518: NEW First Month Homeschooling Update

Now That We're A Family

In this episode of 'Now That We're A Family,' the hosts share their first-month update on homeschooling, reflecting on challenges, unexpecte

Key takeaways

Homeschooling success depends not just on schedules but on consistent habits rather than isolated incidents.
The hosts emphasize that perceived 'one-off' disruptions are often part of larger patterns that shape daily life.

Main topics

First-month homeschooling experience
Balancing education with family life and business commitments

Notable quotes

"We're getting it all done." – Their nine-year-old son reflecting on homeschooling progress.

Conclusion

The hosts conclude that while homeschooling has been challenging, their focus on

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Okay, so we have been homeschooling for a month now, and we're going to give you guys a little update on how it's going, what's working, everything's different than what we expected, and yeah, just the ins and outs of that. If you enjoy this episode, give it a thumbs up. Thank you so much for your reviews. Those continue to mean so much to us, and it always means so much when you share a podcast that you know and love with friends that also know and love. the podcast or introduce them to it. So thank you guys for that. We are just thankful for the growth that you've given us here on this channel. And we love connecting with you guys. Speaker 2 (0:37) Indeed. Our nine-year-old son said this afternoon to Katie, and I think you remember the quote a little better than I do, Katie. But he said something along the lines of, Mama, I think it was a really good decision to homeschool this year and not go to the private Christian school. And you said, why is that? And he said, just because we're getting it all done. Speaker 1 (0:57) Yeah, that was his perspective. He goes, we're getting it all done. I was like, you're right, we are. By God's grace, we're getting it all done. So yeah, that was pretty cute. Because the kids were with us probably more than they should have been. I don't know. Sometimes it's hard to know what... Do you discuss with your children? What do you not? I think we wanted to prepare them for changes that might be coming. So they were definitely with us on that ride of what we were going to do for schooling this year. And so it's sweet to see their confirmation and them feel like we made the right decision. Speaker 2 (1:32) Yeah. So what's your overall attitude, mood towards the first four weeks of homeschooling now? Speaker 1 (1:41) It's funny. There's been some ups and downs even in the first four weeks. I think that... Speaker 1 (1:49) The struggle for fighting for homeschool days has been a real thing. And that's been something that Elisha and I, we've been trying to navigate together because that's one of our family goals is to give the children a consistent educational schedule. And yet with our life, the way that it is, it's a struggle to make that happen. And it's easy to isolate incidents and be like, well, this is this week. You know, next week we won't have that commitment or we won't have that travel or the boys won't need a ride in with Elisha to work today because they have an appointment midday. And then he's got appointments that aren't coming home till late in the afternoon or, you know, there's just different things. And then launching the school, the music school here, it brings up. a new set of things that we're doing in person and new demands on Elisha's time and also my time. And then we were kind of talking about this and we're like, well, the nice thing is the school's launching this month. We'll be done with all the extra like ordering and decor and set up and hiring and all that. And we're like, October is going to be more chill. We're done with a lot of our commitments in terms of like startup after September. And then we were laughing because I was like, I think I might have the baby the last week of October. Yeah, Speaker 2 (3:14) that really is the nature of life. And you use the phrase isolated incidents. And that is a lie that we will tell ourself. It's the deception of perceiving things as being an isolated incident. And it's a concept that Katie and I. I guess, read about in that book, The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy. And it resonated so much with me because you can build an entire life that consists of what you think are isolated incidences or incident, yeah, incidences. And what they are is habits. What they are is that is your life. And so you first start seeing this when. For me, when I read the book, it's like, oh, I'm grabbing an afternoon coffee because it was a really early morning or I've got a big evening, so I want the second cup of coffee. And everything seemed like it was this isolated incident and it was a special occasion or it was something that warranted the second cup of coffee. You can do this with treats. You can do it with diet. It shows up a lot, I think, when you're thinking, oh, it's a busy season. I'm just going to grab something at the drive-thru window. Speaker 2 (4:20) You know, like the kid that we're, and so, or I'm not going to work out today. We don't have time for it. And so with personal habits, we really started noticing it. But then when you started using that term over this last month, it really made me realize how prone we are to forever, I think, considering. anything and everything an isolated incident and saying, okay, well, we'll get back to school next week. This is, we're not going to road trip every weekend or we have to, you know, all the keyboards just arrived. We got to go set those up at the studio or whatever it is. Like it's one thing after another. And there's, it always feels like it's true. We're like, this is an isolated incident. We'll just get through this moment and then we'll get back to the routine. But that is what life is made up of. And so. Your priorities are your priorities, you know, and that's the irony about that word priority is that like, I don't think it was plural until like the last 20 or 30 years. Like I think the root word is like it can only be used singularly. Originally that word priority. And yet here we are classic, you know, Americans like, well, I'm going to have priorities. Oh, Speaker 1 (5:35) my priority is good. More parties are better. Yeah, so I think that's been something going into this year, wanting to fight for we're just going to get school in every day somehow or another, but also wanting to grow in the grace of that and not have it create conflict in our home, not have it create conflict in our marriage, not have the children feel stressed. And so there's just, it's a real growing opportunity because Some of the days I've definitely been more the bad guy in reality where it's like, okay, I brought stress into our home and I've elevated this thing to this place where it shouldn't be, where it's like, we will get this done. You know, and I feel like it's come at the cost of relationship versus there are some days where it's just the day is kind of insurmountable. And I still have the same, like, we're going to get this school stuff done. Speaker 1 (6:36) Lord, how's that going to happen? You know, I don't want it to be with me stressed out. So just, and it's crazy how those days that are like surrendered days, it's just like things just fall into place and you can just do it in a calm way. And okay, we'll just do a random reading lesson here and we'll do this here, but it's without angst and it's about without stress. And it's about without rushing people to where they need to be or being snippy at Elisha, you know? So there's, You can do the same thing and you could do it well and you could do it poorly. And I felt like over the last month, there have been days where both have been true. I Speaker 2 (7:15) think you've done it well, 99 % of the time. And that, because I know that there was an instance where there is conflict with, and I, but I can't remember why or what. I Speaker 1 (7:26) can't either. I just remember. Yeah. Speaker 2 (7:29) That's the irony of those things. But you've been so gracious to. I think be on the same page, really want to be on the same page with me. And something that is really inspirational is not only are you committed to seeing that school happens every day, this is really kind of like the, it's served. I mean, maybe actually, I don't know which one's serving, which one has the impetus, but like it's made you really consistent in your devotional time, in your prayer life, in your exercise. It's like you've just become a creature of really good habits. I mean, you've always been that way, but it's been very heightened over the last month. And I think you actually get momentum. It's really rewarding. And it's affected me big time. It's affected our whole family in a very positive way. And to give some practical examples for like, okay, we're going to make school work, and maybe you'll have some more examples too, Katie, than what I share. Like we're going to make school work, you know, whether or not it seems reasonable. Things like getting home late from a road trip. maybe you get home late on a Sunday night. We did actually, I think what, last weekend. And that would be our old selves back in the year 2025. We would have, and you know, rightfully so, just kind of blown out Monday as a recovery day. Just been like, okay, it's a getting back on our feet day. We would even use the term buffer day because that's like strategic coach. language. Um, and so there wouldn't be a morning agenda. There would be just kind of like, okay, let's try to get caught up on laundry because we've, you know, we've, we're bringing home all these, um, all, you know, all these dirty clothes. Uh, the work for me on, on a work front, a business front would be just maintenance mode. It's like, okay, get back to people, but nothing proactive. It would also, it would all kind of be reactive. Um, again, you've always provided well for our family, but you would have used that data kind of like. you know, get back on your feet and maybe we'd end up eating out that day or, you know, doing something like that. And, uh, Katie wouldn't Speaker 1 (9:33) have gotten up early and Speaker 2 (9:34) done your workouts and you've refused to let that happen. Like that has not happened because that's what is crazy is that we, we put such limiting beliefs on ourselves where it's like, Oh man, it was a late night. We had guests over or we were getting home from something. There's no way if I start tomorrow at 5 a.m., you start thinking down the road, like I can't sustain that for a full week. Like I've, so I've got to get it. I've got to get sleep tonight if I'm going to get it. Rather than just living one day at a time, which is all we can do. And sure enough, like the Lord has sustained you. Like he sustained me. And it's been really cool to see how when you are committed to those things. that you can rebound or you can get back so much quicker than what I think my limiting belief had led me to believing. All right, the Vopr Music Academy Fall Competition is happening. in October. So there's still time to sign up and get prepared to compete in this year's competition. You don't have to, okay? You don't have to compete in this year's competition, but it's a really inspirational thing to even observe in the community. There are so many kids that put a ton of time and energy into preparing two pieces to perform for the competition. real live prize money is rewarded for the top five in each age category. Here's another thing. If you are somebody that's a musician, this happened last year, you're a musician, you take lessons from somebody else and you're like, I want to be a part of this competition. Guess what? You can be a part of the competition. You can join. There's a coupon below. You can join Vopr Music Academy. You can compete. That's something that was really inspiring to all of the Vopr Music Academy students is they got to see. musicians that weren't normally a part of the group calls, a part of the live coaching calls, come join the competition. So it's for anybody and everybody, all ages, not all instruments. It's for piano, fiddle, guitar, ukulele, and mandolin. As well as collaboration. So I guess, actually, you can play any instrument in the collaboration division because that's like a band competition. But check the link below. You'll get a 20 % discount for each month that you are enrolled if you use that coupon code. And you'll be able to, yeah, be one of the competitors this year. See you over there. Speaker 1 (11:41) Yeah, I think so. And I think... And there's days you're like, okay, I'm going to be more tired tomorrow. We're going to do the things. Then I'm going to get in bed earlier and I'll go to sleep harder. So it's all going to work out, you know, and it's kind of been crazy to see how we've been able to catch up and sustain, which is encouraging and hope-filling. I do think something that I've... that has really helped in these seasons is having the routine, having the objectives for the day being the same. And then some days being like, okay, they're going to follow the standard algorithm. They are going to be routine. And then other days, like yesterday, we all came in at 1130 and came in and set up the studio in town. So all the kids were in here. We had to do a ton of shopping in town for the studio. There was just a lot of stuff going on. And so By my standard algorithm, I was very overwhelmed at first. And I was like, this isn't going to work. This is going to be a day where school gets blown out. And it's crazy because all the school got done. And it just had to do with just. shifting the day around, having the kids bring in some of their school to the studio, doing some earlier before breakfast, you know, and just being okay, again, in a calm way, just being like, okay, we're going to do things totally different today. We're going to do lessons at all these random times. and all the lessons are going to get done. That's the objective, but it's just going to be piecemeal, and that's okay. And I think what I realized is I had this perfectionistic mindset of, well, I'm going to miss the afternoon block of school, therefore we aren't going to get done what we usually get done in the afternoon block of school. But I'm learning that that doesn't have to be the case. Speaker 2 (13:25)