Welcome to part two of a two-part series where we talk about 8 Disciplines That Accelerate Learning!
In the last episode, we covered the first four disciplines which are teaching to your children’s interests, making curriculum choices best for you, cultivating and growing a love for learning, and including experiential learning. In this episode, we discuss the other four disciplines which are listed below!
Do you want your kids to love learning? Do you want them to have every advantage to be able to learn faster with a hunger for it? if so then this is a must-listen for you. Follow these disciplines as their parent, and it’s likely to make a dramatic difference in their educational experience and contribute towards a better path for their lives.
In This Episode We Cover:
- Start The Day Right
- Celebrate Milestones
- Don’t Be Boring
- Go Their Pace
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Scripture In This Episode:
1 John 5:14 – “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.”
Psalm 51:10 – “Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a steadfast spirit within me.”
1 Corinthians 10:31 – “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”
2 Timothy 3:14 – “But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them,”
Romans 12:2 – “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
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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 we start an important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world.
Welcome to the podcast. We have part two today.
Hey, everybody. We are going to be talking about the last four disciplines in the two part series. So if you haven’t listened to the first podcast, you’re going to want to go back and listen to that after this. We’re covering eight disciplines that accelerate learning.
And I’m so glad to see people are really digging into the last episode. Yeah. And loving it so much. Got shared a lot. And we appreciate that it helps the movement of one million families. So we’re gonna dig into this. And whether you homeschool or not. Long term, this is helpful because you’re the key educators of your children regardless.
Yeah. And we want to be encouraging you guys in that process of being the educators. Right. Because sometimes people can feel stuck. They need encouragement. They need new vision. They need to be reminded why they’re doing this. And so, yes, that’s definitely part of our drive, our mission and doing these two podcasts. But we also want to give you guys equipped with tools to remind you and try to also, like, jolt your memory. Go.
Hey, think back to when you were a kid. What made learning fun?
What made you want to keep learning like you have to remember and remind ourselves? And so that’s part of what we’re going to talk about today.
And sometimes we get this question, how do you figure out what to do your podcast episodes on? Yeah, well, we listen to you and we also see what’s going on. And sometimes we take an action and that creates a lot more questions about something. Right. So one of those actions we took is we built the homeschool blueprint, which is a self-paced course, and it’s on homeschooling because the world’s homeschooling right now.
Schooling at home. I mean, there’s two very different things. And even homeschooling is altered right now.
But sure, regardless whether you’re long term or not, this is super, super helpful. And hundreds, literally over 300 parents have already enrolled and it’s growing. And we’re just so thankful that’s been such a powerful resource for people. So you can check out.
By the way, anything we mentioned during that episode is one remind everybody everybody’s that courageous parenting. hit the menu and hit podcast. And anything we mention will be in the show Notes Under Resources, which is important.
And I do want to let you know, we feel it’s very important to have free, valuable resources for people because, you know, not everybody can pay for something. And that’s totally fine. We want it like we do the podcast. Exactly. This is the most important, I think, free resource we do, which takes a lot of effort, everything we can. That’s what I’m so thankful for, those people that can and do donate, because it really helps us to be able to keep doing this. But the other free resources you can get right now at courageousparenting.com just hit this episode or any episode. actually the last two, because there’s a new one here. But the craziest parenting workshop, first of all, literally thousands of parents have gone through that and we get some of the best reviews out of that of anything we’ve done. and how long is that workshop? It’s like thirty five minutes.
So it’s even shorter sometimes than the podcast. Yeah, but it goes so deep.
Gives you that kids could be the greatest parent, practical things you can do and things like that. Okay. It’s a wake up call to to parents to really understand what’s going on and how we need to be more diligent maybe than even our parents and so forth were with us. So then we have the Healthy Home Mom hacks workshop.
Oh, yeah.
That’s also free is forget to tell Erbs, oils, supplements and clean homes really valuable about many different aspects of health. Yeah.
And how many moms have gone through that free workshop?
Oh, no. I mean, it just launched over 500 and it just launched like a week and a half ago.
People are loving that. So it’s completely free and you can get that. And also the date night one sheet in the way to get that is to subscribe to our mailing list, because then we send out at least one email a week just reminding people the new episode and give it a tip of the week and these kinds of things. And that’s always in there.
Yeah. And there’s also I don’t know if you guys knew this, but I also have a Web site, courageousmom.com, and there’s over three hundred blog posts there. So, yeah, you can have a feast over there. But when you sign up on that mailing list, you also get a link to get two free videos on the two best practices that moms. That’s really good, too, which is really good. So it’s two different videos just for moms on teaching, on biblical motherhood.
So we kind of broke the rules in this episode of giving many options, which sometimes you have a big menu and you’re like, what do I do? But I think that, you know, every once in a while I want to remind people that all of these things are completely free and. You can feast on it. And we also have things you can purchase that actually help the ministry. And help us live and all that.
Those are the things that provide for us to be able to create more resources.
Yeah. And there’s lots of those you can go find and look at. OK. So let’s kick it off here, honey. So the next one, which is actually point five, because we did the four points in the last episode. Yeah. Is to start that day right now.
Ok. So remember, the topic is accelerating learning. Yeah. So helping your kids to be proficient and learning to continue learning on a day to day basis. Because let’s say you are doing phonics with a preschooler, kindergartener or even first grader. Right. And you’re just reiterating things. You’re teaching them how to read. You’re teaching phonics. Right.
They may get down three or four consonants or maybe they get all their vowels down. Do you think that they’re going to remember that fully if you only do it for one day? Or do you need to do it every day, many days in a row? For a long time? And that’s the reality. Right. So we want to accelerate learning. We want to be proficient learning. We want to be building on the previous day’s work, not just be like, oh, yeah, I’m nailing this homeschooling thing and maybe you do good one day, right? Right. And you’re feeling good. And then the next day it’s like, oh, man, why are we dragging and why is this like pulling weeds. Right to get going? And I just want to encourage you that part that this first point that we are talking about in this podcast. Number five, starting your day, right, is a massive influence on being able to actually build upon each day. So it makes sense for. Yeah. And so I think that a lot of people underestimate underestimate the power of starting, you know, what is starting your day. Right.
So, I mean, on what you were just saying is that you don’t need to know what’s going to happen every day. There’ll be overwhelming. But you already know what happened yesterday. And so now you can think about, OK, how am I going to build and tie in what happened yesterday to some of the things I have planned today? You don’t even know it. You know every plan for today. Usually, you know, some core things like God.
And you can write together certain workbooks for certain subjects or topics. Right. Or, oh, maybe we read three chapters in that book at lunch where you read the fourth and fifth chapter today. Right. There are certain things like that.
See time together. And now they’re feeling this sense of connection. All your kids are wired differently. Right. And we go deep into the learning styles and the homeschool blueprint course.
But understanding the differences in your kids, which you already know, a lot of those probably some of some kids really like to know the why of things. And so you’re really satisfying them when you connect the previous day to today. And some of the kids really don’t do well if they’re just being pulled into things without knowing what’s next.
Sometimes they’ll even be resistant to it. Yeah. You know what I mean?
So you’re like, I have a strong willed child and you make you make this isolated subconscious excuse. There’s nothing you can do. And we’ve even felt that way before. Moments. OK. So. But that’s not true. There are things you can do. And a strong willed child doesn’t like to be pushed around and pulled into and not know what’s going on.
In fact, the best solution is to empower them and give them good expectations in knowing what to do, which is a part of starting your day, right? Yes. And so that’s actually one of the points under. This is a sub point. If you are writing and you’re taking notes and you’re continuing on from last week’s podcast, maybe you wrote down what the first four points were, writing your little notes in between them. And this is point five. Start your day. Right.
A is going to be expectations. Yeah. Right. Expectations. Meaning you’re going to be communicating potentially even the night before you communicated with your kids. You know, the night before your end ended the previous day. Well, you know, one is a start.
The next day, you know, one of the ways husbands can be really involved in this, too. When you have dinner together, the mom can highlight some of the really good things that happened today. Yeah. And the husband or maybe him whisper to the husband or bring him up during. And the husband can then anchor that behavior by congratulating the kids on those things. That’s a good way to close the day.
Or to be like, hey, your mom told me because she’s so proud of you. And then the kids are like, oh, wow. You know, that’s all I did do that. That’s great. They’re communicating. And, you know, it actually reinforces a lot of good things. But I think that there’s an important element. Maybe we should have even titled this point end your day. Well, start your next day Well. Right.
Like, the spirit leads us to navigate this because it really they really do tie in well, especially in regards to this particular point of expectations. Absolutely. Because you can give expectations for the following day at nighttime that can make them excited. It can actually make the bedtime routine even better. Remember in the last podcast we talked about or maybe it was one of the other programs or Facebook lives that I remember. We do so many things, you guys. But Isaac and I were talking about bedtime routines and how he speaks affirmations over the kids at night. Gives them something where they’re as they’re going to bed. He’ll pray for them and he’ll be like, oh, you’re so good at this. Or I was really proud of you when you helped your brother or, you know, like those kinds of affirmations, what I’m talking about. Right. Reinforcing the good behaviors of the character qualities, the growth that we’re seeing in our kids. Right. Doing that at nighttime, then they think they go to bed and they’re less likely to struggle with night terrors because that was the last thought that they had on their mind. Yeah, well, during that time, you can also go, hey, tomorrow, if we get all our schoolwork done, then we can go to the park. So a little reward. And expectation. Yeah. And a little like they’re thinking about how they can get there. Then they wake up going, oh, I got to get my stuff done right. They have this, like, motivation. This helps them start their next day. Well.
So, Angie, what are things you’ve done to set the expectations correctly in the morning for school?
Right. And so I would say that I just shared one huge one is being able to remind the kids the night before. Okay, so tomorrow you have mock trial or tomorrow you get to get together with a friend. It’s. Remember what I said? Your room still not clean. It’s super important that you are taking care of your jurisdiction’s. to Be able to have those privileges. Right. And then they’re like motivated to get up, be on purpose. They don’t sleep in. They get their shower. They clean their room. They get into their school work and then they can have that friend over. I mean, we’re smart.
And so another thing would be even just sharing with them, hey, if we get these things done in a week, then at the end of the week, maybe we can go on a hike or we can have another family over or, you know, depending on what makes your kids tick. Different kids are wired differently. So for some of them, it might be having a date night with mom and dad or some of them might be having a friend over. Right. Like finding the thing that each kid absolutely loves. That can be a good reward. That can be towards the end of the week.
And I also think that just the practical we’re going to cover math today. We’re gonna do this today. This is when this is going to happen. Here’s what we’re going have lunch. Here’s what we’re gonna do.
Oh, yeah. I mean, we talk about this really in depth in the courageous parenting mentor program. And I even do cover, like, what a really scheduled routine looks like in the routine and structure video that’s in the homeschool blueprint. Yeah, you guys, that’s an invaluable thing to go. That’s actually, I think and it’s an hour long. I can’t teach all that right now at one point. But having expectations, having a routine and the structure down is all part of setting your day straight. Now, the second thing for starting your day. Right, which is actually the most important.
These are not in order of importance, but prayer is huge. Right. And so and I would say this is actually multifaceted. It’s not just like I’m not time out just praying with your kids, although that is phenomenal. That is awesome. Yes. We need to be praying with our kids.
I would say, even like you as a mom, be praying for your day the night before, pray that morning for your day to go. Well, pray with your kids. Pray for your kids. Which is different than praying with them, right? Yeah. And so they’re that’s why I said this aspect of praying and starting your day. Right, Is multifaceted.
Wow. Let’s stop on that for a second, because how often are you a little bit concerned about tomorrow when maybe you’re new to homeschooling or something like that or even just haven’t had the time to really organize yourself and know the plan yourself really well? And that’s normal, by the way, for moms to go through that. And and so what a beautiful experience to rely on God to give you wisdom and help you have that day go well, even though you don’t have it all together. See, God shows up at the end of our strength. And so if you’re not feeling strong, we should be praying for feeling strong. We should be praying so we don’t get prideful, you know, both ways.
And then you pray for patience. Yeah, I mean, patience. I think it’s probably we should pray just do a podcast on patience for moms because all moms struggle with it. I would say for sure, homeschool moms struggle with it more because obviously their kids are home more with them. So they’re being tested in that. I know that it’s been a struggle for me over the years to remain patient. And so that is actually been one of the things I continually pray for, which isn’t praying for patience. Kind of like the same thing is praying for humility.
Be careful, though, if I give you opportunities to have to be patient. When you ask for patient’s life.
But isn’t that what we want? It is refining. We have. We should want to we want to be growing in the best way to grow is actually to pray for those qualities. Those fruits of the spirit that we know we’re only going to get through that trial.
So also, your kids get to hear your heart. Sometimes kids forget that their parents are humans.
And I know I’ve said that’s the opposite way before, but. But in this case is they kind of just go, oh, that’s the solid person is always there. They don’t. They don’t have feelings. And I’m just concerned about myself. I’m not going to think about my mom. Yeah. So.
So when you pray, they can hear the heart, the tender heart of the parent, which I think gives them grace too.
No, I think you’re totally right. It’s.
It’s very important, sprain is really important, we have a scripture here for you.
1 John 5:14 says now this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything, according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us. Whatever we ask. We know that we have the petitions that we have asked of him.
It’s great confidence in that, that God hears us. And when you teach your kids that by teaching it to him, but also praying regularly with them, then you’re working. You’re exercising a muscle of prayer in your family culture and you’re also bathing the day in prayer and you’re aligning intentions together with God listening. And we know God hears when the kids know the God hears your prayers. And it’s amazing for their faith building. Also, now God is likely to act more intentionally upon the things you prayed for as long as they’re in his will. And he doesn’t just give us anything. He gives us anything in his will. And so that’s really cool. So you’ll see him show up. And then during the day, when he does show up, let’s acknowledge it was glorify God through the day.
So one of the other things that I think is really crucial for starting your day. Right. We’ve talked about this so many times on the podcast. We talk about in all the program. And this is part of where you actually helped me with which is reading the Bible. And so whether you call that family Bible time or having a family meeting or a family devotions, it doesn’t really matter what you call it. But starting your day right in the word of God is crucial because your day just doesn’t go the same when you’re not in the word. And so that is definitely a spiritual discipline.
Just as I would say praying would be considered a spiritual discipline that we need to be doing on a daily basis. But when you do those two things early in the morning, everything else changes.
And in fact, even the expectations that you’re going to share with your kids are gonna change when you re align yourself with God’s word, his will for your life, his will for your kids lives, you’re reminded. Praise God. He reminds us of the things that are most important. And then our expectations and the way that we actually share them with our kids is changed. And so remember what I said a few minutes ago. These are not in any particular order of importance. These are all important things. But I would say that the prayer and the Bible are like the two non-negotiable things that need to happen on a daily basis in order for your day to start out. Right.
And we have different situations. Some husbands leave super early and some husbands are there late enough the morning where this can happen, where they can read the Bible. And I think that’s wonderful. If that’s possible, have it that way. Yeah. If the husbands are gone, they can always read the Bible in the afternoon. They catch the end of the day, reading the Bible to the kids and mom leads reading the Bible in the morning. And so and then just a reminder.
I think you all know this, but you ladies are leaders and you’re influencers and you are every bit as qualified to teach the Bible.
I think you already know that. I just wanted to confirm that again in your mind and that. Pull out the Bible in the day, too.
I mean, it’s just it’s just great for teaching. In fact, right here in Psalm 51:10. It says create a me a clean heart, o God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. And I’m going to continue a little bit. Do not cast me away from your presence and do not take your Holy Spirit for me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation. We get the Holy Spirit when we accept the Lord. I don’t think it gets permanently taken away from us, but I think there’s an ebb and flow of the spirit in our lives. And that’s what it’s talking about here, which is we when we start to draw away from God, the Holy Spirit isn’t as active in our lives and we wanted to be active.
We need that temptation to us walking away. God’s always there. Yes, walking away. It’s our sin potentially creating a barrier between us and God and not being able to hear him experience his presence. He’s still always there. And I think I love this. You picked this verse and I love this verse in regards to an every day meditation. Right. The Bible tells us renew, meditate on God’s word on his law.
Day and night, over and over again. That word meditate is in the Bible. And I love this has created me a clean heart of God and renew a steadfast spirit. Me. How are our minds renewed? Romans Twelve says that we get our renewed mind by reading the word.
I think everybody needs this, but especially parents.
Yeah. As we get renewed mind every single morning. I mean, we need it even in the afternoon too, right? And so this is this is actually good verse. If if you moms like to write down verses, put them on Post-it notes, maybe stick them in special spots around your house. This would be a good one for like your bathroom mirror for in the morning when you’re getting ready or if you want to have it in the downstairs near the kitchen, stick it on the fridge because you’re out at an afternoon. Create me a clean heart.
Because sometimes sometimes when our kids sin or struggling with something, we we can become discouraged, we can become frustrated. We can become. I mean, some parents even struggle with becoming angry. I know I struggled with that a lot when I was a young, younger mom, a lot less now. But that doesn’t mean I’m, like immune to it. There are times when I have to have my heart checked and I have to pray this say, Lord. What’s going on with me, you know? Yeah. And so we need to be aware of that temptation to sin and be humble about it and be constantly being renewed.
So there’s other things like get it, you mentioned this briefly, but getting chores done, but also making sure the environment or rooms are clean, things are dialed in.
So starting your day, right? Yes. Effectively, I think that a lot of people underestimate the power of it doesn’t have to be like a perfect room. But just having a clean room or a clean environment. Let’s just talk about environment for a second, because some of your kids, maybe they do school work in the kitchen, maybe they know school work in a school room. Maybe they do schoolwork at a desk in their bedroom. Who knows? Right. People do school when they they’re doing school at home or homeschooling. They do it all over the house. Right. And I, I talk a little bit about this in my Healthy Homes work workshop that’s free about the importance of, like, even just atmosphere and having plants. There’s actually been studies that show that kids can do better on testing by like up to 30 percent if there’s more than three plants in the room that they’re when they’re taking the tests. And I’m crazy. And so, I mean, aside from the scientific facts that we know that plants can help clean the air with oxygen and different things like that. I mean, there’s a lot of really good things about that. Right. And so one of the things that we just have, like a kind of it’s kind of like a little checklist.
Each person kind of knows what they need to do in the morning to start their day. Right. We have different bedrooms with different kinds of kids in them. Right. So we have like the boys right now that are high school boys. Rain Drew is going to be in high school. Right. Austin’s actually graduating high school this year and they share a room. And so they know in the morning they, like, open their window. They get a diffuser going. They turn on the fan because they like to have that fan because it gets kind of hot in their room. They make their beds there, that they have their own routine that they can clean. And it is always clean in their room. But they have like their things that they do every day. All right. And they’re also the same for getting ready. They both shower and more. And they you know, they have like their things that they do and they’re on it. Yeah. And they have really productive days. Right. And then, you know, the girls have different things. Right, because girls take they have different steps and getting ready for the day, whether they’re putting make about what girls. Right. Right. And one of is almost 20. So not quite a teenager anymore and she has her own like.
She has really early morning classes right now. All right. Because her college is on the East Coast and so they have their own routines is my is my point. But talking to them and making sure that they are aware of how important it is that they have a good start to their day that’s going to actually impact their productivity for the rest of the day is a really important thing that can even be teaching preschoolers. And so, like with Solomon, he’s four. And I’ve been making his bed with him because he can’t really do his head for boys and the right the younger boys in that room. Yep. And so, like both Eli and Solomon, for example, they get dressed, they know, to put their clothes in the laundry basket. That’s part of doing their morning. And it’s literally like it takes the same effort to throw your clothes on the floor as it does to put it in the light, not even to you. And he’s learning that he’s 20 months old. And so, like Eli knows, to throw the diaper away in the garbage can. Right. And so and he loves it. And he high fives afterwards every time.
And you’ve heard us say this, kids rise to the level response to them.
Yeah. And so it’s the same thing. Like if they can put their clothes in the laundry basket, then they can put toys away. Right. Like, there’s just all these different little things that is important that we all realize. So, of course, there’s like also in addition to just starting your day. Right. We have like family chores. Right. So we have crews that are on dishes. And for them, they want to get it done by a certain time in the day so that they don’t they’re done for the day as far as their chores, nutrition, making sure that you eat. That’s the final point that we have in this little section under starting your day. Right. It is important. It is imperative that we are trying to model for our kids and also teach our kids to eat well in the morning to have a good breakfast. Obviously, some of our older kids, they do even like intermittent fasting sometimes. But their purpose point is, is they’re purposeful in that they know about that.
They have a drink and lots of water. Take your vitamins, all the things.
Yeah. And so, like for us, part of our daily starting our daily routine is obviously taking vitamins. Mom lines up stuff and gives the little kids. There’s the older kids have a list in the cupboard. If you have older kids that can reading, you can trust them with vitamins. Because, you know, let’s just face it. We don’t want our kids ODing on vitamins. Right. They can actually get. Too much vitamin C or different things like that. Make a list and just print it out and put it in your cupboard. That teaches them maybe even put their name with a little list of what they’re supposed to take everyday. Teach them do it with them for a few months, every day. And then you might be able to say, okay, you do this part by yourself.
Here’s the thing. If if whatever you want repeated after you, they need to be actually doing.
We don’t want to be there when they move out. Yeah. So you’d want to be a helicopter parent that does certain things for them the whole time they’re with you. And then when they leave, they don’t do it and they don’t know how.
A good example of that is like with Kelsey. She’s our oldest. And so she will probably, you know, launching this sooner. She’s went to college a couple years ago and has a few years left. But she grew up in the herb garden and she grew up with mom using homeopathy and teaching her that she grew up with oils. She knows how to use oils. So she does the oil business with me, too. Right. And just seen her like she’s fully sufficient. She fully knows what to take when she can treat herself. Sometimes she asked me still and goes, hey, this just happened or I’m experiencing this. What do you think? But then she goes and does it right. And so I know for a fact that when she’s a mom, she is ready to go. She is trained and knows how to use those things. And can I just say that we should have a peace of mind about many different habits? Many spiritual disciplines. It’s the same for doing Bible time like you’re doing on a regular basis. You can anticipate that your kids are most likely going to be reading their Bible on a daily basis if they grew up doing that habit.
So, hey, we we spent a good 20 minutes on this one point, but I think it is worthy of it because there’s so much good stuff. We have three more points that are going gonna go more quickly but are also very, very important. Real quick, though, let’s hear from people that have gone through the six week Self-Paced Parenting Mentor program.
“Stephen, I realized that we were getting too comfortable with the world’s vision of how to raise our children.”
“What Angie and Isaac have done in creating this is literally phenomenal.”
“This program provided awesome scripture based teachings and just so really great practical applications. This class has just really rocked my world.”
“It has given me a vision for not just the different things that we might focus on as parents who are trying to raise our kids biblically, like how our kids are behaving or what we’re doing with discipline, but also the things of heart.”
“We now have a game plan to how we want to raise our children who have so many answers to the questions that have been in our mind.”
“It’s not just these hypothetical situations or it’s not just this. Here’s what I think you should do. It’s let me show you where in scripture this is.”
“Do your legacy a favor and yourself a favor and just do it.”
“one of the best things that we’ve done this year, one of the best investments we’ve made this year, and I could not recommend it more. We are no longer fearing dark days ahead.”
“But we’re so excited to raise the lights to be leaders for the next generation.”
Ok. So let’s dive in to number six, which is celebrate milestones.
Yes. This is the fun aspect of helping your kids, accelerating, learning, helping them. This is what part of, like a love for learning is actually attached to this. We talked about that in the previous podcast. That was part one of this episode series. But when we talk about celebrating milestones, we’re actually talking about both short term and long term milestones or short term or long term objectives that you might have for their education, for their character development, for their spiritual growth, for the friendship growth.
Like think about all the things even financial. Right. Sometimes, like you guys know Isaac and I probably well enough to know that, like our first podcast, we’re all about family vision, family culture, setting goals, teaching your kids.
we did all of our favorite topics first.
We did see you should go listen to some of those in season one. But I will say that having those objectives, we call them objectives in our family, not goals.
I don’t know why we rebel against goals. Well, people have a bad association with goals in their personal identity and they set them and don’t achieve them. And then pretty soon they don’t believe they’re ever going to achieve them when they set them subconsciously.
Can you guys tell that Isaac did a lot of coaching for a long time?
So I don’t like the words goal, even though it is a good word, it means something good. But our culture has developed bad habits with the word.
So we call it objectives. And sometimes we do put a timeframe on when we’re gonna achieve those we do with our kids. But celebrating their short term and long term objectives in celebrating that. I think it’s important that homeschool moms and dads also celebrate their long term, short term objectives that they personally have with their kids, with their each of their kids, because you got to be able to recognize and go, we did that. Yeah. Or it worked more. Well, look at the fruit in that kid. Now you gotta eat. Sometimes you have to remember where you came from so that you can celebrate the growth. Otherwise just the everyday mundane can be so it can. Actually be discouraging.
Well, you’re managing human motivation and a lot of times you haven’t maybe really thought about that. Wow. My job is not just to teach.
I wish my teachers, when I was younger, understand managing motivation because a lot of times I witnessed teachers just only caring about curriculum. And when you only care about curriculum, you’re not caring about the student and how they best learn and how to engage them and how to make it interesting and fun. And this is a practice over time of learning and getting better at. But you’re managing the motivation of your children and they all get motivated differently and you’ll learn that as you’re trying and doing things. But what is true about all people is they need short term objectives that lead into long term objectives. And if you do both of those, well, it’s good. So when you give some examples of short term.
Can I just say something, you guys? I’m a little bit in aw right now. This happens so frequently in our marriage over the last 20 years where Isaac would pull out this like short little phrase. It’s kind of like when he says, oh, Tolpins, we’re Eagles versus Eagles or Producers’ versus consumers.
He’s just made up a new phrase that I’ve never read about anywhere. I’ve never heard that concept. And it’s revolutionary. Like, we literally should do a whole podcast on managing human motivation and the human behavior behind that, because there is a lot of power in that.
And it’s not just for your kids, it’s us, for yourself, because my homeschool moms struggle with motivation to keep going. Yeah. And so we actually have to manage our own human motivation and we need our husbands to help us.
Okay. We’ll do an episode. That’ll be fun. Let’s give some examples of short and long term.
Ok. So. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I’m just I’m like wowed by that, that concept. OK. Short term milestone examples could be things like today. He learned the long sound and the short sound of the a vowel. Right. For a four year old or five year old. Right. And a short term milestone for maybe a six eight year old could be. You learned how to jump rope today. Mm hmm. Right. Like, maybe they’d been practicing for a long time. Or maybe a kid has been trying to ride their bike. Right. Without training wheels. And then all of a sudden that glorious day happens where it happens. Yeah. And they’re riding their bike without training wheels. That’s a big deal. Or maybe maybe a kid here. Here’s another short term example. I mean, I guess riding your bike could be long term or short term, depending on how long it takes a kid. Right. The point is, you celebrate those things. You celebrate when the kid learns how to read. Mm hmm. Right. Here’s a long term objective. You celebrate when they finish a workbook. Right. Like, if you’re doing a handwriting workbook or or they’re doing a math program and they finish that grade level, that would be in my book, a long term objective. Another short term objective objective could be maybe reading a short book. If they have a long chapter book and it’s the first chapter book, that could be a long term objective.
And when I say celebrate them, I don’t mean like hosting a party for they finish their first chapter book. You.
But instead having those positive affirmations, pointing those out at dinner time in front of the other siblings in front of dad and praising that and being like, hey, buddy, you worked so hard on this and you did a really good job. Right. That’s a big deal. Or like we do this naturally when our baby learns how to crawl. We do this naturally when they lose their first, when they get their first tooth or when they lose their first tooth there. There are so many little milestones. I feel like moms and dads pay so much attention, especially those first two kids know on all of the first milestones that happen under age three. But then as they get older, especially if they go into the education system, you’re not necessarily there for when they are learning how to when they learn how to read.
Actually, you might not be there when they figure out addition. Right. Or what? Like if they figure out additions or they figure out division. Those are short term objectives. Finishing grade three math is a long term objective. And so that that’s a good like analogy right there. That super simple but celebrating milestones is more than just academic stuff. When you’re, you know, wanting to accelerate learning because we want our kids to learn in more than just academics, we want them to be growing in character and in spiritual growth. And so pointing out those things that we’re noticing and it is so important because what is the most important thing that we can anchor in them? Yeah, faith. That’s right. Spiritual growth. Right. And so when we notice things like you may be thinking, OK, give me some examples.
Well, the projects is another one. And last night, I know you just did a wonderful job talking with one of our kids about it was almost prophetic about his future and something that aligns with his personality that he could do and do well. Do you think you would like and he just lit up. It’s literally starting this morning.
He announced it’s part of his plan, which is to eventually remodel and flip houses. Yeah. And do that. He’s 11.
He’s 11. I’ll be twelve this summer. And you guys, this is our fifth child. And at Luke’s. Luke, of course, every kid is just so different.
And so this is why it’s so important to really know each of your kids, because you can’t call these things out. Nevertheless, you know them. Right? And you know how they take and how the brain works. And what they’re really naturally good at. And what you think would make them excited about life. Yeah. Living on purpose. Right. And for him, he loves cooking. He’s always he’s always been in the kitchen with me. So that’s stage one. He’s going to have a food truck that was already part of the plan. He wants a food truck that now that seems to be something to where he’s going to learn how to do business and be response so he can invest, save money and money to invest in first property that he flips. Right now, it’s an expanded vision.
Yeah. And part of that, we didn’t just say, oh, I could see you flipping properties. It was like, no, actually, like it went deeper, you guys. This is what’s important about the conversation, because you could suggest, hey, you be good at flipping houses to get and they pick up whatever. Right. But if you go how you’re wired, you are so good at being frugal. And I can see you not paying a penny more than a property is worth. And then remodeling it and making it literally pristine because you you care about until he cares about detail and he’s good at picking things out and he’s good at cleaning and he’s really efficient and make sure other people do things well and not cutting corners. Right. And so he could have integrity in flipping a home and making tons of money on it. And then I’m like, but you also you like numbers like you like the bottom line, like the money. And anyway, so just having that conversation, word of it. Do you see how that was a different more in depth, pointing out things in his personality, things in his past, things in his reputation that point me towards thinking I could totally see flipping houses versus just throwing out. Hey, you should flip houses now.
What does this have to do with this wall now? Is it gonna be even more motivated to do a school if now and you can tie that into his dream.
Right. And I’m like, oh, dude, you got to know this math or. Yeah. And he is he’s super driven with math. And he is the first thing that he gets out of here is how you can apply this in your future.
There is nothing more frustrating than learning things that I had no understanding of how to apply. Like why am I when I. But when I knew that they were going to be applicable to my future, they were excited, very excited.
Which accelerates learning because there’s there’s two ways kids can learn. Right. There’s the way where they’re being forced to learn something and you’re dragging them along. And then there’s the way where they’re actually choosing and excited about and running towards learning. They’re doing, doing, doing, doing. And the second one, the latter one is what you want. It’s an independent learner. It’s because you guys, if someone enjoys it and they’re passionate about, they’re going to get it done way faster. That is accelerated learning right there at its foundation. But you mentioned projects, which is another point within point six. And when we mentioned projects, I mean, like, okay, so for this year, for example, are middle schoolers had mock trial or there’s debate or there’s the science fair or there’s writing reading a 500 page book and then writing a paper on it. Maybe there’s a 15 page research paper. So whatever the project is, whether it’s a hands on building something or a unit study, we need to celebrate those milestones when they get them done. And they’re not necessarily something that takes a whole year, not necessarily so takes off in a semester. It can be like a six week project or whatever, you know, but they need to be celebrated. So let’s go on to number seven now. Say seven is don’t be boring.
That’s a really important one. And that is, you know, I’ve been boring when I’m teaching the Bible for the kids and sometimes I relapse back into that. And it’s a reminder that it’s not just the information, it’s how we teach it. We need a teacher with energy, with enthusiasm, with thoughtfulness, with purpose, with analogies. Sometimes you know the word picture to bring it home. People learn far more from visualizing pictures, bringing up past experiences so they can actually relate to it, applicable things. And so it takes a while. You might be going, well, I’m just not good at that. And you go, well, it’s something to start getting better.
A is a better way to look at it because we can all get better at being more engaging when we teach something. You might be thinking of the most engaging teacher, you know, a friend of yours or something like. Oh, she’s so good at that. That’s more her. Yeah. She may be more gifted naturally in that, but it doesn’t mean you can’t grow. Let’s not do the comparison trap instead. How can I be the best teacher I can be. And that is actually all that matters. And so you want to recognize when you might be boring and shake it up. Sometimes, you know, you should you get action in the brains and you might stop teaching and start. Doing jumping jacks. That’ll push oxygen into the brain where there’s more oxygen in the brain. They actually are alert and it might be a nice reset for continuing and teaching something. So you can break it up and do those things. But you need a teacher with energy and purpose and you need to be very personally teaching. So super important in 1 Corinthians 10:31. This is therefore whether eat or drink or whatever you do do all to the glory of God. And you know what? God’s going to show up when our purpose is right. When we’re teaching for his purposes and he knows that he’s going to the spirits going to impact you and help you and give you revelation in the moment or in an analogy or a story in the moment that maybe you wouldn’t have thought of before. Let’s partner with God in being the best teacher we can possibly be.
Yeah, I think that another aspect of you you’re talking about teaching the Bible with enthusiasm. Yeah. And I think that this is actually part of your kids catching the legacy.
Yeah, right. Like, if you want to leave a legacy of faith, if you want to leave a legacy where your kids are actually doing the spiritual discipline, doing the spiritual disciplines. But but it’s not to do them. It’s not to check something off of a box. Guys, it’s because they see your excitement, your desire to know God more. To read his word because you love him. That’s what’s contagious. That’s what’s catching.
Yeah. And 2 Timothy 3:14. We’ll start there. But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of. Well, who taught you and assured you of these things with parents knowing from whom you have learned them and that from childhood you have known the holy scriptures which were able to make you wise for salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. So we don’t save our kids, but we are the influencers that teach him the holy scriptures that make you wise for salvation through faith. So that’s incredible.
From childhood. From childhood. I don’t feel like it’s in vain.
Yeah. And. And then it goes on. I was going to add all scriptures given for by inspiration of God. And it’s profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness.
And so this has got to be a major part, if not the most important part of being teacher. And the educational experience is it’s all based on the word of God that’s in prayer. It’s they’re seeing a godly teacher in front of them. The Holy Spirit is impacting as they teach.
Yeah, but but but I think that the aspect of, like, not being boring while doing it is so important. Right. Like when we’re for example, I’m scampering up today, we are going through revelations with our kids in the morning. Yeah. And, you know, by no means do we know everything. Right. But our kids are seeing us. They’re witness, all of us. engage with the scripture and we’re asking questions of. And going, what do you think and what do you think?
Well, this morning I was asked a couple of questions I did not know the answer to. And I said, you know what? I would encourage you to do a word study in the Bible about crown.
And so you really understand and bring it back to the morning family meeting and teach us. So I shouldn’t I should they shouldn’t see me as somebody that knows everything, because the truth is, none of us know everything. And if you’re giving that impression to your kids, then they’re gonna be the know it all. Dad or mom in the future that suffocates learning in their kids.
Either that or they’re going to think, I can’t be a parent because I don’t know it. All right. And so I think that’s paralyzing both ways. But also, we don’t want our kids to be codependent on us. We want them to be independent learners.
And that goes for academics education. But as well as like we want them to have their own faith and we want them to be seeking God on their own, not dependent upon us doing family Bible time to always in the word right. And we constantly are reiterating that with our kids over and over again. And I I just think that there’s this element, though, of when your kids see you enjoying the word, they they have a different perspective on God’s word. Yeah. When they see you in, like, crying out to God or they see you thanking God in prayer, they have a different perspective.
I’ll give you an example. Sometimes I’ll read something.
I go, Oh, this is fascinating. Kids, this is really cool. And I’ll read it. And then what does that do to them? Because they pay attention to something you pay attention to here, right. Versus just reading it, you know?
So just think about that. A couple words in front of things, a couple stories, examples how to make things relevant. You’ll get better the more you do. It’s a muscle you work in. You’re gonna be surprised how good you become at this. And. Oh, good.
Well, I was just going to say, too, like, even when you’re reading, like today, we came across a verse, where would the kids asked a question about God, like get regarding Deliverance, for example. Right. And if you actually look at the prepositions in the sentence and you go away. But it’s same from not in.
And you teach your kids that practice of. Paying attention to all of the sentence structure. It literally opens their mind to see things that most people overlook in scripture, and it can be fun. They can it can be so fun. And that’s the aspect. We want them to know that it’s fun so that they have fun. Right. And it’s the same thing with education, getting out, doing school on a picnic blanket, do things that are out of ordinary life.
There were a few times when our kids were teenagers where I just randomly go, OK, you’re going to be in charge of this kid today. You’re me. Charge this kid for this hour. And I would take one kid and we’d go to a different location and we would sit and we do home school. We do schoolwork in a restaurant at a table with just a couple of kids. And then I would switch it up and do it differently with the other kids that we can. They’re like thrown off. Right.
Or they would come to work with me and sit next to me doing schoolwork, all kinds of ways.
There are good ways that you can just make it not boring.
So final thing is go there, Pace, when you are paying attention to when it’s too slow or when it’s too fast both and you’re changing the pace to accommodate them, it increases stimulation of the material.
Well, yeah. So the aspect too here is interesting. So when kids are in an education system. Right. Like they have to go at the pace of the curriculum, more the classroom. Yeah. Right. Or the teacher. So there’s like three elements. Right. Like, either their teacher has been given a schedule of things she has to teach on specific days. And if the kids don’t keep up a well and she keeps going or she’s able. If she has more freedom, she’s able to. Like, actually slow things down. And then they will oftentimes go to the person that is struggling the most. Or too like the average student. Right. So then you’ve got the kids that are really capturing it.
Bored. Yeah. And they’re not being stimulated. And that whole concept of if your kid is behind or your kid is not as ahead or that’s the beauty of actually having your kids at home, is that you get to cure rate the education to a pace that’s going to help them to one. You’re not going to be pushing them when they’re not ready. Like I’ve done that. So that is something that you have to be on the lookout for you maybe you have expectations that you’re impressing upon your kids because like your second or third kid, because your first kid learned how to read at age four. Right. And you’re like, why isn’t this kid reading? They’re seven and you’re freaking out. And they can sense your stress and your disappointment. And that’s actually breaking their confidence and hurting their identity. And you don’t realize it. So, like, we need to realize, okay, comparison trap is actually something that we need to break free from the man with comparing kids. Do not compare your kids. We talk more about that in the homeschooling blueprint.
But being able to, like, go, OK, this is so far ahead of where they are. I’m not going to push them right now. Where in go at their pace. That’s one aspect of going at their pace. Another aspect is going, OK, you got it. But we’re not going to move on to the next thing. I’m going to make sure you master this before we move on, because this is foundational for you being able to get all the other things.
Yeah. And so that’s actually super important when it comes to reading. It’s super important when it comes to math. OK, there are some subjects out there like science where, hey, you can learn botany and you don’t have to know chemistry to learn botany. Right. And so, like there are there are different aspects for different subjects. But the point is you’re able to move to where there’s mastery.
So they’re prepared to be able to deal with the next thing that they are going to be required to learn.
But then there’s the topics that they are interested in and keeping them stimulated. Right. Like, if your kids do master something, you’re like, OK, you’ve been getting a hundred percent.
We are going to skip these last two work pages because this is just monotonous work. This is just we’re just going through the workbook just to go through the workbook. I already know you get it and you’re getting bored. So we’re gonna move on to the next thing. And that’s that’s exciting. That’s freeing. Yeah, that’s freedom in homeschooling. And that’s going at their own pace, too.
Yeah. And that’s super, super good. Well, thank you so much for joining us. We hope this was helpful. All resources or courageousparenting.com hit the menu you can hit podcasts. You can also see the new homeschooling blueprint right there.
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