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Full Transcript:

Note: This is an automated transcript and misspells or grammar errors may be present.

This is a special episode. Homeschooling is so important. Whether you do or not, you’ll get a lot out of it.

We’re talking about the balance between academics and life skills. We’ve gotten a lot of questions about what things look like in our home too, so we also go over that as well. Join us for today’s podcast.

Welcome to Courageous Parenting Podcast, a 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 Isaac from Resolute Man Together pursuing the mission to impact 10 million families and their legacies for the Kingdom of God.

We’ve been married for 23 years and are seeing the fruit from raising our nine children Biblically. Based on the raw truth found in the Bible.

We can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children, as too many from Christian families are walking away from their faith by the age of 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way.

We’re praising the Lord that ministry continues to expand and impact more legacies. We couldn’t do this without you. Whether you pray for us, give us five star reviews or share on social.

Or even if you purchase courses and merch, or join the Be Courageous app community. Enjoy the coffee or support financially. We’re so thankful you are a big part of the 10 million legacies movement.

If you want access to all the episodes, show notes and other biblically based resources. Go to be courageous ministry.org.

Join us as we start another important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world. Hey everyone, welcome to the podcast. Hey everybody. We’re so glad you’re here and we’re getting this so much good content in this episode. We’re so excited to give it.

We are talking about homeschooling the balance of academics and life skills so relevant today. A question we get a lot because people watch how we are living our lives and a lot of people are like, What? How many hours do each of your kids do school? And they ask what curriculums they use and we have many children. So how do.

You have time for that?

Each kid Yeah. What’s going on? Anyway, we’re going to talk about what our home looks like and what it’s look like over the seasons of the last, you know, 20 years of homeschooling later in the podcast. So don’t miss out on that part. But we have some really exciting topics to cover because there is a need for us to find a balance somewhat. And balance does not mean equal quantity of time. Yes, that’s which I think is really important. I think a lot of times I know when I think of the word balance, I think of equal quantity of time like that way. No, and it’s not that way. It’s kind of like relationships too, right? Having the relationship between work and family, it’s not going to be equal quantity of time and things.

There are seasons for things, right? So things ebb and flow. And that’s the beauty of homeschooling, is it allows you the flexibility. So it’s not like taking the public school classroom and putting it in the home that is farthest from the truth. It is completely different than that. And so we’re going to dive into some of our practical some of what’s real for us and really thinking about the world we’re living in now and the world our children will be launching into, not from a fear based mindset at all, from a confidence fearing God mindset and how but how to equip our kids in a way that aligns with the trends of where we’re going.

Yeah. So today, as we are diving into this really deep conversation, I just want to encourage those of you who maybe don’t homeschool for a second, so don’t think, oh, Isaac and Angie, you’re talking about homeschooling. This doesn’t apply to me because this actually totally applies to you, especially with summer months coming ahead of you, because we’re going to be talking about discipleship today. We’re also going to be talking about life skills and what those create, as well as like exhorting people. If you listen to our previous podcast a couple of weeks ago on Summer Family Revival, I just want to plug for that because in there we talk about the importance of evaluating like your kids education thus far or what they focused on this year and maybe even like choosing an extra thing that you’re doing with them during the four months during the summer when they’re not in school, technically. Right. So true.

Because we educate year round and so you could too, even if they’re in the classroom, a more traditional classroom during the school year, you could do your own version of homeschooling this summer and.

Have that say. Like there are probably lots of families out there that are considering homeschooling for the first time and pulling kids out of school. And I just want to encourage you that summer is actually a good time to do like a first beginning trial run, if you will, and ease your way into a more robust academic schedule in the fall. If you were to pick 1 or 2 things that you like started scheduling out and doing with your kids during the summer even, and that can be a huge encouragement to you because it’s not like a you’re taking on all of the stuff that you would necessarily be taking on for that fourth grader or second grader that you’re thinking about. But instead, like even a Bible curriculum, like a VBS curriculum or something, I highly recommend answers in Genesis if you’re looking for stuff. But to start out and developing more of that teacher student relationship with your child, which is really a calling that God has on all of our lives.

Yeah, absolutely. So as we do talk about the intro here, I just first of all, want to thank you for just supporting the ministry and whatever way you do, whether it’s listening, praying for us, we so appreciate it or sharing or giving financially or purchasing things. It all makes this work. It is absolutely it’s more than a full time effort, actually, now to do the ministry where I literally don’t have time to do other work things to augment the ministry. So we really count completely on all of you listening, sharing, you know, purchasing things.

And and on the purchasing things. I just want to remind you guys, or maybe some of you guys are listening for the first time. One of the things during the last three years, there’s been a lot that’s changed in the world, including what we’ve kind of like been hoping for, which is an alternative economy. And we were encouraging in some of our previous podcasts, if that’s you and you’re trying to think of a side hustle, we have some podcasts that Isaac did that we did together that encourage you with some ideas and what to do and how to get something started on the side. But we felt like since we were exhorting people to have something back, back them up, that we needed to also do that. So we started Be Courageous Coffee, which we’re so excited about. We joined the alternative economy, so that’s like a business on the side. It’s helping support our families. So when you guys buy coffee, it helps us be able to continue the production of the.

Podcast ministry to impact 10 million legacies. So it’s all of it. It’s so important. All of it. So, hey, you know, we all know the world is changing rapidly. The acceleration of it is faster every week that goes by. And as the world changes, we need to be thoughtful about how education should adjust. And there’s some things that never change, like discipleship we’ll get to in a moment. But there’s other things that do adjust a little bit. And one of those things just to make the point and we’ll move on, which is the used to be at least when I was growing up, it’s a strict academic path. There were some people doing some experiential things, but mostly what was expected is this academic path that led to college. And if you didn’t go to college, that was a no no. And you go to college and then you land a career job and you work somewhere in.

The industry that you were trained for in.

College. And the truth of the matter is, even in my generation, that wasn’t working very well for people, meaning they would graduate with debt. And a lot of cases overall, the statistics are used to be that people would make more that got degrees and so forth, but now everything’s changed. And so we don’t need to belabor the point, but we do need to think about sometimes we get stuck in a thought process, forgetting that the end result has changed, The value of the end result has changed, so therefore the process might need to look different. So that strict academic path might still be good for certain things. Like if you have a child that’s dedicated to being a dentist or something like that, you know, that’s that’s an academic path that could be fruitful. But we really have to look at this. And, you know, a lot of those academic paths, unless it’s very precise like that, aren’t confidence building. And what we really want to do is equip confident Christian kids for an uncertain world.

And when we say uncertain world, like obviously there are some predictions of what the end days are going to look like. And we’ve talked about those in previous podcasts also. But when we’re talking about uncertainty, we’re talking about like the nitty gritty fine details of like, how are you going to be able to grocery shop, how are you going to be able to get a job, How are you going to meet people? Are church is going to be open like that. All that is actually uncertain for.

Us standing firm. We don’t know exactly what it’s going to look like when your kids are older.

And that’s just the truth. Like we always say that we should be living today as if Jesus could come back today and we’re going to meet our maker. But planning and being strategic and visionary for the fact that we still could be here for 100 years. So we need to be purposeful in discipling our kids and all and preparing them for the world.

So on the strict academic path, it’s largely not aligned with being a Christian in a changed world by itself. It needs to be seasoned and a seasoning is important and a balance we believe is really important for most families. So that’s an important thing. But you know what? We’re going to touch on one thing this episode is not about, which is the main thing, which is discipling your children. We’ll do another episode just on that. But this is really the balance of academics and life skills because that’s the questions we’ve been getting. But the truth of the matter, the most important part of homeschooling is discipleship, discipleship. And it really is right here in Deuteronomy six seven, it says, You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk, by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates.

So that’s really pretty much all the time.

All the time. We’re discipling, we’re training, we’re teaching, we’re helping give perspective, a biblical perspective on a challenge, a problem, a situation, a relationship. We’re teaching what the Bible says, what the Bible says about what’s happening in the world as they get older.

Reminding them of God’s goodness and the way that he has shown up in our life.

The biblical perspective on timelines, historical timelines and how God created the world and all these things.

You know, it’s interesting when I think of like you will teach them diligently. It’s talking about God’s commands. You will teach God’s commands diligently to your children and and all throughout the the first five books of the Bible, you see these re recounts of historical things that happened, stories of people’s lives, of their history. And they were fallen men. They were they were human. They made mistakes. They sinned. They they struggled with the same struggles that all of us struggle with and different struggles as well. And what’s amazing to me is that they when they come back to the Lord in the Old Testament over and over again, they build these altars. Why do they do that? To remember? And then they would share with their descendants those stories. They’re they’re even called midrash and. Jewish communities as well, where they would tell these midrash as these stories, this historical accounts of the ancestors, and they would pass those down from generation to generation. And I think that a lot of us who are especially in Western culture, there’s just not a lot of stories of how families emigrated and the hardships like and those those stories of heritage are not necessarily passed on to kids. So you may be thinking, Yeah, I have no idea. I come, my heritage is all over the place. I get it. I’ve I used to call myself a Scandinavian mutt of sorts because I didn’t really know fully where I was coming from. But this is the thing. We have a biblical heritage that is in Scripture and we have the full story here in God’s Word. And so as we’re trying to teach our kids the importance and connect them to who they are with a strong confidence, part of that is built in saying, Hey, this is our heritage and this is what God has called you to. And He knew you before you were born. Let’s read Psalm 139. You know, and building that relationship with your kids over a long period of time helps to build them confidence so that when they are in this crazy world, they’re not floundering. We got to.

Get to the skills here. But one more discipleship scripture here is in second Timothy 316 through 17 It says All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete equipped for every good work. This is what God thinks is important for each person to be equipped with. Right? So, so, so important to think about that. That is the main thing. God is telling us what the main thing is that changes how we do everything right. So it’s a foundation within our children of godliness and understanding, biblical truth, biblical paradigms and perspectives and a hope in in going to heaven and living forever with God and how that changes how they operate on Earth that is so important. So make sure everything else we talk about is seasoned with that.

That’s right. So if you guys want to go and look that up and just hold on to that, that’s actually a scripture that’s just so encouraging for homeschool moms. Whenever we get overwhelmed with choosing curriculums or trying to figure out what life skills to focus on, going back to this second Timothy three, 16 and 17 will help remind you of what is truly the most important thing. So you guys, we let’s dive into this topic about building confidence, right? Like we were talking about how a strict academic path used to build a confidence for what people were going to do. And now, while that can be true in some specific industries, you said that how would we as biblical parents build a strong confidence in our kids to be prepared for an uncertain world for the unknown?

Well, I think you have to have some foresight. Foresight is very important as a parent. Some people think of that as vision. It’s not necessarily being a visionary. It’s not even having prophetic gifts necessarily, although maybe you do. That would be sweet, but it is to think and be thoughtful. What are the trends? So my kids are launched, starting to launch in six years or ten years or 12 years. Well, what are the trends of the world? Well, you know, AI is likely I mean, we don’t know for sure, but they’re saying right now to take over 80% of the current jobs. Now, will there be some new kinds of jobs? Absolutely. Anytime technology exists, there are some new jobs, but it’s going to take away a lot of jobs. So that’s not don’t be fearful of that. See, the more you practically and spiritually equip your children. And while you’re trusting God and the closer you are to God, there’s nothing to fear. There’s nothing to fear. So as AI takes jobs, as persecution increases on Christianity and Christians, even in what you would call traditionally free countries like the US or what used to be, you know, a free Canada. Or you could think about your country if it was free or not. A lot of countries are not free to be believers and to do all things. So here’s the thing is that, you know, what’s it going to look like working for corporate America in your country in ten years from now? It’s just important to think about this, not from a fear perspective, but a practical perspective.

Having a foresight, like.

We were saying, we’re not saying that nobody should work for a company. We’re just saying have foresight and what are the trends and be wise and prepare your kids in a way where they can be resilient and shift gears and be able to provide for their families and have confidence they’re going to be able to do that is so, so important.

So in order for kids to feel that way, like I think of a young man who maybe they only have skills in computer coding and that sort of thing, right? And then all of a sudden it’s like, Oh, I takes over that whole part of the industry, right? Or it’s so competitive that it’s difficult to get jobs right? Or maybe the company that the companies that are available that he would potentially work for are corrupt. Like I think that this is even a conversation that parents need to be having and recognizing like what are the potentially more corrupt industries and like recognizing that our children will become like who they hang out with, even if we’ve discipled them up strong in the Lord? Like they need to be prepared to have to make really hard decisions as they grow older when they’re in their 30s, when they’re in their 40s. Am I going to work for a man and help him get more money? Because when we work for people, we’re building somebody else’s business. So am I going to work for this person with a happy heart, or is that going to be in conflict for me? Because he’s not a biblical person or not a Christian or completely opposite and maybe a tyrant, maybe someone who even persecutes Christians.

This is an important conversation to have with our kids as we’re raising them, because it’s much harder to envision how much harder it’s going to be to have that exhorting conversation with your 40 year old son when you’re in your 60s going, What are you doing working for this corrupt man? You have a choice. You should have chosen that. You know, like that’s a harder conversation when they have a family to take care of. So as we’re equipping our children, we do definitely need to have foresight. And part of that foresight is understanding that those are the dilemmas that our children are going to potentially be facing regarding their work. So how do we develop? What do we do now to help them? Then we we build character on and we teach them about the importance of walking with integrity and working for people who have integrity and trying to find the like minded people to work for so that they understand that when they choose a job, when they are choosing to work for someone, they are choosing a master and they need to obey that master. And so right now, at least where we are in Western society, we have a choice of who we work for.

We do. And but I think as as you look at the trends, it’s going to be harder and harder potentially to find good masters to work for. Just something to think about. Okay. So let’s talk about academics for a second, because academics are very important. I just want to make sure you understand. We believe that because on Instagram you might be seeing a lot of farming happening and we believe that’s important too. It’s a mix of things, but we have always been very, very focused on making sure our children grow in knowledge and become avid learners and learn how to learn and all these kinds of things. So when it comes to knowledge, it is very important part of the equation. It’s just only part of the pie. Yes. Whereas it used to be such a big part of the pie in people’s mindsets towards education, it’s, you know, maybe half of the pie.

It’s interesting because, you know, you were mentioned what I share like on Instagram and stuff and a lot of the the hours of the day that I don’t share is when I am actually sitting down and doing the nitty gritty, the work. I don’t get out a tripod and take videos of me reading books to the boys. I just read books to the boys. And so, like, the truth is, is that in the times of the day when you don’t see things, that’s where I’m literally like, I’m just too busy to share is what I always tell Isaac. And he’s like, You’ve got to share this. And I’m like, I’m too busy. I’m too busy doing what’s important to share. And I just want to encourage those of you who are listening, because I know many of you guys that are listening are also influencers as well. It’s okay. You don’t have to share everything and but you do need to do what is right in the eyes of the Lord, and you need to fulfill your responsibilities as wife and as educator and as mom in your family. That is the first and most important thing that we do. And so when we’re talking about academics, it looks different, different age kids. Look different. We’re not going to break it down into the age categories today. We do do that actually in our home schooling blueprint course, which you can find more about that at be courageous ministry.org by clicking courses.

Um, but in this section I just want to say like the knowledge part of it, this is important because we need to be people who are challenging our minds. Yes, we need to be constantly stimulated. That’s one of the things I love about homeschool is that instead of having to like beat a specific, um, lesson with a hammer, if you will, like I think of math and how many practice pages there are on all the different skills within math, right? Sometimes there’s like 10 or 12 of the exact same thing just repeated over and over again. Certain children will love to do every single page because of how they’re wired, but certain children will master something and quickly become bored and their mind will not be stimulated if you force them because you’re rigid of having to do all of those things. So what I love about homeschooling is that you’re not comparing to the the kid next to them that’s struggling. You’re just looking at your child and you’re like, test them quick. Wow, you have mastered this four pages in like, let’s move on to the next most stimulating thing. And then guess what? There’s going to be a test.

You don’t have to finish the workbook.

You don’t you actually have the freedom to move on. Did you know that in the public school system, if you ask any teacher, they do not finish their actual curriculums that they use with their kids. I have interviewed multiple public school teachers and they’ve all confessed it. In fact, a lot of them have now become homeschool moms, which is kind of fun. And, you know, I just want to encourage you guys like we finished curriculums, but we don’t necessarily do all of the seat work repetitive, constant, like the same math problem over and over and over.

Once they get it and it’s in their brain, why not move forward so they don’t get.

Bored and so that they actually love learning and they don’t dread doing the same thing that they did over and over and over and over and over again. Like I get that repetition is a good thing. I mean, you guys, I was a psychology and social sciences major. It is a good thing. And there is a time and a place for that with phonics and with math and certain things. But the truth is, is like you got to find a way to make learning fun so that your kids want to do this their whole life. Because truly learning and then doing it like that, we want our kids to become addicted to that.

You just hit. I think one of the most important things is that they don’t get drowned in start dreading learning that they delight in learning because you help facilitate and keep them on whatever the right pace is for that individual child. And it doesn’t matter if another one of your kids is slower, they’re just different. It doesn’t mean they’re not as smart or anything like that. It’s just each child has different learning styles and different speeds at different ages, and it’s not an indicative at all. We’ve not seen signs that that is indicative of their intelligence or their trajectory later on. No. So we have to look at them as individuals and and keep them on their pace.

Yes. And you mentioned something delight directed study we go into. Again, this is something that I cover really in depth in the homeschool blueprint course, which if you guys are right, now is the time where you see a lot of homeschool conferences and online conferences being promoted and stuff. We have a homeschool blueprint course. It’s got six videos that are an hour long each. It comes with its own blueprint, PDF download, and we cover like the nitty gritty of like what is delight directed? How do you study your child? How do you recognize their different learning styles? What are your teaching styles? Which honestly, that’s something that I don’t hear other homeschoolers talking about. But the truth is, is if you love what you’re teaching, your kids are going to love learning it more. If you dread teaching it, your kids are not going to enjoy the process because you’re not enjoying it. We have to lead. It’s just like women setting the atmosphere of their home. We all know that wives and moms set the atmosphere of the home. Well, guess what? The teacher sets the atmosphere and climate of loving learning or not. And so if you are not enjoying the curriculum or you’re bored of teaching that same thing over and over again, you have to be reflective on you and go, This isn’t working for me. I need to do what’s best for my child. And that may mean finding a different science curriculum or a different way of doing handwriting with my kids or a different book. We’re going to read a different book right now. We’re going to take a break and come back to it.

And can I just say, that’s a beautiful part of flexibility that Isaac was talking about with homeschooling. And I think that, like when I was a younger home schooler, I’m just going to share personal testimony When I was a younger home schooler, Every homeschool mom does this. You take your previous experiences into your home schooling with you and you try to without intentionally doing it. We do try to recreate some of that, but this is the thing. I was public schooled. I do not want to public school my kids. And so while. I had the desks and I had the little handwriting thing taped to the wall and they all had their little it was it’s comical when I look back, because of how different homeschooling is for us today, it’s much more flexible in the sense that I’m not so rigid and I’m not constantly No, we can’t finish yet. We don’t finish until 12. We have 12 more minutes. Like I just was so scheduled. I was a highly scheduled homeschooler and part of that too was like a pressure to prove to people that I could do it right. And I think that sometimes the less experienced homeschoolers or the people who are just getting going, they feel that pressure to have to prove to other people, I’m not going to mess my kids up. I can teach them. And but in the midst of that, we need to, like, step back and go, No, I’m not going to homeschool as a people pleaser. I’m going to homeschool because this is what’s best for my kids. So anyway, just a little side note on that.

So on the knowledge side of things, you know, it’s really good. The academics for instant recall, right? Just as we gain knowledge, we can in conversations with people in problem solving, in creating something and doing things we can rely on what the seeds that have been planted in our brain and we can add all the different context of different information points and make sense of things in a dynamic way. So it’s really important. I used to read about the brain when I was a young entrepreneur and, you know, we literally are connecting more of our neurons are connecting when we’re challenging our brains and we’re learning and we’re growing and doing things both right and they’re connecting. But if we’re if we stop, you don’t just stay as smart as sharp, your neurons actually start disconnecting. And so it’s interesting that we’re really making progress with our minds because we’re stimulating them or we’re not. We even see this when with the elderly. Like if you keep if elderly people keep productive, purposeful, busy doing things, their minds keep sharper. So it’s it’s true in all ages.

It’s just how God designed the human body. And so understanding that all humans function better at growing and learning and we have this incredible opportunity with our our children are like sponges, especially those earlier years, right. To be able to pour into them as much as we can of good knowledge of wholesome knowledge. That’s going to be important for them to recall later in life. That is really where you want to be at. That’s a sweet spot with academics when your kids are little. Of course, we have the fundamentals when it comes to academics, reading, writing and arithmetic. Those are like the three R’s that you for sure want to always mean. Obviously arithmetic starts with a, but they are called the three R’s in the homeschooling movement that they’re the most important things you always want to have going. And that’s actually like a lot of people ask us how our how our schedule is. And I will say that those are three things that are always happening year round. Even during vacation time, I will sometimes have like one of the kids reading a different book and I’ll have them continuing to do maybe a little less during the Christmas holiday season or vacation, but they’re still doing some math.

Yeah, interesting you say writing. I just want to touch on that real quick and hopefully you don’t get bored of the term. It’s just a real thing. It’s very serious, actually, because right now you can have I just write something for you, you could say and do an incredible job. I mean, there’s this famous author that did a video talking about how he had this create the 13th chapter of his book or the 13th principle. It’s this book that has 12 principles in it. And you know, from my book and the information in there. And now what would be the logical 13th principle? And then mix that with this religion and that and this other thing and then write the chapter for me and boom! And he said, Wow. It was hard to not see that it was something I wrote. It was it was so good like and so what is the reality then? So we say writing. Why is writing so important? Well, I actually believe at some point in the future there will be a turn back towards what’s human certified human like. They’re certified organic, which who knows if that’s even still good, but certified organic? Will there be certified human, maybe a badge or something that this was written actually by a human because you will not be able to tell whether it is or not. And so there will be a demand for people who can write. I just want to say that because sometimes I think what will happen is, well, how important is writing anymore? How important is a calculator anymore?

Well, it’s the same thing as how important is a brain?

How important is math anymore? Because we have a calculator. Right, Right, right, right. This is different. That’s not the same situation.

We’re talking about human creation versus human problem solving. Right.

I want to take a moment and give you something for free if you haven’t got it already. Is the date night one sheet. It is a beautiful document you can download that will have some key questions on it for your date night. Just get in alignment about what’s most important for your family. No matter what time of year, it’s always important to recalibrate. You can get that by going. Two courageous parenting.com and subscribing to our mailing list. Also, you can get all of our show notes and everything at Courageous Parenting.com. And also just want to share real quick about the Parenting Mentor program. So many families are being transformed by going through this. It’s the six week self-paced program with live engagement from us and even direct interaction. So if you want to join us, here’s a little bit more about it and you can find out more at Courageous Parenting.com. Stephen, I.

Realized that we were getting too comfortable with the world’s vision of how to raise our children, but Angie and Isaac.

Have done in creating this is literally phenomenal.

This program provided awesome scripture based teachings and just some really great practical applications.

This class has just really rocked my world. It has given.

Me the 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 the heart.

We now have a game plan to how we want to raise our children. We 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’re no longer fearing dark days ahead, but we’re so excited to raise lights to be leaders for the next generation.

Human creation, the creativity to be able to express and communicate and use words to express feelings and emotion and and all of those things. Being good communicators is literally one of the most foundational, most important things that you could ever train your children up in is going to affect their potential jobs in the future. How they’re able to either move up and manage others or not, it’s going to affect their marriage. Obviously. It’s going to affect their parenting and how they raise up their kids. It’s going to affect them being able to be in relationships, friendships with other people working within the body of Christ. Communication is a necessary thing and writing actually goes hand in hand with communicating because it helps. It’s a process like prayer, journaling. I even think of the importance of prayer, journaling or even journaling and diaries back in the day were so powerful because they were teaching people this practice of being still being quiet, thinking, actually using the brain God gave them to think and then expressing their thoughts down on paper so that it could either just be for them and they could reflect on it, or to be able to communicate with other people. And so writing is so, so important, especially with the the way that things are going regarding just even our Constitution or even different countries have constitutions. They’re all written in cursive. And so I remember years ago when cursive handwriting was now not something that was being taught in the education system here in America. And I thought to myself, well, that’s just one more reason why I need a homeschool, because I want my kids to be able to read the Founding Fathers documents.

And we all believe as believers that we have the Holy Spirit in us, right? So I will never have the Holy Spirit in it. The robot will not ever and so nor a.

Human soul.

Or human soul. So I really believe, like when I write, I believe the Holy Spirit is impacting what I write. And I know Angie the same. So anything we ever do, we don’t use I surrender it for that purpose that human touched by God is always going to be better. And so that writing I just wanted to anchor that point because writing is going to be so important. You’re going to see pressure in the coming years that writing will be less important and you’ll see some people that aren’t really thinking forward, just kind of settling with that thought process. And I think we need to stay, stay away.

And I just want to bring in the importance of reading as well, because if writing is not valued, then that’s because there are not other people reading what’s being written. And so reading is incredibly important. And with the advancements of technology and platforms like YouTube, where you can just Google something and watch a video and how to learn how to do X, Y, and Z, I get that it’s convenient and that it’s much quicker, if you will, than picking up a book or going to the library and getting something. But I truly believe that there is a need for us to value reading with our children and and modeling for them to what it looks like to go to the book, to get information, to sit with a pile of books. If you’ve never gardened before and you sit with your pile of books or you’re flipping through your insect book trying to find out what that one caterpillar is, it’s eating all your tomatoes. Oh, it’s a hornworm You know, like just that process is powerful for your children to see you doing that because then they go, Oh, I’m going to need to be able to do that when I’m older. Do you know what I mean? But the reality is, is if we’re just always on technology, then what we’re doing is conditioning ourselves to become dependent on technology and. And really we’re putting ourselves in a position of not even training ourselves to do the harder work. And so I think about like even the life skills, we’re going to be talking about that in just a second. But the life skills that we’ve been doing and just in the process of homesteading and just the little projects that we have here in our smaller plot of land, it’s big to us because we are putting to practice the things that we’re learning even. And honestly, some of it is a little bit harder. Like, you know, I think about just even the chicken food like it would be. We’re definitely not saying go buy chicken food and make your own.

We’re definitely not saving money.

No, we’re not saving money and we’re not saving time. I mean, it took me a couple hours the other day just to make four batches of the chicken.

But that’s a whole nother episode. So we’ll tell you the why in another episode. But, you know, you said the three R’s and one’s not an R, But what about science?

Aren’t. Well, science is super important too. But this is the thing. Like kids, when it comes to certain subjects like science or history, it’s it is such a beautiful thing to be learning, but you want to go from the books to also doing the life experience, which we talked about. Some examples of how you can do that with writing, right? Like the importance of teaching them writing, but then having them journal or having them do a diary or having them communicate through written forms somehow. Right? And the same thing is important with reading, like reading each other’s hearts, reading letters from each other, reading books, reading the Bible. There’s there’s an importance in that. But then when you talk about subjects like science and history, I mean, they’re just as important to me. But I will say that history, like there are certain aspects of history that are incredibly important that we need to make sure that our kids don’t remember. Why is that? Because there is an agenda out there to try to erase history and to change the narrative. But if your children know the truth, then they can stand firm in the truth and not be deceived by wayward philosophies of today or tomorrow. And so history is incredibly important. But the truth is, is that there’s also a lot of things in the future like we can’t just always be living in the past either, right? So while that is important, we also need to use the history and have our kids understand like, okay, this happened in the past, I need to remember that so we don’t make the same mistake in the future, right? Like that’s one I just, I even think about. One of the things.

Is fun too, experientially is to show them something that happened in the past and how that cycling again in the in the future. It’s unfortunate but you can see the cycles of humanity right cycling the same mistakes.

Yeah. And so it’s incredibly important. But I also think that there’s like an aspect where you can make history, like living history. I even think about our trip. We did a three month RV trip and we went all over the nation, 34 states in three months, about 4 or 5 years ago. And it was so amazing because we had been like one child was memorizing the geography of the United States. And so for him, memorizing geography and then going from place to place and looking at maps was just like, oh, he was all about it. And the other kids saw his excitement about it and joined in with him. Then there was another kid that was really heavily focused on historical accounts of battles, right? So then we go down and we’re in a in Augusta, Florida, and we’re looking at a garrison that’s there. And going through that history.

Civil war actually started. They were sharing with us.

It was incredible. Like then Fort Sumter, we went and we got to bring the flag down from along with a bunch of other people who were touring that center. It was an island. It was on an island. Yes. And so, you know, being near 911 on the 4th of July, we were at Gettysburg, which is where the Civil War was, and that we were there for the 151st anniversary of the of that. And it was incredible. There were reenactments that were happening. We got to tour and see all kinds of stuff, and that is living history. Now, I get that not everybody can travel all over the place to see things, but what is in your area? I remember when we lived in Oregon, there was the Oregon Trail and we would go to Living History Days at the Philip Foster Farm and we’d learn about how the pioneers were churning butter and making applesauce. And and there are things in your area you just have to go find them. And what’s cool about that is it helps to bring history alive. And those are the times where your kids read something and they may remember some of the details, but then if they go and they experience it, then they remember even more of what they read and it becomes really impactful.

On the academic side, math reading, writing is, is there’s there’s workbooks, there’s books, there’s things to do. There’s a lot of practical work there, and you can make some of it experiential. But then when you go to history science, you can make that even more experiential. And the learning process, because I think what I picked up there so so that’s good. And all of this. So academics are very important and all of this really helps them to be able to stand firm, to be able to articulate their thoughts and be thoughtful and stand firm when they’re talking. To or being oppressed against somebody that’s intellectual. So we want to be intellectual people. We want to be able to use our minds and understand things. Because sometimes the way to influence an intellectual non-believer is by matching their intellect, right?

Even just think about logic, right? The conversation between creationism and evolution. One of the things that I’ve really enjoyed whenever we have a seventh grader that’s about the age, 12 years old ish, when we go through a book called Defeating Darwinism, and I usually read the book with the kiddo just to make sure that they’re understanding the arguments and we’re having deeper conversations. We’re going into Scripture, and it’s really powerful because it’s it’s equipping them with the with the correct theology for why we believe what we believe and why we don’t agree with that. And to be able to detect, I think that discerning and detecting the little lies are actually some of the hardest. Right? Like and especially for kids, you get a book on dinosaurs and so many of them will say, oh, millions of years ago, well, that’s actually not biblical. And so if we’re reading those books to our kids and we’re not telling them, oh, you know, this isn’t what we believe, right? And this is actually why we believe what we believe. We need to go the step further of having those conversations because we don’t know who they’re going to be having a conversation with in ten years and being able to equip them with that strong foundation of why we believe what we believe is so, so important. And it’s the intellectual side that you were just talking about.

And remember, the enemy is looking for any one point that disagrees with the Bible to unravel all the other points for your children in the future. So if there’s any point in the Bible where where you can’t give a good answer for what exists or what is thought to be millions of years, actually isn’t millions of years. And how can that be? How can what the Bible says actually be true if you can’t talk about that or have resources to talk about that, that leaves room for the enemy to work in your child’s head about. Well, maybe that part of the Bible is not true, but the rest is true. Well, you know what? When I was coming to the Lord when I was 23, either it was all true or none of it’s going to be true. My intellect had a conflict with that in your children’s intellect will have a conflict with that too, unless they can believe that the whole thing is true now.

So good. And so it’s important that when our kids have those questions and they’re thinking logically because we want them to, we want them to have critical thinking skills, we’re there alongside them to help them think the next step through to and to challenge them, but also to like affirm what the biblical truth is if they’re having a hard time grasping it. And so there’s there’s so much more when you’re talking about academics. I even I just want to bring this up briefly because this is part of discipleship. There are going to be days where your kids are going to have a bad attitude about doing a specific subject that maybe is a little bit harder for them or maybe they’re bored or maybe they’re struggling with something. As a homeschool parent, it is actually a really fantastic opportunity for two things. One, character building of getting a job done and having integrity, doing the hard things, doing the hard thing first, which is something that we’ve always taught our kids. But also it’s our responsibility and our privilege and an opportunity for us to find out why it is that our kids don’t want to do that specific subject is there is there boredom? Because if there’s boredom, we could quickly do a a test to see if they’ve mastered something and have them move on.

If it’s a subject like that, then that would be amazing to help them be re invigorated and excited about learning in that specific subject. Like that’s our opportunity in that. But if it’s just they’re having a bad attitude or they’re struggling with something, then you need to help hold them accountable to doing the right thing. And that’s where you’re building these traits that then go with them into their whole life, where they become the dependable, reliable, hard worker, where they’re the person that has the work ethic, where they’re the person that has integrity and they’re going to finish what they committed to doing because they said they would. And these are all things that like are built over time, not in a day. It’s like woven through the fabric of your life because it’s discipleship and it’s important that we, like, have the perspective that we can’t think as homeschool moms, Oh, I’m going to do it for six months or a year and make all this headway, right? All this progress. You as a mom need to have grace with yourself and your children to understand that this is like a lifetime journey of learning and you get to do it with your kids.

Hey, it’s so important. And I think that more important than academics are these things we’re about to talk about, and it’s more important than the life skills and both of them woven together in a good balance with your children over the years, create these important characteristics that children must have. In this new world, right? We’re in the great transition right now. There’s powers changing everything around the world, and we’re not to be fearful of it. You don’t need to be. You can trust God and take action, right? I completely trust God. And I also feel prompted to massive action. Right. And I think those two prepare.

Your kids as part of that massive.

Action because God gave us a jurisdiction to take action with them, to train them up. Right? So so here’s what’s most more important than both, but both have to do with creating it, which is the ability to problem solve. We don’t know actually what the future is exactly or.

Problems in the future. Yeah.

So they need to know how to solve problems and be good at that and to be persevere when problems arise and when challenges arise, which has a big spiritual discipleship part to it. And two, to persevere and keep going and not give up and not doubt yourself and to solve problems with perseverance. Okay. The next thing is critical thinking. I’m not saying be a critical person. That’s not what critical thinking.

That would be a critical spirit.

That’s different. So critical thinking is the ability to think objectively, suspend the influences pressing against you and actually to be able to have clear what I would call clear thinking and to really think about things and to draw in the biblical perspective and push out the noise of the world and actually be able to think about situations happening. Decisions to make decision making is so important. It takes real critical thinking. Nowadays, it’s not as simple. You can’t just make decisions how people made decisions in the past because situations have changed. There’s new data points, there’s new things happening. So it’s about parenting, right? You know, we’re telling you, you can’t parent like you did in the past. Right? We have to be critical thinkers as parents. Well, you have to create critical thinking humans. Right. And help them use their minds. The Parenting Mentor program goes into this stuff so well and then resourcefulness. It is so important that regardless of their skill set, what they know, they believe they can figure it out. They believe they can find a way. They believe they can find a new way to make an income or multiple incomes or these that’s that resourcefulness mindset.

What’s around them.

Using what’s around them. Okay. I can’t just go buy this thing that I used to be able to buy. Now how can I make something to adjust for that? I think that’s going to be so important. Okay, resiliency. I love that word because it’s the high, highly resilient that are going to thrive regardless of what’s thrown at us in this world. I was just giving a sermon on Sunday and I said I just said, you know what? It’s inevitable. We kind of know how things are going to go. We’re all going to get squeezed more. So however you feel being squeezed right now, you know, how are you responding to that? What’s going on with you? You know, are you getting heady? Are you having anxiety? Are you trusting God? Are you having faith? Are you moving forward positive with abundant hope? Right. That kind of thing. And so what what’s coming out right now when we get squeezed with this level of squeeze we’re experiencing, what comes out? Is it godliness? Is it hope? Is it abundant hope? Is it glorifying God? Is it resourcefulness and resiliency or is it something else? And what are our kids seeing? And, you know, because you’re just likely we’re just going to get squeezed even more. So let’s if we’re being tested right now, let’s pass the test Well, so we’re ready for the bigger squeeze. Well, that’s not good news.

No, it’s a good exhortation. And I think that sometimes we need that exhortation in life because life can be hard at times. But God is always good. He’s good all the time. And sometimes it’s the hard things. We need to have a different perspective shift on to recognize that those hard things, if we walk through them, embracing them and engaging them, then they’re going to actually grow our capacity to be able to handle the next big thing that comes in life. Because the truth is, we live in a fallen world. It is not perfect. There are going to be good times and there are going to be hard times. Why do you think when when a couple gets married, the most traditional vows are to love in sickness and in health, in richer or for poorer? You guys, It’s because the truth is, is all of those things can exist in within one lifetime with the same couple. And so when you’re making that kind of a commitment, like are we living out that vow? Are we living out a commitment to God that we’re going to trust him in the hard times and we’re going to praise him in the good times? Or do we struggle in the hard times and blame him and take the credit in the good times because that’s not biblical. And so our kids are learning all of those things as we’re learning them as well. Right? Like as we’re going through the life struggles and life challenges and we’re experiencing the blessings and the and and even just the the seasons where God will just take care of every need and all of the things our kids are watching all of it.

And. When we allow them to do like Deuteronomy six commands us to and we let them be with us while we’re sitting where we’re lying, while we’re walking, while we’re on the way, while we’re while we’re in our homes all day, every day, which is what homeschooling is, our kids actually do get to see that. And hopefully what they’re seeing from you is a godly example. So we talked about academics, and today’s podcast is about this trying to find a balance. We told you guys that there is not an actual equal quantity of time that you’re going to be giving to academia and to life skills. We’re going to talk about life skills here for a second because this is a hard thing for people to grasp, I think. And it’s different based upon your kids ages, how much time they’re going to be spending doing academia or seat work, if you will. But I do think that there is a necessary conversation that we need to have where life skills are education, they are home schooling. So when people see you, your kids taking apart an AC unit in the Sprinter van and reinstalling it and they’ve learned how to do it, obviously they’ve been learning and studying how to do these things way before they start doing them. Clearly, they’re not just doing whatever they want out there. The truth is, is they are are learning life skills.

They’re learning resiliency. They’re learning resourcefulness. They’re also using critical thinking and problem solving. But they had to do knowledge first when they’re measuring things and they’re looking at how hot sealant needs to be or how cool it needs to be and what’s the temperature today. And like, there are so many aspects. Is it going to rain? They have to pay attention to the weather when they’re pulling out and making a hole in the roof like there’s so much going into that. That is school. That is school and it is school. When they are learning about the worm farm and they’re feeding the worms and they’re making worm castings and they’re seeing the benefits of it in a gardening book and they’re reading about adding worm castings to your compost or to your soil. And then when you’re gardening and you’re doing botany with them and you’re doing a botany curriculum and then they’re doing it, they’re literally doing it, those life skills are what make the education important to them. Otherwise they’re just learning stuff and they’re like, What’s the point? Eventually kids will literally look you in the eye and go, What’s the point? Why do I have to learn this? But they’re not going to say that to you. If over and over and over again in their life they have learned something and then they went and used it, somehow that question won’t come up for the child. If they have been living a life that has been implementing the knowledge that they’re learning.

Talk about retention. You want to have smart children, have them do what they’re learning, and they save it forever. That’s right. It’s so awesome.

It’s amazing. I even think about like some of the kids regarding working out and health and all this stuff. Like I we have kids that are like they’re all about the nutrition and how many calories they’re helping.

Me so much.

Right now when to take protein shakes, when do you know and working out and what different muscle groups and like I’m telling you you guys the human anatomy and the muscles that they know where these muscles are and what exercise works, that muscle and and what they want to see improved on their body. And then they find out the muscle and then they find out the exercise that makes that muscle work. And then, oh, I need to supplement with amino acids after I work out so that my muscle can heal and then our.

Food bill goes up $1,000.

That’s true. But all I’m saying is like that is education that is making health exciting because they’re doing it right. And health is also can I just say cooking like working in the kitchen, teaching your kids how to cook healthy, how to soak beans, how to make rolled oats, how to make their own granola bars, how to like there’s so many things, how to make bread. Um, I just even look back on when Megan remember Megan did the science fair and she was testing different fermentation processes with different kinds of leavening agents. She actually won first prize for that. That for those of you who do science fairs with your kids, that might be a good suggestion for you. It was really fun. But you guys, it was applicable because she loved baking. That was why she chose it. She didn’t just choose the science fair project that she was never going to use the knowledge for it. She loved baking, so we chose to do a science fair project that would teach her something so she would know the difference of when she’s using eggs, when she’s using yeast, when she’s using different sugars, when she’s like and it was so educational. She had a blast baking all kinds of different things and testing the different leavening agents.

So some of you listening, you might be exhausted already just listening. And I get that because we all are in different journeys doing different things and different places, different possibilities in the short term. In the long term, I think a lot of the possibilities can be the same. But in the short term there might be different possibilities you might not live on. Land. And so it might look different for you. So I want to just address that and go, hey, how the question is it isn’t I can’t do this. The question is how does this look for my family? Yeah. And it’s going to look different than for our family. However, I will say that we have re-orientated and God has helped us, but we were obedient re-orientated how we live our life and how so that I could be home more. Part of it is that we have older, we have lots of children, so that became more important and we’re just really dedicated. We’re like, What is the most important job that we have is raising our children. It’s raising our children and seeing what the world’s going through. Have I made more money in past? Yes. When? When we didn’t have things orientated this way and we weren’t I wasn’t part of the ministry. The ministry used to make it cost us. It just cost us. It just cost us money. And but it was impacting because I could.

Only do it when I had free time and when she was a.

Blogger and with a book, you know, and it just it only cost us money, but it helped people. And so we it was exciting and ministry. It was a ministry and it still is truly a ministry. So but when when I joined in, you know, that was a decision of doing what God has called us to do, and God may be calling you to do something different, but it was also like, I need to be home more. God, how can you help me be home more? And it was doing ministry together. And so we have seen so much value in that. And so maybe you can’t right now, but be praying about be thinking about is there some life reorientation that needs to exist that doesn’t necessarily look like ours, but what could be there and what is this look like for you? Because these same principles can happen if you’re living in a townhouse in a city. It’s just going to look a little different.

I just even think about the years. So the first like six years that we were married, we lived not on land we lived in, remember, we lived in Happy Valley and we had 2 to 3 little kids by that time. And I remember when Austin was two to 4 or 5, six years old, he would go to work with you. So maybe that’s like reorientating their life so that you can invite your kids into your life more. And remember huge.

And I remember hiring somebody to make your garden beds because I literally didn’t know what to do.

Yeah, actually, we tried to. We did that with a lot of things. He also didn’t have time to mow the front yard, and so we hired someone to do that. And then I was like, No, I can do it. And I would started mowing the yard. But he was more focused on building a business then, and there were seasons in life, and I do think it’s important just for your encouragement, like we’re sharing where we’re at now and little glimpses and pieces of what we’ve done over the last 20 years. That’s a big story, you guys, and you’re just some of you are just starting your life. Some of you are maybe seven years in, some of you are 15 years in 20 years in. So you get it. But there are seasons in your life that and they will change.

So hey, life skills, I’m going to run through them just for time here. And then we’re going to get what it looks like in our home at the end here. So, um, home. All the things to run a home. To run a home which includes our boys. They’re. They’re learning all these things, too. Fixing them, repairing, cleaning, cooking, um, maintenance, you name it. So home is a very key thing for everybody in the family. Yes. Creating things. The beautiful nature of creating things. Now, when they’re younger, they’re creating little pictures and fun things like that. But how about whatever age they can starting to create things that have value that someone would actually spend money for, not just because they’re a cute kid, because they actually want the thing and it’s worthy of some form of payment? Yeah, that is a transformational experience that I believe every child needs to experience. Yeah. And when they’re really little, they may be selling lemonade or things like that, but I’m talking about at some age they actually create something that’s like, Wow, I want to buy that and I want to put it on my wall or I want to carry it with me or I want to put it in my truck or I want to give it to somebody as a gift, which.

I’m just going to do a shout out for our boys. Because if you go to be courageous store, you can check out our shop and our teenager, teenager boys. They sell American flags and essential oil shelves that are handcrafted. They’re beautiful. But that’s kind of been a project that we’ve just started doing in the last like four years. And see, there’s season for you, right? The first 20 years, we weren’t doing woodworking. We didn’t have the tools or the knowhow to be doing those kinds of things. And honestly, our kids were not old enough to be able to use those kinds of things. And so but it’s still good for you guys to hear and to see examples because it helps you to dream. We had people in our life who had kids that were older than us that we could see those kinds of things, and that gave us inspiration to be able to inspire our children.

Absolutely. Selling. Selling something. So the beauty is when they create something, now they get to sell it. And that experience, I think, is transformational. No matter what. Someone’s personality is introverted or extroverted. Sales is a crucial experience that I think every child needs to have. It’s part of problem solving resourcefulness. The most important thing someone will ever sell is the the ability to sell themselves toward someone else, to either sell their services or the product they’re selling or something like that. A lot of times people are buying because somebody convinced them that’s a valuable thing to buy. And I think that’s a really important thing. Problem solving we’ve talked about a lot, but really doing the problem, solving experientially, doing that and skills that they can monetize. You don’t know what they’re going to do in their future, but I like helping my children try different things that eventually that, you know, if they needed to make money, they could do that to make money. Right? And I think that as 80% of jobs go to I, I’m okay with the idea. In fact, I love the idea of my kids understanding how to use a tractor or how to grow things or how to fix things or how to do mechanical things back to some of those skills that are always needed. I love that they have some of.

Those make them irreplaceable, right? Like help your kids to to be really a contributor to the economy and to society in a way that is going to be valuable and needed. We have a scripture here as we’re Isaac is kind of wrapping up a section on life skills. And obviously a lot of what he’s talking about is somewhat entrepreneurship. That is definitely something that we feel like most people need to at least have some experience in because you don’t know if your kid is wired to do that unless they get a chance to get their feet wet. And so giving your kids those opportunities and supporting them so that they can try it out and see what it’s like is so, so important. But we got first Thessalonians chapter four, verse nine through 12 here. It says, Now, concerning brotherly love, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another. For that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. So we’re supposed to love each other wherever we are. We’re supposed to be known for our Christian brotherly love. Now listen to this, but we urge you. Brothers to do this more and more and to aspire aspire to live quietly and to mind your own affairs. That means not getting into your neighbor’s business. Mind your own affairs and to work with your hands as we instructed you so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.

This is it always goes back to glorifying God and building the kingdom. I love that. But this is how. This is part of how we should live. This is really a command. Actually, that little title that’s not the Bible, but the little title chapter in that section is a life pleasing to God. Isn’t that interesting? And so I think that this is worthy. This is something we should be reading to our children when we’re teaching them the hard things. In regards to entrepreneurship, do you know that what you’re doing is actually like you’re using your hands to create something? God’s Word actually talks about that. And then, oh, it makes the Bible even more alive to your kids, really. The Bible talks about that. And how cool is it to be able to do that over and over and over again as you’re educating your kids and you’re teaching them different things? Oh, did you know that the Bible talks about Levin? I remember when I pulled that scripture out for Megan when she was doing the Science Fair Project, it was like discipleship woven into the academics. It’s not just defeating Darwinism in this one topic of creationism, you guys. It’s literally every single topic that you talk about. You could talk about God, you could talk about the word because there are scriptures that have a wealth of depth of meaning that will teach your kids lifestyle lessons that they need to be able to be equipped for this world that they’re going to be launching into.

So we’re going to finish talking about what it looks like in our home. So obviously we talked about how we kind of re-orientated our life a little bit so that I’m home every day, which is great, but I’m working. I come out to the studio and I go to work. But there is an aspect of flexibility because I’m here and I can adjust my day accordingly. So sometimes it’s worthy for me to work with the kids out in the farm during part of the daytime, and then I pick up work again at 9 p.m. at night. So sometimes things are out of whack a little bit. There’s certain things I have to get done more than a full time effort to do the ministry stuff. But I can I can decide when most of those things are, which is wonderful because I can see, Oh, this project over here, he has a question, he can come ask me. So there is a benefit of that to keep the kids going in a safe way, productive way on some of those life skills, things happening around the property.

That’s right. And then also there’s obviously like times where I’m jumping in the studio and joining Isaac on a podcast, which is a weekly thing that we do, or we take about a half an hour to plan the podcast and then we shoot it for about an hour. And then I go back in and I jump back into mom life. And and I just, you know, for you guys like that are listening, that’s something that we are able to do because of the season of life that we’re in. We have older kids. We actually have our third oldest is graduated and she works for us with the courageous ministry and be courageous ministry. And so it is easier to be able to have older kids that can be in charge of the youngers for an hour and a half so that we can shoot a podcast, for example. They’ll keep the home schooling going. They’ll I always like have handwriting books that are very like copyright for the, for the littles that are the super easy independent learning things where they don’t really need mom because they’ve already been taught the specific manuscript or the specific cursive and they’re literally tracing and rewriting like those kinds of things or reading. They need to spend 45 minutes reading certain kids and other kids. It’s more I can assign those things when I come out here to the studio and then know that I have an older kid that’s in charge of the little or he’s napping when we’re out here. So I share that with you because I know that many of you guys look at our life on the outside and you see these little glimpses here and there and you’re like, How in the world do you get so much done? And I just want to say part of it is that we have a huge team. We do. There’s 11 of us, you know, And.

So we’ve created a culture. Listen to our first episode ever think is creating family culture, but creating a culture where they’re positive, they feel important, they are excited to do work and help and don’t expect to be paid for everything and these kinds of things. And it’s just it’s really beautiful. I hope you cultivate that same thing because it really is great. I do want to say about Angie, though, she really is in charge of the academics. She really always has been. And even though I’m home more, I would say I help a lot more with the experiential things, the life skills, things, although she helps with those too. It’s just.

Different. Like you help with the more like with the boys life skills, really. Like you’re not in the kitchen teaching them how to cook. That’s a life skill that I focus on. And so we kind of have our areas that we are good at, and those are the things that we pass on to our kids.

And a lot of them just guys be encouraged. A lot of the things that I’m helping my boys with, we’re learning at the same time we’re learning together. I have no idea how to do an AC thing on a van or direct them. We’re watching. We literally watched the YouTube video. I found the video that I trusted. I watched it first and I go, okay, let’s watch this video. And then they went and did it. And if they had questions or whatever, I would be there. So but we.

Also trusted them. I mean, we we do trust them because we’ve taught them safety skills. And over and over it’s been years that they’ve been using some of these tools now.

And and then they tell me, Dad, we need to order this or that and the other thing. And then, you know, I pick out what I want to order the kind of flooring I want for the van and things like that. And then they’re putting helping me put it in or they’re. Are just putting it in. There’s so many times where I can only do so many things. But having older kids is a is a great thing. And if so, if you have little children right now, let this be vision of what can be. But you do need to cultivate the right culture right now. You do need to cultivate a love for learning, which I think is the next thing is cultivate independent learning. And that is so important. We don’t have a lot of time to dive into that. The homeschool blueprint is huge for that, but just know that that is an ongoing, daily, weekly thing that you need to be monitoring. It’s not just cultivating, but it’s like it’s not.

Just handing your kids a book and saying, Here, do this without me. That’s not independent learning an independent learner is. There’s actually characteristics of what that looks like that you need to identify in your children and then also cultivate in them over a period of time. And and honestly, like there’s certain like maturity levels that are ready for it at different levels. Do you know what I mean? It’s not like you can just say all kids by age 13 should be X, Y, Z. No, I’m sorry. That’s not recognizing the uniqueness of how different kids are wired and their upbringing and all of the things. And so I go into it a lot more in the Homeschooling Blueprint course, if that’s something that you need some mentoring and encouragement in for sure. But it is helpful having independent learners who they know and they’re excited about learning new things. It really truly that is the where the rubber meets the road.

So I want to show kind of how practically this looks. Angie’s right there with the littles, you know, getting them going, and then she might be doing something in the kitchen. Then she comes back and works with them. Sometimes she sits there the entire time and works. If a child is struggling and works with them on.

Or when they’re learning something new, not.

Those kinds of things as they get older at some point, different for different kids, they become more independent. And now what we’re seeing in our family and have seen is independent learners where literally obviously our our boys, they’re like, what do you think they like more doing the things they’re learning or learning things that they like, learning to go do it as fast as they can go do it. They love the doing part and they like the academics too, but they love the doing and so.

They are so full of knowledge. I’m like, Where did you learn that?

So what do they do? They do the hardest things first because we taught them that that’s part of our culture is tolponds do hardest things first. So what’s the hardest thing? Usually the thing you like to do less so you can go do the things you love to do more and the things you usually love to do less are vital. To be able to go to do the things you love to do. And so they’ve learned that concept. So without even our prompting, they’ll get up earlier just to get their education done, their books, their reading, their whatever. 6 a.m. Yeah. And then they’ll so that they can get to the things they love doing faster.

Well and they also again, I know this is funny, but when you live on a farm or a homestead, you look at the weather and you say, okay, today is going to be rainy or I’m not going to be able to be working outside. So I’m going to do way more schooling this day. And then the next day they look at the weather and they go, Oh, this is actually the perfect day for planting more grass seed so that when the grass comes up, then we have perfect grass for playing spike ball. Do you see that? Like that’s how the boys literally think, like they’re super motivated to have the yard looking good. It’s not about how it looks, it’s about how it feels on the bottom of their feet because they’re wanting to play volleyball and spike ball and all the all the ball games. And so the truth is, is like they, they get motivated by what their love is, their desire. And but they’re willing to put in the hard work to create it. And it really is a beautiful thing because that’s how life is.

And there’s lots of celebration. We celebrate milestones, we celebrate workbook’s being done, books being read, papers being written, date nights. We celebrate because we meet every day as a family. We meet in the morning, we have dinner together. I used to say, no matter how busy you are, if you’re not eating dinner together at least four days a week is what I used to say. Four days a week. Then you need to re-orientate something. There’s short seasons sometimes. Sometimes Dad has to work for short seasons where you can’t do that. But over the long haul, the trend should be four days a week, in my opinion. At dinnertime. Yeah, that we’re all eating together and it’s not always distracted. There aren’t always other people there. Sometimes hospitality. Hospitality is great, but sometimes we’re escaping only being just our family. Yeah, think about that. Is that you? Is that. Is there some reason you’re not just only your family, You know, Let’s get together as a family. I think that.

That’s where a lot of the communication breakdown happens, is when families aren’t meeting together. And I know that for us, we’re sharing at least two meals a day, and there’s all different kinds of conversations. Plus, Bible time is in some of those and prayer and all different kinds of things. And so I can’t imagine not having those outlets or opportunities to be able to connect with the kids on a deeper level and on one that’s God glorifying. But, you know, utilizing opportunities like that is us utilizing a meal everybody in life needs to eat. So being purposeful with that. And that’s just one example of like in everything that you do in life, how can you look at those things and utilize them as opportunities to meet other needs as well? So hopefully this podcast has been super encouraging to you guys. I know that we covered a lot of material and you’re probably feeling like, Wow, you have a lot more questions in your head. If you do, I want to encourage you to go listen to the OR go see the information we have on the Homeschool Blueprint course at Be courageous ministry.org. It kind of gives you a listing of all the different videos that we cover. There’s six videos that come in the course, so it’s something that you could easily go through in like a weekend or you could do it over a six week period if you wanted to. And then it comes with that download as well, which is super, super helpful as you’re trying to figure out how to homeschool, you need encouragement in the midst of it. Maybe you have a kid going to a different grade. You need curriculum, ideas, all the things that are covered there.

Well, hey, thanks for joining us.

Hey, thanks for listening And being a part of the 10 Million Legacies movement. Go to be courageous Ministry org for more biblically based resources. Ways to switch where you spend your money that support the mission and information about the incredible be courageous app community for believers.

Also we wanted to quickly tell you about our six week online parenting mentor program.

Isaac and I created a powerful biblical curriculum. Here’s how it works. Each week we release a video session with a downloadable parenting packet to make it easy for you to incorporate those teachings directly into your parenting.

This is an incredible self-paced program. We cover everything from tending to their hearts, handling obedience to overcoming mistakes most Christians are making. But more than that, it’s a supportive community. You’ll have access to our private group and the Be Courageous app, live webcasts and direct access to us.

If you’re interested in joining our next online parenting Mentor program, secure your spot now at be courageous ministry org that’s be courageous ministry.org.