers: Mhmm.
• 14:13
  Christy-Faith: And this is something that I teach in when I go around to conferences and I have a talk that's like on battles and pushback and and all of that. And I talk about, you know, we need to be more behavior detectives, not behavior cops. Right? Yes. But what's interesting about that empathy piece and, you know, we have this intensity of academics at, like, the earliest ages.
• 14:37
  Well, one we know there's research now that that backfires anyway, but I think it's really interesting this emotional regulation piece because it actually supports previously. Because if you have involved parents who really, really care, you probably are having conversations at home, probably in a more emotionally resilient communicative family, and you probably have better skills. But, you know, in my math talk, I do a talk on math, and I say, look. I know where you guys are. You're at the place right now where you your child just looks at that word problem and melts down.
• 15:10
  They might be able to do it, and you're probably saying, you can do that problem. It just looks hard. The breakdown isn't math. The breakdown is emotional regulation, which is a skill. Right?
• 15:22
  Kathy Eggers: Absolutely.
• 15:23
  Christy-Faith: As a homeschool mom who values a family together approach and leans towards the classical and Charlotte Mason styles, I often struggle to bring my educational vision to life with my kids' diverse ages and learning needs. With all our interests and super packed schedule, bridging that gap between the dreamy homeschool I want and reality, I gotta be honest. It's a challenge. Now, yes, I know perfection isn't the goal. But if you're listening and you could use a little easing of your mental load in your day to day, I found a resource that has become the quiet hero of our routine and it could be a really great option for you too.
• 15:54
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• 16:32
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• 17:03
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• 17:20
  Kathy Eggers: Absolutely. And I always tell parents back to your cop comment is that behavior is communication. So don't get emotional about it. Don't take it personally. Just recognize behavior is communication, and you need to get curious about that behavior.
• 17:36
  And the more curious you are as a parent, the easier it's gonna be to get to the root. And the root is really, again, all the outward stuff, just like the dysregulation, those are just symptoms. There's something going
• 17:46
  Christy-Faith: on at the
• 17:47
  Kathy Eggers: root, so that's why you need to get curious. So side note on that.
• 17:50
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. Yes. Yes. So my I can speak to my struggle when my kids were little. You know, I'm not I'm not uptight per se, but I do like a tidy house.
• 18:00
  I'm not naturally crafty. That's actually an area that I've tried to grow up either.
• 18:04
  Kathy Eggers: I I need to really say that. I'm not crafty.
• 18:06
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've tried to learn knitting because I know the benefits of having hand you know, handicrafts and things like that. Mhmm. And I wanna get back to the uninterrupted play piece.
• 18:16
  So I'm gonna write a note for myself. But Okay. Speak to the mom right now who is really dysregulated maybe by visual clutter or messes in her home. I know everyone listening here is a growth mindset girly. We kinda all are.
• 18:30
  That's who listens to my podcast. Okay. And speak to that because that can really hard. I've even had moms tell me I could never homeschool because I know my house would be a mess, which that's a terrible reason not to homeschool. You gotta figure that part out.
• 18:44
  But you know what I'm getting at? This can be really hard for some moms because Absolutely. That young play where you're letting them in the mud. You know, I remember being at my in law's house one time and just letting my kids just, you know, ruin their clothes outside, and she was just flipping out. And I'm like, it can just go in the wash.
• 19:03
  But that's really hard sometimes because this is the thing is when you have little kids, you're tired. You are tired. You're cleaning all day. They can't clean the kitchen yet. I remember those days.
• 19:13
  And some some days it felt like there was a cloud over me. So the thought of strewing or setting my kids up for a skillful play environment was just too much.
• 19:23
  Kathy Eggers: How can you help us? Listen. I get that. I I love a tidy house too. I mean, it's so funny.
• 19:29
  People assume that I probably live in chaos, and I'm so crafty. No. Not none of that. But what I do is there are places and spaces. So I'm really good about being creative.
• 19:39
  Where's my place in my space for this messy play? So when you have little ones, sometimes it's the bathtub. That's real easy to clean them up. You put some water in the bathtub. You drop some color in.
• 19:49
  You put some shaving cream. There, it's done. If that's too much for you to take it out of the house, start there. Get one of those cheap $10 swimming pools and set that up somewhere, and you can keep it contained. You can get bussing bins and put it towel on the floor.
• 20:05
  It doesn't all have to be going on at the same time. You don't have to have dress up play at the same time that you got the sensory table out to the same time that you have the Play Doh out. You can have places and space. I used my front porch all the time. We had a covered front porch when my kids were little.
• 20:19
  I took an old armoire, TV armoire. Remember when we all had those? I took that, and I filled it up with my paints, my paper, my sensory bins. And so it was easy for me to say yes because if it takes too much time, the yes becomes harder. If you've gotta go find the paint, you've gotta set up the easel, if you've gotta pull out the sensory bins.
• 20:39
  But if you can have a space where you keep that and it's easy to grab and easy to say yes, it makes the yes so much easier. And then the cleanup can be quick. Again, you don't have to do it every day. Maybe you start with two days. We're gonna do sensory messy play.
• 20:53
  There are some other ways we can play that doesn't involve that. It's okay if you ban glitter from your home. I'm not gonna judge you out. I think I probably banned glitter for a few years too. It's okay.
• 21:05
  You do what is best for you too. Again, you are part of this equation. And I think the more you do it, the more you get comfortable. That's what I hear from all the years I've been teaching moms and teachers to play is that the more you say yes or why not, I also teach say why not instead of why. What?
• 21:23
  Why not? What? Really? Why not? If they jump in that water puddle.
• 21:26
  You're right, Christy. You can wash it up. You're already doing laundry anyway, so throw it in. Those are the things that can help you to not get so overwhelmed with this type of play.
• 21:36
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. I think that's really helpful. And I wanna go back to this concept of uninterrupted play because I'm a historian, and Charlotte Mason wrote about this, and so did Peter Gray talk about people who are totally different. Right? And this concept that you're talking about right now might feel a little bit too unschool y for some listeners, and Charlotte Mason talked about how important uninterrupted play is.
• 22:04
  And I think we live in a space right now where even a mom who's really in tune with the emotional development of her kids, she might be tempted to hover and work out conflict and help them process and pull them aside and things like that. And I feel like there needs to be a little bit more freedom to to an extent we don't wanna condone abusive behavior or anything like that, but to an extent, let kids kinda work it out. And Charlotte Mason even said, they need to be gone. They need to be out and for, like, hours on end where mom doesn't even know what happens. Right?
• 22:39
  And we just that's so foreign for us today where, you know, I'm scared to let my kids go out in the cul de sac because we have our cul de sac has been very busy for the last week, and there's a lot of people that I'm not familiar with. And so here I'm the mom saying, play in the backyard. I don't know. There's a lot of people. Right?
• 22:58
  Kathy Eggers: So so Again, I get that too. I think you you have to know your place and where you live. But as far as what inter uninterrupted play looks like, it really is where you have no expectations, and that's the hard part. I think even in play, we as the adults put our adult brain on it. So if they're playing let's say they're doing a fairy.
• 23:20
  They're making a little fairy house, and we're like, oh, I could buy these cute little things at the Dollar General, and I could put that out, and I could go collect this for them versus starting with the questions. Oh, I thought we might wanna build a fairy house. Have you seen fairies in our house? And, you know, the child might go, no. We don't have fairies.
• 23:38
  Oh, well, you should look. I think I saw one go by last night. I wonder what we need first. So you can be a part of that, but by asking that question, and then you can slowly back out of it. So if you have a child who doesn't play, and I hear that from parents.
• 23:53
  Well, my kid doesn't know how to play. Well, they probably do. You've just jumped in too often. But the uninterrupted part is then you back out of it, and you let them go. You let them go gather the things, and you let them build their fairy house.
• 24:06
  They might say, mom, can you come play with me? And you're like, I hate playing with kids, or I'm not good at it. All you have to do is sit next to them and say, what do we do now? What do you think should happen next? Just open ended questions.
• 24:19
  But that should be the minimal. Really, what I want is them together interacting with each other. And to your point about problem solving and and when children have problems with each other, we need our kids to develop these problem solving skills. If they don't have disagreements, they are not gonna know how to talk to a boss, to a friend, to a spouse. They've got to start that conflict resolution early.
• 24:43
  Now you might have to come in beside them and say, wow. I see that you took your brother's toy away, and he hit you on the head. How can we make that better? Oh, I could hit him on the head back. Ask the brother.
• 24:55
  Would that make you feel better? No. But he said I wouldn't make him feel better. What else could we do? I could give him the truck back.
• 25:02
  Would that make you feel better? Yes. Problem solved. That time. And you said it earlier.
• 25:08
  We're tired when we have little kids. We're exhausted. We're already overwhelmed. But that is important work. That is important work.
• 25:15
  If you do that when they're three, four, five, when they're eight, nine, 10, they won't need you to jump in. So, again, that goes to that uninterrupted. You do have to be there, but you don't have to be all in it, and you don't have to take over. Whether it's the pretend play, whether it's the the building, the painting. I see so many parents when I set up an invitation to play, they will come in and wanna take over.
• 25:40
  They'll do it in the name of I'm with my child. Let's just take coloring. Say say say a child is coloring, and I'll see a parent sit right beside them, and then they'll start drawing a tree, and they'll start drawing, you know, their name. And then immediately, the child will stop what they're doing. They'll look at the parent and say one of two things.
• 25:59
  Oh, could you draw this for me, friends, or mine's not as good as yours. Throw the pencil down. That's how we have to stay out of it. Stay don't sit down and color next to them. Now if they invite you in, okay.
• 26:11
  But if not, if they're over there working and they're collaging or they're coloring or they're painting, let it be. Let it be. That's where the uninterrupted play looks like.
• 26:20
  Christy-Faith: What about coloring books? Should parents be telling their kids to color in the lines?
• 26:25
  Kathy Eggers: Christy, you set me up. That's a softball. Absolutely not. I don't own it. I do own adult coloring books in my home, but I do not own children's coloring books in my home.
• 26:34
  I want children to see the world the way they see it. And the minute we say color in the lines, we have restricted them. We have stopped the creativity. We have taken away that opportunity for them to create. It is the very opposite of creating when they are being told what to do.
• 26:53
  Now kids why do kids like coloring books? Because they're attached to the characters or they think that's fun. So I get that. So do a sticker book then because that's not that's a craft.
• 27:03
  Christy-Faith: It's okay to do crafts.
• 27:05
  Kathy Eggers: Mhmm. Do a craft. But, really, art should be process based 100%. There should not be an end result. They get to determine the end result.
• 27:14
  That's how our great artists are formed. That's where they come from. They see it, and they make it happen. That's true art.
• 27:20
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. I was over my mom's house. My mom, she's very craft she's so good at this. She is a really advanced knitter, and she will do doodles and things like that. And she have you seen those reverse coloring books where they'll have
• 27:36
  Kathy Eggers: the the black or
• 27:38
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. They'll have the a lot. Of watercolor, and then you see something and draw the lines.
• 27:43
  Kathy Eggers: Oh, no. I haven't seen that.
• 27:44
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. And so it'll just it's literally looks like a watercolor on a page, and you look at it and then you see what you see. It's almost like looking in the clouds and then seeing animals or kinda like that, and then you draw the lines. And I just I was just like, mom, you are so cool. Like, I come over and I see her coloring books and her knitting.
• 28:05
  Yeah. And I have so much to learn from my mom. So but, anyway, yeah, coloring in the lines is is kind of a it's one of those things, and it's really hard. And the other thing too is that parents often feel like their kids are represent a representation of how they're doing with their homeschooling. So Of course.
• 28:27
  When so let's talk for a minute about this deschooling that really is what you're talking about. We're deschooling you guys right now with, like, what is an education? Let's ask these bigger questions so that we can actually give our kids what they need, not what society says that they should do, what they actually need. That's really hard when you go over to the grandparents' house and the they put down a coloring book, and then that grandmother is saying, no. No.
• 28:52
  No. Color in the lines. Do it this way. Do it this way. Mhmm.
• 28:55
  And then the mom is like, ah, right? She's kind of torn, but then she's feeling like the parent that maybe the grandparent is judging her and the education that she's providing. And that's really hard for us as parents with I remember I had an experience at church one time, and my kids learned cursive first because when I started, I was a true blue. True blue classical homeschooler.
• 29:19
  Kathy Eggers: Do it, girl.
• 29:20
  Christy-Faith: Taught my kids cursive first. So but, anyway, the my kids, they only knew how to do cursive. They were pretty small. And they went to church and they went to the Sunday school, and the teacher said to print their name. And it was terrible.
• 29:36
  It was terrible because one never printed. And I remember being mortified. What must that teacher think of the homeschool job I'm doing? Do I need to I felt this need to, like, defend myself or this or that or
• 29:47
  Kathy Eggers: like Absolutely.
• 29:47
  Christy-Faith: And and so that can be really hard. And how do we how can we find this security? And we don't wanna make comments that are that seem judgy back. That's not what we wanna do. What would you say to that?
• 30:00
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• 30:31
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• 30:54
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• 31:32
  That's lovevery.com/christyfaith.
• 31:37
  Kathy Eggers: Well, you had a couple questions in there, so I'm gonna tackle that's okay. No. No. No. I'm gonna try and remember them both.
• 31:42
  First, I'm gonna answer your second question first. K. Find your people. You have to find your people. Yeah.
• 31:48
  Because you might not get that support out in the wild. Let's just call it that. I have those same stories. I remember my first son. Most of my kids read late.
• 31:56
  Some read it early. I mean, whenever whenever they're ready. But I remember one particularly, he they want him to read in Sunday school, and he couldn't read the bible verse. And he was, like, six and a half, maybe even seven. He couldn't read it.
• 32:07
  He was embarrassed, and the teacher was side eyeing me. And so I had to have a conversation with him and say, oh, but look at all these things you can do. Mhmm. And you, you know, you know that story. You could have told that story in the bible.
• 32:20
  You just didn't that reading hadn't happened yet. And that kid, I mean, he he's always the one I always say, he almost scored perfect on the language art section of SAT years down the road. I mean, it is not a when your child reads does not determine how smart they are. Mean, has nothing to do with that. Yeah.
• 32:37
  It is when their brain is ready to risk. Just like potty training. It's not like, does that determine a dude's aim when he was potty trained? No. It doesn't.
• 32:44
  It's the same with reading. It doesn't. But anyway, so I would say find your trap. You've gotta have a good support system around you, homeschool mom, you know, a mentor, someone who's done it before. Join your Thrive community.
• 32:57
  You've gotta have that because you're gonna need that because it is hard, and that judgment does come. If you escape that, you're rare. We all have been judged. If you've been doing this for any time, you've been judged. Mhmm.
• 33:09
  Especially me because I'm wackadoodle. Right? I think, you know, we chased play. We chased my kids' passions. We our schooling looks so different than a lot of people, and that was okay.
• 33:19
  But I also had my tribe who believed in me. So find your tribe. Back to your first question talking about the coloring book book at the grandparents' house. That's a great one because there are two ways you can go. Number one, share your heart for play based theory.
• 33:34
  I think it's okay to share it, but a lot of people aren't gonna get it. It's it's one of those things I think until you buy into it, you might not get it. Mhmm. Buy them like, one of the books I wrote called a 100 and easy wacky easy wacky crazy activities is a great grandparent book. Hand them that.
• 33:47
  Say, here's some great things. I want you to have this book or or any book. And not my book. Any book that does that. I want you to have this book, and these are some fun things I want them to do when they come to your house because I don't have time to do it because I'm exhausted.
• 33:59
  And I have the little kids, but maybe grandparents often do have the time. So let them be the one to do some of the messy things. And then lighten up. Listen. One grandparent comment about the coloring in the lines is not gonna determine your child's self worth.
• 34:14
  Do I like it? No. But I really do care about that relationship with that grandmother, and I really want you know, you want your child to spend time with that grandmother. So in that case, do I think it's harmful? I don't.
• 34:26
  I don't. So I think it's kind of both end. Right? We we can probably lighten up a little bit on that, we don't do it that way, and realize that they're really trying to make the best with their grandchild and make memories too. So, anyway, hopefully, that answered both questions.
• 34:41
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. No. And I think it's it's nuance, depends on the relationship and the situation. But I do think that because when we become really passionate about something and homeschool moms, we're dedicating we're making a lot of sacrifices to do this. A lot of us are giving careers.
• 34:55
  And so when we care so much about something, it's hard and it hurts for someone to be like, that's ridiculous. Right? Or that's behavior
• 35:02
  Kathy Eggers: or you're damaging your kids
• 35:04
  Christy-Faith: or something. So I think that that's really important, a really great message. What I heard is in a loving way, we can lighten up. We can lighten up. The relationship if it's generally healthy.
• 35:15
  Right? If this Correct. Yes. Narcissist and abusive. Right?
• 35:18
  We can lighten up and a little bit and just realize the relationship is more important. You can have conversations with your kids after. You know what I loved about what you said earlier about your son? I thought you were gonna say I had a conversation with the teacher. No.
• 35:33
  You said I had a conversation with my son. And I almost wanted to cry because you had a conversation with the one that mattered.
• 35:43
  Kathy Eggers: Correct. And always
• 35:44
  Christy-Faith: cares what the teacher thinks? Who Correct.
• 35:46
  Kathy Eggers: Who Freaking cares.
• 35:48
  Christy-Faith: Who cares? And, you know, I had to learn this the hard way when I, you know, became Christy Faith is everyone had an opinion. Everyone had an opinion. And I realized, oh, wow. Like, these people don't even know me.
• 36:01
  They don't know my calling. They don't know my heart. They don't know my credentials. They don't know and so I realized really quickly that I had to create a small circle, a very small circle of people who actually like, you know, like, I had I don't need to go into the details, but I think that your message on finding your people, I think with everything we feel passionate about in any area, that's really important. If you are a working homeschool mom, find other working homeschool moms.
• 36:29
  Because the reality is we have to homeschool differently than a mom who does not is not a breadwinner too. We have to find those people, find people who believe in the things that you believe in, and and that will uplift you and always give you the benefit of the doubt and help you and not judge you. And that's what's so beautiful. Now you've been downplaying. You're like, don't buy my curriculum.
• 36:51
  Well, I want them to
• 36:52
  Kathy Eggers: be your curriculum.
• 36:53
  Christy-Faith: Well, I do too, but I
• 36:55
  Kathy Eggers: also I really just believe in this. And I don't want people to think I'm on here with a sales pitch. I'm not. No. I I want you to fall in love with your children.
• 37:06
  I want you to get to know your children and realize that the connection between you and them is greater than any curriculum you will ever ever buy. That is what I came on this today to say. Yeah. That's so
• 37:18
  Christy-Faith: much important. And I know that, and I see it. But can I please ask you a couple questions about the curriculum? Sure. You can.
• 37:25
  So you recently did a pretty massive update, and it there was nothing wrong with it before, by the way. No. No. But can you just speak a little bit to what you updated, what you changed, what a mom can expect, what I remember loving the supply lists on there. Can you Yes.
• 37:42
  When a mom opens up this curriculum and looks at it, how does it help make her life easier? So two questions there. Again, sorry. Christy, can you control yourself?
• 37:49
  Kathy Eggers: A clean girl. I love it. Listen. A year of playing skillfully, I used to write curriculum for child development centers for programs. I trained teachers.
• 37:58
  I did this. It was easy for me to do, but I realized for moms like, I had one comment. I don't often get this comment, but someone said, well, can I go on Pinterest and find the same stuff? I mean, you can. Especially in today's world, you can find it anywhere.
• 38:13
  It's not new information. But what I did do is I offered it from a child development perspective knowing that it's developmentally appropriate for children ages three to seven. And it goes some use it longer, some started earlier, but it is it's a multi age curriculum. So that has stayed the same from the first edition. You can use it many years in a row.
• 38:33
  I just had a sweet mom message me last night. She's buying the second edition. She's been using it for all ten years. She adopted most of her children. They've just recently adopted a new two year old, so she wanted the new edition for that.
• 38:45
  I did take out the faith information. The first edition, this is one key thing. It did have some bible verses and some holiday activities around faith, And we did have families who wanted it neutral. And so what I did is I kinda pulled it out. We still offer a faith guide.
• 38:59
  It's free. You don't have to pay for that on the website. You get it. But we pulled it out of the main curriculum for families who might want a more neutral curriculum. So we did that.
• 39:08
  We added new books in. We added a bigger book list. I went through every activity making sure that it was processed, open ended, allowed for uninterrupted play. I just looked at it again with fresh eyes after all these years of writing it. I put more details in the beginning.
• 39:24
  How do you set up your day? How do you set up the materials? How do you set up your schedule? Gave you a sample schedule. I've tried to include everything.
• 39:30
  Before we would say, hey. You need to buy the homegrown preschooler, which is another book, and this. And I really just try to put those meaty things in this because money. And I didn't up the price. I kept the price the same as before even though prices have definitely skyrocketed since we first put this out.
• 39:46
  But, again, I know it's hard. It's hard to afford a lot of these things. So that's kind of the main things. You know, it gives you a monthly checklist. You remember this where you can pick and choose.
• 39:57
  I want you to repeat it. If you're a working mom, it can work with your schedule. What I'd love the most is there's no Monday, September 10, do this. Tuesdays because that never happens in our world, you guys. The toilet overflows.
• 40:11
  The kids shoved the Lego down there. Someone's thrown up. The dog has beat on the it never happens the way you plan it. So this gives you the freedom with that freedom without the guilt because often, I don't know about you, but I would feel guilty if I didn't get it done the way it was supposed to. And so this kinda takes that away.
• 40:26
  But that's some of the major updates that we've done to it and are proud of.
• 40:30
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. And that is so true. I often tell moms because I I get a lot of new homeschooling moms, and they're asking me about lesson planning. And I was like, I stopped the day I quit teaching was the day I stopped lesson planning.
• 40:42
  Kathy Eggers: Yes, girl.
• 40:43
  Christy-Faith: Anyone is asking you to lesson plan, run-in the other direction because that is not how we do things on this side of the Internet. Homeschooling mom
• 40:51
  Kathy Eggers: Same.
• 40:52
  Christy-Faith: Please don't be lesson planning because it just makes you it makes you live in the gap, in that gap. Oh, I'm not done. I'm not where I need to be. I didn't finish this. I didn't do this.
• 41:01
  It's just that such a terrible place to be homeschooling from, especially when we want this to just breathe life into our kids' childhood, and we wanna be enjoying this too. One last question, very concrete. How many hours a day should we be homeschooling our little preschool kids? What should it look like?
• 41:20
  Kathy Eggers: Well, it should look like as as you live. So you cannot put a time on it because if you let them come in the kitchen and cut up vegetables, that's schooling. If you let them help wash your car, sort the socks, that's schooling. If you sing a song with them every morning, get get them weight to get them out of bed, that's schooling. There shouldn't be a sit down.
• 41:39
  The biggest sit down you do with a preschooler, and I am all first grade, is reading to them. Reading. Have them tell you a story, journaling Mhmm. Painting. As you go all day, you spread it out throughout the day.
• 41:51
  Start your day with sensory. Lots of sensory that awakens the brain. You always should start with big movement, deep breaths, some sensory. Get get your hands messy because that that fires up those neurons. So that's a hard one.
• 42:06
  It's as you go as you live.
• 42:08
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. And you know what we coach moms to do sometimes because this is such a this is so far down in terms of deschooling because it's so hard to conceptualize play as being valuable in our culture. Right. And we we wanna have something to show for the education that we're giving our kids. Something that we do when a mom is really struggling is we just tell her at the end of the day, just write down what your kid did.
• 42:30
  Just write it down. Yes. You could literally throw it in chat the next day and ask chat GBT what the value was, and it'll spit out all this stuff.
• 42:38
  Kathy Eggers: And That's fabulous,
• 42:40
  Christy-Faith: actually. Need if you are a mom right now who's thinking, but I just need to know what I'm what that this is valuable. I just need to know what I've done. I I gotta have something to you know, we also have a lot of moms who their husbands are maybe on the fence and, like, letting them experiment with homeschooling, and maybe they wanna see concrete stuff. So this is just one little suggestion.
• 43:01
  If you really do need that, if you need that concrete, write down what your kid did. Later on, if you need to, you'll probably start training yourself to actually see the value in it, the academic and educational value in it. But until then, yeah, you can throw it in chat GPT. It'll spit out the value, and then you'll have, like, a notebook a notebook that is evidence of the amazing education that you're giving
• 43:23
  Kathy Eggers: your kids. And you just look at the things I mentioned, sorting socks. What is that? Well, it's obviously it's math because you're sorting, but you're also language arts as you're talking whose socks are these? You can do more math concepts.
• 43:35
  Are they bigger than my socks or smaller than my socks? You're setting the table. You're doing order. You're doing critical thinking skills. Again, you're also doing language arts with that.
• 43:43
  Telling stories, reading books, all of that. It it when you start thinking specifically of how this one small thing is learning, it really is mind boggling why we all aren't just playing more because it really does do wonders for the brain and for the foundation. And let me finish with this, Christy. Here's the thing to ask yourself. Has it been in the hand?
• 44:08
  If it hasn't been in the hand, it's not gonna be in the brain. Kids need it concretely before they can get it abstractly, the information. So if you wanna teach them about circus, go to the circus. If you wanna teach them the concept of a farm, get yourself out to a farm. If you wanna teach them an apple, give them an apple.
• 44:26
  It has to be in the hand before that concept can get in the brain.
• 44:31
  Christy-Faith: And that reminds me too Sarah Collins who she is occupational therapist who homeschools, and she actually is one of the coaches in Thrive Homeschool Community. And I had her on the podcast, and she talked about this very thing where we need to be touching these things. We need it in our real world because the two dimensional screen is actually harming. It's it's Correct. To be out there.
• 44:53
  We need that. We need to be surrounded. We need to smell it, have all the senses. So, I mean, could you put on a YouTube video about what it's like to live on a farm? Yes.
• 45:04
  But it wouldn't do not it's not even a comparison to it. Yeah. And we're not saying this to put more pressure on yourself. We're saying this to be free. You can free yourself.
• 45:12
  Kathy Eggers: You'd think about if you birthed your kids. I adopted most of my kids, but I did birth a couple. And a lot of people tried to tell me what birthing a kid was like. Guess what? It was not like they said.
• 45:23
  I read books about it. I didn't watch a YouTube video, but had I, it still wouldn't have hit it right.
• 45:27
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. Yeah.
• 45:28
  Kathy Eggers: That's what it is for kids. We can tell them all day. But when they experience it for themselves, they get it, and they remember it, and their brain, it's like sticky glued for their brain. They keep it in there.
• 45:40
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. Yeah. Well, Kathy, you are really a gift to the homeschooling community because you are one of the voices in our space that is helping us love our children better. And for that, I am really I'm really grateful, and I love your messaging. I loved your curriculum when I did it.
• 46:01
  I still tell mamas to use it, and I thank you so much for your time coming on the show today to encourage Thanks, Crystal. Homeschooling moms with those littles, and you don't have to sit them down in front of workbooks. You can go and have fun.
• 46:15
  Kathy Eggers: Absolutely. And thank you for what you're doing too. I love that you're out there and screaming it from the rooftops that that we need to be involved in our kids' lives and show up, and I appreciate that message.
• 46:26
  Christy-Faith: Great. Well, thank you for coming on the show. We're gonna put everything that she mentioned in the show notes, links to all of her resources, her Yeah. Socials, her website, and everything because I know mamas are gonna be wanting to know where to find the resources that you provide our community. I so appreciate you coming on today.
• 46:43
  Kathy Eggers: Thanks, Christy. I enjoyed it.