Latest / The Christy-Faith Show / Ep. 126 - How to Homeschool a Child Who Won’t Sit Still

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Ep. 126 - How to Homeschool a Child Who Won’t Sit Still · The Christy-Faith Show

• 0:00
  Christy-Faith: If you are a mom who, by the time you're listening to this show today, you've probably said, sit down, please, 20,000 times. I want you to know that it's probably not your kid being bad. It's probably not you failing. But at the same time, it doesn't make you feel better about what your days tangibly look like. Okay.
• 0:17
  Take a deep breath because almost nothing here is what you think it is. You're not failing. Your kid isn't broken. That's just what young brains do when you ask them to sit and absorb for forty five minutes straight. The thing quietly running your mornings into the ground that I wanna uncover today and throw the lights on and go, is that stack of expectations that we have on ourselves.
• 0:42
  All those things that no one's ever told you that you are allowed to put down starting today. Okay. So two things. First, we're gonna loosen up three knots that just choke us that are squeezing the life out of our homeschool days. And then we're gonna get practical.
• 0:57
  We're gonna give you the real moves to help you get school done with that wiggly, wonderful, beautifully made kiddo that you have in your home. Who, by the way, I'm so glad they aren't in school. Can you imagine that? And then near the end of today's show, we are gonna ask that big question that a lot of you are carrying. Maybe you've asked it out loud in office hours in Thrive.
• 1:18
  Maybe it's just gnawing at you quietly. And that question is, is this normal, or is there something deeper that I should be concerned about with my kid? Now, of course, I don't know your kid. Maybe I do if you're in Thrive. But what I can promise you is that today, I know you're gonna leave with some tangible things and maybe even your next move.
• 1:36
  So stick with me. This is a long awaited show that the Thrive mentors have been begging me to do. So let's go. Alright. Well, hello.
• 1:55
  You're still here. I am so glad. Welcome to The Christy-Faith Show. This is the podcast for homeschool moms who take their craft seriously. Is that you?
• 2:03
  That's me. I care about this job, and nothing lights me up more than all of us getting better at it together. I love it. This is a show where we get honest about education, motherhood, and this beautiful life that you're building. I'm Christy-Faith Homeschool mom of four, twenty plus years in education, and author of homeschool rising.
• 2:23
  And big news, some more books are coming your way. Probably should make a bigger deal out of it. I'm one of those people that kind of minimizes good things that happen. But, yeah, I'm gonna be working with a dream publisher. And my next project is something that is my heart, soul, and guts, and I cannot wait to get it out there.
• 2:39
  I've been waking up early every morning just to give myself the time, the space, and the silence. Ladies, if you know, you know, to write on a particular topic that you and I both need. So stay tuned. I'll probably be talking more about that as the months progress. If you love my show, and I'm so glad you do, if you do, and you wanna go deeper with me and the mentors, don't forget that we have Thrive Homeschool Community.
• 3:02
  That is where we pull up our sleeves and get to the how to. It is a place for moms who wanna learn how to homeschool well and do right by their kids and build a homeschool that gives kids what they need now and prepares them for a beautiful bright future. We love the work that we do in Thrive. It is my why, but doors are not always open. See, we have to batch our classes.
• 3:23
  It's the only way we found that we can do it well. If you're interested in Thrive, please get on the wait list. And I do promise you this, I do spoil my waitlisters. So please do get on the wait list, and the next time we open, you'll be able to get in. Okay.
• 3:35
  So before any tactic for today, and we will get to those, let's talk about this moving target that we have in front of us today. Because I already know something about you, because you're probably similar to me, that you're not doing this homeschool thing because it's the easy road. You could hand your kid a desk somewhere else, but you didn't. You're at this homeschool table because you love your kids, and you wanna be the one who gets to teach them. And that is exactly why the difficult mornings hit so hard.
• 4:04
  Because when you can't get through your homeschool day, and you're probably some of you are in the space where I barely have anything planned and they still can't do it, it doesn't feel like a scheduling problem. It starts to feel personal. Let's take some weight off. Okay? Three expectations, and I think at least one of them might set you free.
• 4:21
  The first is focus. The people who train elementary teachers lean on a gentle rule of thumb, and I want you to know it. And I have fact checked this up and down and sideways just to make sure. Because, you know, I don't just trust assumptions or things that I know from being in an educational background. I always double check before I bring stuff to you.
• 4:40
  This did come out to be true. Your kid can really only focus for a few minutes per year of age on something a grown up picked. So what that means is a six year old who is fed and interested and having a good day lands with an attention span about fifteen minutes for lessons. That's not a flaw. That's a six year old brain doing what six year old brains do, which means that beautiful, lovely forty five minute lesson that the curriculum gave you was quietly asking both you and your kid to hold on about three times longer than they actually can.
• 5:15
  But we're all not wrong to hope. We try to buy the best curriculum out there. So often, we're handed a number that no one even told you was unfair. So that's my job. That's unfair.
• 5:26
  Okay. Here's a second one. What done? And if you are listening, you're not seeing my air quotes. What done really means.
• 5:33
  See, somewhere we started believing a finished day is every box checked, every page filled. And when we lose that battle with the dragon of the checklist, we feel like we failed. And let me tell you, sometimes it does feel like a dragon or more like a mountain, just insurmountable. Right? But a day where they read something good, turned an idea over, learned one thing that they didn't know at breakfast, that counts.
• 5:59
  It really does count. The checklist is meant to serve your family, never to sit in judgment of it. And a checklist certainly doesn't know your kid, your circumstances, your family, and your priorities. Can I hear an amen? Yes.
• 6:13
  Okay. Third one, because this is the one that has every morning feeling like a fight, the wiggling. Don't you feel a lot of times that all the squirming feels like a wall between your kid and your kid's learning? And let's be honest for a minute. Sometimes as adults, kids squirming and being noisy, it's dysregulating for the adult.
• 6:30
  And sometimes it feels like they're doing it to us out of disrespect, but they're not. It's not disrespect at all. What if for a lot of kids, that little body in motion is part of how the learning gets in? Okay. So those are the first three expectations.
• 6:45
  You don't have to earn the right to loosen the choke hold that those have on us. Consider it given. Now loosening those three things, it's easier for me to say, right, than for you to feel at 7AM tomorrow morning when things feel like they're unraveling before the day even began. Old expectations don't just pack up and leave just because we told them to. So I made you something totally free.
• 7:05
  It's a gift for you today to help you actually put these expectations down once and for all to slay that beast. 20 questions to kick start deschooling. And these are 20 honest questions that help you spot the school shaped rules that you're still carrying. Some of them you might not even know that you're still carrying them so you can let them go one at a time. It is completely free, and I will put that link in the show notes.
• 7:28
  And when you download that and sit down for a coffee quietly this week and you go through it, email me. I wanna hear the epiphanies that you have. We read every single email. Okay. Let's get to the practical of today's show.
• 7:40
  A few small shifts in how your day is shaped, nothing more. I'm gonna start with the gentlest one. And it makes a lot of sense, but it's gonna feel uneasy to you, so I'm gonna talk about that after I mention it. Okay? And this is shorten and split.
• 7:54
  So if fifteen minutes is what a six year old actually can bring to the table, uh-huh, I didn't realize that was a pun, but it was, then a lesson built for fifteen minutes by you will go better than the same lesson attached to forty. You can do the same exact content, split that lesson into two different days, two short awake sessions instead of one long one, where let's be honest, you've both probably checked out around the twenty minute mark and see how it goes. Do the fifteen and let it run. Come back to the rest later. Now I know what you're thinking, exactly what you're thinking.
• 8:24
  But, Christy, that's gonna double the time that it takes to get through the lessons and get through the curriculum, and we won't get through all of it before the end of the school year. To which I respond, I know. But what I think that a lot of us don't realize because we view education as content is that kids aren't a bucket to be filled. And when they start to not be able to pay attention, they're not learning anything anyway. So why don't we optimize the time that they have to attend and then stop?
• 8:49
  It's more developmentally appropriate. It's not gonna burn them out. It's not gonna kill their love for learning. These are all the things that we want to preserve. This is part of deschooling.
• 8:58
  Because the reality is when you rush through that curriculum just to finish it by the end of the year, you're rushing your kid through. They're not gonna remember probably half of it anyway. It's better to go slower at their pace so that they can learn properly, keep, and retain what they have learned. And if you weren't ready to hear this, which I totally get, I totally get because I was you, please grab my book homeschool rising. Read my chapter towards the end of the book on deschooling.
• 9:24
  And then if you're hungry for more, I have an entire deschooling framework with eight different steps and eight different video lessons in Thrive Homeschool Community. So get on the wait list for Thrive Because I think the single most important thing that you can do when you start homeschooling that will set you up in a way where you won't quit later is to deschool yourself. And what is deschooling exactly? Well, what I mean by that is shedding toxic beliefs about what society says an education is, which is largely content and boxes to check and is not in tune with child development and psychology at all. And it's building a beautiful, rich, and, yes, still rigorous education for your children that's more in alignment with where they are mentally, physically, academically, emotionally, psychologically, all of it.
• 10:08
  That's what we wanna be doing. That's why we're all homeschooling. And sadly, what it means is we have to leave some curriculum content on the wayside in order to do this homeschooling thing well. There just is no other way to do it. I could go, maybe I should.
• 10:21
  Let me know in the comments if you want me to do a whole episode deschooling. I'd be happy to do it because there are ramifications that make moms panic, which is why it's really good to have support while you're deschooling yourself. So let me know in the comments if you wanna show on that. Okay. So what to expect the first few days when you're actually asking what is age appropriate of your child?
• 10:40
  It might feel choppy, like you're starting and stopping. You might not get it right at first. You might struggle through it. You might not know where to start the lesson and where to stop it. That's okay.
• 10:50
  Stay with it. Just like anything, you'll learn to get better at it because what you're building is a kid who finishes things in pieces that they can actually hold, and that is a good thing. Alright. Right after this, the practical move that surprised me the most when I went digging. 54 studies, almost 30,000 kids that flips everything you've been told about the wiggling.
• 11:11
  This is gonna be good. Alright. Don't go far. And please do listen to my sponsors and click on their links if you're interested in what they offer. I am so thankful.
• 11:20
  They are the reason why I can do this show for free to you. Alright. See you on the other side. Homeschooling for kids means I'm juggling roughly 24 different subjects at any given time. And a few years back during a particularly busy season, I hit a wall.
• 11:33
  I needed some serious help with the heavy lifting of teaching everything myself and managing schedules for four kids. That's when I found BJU Press Homeschool, and we've loved their courses so much that we keep going back. Some families use them for everything and love it. I use them for certain subjects. Either way, total mental load relief.
• 11:50
  Here's what my mornings look like now. Let us take science for example. My three girls do that one together. They fire up the lesson taught by a real teacher, well produced, actual teaching, not just click through busy work. And I sit there with my coffee, watch them, or make breakfast, and we discuss the big ideas.
• 12:07
  Every BJU Press homeschool course prioritizes critical thinking, a biblical worldview, and hands on learning. I just guide the conversation and pick which activity or pages or projects we want to do, and everything's already planned out. They have an online platform included for you called the Homeschool Hub, and it keeps everyone on track, both me and my kids, without micromanaging or nagging. And when I have questions, I call my HomeWorks consultant. These people don't just help you get set up.
• 12:32
  They're available for you whenever you need them. It's like having a homeschool expert on speed dial. Go to bjupresshomeschool.com or click the link in the show notes to find out more. I wanna talk about homeschool math for a minute, specifically CTC math, who I'm so glad is sponsoring this episode because you need to know about them. I'm picky about curriculum, and there are a few subjects I won't compromise on, and math is on the top of that list.
• 12:58
  CTC math is what I use with all four of my kids, and it's an excellent k to 12 math program. Rigorous, thorough, comprehensive, everything I want my kids to have in their math education. But without all the stress, the tears, and me having to learn long division all over again. Here's what happens at our house now. My kids log in.
• 13:19
  A real math teacher walks them through the lesson four to nine minutes clear step by step. They do their lesson and finish up with practice problems. The program grades them, and I don't have to remember how to do fractions with unlike denominators or where exactly they left off last week, which means I get to be the mom in the room. I can sit nearby, listen in, encourage, fold the laundry, and watch math get done beautifully. Easier on mom?
• 13:45
  No sacrifice on academics? Yes, please. Join me and tens of thousands of homeschool families using CTC Math for their go to math curriculum. Links in the show notes. Grab your free trial today, and you'll see why we love it for our kids.
• 14:01
  Okay. So as promised, what surprised me most when I went digging? We can let our kids move on purpose, not as a reward for good sitting, but during the actual learning. Because it turns out a moving body and a working brain get along better than you'd think. And this isn't a hunch.
• 14:20
  Okay. So that research, the 54 studies, almost 30,000 kids, what they discovered is lessons that let kids move actually helped their thinking and their schoolwork. A 2023 analysis found movement noticeably improved how well kids stayed on task. What? It's like society tells us that a moving kid is a kid not on task.
• 14:41
  It's like, what? So the bouncing isn't interruption to the learning. Sometimes it's how the learning is delivered and how it gets in. How freeing is that? So what does that look like at your table?
• 14:52
  Spelling words shouted between jumps, math facts tossed back and forth with a ball, skip counting up and down the hallway, narrating a story while they wander the backyard. You're not giving up on focus. You're giving their focus a body to live in. And I know part of you just heard let them move, and you pictured total anarchy by 09:15AM. Okay.
• 15:12
  So stay with me. I'm not talking about just handing over the reins and letting chaos rule your home. That's not what kids need either. What we're talking about today is working with how our kids are built, how their brains are working, not against it. And it's so much quieter than the fight that you've been having every morning.
• 15:30
  Okay. We're chugging along beautifully here. Two more, and then we're gonna breathe. Here's the next thing. Do the hard things first.
• 15:37
  Whatever subjects make you and your kid want to hide under the table, do those first while their tank is full. See, attention isn't a flat line across the morning. It's highest early and it drains as the day goes on. So the math that you keep saving for after lunch, it might be landing on the most tired brain moment of the day. So flip it.
• 15:57
  Don't procrastinate with that hard thing. Eat the frog as they say and do the hardest thing while your kids and you are fresh. So what this looks like in my homeschool is the stuff that involves me teaching the kids things that they struggle with, things that are harder for me. We do earlier in the day, and then we work all the way up until lunch. We have a beautiful lunch.
• 16:17
  We do chores. Oh, I said beautiful lunch. Some days it's a beautiful lunch. We have lunch, then we do all of our chores. And then in the afternoon, that's largely for independent work, music practice, things like that.
• 16:28
  Okay. So what to expect when you make this shift? Well, the morning might feel heavier at the start, but you will be thanking your future self because the back half of the day stops being a slow motion collapse. So next, I wanna talk about read alouds because this is one thing that really freaks moms out. I can't get my kid to pay attention during read aloud.
• 16:49
  We hear this all the time. My kid is bouncing off the walls. They're upside upside down down on on the the couch. They wander off. They interrupt to tell you about a shark.
• 16:57
  And you're sitting there reading the book thinking, am I just reading this into the void? And if you're anything like me, you're thinking, there are different things that I'd rather be reading right now if this was for myself. Should do an episode on my favorite fiction books of the year. Oh, that would be so fun. Let me write that down.
• 17:11
  Let me get a pencil. So like every homeschool mom, how relatable is this? I go to pull out a pen. Did I find a pen? No.
• 17:18
  No. I did not find a pen. Who opens the drawers and is like, where's the pen? Back to the kid interrupting you to tell you about the shark. Okay.
• 17:26
  So you close the book. You're wondering why you even bother, and it's really disheartening and demotivating for you. I get it. But I wanna take the worry off of you for a moment here. Okay?
• 17:35
  A quiet still body was never the point of reading out loud. And I know, I know, you have those kids at church and you see they're all quiet, their hands are in their lap, and you they're homeschooled, and you think, oh my goodness. My kid will never be like that. Well, join the club of real life. Not every kid is like that.
• 17:52
  Most kids aren't like that. And the people who study this, like the smart people who do neuroimaging work out of Cincinnati Children's keep landing on the same thing. The magic isn't the sitting. It's in the interaction, the back and forth. The wait.
• 18:06
  What happened? And the why did they do that? That kind of reading lights up a child's brain the most. It's the kind where they get to talk back. So the kid interrupting your story to tell you about a shark, that might be the read aloud working, not failing.
• 18:20
  So let your kids build with blocks while you read. Let them draw the scene. Stop and ask what they think will happen next. You're not lowering the bar. I honestly think we're aiming at the right one.
• 18:31
  We're meeting our kid right where they are and we're engaging them with the literature. Now, one honest caveat because I won't sell you something soft. For the little ones, a real book and your real voice still beat handing them an audiobook and a screen. What they're finding is that it's the magic of you and them that does the real work. So once again, we circle back to what I shout from the rooftops.
• 18:53
  A successful homeschool is you. What your child craves is you. And the healthier of a connection and trust that you have with your kid, the better your homeschool will be. And part of that is understanding where they are developmentally and what they can handle. And that's okay.
• 19:08
  If right now you can only read out loud to your kid for five minutes and they're done, that's okay. Tomorrow, maybe you can try six minutes. Keep it at six minutes for a month, two months. That's okay. But don't give up.
• 19:19
  Okay. Before we keep going, we still have some really good stuff left for today. And this is so awkward for me to ask, but I'm gonna ask you for thirty seconds of your time right now. As you know, this show is free, and I am so thankful for that. I love being able to do tons of research and bring it to you week after week.
• 19:37
  It's a joy for me. And it is our beautiful sponsors that make that possible. Thank you. Love you. But the part that people often don't say, and I don't know why I think it's important to share as a podcast host, is it the way that shows reach more moms?
• 19:50
  It's not magic. It's algorithm robots that count everything. And what is that everything that I mean? Every follow, every comment, every share, every subscribe. That's how the algorithm decides who else gets to see this show.
• 20:03
  So if today has helped you or is helping you in any way, shape, or form, would you do me a favor and engage in some way with the show? Maybe tap that notification bell. Oh, I did that last week with a podcast. I thought, I'm asking moms all the time to subscribe and get notifications when a new episode drops. I love this particular podcast.
• 20:21
  I'm gonna do it, and I did. It was so fun. Somewhere out there, there was a mom saying, sit down, please, for the thirty thousandth time today, and your one tap might just be the thing that helps her find us. I'm not kidding. So thank you so much for doing what you do.
• 20:37
  The comments, the taps, the whatevers, the hearts, love it. We see it, and it means the world to me. Okay. Three more exciting things for you today. Super practical.
• 20:48
  You're gonna love it. And these last three play the long game, which I love. So the first one is trim your list. Somewhere along the lines, it got into our heads that a real school day touches every subject or it doesn't count. Well, that's just not true.
• 21:01
  Not even public and private schools do every subject every single day. You can loop subjects. Science twice a week, history on the other days. Rotate the extra so each one gets its turn. That way, you're cramming in seven subjects into one exhausting morning.
• 21:16
  A lighter day that you'll actually finish beats a full one that nobody survives. And if we're honest, can damage relationships if we're not careful because we're all just at our wit's end. And when we're at our wit's end and we're dysregulated, we say stuff that we wish we didn't say. And if you just heard loop it and thought, okay. Wait.
• 21:33
  What what was that, Christy? What's a loop? How do I do that? I hear you. Building a rotation from scratch when you're already underwater is its own kind of overwhelm.
• 21:42
  So I did the hard part for you. Today, I'm giving away sample homeschool schedules, real doable rhythms that you can borrow and tweak and make your own. So the twice a week science actually has a home and makes sense on your calendar instead of one more thing living in your head that you have to figure out. Ugh. The mental load sometimes.
• 22:00
  Right? So that resource is completely free, and the link is in the show notes. Steal the one that fits your family and get on with your day. Number two, build stamina slowly. See, focus isn't something your kid either has or doesn't.
• 22:13
  And the hopeful part, the part that's backed up well, is that children are born with the potential to focus, not the finished skill. It is a skill, and it can be built just like any muscle. And, yes, I do understand that there is ADHD in an ADHD brain, and this skill is harder for some kids than it is for others. Absolutely. But what we do know because of neuroplasticity in the brain that we can grow skills, and we can grow cognitive skills.
• 22:41
  One long study followed kids for years and found that a child's ability to focus and persist at age four predicted whether they finished college by 25. That mattered more than early reading or math. Crazy. Right? Let that encourage you, not pressure you though.
• 22:57
  That very thing that you're working on now at the kitchen table is one of the most valuable things you'll ever teach your kid, and you can work on it. And you do it by starting right where they are one minute at a time. And last, check the inputs. Before you decide anything's wrong with my kid, walk through an important checklist first. Are they sleeping enough?
• 23:18
  Do they have healthy eating habits? Are screens an issue? Do they have enough downtime and boredom time so that that focus muscle gets its reps? Let me remind you that a kid who never gets bored never has to practice finding something to do. Boredom isn't neglect.
• 23:33
  It's training. I don't need to spend more time on that. You probably already know to look at those things like sleep and nutrition and hydration and things like that. But it's very hard for even adults to stay regulated and to focus on things when they're hungry or tired. Why do you think I write my books early in the morning?
• 23:48
  I eat the frog. I want my brain the sharpest when I'm doing my writing. And I certainly can't do it if I'm hungry. Okay, Christy. Christy.
• 23:55
  Those are great tips. That's a lot of things that I can try. But how do I know if my kid is normal? How do I know if there's something deeper going on? Stick around.
• 24:04
  That's how we're ending the show. Hey. Shout out to Summit HealthShare for sponsoring this episode today. I love Summit HealthShare partially because it's my husband's company. What I think they're doing over there is absolutely incredible and life changing for many families.
• 24:19
  What is Summit HealthShare? Well, first, let me start with one of my rants about health insurance. Need I say anything? Probably not. But the co pays, the denials, the in network out of network nonsense, having to get permission to see your doctor, paying thousands a month, and then them still fighting with you every time you need just basic health care.
• 24:39
  I believe so much in the freedom that comes with leaving health insurance and moving to health sharing. Now it's not health insurance, but it does replace it. And it's been around for over a hundred years. With Summit HealthShare, most families and companies save 40 to 60%, and they have a 98% customer satisfaction. You get to see any doctor that you want, even holistic ones.
• 25:03
  No networks, no permission slips. You ladies know how I feel about freedom. I want medical freedom too. Summit HealthShare has different plan options depending on what your family needs. You might just need major medical, and that's great.
• 25:15
  On our plan, we get a little bit more, and we get free labs, free office visits, free prescriptions, and no co pays. Our family of six has saved a thousand dollars a month. And if it sounds too good to be true, it's not. It's actually how health care should work. We've just been accustomed to overpaying for our health care, and a lot of us don't need to do that.
• 25:34
  So if you are on traditional health insurance at all, here's what I want you to do. I want you to go to summithealthshare.com. When you get to the homepage, you'll see the savings calculator. Go ahead and click that. It takes only two minutes.
• 25:47
  And when you see those numbers, what you should be paying for the health care you need, you are going to be grabbing the phone so fast because health care is a serious thing, and you're gonna have really personalized questions, and they are used to answering all of them. Tell them all of your concerns, all of your questions, and they will tell you full stop if this is gonna be a fit for you or your family. And tell them that you listen to the show because I want you to have the VIP treatment. Go to summithealthshare.com today, and the link is in the show notes. This podcast is also brought to you by The Christy-Faith List.
• 26:17
  Now hold up because I want you to know what this is. I'm really proud of what The Christy-Faith List has become. It started really scrappy just compiling recommendations because I was fed up with guessing which businesses and providers and doctors weren't gonna give me a hard time when I walked through those doors. And I had tons of friends and family members with nightmare situations where they felt like they were walking into an ambush situation just when they were trying to get help for their families. And I was sick and tired of the discrimination that homeschool families were getting.
• 26:47
  But since then, it has grown into a massive directory of colleges, businesses, doctor's offices, reading specialists, occupational therapists, homeschool graduates that are in business themselves now. You name it all in one place. Because why wouldn't we wanna do business with the people who share our values and actually want to work with homeschool families and not give us a hard time? It is completely free for homeschool families to search. And if you are a business owner or part of an organization that loves homeschool families and wants to reach more homeschool families and grow your business in that way, please sign yourself up.
• 27:20
  We wanna know who you are. It's the place where homeschool families support the people who support us. Go to the christyfaithlist.com today. Okay. Welcome back.
• 27:30
  So the question underneath all of this and the one that you have been quietly thinking about this whole episode is probably, okay. Well, is my kid normal or is something deeper going on? And I'm always asking that question too. In office hours in Thrive and in the DMs, when moms come to us with this exact issue, we ask them a lot of questions before we feel like we can make a mindful and appropriate recommendation because we really care about you and your kids. And we never wanna be giving you advice that's not right.
• 27:59
  And there is enough pseudo advisors out there. You don't need another one. So I'm not gonna sit here and promise you that your kid's normal, everything's fine. I have read too many IEPs to tell you that, and I know the statistics for kids who do actually have stuff going on, and it's not low. So some of you listening right now probably have a kid that has something more more going on than what is normally developmentally appropriate.
• 28:23
  K? Just gonna say it. And this is a podcast. I don't know your exact kid. And even if I did, I wouldn't be doing any diagnosing at all.
• 28:31
  I'd be sending you to a professional to have your kid evaluated. But I do wanna tell you is just hearing don't worry about it from a stranger is worth about what you paid for it. What I can tell you is this. A young kid who resists sitting still for grown up chosen tasks is incredibly common. What also is incredibly common is adults not understanding what an appropriate attention span is for a particular kid at a particular age.
• 28:57
  That also is true. So for a lot of kids, it's just being a kid. And the problem is the adult just not being aware of what's normal. What actually matters in this isn't just a single rough morning. What we look for is when mama has made adjustments and things aren't really improving.
• 29:13
  We start to look at if things are stacking up, if we start to see patterns. Months of you educating yourself and patiently giving your child support in the environment that is appropriate, and you're still not seeing the needle move at all. Or your child seems genuinely miserable. Not just resistant, not just busy, but unhappy. That's something to investigate.
• 29:33
  And before your mind runs somewhere big, please rule out the fixable first, the unglamorous list of sleep, food, water, as I mentioned before. Of course, the sleep, food, water, but also have their eyes been checked? Their hearing. Are there other things like worry or anxiety that could be hiding under the wiggliness? Is your schedule just too full or is the work too hard?
• 29:55
  There are a lot of factors that you can think about before you start going somewhere else. And when you address those, a surprising amount of time that something deeper or that worry disappears and you realize, okay. Yeah. I just needed to make some adjustments and things are fine. And then on the other side of it, if you've made adjustments and things like that, and you're starting to see those patterns, then that's something to investigate further.
• 30:16
  Now one more thing that I'm saving for last because I wanna be careful with this, and this has the risk of being so misinterpreted, but I'm gonna say it anyway. It's not always a bad idea to compare your kid to other kids their age for a particular area that you're concerned about. Now please don't read too much between the lines there because I'm a big believer in not comparing yourself and your kids to other kids. But sometimes you do need to kind of observe and see what behaviors are more typical and to be expected and not their grade level, their age. All those things could be helpful in you knowing whether or not to take the next step of getting your kid evaluated.
• 30:54
  And that's all the next step would be. It's not we're not jumping forward to some sort of a diagnosis. Really, just the next step is, is there enough going on? Are there enough concerns where I feel like this warrants my kid being evaluated? That's it.
• 31:08
  Nothing more. Another set of eyes is not a bad thing. And if there is a diagnosis, nine times out of 10, they're more freeing and helpful than not. And that is the path for a lot of parents. And that is okay.
• 31:20
  And it's wonderful because it helps you unlock the mysteries of your kid, and it's not gonna do anything but help when it's handled appropriately. It's you being the kind of mom who notices, shows up, and loves enough to ask and investigate. And that's who we are around here. We are child advocates. Advocates.
• 31:37
  I feel like I need to have a badge because I really do feel like that's what we are. Okay. So look at where we started today. You at the table saying, sit down, please, and feeling like the words are echoing into nothingness. Wondering how to get this kid to sit down and learn.
• 31:52
  And look at where we are now. We've unraveled tons of expectations that we shouldn't have on our kids and ourselves and curriculum, and we are giving ourselves permission to lay them down and say, no. That's not true. I'm not gonna homeschool that way. Good for you, mama.
• 32:05
  We talked about shrinking the lesson to the brain in front of you. Let the body move while the learning is happening. Doing the hard thing first in your homeschool day, the one that involves the most brainpower. And we talked about rescuing our read alouds by letting them talk back and engage and wiggle. We also talked about maybe trimming the list of what you're doing in a day and working on building that focus muscles slowly, one minute at a time with a lot of patience.
• 32:31
  And when the worry creeps in, we talked about how to look for signals that might tell us that there's something deeper going on. Covered a lot of ground today. So good. Now as if I didn't give you enough freebies today, I have one last thing because I love those little note cards. I think they're so important to remind us of beautiful truths to carry with us throughout our days.
• 32:51
  I made you a little note card with this saying on it. Focus isn't something your kid has or doesn't. It's something you're building together one minute at a time. I've put it on a beautiful note card for you, totally free to stick on your coffee pot, your bathroom mirror, or your dashboard. Somewhere you'll catch it when you need it so that you can tell yourself the truth each day because, man, do those lies come rushing at us every day, don't they?
• 33:15
  The link for that note card is in the show notes. If this show hit home at all, I got two other shows to listen to next. One is episode 82, how long should a homeschool day really be? And episode 64, which is overwhelmed by homeschooling, how to make it manageable. I think both of those are great companions to today's show.
• 33:34
  So I'll put a link for those as well. And last, please know that I always want to hear from you. Tell me, what subject is the hardest for you right now? Have you found something that works for your wiggly kid? Please share it with us.
• 33:47
  I don't pretend to cover everything on this show every week. I can't do that. So if you have something to add, we wanna hear it. There is a mom listening right now who probably needs to hear what you have figured out. And don't forget that you can always email me directly with any questions.
• 34:01
  We read every single email. And speaking of trying to make Christy-Faith Land a safe place for all homeschool moms, and I hope you feel that. It's very important to us. If a weekly show that gets it feels good to you, wait till you're in a room full of moms who get it too. That's what Thrive Homeschool Community is all about.
• 34:20
  It is the nitty gritty in the weeds with you how to of homeschooling. It's for moms who are sick and tired of sifting through Google spirals, sorting through all the conflicting advice on the Internet, all of that overwhelm, we cut right through it, and we train you how to be a kick butt homeschool mom. And rather than guessing all of the time, you will know. Thrive Homeschool Community is what I wish I had when I started. I take this job pretty seriously.
• 34:46
  And like any job, it's silly for us to think that no training is involved to become better at it. You know? Think of nail techs, hairdressers, nurses. Everybody gets training for their job. But for some reason in society, and maybe because we're a little bit fringe, people assume that we need to just get it right all by ourselves, and we're kinda left with just Internet searching and figuring it out and making tons of mistakes along the way until we figure it out.
• 35:09
  And I just don't think that's acceptable. So I created a space where that's eliminated. And that is what Thrive Homeschool Community is. It is a beautiful place. Please get on the wait list if it is closed right now when you're hearing this episode, and we are looking forward to getting to know you in there.
• 35:23
  Alright. That's all I got for today. Thanks for being here, and I will see you next time. You have my heart.