Scripture In This Episode:

Proverbs 12:25  – “Anxiety in the heart of man causes depression, but a good word makes it glad.”

Ephesians 2:10 – “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

Deuteronomy 11:19 – “You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.”

Proverbs 1:5 – “A wise man will hear and increase learning, and a man of understanding will attain wise counsel,”

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Full Transcript:

Welcome to Courageous Parenting podcast, the weekly show to equip parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world. Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous Mom. And I’m Isaac from Resolute Man.

We’ve been married 20 years and I’ve seen the fruit in raising our eight kids biblically based on the raw truth found in the Bible. We can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children. Too many children from Christian families are walking away from the faith by age 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. Join us as will start an important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world.

Everyone, welcome to the podcast. Hey, guys.

We’re excited to engage with you about homeschooling in a different way this time.

We’re going to talk about eight disciplines that accelerate learning.

We get so many questions. Well, Angie gets so many questions about homeschooling right now as the world has turned to homeschooling.

Well, and, you know, if you’ve listened to any of our podcasts, you’ve heard us acknowledge the truth, that what is happening right now is not truly a good reflection of homeschooling.

It’s more like school at home because it’s lacking the positives of socialization on co-ops and all the good things you can do, all the activities that you can do, the extras.

Yeah. So that’s good to be aware. Yeah. Because it’s important to realize that, you know, what you’re experiencing right now. You may be going, oh wow, there’s some really good things. Like I’m really glad that there are there are some redemptive things happening in our home in the sense of having a courageous parenting attitude, which is, oh, my kid has some sin in some areas. And instead of being frustrated with that, frustrated with their attitudes, you go. Good thing I’m able to see this right now. I’m going to dig in with them, disciple them and lead them to the Lord and help them to grow out of that. Right. Amen. So but but it still can be hard for people because there’s aspects of homeschooling that they don’t realize are missing.

So while we’re gonna dive in in a second, we have eight disciplines, four of which we’re going to talk about in this podcast episode. And next week we’ll cover the other remaining four. That’s two part series. Now, the last time we did a two part series. It went really, really well. So we’re hoping you love this and love the next one to share it, because it really helps with the one million Legacy’s movement, which we’ve been pursuing since the beginning, since I left the work world, the business world, to do full time ministry with Angie. We had this on our hearts to do so. You’re a big part of that, whether you you donate at CourageousParenting.com or you share or give reviews on iTunes or anywhere else or share posts.

guys were just so encouraged because when we started this, part of it was that we wanted and we wanted people to realize they were not alone because there were times when we felt alone. Yeah. It’s not good to be running the race alone. And so if you feel like you are alone in your parenting and in pursuing biblical parenting and being a courageous parenting, making hard decisions, I want to encourage you I’ll just your plug for one of our previous podcasts, which is don’t do the race alone. So go look in season one and you’ll find a lot of encouraging podcasts there, too.

Now, something the spirit prompts us to do this year. Just really, in the last month since Covid 19 and all the things around that are happening, the financial challenges people are having is we started giving some courses away. And what’s been really encouraging to me is that nobody has taken advantage of that meaning. We’ve given almost 100 courses away so far, but only the only people that have gotten them are people in real need, right.

Where like there they’ve lost their jobs or husbands have lost their job.

There’s just no way they can pay for it. And so, obviously, when people buy courses, that is one of the primary ways we make that is the primary is. Yeah. So. So that’s important. But and that’s happening, too. And that’s just been encouraging that people are buying them, even though we put that announcement out. But people in real need messages.

And when we can do that and I think that it’s important that people realize, too, that when they are investing in their in a course, they’re investing in their legacy. But they’re also enabling us to be able to bless another family to it when that happens. Yeah. And so I just wanted you guys to know that that was really huge on our heart.

So when you buy one, likely someone else is getting one. And because you did that and that’s really cool. That’s another way. You’re part of the one million legacies movement and more people can be impacted even if the husband lost the job or something like that right now. So that’s really cool. We’re praying for those who are financially challenged right now. We know full well what it’s like to lose income, lose a business. These kinds of things. There was a time where half a million dollars in debt from a business was following us and no income. And we had a large family and we remember vividly that. But you know what? We clung to the Lord. And so if that’s you, we pray that you cling to the Lord. He will not let you down. Things don’t work out exactly how we always want them to do, but they always work out in the very best. Way that God wants them to happen.

Yeah. And so we just know that we’re lifting you guys up. We’re praying for you. We’ve been in those situations, like Isaac said. And we also want to you know, one thing while Isaac was sharing that, it just hit me. If you have I know that I mentioned a podcast already, but if you haven’t listened to the one that’s raising your kids through life struggles, I really think that that could be a powerful podcast for couples to listen to if you are struggling financially during this time. We have a couple podcasts on how to parent through hard life situations. Yeah, and I. I really think that this is an opportunity. I just really exhort you and encourage you as one sister to another or a sister to a brother. Like we’ve watched of those hard times and we had a choice to make on whether or not we were going to try to shelter our children from experiencing any of the consequences of our sin or bad decision making on things we imposed on us which is happening now. Right. Exactly. And yeah. Or things being imposed upon you. Yeah. We had a choice to make on if we were going to shelter our children completely from that. And what we were going to allow them to experience. And we chose to make ourselves transparent and vulnerable with our kids and sharing things so that they could see a biblical model. We felt really strongly that that was something God was calling us to, to walk in for the first time. Yeah. But also to model for kids what it looks like to walk through trials as believers. So we actually all have an amazing opportunity right now to model what Christian living is supposed to look like in time. Uncertain times.

Absolutely. So and by the way, we recently launched a health workshop that’s free, completely free, has fun 50 minutes because Angie’s 20 years now married and raising eight kids. And she has always pursued since the beginning, helping our family heal naturally and proactively boost our health through natural methods. And while being a full believer in doctors and medicine and so forth, but only when the natural path doesn’t work.

And so we really pursued to have a balanced perspective on that. Not making an idol out of either.

Yeah. So if you want to if you want to check that out, it’s in the show notes a courageous parenting dot.com, along with all the biblical references, any research to talk about a video of this episode and so forth. So let’s dive in. OK, the first of eight is disciplines. The first of eight disciplines. Yes. Thank you. Is to teach to your kids interests.

Yeah. So this is you know, obviously this kind of goes in alignment with more of a delight directed study. Or even Charlotte Mason had the philosophy of education where year in integrating all aspects of a child’s whole life. Yeah. OK. I’m not going to dig really deeply into that approach of homeschooling, although we do cover that all of the approaches of homeschooling in the homeschooling blueprint course that we just launched. But I think that this is an important aspect that all people, regardless of your approach of homeschooling, whether your Montessori homeschooling or your classically educating your kids or you’re doing a literature based curriculum, you can teach to your kids interests. And I think that this is a really important aspect that will accelerate learning, because obviously, don’t you and you learn more if you’re enjoying what you’re learning. Right. Like, if someone was assigning you to read something that you weren’t interested in and then you also had some books on the side that you wanted to read because you knew you were going to apply them to your life immediately, what would you choose and what would you enjoy reading more of and what would call you back to reading it? Of course, the things that you’re interested in. And so I’m not saying that we cater completely to that because obviously, like our not all kids love math, but math is something they need to learn. Right. And so there are those core subjects that we need to be teaching our kids and making sure they’re being stimulated in.

But at the same time, we’re really paying attention to your kids, studying them, seeing what they’re interested in, and finding either a unit study or creating something on your own, depending on the type of person that you are. And diving into those things that your kids are interested in can really accelerate their learning because they want to learn it.

And there’s so many different kinds of people. God made each person unique. And if you’ve ever taken a personality test or something like that, there’s actually truth to those. It comes from two thousand years goes the temperaments and different assessments kind of all say the same thing. Some are more accurate than others. But really, you and your kids have different learning styles and are wired differently. And that really can be a blessing with education and it can wreak havoc in education if we’re not adapting to who people are in the personal interests. That’s right. Which is superimportant. I remember, for example, I was. Lee educated now the very beginning, actually, early years, I was in a alternative school where everybody was in an open room and kind of learned on your own with people helping in more of a disorganized approach. Is the way organic, the way I remember is probably you have it. And I fell through the cracks and was very shy and really didn’t. I needed more structure and direction, but probably in an area of my interests. And so that was really challenging. I remember actually being threatened to hold back a grade or I had to go into the special education class for a little while. And then this wonderful mom volunteer worked with me one on one. Immediately I was back to speed.

It was literally I just was not doing anything and I didn’t have any direction. And and how did that make you feel? Oh, made me feel horrible. And in fact, I remember some kids calling me stupid. And this can have ramifications to somebodies identity. Thankfully, I was very stubborn in a good way in which I was determined never to be stupid and to prove everyone wrong. Absolutely. So not all kids have that determination. But I remember it can be frustrating if we’re not catering a little bit to who someone is, because I remember one day I didn’t realize I was going to share this, but I turned the lights off in the school I was in. That was to get everybody’s attention. And so but usually the teacher that does that and I turned the lights off and I said a very naughty word. I said the F word to everybody. Well, and I walked home. That was in third grade. And so now and I just left I walked home because I just felt totally alienated by the environment. And so I don’t know, that could’ve been my sin for sure, I take responsibility for that. But at the same time it was around not feel I can make in progress, not feeling like, you know, I understood what to do. Yeah.

And I think it’s important that, like, you know, a lot of people have those stories. I have the opposite kind of. Absolutely. Just if I’m not going to go into details. But, you know, a lot of times people think that home schoolers home school because they had a bad experience. And since you just shared a bad experience that you had with education. I just think that to balance our story, it’s important that people understand I had a fantastic educational experience. I mean, there were a couple years that were really hard for me when my parents moved in.

They switch, say you’re like an A student. But yeah, I learned well in the box. I read you later. I was a cheerleader. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so, I mean, what I did, I absolutely loved everything.

You were thriving. And but, you know, it’s funny. When we first talked about homeschooling. I was the one for it or no. When I was the one against it and for public school. And you were the one that was more receptive.

I was more receptive. But I also didn’t want to I was looking for reasons for why wouldn’t have to homeschool because I know it’s going to be a lot of work. Yeah. And so I didn’t want my kids and socially awkward were just sharing like true. We’re being really transparent now. We weren’t planning on sharing this stuff, but I think they can be encouraging to you because maybe you relate to something that one of us has shared. But the important thing I think is to think back to that little boy that you were just describing yourself. Thirty five years ago. Yeah. Thirty years ago, right? Yeah. Long time ago. Long ago.

And, you know, today, how many little kids are that little boy, right. Where they are not fitting in to the mold that the government or the education system has set up for them? Yeah. And instead of and the teachers probably I know many awesome, awesome teachers. Their heart goes out to those kids and they try so hard. But you know what? It’s not their fault that they don’t have enough time because they’ve got so many students.

And then later, I remember in my later years, like, you know, wasn’t even high school. I remember sitting there and the teachers in front and they’re just teaching. There’s pontificating, just pouring out information constantly. And I remember sitting there in my knee would start bouncing and then I would grit my teeth. And then pretty soon I had these weird visions. I’m not sure that’s real quick on my hand.

I think I’ve never really I’ve never really felt before.

I used to think, what is the fastest way out of this room? And it wasn’t the door. I know. Yeah, I was like I had this vision of standing up and throwing my desk out the window and jumping out after.

It’s crazy. It was the single level. It wasn’t a suicidal thought.

It was like aggravated, frustrated thought. I’m stuck here, incredibly boring, and I need to be doing something.

Oh, interesting. You guys, these are stories I haven’t even heard and we’ve been married 20 years.

So I just think that because I think it’s important to pay attention to who people are now. I needed to probably be corrected in that thinking. And yes, you know, you need to be obedient. And I did. I sat there. I never did anything like that. No regrets. Oh, but these are thoughts of my life. These are thoughts in my mind because of I don’t think how I was in education was really for how is wired.

Yeah, it’s interesting. So as we’re talking about this first point still, which is teach to kids interests, it’s important to understand that, like, there are kids that actually think that way. Like it’s healthy for me to be challenged in my thinking. Hearing Isaac share his story, because that wasn’t my story. And we all need to be able to put ourselves in other people’s perspectives. We need to be stretched in that kind of way with our kids to study them to go. OK. So is this really a struggle with them? Am I pushing something that’s in my agenda because somebody somewhere said that they have to learn this by the time they’re age five or the time they’re age seven, when in reality maybe they have a strength in a different area where it could actually, like, cultivate a real enjoyment in earnings. Anything. Right. One thing. And hold back that other thing. That’s just super, super hard for even just six months and then try it again and wait. And I had to learn that the hard way with some of our older kids. I mean, you always hear that story from parents of many that are like, I made most of my mistakes with my first born or you know what I mean? There really is truth to that, no matter how hard you try. Because we heard that and I was determined, I am not going to be that parent that says that.

But now, looking back and having had eight, I recognize that there are things that are not even even a temptation to be a struggle for me. Yeah. As far as like I’m not as prone to push in a competitive nature of, oh, my kid has to meet these specific standards on this person. Specific timeline. It’s more like looking at the whole person, seen the interests. Also looking at the things that are required to be learned. Being able to focus on character and knowledge of the word of God and then teaching them the core things. Right. Yeah. But not being so stuck in an agenda.

So you have to know their learning styles. And we talk a lot more about this in the homeschooling blueprint course. Ran out of time to go through everything today. And that’s definitely in there. But you need to study your kids and you need to think about. OK, do they need more breaks or, you know, what do I need to do? Do I need it? You know, why do I need to focus in on an area? And if they’re allowed to study in a delight directed way, then they have to become easier for them, too.

And there are ways to like when you’re homeschooling, you said something like helping them to study in a way that helps them. And it just reminded me of one of our kids does better learning if he’s kind of got some movement going, which was he gets that from you with your whole knee bouncing that you were just describing.

And so we got him one of those large exercise balls that they could just kind of bounce on. And honestly, I’m not kidding you. You guys being able to read longer stints of time doing math, faster, more focused. If he had a little bit of movement and and before we figured that out, we were also able to start doing different things like having him work for 20 minutes and then having him jump on the trampoline for 20 minutes and then bring him back and do another 20 minutes work. And, you know, obviously that got larger as the kids got older and it was a matter of growing. And then this ability to be disciplined at getting things done. But often times, if I would dangle this whole oh, you can have a 20 minute break to jump on the trampoline or whatever it was, if I would say if you do this, you can do this. They were more motivated to get it done so that they could get to the fun time, right? Yeah. And so there are ways that you can figure out those things that your kids are interested in that can actually be a reward for them and getting the hard things done.

Also another thing is that depression’s a big deal today and a lot of kids are feeling alone and depressed and it’s just a sad thing. And I think part of that is wired within all of us is this desire to contribute and and for our fellow human beings around us to acknowledge that we have a reason to be here because we can be here, because we can contribute, because there’s value we can bring to other people’s lives. And maybe kids can’t always articulate it that way, but that is wired in us. And so when we wonder when kids and I remember wondering this, too, when I was an older kid, Mike, why would anybody pay me for anything? I remember having this weird thought and I knew. I wanted to be successful and do things, but I couldn’t pinpoint any skills I had that would be valuable.

And that said, can make you depressed. And I think that that’s a really important word for right now, because finding things that your kids are good at even. Yeah. Maybe it’s not something that they know they’re interested in, but something that might come naturally to them because they are skilled, like physically. Right. Maybe they’re just more athletic, quickly being able to give them a bigger responsibility, like chopping wood or mowing the yard, doing the weed whacker, maybe at a younger age than you actually you think. You know, obviously you’re going to supervise and teach them, but you might be surprised if they’re actually good at that. And that gives them some sense of contribution and a job. And we actually I wrote an article that was all about this was the most important thing that all teenagers need. And it was actually that was the filming of purpose.

Kids grow to the level of responsibility you give them. And so just remember that. But also when we’re teaching, if they’re delighting in what they’re learning, so then they become passionate about it. Now they’re learning outside the scope of requirements, outside the scope of expectation, and they’re feeling smart in an area they’re passionate about. They feel like I. And then they’re excited to talk about what they’re learning. And when people teach what they’re learning, it further ingrains it in their heads. So if kids aren’t passionate about at least some aspects of the things they’re learning, we can never be passionate about every aspect. I mean, there are kids. There’s just stuff that we all have. We all have to do not. But we need to make sure with in the curriculum there is an area of passion so that they’re sharing about they’re excited, they’re feeling valuable of contributing words, of wisdom and smarts to the world.

Yeah, it’s really important. So let’s move on to number two, which is curriculum matters. Yeah. So this is the second discipline that accelerates learning. Obviously, you need to be open minded about the different possibilities that you have for choosing curriculum. You may not be aware of this, but there are hundreds of curriculums available today and all you have to do to find some of these. I wish there was one website I could say go to and you could see them all. But the truth is there are a few different websites we do go more into depth on, like specific curriculums. I actually in the homeschool blueprint, it’s so fun, you guys. The fourth video took me like 20 hours to prepare because I literally went through 16 years worth of curriculums in the garage and I pulled out my favorites and I showed them some of my favorites in the video, the way we kept it, not overwhelming, as we put it, by category in the 45 page workbook.

Since you brought it up, workbook download. Yeah, the roadmap has links literally to the Web sites to look at those curriculums. And so really simplified. So it’s basically Angie’s all this experience and that’s simplified it down to these different areas and it makes it easy for parents to look at that. So you have a curriculum is really important. I mean, that’s a big topic, but yeah, it is.

I mean, the reason I’m bringing up the homeschool blueprint, because I can’t go into obviously, like, oh, if your child is a logical learner, then choose this curriculum. If your child is a kinesthetic learner, then choose.

That was an hour long session with tons of resources.

Automatically. Yeah. And then links for them to continue their education as homeschooling parents and. But I just want to encourage you that choosing a curriculum. You know, I know the pressure and stress that I’ve put on myself over the years to try to pick the right curriculum. And one of the things that I do encourage parents with in that course that I want to encourage you with is that there isn’t a perfect curriculum that’s perfect for every kid. And so you really have to know your child, know yourself, know what areas maybe they’ve struggled in and know what areas they’re really good at and being open minded to trying new things with different kids even and not always just assuming you’re going to use the same thing with each kid down the road, because that’s a different form of cookie cutter.

That is, it’s different than public education, cookie cutter education. But it’s still the same philosophy of like, I’m going to buy this once in music with every kid. And that can work some times when you have certain learning styles that are the same or you know what I mean, like even handwriting curriculums, we haven’t used the exact same workbooks with every kid.

Well, here’s the point. You’re saying, too, is that every family’s different. Yeah, every kid is different. Every teacher is different, you know? And so sometimes it’s about what you like to use to teach to because you need to be excited.

Otherwise, if you’re not. I mean, parents, if we have a bad attitude when we’re teaching something or we’re trying to motivate our kids to do schoolwork, our kids are gonna mimic our bad attitude.

And when we want them to be delighting in learning. So we need to be delighting in teaching. Here’s a scripture Sorry. Anxiety in the heart of. And causes depression. But a good word makes me glad. So let’s not forget, as we’re focusing kids in a direction of passion, passionate learning that they love, as we’re picking curriculums and so forth, that’s going to work better for each kid. Yes, more expensive, but a good investment. And that what surpasses all of that is the words from you. Mm hmm.

There sure is the encouragement. And because we never want a bad identity development or kids associated with academics.

And it’s the good book here that has the real ultimate good word that can help and help you to facilitate and cultivate and encourage your child and having a strong biblical identity because each kid was made on purpose by God.

They need to know this, just regurgitating the sum each kid was made on purpose by God for important works in this world. And you are their coach, their teacher, their mentor, their instructor, you name it. And right here in Ephesians 2:10 We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before him that we should walk in them. That’s you. And that’s your kids. Mm hmm. Very good. So shall we move on to number three?

Yeah. So cultivate and grow a love for learning. And again, I almost feel repetitive in saying this. This is actually a session. Three, we talk about cultivating a love for learning more in depth in that one hour teaching as well as a teachable heart. But I did want to just share with you some basics as far as growing and cultivating a love for learning if you’re a gardener. I’ve been I was a gardener for many years. We lived on a small hobby vineyard that we had cultivated with our family for about a decade. And I had gardens and herb gardens and a small orchard and chickens and wow, what a fun way to live for a decade. I miss it at times. And guys, so many of the ways that I taught my kids lessons were using the analogy of gardens. And so I’m going to use that same analogy with you guys regarding cultivating and growing a love for learning in your kids, because kids do actually naturally. God put in us this desire to know things.

And that’s why Adam and Eve were tempted to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They wanted the knowledge. So this is a thing that is in us that we have this desire for knowledge. And the truth is, though, that sometimes kids lose that initial curiosity, that inquisitiveness in them. They they don’t know if you’ve ever watched a little little kid like a toddler. They’re very imaginative. And as they get older, you might start to sense that their imagination is waning. OK. And so one of the things that I have always tried to do is try to keep that imagination alive, but help the kids to steer it into productiveness as they get older. As far as what is their art, which is one of the things that we talk about in the homeschool blueprint for helping your kids to find out what their art is. And I don’t mean just fine arts.

I don’t mean just painting. Although those can be some of them. Yeah. And so I my encouragement to you is that everyone has this inquisitive nature of wanting to know things, wanting to learn things, being curious. And parents actually have a an intrinsic influence, a sacred influence in their child’s life to cut off that curiosity. Mm hmm.

By, for example, when kids are asking questions and they’re asking a lot of questions, just pushing that away and saying stop asking me questions or being annoyed with the questions. That’s one way you can shut off the curiosity over time in your kids. And so I think that it’s important that we actually encourage the question asking. Now, when I say that I’m not meaning disrespectful question asking, like you tell them to do something and they sassily say why. That’s not the kind of question asking I’m referring to.

I’m talking about why do you why did God make frogs able to have babies the way they do? Why?

Why did God make tadpoles first? And then why did they turn into frogs like that kind of curiosity should be encouraged.

Yeah. And sometimes we just go, oh, because God made it that way. Right. Because you were better with our agenda. Exactly.

Instead of pausing and checking out a book at the library or maybe looking up a video on YouTube channel that talks about the process of how frogs lifecycle goes. Right. Like, there’s so many ways that we can further encourage our child and show them that we actually enjoy learning alongside them, which is one of the ways that you cultivate a love for learning.

You shift your mindset as a parent to see these opportunities to teach versus see the questions as a nuisance because of our agenda and what we’re doing. Yeah, and doesn’t mean you stop whatever you’re doing to not all the time. But, you know, that’s a cue a wait a minute later. I’m going to address this. I’m going to make that part of tomorrow’s curriculum. You can Google something.

Exactly. And so one of the ways that you can cultivate this, I often like to think of it as cultivating vineyards. So we talked about the importance of matching your curriculum to your child’s need. And that’s the first start. When you’re cultivating a garden of a love for learning, you’re going to pick here and pick out what seeds you want to plant. Right. It’s the same thing as picking out your curriculum. So you’re going to choose what you want your kids to grow in the knowledge of. What do you want to grow in your garden? You maybe you and your husband have a date night and you discuss like what are the most important things that we want passed down in our legacy.

And, you know, we’re talking about, you know, what’s interesting about the vineyard is actually when we did the vineyard, we had to do research about the soil. And then we had to figure out what route structure actually would match that soil. Right.

Which is then we had to amend the soil. Yeah. Before we could plant the plants.

Right. So there’s a lot about everything we’ve talked about already. Which curriculum for which kid.

Right. So you’re going to be evaluating, doing research. Then you’re going to pick your seeds. You going to pick your curriculum. Right. But then you don’t just give your kids the curriculum and let them go. The same thing as planting a seed. You have to tend it right. You have to pull the weeds, which could be sin bad attitudes right along the way. You have to pull the weeds so that the kids so they can grow. Right. And they also need watering or those plants are going to wither. Right. It’s the same thing for a love for learning. Like if your kids are set off on a path and they’re really interested in it, but they need help. Let’s say it’s science and they can’t do these lab projects that are in the apologia curriculum of science. Yeah, without mom dad’s help. But Mom and dad never have any time to help. Guess what’s going to happen to that? Love for learning of science. It’s going to wither. Yeah. And so we actually have to recognize that we may be good at cultivating, but we need to be good at watering and tending the garden while our kids are in our home so that they continually have that love for learning. And another good idea just regarding this is to have ways where you’re able to actually encourage or celebrate your kids when they are doing those good things. Right. So true. And so I just think that there’s an element of like you need to appreciate even if you’re not interested in science. Yeah. You need to appreciate their interest in science. Yeah, right. And actually, guys, guess what this is doing. Not only is it cultivating a love for learning. It’s encouraging your relationship with your kid, which is what is the foundation of them even having a teachable heart.

And I think you just created massive fear in this way was which we will address here? Well, I mean, I’m not good at science.

How can I teach my kids saying I’m not good at science? If I can do it, you can do it.

Give it a try.

I mean, no, seriously, you keep one step ahead of your kids or not and learn it with them.

They’re like it’s about humility both and not having to have all of the answers. Gee, you know, like I think that that’s the that is the beautiful part about this, is that if you come across as a parent, always has to have the answers. Right.

Then you’re never going to be an approachable parent. Your kids are not going to come. Well, I’m. Are you. You could choose to create know it all kids. Oh, yeah. That’s not a good idea. So you always know it all. Yeah.

Then they strive to always you guys you know what we’re talking about the know it all kids that would all what they’re the know it alls. They’re the kids that don’t really have friends because nobody wants to be friends with the note. All right.

Yeah. And so you know, you have to be. Can I just also encourage those of you who have a bright, intelligent kids, you been stimulating them. That is a good thing. If they know things. But you also need to have your detector up on pride and you need to be willing to talk to your kids about pride. And just encourage them not to become that type of person. Talk to them about the know it alls. Warn them about it. Right. And I know that we had a there were a couple times where I had that conversation with one or two of our kids was like.

Have you heard of the know it alls before? We would have that conversation of what someone looks like when they’re a know it all. They always have a Mr. and Mrs. know it all in the family.

Yes. So, anyway, I think that it’s really important that we have that discussion with our kids, but that we recognize our responsibility in cultivating, growing and continuing to provide an atmosphere in our homes or in the garden for them to continue learning.

Such a great analogy. And by the way, if you’re interested in the homeschool blueprint, course it is deeply discounted. It’s a brand new course. It’s six and half hours, a curriculum, 45 page workbook, and it’s 63 percent off because of the Covid-19 and what everything is going on right now. So you can go to CourageousParenting.com, hit the top, menu on the left. And it’s the third thing down. You’ll see it or it’s in the show notes for this podcast episode. Also, another thing that was just interesting that came to my mind, we did our vineyard naturally, meaning that we literally pulled each weed in versus doing the roundup. We were encouraged you roundup, where you just spray it and it kills because that’s what all the monuments you have, sir. But we had this hunch that Roundup wasnt good and it was OK and has come out in the last five years that it is really, really not good, actually. Last couple of years. And for you in that reminding me about discipline. Just a quick different subject. Jesus is the hard thing because. Well, actually, yeah, if you’re a parent is pulling the weeds of the heart, they’re actively involved in nurturing the vineyard. But if they’re just doing the easy route of spring on the roundup, yeah. They’re temporarily killing those weeds. But they’re going to come back. They’re going to come back. The roots are the roots are there. And so technically, they say it kills the roots, but that’s not always the case. And that’s like being a parent that disciplines that way, that just disciplines the action, but doesn’t tend to the heart. Yeah, and that is one of the core reasons we made the parenting mentor program. So if you’re interested in the biblical parenting program, you can check that out, too. But those are two different things.

Just to clarify for your new listener. We have two different programs. We have the Courageous Parenting Mentor program, which is a six week, very robust program where we have like three different Facebook lives that are 90 minutes. Yeah, that’s the big, big program.

And then we have the homeschool blueprint, which does do it, do it. Do it at your own pace.

Yeah. We’re not connecting and. Yes. Like that. Yeah. So, so super super good when they’re for the final point of the eight part series here. Okay. Are two. Two parts. But eight session eight.

Eight disciplines. I’m getting courses in my mind. I know we have eight disciplines that accelerate learning.

And the fourth one we’re going to talk about today is X experiential learning, learning. So experience, experience, experience.

Oh, man. For at least how I’m wired. That is everything, right?

Well, in a lot of people are this way. Right. Like how many of you guys learn something? But if you go and do it, you remember it’s so much easier. Oh yeah. I mean, I think everybody kind of does. Right. And this is actually the beautiful aspect of homeschooling. This is where you have a lot of freedom. Yeah. To be creative. And if you’re not the creative type, maybe they’re saying they’re going, I’m not creative. And like I. That’s the part that’s hardest for me is getting now. Right. Like, that’s a lot of work. And can I just share with you guys. I remember. And it is still a lot of work. I have eight children. Obviously, our oldest isn’t going to be going into our third year of college. Although she’s home because I’ve covered. And we have kids all the way down to 20 months old. So in the thick of the, you know, toddler years. And as well as having high schoolers and graduating kids and all in between going out is a lot of work. It’s a lot of work to have snacks is a lot of work to make sure everybody is potty trained. You’ve got enough diapers, you’ve got all the things.

So impressed with you, because back in the early years, I was trying to build the career, build the business. And I was and was doing very well every year, doing better and better financially and making lots of progress, but that there was a cost of that, which I was gone quite a bit in the early years and less as things when as the business built and I had leaders around me and things like that. But it was amazing, like you went to the zoo, which was like a 45 minute drive.

And one way. Yeah, one way with five kids under seven every week. The science place all the time. You know, you would take them all to the grocery store all the time. Well, I had to because you weren’t home during daylight. And what did that force you to do? It forced you to train your kids. Yeah, it’s true.

And it was harder work. And I, I know that some people listening are like, whoa, I just can’t even imagine. I mean, imagine this, right, going to Costco. There was a point where I had a kid in a Kelty backpack, a baby in an Urgo front pack at the same time, and then three kids in the cart and then Kelsi pushing an extra cart to put food in. And that was me at Costco. Oh, for a good couple years, yeah. And it was a lot of work. That’s a lot of work. And so how to make sure that they all had been nursed and fed and napped and all the things before going right to set them up for success. And then, you know, you give them the pep talk.

We’re gonna show people that children are blessing. Right, guys? How do we do that? We smile. We use our manners. We say please and thank you. Excuse me. All the things. Yeah. And we just had to do that all the time. And, you know, if I hadn’t taken them out as often as I did, I think it would have been harder, actually, because they would’ve been out of practice. It’s kind of like having them sit in church with you.

They got so many experiences to learn. And then I think about even more recently, just couple of years ago, we took a three month RV trip around the country, family of ten. I was still working full time from a laptop at least 40 hours a week and pregnant. When were pregnant in like 18 months, seven, seven and eight months. Six, seven and eight months pregnant after. Prior to that, losing a baby. So there’s some risk, you know, at least in our minds, because we’re going through that. Yeah. And we visit 34 states. We went to D.C., New York City, Yellowstone, Yellowstone and Creation Museum. You know, early afternoons I was available again to the evening. Weekends I was available. Other than that, I was at coffee shops working.

So a lot of the time that you spent with us was actually driving us from location to location. Yeah.

Drive was a lot of driving in those things. And I did have a lot of good experiences with the kids. Yeah. Sometimes Fridays would cut out early and I would go do stuff with the family. But the point is, you were eight months pregnant, seven months pregnant, doing lots of major things with a large number of kids. And I just want sometimes it’s hard to imagine yourself doing these kinds of things. And I just wanna encourage you that the more you do, the more your capacity grows and the more your capacity grows because you’re allowing yourself to get uncomfortable for the sake of the benefit of your kids, the better, richer the experiences for your kids growing up.

Yeah, it’s true. And you know, it. It’s you guys. If I can do it, you can do it. I know I already said that a couple times in this podcast, but it’s really true. Like, there’s nothing I’m an ordinary woman with the same man hours in my day that you have. And I have you know, I have an auto immune disease and I have things that I deal with. Right. Like I’m arthritis. I have all the pains, all the aches. You know, I have a million, like, opportunities to give excuses for not doing things is what I’m saying. Right. I mean, I get massively sick when I’m pregnant. Yeah. Six of my pregnancies, I puked 14 to 16 times a day with h.G and was getting Ivey’s to get fluids. Right. And so like and I will say that during those times I wasn’t necessarily going out to the zoo as often when I was pregnant and sick. Those were Little House on the Prairie rerun days.

So sometimes it was okay.

But I’m sharing that with you because I would do want you to have like a full perspective and understanding. But I think that because I had those experiences, that was what kind of pushed me to try harder when I wasn’t sick was like, oh, now’s my time. Now is the season when I actually can do these things. I need to buckle up and I need to do the hard thing. And I’m really thankful looking back, because I do know that that stretched me. Yes, it was hard. Yes, I was tired. Yeah. There were times where I had to bite my tongue because I just want to say, everybody quiet in the car.

We never we had a family motto in our early years that I think really helped us, which is to choose growth. And more importantly, to juice growth in the moment, because in the moments where we feeling capable, feel like we shouldn’t or it’s too hard, we need to rise up and grow. And so that mentality, I think, reaped dividends of fruitfulness in our family.

And I know that it did just in my own growth capacity for sure. One of the things that I always try to encourage other moms with is, listen, hey, I didn’t have all eight kids at one time. Thank the Lord. Yeah. Like, each time God grew my capacity and I walked through certain trials that grew me, but I couldn’t watch those trials and not grow me like it was a choice to actually engage and use that as a boot camp to get me prepared for the next thing. Yeah. And I think that that is a huge theme that we need to pass on to our kids. And part of that is obviously our kids are not going experience learning if we don’t step out of our comfort zones to help them experience learning. Yeah. And so you don’t have to do the three month RV trip like we did. You can go to the local museum and you know what I mean? Like, every season can be different. You can sign up for a co-op and do hikes in your area. There are so many opportunities.

I remember Mount Zion, Grand Canyon, that trip RV trip is a. Shorter trip. Like a month. Oh, yeah. And we had and five kids. Yeah. Yeah. And they’re all younger. And I just remember driving through Mount Zion National Park. All the kids were actually up at the big windows. It was a class a big RV. Yeah. And man, by the way. That was I think if I remember correctly, one of the first times I’ve driven one of those was a was that ah, I think, you know, we rented that one. There was a 40 foot RV. I was even bigger than ours. So we rented it and it was my first time ever driving one. And we drove it all over the place and the kids were up front and we were just looking at the mountains. But where we had playing was what was playing honey.

So we had just found out about answers in Genesis back then. This was about 15, 16 years ago.

And we were listening to the Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park answers in Genesis commentary that teaches you about the fossils in to your ride and look to your left and over there you can see in the Grand Canyon and you know, like so we have these CD’s that were audio books that were teaching us about creation while we were driving through these parks that it was talking about. And it was so powerful.

So it’s an educational experience. It’s a family experience. And some people might be going on the dad’s side. How did you go from not driving a big rig to driving a 40 foot RV? Well, we have to choose growth too, Dad, and kind of ease your way into it.

We had a boat, you guys, for a while. And I did drive, you know, the forerunner with the boat attached for a while.

and I did commercial fishing when I was 15, 16, although boats very different. I did captain the ship at 50 years old. So I have some experiences, but still. And the other side of it is how do you provide? We get this question a lot, too. How do you provide for such a big family? Well, I completely trust God because I don’t think I can provide for a big family in my own strength that has been proven. Actually, it’s when I surrender to God that he provides for my big family. And the other part, though, is I have had to rise up and grow in my faith and in things I’m doing and be willing to break out of my comfort zone to do things that can generate more income to which is experience and which is what we’re talking about.

We’re talking about experiential learning. And actually, this is the thing. If you want your kids to have that kind of mentality of wanting to experience life and learn through experience, you have to model it for them. And so sometimes that means that God is actually going to call you out of your comfort zone to experience new things. And that is really, truly like the story of our whole marriage. All right. Stepping out of your comfort zone and doing hard things.

And I can’t remember very many comfortable parts of my life.

What a miserable life. No. But it’s so good. No, we never run out of things to talk about.

It’s been so good for our marriage and we’ve grown so much. And we still expect each other to continue to grow into a constantly learning. And and that is the legacy we want to pass on to our kids as they would be continuing to grow, continuing to learn.

This is courageous parenting. This is courageous, Mom. This is resolute, man. If you’re attracted to these things, we’re speaking to you with the assumption that you also have a spirit of courageousness, of being resolute as a man, standing firm for what’s true. Trying new things, leading your kids in a new way. So we’re never going to water things down, guys. We do get some feedback sometimes of requests to water things down, and we’re never going to water things down.

I can promise you that. So, hey, thanks for joining us.

It was a fun conversation. Don’t forget to listen in to this next week’s podcast. Recovering.

Don’t be a boring teacher, but it’s going to be a really, really awesome lesson there. And then the next one is going at your kid’s pace and the next one to celebrate their milestones in unique ways to do that. And then how to start your day, right? Oh, so good. We’re going to dive in next week, take care.

Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. We wanted to quickly tell you about our six week online parenting mentor program.

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