Latest / The BIG Home Ed Conversations | Home Education / Get Your Head Straight to Home Ed – Ep 4: Regulate, Reconnect, and Read the Room

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Get Your Head Straight to Home Ed – Ep 4: Regulate, Reconnect, and Read the Room · The BIG Home Ed Conversations | Home Education

0:14
Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of the big home
0:17
Ed conversations. My name is Kelly Rigg, I am a
0:20
home education mindset coach and I work with families as they
0:23
transition to home education. Now I am also one of the Co
0:27
hosts of this podcast. Usually it's myself and Ashley
0:30
but this summer I have been doing a get your head straight
0:32
to home Ed summer series. I do apologise for the last
0:35
episode no longer really being in summer.
0:37
I've got to be honest, as I look out my window and see the sheets
0:40
and sheets of rain coming down, I am not surprised at all to say
0:44
that as per usual, the weather has dropped off a Cliff as it
0:48
entered September. But we are going to enter this
0:51
world with positivity because I have a big welcome view.
0:54
I appreciate that. There's a very good chance if
0:56
you've been listening to this series and it is now September,
0:59
that you are now officially a home educator, that you have
1:02
probably recently deregistered your kids or kids and are
1:06
getting into the thick of it now.
1:08
I thought therefore, that the last episode of this series
1:12
would be a bit of a recap, but also to kind of really establish
1:16
what those first 90 days should look like.
1:19
And what, I believe anyway, is the most important things for
1:22
you to be considering as you enter into your home education
1:25
world, your new lifestyle, your new trajectory.
1:28
And ultimately, it's all about helping you to feel grounded, to
1:33
feel reconnected, to start observing, and to actually start
1:36
to feel like you have got some control over the messy chaos
1:39
that is that very early stage. Kind of imagine it a little bit
1:43
like cooking an elaborate Christmas dinner that the mess,
1:47
my goodness, the mess and the prep and the effort that goes
1:51
into it. And we get stuff wrong and we
1:53
end up burning the mashed, burning the mashed potatoes.
1:55
Oh goodness, don't burn the mashed potatoes.
1:56
Burning the roast potatoes. At the very least, if you're
1:59
burning the mashed potatoes, I don't even know what we're doing
2:01
wrong. But ultimately you are going to
2:04
be having all kinds of chaos kicking off.
2:06
Like there is going to be screaming and excitement and
2:09
fighting and people talk about presents and somebody drinking
2:12
too much and all the things that are happening, right?
2:14
All the crazy stuff that happens around making a Christmas
2:16
dinner. And you we know 100% that it's
2:22
still going to feel pretty darn connected and delicious and
2:25
wonderful when we all sit around the table.
2:27
We pull those crackers and we laugh and joke together.
2:30
Now I appreciate this is obviously my, my random little
2:33
example here, but we know that the concept of home education is
2:38
great. As someone who knows it, I know
2:40
it is and I know that you guys are going to have a wonderful
2:42
time in it. But this initial stages, the
2:45
planning, the thinking, the kind of get your head around it.
2:48
My goodness, it's overwhelming and it's OK for it to feel that
2:51
way. Now I basically want to
2:55
establish with you 3 Rs, we're going to go with regulate, then
3:01
reconnect and then read. And no, I don't mean reading or
3:06
writing or books. What I mean is observing.
3:09
So those are going to be our three Rs that we're going to
3:12
work with as we work our way into this first 90 days.
3:15
The first one, regulate. Now, if you happen to have
3:18
neurodivergent kids, you will have heard the term Co
3:20
regulation regulate dysregulation so many times that
3:25
you've probably you're sick of hearing yourself say it.
3:28
But what I want to talk to you about as somebody who maybe
3:31
doesn't know what these terms really mean, I'm just going to
3:33
give you a very brief recap on the concept.
3:36
But essentially we all have a nervous system.
3:39
And depending on your sensitivities to your
3:41
environment, to the things that you're trying to do, to your
3:43
internal world, you are going to have essentially a profile that
3:49
indicates to the world what indicates to you rather what
3:54
bits of the world feel over stimulating, What feels under
3:57
stimulating when you're hungry, when you're thirsty, when you're
4:01
tired. Our body is giving us signals
4:03
all the time. But actually one of the things
4:06
that gets trained out of us so, so strongly during our school
4:09
years is how to stop listening to those signals.
4:13
We get told when to eat. We know didn't have access to
4:16
water until break times. We couldn't even go to the
4:19
toilet until the break times. We just had to hold it like we
4:22
had to learn to finish our work before we're allowed to go in
4:25
and relax. Like all these different things.
4:27
And there is so many hang ups and limiting beliefs attached to
4:32
our regulation of our bodies it's not even funny.
4:35
It's a massive, massive issue in the current mental health state
4:39
of this country is that actually most people are trained not to
4:43
listen to their bodies needs. Now if you are not listening to
4:47
your body's needs or you actually regularly skip lunch or
4:49
you don't drink enough or you find you've got a headache all
4:52
the time, you've done nothing about it.
4:53
If you've got a stiff neck and you never do any yoga, like
4:56
whatever it is just lifting off things that I do here, then
5:00
ultimately you are not regulated.
5:03
Your body is not regulated. Your nervous system is not
5:05
regulated. It is experiencing danger.
5:10
It is feeling unsettled and it's nervous and it's scared and it
5:15
doesn't know when it's going to be taken care of again.
5:17
Now, as mothers, if you're a mother and fathers do it too, we
5:21
are ultimately not often very well regulated.
5:25
We don't take good enough care of ourselves.
5:27
We don't really understand why it's so important a lot of the
5:29
time because we've always been told it's fine to be sacrificial
5:33
to ignore that need to eat or ignore that need to drink or
5:36
ignore that need to sleep. But it's OK to sacrifice
5:39
ourselves because we've got kids and we're supposed to be doing
5:41
everything for them. Now, before it was our
5:43
employers, before it was our teachers, and before that was
5:46
our parents. But ultimately, we've been
5:48
taught to sacrifice for the better good of other people.
5:52
But what that's actually causing is a chronic dysregulation in
5:56
your body. It raises your cortisol, it
5:59
reduces your health. It overall makes you very
6:01
stressed and miserable. It actually means that this can
6:04
feel even more overwhelming. Now to flip this and look at
6:08
your child. They have been in school
6:11
possibly like I imagine for the most part, you're deregistering.
6:14
You're coming into home education.
6:16
That's kind of how you found yourself here.
6:17
If you have started home education without school, then
6:21
this is one, one step that you maybe won't have quite so much
6:24
of. But if your child's been at
6:25
nursery, if they get taken care of by people who don't actually
6:29
feel the same way as you do and maybe parent them slightly
6:31
differently, they may have gotten some of these messages
6:33
anyway. And equally, you may have
6:35
accidentally, inadvertently passed them on yourself in your
6:38
own parenting of them maybe before your brain has been
6:40
starting to think about things a bit differently.
6:43
The point is that they have also been experiencing these hang
6:47
ups. They have been put into a
6:48
routine and a schedule that has taught them not to listen to
6:51
when their body needs things. And ultimately coming into home
6:55
education is dysregulating for everybody because all of a
6:59
sudden you have got the opportunity to suddenly do the
7:03
things that you need to do. And they might want to binge
7:05
screens, they might want to eat loads, they might want to sleep
7:08
loads. They might want to never talk to
7:11
anybody again right now and just be shut in their bedroom, just
7:13
be completely isolated and listen to music on their own.
7:16
Maybe they want to be out seeing their friends all the time.
7:18
Because as I come free, I can go and do it whenever I want.
7:20
Like this is amazing. Like there's going to be an an
7:23
element of really dysregulated time that comes with these first
7:28
few months where things are not going to necessarily feel like
7:31
the status quo. Your routine is shot, your
7:34
nervous systems are a little bit all over the place.
7:36
You're both trying to adjust to a new pace of life, a new way of
7:39
doing things. It's going to feel really weird.
7:42
And I guess what I'm trying to get across here is that that's
7:45
OK. It's OK for it to feel messy.
7:47
It's OK for it to feel a bit wrong, for nobody to be quite
7:50
right, for maybe people to be a little bit hot tempered or to be
7:53
a little bit sad or to be a little bit confused.
7:56
And you might even find that your children will ask to go
7:58
back to school because actually the feeling of not having that
8:02
rigidity around them anymore might feel really, really hard.
8:06
It might feel really weird. But ultimately, what our goal is
8:11
in these initial stages is to breathe, right?
8:15
There's a number of, like, very basic things that we could be
8:17
doing here. Breathe to make sure we notice
8:20
our breath. Is it fast?
8:22
Is it shallow? Slow down your breath.
8:25
If you're feeling anxious or stressed or overwhelmed, slow
8:28
down your breath. Have a drink of water.
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Even if you don't feel that thirsty, drink another one.
8:33
We know we're not drinking enough, just drink another glass
8:35
of water. Eating something.
8:39
Please don't skip your meals. Please make sure you're snacking
8:43
on healthy, nutritious useful things or non nutritious if
8:46
necessary. I don't really care what you
8:48
eat. Just eat something then
8:50
ultimately sleep. It's super hard to switch off
8:55
and go to sleep at night nowadays.
8:56
We've got so many temptations to stay up late and especially if
8:59
we've had a stressful day, the urge to stay up late is really,
9:02
really hard. I am not going to lecture you on
9:04
going to bed on time because I cannot get myself into a good
9:06
bedtime routine to save my life. But what I will ask you to do is
9:09
to just notice if you are feeling tired and therefore
9:13
could you try and give yourself a little bit more sleep without
9:15
sleeping in. Whether it's going to bed a bit
9:17
earlier, whether it's sometimes just getting an early night just
9:20
to catch up a bit and to make yourself feel a bit better.
9:23
But try and notice how sleep makes you feel like whether you
9:26
actually feel better or worse for the type of sleep that you
9:30
were getting and how often you were getting to sleep.
9:32
And if you need to nap, nap. If you need to lie in one day,
9:35
lie in one day. And if your kids need that too,
9:37
then please allow them to do it. Give them a chance to re
9:40
regulate and to get their sleep back on track.
9:42
It will stabilize, it will get back and balanced again.
9:45
But for now, just give yourself all a chance.
9:47
Those are like the key ones. Those are obviously the basic
9:49
survival skills, but you've also got all of the sensory stuff
9:53
too. They may be getting
9:55
overstimulated by loud environments.
9:57
They may find the the need to come and sit at a table to do
10:00
education too hard. You have got some stuff to be
10:04
working on here that is going to make it feel really tricky for a
10:07
little while, but that's we're going to move on to that in a
10:09
second. But for now, try and anchor
10:12
yourself. Deal with the basics of human
10:15
survival. Meet your needs.
10:18
Encourage them to meet theirs. Encourage them to communicate
10:20
theirs. Encourage them to allow theirs
10:23
to be as messy and chaotic as they need to be for a little
10:27
while. OK, then we're going to move on
10:30
to reconnect. OK, There's a, there's a really
10:33
good chance that obviously I can't speak for every type of
10:39
parenting, every type of situation, rather that you've
10:41
been in. If you've had a, if you've had a
10:43
child in school as they've been really unhappy and you've
10:46
decided to do register because you're not want to want to try
10:48
and reconnect with them and help them to kind of come back down
10:51
to earth That actually ultimately you may not really
10:57
know where to start. They may be quite disconnected
10:59
from you. You may feel like actually
11:01
you're struggling to communicate with each other.
11:03
There's some really lovely little ways that you can start
11:06
to rebuild that. If you already feel like you've
11:09
got a pretty good connection, then doing these two is not
11:11
going to hurt. But ultimately one of the best
11:15
things you can do is to give them undivided attention for at
11:20
least 10 minutes of proper paying attention, playing with
11:25
them, reading with them, doing some Lego, going for walk the
11:29
dog with with them and chatting to them whilst you're doing it.
11:32
I don't know, listening to some music whilst you're making
11:35
dinner together, basically trying to spend this time
11:40
together in this really connected way.
11:44
So listening to what they've got to say, listening to what
11:47
they're curious about, listening to what kind of conversations
11:49
they start, listening to the stories they tell you like if
11:53
they've got questions about something, then taking the time
11:55
to answer them. Even just those little moments
11:58
when they ask you a random question and you actually take
12:00
the time to stop what you're doing and answer them, look it
12:03
up on Google, whatever you need to do and actually help them to
12:05
know what what that's about, then great.
12:10
But you can also kind of like you can do like the odd kind of
12:14
trip out maybe if they feel up to that.
12:16
So maybe kind of going to a museum or going to the woods or
12:19
whatever, really, but trying to do stuff that makes you feel
12:22
really connected just as a little unit is great for kind of
12:26
just trying to reconnect with them, trying to actually get to
12:29
know them a bit more. Again, trying to understand what
12:31
it is that they're into, what they're worried about, what kind
12:33
of hang ups they've got, what kind of things they're
12:35
struggling with, what they're feeling.
12:37
Some children will not be able to communicate this.
12:39
And that's that's also really, really common and really OK.
12:43
And you can actually observe an awful lot just by watching if
12:46
you know what you're looking for.
12:48
But use things like the language, like let's explore,
12:52
like I fancy an adventure or show me, show me what you've
12:56
been doing or tell me, tell me, tell me what you guys are
13:00
playing, Like what you, what's the story that you're telling or
13:03
whatever, or saying something like what, what feels fun today?
13:07
What should we, what should we do that feels fun?
13:10
And, and just kind of going along with what they suggest,
13:13
just allowing them to take the lead a little bit and, and
13:15
offering some ideas, start to empower them, start to help them
13:18
feeling like they've got some control over what happens next.
13:23
And essentially what I want you to try and avoid here is it's so
13:27
easy to be like, right, OK, I'm a grown up, I'm in control.
13:30
I'm going to organise some trips, I'm going to organise
13:32
some days out. I'm going to start going to
13:34
these meet ups and groups. I'm going to plan this topic and
13:37
I'm going to print all this stuff off.
13:39
And here you go. This is what's important for you
13:40
to learn about. And all of a sudden we're
13:42
basically creating school at home.
13:45
It's an element of you are now the teacher, you are now in
13:48
charge, you are now guiding and leading and making things
13:52
happen. And your children may need some
13:55
of that from you. It's not that they won't need
13:57
all of it, but it is really important to remember that home
14:01
education gives them an opportunity to feel very
14:03
empowered in their education to start to lead it, to offer ideas
14:07
and like trajectories and topics.
14:11
And they may have things that they like.
14:13
You may, for example, say for example, you love, they love
14:15
horse riding, you know, they love horses, you know, they love
14:17
horse riding. Then of course it makes sense.
14:19
You know this already. You can say to them, do you want
14:21
to do some horse riding lessons? Yeah, great.
14:23
That'd be amazing. You book them if you can, That's
14:26
great. Like that is something that you
14:27
can obviously do. But if you like, it's good to
14:31
observe. It's good to reflect to them and
14:33
say, hey, I know that you really love this.
14:34
Would you love to go and do something like that, like get
14:36
their buy in? I know I made a lot of mistakes
14:40
in the early stages booking stuff in thinking, well, they
14:42
might enjoy doing that. And actually they didn't.
14:44
And I then got angry because I'd spent a lot of money on, say,
14:47
for example, gymnastics for a whole term and they didn't want
14:50
to do it. And I was dragging them there
14:52
every week and be like, just need to do it because I've paid
14:53
for it. Now there's a back of historical
14:56
parenting that I just like roll my eyes at now.
14:58
But ultimately we get resentful because we think you're going to
15:02
be really good at this. I can see you would really like
15:03
it, but you're just not even trying.
15:06
But I never got their buy in and that was on me.
15:08
I should have made sure that they wanted to do it before I
15:10
actually forced them to. And so ultimately, if you can,
15:15
spend some time reconnecting with them, learning about what
15:17
they're really interested in, noticing what they love, having
15:20
these conversations, suggesting some things to go do.
15:23
And if they say no, then OK, but also remembering from the last
15:28
episode, do not lose you in it. If you do need some social
15:32
connection every week and you do need to start making some
15:34
friends because you feel like you need some reassurance, you
15:37
need someone to talk to. You need someone who can reflect
15:40
back at you that yes, I am making the right decisions.
15:42
Yes, this is a good, it is a good thing.
15:44
Home education is a great thing that my kids are going to do
15:46
great. Like if you need that, then go
15:49
out there and get it. Do not sit at home because they
15:51
never want to go anywhere. Compromise boundaries.
15:54
We're allowed to have both, so you can work with them on this,
15:58
but ultimately respecting their boundaries and understanding why
16:02
they're setting them might mean you have an opportunity there to
16:05
help empower them to choose to like for you to say, OK, well I
16:09
really need to go do something social.
16:11
I know you're not really very keen.
16:15
How can we compromise on this? Is it that you go to like one
16:19
thing a week until they feel stable there?
16:22
Is it that they bring their headphones and they get to just
16:26
sit and listen to some music initially or bring a book and
16:29
they can sit and read quietly or whatever it might be.
16:32
Talk to them about what it is that they're trying to they want
16:34
to get from it. Maybe kind of encourage them to
16:36
see how it could be great for them, but if they are really
16:39
resistant to it, then maybe finding other ways for you to
16:42
socialize and to reconnect with people is the way to go.
16:45
So work on that together, reconnecting.
16:49
And then obviously we've kind of touched a little bit already,
16:51
but the last R was read or observe.
16:55
So one of the things I'd really love you to do is to find a way
17:01
of recording it. Whether you send yourself a
17:03
WhatsApp message, whether you scribble it down in a little
17:05
notebook, whatever it is you want to do.
17:08
But I want you to just try and observe things like what lit
17:13
them up today, like what conversation made made their
17:16
eyes sparkle like, or what what were they playing that made them
17:20
really happy or something like that.
17:23
Anything that has made them excited or happy, even if it
17:25
seems completely irrelevant or random or not at all associated
17:29
with education in your eyes. Like what has lit them up, like
17:32
what has made them happy can be anything.
17:35
Doesn't have to be at all to do with home education even what's
17:38
frustrated them. So what challenges have they
17:40
had? Like have they been trying to
17:41
make a Lego thing and got frustrated with how it ended or
17:44
couldn't find a piece? Or did they get frustrated with
17:47
you because you were trying to get them to sit and do something
17:49
with you and they didn't want to do it?
17:50
Or did you ask them to go and, I don't know, tidy something up
17:55
that they've been playing with and they didn't like it and that
17:57
got frustrated them? But start just notice.
18:00
Just notice. Not judging, not getting, not
18:02
necessarily trying to fix right this medium in it, but just
18:05
noticing something that might have frustrated them.
18:09
And then notice where did you connect?
18:11
Like where did you have a moment where you managed to connect
18:13
with each other? And then ultimately at the end
18:17
of each week, you can kind of have a look over those.
18:20
And it gives you an opportunity then to see if there are some
18:22
patterns there, if there are things which are bothering them,
18:25
if there are things which are really exciting them and it
18:27
helps to give you some tools or some stuff that lit them up.
18:30
So say for example, you notice they were really engaged and
18:33
really happy whilst they're role-playing with their Barbies.
18:38
That then gives you a tool that you can use potentially for
18:44
talking about social stories, like helping them to understand
18:47
social behaviours. Or it gives you a tool to help
18:49
them to like Barbies can come in the shower so that you can get
18:53
through shower time a bit easier because maybe they hate having a
18:55
shower. Like maybe the Barbie comes in
18:57
the shower too. Like whatever it might be,
18:59
right? So you can use the things that
19:01
light them up as tools to help them to do the things that
19:04
frustrate them or they find hard.
19:07
But don't. One of the big kind of warnings
19:09
with this one is to not overdo it.
19:13
Try to be subtle. One of the things that can
19:16
happen is to say, for example, they are massively into
19:18
rainforests and they are watching YouTube videos and
19:21
they've dug out a great book on it from the library and they've
19:24
been drawing those cool pictures.
19:25
They've been asking for coloring sheets.
19:27
And you've talked about it a little bit in the car.
19:30
And then you go, oh, I found this really great podcast.
19:32
You fancy listening to it and they loved that.
19:34
And so you think, great, OK, and you go home and you get on
19:37
online and you print off 20 worksheets and you plan a trip
19:40
to a rainforest thing and you pay loads of money out to a
19:43
class that they're going to do now from now on.
19:44
And like, oh, you even think, oh gosh, they could be an amazing
19:48
jungle explorer one day. Look how amazing they are, this
19:50
subject. And you go away way over the top
19:53
and you like do loads and loads and loads for that subject.
19:56
Then actually sometimes you can kill it, which is really sad and
19:59
really annoying. So I just wanted to give you a
20:02
little warning. To go gently with this,
20:04
especially in these early stages, but all the time like in
20:08
the future as well, go gently, ask permission.
20:11
Do you want my help with this? Do you want me to do some more
20:13
on this? Would you like to go and see
20:15
this? Like I don't want to go crazy
20:17
with this because I don't want to ruin it for you.
20:18
You seem to be really self motivated with this right now.
20:21
Like give allow them to lead it. Allow them to give you some
20:24
prompts and ideas of what they want from you.
20:26
But the more you notice what lights them up, the more tools
20:29
you will have to try and help them to want to do more to do
20:32
with the subject that they're already showing an interest in.
20:34
So maybe they could be getting them a Lego parrot or something
20:37
like that. Whatever.
20:39
OK, so that is the gist of our 3RS.
20:44
Regulate reconnecting and reading, observing.
20:49
Take the time to do this and ideally keep some element of
20:54
this practice up forever, but the goal is that this is going
21:00
to give you a really solid foundation.
21:02
It's going to help you to reconnect with them, to know
21:04
what they need to help them to meet their needs, to help you to
21:08
meet their needs, and then to ultimately start to recognise
21:11
what they like, how they learn, what they want to be doing and
21:15
how you can start to build a homemade lifestyle that makes
21:17
sense for them in terms of their education, but also for
21:21
yourself. It should hopefully get you
21:23
meeting your needs and role modelling doing that.
21:27
It should hopefully get you spending some time reconnecting
21:30
with them, which is going to feel great.
21:31
It's going to feel so good. It's going to get you feeling
21:34
like you're in control because you're actually noticing and
21:37
seeing the things which matter, and that's going to help you
21:41
start to feel like you have got some hope for the future of your
21:45
home Ed journey. Now, I really, really hope that
21:50
you have found this helpful as a series.
21:53
Obviously, there are things that go along with it.
21:55
You've got the Get Your Head Straight to Home Ed workbook
21:57
that you can grab, but there's also the 1st 30 days of Home Ed
22:00
calendar, which essentially gives you loads of these little
22:03
kind of prompts similar to what we've talked about today.
22:07
That helps you to kind of each day.
22:08
You've got like one question or a suggestion for a type of thing
22:11
you could try and do together today.
22:12
That will help you to slow down to to regulate together, to
22:16
reconnect together and to start to observe and notice what they
22:19
love and what they don't love and how life is feeling right
22:22
now. But ultimately you have got some
22:27
tools there to go away, go away and use.
22:30
You can grab those workbooks if you want to.
22:32
They're just on the website offroadingmotherhood.co.uk/work
22:37
Hyphen with Hyphen me, they're on that page.
22:41
But I kind of just want to give you some permission slips here.
22:45
It is OK for you to say no to all the busy work, to the
22:51
practising of maths, the practising of reading, the
22:55
practising of writing, whatever it is that is stressing them out
22:58
is making you feel disconnected. It is OK for you to say no to
23:03
that right now. It is also then OK for you to
23:06
say, actually, I can't say no to that entirely because it's
23:11
making me really stressed and it doesn't feel good in my body and
23:15
it's making me really, really worried that if we don't start
23:18
with some of that, then they'll never want to do it.
23:20
Try and just sit with some of these feelings.
23:22
Try and have some faith that it will all ease and relax and it
23:26
will come back gently. But I want you to.
23:29
The reason why I ask you to try and just observe for a little
23:33
while is because you may find that going in too strong with
23:36
some of these things from the outset means that they don't
23:40
take the time to truly regulate and to feel what they actually
23:43
want and need from their home education journey.
23:45
So, so it's a good idea to try and give them some room and to
23:48
allow them to come to these things naturally.
23:50
And you'll notice that actually once you start really looking,
23:53
and this takes a bit of practice, takes quite a lot of
23:55
time to notice these things, but actually it's kind of
23:58
everywhere. They're going to be doing it all
23:59
the time without you even realizing it.
24:02
But I want to also give you permission to follow their
24:07
rabbit holes who have heard this phrase before, a very common
24:11
ADHD phrase carrying down a rabbit hole.
24:14
But if they are on a random tangent, then just go with them.
24:17
Go on that lovely journey together.
24:18
You're going on adventure, so do that.
24:22
It's OK to just write a day off. It is OK to wake up.
24:29
So I have written days off as I have woken up.
24:31
That has definitely happened. Just be like, you know what?
24:34
Today is just going to be a rest day.
24:36
Today is not a day for any kind of intentional air things.
24:40
I am having a non productive day.
24:42
It is very, very tempting when we enter into this lovely free
24:46
flow, no rigid structured routine lifestyle to start
24:50
feeling like every day has to tick every box.
24:54
It doesn't. Some days are going to be home
24:56
admin days, Some days are going to be housework days.
24:58
Some days are going to be home Ed days, some days are going to
25:01
be a complete mismatch of all the things.
25:03
Some days are going to be nothing days.
25:04
Some days are going to be you feeling rubbish because you're
25:07
due on or because you've had something bad happen in your
25:11
life and you're stressed about it.
25:11
You're worried about it and you can't think about it right now.
25:14
It's OK. Those days are going to happen.
25:16
You're you're not always going to be fire on all cylinders.
25:19
And the truth is that a full time education in what we might
25:22
imagine that to look like is not the same amount of hours that
25:24
they were in school. There's a really great article.
25:27
I'll see if I can link it in the description for this episode
25:30
where a primary school teacher worked out how much time is
25:35
being wasted every single day. And that essentially the actual
25:39
time spent receiving educational doing educational things was
25:43
something like, once you spread it out over the full year, so
25:46
365 days, it works out something like 45 minutes a day.
25:52
So I really want to reassure you that however much you are
25:56
imagining that you need to be doing every day to be able to
25:58
tick off all the boxes and to make sure they achieve their
26:00
goals is probably significantly less than you might realize.
26:05
So please do try and rest into this and just just, yeah, give
26:10
yourself some permission to slow down and to sometimes write a
26:13
day off or to stop a day or to start again.
26:16
So do you know what? We're just gonna start over.
26:17
This isn't working. The whole system we've created
26:20
is not working. I don't love it.
26:21
You're not loving it. Let's go back to the drawing
26:24
board. You're going to do that so many
26:25
times and it's OK. I really want to stress that
26:28
it's fine if you spend some time developing a system or you spend
26:31
some time with loads of, I don't know, you sorted out your
26:34
calendar. It looks great.
26:35
You've got loads of fun stuff going on, but actually you're
26:37
finding that you're really tired or they're really tired or
26:39
they're really grumpy or like you're never having time to eat
26:42
dinner or whatever. Then let's, let's reject, let's
26:46
rethink it and make sure that you're doing that regularly and
26:49
being kind to yourselves, meeting those needs all the
26:52
time. So I hope this has been helpful,
26:56
OK? I want you to feel empowered to
27:01
slow down and to embrace that reconnection, that regulation,
27:06
that opportunity to observe and notice.
27:08
I really don't want you feeling like you've got to rush headlong
27:11
into having it all figured out because you really don't.
27:15
I am nearly five years in, 4 1/2 years in something like that and
27:19
I have still absolutely not got it all figured out.
27:21
Because like all parenting, they change their needs change, their
27:26
interests change, their routine changes, the things they need
27:30
from me change. It's OK for it to keep shifting
27:34
and you are 100% doing a great job.
27:39
I know this and I know it for a fact because you have
27:44
potentially seen your child not coping with nursery, with
27:49
school. Maybe you have just seen them
27:53
and just loved them so much that you want to spend as much time
27:56
with them as possible. And you want to see those
27:58
milestones happen and you want to see them thrive and to feel
28:02
good in their body and to meet their needs and to run around
28:04
outside and to just be a kid for a bit longer.
28:07
You have taken a step that has embraced a freedom for them that
28:13
they never would have known otherwise, never would have
28:16
known otherwise. You have made that happen and
28:21
you are not sacrificing in this. You are about to gain one of the
28:26
most incredible experiences ever.
28:29
And all I can say is that if you can give yourself as much love
28:34
and compassion and support as you possibly can in this slowing
28:39
down process, in this embracing a different way of being and
28:43
thinking and doing that you will get to experience something
28:47
really beautiful. So I hope this has been helpful.
28:51
You need to be looking out for Ashley's book series.
28:54
She's starting our big home Ed conversations book club.
28:58
She's going to be telling you all about some really great
29:00
titles this month coming through September.
29:02
And ultimately she is she's doing that to give me a
29:06
momentary break so that I can go and have a few weeks to do all
29:09
of the other fun admin behind the scenes.
29:12
The podcast is doing amazingly. We've got some incredible,
29:16
incredible interviews lined up for Season 4, which is all about
29:20
fresh perspectives. We are looking at getting you
29:23
some people to come and talk to us about kind of just getting
29:27
put in ourselves in other people's shoes, recognizing that
29:29
there are lots and lots of different people out there, that
29:32
they all have really amazing kind of experiences and
29:36
histories and things to offer. And that our kids may struggle
29:41
to access some of these in a home educating environment if we
29:45
don't create those opportunities for them.
29:47
And so I really wanted to do a series on this, partly because
29:50
I'm really trying to focus on it with mine and giving them great
29:52
opportunities to learn about other people's perspectives.
29:55
So hopefully that will make for really good and like jarring
30:02
season filled with things which are going to hopefully make you
30:05
really think. So hopefully you'll love that.
30:07
Do look out for that. Should be starting again
30:09
beginning of October. And in the meantime, go and
30:12
catch Ashley's book club episodes because they're going
30:13
to be great. All right, guys, have a lovely,
30:16
lovely week. Bye.