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Navigating Home Ed Slumps: Real-Life Strategies for Getting Back on Track (and Giving Yourself Grace) · The BIG Home Ed Conversations | Home Education

• 0:16
  Hello everybody, welcome back to another episode of the big home
• 0:19
  Ed conversations. I'm Kelly Rigg and I am a home
• 0:22
  Ed mum of two. I'm also the founder of
• 0:23
  Offereding Motherhood and a qualified mindset coach.
• 0:26
  I'm passionate about supporting parents and neurodivergent
• 0:28
  families as they navigate the transition from mainstream
• 0:30
  schooling into home education. I am joined as always by my
• 0:33
  lovely Co host Ashley Venerio. So she's also a fellow home Ed
• 0:36
  mum of three and she Trump's me there, which is a former primary
• 0:40
  teacher. We created the big Home Ed
• 0:41
  Conversations podcast when kind of what began as honest,
• 0:45
  heartfelt talks around the coffee table, us kind of holding
• 0:48
  each other accountable. And it's now grown into a space
• 0:52
  where hundreds of listeners now tune in for real, unfiltered
• 0:55
  conversations about mindset, behavior, challenges,
• 0:58
  educational philosophies, and the emotional journey, Very,
• 1:01
  very emotional most of the time of alternative education.
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  So we cut through the noise. We're not talking to outsiders.
• 1:06
  We're not convincing people to come join us.
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  We are talking to you as home educators, focusing on what
• 1:12
  really matters to us as home educating families, hopefully
• 1:15
  offering you some clarity and confidence and community every
• 1:18
  year step of the way. So hopefully today's episode is
• 1:21
  going to be helpful and timely because it seems to be very
• 1:26
  timely for myself and Ashley. Essentially, we found ourselves
• 1:29
  talking a lot this week about how difficult it can be when you
• 1:34
  take a break or when something happens and life event gets in
• 1:37
  the way and you kind of end up in a bit of a slump and then
• 1:40
  trying to get the like getting everything back up and revved
• 1:44
  again. It's a bit like starting a cold
• 1:46
  engine. It seems to just take a bit of
• 1:47
  effort to get things back up and running and sometimes that can
• 1:50
  feel really hard. So we're going to kind of talk
• 1:51
  about why the slumps happen, what to do whilst you're in it
• 1:55
  and then also how to get back up and out the other side and to
• 1:58
  have a lot of love and compassion for yourself and your
• 2:00
  kids along the way. So hopefully that's really
• 2:03
  timely because it's definitely something which is bothering
• 2:05
  both of us a little bit at the moment.
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  And we thought we'd just we're kind of supporting each other
• 2:08
  with it. And it just turned into this
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  needs to be an episode as always, how most of these get
• 2:13
  formed. So hopefully it'll be helpful.
• 2:15
  So very, very quickly then before we get into that, our
• 2:17
  gratitude. My one this week is basically my
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  biggest bugbear as a parent of neurodivergent kids is that
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  quite often they are often whatever kind of land their
• 2:29
  brain decides to be in. And I spend an awful lot of time
• 2:31
  prompting them and reminding them and having them probably
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  like, oh, wait a minute and starting to do something else
• 2:36
  instead. And then it doesn't get done.
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  And then I forget to because I've mentally put it in the
• 2:39
  category of I've asked them to put their water bottle in their
• 2:41
  bag. And then I have to keep going
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  around and around and around and around.
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  And so essentially, I found myself getting quite frustrated
• 2:46
  with this recently. And I had a bit of a chat with
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  them and I said, OK, I I need to start acknowledging the moments
• 2:52
  when you actually do this. Like I spend so much of my time
• 2:55
  nagging. What I actually need to do is
• 2:56
  take a step back and recognize when you do say something kindly
• 3:00
  to your sister, you do do something without me even asking
• 3:02
  you at all. Because I think one of the
• 3:04
  biggest problems with sitting down and doing all the big DLA
• 3:07
  forms is that essentially I had to really think about all of the
• 3:10
  moments when they don't do what typically you would expect
• 3:14
  children to be able to do at their age.
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  To obviously emphasize their flaws for wanted a better word,
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  which ultimately aren't like they're just who they are.
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  And it does create extra challenges, but it's not, I
• 3:25
  don't really like looking at it like that.
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  But what it has done is it's kind of put me onto a negative
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  spiral of looking at their behaviour and kind of not
• 3:32
  forgetting or ignoring it, but I just don't seem to notice it
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  quite so often. So I've literally got a blank
• 3:36
  piece of paper and every single time I notice that they do
• 3:41
  something without being asked or they say please or thank you or
• 3:44
  they like I asked them to do go do something and they just do it
• 3:47
  right away or whatever. Like every single time I notice
• 3:51
  a positive behavior, I put a tally under their name and I
• 3:55
  right at the bottom the thing they did just like a little
• 3:57
  quick couple of words. And in just one day, one solid
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  24 hours of doing this, I have got like a good 10 tallies for
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  each of them of things that they have done that are 100% aligned
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  with our family values and things that make me really
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  happy. Like they've been helpful
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  towards each other or they've, like I've said, we're getting
• 4:14
  ready to go out and they've just gone and got their shoes on.
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  And it's like, OK, sometimes they do actually do these
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  things. And so actually it's a great
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  opportunity for me to see these really tiny little moments, but
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  they do actually mean quite a lot.
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  So that's my bit of gratitude this week.
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  It's an actual, really active gratitude process.
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  Do you share it with them or is it just for you?
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  I am, I am. I'm noticing it and I'm trying
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  to make a conscious effort to say like that was so great or
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  like, I think my son this morning had a look at it and he
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  was like, have I already got like 10 on there?
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  And I was just like, well, here's why look and I read out
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  some of the things at the bottom and I was like, these are some
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  of the things that I've noticed that you've been doing.
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  Like sometimes I said it, sometimes I haven't.
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  And I've, I'm just trying to, yeah, not labor on it and do
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  loads and loads of excess over the top praise, but just just
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  acknowledge it. And I think hopefully it will
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  start to shift my mindset a little bit and notice a bit more
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  and maybe make me feel like I've got to nag a bit less, maybe
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  trust them a little bit more to actually do it sometimes.
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  We'll see. We'll see how this shifts
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  things. I'll be interested to see what
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  happens in a week or two. Well.
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  They say that that kind of reinforcement of that behavior
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  also helps with, like, sibling rivalry because you're sort of
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  filling their individual cup without comparing them to the
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  other, and then they're less likely to fight because they
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  have your attention in a positive way already.
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  Yeah, that's really cool. It should all be good, really,
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  shouldn't it? And I think it's also helpful
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  for me. And something which we're
• 5:32
  definitely going to do a whole episode on, we talked about it a
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  second ago, is kind of the concept of role modelling,
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  expectations of behavior. That I think if I want them to
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  demonstrate these behaviors, I need to be doing them and
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  getting angry with them or nagging them or like for want of
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  a better word, shaming them for not doing the right thing or
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  whatever is not obviously going to role model them actually
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  doing the right thing. It's literally just going to
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  make them feel bad about themselves.
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  And essentially me highlighting it and noticing it and just
• 6:02
  saying that's great. That's exactly what I want to
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  see. Like I'm really pleased that you
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  chose to do that or I'm really pleased that you're being kind
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  or that that was such a nice way to say that.
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  Or just actually noticing that they are putting that F in helps
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  me to see that obviously some of my role modeling is working and
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  that actually I am. They are good kids and they are
• 6:19
  good people. And that's we need to see that.
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  We need to notice that it helps. Yeah, It's like not just always
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  pointing out the negative, which we always do, right, because we
• 6:28
  feel like we're correcting behavior so much or that that's
• 6:32
  not how I want to hear it. Let's try it this way.
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  But it's nice to be able to say, yes, you did it.
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  Yeah, you actually noticed the growth in that as well and the
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  fact that they're growing up and that these things will become
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  more automatic and that we are raising great people, like they
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  are really amazing little people.
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  And we do get, we do get really sloggy, don't we?
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  The world just gets really like down on us sometimes and that
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  can make us feel really negative about a lot of things.
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  So it's great to take that step towards feeling a bit brighter.
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  Yeah, my gratitude is way different.
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  Feels equally important but not life changing in the way that
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  we're raising tiny humans here. But so I have been traveling a
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  bunch and was convinced that we had soap and all this stuff from
• 7:16
  just in storage, right, that we had extras.
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  And I found out yesterday when I went to replace my dishwashing
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  soap that we didn't. And I was like, oh, I didn't
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  have time to go out. It was like late in the
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  afternoon. There was no way we were getting
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  back out. And I was just so appreciative
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  for the online order that I can do.
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  And I know there's like a lot of services out there, but I use
• 7:41
  like a subscription one for cleaning products.
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  And I was like, oh, this isn't going to come for a couple days
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  because I'm just ordering their minimum amount to get delivery
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  for free. And do you know, it was here
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  before noon. So I was just like, gosh, that,
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  that's great. I thought I would have to kind
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  of struggle with washing dishes for a couple days and like
• 8:00
  stretching out the little bit I had left to make it work.
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  And it came and I didn't even have to go out today to buy more
• 8:05
  to tie this over. Like it just was great.
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  So I'm just really thankful for these companies who I feel like
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  have to be operating at a loss to ship these products out in
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  overnight delivery. Yeah.
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  For free, but I'll take it so. No, yeah, it's always good when
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  things are quick and like when we've got an awful lot on our
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  plates and we're we're busy old people.
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  And of course, as I found myself loving that that rule inward.
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  Like I understand it's the first world problem.
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  I don't want to have to wash my dishes.
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  But actually I have got a lot on my plate right now and this is
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  not funny and I don't want to have to wash everything by hand.
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  This is going to take a lot longer and it's going to take up
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  time. But I don't really have that.
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  I'm used to being able to ultimate and I think when we get
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  used to automating things as well, like having it correct
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  back and having to do something manually actually can sometimes
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  feel like a real pain in the backside.
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  So it's yeah, that sounds great. I'm glad that it was quick and
• 8:56
  efficient for you. I, on the other hand, ordered my
• 8:58
  kids new shoes because my son's shoes were getting to the point
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  where he literally could barely keep them done up because the
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  laces literally kept snapping and snapping and snapping where
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  he's just so brutal with them. And they took three weeks.
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  Yes, that's the flip side. I feel like I've become used to
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  them. OK, All right.
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  So getting into a slump. So we're literally going to try
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  and talk about this from real, actual perspectives and
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  experiences of things that have happened that have created
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  slumps and have kind of ended up there.
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  And I think there's a few ways that these things happen.
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  So as a home educating parent, we fought a lot of anxiety
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  around consistency. I think that we want to make
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  sure that we are providing a great education for our kids all
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  the time. Can rain or shine and we can be
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  really hard on ourselves if life does life things and it gets in
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  the way and ultimately we have to remember a couple of very big
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  important things here just to start us off and that is that
• 9:54
  schools take significant amounts of weeks holiday every single
• 9:57
  year. OK, just just one thing, just to
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  clarify this very importantly, schools are only open for five
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  or six hours a day, Monday to Friday, and they are not
• 10:07
  learning the entire time. They are there and you have
• 10:10
  weekends and stuff, but they're not as necessarily doing all the
• 10:13
  director stuff. And what is it, 12 weeks, 13
• 10:15
  weeks of holiday every single year.
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  So as a home educating family, give yourself a free pass if a
• 10:22
  few months of your year are a little bit messy, please, just
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  please. Because actually, the truth of
• 10:27
  the matter is that as a full time parent who is home
• 10:31
  educating their child, chances are you are doing significantly
• 10:35
  more education with your child than they would be receiving in
• 10:39
  school, no matter how little it feels like you're doing.
• 10:42
  So just try and just come at this conversation with just that
• 10:46
  in your head, just a little bit of an affirmation there for you
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  that actually truthfully, no matter how messy life gets,
• 10:51
  chances are you're probably doing great.
• 10:53
  And this is something which I've had to have a big chat with
• 10:55
  myself about because as somebody who does struggle with
• 10:58
  neurodivergence related burnouts and we've had, we've moved house
• 11:02
  a few years ago whilst we were home educating.
• 11:04
  And I know that you've also done that recently, which we'll talk
• 11:06
  about in a second, that it takes a massive amount of your life,
• 11:10
  months of your life is spent in like appended chaos.
• 11:13
  And like we had for the joys of joys, bed bugs, Bed bugs, the
• 11:18
  bane of my life. They are taking everything we've
• 11:20
  got to get rid of the darn things.
• 11:21
  Thousands of pounds have been spent.
• 11:23
  Some weeks of decluttering and cleaning and hoovering and
• 11:26
  freezing stuff and washing stuff has happened, including all the
• 11:29
  stress and misery of that. We've had a pet die last year,
• 11:33
  which was several weeks of the gearing up to that moment and
• 11:37
  they're coming out in the side of it moment and the grief and
• 11:39
  the distraction in that that creates this is real life and so
• 11:43
  slumps for me anyway happen normally when so when something
• 11:48
  big happens. So family illness, the bedbugs
• 11:52
  moving house big stuff yes, but also if I actually get to kind
• 11:57
  of like overproductive. So I get into like when I kind
• 12:00
  of try and take on too much, we over schedule, I start trying to
• 12:03
  do too many things for the kids. I put too much pressure on them,
• 12:06
  on myself. I don't feel like we're meeting
• 12:09
  it. And I can spiral quite quickly.
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  And it's taken a lot of self work to get to the point where I
• 12:14
  can start to recognize burnout coming.
• 12:16
  And there's actually a whole episode in here somewhere to
• 12:19
  banish homemade burnout. One, there's like a workshop
• 12:21
  around this. It's this kind of concept that
• 12:23
  we tend to run at it. So when we see burnout coming,
• 12:25
  we know that people empathize with burnout.
• 12:27
  They say, oh, you've been working so hard lately,
• 12:29
  definitely deserve a break. Don't worry about it.
• 12:31
  Put your feet up so we can sometimes run at it as well.
• 12:35
  We see it coming. So we just work even harder
• 12:37
  because we're like, if I really burn myself out and nobody will
• 12:41
  judge me if we take a week off and I just say, do you know
• 12:44
  what? We've done loads lately.
• 12:45
  I'm allowed to just sit and do nothing.
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  So those are some of the main reasons I think why I tend to
• 12:50
  end up in kind of a home Ed related slumps.
• 12:53
  This is not necessarily all about home Ed, but the concept
• 12:56
  of actually the actual education part with my children can be a
• 12:59
  thing. Which unfortunately when
• 13:02
  everything else is happening, it can get quite squashed.
• 13:05
  And I don't know if you've kind of experienced this as well,
• 13:07
  that sometimes stuff does feel like it takes a precedence over
• 13:10
  sitting and doing some maths with them or taking them on a
• 13:13
  nature walk and pointing out all the animals.
• 13:14
  Like sometimes we do get to the point where just like we have
• 13:17
  got to get back to basics here a little while and ride this
• 13:20
  situation out. And and I think as home
• 13:23
  educating parents, we can feel an awful lot of stress and guilt
• 13:27
  around this. So yes, I think I'm going to
• 13:29
  like, you know, hand it over to Ashley for a second to kind of
• 13:31
  express her feelings on this as well, because kind of this
• 13:33
  coming into the initial like causing a slump, What are some
• 13:36
  of the things that you've maybe felt have done this for you as
• 13:38
  well? Yeah, definitely moving.
• 13:41
  I feel like and let me first take a step back though, and
• 13:45
  define like a slump for me, because I think that might help
• 13:48
  give a little context because sometimes it's maybe not even as
• 13:51
  big as it the word slump like implies.
• 13:54
  So it can be something as just anything that throws us off our
• 13:59
  routine and makes it hard to get back into doing like the basics
• 14:05
  or back to our routine, back into the flow of learning.
• 14:10
  Because we can be really good at doing all the walks and and
• 14:14
  going to all the things and doing the free days out at the
• 14:17
  botanical gardens and going pumpkin picking and doing all
• 14:21
  that kind of stuff. But the thing that I feel like
• 14:25
  we lose is the like math and English and maybe history and
• 14:31
  things like that, that are a tad more structured.
• 14:34
  I mean, for us a lot more structured.
• 14:36
  And probably then for some like unschoolers or deschoolers,
• 14:39
  because we are we are definitely a little more curriculum focused
• 14:42
  here. So that stuff for me is where
• 14:46
  I'm like this, this is not ideal.
• 14:49
  And that can be something as big as moving.
• 14:51
  And I felt like we moved forever and unpacking took forever.
• 14:54
  And not like you were saying, definitely felt like it took
• 14:57
  precedence because I had a really hard time sitting down to
• 15:01
  do math when I'm surrounded by boxes.
• 15:04
  And I have a partner who's saying, why isn't this done yet
• 15:08
  at your home all day long? Why aren't the boxes unpacked?
• 15:11
  And so that can feel really conflicting because on one hand,
• 15:16
  I'm like, well, no, like pretend I'm at work right now, this
• 15:19
  sacred space of like the work day.
• 15:21
  If I was at work, I wouldn't be unpacking.
• 15:23
  And this is essentially work, right?
• 15:25
  We're we're educating our kids. It's a very important job, but
• 15:29
  it's just hard to actually practice that when you're in
• 15:34
  this transitional time of life. And so I think it can be really
• 15:37
  big. But then it can also be
• 15:38
  something simple as like my mother-in-law comes to visit for
• 15:41
  a week. She's not doing anything.
• 15:43
  She's in the house, but the kids don't want to do school.
• 15:46
  Like she'll even offer like, yeah, of course, but I'll be
• 15:50
  like, OK, I'll take you one at a time.
• 15:52
  And this is great because now, you know, Nona can entertain you
• 15:57
  the other two, while I'm really focusing with the other one.
• 15:59
  Yeah, But that person doesn't want to be there.
• 16:01
  They hear the kids playing downstairs.
• 16:03
  They want to go to the puzzle. They want to go whatever.
• 16:05
  So the answer of the kinds of things, just anything that can
• 16:09
  be disruptive to the flow and like building that flexibility
• 16:16
  into your schedule can be tricky.
• 16:19
  Yeah, I think that's a really good point as well.
• 16:21
  It's kind of like what we can maybe define as a slump could
• 16:24
  feel very different to each and every one of us.
• 16:26
  And I know that I have little blips.
• 16:28
  Like for example, going camping last week where the week before
• 16:31
  it I was super stressed. It's the first time I've ever
• 16:34
  solo parented whilst also camping for seven straight days.
• 16:38
  Like, and also like not just solo parenting, but solo
• 16:41
  parenting with 14 other families.
• 16:42
  Paying attention to your parenting is just just like wow.
• 16:45
  And so I spent like the week before it getting trying very
• 16:49
  hard to get out of my own head and to stop myself from getting
• 16:53
  so stressed out that it meant that I was super distracted.
• 16:55
  And although we did do some stuff, I certainly didn't do
• 16:57
  everything that we'd normally do.
• 16:58
  And then obviously it's packing and getting everything
• 17:00
  organized. And the kids helped to pack up
• 17:03
  activities and their clothes bags and to think about the
• 17:06
  kinds of clothes we need to bring and all these things.
• 17:07
  So it's all burning and experience anyway.
• 17:10
  But ultimately it felt like I really put school down the week
• 17:13
  before I was, I was laughing earlier saying that camping with
• 17:17
  home Med friends is a bit like simply just being there to make
• 17:21
  sure they stay alive for the week.
• 17:23
  I barely had any interaction with them whatsoever.
• 17:25
  They're basically playing with their kids friends from dawn
• 17:27
  till dusk, various different activities and like amazing kind
• 17:31
  of stuff that they were doing. And we had a fantastic week.
• 17:33
  They really enjoyed themselves a lot, but it certainly isn't
• 17:36
  like, are we going to sit down and learn about this now or
• 17:39
  we're going to go on a nature walk and we all notice
• 17:41
  butterflies. They're just playing
• 17:42
  relentlessly and they're having a great time and learning so
• 17:45
  much of their own things. But then as we've come back,
• 17:47
  we're all exhausted. I've got work to catch up on,
• 17:50
  I've got house stuff to catch up on, I've got family life to
• 17:53
  catch up on. And yeah, just so many things
• 17:56
  that actually that one week camping trip has disrupted our
• 17:59
  life for what it will have done, disrupted it for like 2 1/2 to 3
• 18:02
  weeks, right? And you have to kind of this is
• 18:06
  this is what can sometimes happen.
• 18:07
  So anything that is either like a blip or like even something
• 18:10
  longer, like we've discussed in the concept of like actually
• 18:13
  where I don't know, you get a diagnosis for something and that
• 18:15
  means that you're going to be ill for several months.
• 18:18
  And that that's not, that means you're not going to have as much
• 18:20
  time or patients. You're going to have those a
• 18:21
  doctor's appointments, whatever. The reality is that we are
• 18:24
  living life with these kids that this, that home education is
• 18:28
  just a factor in it. I think one of the things which
• 18:31
  I really wanted to stress as part of this conversation is
• 18:33
  actually when we're living life, kids in school are also living
• 18:38
  life. They have got parents at home
• 18:40
  who may also get sick. They have got house moves going
• 18:43
  on. They have got parents.
• 18:44
  It's really stressed at work. They've got, I don't know, like
• 18:46
  all of the same stuff that can happen to you happens to kids in
• 18:49
  school. But ultimately, when these
• 18:52
  things happen, we sometimes think to ourselves, but I'm not
• 18:54
  focusing enough on the academic education right now, or I'm
• 18:59
  having to outsource some of it and book some classes or get a
• 19:01
  tutor to help them because I can't, I haven't got the time to
• 19:03
  sit and do it with them. Or maybe you use a forest school
• 19:06
  or a local childminder to take take them so they go somewhere
• 19:09
  and actually have someone to take care of them for a couple
• 19:11
  of days, a week, or whatever it is you end up having to do to
• 19:14
  make that work and to get through that time.
• 19:17
  And then we sit there feeling really guilty about it because
• 19:19
  we're not necessarily feeling like we're meeting their
• 19:23
  academic goals. But the truth is that in every
• 19:26
  single life situation, they are building skills and
• 19:29
  understanding and compassion and learning something that might be
• 19:35
  completely random and different, but it's still super relevant
• 19:38
  and useful for later in life when they're going to come up
• 19:42
  against these things themselves. As an adult, there's absolutely
• 19:45
  no way that your child will make it through their entire life
• 19:47
  without moving house or without having to change a bank account
• 19:50
  or without having to have a breakup with a partner or
• 19:53
  whatever, right? Like all of these things are
• 19:55
  going to happen. And actually what we forget is
• 19:58
  that a huge portion of home education for me anyway, and I
• 20:01
  really, really, I think this is very, very vitally important is.
• 20:04
  That we are learning through life and life is learning that
• 20:08
  every single thing that we do, everything counts for something.
• 20:13
  That every interaction, every conversation, every argument
• 20:17
  with their sibling where you support them and coach them
• 20:19
  through that and help them to come out the other side of it.
• 20:21
  Every single time you help them to to overcome boredom and to
• 20:25
  find something to do and to get creative and to come up with a
• 20:27
  new thing every time you're like packing up boxes to move.
• 20:30
  I can remember with my, what was then five and two year olds
• 20:33
  basically said to they're going right, We're packing boxes, but
• 20:36
  we still need to be able to lift them.
• 20:37
  So it can't be all books. It needs to be half books, half
• 20:41
  cuddlies. And so they were helping me pack
• 20:43
  boxes and they were like remembering that we don't stack
• 20:46
  them more than 3 high and like, like, what are we going to pack
• 20:50
  away now? What are we going to keep out?
• 20:52
  So that like my son was really worried about a couple of his
• 20:54
  special cuddlies, for example, he didn't want them to get lost.
• 20:57
  And so there was some things that stayed out and some things
• 20:59
  had to stay out because we're still using them up until moving
• 21:01
  day. Like stuff in the kitchen or
• 21:03
  whatever, you know, like so many things that they were getting to
• 21:06
  experience and understand and to be part of the logic puzzle of.
• 21:09
  And like helping to write labels and boxes and all kinds of stuff
• 21:14
  that is all kinds of incredible learning and practice that still
• 21:17
  actually feeds into the academic goals to some degree as well.
• 21:21
  We just don't always realize it. We don't always see that.
• 21:23
  And so I've always found that in the moments that feel and, and
• 21:27
  also let's like really touch on moments when I was like in
• 21:29
  serious burnout, because I've had a couple of kind of ADHD
• 21:32
  related severe burnout processes where I've I've basically been
• 21:36
  almost bed bound for a couple of weeks, crying all the time.
• 21:39
  No patients really, really struggling.
• 21:42
  But in those moments, what I have found myself needing to do
• 21:44
  is to delegate a little bit more to actually expect somebody else
• 21:48
  to step up and support a little bit.
• 21:49
  At the end of the day, we're not one person.
• 21:51
  Some, some of us obviously, I appreciate might be single
• 21:53
  parents, except they might have very limited family and friends.
• 21:56
  An opportunity to get support and serious hats off to those of
• 21:59
  you who have to fight and fight and fight through these moments.
• 22:01
  And I hope that you do manage to find some way of supporting
• 22:04
  yourself in these moments. And if you really do just have
• 22:06
  to say, you know what, we're just going to take a couple
• 22:08
  weeks and we're just not going to worry about it at all, then
• 22:10
  fine. Like pick it up when if we're
• 22:12
  ready to pick it up. But ultimately, if in those
• 22:16
  moments you have got any ability to delegate, book an online
• 22:19
  class, send them to a drop off thing like sit and just let them
• 22:23
  look at a book with you or watch a movie with them or watch a
• 22:27
  documentary with them or like doing whatever you feel you can
• 22:31
  do is enough in those moments. It is because you're teaching
• 22:37
  them independence. You're teaching them how to cope
• 22:40
  with that difficult situation. I think it's just trying to
• 22:43
  remember that there's, there's so many amazing things happening
• 22:46
  in those difficult times. And I guess I just wanted to
• 22:48
  really emphasize that it's, it's a tough one.
• 22:52
  Yeah. And I think we've all
• 22:53
  experienced or we know someone that's experienced like a period
• 22:57
  of time when there's a restriction to their abilities,
• 23:01
  whether it's something happened to them personally or to their
• 23:04
  family or just like we were saying with moving, right,
• 23:07
  something that's external, but obviously impacting you.
• 23:10
  And I think that for me right now, we are coming off of two
• 23:15
  months of traveling. The traveling was amazing.
• 23:18
  We did so much. It's not like we stopped school,
• 23:21
  not like we stopped learning, but we did.
• 23:23
  We didn't bring any of our textbooks with us, if you will.
• 23:27
  We weren't doing written work or any kind of formal education, I
• 23:33
  would say. And it was awesome.
• 23:35
  But we now are coming back and we're home and trying to get
• 23:41
  together. And like, I think it was my mom
• 23:43
  who said, oh, so you're starting school on Monday And we got back
• 23:46
  home on Sunday. And I was like, well, no, that
• 23:49
  would be pretty amazing. I don't think so Would I would
• 23:53
  love to like in a perfect world where I had a lot of help with
• 23:57
  like people like if I don't have to do a thing in my house, that
• 24:01
  would be great. Yeah.
• 24:02
  No. So we what we did to kind of
• 24:04
  start off was just get back into the classes that were still
• 24:09
  going on. So in America, school and Italy,
• 24:13
  schools have been broken up for quite a while.
• 24:15
  But here in England, we got back just in time to catch the tail
• 24:18
  end of the last term. So there were some things still
• 24:22
  happening. So we just did that.
• 24:24
  Our outdoor meet up meets all year round.
• 24:27
  So we're able to do that, which is great.
• 24:29
  So we sort of stepped into our first week back.
• 24:32
  This is now our second week back that we're recording this.
• 24:35
  Our first week back, we just dealt with all the household
• 24:38
  stuff that had to be done when you're away from your house for
• 24:40
  two months, which included a lot of cleaning and cobwebs and
• 24:44
  things like that. And then dipping out, seeing
• 24:48
  friends, doing what we could for that.
• 24:51
  And then now we are officially done with everything except
• 24:56
  maybe a couple summer activities.
• 24:58
  So I am saying we're going to use this time now where nothing
• 25:02
  is happening without any clubs going on with anything like that
• 25:05
  because it's all shut down for the six weeks, seven weeks of
• 25:07
  summer that's here in England. So we're going to take this time
• 25:11
  to really focus on getting our routine back from an academic
• 25:15
  perspective. So it's, it's so easy for us to
• 25:19
  want to go and see friends, especially when we suddenly have
• 25:22
  a very open calendar. But I want to commit us to
• 25:27
  working to get back to our routine because it is a bigger
• 25:30
  year for us academically. My oldest is getting to the
• 25:34
  point where work is a little bit more serious.
• 25:37
  She does need to do a little bit more for, and this is just our
• 25:40
  own, you know, kind of like personal goals for her.
• 25:43
  I'm not saying that everyone her age needs to do what she's
• 25:46
  doing, but we do have a couple things we want her to achieve
• 25:49
  and accomplish. So, and I got this advice from a
• 25:54
  person I follow who homeschools, I think like 5 or 6 children on
• 25:59
  Instagram. And she always says, and she is
• 26:02
  of this is, you know, speaking to my curriculum followers out
• 26:05
  there, she always says that when she starts the new school year,
• 26:08
  which is typically for them in September, August or September,
• 26:11
  she commits to six weeks of the school term before they do any
• 26:17
  kind of break. So before there's any kind of
• 26:19
  holiday or time off, anything like that, they commit to six
• 26:24
  weeks of the schedule. Because then what she's found is
• 26:27
  that after that, if they do have a week vacation or someone has a
• 26:32
  dance recital or whatever that they're, they're thrown off
• 26:35
  their schedule. They it's easier for them to
• 26:38
  come back to it once they've built that solid foundation of
• 26:42
  six weeks. And so I think that's what we're
• 26:44
  going to aim for right now on to kind of get us back on track is
• 26:49
  6 weeks of committing to what we're going to do week by week.
• 26:53
  You know, doesn't not saying it has to happen like, you know, at
• 26:55
  six O 5, this happens in 610, this happens like not that
• 26:58
  strict, but just these are the things we want to do 3 lessons
• 27:02
  in math, 4 lessons in English or whatever that looks like each
• 27:06
  week and making sure that we do that.
• 27:09
  Because I have a feeling that especially because I tend to be
• 27:14
  way more flexible than my children.
• 27:17
  I don't thrive on a schedule that is very routinely.
• 27:20
  Like it's hard for me to say I wake up every day at this time,
• 27:24
  I exercise at this time, I have lunch at this time.
• 27:27
  We just like that. That does not work for me.
• 27:30
  I like to be a little more fluid.
• 27:32
  It is absolutely what works for my kids though.
• 27:34
  So my kids have to have that routine for them to be
• 27:39
  successful. So I'm trying very hard to give
• 27:42
  them that space. So committing to myself even to
• 27:46
  be a little bit more scheduled and kind of on point for these
• 27:49
  first six weeks. Now we do school all year long
• 27:54
  because we do travel quite a bit.
• 27:57
  And it allows me to never have to worry like you were
• 28:00
  mentioning before about like if you have to take a couple weeks
• 28:03
  because you're burnt out or if you have to do something that
• 28:06
  that is so important. And I, when I first started
• 28:09
  homeschooling, I took the summer off because that was just the
• 28:13
  habit. And so we did take a summer off
• 28:16
  and then when we started back in September and suddenly there's a
• 28:21
  work trip that we're able to go on with my husband.
• 28:24
  And so we're missing school for that.
• 28:25
  And then my parents came to visit.
• 28:27
  And so there's two weeks that we're not really getting school
• 28:29
  done. And then then it's the holidays
• 28:31
  and then suddenly you're like, Oh my gosh, I need to get like,
• 28:35
  I'm, I'm behind in terms of like number of days you've been
• 28:37
  schooling, if that's something that is important or you have to
• 28:40
  track, which I know in the states, a lot of states do
• 28:43
  require you to do that. So for me, it just made more
• 28:46
  sense for us to school all year long and then let those breaks
• 28:51
  come. And this year we had more of
• 28:54
  like a formal summer because we traveled back-to-back to the
• 28:56
  States and to Italy. But typically we don't do that.
• 28:59
  And so we might find that we're in Italy for three weeks in
• 29:04
  January. And so it's important for us
• 29:06
  that we school up until Christmas, whereas like some
• 29:10
  people might only school until the first or second week of
• 29:13
  December and then take like a big break, especially if you're
• 29:16
  following like an Italian calendar, they have a really big
• 29:19
  Christmas break as compared to or like winter break, I would
• 29:22
  say, as compared to Americans. So we just keep schooling.
• 29:26
  And then if we have a need, whatever that looks like,
• 29:30
  emotional, physical, whatever, Mom has the flu, no, mom needs
• 29:35
  just sit and have a cup of coffee for a day and take a
• 29:38
  break. Like we can do that because we
• 29:40
  know we don't have the pressure of like, Oh my gosh, we're only
• 29:43
  at 160 days and we're supposed to be at 180 days.
• 29:46
  Yeah. Because that there are states in
• 29:48
  America where that is something that you have to report.
• 29:50
  And so, you know, it's, you know, and we I just do it just
• 29:54
  to have the idea. But like, it's something that
• 29:57
  you don't want to stress about and you can't create more time
• 29:59
  so. No, and I think the truth is
• 30:01
  that you will have those days, won't you?
• 30:03
  Where you do just need to say, I know this is what we're supposed
• 30:06
  to be doing today, but I just really can't do it.
• 30:08
  Like I'm, I'm just absolutely shattered.
• 30:10
  I need to go and have a lie down or I need to just sit a much
• 30:13
  better TV and chill today or I need to work all day.
• 30:16
  Like something comes up for work and you've just got to do it or
• 30:19
  you need to make the money. And this is important for us to
• 30:21
  be able to have these great days around it.
• 30:23
  And I think a lot of people, I guess listening to this may be
• 30:25
  thinking, oh, this is an evidence as to why home
• 30:27
  educators shouldn't be doing it because like life gets in the
• 30:31
  way and like it, it takes up all your time.
• 30:33
  And actually that the argument that obviously this is a full
• 30:35
  time commitment. You need to be giving them 30
• 30:37
  hours of schooling a week and all that nonsense.
• 30:38
  And it's like what we have got to remember is that legally as
• 30:41
  home educators, we are responsible for offering a full
• 30:44
  time education that is appropriate for the age and
• 30:47
  aptitude of your child. Now, that is not specific to an
• 30:51
  amount of hours. It is not specific to amount of
• 30:53
  subjects or to the curriculum or to what that actually looks
• 30:56
  like. And ultimately you get to decide
• 30:59
  as a parent what that full time age and aptitude related like
• 31:03
  education actually looks like. And like I would say, so I'm
• 31:06
  just going to try and do like a quick loadout of what a day
• 31:08
  might look like for us. Because actually I think it's
• 31:10
  really important to kind of just just to clarify this a little
• 31:12
  bit in terms of time. So I spent so trying to get up
• 31:15
  this morning. I was going to try and do today
• 31:17
  as a prime example, because I am, I've been working for about
• 31:21
  10:00 until what time is now 3. So essentially what I did this
• 31:24
  morning, I got up, I went downstairs, we had got
• 31:27
  breakfast, we had like they made their own breakfast.
• 31:29
  So that there that's education, that is social, emotional,
• 31:33
  taking care of yourself, but practical like day-to-day stuff,
• 31:37
  getting themselves food, preparing food counts getting
• 31:39
  themselves washed and dressed counts them sitting and playing
• 31:43
  and having a collaborative conversation with their sister
• 31:45
  at the table counts that social well-being.
• 31:47
  Those are skills. Those are important things.
• 31:49
  I then started making breakfast. They helped me get the
• 31:51
  ingredients out to make pancakes.
• 31:53
  Then they were my son was sat on the kitchen side with me whilst
• 31:56
  I got ChatGPT to make me a 20 question long quiz for maths
• 32:01
  logic puzzles, alternating key stage one key stage 2 for them
• 32:04
  so they can obviously have appropriate questions and we did
• 32:06
  all 20 questions. They really enjoyed and we're
• 32:08
  happy doing that. Whilst doing that my son was
• 32:11
  having trouble blurting out the answers because it's a a really
• 32:13
  fun ADHD trait. Which led to a conversation of a
• 32:16
  a technique that someone has shown me the day in terms of
• 32:19
  helping them to blurt out the answers.
• 32:21
  AKA whisper into closed hands or write it on a piece of paper and
• 32:24
  show me so that he doesn't have to say it out loud and ruin my
• 32:27
  daughter's opportunity to try and actually work out the maths
• 32:29
  puzzle. So this has been from what I
• 32:31
  think. I went downstairs at about 7:45
• 32:34
  and this by the time I'd finished making breakfast we'd
• 32:36
  finished doing our maths puzzles.
• 32:38
  Then we did 10 spelling words out loud each and I came up to
• 32:41
  work at 10. So that is from 8:00 until 10
• 32:45
  has been maths, spelling conversations around ADHD and
• 32:50
  techniques and coping, social emotional skills, physical
• 32:54
  ability to like personal Wellness, preparing foods,
• 32:57
  understanding that kind of thing.
• 32:58
  And probably half a dozen other conversations in between that
• 33:01
  were totally related to education in some way.
• 33:04
  So that is almost two hours worth of education that's
• 33:08
  happened already. When I'm done recording this
• 33:10
  episode with with my my lovely friend here, I'm going to take
• 33:13
  them out to walk the dog where we will be continuing the
• 33:16
  training of the dog. That is education where we'll be
• 33:18
  playing at the park. That's physical education.
• 33:20
  That's like just doing PE in the afternoons.
• 33:22
  We might socialize with some of the kids whilst we're there
• 33:24
  because at this point the kids will be out of school and
• 33:26
  they'll be there or they probably all are anyway now, but
• 33:28
  like there'll be other kids there for them to play with.
• 33:30
  Then we'll come home. We'll probably discuss the
• 33:32
  Minecraft that they've been doing this morning because we're
• 33:34
  making, we're doing a how things are made topic right now.
• 33:36
  So I asked him to make me a Redstone factory.
• 33:38
  I'm going to see what it is they managed to create this morning
• 33:40
  whilst playing on Minecraft whilst I've been doing some
• 33:42
  work. So in all seriousness, I have
• 33:45
  worked most of the day. I don't necessarily feel that
• 33:47
  accomplished right now, but just reflecting on that.
• 33:50
  Right at. The end of the day, we'll do
• 33:52
  some reading at bedtime. We'll probably chat about
• 33:55
  something random over dinner. We've made a jar of conversation
• 33:57
  topics for dinner time to try and have some random
• 33:59
  conversations because I get sick of the squabbling over like, I
• 34:02
  don't like broccoli and I don't want to eat dinner and can I go
• 34:04
  downstairs? And so I'm just like, I've made
• 34:05
  a jar of interesting conversation questions like I
• 34:08
  don't know, would you rather have spaghetti or hair or sweat
• 34:11
  mobile syrup or some other random thing?
• 34:12
  Or if you're going to travel the world, how would you travel by
• 34:15
  boat, by airplane, by horse? Like what would you do?
• 34:18
  So like just just silly conversations to be having which
• 34:20
  will help with vocabulary and exploring concepts and ideas and
• 34:23
  using imagination. All the other right?
• 34:25
  So just guys, seriously, just listen to this.
• 34:27
  You are living your life. Chances are you will be doing
• 34:30
  all of these things or having a bit of fun with your kids, your
• 34:32
  habits. Stack your way through the day.
• 34:34
  Doing a little bit of chatting in the car about something,
• 34:36
  giving them a fun pop quiz whilst you're just preparing
• 34:38
  dinner, getting them to help you prepare a meal, watching them
• 34:41
  playing with their sibling and all of the skills that come with
• 34:44
  that process. Whatever it is, they are
• 34:46
  learning, OK, they are learning and all of these things link
• 34:50
  together and actually create in a full and entire full time of
• 34:52
  education. And I know that my kids would
• 34:54
  have had several hours of downtime today where they
• 34:56
  probably just watched cartoons, but they love things like wild
• 34:59
  craps and like they love watching a documentary and all
• 35:03
  sorts of stuff. So like actually there's a good
• 35:04
  chance that they've also educated themselves looking at
• 35:07
  that. Or my son chats to Alexa and
• 35:09
  asks it a bazillion questions every day.
• 35:11
  Should look through our history. It's hilarious.
• 35:12
  Like he gets an idea in his head and he asks it loads of
• 35:14
  questions to like our children can independently be learning an
• 35:18
  awful lot. And sure, I mean, don't get me
• 35:19
  wrong, semi chaotic. It's not necessarily perfect.
• 35:23
  It is a bit rough around the edges.
• 35:25
  It is maybe a bit rushed sometimes.
• 35:26
  It is kind of squished into something else sometimes.
• 35:29
  But actually that doesn't mean that it's not useful.
• 35:33
  And it does add and add and add to each other and eventually
• 35:35
  turns into a fully formed thing. And I kind of go by a metaphor
• 35:39
  of if you imagine them like an empty jar, but not necessarily
• 35:42
  fully empty when you're born. Obviously we have our instincts,
• 35:44
  but they start off as some things that go into that jar are
• 35:47
  grains of sand, some of them are pebbles, some of them are big
• 35:51
  old stones. Depending on the kind of
• 35:52
  conversations, the places you go, the stuff that becomes a
• 35:54
  really transformative moment. You go to like Warwick Castle
• 35:57
  and they massively get into Knights and Dragons.
• 35:58
  And now they're obsessed and they learn everything there is
• 36:00
  to know about that subject or whether that is just a fun day
• 36:03
  out. And it adds a few sprinkles of
• 36:05
  sand in there about Knights and medieval times that gets added
• 36:08
  to something else another day and something else another day.
• 36:10
  But it it doesn't look like it makes a lot of sense sometimes.
• 36:14
  But actually that jar is going to get filled regardless.
• 36:17
  And yes, OK, we want them to eventually be able to put that
• 36:21
  in a direction and make some money or like take care of
• 36:23
  themselves or have a house. And of course we're going to
• 36:25
  want to try and like refine some of these skills eventually.
• 36:28
  But ultimately, if you are going through a hard time, and that's
• 36:30
  what we're talking about today, if you are going through a
• 36:32
  period where actually everything is on its head and you are
• 36:36
  feeling really rubbish and you're getting really angry with
• 36:38
  yourself because it feels like you haven't done enough
• 36:40
  concentrated, like this is what we're doing next.
• 36:42
  This is how we should be progressing, then actually just
• 36:44
  stop and test. Take a minute to look at your
• 36:47
  chaotic, messy day and think what have they actually been
• 36:50
  learning? And if you can't think, if you
• 36:52
  can't look at that and see it, then write it all into ChatGPT.
• 36:55
  I dare you just say this is what we've done today.
• 36:58
  Can you please tell me what bits of the national curriculum have
• 37:01
  actually covered? And you'll be shocked every
• 37:03
  single day, no matter how rubbish that day has looked.
• 37:06
  Like seriously, if they've sat on watch telly all day long,
• 37:09
  just put the programs and sorts of things they've been watching.
• 37:11
  And if just honestly, please, because you will see it, you'll
• 37:14
  see how much amazingness is actually happening in that.
• 37:17
  And it will help to reassure you that we can have days when it
• 37:20
  doesn't look that productive. It doesn't matter it all, it all
• 37:23
  comes around again. Like, so like I'll have days
• 37:26
  where they'll have my full attention for the whole day.
• 37:28
  We'll go somewhere, we'll do loads of great stuff whilst
• 37:31
  we're there. We'll read loads of stuff.
• 37:32
  We'll do a worksheet, we'll we'll do some reinforcement
• 37:34
  learning in the days after it. And I'll like really hit out the
• 37:37
  park because we do, we have weeks when these things feel
• 37:40
  really easeful and fun and exciting and we're feeling
• 37:42
  inspired and it's all great. And those weeks in my opinion,
• 37:45
  carry me over like I know that they happen and when I do, I
• 37:49
  just like meant to go bank that week.
• 37:51
  That week was epic. We did so much.
• 37:53
  So actually in the weeks when it isn't going so great and we do
• 37:56
  very, very little. And I feel really stressed about
• 37:59
  it. I know that I have backed up
• 38:01
  with a week that's got a lot better somewhere else.
• 38:03
  And truthfully, this flexibility is meant to be the point.
• 38:07
  It's meant to be part of the joy of home education.
• 38:10
  And we can't allow it to become something we beat ourselves up
• 38:12
  with because it's not fair to any of us.
• 38:15
  And I just really feel like that's, I definitely feel like
• 38:17
  I'm like preaching to myself right now.
• 38:19
  Stop beating yourself up for it because it's not fair.
• 38:22
  We all work incredibly hard and I think that we're all doing an
• 38:25
  incredible thing for our kids. So I guess that moves us lastly
• 38:28
  on to really, I guess how we pick ourselves back up and out.
• 38:31
  So when these things do start to happen and we do get a bit
• 38:34
  swamped, obviously making a commitment and saying right,
• 38:37
  that's it, we just need to get on with it.
• 38:38
  We're just going to make it happen.
• 38:39
  I think also from my perspective, what I sometimes
• 38:42
  allow myself to do is to be quite gradual.
• 38:44
  Like, well, like you said about like one week is one week is
• 38:47
  hardly anything. The next week is getting back to
• 38:49
  groups and clubs. The next week is right.
• 38:51
  We're going to start doing some more curriculum based stuff now.
• 38:53
  So gradually, gradually go gently with yourself and build
• 38:56
  it back in. Because then also it doesn't
• 38:57
  feel so jarring for them either. Yes.
• 39:00
  But also, I think it's also an opportunity to notice if you're
• 39:03
  sitting there looking at what you're supposed to be getting
• 39:06
  back to, the kids don't want to do it, you don't want to do it.
• 39:10
  Everyone's feeling really negative about it.
• 39:13
  It's boring. Don't want to like, can't we do
• 39:16
  something else? Then maybe just just as another
• 39:19
  little controversial flip onto this conversation, maybe it's
• 39:21
  not supposed to look like that for your family.
• 39:24
  There's that argument as well. But actually, okay, this is a
• 39:27
  curriculum that we want to cover, but do we have to cover
• 39:30
  it at home or could I find a way to cover it in a different way?
• 39:34
  Or could we go and join another club or group that actually
• 39:37
  everyone is going to really enjoy doing, but that will tick
• 39:39
  that box off. My kids, for example, really
• 39:41
  enjoy like online maths games. They do all kinds of different
• 39:45
  ones actually, But we, we do sometimes use like these AI
• 39:48
  maths tutors, synthesis and elephant learning and all the
• 39:51
  rest of it, which kind of assess where they're at.
• 39:53
  And then it, it helps them to carry on explaining the concepts
• 39:56
  to them, playing little games with them.
• 39:58
  And we get bored of them eventually that they never stick
• 40:00
  with an app for very long. But it just like gives them
• 40:03
  something that's a little bit more structured for a little
• 40:05
  while and then we, we move on to a different one and we try
• 40:07
  something else. There's plenty out there to keep
• 40:09
  trying, but I sometimes find if we are in one of those slumps
• 40:12
  and it's maybe one that's. Been triggered by mental health
• 40:14
  or sort of an imbalance in work and home Ed, or maybe the
• 40:19
  subject we're doing has just gotten a bit stale and boring
• 40:21
  and just not enjoying it very much.
• 40:23
  That these are just a great opportunity to reflect and to
• 40:25
  adjust and to kind of say, okay, how did we get here?
• 40:29
  What is it that actually needs to change?
• 40:31
  And basically the goal for me and will always be is I feel
• 40:35
  like it's an endless game is to keep readjusting and just
• 40:38
  tweaking and tweaking and tweaking until we're living a
• 40:41
  life that we don't feel like we need to take a break from that
• 40:44
  actually, the learning is happening.
• 40:46
  We're having a great time. Everyone's feeling reasonably
• 40:49
  inspired. Most of the time we're not using
• 40:51
  screens too much. We're outside and we're seeing
• 40:53
  people, we're doing things that we're enjoying.
• 40:55
  My work is happening, I'm setting good boundaries and
• 40:59
  actually then all the stuff gets ticked off with hardly any
• 41:02
  stress at all. And I think that is the goal for
• 41:04
  me constantly. It's hilarious.
• 41:06
  I feel like I'm like asking for the Holy Grail or something.
• 41:08
  But I do feel like we do it a lot of the time these days.
• 41:11
  I do feel like most weeks there is enough balance for me to feel
• 41:15
  like I'm like playing whack a mole in a reasonably high
• 41:19
  scoring way. But I don't know, like I think
• 41:21
  that there's there's something to be said for, for me anyway,
• 41:23
  when we get a bit stuck, when everything feels a bit rubbish
• 41:25
  and a bit slumpy and we're a bit fed up that actually sometimes
• 41:28
  it's stopping and saying why isn't this serving us?
• 41:31
  Why have we ended up in burnout? Is it because we're going out
• 41:33
  too much? Is it because we're not?
• 41:35
  Is it because we're not going out enough?
• 41:38
  Is it because we're when we do go out, we're going to big group
• 41:40
  sessions and actually that's really stressing everybody out.
• 41:42
  Maybe we need to go and do some more quiet, just us time out,
• 41:46
  whatever it might be. So just take take stock for a
• 41:48
  minute. And I think that's what I tend
• 41:49
  to have to do. And yeah, I always, I often feel
• 41:52
  like a change of subject really helps.
• 41:54
  Just just a change of subject. That's my number.
• 41:56
  One way I think of getting myself back up and out of
• 41:59
  feeling a bit is to say, come on kids, what should we learn about
• 42:03
  next? I'm done with oceans.
• 42:04
  I'm bored, should do something else.
• 42:05
  And they're like, yeah, I'm bored too, Let's do something
• 42:07
  else. And it inspires all of us.
• 42:08
  And then it's sort of naturally creates this urge to do more and
• 42:14
  to start coming up with ideas of things we wanna do.
• 42:16
  And then then I get caught up in the inspiration of it.
• 42:19
  But is there anything else that helps you?
• 42:21
  I feel like I'm I'm trying to think what else helps me in
• 42:24
  those moments. Taking care of myself,
• 42:26
  self-care, that always helps. Yeah.
• 42:28
  I think one of the things that we haven't mentioned yet, I
• 42:31
  think we've implied it, we're not specifically called out, is
• 42:33
  that sometimes it's not us that needs the mental health day,
• 42:36
  sometimes it's our kids. So sometimes like the slump can
• 42:40
  also be like a couple of consecutive days of them just
• 42:44
  not feeling it for whatever reason, growth spurt, you know,
• 42:50
  influx of preteen feelings, missed naps as like one of your,
• 42:55
  you know, your younger children is transitioning, you know, in
• 42:58
  that toddler phase. And that can impact other
• 43:01
  people, right? Someone's you easily see how
• 43:03
  someone's bad mood in the morning can impact everyone in
• 43:07
  the family if you let it. And so I think that that's
• 43:11
  something just to to mention, because I was thinking that and
• 43:13
  I was like, gosh, it's a lot of times it's us, but it's not
• 43:16
  always us, right? And, and there's not much we
• 43:18
  can, we can always do about that.
• 43:20
  So I think that one of the things that you were just
• 43:22
  mentioning too, though, about it being flexible and looking
• 43:27
  different and all of that just reinforces that saying that like
• 43:32
  homeschool is not school at home, right?
• 43:34
  So just because you're home educated doesn't mean you have
• 43:36
  to replicate the public education system in your
• 43:39
  household. And in fact, I don't think very
• 43:42
  many do, but I'm sure there are some out there.
• 43:44
  But it can look different and part of the beauty of it is the
• 43:48
  ability to easily change. And this is going to be like a
• 43:51
  stretch, but stick with me. So when I was looking at
• 43:56
  birthing options for my first time, we lived in Denver and I
• 44:01
  was looking at like a hospital and then I was looking at like
• 44:04
  birthing centers and one of the birthing centers, the leader was
• 44:08
  saying like this. And I'm not, I don't know
• 44:10
  specifically, but I'll give you the gist of it.
• 44:12
  I guess at some point there was like a gas or substance used in
• 44:17
  hospitals to help women in labor and they had opposite the
• 44:22
  birthing centers as well. And then there was all this
• 44:24
  information that came out about how it's actually not very good
• 44:27
  for mom or baby and so you shouldn't really use it.
• 44:30
  So she's like, So what do I do? I go and I switch it off.
• 44:33
  But the hospitals, because of all the structure and the
• 44:35
  procedures that they have to follow, even though this
• 44:38
  legislation or the data, this research came out and it's peer
• 44:41
  reviewed and it's everything is all that, but it still takes
• 44:44
  time to trickle down to actually get removed from the the
• 44:48
  birthing centers. So she's like, where is the,
• 44:51
  because we're small, because we're a birthing center, we can
• 44:54
  always be on the edge of the latest and greatest research
• 44:58
  that's coming out. Whereas these bigger
• 45:01
  institutions that have to go through regulations and all this
• 45:04
  stuff, it takes it longer to get things updated.
• 45:07
  And I think that if you can stick with me for that kind of
• 45:12
  analogy and say, OK, now for homeschool, when we see that
• 45:15
  something's not working for a child, we can quickly switch.
• 45:18
  You know, and I'm not saying that when you shouldn't
• 45:20
  persevere through some things because obviously you know your
• 45:24
  kid and you know, if it's truly not working or if it's just a
• 45:26
  bad day. But we struggled with finding
• 45:29
  the right reading program for my oldest.
• 45:32
  And once we did, it was amazing, but we had tried a couple
• 45:36
  different things and it just, you know, at first, like, isn't
• 45:38
  my kid just not learn how to read?
• 45:40
  Like, is this like a developmental, like a learning
• 45:42
  disability? What is it?
• 45:43
  And it was, it was strictly A methodology and it was finding
• 45:46
  the right one that she responded to.
• 45:48
  And once we did it, things took off.
• 45:50
  And I thought, well, if she was in school and they only taught
• 45:53
  it the one way, she just would be suffering and hating life and
• 45:57
  miserable and crying every day. So I think you with homeschool,
• 46:00
  with home educating, you have this ability to easily change.
• 46:04
  So don't be afraid to do that. And I've never like heard of a
• 46:09
  kid that hates that doesn't want to learn.
• 46:12
  Like all kids want to learn. They, they do it intuitively,
• 46:15
  they naturally learn and that's how they walk and talk and, and
• 46:18
  all of that, right? So they, they all want to learn.
• 46:21
  So if we're having trouble, if we're in that slump or it just
• 46:24
  feels like nothing is taking like maybe we do just need to
• 46:26
  find a different a different approach.
• 46:29
  But I know like for us this year specifically, like what's
• 46:32
  happening right now that led to this conversation we were having
• 46:35
  is we've been on for so long, it naturally feels like the right
• 46:40
  time. We finished some curriculum and
• 46:42
  in this, I guess late spring, early summer when we did our
• 46:45
  travels. So we're kind of coming back and
• 46:47
  it feels like a new grade level or starting new curriculum or
• 46:51
  starting new topics. So while I'm still planning and
• 46:56
  flushing all that out, I'm simultaneously starting them
• 46:59
  like you were saying, gradually I'm just like little workbooks
• 47:02
  and stuff. So just to say like, let's do a
• 47:04
  page of math today. And these are little ones, you
• 47:06
  know, you get from the like the bookstores, like different type.
• 47:10
  I found one that's multiplication mazes.
• 47:15
  So as you solve multiplication problem, you work the right way
• 47:18
  through the maze and it's like a book of that.
• 47:21
  I'm like, this is great, this is fun.
• 47:22
  My kids love that kind of stuff. And it's reinforcing
• 47:25
  multiplication. So everyone needs that.
• 47:27
  Like let's get it, let's see how fast you can get through the
• 47:29
  maze or whatever. Yeah, initially it'll just be
• 47:33
  just be for fun. So I think those kinds of things
• 47:37
  will ease us into it. And then by the time I have my
• 47:40
  act together, by the time I have got our plan down, they'll
• 47:44
  hopefully be back in the groove and in the habit of doing some
• 47:48
  work each day. That's the thing, I think if you
• 47:50
  kind of build things up gradually as well, I'm like if
• 47:52
  things have kind of like dropped away and you haven't been doing
• 47:55
  a lot of it, but actually taking that time to just gradually just
• 47:57
  eke it back in, it means that they don't have that big knee
• 48:00
  jerk like, Oh no, you're making me sit down for two hours or
• 48:03
  something horrendous. Like a little 5 minutes here, a
• 48:07
  little 5 minutes there. And again, depending on age, 5
• 48:09
  minutes on something is totally appropriate.
• 48:11
  Like that. Actually, even in school, a lot
• 48:14
  of schools will not be expecting 2nd 5678 year old to be SAT for
• 48:18
  any longer than like 5 or 10 minutes working on a math sheet
• 48:21
  or something. Like anything longer than that
• 48:23
  and they'll be expecting them to get fidgety and not want to do
• 48:25
  it anymore and to walk away and to not finish it.
• 48:27
  So actually it's sometimes in terms it helps to understand the
• 48:31
  level of of how much actual sit down education is happening in
• 48:34
  schools every single day to kind of really remind you.
• 48:37
  That actually, yeah. It's nowhere near as much as you
• 48:40
  think. And I think ultimately you, your
• 48:42
  kids in school are probably going to be doing, I don't know.
• 48:45
  I mean, you think they get there at what, 8:45 get in, get
• 48:48
  registered, get sat down, go to assembly, come back to the
• 48:51
  classroom, sit down, start actual lessons is probably what
• 48:53
  like 93945? Like, I don't even know, like,
• 48:56
  so like 10 until 10:30 is something.
• 48:59
  And then they're going out for a run around and they come back
• 49:02
  here and they do another like hour where it's going to be
• 49:04
  getting in, settle back down, find your pencil case, do a
• 49:06
  thing. 15 minutes of a worksheet.
• 49:08
  OK, now it's lunchtime. So like actually there's an
• 49:11
  awful lot of time spent in schools in a day that is just
• 49:14
  transferring from one activity to the next, getting organized
• 49:17
  and getting prepared, listening to the teacher talk and then
• 49:20
  doing like 10 minutes of actively participating and doing
• 49:22
  something yourself. There's an awful lot of waiting
• 49:24
  around, an awful lot of like queuing and focus on that.
• 49:26
  So at the end of the day, the truth is that that's why they're
• 49:29
  coming home with homework and extra reading and stuff is
• 49:32
  because like they need parents to sit and do some of that one
• 49:35
  to one time with them because there is only so much time
• 49:37
  actually available to them to do focus education with them during
• 49:40
  the day without losing their focus.
• 49:41
  Like you're going to have an absolute like up for on your
• 49:44
  hands. If you've got young kids being
• 49:46
  forced to sit there for a whole hour doing maths worksheets,
• 49:48
  they're never going to do it. And so trying to remember that
• 49:50
  and trying to remember that you're not expected to do that
• 49:52
  either. And if you have got any local
• 49:54
  authorities making you feel like you should be, then they need,
• 49:56
  they need a short sharp word, but make sure you explain how
• 50:00
  unrealistic that is. But also that like maths can be
• 50:02
  done by gardening, it can be done by baking.
• 50:04
  Like there's so many different things we can be doing that if
• 50:06
  it's not working one way, then just approach it a different
• 50:09
  way. And I know that sounds so easy
• 50:11
  and sometimes just have that headspace is hard to to be
• 50:15
  creative, to come up with something else.
• 50:16
  And so that's where things like AI are your friends.
• 50:18
  That's where following people who are creative and come up
• 50:20
  with these things is your friend or using an online shooter or an
• 50:23
  online game or just going on the BBC website and just letting
• 50:26
  them watch games and play things on that.
• 50:28
  Like they are going to be picking up the skills one way or
• 50:30
  another. And I'm like, we don't do an
• 50:32
  awful lot of structured curriculum.
• 50:33
  And my son this week we were doing some pop up like just
• 50:36
  random math questions in the car.
• 50:38
  They were they were fighting in the cards with perfectly honest
• 50:40
  about it. They were squabbling and it was
• 50:42
  doom heading. And so I distracted them by and
• 50:44
  to fire maths questions at them and they, they find that sort of
• 50:46
  stuff really fun, mental out loud.
• 50:48
  They love writing it down. It's like you're trying to talk
• 50:50
  to me. But ultimately I was asking my
• 50:53
  son some like subtraction questions.
• 50:56
  And I started off relatively easy and I like upped the ante
• 50:59
  and I was like, OK, what's 200 Take away 53.
• 51:02
  And he was like 147 like within seconds.
• 51:06
  I'm just like, did you just do that immediately?
• 51:09
  Like this is crazy. And so I think I chucked loads
• 51:12
  at him after that to see if he could catch him out.
• 51:14
  And he got every single one right.
• 51:16
  And I'm. So they made them really kind of
• 51:17
  quite complex. And I was just like, OK, all
• 51:20
  right, this is exciting. This means that you have fully
• 51:22
  grasped the number bonds because you actually 100% know like 3 +
• 51:27
  7 is 10 and like in and you're scaling it up now.
• 51:30
  So like now you're, you're really seeing the logic behind
• 51:33
  the numbers. I'm just like, yes, but actually
• 51:35
  I am not going to take any credit for that.
• 51:38
  That's all him. Like he has been puzzling it
• 51:40
  out. He's been doing mass worksheet
• 51:42
  things. He's been doing his online
• 51:43
  games. He likes to play his little math
• 51:45
  games and stuff. And he's just been living his
• 51:47
  life and his brain has put the pathways together.
• 51:50
  It's figured it out and it is now cemented and understands how
• 51:53
  to apply it. And most of that is on him.
• 51:56
  Most of that is up to his energy that he has spent with his own
• 51:59
  brain doing the work to understand it.
• 52:01
  And it's in those moments to see that he did exactly the same
• 52:04
  with reading as well, that ultimately I have realized that
• 52:07
  it actually requires a lot less of us dictating and offering and
• 52:11
  demanding. Yes, some things we'll need to
• 52:13
  because some concepts, they just won't come across naturally in
• 52:15
  their environments. We've got to put some stuff in
• 52:16
  front of them. Ultimately, with gentle, gentle
• 52:19
  little bit here, a little bit there, the concepts do come
• 52:22
  together. And so just have some faith, I
• 52:24
  guess is all I'm saying in that is if you are finding
• 52:26
  everything's a bit chaotic, then it will figure itself out.
• 52:29
  And I guess we just have to have hope that we will be OK, that
• 52:32
  the we are having a hard time sometimes.
• 52:34
  And like, both of us right now are literally sat in one of
• 52:36
  these moments where we're just like, like, I've got to get back
• 52:39
  into doing that. And.
• 52:41
  We can't let it go any longer. I've.
• 52:42
  Got yeah. And, and, and to be going to
• 52:45
  have these moments. And actually ultimately I am sat
• 52:48
  here with a lot of self compassion this time.
• 52:50
  I am recognizing that this week is meant to be a little bit
• 52:52
  slower, that we're gradually building it all back up again.
• 52:54
  By next week, things will be taken back over and then we go
• 52:57
  camping again in two weeks time. Ha ha ha.
• 52:59
  Isn't that funny? So I'm going to keep disrupting
• 53:01
  it. That's going to mess up my six
• 53:03
  weeks, but I will say that I have so six weeks starting in
• 53:08
  three weeks I will. Have another three weeks off,
• 53:11
  who cares, It's fine. So I will say that I do feel
• 53:15
  like, and I think like this, if you're new to home Ed, have have
• 53:19
  the reassurance that I feel more confident going into this fall
• 53:23
  than I have before because I'm excited about some of the stuff
• 53:26
  we're doing. Like we have really thrived with
• 53:29
  book studies. So like learning language arts
• 53:32
  through the lens of the book that we're reading and like, not
• 53:35
  just learning adjectives for adjectives sake, but like
• 53:38
  learning where are the adjectives in the book that
• 53:39
  we're reading, right? And like, how are they used to,
• 53:42
  to build up this scene and, you know, using our senses and all
• 53:45
  Anyway, so I've got some pretty cool book studies lined up for
• 53:49
  this year. So it, it is exciting and I
• 53:52
  think the kids are going to like it.
• 53:53
  And you know, you, you get better at like weaving things
• 53:57
  in. So like, if you're reading this
• 53:58
  book, then you might say, oh, well, let's what, when does it
• 54:01
  take place? What history, what geography,
• 54:04
  what you know? So I think you, you just start
• 54:07
  to get better at all of that the more years you have under your
• 54:09
  belt. So it, it is like I say, we're
• 54:13
  in like a little like slump and we're kind of like, but like it
• 54:16
  is actually, I am excited about what's coming.
• 54:19
  It's just like re getting that motivation up and then, you
• 54:22
  know, that paralysis by like, there's so many things to do, so
• 54:27
  you just do nothing. And so that's the thing too.
• 54:30
  It's like it's easier for me to go do the dishes and unload the
• 54:34
  dishwasher and put in another load of laundry than to say, OK,
• 54:37
  let me sit down and structure out how we're going to do Greek
• 54:40
  myths this year. So I think that that's the
• 54:45
  piece. So I'm actually thinking I might
• 54:47
  need, you know, we're taking a day to kind of do a review for a
• 54:52
  podcast for the coming season. And I might need to take a day
• 54:55
  for myself for, for planning out the school year.
• 54:58
  And I think that that might be helpful.
• 55:00
  So that might be something I add to my get out of my slump, you
• 55:03
  know, a focus day. Yeah.
• 55:06
  I think that's the thing, I think it's giving yourself time
• 55:08
  to pause and to reflect and to adjust and tweak and change.
• 55:11
  It's giving yourself permission to cancel some stuff, change
• 55:14
  some stuff, you organize your priorities.
• 55:17
  It's giving yourself permission to sometimes allow it to stay a
• 55:20
  little bit put down for 5 minutes whilst you do the other
• 55:23
  thing and you get it done. Because actually if we focus and
• 55:26
  crack on with it, typically it will go a lot faster.
• 55:29
  That we can't always multitask our way through every single
• 55:31
  day. Some days we do just have to be
• 55:33
  like, you know what, you guys are just going to have to fend
• 55:34
  for yourselves for a couple of days like this is it's not
• 55:36
  working. And the truth is that life is
• 55:38
  messy. Things change, stuff goes up,
• 55:41
  stuff goes down. We can't get it right every
• 55:43
  single day. But ultimately you will know if
• 55:46
  you really feel like you really aren't doing much with them and
• 55:49
  actually that loads of stuff needs to change and you need to
• 55:52
  sort it out. Like you will know you will
• 55:54
  really feel that level of uncomfortable, like feeling in
• 55:56
  your body. You'll see it in your kids,
• 55:58
  you'll see it in their behavior. Like you'll be getting a lot of
• 56:01
  pushback, a lot of boredom, a lot of like whatever from them.
• 56:04
  And like, like you were saying, like sometimes this isn't,
• 56:06
  sometimes it's them and sometimes they really aren't
• 56:08
  feeling what they're doing. And you feel like you're pushing
• 56:10
  back on them all the time and you're having a lot of
• 56:12
  arguments. And that ultimately, I think
• 56:14
  it's just time for a refocus and a readjusting of priorities for
• 56:18
  them. And as they get older, they will
• 56:20
  have more opinions on this. And I guess what we have to try
• 56:23
  to remember is that they are in charge of their own life, even
• 56:26
  as a child. They have got their own
• 56:29
  interests and expectations on what is coming next and that our
• 56:34
  priorities, that extrinsic motivation of what we want for
• 56:37
  them isn't always what's important.
• 56:40
  And equally like when we are in a difficult time and we're
• 56:43
  worrying about things and we're then getting angry because like,
• 56:45
  look, I've only got half an hour and I need to do this massively
• 56:47
  now because I'm feeling so horrendously guilty that we
• 56:49
  haven't done maths recently. Like that is not their fault
• 56:52
  that you only have that time. And it's not their fault that
• 56:54
  you're worried about it and feeling guilty about it.
• 56:56
  And ultimately we then get mad at them because they don't want
• 56:59
  to participate in it and join in or whatever.
• 57:01
  And we have got to try and remember that whether it's them,
• 57:03
  whether it's US, whether it's some random extra life thing
• 57:06
  that's going on that's just just sucking all of our time,
• 57:08
  whatever it is that we just have to give everybody a little bit
• 57:11
  of grace and to understand that these things happen and that
• 57:14
  they will sort themselves out, that it all comes out in the
• 57:16
  wash. It's not going to be, there's no
• 57:18
  set deadline. Like whereas in school, kids are
• 57:21
  expected to reach certain developmental stages by the end
• 57:23
  of each academic year so that they're all ready to sit there
• 57:25
  exams at the age of 16 and go on to university 18 and to go on
• 57:28
  and do whatever, right. But in the home educated
• 57:30
  environment, your children do not have to sit those exams at
• 57:33
  16, they do not have to go to university 18, they do not have
• 57:37
  to go and get a job at whatever age you can flex it a bit.
• 57:40
  So if you had a year of your families life that was pure
• 57:44
  trauma and awful, awful things happening and you got almost
• 57:48
  nothing done and you really felt like it massively affected their
• 57:52
  academic trajectory, then if you don't feel like over the next
• 57:55
  few years that that has evened itself out, then maybe you do
• 57:59
  delay things a little bit. Maybe you give them a bit more
• 58:01
  time before you sit them down for that math CCSC, you just put
• 58:03
  it off by 6 months. You do it a little bit later.
• 58:06
  Just give them a bit more room. Like nothing is on a set
• 58:09
  schedule here. And like equally like I am doing
• 58:12
  homework with my kids at 8:00 in the morning, I'm doing with them
• 58:14
  at 7:00 PM at night. I'm doing it on Sundays, I'm
• 58:16
  doing it on Mondays. Like, it doesn't matter when in
• 58:20
  the week it happens, what time of the year it happens.
• 58:23
  We have quite literally done what would kind of be almost
• 58:26
  considered school on Christmas Day.
• 58:27
  Like, like, quite literally, we have sat and done number puzzles
• 58:32
  and word searches and they've helped me to cook the dinner.
• 58:35
  And they've, like, you know what I mean?
• 58:36
  Like, we've done riddles and puzzles, like, around the table,
• 58:39
  like logic puzzles. Yeah, like learning about the
• 58:43
  history of Christmas, talking about the myths and the legends,
• 58:46
  talking about the religious stuff that goes on, like the
• 58:48
  actual reason for the festivals, all of it counts.
• 58:51
  And so it's it's like actually it will be surprised.
• 58:54
  I think if you actually really sat and thought about it for a
• 58:55
  little while, you'd realize how much of your day-to-day counts
• 58:58
  and actually therefore that it really isn't a problem at all.
• 59:00
  But ultimately it's, if you are worried about curriculum, then
• 59:03
  it's just remembering that they might fall out of love with it.
• 59:06
  You might fall out of love with it.
• 59:07
  Life might get in the way. But we can always readjust.
• 59:10
  We can change tack, we can change approach, we can cover
• 59:12
  that curriculum in a different way, but just try and remember
• 59:16
  that slumps are not the end of the world.
• 59:18
  They're not going to destroy their education.
• 59:20
  They are not going to stop you from having a good relationship
• 59:22
  with them if you take some steps to have a bit of compassion for
• 59:26
  everybody involved and offer yourself a bit of grace and
• 59:28
  patience. Anyway, this episode has gone on
• 59:30
  long enough, I think, so hopefully this has been helpful.
• 59:32
  As you can see, it's something we feel very passionate about,
• 59:34
  don't we? Clearly.
• 59:36
  You want to hear how you're getting out of a slump?
• 59:37
  Tell. Us, yes, no, we really, really
• 59:39
  do because we have had such a lot of lovely feedback recently.
• 59:43
  A few people have messaged me to say that we're binge worthy.
• 59:46
  I mean, what an incredible compliment is that I will be
• 59:49
  asking those people to go make sure they put that on the Apple
• 59:51
  ratings. But yeah, if you, if you do love
• 59:55
  our episodes and you are listening to them a lot, please,
• 59:58
  please, please give us the rating.
• 1:00:00
  Put a review on whatever platform you listen on.
• 1:00:02
  I think Apple and Spotify the easiest ones to put an actual
• 1:00:05
  review on. Or you can obviously just send
• 1:00:09
  us a message and at the very least we'll have it for our own
• 1:00:12
  joy. But our listen listenership is
• 1:00:15
  going through the roof. It is ramping up month on month.
• 1:00:18
  So please share these episodes with your friends.
• 1:00:21
  Make sure people know what you're listening to and that
• 1:00:24
  this is helpful. Yeah, hopefully this this
• 1:00:26
  episode has been useful. And we hope that any of you who
• 1:00:29
  are sat there right now are thinking that it's all rubbish.
• 1:00:32
  Hopefully you feel a bit better now, or you at least feel like
• 1:00:36
  there's other people out there who feel exactly the same.
• 1:00:37
  Way you're not alone. So far from alone.
• 1:00:40
  All right guys, have a fantastic rest of your day.
• 1:00:43
  Bye guys, Take care.