Learning to trust your child - and yourself

0:00 [Music] foreign [Music] Mojo podcast I wonder what things you remember most from your school experience Elementary School was fine for me because I'd figured out how to deliver what the teachers wanted and I could do it fairly quickly so schoolwork wasn't difficult it wasn't that hard in high school either but of course they're the social factors became much more important and that was a much bigger challenge for me

0:30 my guest today is parent Claire who remembers enjoying elementary school but by high school she just couldn't see the connection between the things she was actually interested in and what she was learning in school her most productive learning experiences came through extracurricular art classes with mostly retired classmates at an art school and a theater production in which she and other students put on entirely by themselves getting advice from teachers but messing up and then fixing their

0:56 mistakes by themselves Claire knew that she discovered interest-led learning and wanted that to be the core of her daughter's experience so much so that she got herself worked up into a bit of a tizzy because her daughter might one day attend public school after she joined the supporting your child's learning membership she realized that whether her child was in school or not there was a lot she could do to support her child's intrinsic love of learning at home

1:20 as her daughter transitioned from the simpler questions of age two to the more complex involved ones of age three their family grew by one and suddenly her daughter was motivated to start writing really important signage around their house to confirm her place in the family I'll let Claire tell you more about that Claire started homeschooling from a place of fear and overwhelm but now she feels much more relaxed she's becoming her daughter's guide on the side who

1:46 takes cues from her learner rather than the sage on the stage who takes advantage of every teachable moment to impart a lesson and she sees that modeling the self-compassion that she didn't learn herself until recently is a critical part of her daughter's education plan she doesn't need a curriculum for that learning because her daughter's interests drive it Claire knows how to see learning where it's already happening provide just the right amount and type of support to help her child

2:12 manage her own learning which all children are capable of doing if we'll just let them and also bolster skills like critical thinking metacognition and full-bodied learning that she can use to explore any topic under the sun if you'd like to join Claire in the supporting your child's learning membership where you'll get all the help you need to nurture your own child's intrinsic love of learning enrollment is open now until midnight Pacific on Thursday September 22nd sliding scale

2:38 pricing is available to fit any budget you can find out more at yourparenting mojo.com forward slash learning membership and now let's welcome Claire hi Jen thank you good to be here so I wonder could you kick us off maybe by telling us a little bit about who you are where you are in the world and what kind of things are important to you and your family yeah um let's see I live in Central Virginia with my husband and our two kids who are

3:05 almost four and uh nine months and um let's see we spend a lot of time outside as a family um mostly at home uh sort of tending to our little land here um and and that's really driven a lot of you know what it leaves my my oldest who's almost for um her interests and her learning is you

3:36 know really just so much of um of it is us being together as a family outside doing sort of the things uh that we love to do you know I'm fortunate I where I am right now I'm not um working outside the home and so it's it's being with my kids is what I'm loving to do right now so um can you tell us a bit more about your land and and what that means to you and

4:04 your family yeah um let's see we live on um four acres in a somewhat rural environment um we're up on top of a hill that uh has Woods going down uh to uh um a flood plain and Creek that leads into the city's Reservoir um and so there's some sort of public land up up against us um but what's interesting is that it's not it's

4:34 sort of ambiguous as to whose land it is there by the floodplain and especially during covid we found a lot of um homeowners up along that public easement where the tributary comes into the reservoir would you know walk around and people are like we don't know like it was sort of our little comments um and it was this beautiful thing you know everyone sort of tends to trails along there and um sort of wild sort of Suburbans

5:06 um environment so um I my husband and I are both trained as Landscape Architects and artists and I've spent a num lots of years in my 20s um farming and so you know we sort of tried to have our our little Homestead that you know where we work with our kids raising um ducks and chickens and gardening and

5:36 um sort of you know reforesting to some small extent that we we can but you know we caring for the Earth and um other living things around us is very important to us um so so that's really what we spend a lot of time doing yeah how does that show up in the ways that your daughter spends her time outside uh let's see she she really likes um plants

6:07 um she likes to somehow she has a really good memorization at the age of Two and a Half she was correcting her grandparents on the Latin name for uh cone flower it's no Papu it's echinacea my friend's like what so I mean this is just sort of stuff that's natural to her because it's just me and her dad talking about all this stuff but um uh you know learning where you know we're

6:39 wild fruit grows and the times of year that all these [Music] um you know that plants fruit and uh you know we used to think I remember my husband being like is that thing poisonous is that thing poisonous we gotta take it out before we have kids and I'm like no like this is so valuable they will learn like what is safe and what's not and that's all part of living somewhere and it really has been in fact

7:05 my daughter just got over a bout of salmonella from but relating to the um chickens we think uh but now she's like knows it's like the rhythm of washing hands as like really um duck so I bet anyone gets salmon out in order to learn these things but you know the sort of learning that takes place here is really just from you know living

7:38 it yeah nothing like experiencing salmonella to get him hand washing to stick um so so you joined the learning membership uh almost a year ago now and I'm curious about what kinds of things you were doing to support mostly your daughter's learning because she was the older one right and and your younger child is is not really quite there yet um but what kind of things were you doing to support her learning before you joined um

8:07 let's see I think primarily I was very protective of her play and her free time and [Music] um you know we had practice Rye more or less um when she was younger and I think a lot of that sort of my ideas of Rye were sort of like you let them do what they're gonna do and you just sort of like watch this

8:39 flower blossom and it really was like that too a large extent you know um more than sort of what might natural inclination would be like how I was raised and everyone else interacts with babies which is that you have to teach them how to crawl or whatever pick up something um but um you know so we we wouldn't even suggest things for her to do ever like it was like if we would do things as a

9:10 family or you know she'd help out with chores and stuff but I wouldn't get out toys for her or you know so all this stuff was like she always worked through that sort of boredom but I mean is it even possible that a two-year-old can get bored I don't it's like everything's so exciting so um so anyway just being very protective of her free time giving her that the opportunities to seek things out um and trying to let her play as much as

9:41 she could in the way she wanted um providing lots of art materials and um ways for her to experiment with with stuff um in being outside together exploring um I'd say yeah those were the ways we were supporting her and were you already thinking about homeschooling then I I was I was I was thinking about [Music]

10:11 um before joining the membership I had been doing quite a bit of research on childhood learning and it actually sort of gotten myself quite worked up about oh my God I don't I don't know if I can do public school and um so I think yeah I had really sort of been like this is this is really what I believe in um child-led learning and um interestingly joining the membership has sort of opened me up like oh well it

10:43 wouldn't be the end of the world um you know if she went to school we would be able to find ways to support her I assume you went to school is that right I did yeah okay so what what was school like very schooled it's cool for me let's see um I think I pretty much enjoyed school until middle school or high school um then I was very much turned off from

11:17 it I thought I was not interested in most of school and I think like everyone else I knew like saw no relevance to the things we were learning but I mean I had some great opportunities in the Arts through my school um which were uh very meaningful for me um in high school primarily so uh so yeah I think

11:47 it was tough because there were some really amazing experiences that were um really student-led that were really incredible funny how it works isn't it things you really remember the student-led experiences fancy that yeah so like because I had that you know I went into into the Arts later on like through college and stuff so um forgetting where we yeah no it seems

12:17 though there's some memories coming up there and um it's just really interesting to trace that path right uh that um I mean conventional schooling says you're supposed to do well in a a bunch of topics and then go and get Advanced education in one of them and and launch into a career where you can make a good deal of money and and you latched on to something that was something that you an experience that you had designed and

12:44 that took you towards a path that I assume has not been the most lucrative in the world but my my hunches from you that uh that this is something that's important to you and that resonates with you and that is still present in how you're living your life today even if you're not technically working outside the home right now yeah it very much it really was and you know when I was in high school I I got

13:07 to take um art classes with a bunch of retired people at you know at um uh an art school in Philadelphia and which was just remarkable and and I also was in a um like a theater group for at my high school but the students did everything I mean you know I was in charge of the Set uh design and you know we had the power tools and you know we just completely

13:37 did it you know we got we got feedback from from some awesome faculty but it was just our thing to mess up and figure out how to fix and everything like that so yeah that was that was definitely really informative for me and you know those passions were quite specific um and my you know higher education was also you know art school and and all that so um yeah there's some questions for me

14:08 I'm you know I'm like foreign to me I think like that that's what drove me to to learn more and go forth seek common people you know people with common interests and stuff like that and that's yeah I yeah what I want for my kids and for for everyone to be able to do something like that yeah yeah okay so you're you went to school yourself you're thinking okay I want a

14:40 different kind of experience for my child was there any degree of uncertainty about embarking on that Journey what was what was that person yeah deciding that's absolutely I mean I think I think a lot of it is in talking to my family and my husband's family about it and um wanting to make sure I am sort of covering our bases like is this a good idea or you know like how can I talk to people about this who don't

15:14 like half a natural Affinity towards this or who've never even heard of um of unschooling which I hadn't until very you know pretty recently so um and just having the community was really important to me um I know I know locally we have like the homeschooling quite a good homeschooling Community but my kids aren't really school-aged yet so we haven't really been able to tap into that um so this has you know been really

15:46 great to to see other parents um like until it like really intelligent like just and involved and interested people um so I think that's really just been so nice to see like people coming from so many different places um doing this sort of thing for their kids yeah so so what was it like then to get started in the membership you were coming at it from a sense of yes I'm interested in homeschooling I'm not

16:16 quite sure how this is all going to work um what were you looking for like what support were you looking for and what did you find how did all that feel once you were starting to get into the content um I I felt the content was like really easy to um consume and get started on I really appreciated the sort of concrete steps particularly with um you know starting documentation and learning journals

16:46 basically sort of ways for the parent to really see and observe changes and learning and of course that's hard to keep up with um especially with a baby I'm hopeful that it changes over time um different kinds of challenges then they get used in their own stuff yeah um so I found that to be really great because I hadn't really been

17:19 um documenting that stuff um and um let's see what else how did it feel to get started um I guess it just felt like it was a lot of stuff I'd had already sort of been doing but I think um you know as my kid was really you know she turned three I think a month before the memberships started which

17:49 really was a big difference from you know where she had been in her twos um and sort of asking more complicated questions and so I think through the membership sort of coming to terms with like how do you have conversation like my specific how-to but um ways of approaching conversations when my kids like asking me questions about the world and that's been really

18:20 um really useful particularly when she has maybe um ideas that um like if you heard from an adult you'd be like really horrified hahaha uh-huh you know like I just think I remember like one of the First episodes on your podcast that I listened to was like is my toddler a racist or you know like those you know you're like wow that happened now we've got to talk about this and like I need

18:51 to be able to talk to you about this in a way that doesn't steer you uh Donna really um resistant path uh towards you know tolerance and acceptance yeah so my kids really strong-willed and yeah okay what kinds of learning Explorations have you gotten involved with what kinds of things is she what paths has she led you down let's see I think um

19:21 we've done a lot right as the membership was getting started she got really interested um in in letters and in writing and um it all started because I just had a baby and her preschool had um made a hand-painted sign you know saying welcome to the world and the congrats or hooray big sister Lily and you know everyone had signed their name or the teachers had signed everyone's name and

19:51 um she brought it home we put it up in my bedroom I'd be nursing the baby and um and my daughter every day would ask me to read everyone's name Isabella Wes you know and we go through and it must have been like weeks of this and until finally she would uh I'm going like oh my God but this is what got her interested in reading or I mean she doesn't read yet but in in letters in writing and and

20:24 um yeah so she just found this way in and it was almost sneaky I didn't quite realize that at first at first it was sort of annoying like do we have to read this sign again um but you know through that she's gotten into all sorts of things she you know is like pen pals with her grandmother and um write signs you know on the doors to keep that no cat's Allowed no babies allowed things like this that it's like things are so

20:53 relevant to her absolutely no baby's allowed doesn't get more relevant than that does it one was mommy don't you dare come in okay she's asking me mommy how do you say how do you spell mommy don't you dare come in okay okay let me think about that one yeah yeah but and and like because yes there's the immediate we're learning how to write here right and then there's also the she's obviously exploring

21:25 feelings about your relationship that's ultimately what's being explored right is um so it's about writing a sign but actually it's about what is my place in this family now that the structure of it has changed yeah that that's really true I I didn't really think about it like that but so much of the writing has been about that about relationships with um other people and that that gives her a tool yeah to communicate and and tell

21:55 us what she's meeting or wanting and stuff like that yeah um which yeah of course that's what writing is right absolutely yeah I remember reading about a preschool I forget exactly where it was but they uh had a sign up sheet to write your name on or you make your mark to indicate you were next in line for the swing because there was only one swing oh nice I mean what's more relevant to a child in the playground at school than

22:22 when I make my mark that means that they know that my turn is coming up yeah so yeah when these things are relevant to our children's lives then they naturally become more interested in them so yeah yeah I'm also curious about how what kinds of shifts that you have seen in yourself over time um a more challenging question uh I guess how are you another way of

22:55 looking at it how are you feeling about homeschooling at the beginning of this journey did it did it seem yeah I think we're gonna homeschool and and I know what I'm doing and and how how has that shifted over the last year or so I guess I I think I'm feeling maybe a little less like defensive about it or like um that I almost came to it out of like fear that okay you know

23:26 you could read a lot about you know how wretched schools are and which for me it's sort of difficult because I have family you know both of my um kids grandmothers you know were either teachers or really involved in education and so you know it was like I'm like reading this stuff and I'm thinking about my experience and I'm like I don't I can't like approach this I'm like I want my they have good relationship with

23:53 my mother-in-law and Mom and you know our parents and everything so I think what this has what's changed for me is I I think I'm seeing it more as like instead of like here's our path and like this is what we're doing and resist resist you know status quo like it's here's where we are right now this is like Howard doing things and it's like really great for the most part and like everyone's seeing

24:25 you know my daughter grow and learn like in the context that we've in way we've sort of chosen to live our lives and and it's really quite remarkable so I guess I to me I'm just seeing it more as like things we do every day you know they're gonna change I'm gonna change my kids are going to change and that's okay like we don't we don't need to have it all planned out and um I don't have to like write my

24:50 dissertation to present to my yeah and this is why I can't follow what has been your career path for for decades and I think what's important for me to tease out is this is not a rejection of teachers for me it's a rejection of the system that teachers are constrained within I mean a lot of teachers know that the way that they want to teach that builds deep

25:21 relationships that is really responsive to an individual's child's needs you can't do in schools the way they're currently conceived of because everybody's required to learn the same material to the same standard and so you can't be locally Community responsive um you you can't follow a child's interest because it's 10 o'clock on a Tuesday and it's time to study you know pendulum movements not why are all the Slugs out on the sidewalk because it rained last night

25:49 and so I I really think that that most teachers others would teach in in the kinds of ways that we're interacting with our homeschool children if they could and and it's a failure of our education system that we force teachers to work within a system that doesn't work for children and frankly it doesn't really work for the teachers either right I mean it demeans their knowledge and their professional experience and expertise and says we're going to tell

26:17 you how to do it and and then we're going to hold you accountable for the results yeah I mean I remember some incredible Mentor you know teachers over the years and every single one of them was incredibly frustrated with the system yeah that's just like that is like how it was yeah yeah and they were probably doing their very best to create relationships with you to to have meaningful learning activities

26:49 for you within the constraint that they had to make sure that you could answer X on correctly on a on a standardized test at the end and yeah the fact that we force teachers to try to think of creative ways that do things outside the box that actually get you engaged in learning that's meaningful to you um while also making sure that everybody has this equivalent standard uh I mean it's it's it puts teachers in an

27:18 impossible situation in my opinion yeah so um yeah so so this is not a rejection of teaching at all um and so I guess uh you're you're having these conversations with your family members and and starting to feel as though this doesn't have to be I I'm rejecting everything that you have spent your life working on and uh you're getting more confident in basically doing the things that you love to do in school and working on those kinds of

27:46 experiences with a very young child were there times when you felt stuck when you didn't know what you were doing you didn't know how to move forward uh what was that what was that like to be stuck and how did you get unstuck where did where did you end up going yeah um let's see I always sort of again because I sort of came from like the right the sort of steeped in Rye um which is not it's like it's hands off

28:14 but like in a lot of ways it's like just let the baby explore they don't need to use the spoon like a spoon so I think for me I think I got a little tripped up in some ways with um finding ways to scaffold um Learning Without just being like I'm just gonna watch you you know at a certain point you know I guess I've just found like in the preschool years it's like at least with my daughter it's like she

28:42 really seemed to want to learn like want to know more um rather than just sort of like play willy-nilly with something um I mean she's often there too of course but um so I guess let's see with sort of to think of a story um I think about a month ago you know she had sort of been asking a lot about airplanes and we had done some travel um in the past few months and

29:13 um you know we often have visiting family um and so she you know she had sort of I think she'd asked a question like what how does an airplane fly um and I had been sort of like oh we're gonna go to the library and um we're gonna get out some books and you know we're so we find the section on planes in the library and we got like all these books and she pulled out one

29:42 of that gravity and all this stuff and I'm like okay but you know I and I wasn't even really thinking but we got home and it's like she is the type of kid that once you start something she wants to finish it all the way through no matter what it is it's like so I think we had like 10 or 12 books and she's like this one okay read them all like we just get home through the door

30:01 we have to read them all I don't care my brother needs to nap whatever so you know we're reading them like she's not into this like you know she's trying she really wants to be I guess because we started it you know and um so I guess it was sort of like finding like what is she actually interested in and so after that it was like we read them and then she didn't ever want to read them again and

30:24 um we held on to them for three weeks and then eventually I'm like okay time to return them uh what happened here um but sort of in the background you know she's been playing various games by herself like setting up blankets on the floor um you know this is the airplane um we're going on a trip and I basically realized like as I was sort of watching her and in the moments when I wasn't really paying attention that it

30:52 was really much more about like how flying on an airplane can like take you places like really far away or like around the world and like so for her it was just much more about like oh being able to go places like see new things and I guess like in my excitement about like here we go learn exploration first at the library um I hadn't really I don't think I'm even necessarily quite there sort of like how what is my role almost like how

31:26 can I provide like just a little bit to get her to sort of the next like stepping stone but you know not take over or not overwhelm or go off on it the fact that she's not actually looking for so I think yeah it's like finding what is she actually interested in and um it's it's not I mean it's not straightforward yeah no it it isn't and I think that speaks so clearly to the module that we

31:56 have on listening um and and the idea that the one idea that I take out of that module is um listening to your child with the idea that you might be the one who comes out of this experience changed right we we go into uh a learning interaction with our child assuming well I'm the adult I hold the knowledge and so I'm going to transmit that knowledge to you and and you will listen and you will have the

32:26 knowledge and um what we're doing here is we're completely reimagining that journey to not just listen to what is the question the child is asking but what's the real question underneath that right and and you're getting practice at doing that because in our culture the initial question is is frankly the only one that has any relevance and that can be answers with library books and some sometimes that is actually the question our child is answering asking but what you're

32:57 discovering is that that often there are other questions underneath that initial question that are very often about relationships and coming back to what is my place in the world right how do I fit in here and those are not always questions that can be answered with library books and and so she's finding ways to explore those through her play and and so yeah we can get some books on on flying and enjoy those and also learn to listen and

33:23 really hear the question that our child is asking underneath that yeah for sure and I you know like she's still so young too yeah and and I sort of am like I find myself in this place where I'm wondering like is it necessary to like really push it further like I don't need like she doesn't really need to know of course like you're saying like we have to pour it in like she's gonna find it out on her own

33:50 for the most part anyway but you know it's often like I'll like come in with a little thing and maybe it interests her a little bit for a while or it's sort of a little thing to do um but but yeah it's it's more often than not I'm finding like yeah like the less I I even do that a bit and it's just sort of the things that are happening like naturally the things that hurt you know her dad and I are

34:23 interested in and just doing as a family and that Sparks their own sort of questions and conversations um really yeah yeah exactly um and I think that it's uh it's really easy to get down that rabbit hole if I need to be the teacher and um and very often that that that can yes it can be interesting and useful but frankly our child is at that age they're gonna forget most of what we talked to

34:54 them about in a year anyway and so parents often ask well why am I even bothering to do this then if my child is going to forget everything that we talk about um and so I think the the critical part for me is not what the child retains If the child retains nothing it doesn't matter what what we're doing here is we're establishing a pattern of what happens when I express an interest to my parent or caregiver how does my parent

35:17 or caregiver respond is is that sort of shut down with a um a I don't know and we're not going to talk about it anymore and and stop asking questions or is it sort of semi shut down by jumping right to Google and well what does Google say is the answer and then well that now we have the answer there's nowhere to go um or does my parent sit with me and wonder I don't know how does that work

35:41 yeah it helped me to explore what I already know about that and then listen to me deeply and find out what's my real question and and work to explore that um that that's what the Habit that we're setting up for ourselves and for our children through these kinds of interactions um and so whether she retains any information whatsoever from any of those 10 books about flight is is irrelevant in my mind um but but you're starting that habit

36:08 already of responding to her in a way that treats her interests as serious and worthy of serious study and and learning and and that's what she'll retain and carry forward and and that's what's going to make this deeper and so much more fun the older she gets yeah and actually we had sort of this funny thing today um uh she had like she was like oh I want to do an experiment and I'm like oh okay

36:37 um and she's like um she said I wonder what what will happen if I pour water in a paper bag and I was like and she goes I wonder I'm like oh that's like you know what I normally say I wonder and I was like yeah I wonder um if we could do that outside you know like that's that's so she collected her materials and um

37:07 we all went outside with that but it was sort of this fun little thing where she was sort of repeating back like you know what typically happens when I when um when she does ask a question like and you know I do try to sit with that like I wonder you know often I get distracted and you know whatever but um but sort of leaving that open and you know and then you know in that case she

37:33 was like let's go find out like let's test it and it was really cool to um see that even though that pretty much you just like poured it in the bag and you know then we're outside playing whatever but um it was sort of that like next step from like why is the earth round I wonder yeah but you know towards like the next step of trying to figure it out on her own and you know she often has these

37:58 like theories about things if I don't answer her questions her questions that are just like like I mean often I'm like like idea what what this is but you know it's but she does really have theories about the world and how it works and you know sometimes it's really close to what I view as reality other times it's not at all and um it's you know

38:29 it's fun to just to hear her share that um and you know if I hold my tongue and don't correct or um try to push it even further it's clear that she just wanted somebody to tell if this is what I think about things and stuff and it's like such an honor you know to to hear have her say those things to me yeah absolutely and and I I love that

39:02 paper bag example because I think it perfectly illustrates the two qualities that we want our children to have right as as self-directed Learners which is um I am motivated to or I I see gaps in my learning and I'm motivated to close those gaps right not every time I might think oh yeah I'm interested in that but I'm not interested enough to actually spend time on it because I've got this other thing I'm interested in and I'm

39:28 just going to hold that as a sort of tangential idea but when I um I see a gap in my knowledge I am motivated to close it and then secondly I know how to close it right because um because she has the skills to be able to wonder and then hypothesize and then think well could we actually test this and what would we need to test it well we need a paper bag and we need a glass

39:51 of water and and so she's demonstrating those two principles so clearly and and and she has them and so many young children have them and their experiences in school teach them it doesn't really matter what you're curious about what you're interested in because you need to learn what's on the curriculum and it doesn't really matter if you know how to close gaps in your knowledge because we're gonna tell you what how to close the gaps we're just going to give you

40:17 the information you need and she is taking on that responsibility for herself and and we we talk in the membership about your role is not to be the sage on the stage to tell her what's going to happen when you pour water in a paper bag but to be the guide on the side who says I don't know paper bags are under the sink let's go figure it out together um and so those are exactly the kinds of

40:44 experiences that are setting her up to continue this path of being a learner who directs her own education and she's four right she's she's so early in this journey and I mean the two of you have this beautiful path ahead of you where you're you can kind of sit back and relax a little bit and and know that she has these skills already and and that your job is just to kind of be there around the edges providing a little bit of

41:12 support and you're already doing that that's super cool yeah yeah it's nice to just sort of like here then you know I I can definitely like foresee areas in the future where I'm like I hope I can be comfortable just being the guide on the side you know um so yeah like you know early on I think there's less like fear involved as the parent responsible for

41:43 the learning you know um but like just from doing this for you know you know how you know my last four years or whatever I you I just really do see all that can come from it so um yeah it's really just wonderful to be able to sort of trust and her process and just yeah yeah I just I feel like so

42:14 fortunate that I've like found like people to support me and like doing this stuff that like just feel so right and natural and like I yeah I don't it's not stuff I would have done if I hadn't like found like your community and you know ride people and stuff it's definitely not like but it everything about it is just to me is just

42:46 feels and Rings to be so true and so right like that yeah I don't know it just has yeah been good for me yeah thank you for sharing that um and I just want to address the the sort of elephant in the room of but there's math in high school and and all the things that parents are terrified of so usually somehow it's math um and and the idea that just because we may not know a lot of advanced calculus

43:19 or whatever it is that that you know the child needs to know but that doesn't mean that we can't effectively support our child right um so some in some states there are going to be regulations that say your child must be performing at grade level and so then we we come from the perspective of well we love homeschooling and we want to continue spending most of our time doing this in order to do that we need to demonstrate

43:43 you can do these things so let's spend a week working through this content and uh we'll take the test at the end and if you pass the test we're done if if you don't pass the test we'll go back and review some of the stuff you had a hard time with we'll take the test again and and so we're sort of approaching it from a perspective of this is what we need to do to keep doing the stuff that we love

44:03 to do in the short term and then in the long term it's really based on well where does my child want to go right if your child wants to be a physical therapist or a marine biologist or whatever it is they're going to need some math for that they're going to need some steps for that and and chances are if your child is gung-ho on marine biology or whatever that topic is math is it may be something they fall in love

44:26 with it may be something they're like I I don't really like this but I recognize it's necessary for the path that I want to be on and therefore because I have chosen that path myself and it's not a path that somebody else is forcing me to walk that yeah I'm willing to spend time doing the stuff that I don't particularly enjoy because I want that thing so much at the end and I mean we do that all the time ourselves right we

44:51 we do things that we don't particularly enjoy because we want to do the thing at the end that's really that's really valuable to us and our children can do that too if we trust them to choose a path that works for them and and support them through that whole process of understanding how do you make those kinds of decisions how can you test them out how can you figure out if yes this is really a thing I want to do or is it

45:12 just a thing I want to do for a couple years and that's okay and then I get to Pivot and change and do something different so yeah yeah giving them the opportunity to discover what what they really love and yeah that it's not just a single path yes you know there's so many different ways you can go about it yeah yeah absolutely um is there anything about your journey that you would like to share a parent

45:37 share with parents who are sort of earlier in the decision-making process about homeschooling about how to support your child's love of learning that you wish that you had known um I just always sort of think like it's that it's more sort of on the parenting advice side of things I mean so much like you know I mean I I don't know how aware you are that like I joined the parenting membership like nine months after

46:07 um a lot of it has to do with Community I think because you know it's hard to find people in my just physical everyday life that have have like do parents this way and you know share really similar values so for me it's really just been to have the community and hear other other people you know their struggles and ways they're working through things and stuff but um

46:39 yeah I mean I don't know I sort of look back on things now especially since they have like another child you know who's nine months um I sort of think I'm back on like times when I was so nervous about something um with my daughter and and I'm like now it's I'm like it does it's okay like like like with sleep for example you know I was so afraid oh she's not sleeping

47:11 independently or whatever like we I can't just like if she's time if you know if it's bedtime like I have to put her to bed and leave like I can't just let her work it out with me on the bed for a little bit before you know get her comfortable and and so like now I'm just like with my son you know I guess with just the normal things you don't think about learning it's just more like parenting of course it is

47:37 learning he's learning how to sleep and plan his own and stuff like that but to just sort of like trust that it's okay like there's not like a single way you have to start and continue and you know and yeah I don't know it's so hard to like I don't wanna you can't just tell people relax obviously you know you have to live it through that and do it but like just like trust in your what feels good for

48:04 you and like what feels good for your kid and and and just work your way through that together um that you can figure it out together not just think like why isn't it happening where do I need to find the right information to get this right you know um yeah yeah I mean that's such an amazing metaphor for for parenting for life for supporting our children on

48:34 their Learning Journey right that to trust yourself and trust your child and that with a community of support you can do this you can yeah a community that feels that like you really feel that like really resonates with you because I you know I think I just through my Coming of Age my youth or in early 20 and late 20s early 30s it was like I just felt so uncomfortable I like

49:07 things I always felt like you know this is not who I am you know there are certain things where it is and I just think I spent so much time like not embracing who I actually was even though like I you know I was in the Arts and trying to make art and like that was who I was but there was just a lot of Shame and like hiding as well and so I it yeah I think a lot of that was like

49:36 not having my people but you know also a lot of other stuff from not being trusted as a kid and whether with my interests or my within my family with feelings and stuff yeah so you're sort of learning to trust yourself and practicing trust with your child at the same time yeah definitely yeah yeah I like um in the parenting membership we were

50:07 having a conversation about I don't know some challenge someone was having and um I had like been thinking about you know everyone talks about self-compassion and and I liked honestly like I was like I don't understand what that is and I it has been very recent that I've finally understand what what it is like even just the idea of it

50:39 I didn't get you know I'm really what because I didn't I'd never actually done that I'd never like held myself and told myself like it's okay like this is hard like you're it's okay like it had always been like this is not okay try harder whatever you know but and I sort of realized like oh this is what I like have what I tried to do for my kids like and I can do that

51:11 um for myself as well like yeah it's just like that feels good yeah I mean you're interrupting cycles of intergenerational trauma is is what you're doing um and and re-parenting yourself and giving yourself the love and care and compassion that you needed when you were a child and you're also giving that to your children and you're recognizing that you are worthy of the same care and

51:42 compassion that you give towards your children right that's a profound lesson yeah it's really good because like when you when you get that and you feel that like that's what helps you get out of whatever you're in you know not the like why aren't you just doing it or you know not like self-flagellation or you know all that stuff it's so I think you know I had in

52:14 my you know I just thought or believed or whatever had experienced that like yeah if you give yourself a hard time that's yeah well that's what our culture teaches us that's what school teaches us that's what everything around us teaches us is if you're not doing it right then it's either because you don't have a knowledge in which case get the knowledge if you have the knowledge and you're still not doing it right it's because you're not putting

52:37 enough effort in so put more effort in and then you'll be able to do it and I mean that's a recipe for Burnout and a recipe for shame and and hiding parts of ourselves that feel unlovable because because they seem unacceptable to other people um and so yeah so that we most of us were were taught that and and that's why that's so present for you it's uh and and I think a lot of parents Wonder well how do I get my kids to do

53:08 hard things how do I get my kid to stick with stuff and I always answer well firstly is sticking with it the right thing because there are times when we we sort of have this sunk cost and we think oh well I've sunk so much into it I have to ride this one through when frankly there are times when walking away is the better option and secondly is is powering through the way to do that or should we be taking a

53:34 step back and and giving ourselves that self-compassion and asking ourselves is this right for me does this feel right for me um and if if it is something I want to do okay how can I shift this situation to make it something that I can do that I can be successful at and if not then still perhaps walking away is the best thing to do and we we're not taught that we're just taught keep trying you and

53:55 keep keep keep keep going then you will be successful and then you'll be able to buy more stuff foreign yes yes that's that is created by you feeling unacceptable to other people mm-hmm yeah yeah yeah it's I mean yeah I think in yeah it's just it's so nice to like hear like I think what you have provided like in

54:26 your membership like you know through the online community too it's like a lot of validation around like this isn't your parents fault or your fault like so much is like this is what like you know white supremacist Society does to people like of course you feel that way of course you do things this way of course it's hard to be compassionate to yourself and your kids and yeah and I I think that has been like

54:58 really really helpful um yeah and to hear all that like again and again you know and again yes we need all those reminders yes yes we all do we all do yeah well this is not where I thought this conversation was going to end up and I'm so glad that it ended up here thank you so much for being here Claire it was such an honor to talk with you and and get to go deeper right to to

55:30 hear about the learning just the same as we're doing with your child as we're hearing what is the question on on the surface and then what is the real thing that's going on underneath and I'm so grateful that you led us into to that stuff that's going on so thank you thank you so much I'm so grateful to Claire for letting us see into her world and not just that everything's okay stuff on the surface but the hard stuff that happens

55:51 underneath as well that was a real gift to me and to all of us and as one last reminder if you'd like to join Claire and the other parents in the supporting your child's learning membership you can do that right now by going to your parentingmojo.com forward slash learning membership we have sliding skill pricing available doors close on Thursday September 22nd it's a small membership compared to many others around so you get a lot of personalized

56:14 attention and the opportunity to interact directly with me about your child's learning I hope to see you there [Music] foreign