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Hello and welcome to the Wellness Mama podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama. com and this solo episode will be all about my unconventional approach to parenting and homeschooling and include an Unstitute update because many of you have asked and I’m certainly not trying to, um, let you guys down. I just, As I’ll explain in this episode, there are some reasons I haven’t been able to release it as a system, and I would actually love your feedback at the end, if it’s something that you are interested in, in what you see as the most helpful way to release Unstitute into the world.
Um, As kind of an umbrella entry into this topic, I will say that my approach differs quite a lot from the mainstream and really differs from essentially every parenting and homeschooling book or approach I have ever read or seen. Um, so there is in the process of creating something like Unstitute, a little bit of a barrier to overcome because there’s a whole framework and paradigm shift, um, rather than just tactical differences.
Um, I would say my approach focuses a lot on intrinsic motivation and connection with the child versus external structure. And this is, um, to me, this fundamentally shifts the way that we parent. It shifts the way that we homeschool, and it actually requires the biggest shifts, I feel like, at least for me, in the parent not the child.
I hold the belief that children are innate with a lot of the qualities that I really wanted to make sure they were able to maintain if possible through their, um, you know, childhood and adolescent age years. Things like curiosity and critical thinking and outside the box thinking, um, questioning the norms, being willing to try things and take risks.
Um, and I felt like that wasn’t going to be accomplished by putting them in a literal box or a classroom and telling them there was one right answer to every question on the test and that if they didn’t get the answers right, they were in some way failing because actually in adult life and certainly in entrepreneurship, my greatest learning has come from the things that didn’t work out immediately and from the failures.
And I think a combination of that curiosity and creativity, critical thinking, and risk tolerance is actually a tremendous benefit in adult life. So for me, the genesis of this approach, it began when my oldest was approaching kindergarten age. And I questioned, of all of the available options for him at that time, what would best prepare him for adult life.
And when I really started looking into it, and kind of trying to think of it in first principles, what I realized was that none of the current options available, including some really good homeschool options, seemed to fully accomplish what I would, was hoping to accomplish with him or, accomplish isn’t even the right word, but what I hoped to facilitate for him through his school years in maintaining those key traits that I talked about.
And that even a lot of the homeschool programs offered the same structure and method as school, just in a home environment. And so I started asking the question, what if it were totally reimagined? What would be different? If those things weren’t true, like what would a first principal’s approach to this truly look like?
And I will say, I do think other places in the world, um, there are some options that are a lot closer to what I’m talking about, and including school systems who don’t start kids with a lot of bookwork and structure until they’re much older, um, of more like Montessori approaches that are hands on. But what I eventually sort of developed on the fly with him and then now with my other kids is a much more adaptable child led method, and I will also say, because my oldest is 18 now, that, uh, he did have a lot more structure and, um, bookwork and rules in the beginning as I developed this than his younger siblings do now.
And so it’s interesting to see the similarities and differences and the contrast that’s developed now with my older kids, with teens and now him as an adult, versus the younger ones who have had kind of the more, um, firm vision of this for me since they were little. But I realized also at this time that many of the most valuable skills in my adult life, the things that had helped me most in my, my career, my work life, um, and in life in general were taught post schooling or self learned entirely.
Um, and this is what really initially honed me in on the idea of skills up versus knowledge down. I feel like a lot of the school approach is attempting to get as much of the book knowledge into the kids as possible, and then test them to see if they’ve retained it, um, versus building from skills up or building from child interest and letting them learn the practicality through this.
And so as an example, there were certainly classes I took, um, like in high school, like physics, for instance, and I loved physics. I had a great teacher. I remember very little of what I took in that class. However, in a couple of times with podcast guests or in things that have just caught my interest as an adult that I have had an application for those skills or for that understanding, I have been able to rapidly learn what I needed.
And it came from a place of curiosity, not from a place of outer structure. And so I wanted to experiment with how could I best create that environment, um, in homeschooling. I also know there’s going to be a lot of objections related to some aspects of what I’m going to say, and I’ll, um, happily get more in detail on these in future episodes if, um, that is helpful to you guys.
But one thing that really shocked me when I found it out was that kids who receive literally no schooling at all, they never go to school and they’re not homeschooled. So, kind of beyond even unschooled. If they decide that they want to go to college and follow a more traditional education, a post secondary education, it takes them less than one year to fully catch up, even if they decide that later in kind of the high school age years.
And so, we’re putting kids in classrooms for eight hours a day, which I would say is also sometimes at the expense of other really valuable life experiences they could have, um, to keep them on track with these kind of state standards or what we perceive as the way education should be when I think there’s not as much risk as we would perceive to giving them less Outer structure and really helping kindle their intrinsic motivation and their intrinsic structure Um, when they’re young, because even if they decide they do want to pursue a career that requires some level of college, they can really rapidly catch up.
And I think the really important key here is, it’s when they decide to catch up, um, that motivation, when it comes internally, they can catch up really rapidly. Especially, I would, I would say that if we are able to help them maintain their curiosity and their love of learning, that children are naturally born with, then that’s actually a much less daunting endeavor than most of us would think.
Um, I also think when I think of this, think of my friend Jesse Elder, who I have interviewed on this podcast before, and I will link to his episodes in the show notes. Um, he is kind of, and one of the few extreme examples of this. And also, of course, there’s temperament differences, personality differences.
Jesse’s an amazing person. However, he also did not set foot in a school or receive traditional schooling at all, ever, in his childhood. And I’ll let him tell his story and I’ll link to that episode. Um, but what I find so fascinating about that is it seems that that in no way hindered him in adult life and if anything has kind of become one of his superpowers because his motivation was always intrinsic love of learning led him to teach himself how to play the piano. It led him to martial arts and then opening what became a very successful um, series of martial arts studios which he later sold. It led him to entrepreneurship and business in various ways and he seems to approach all of those, just knowing him, he seems to approach things with a very much that he can learn and figure out anything as he encounters it attitude. Um, and I’ve found that super inspiring and I found also other smaller examples of that in people who had more of a hybrid.
Um, so like I said, I just encourage you to go into this with an open mind. Certainly don’t expect you to agree with me. Um, would love actually to hear your viewpoint if you don’t. Um, I just, I would love you to approach this with an open mind if it is relevant to you, um, and think of how little perhaps, I went through, I was in public school in high school, and how little we remember of the content of what we’re taught.
We certainly remember the teachers, and we certainly remember our experiences at times, um, but to me, realizing that it takes less than a year for kids to catch up if they decide to, even with the traditional school method, which I would argue maybe isn’t the best metric to measure them by to begin with, but even if they want to, even if they choose that, they can catch up in less than a year.
And before I get into the homeschooling specific parts, I wanted to also, um, go into the parenting structure of this because my thoughts on homeschooling are also, of course, built on a lot of my thoughts on parenting, and this has evolved for me as a mom throughout now 18 years of being a mom. Um, and I do approach it differently now.
Some of these things are on that long list of things I wish I could go back and tell my younger self, but I know that my approach is very out of the box, very unique. And I even sometimes encounter resistance from my older kids in this approach with my younger kids. Um, I would guess a lot of this is because they had a lot more structure when they were younger so that’s what feels normal to them. And so they’re wanting that for their younger siblings. Um, and it will be really interesting to see how each of my kids you know, enters adult life and what this looks like for them as they grow, um, but this is the big differenceI would highlight. I would say that often the parenting conversation is approached as sort of a process of how we are shaping children into responsible, capable adults.
And I do think that’s an important thing to consider. However, I also wonder and look, look into it, explore how much power we actually have to direct that process. And I would say we might have less than we think that. Especially if we’re not going to be using coercion because when kids are little yes, we can kind of even physically and or situationally get them to do quote what we want but this tends to fade in the teenage years and I would argue even with a two year old if you ever have tried to actually get a two year old to eat when they don’t want to or sleep when they don’t want to you truly can’t actually make them. There are limits on that and so I wanted take an outside the box approach even to how I analyze parenting.
And if you’ve listened before, you’ve probably heard me say the phrase that I believe each of my children are their own infinite autonomous being. And this is essentially the core of my parenting philosophy personally, and also how I approach my interactions with my children. And from this comes the idea that even though they are younger than me, and I’m here to help guide them to walk with them on this journey, um, I try to remember that they have more data on them than I could ever have.
Just like I say, we are each our own primary health care provider and we have more data on us than our doctor could ever possibly have. But they have more data on their bodies, their nervous systems, their inner, um, experience, their emotions, their mental health than I do. And, to me, the most connection and hopefully the most benefit actually comes from me getting curious about their inner experience. Versus trying to direct and really tightly control their outer experience. And kind of taking the humility to admit that even though I might have more life experience than them and hopefully have a strong enough relationship with them to be able to help guide them.
I actually even as their mom cannot possibly know better for them what’s going on inside of them than they do. And that doesn’t mean they have the full life experience to navigate life. Um, in the same way I might at my age or someone older and wiser than me might at their age. And that’s where the connection and the communication comes in.
But to not discount their reality, to not discount their experience of life. Um, just because they’re younger or smaller. And I do think this is the part that’s a little bit of a paradigm shift. It kind of goes against the norm. And I offer this kind of as an alternative perspective that I hope is rooted in respect and trust and non-coercion and recognizes, like I said, that they’re their own Infinite autonomous beings with their own intrinsic wisdom, curiosity and desires. And to help me detach from even the subtle ways that I might want to direct their experience of life to match up what feels comfortable to my nervous system. Um, and I will say this parenting approach, I feel at times does take a little bit more work and does take my own emotional regulation and nervous system awareness.
And sometimes even taking a step back and giving myself some time and space when I feel triggered because that’s a recognition that it’s not their responsibility to not make me feel triggered. Um, and I see examples, especially in the media, portrayed in movies and such that, you know, often adults will respond to a child who is having nervous system dysregulation or having big emotions with their own nervous system dysregulation and big emotions to demand that the child somehow, at a younger age, with less life experience, somehow should have that figured out and should be regulated and should not have those big emotions. And, speaking from experience, um, when that happens, as a child, often the message that we learn is not how to regulate our nervous system or how to process our emotions, the lesson we learn is how to shut them down.
And it’s been often quoted by various parenting experts in various ways, and I probably won’t get any of their wording exactly right, but the idea that when we do that to a child or when we, um, harshly punish a child, especially related to their emotions, um, they don’t Because of their need for us for survival when they’re young, they don’t internalize and decide not to love us, they decide not to love themselves, or they don’t decide to integrate their emotions, because that’s not a thing that’s decided, um, logically.
They often, for a survival purpose, will repress their emotions. And I know I’ve done work as an adult on instances where I did that in childhood, and I’m still very much doing that work, but it’s a recognition that that’s my work to do and not theirs to be responsible for. So in other words, while I am responsible for creating a healthy environment for them, a place where they feel safe, and being a safe presence in their life, they are not responsible for my nervous system regulation.
So if I am triggered, that is my responsibility, not theirs. So, rather than viewing parenting as um, a place where parents exert control, my approach kind of sees it as a partnership where hopefully we as parents are in a role of guiding and supporting and not dictating. And my view is that when motivation or when emotional regulation or when curiosity or when any of these things comes from children intrinsically, rather than from us applying pressure extrinsically, it’s a much more powerful decision.
It’s more likely to help build habits for them. It’s more likely to stick, and hopefully less likely, um, to put distance in the relationship. So by embracing a non coercive approach, we can hopefully create an environment where children are free to develop their own self awareness, their self regulation, and a deep sense of responsibility for their own lives. Um, and I think this is sometimes where when we apply too much extrinsic structure and motivation for them, um, they don’t get to feel the autonomy and ownership and responsibility over their own lives. They don’t get the subtle message that I trust you to listen to your body. I trust you to know what’s best for you.
I trust you to be able to feel your emotions and I’m here and it’s safe even if those are big emotions. So at the heart of this method is my belief that children thrive when they’re given the freedom to make choices about their lives. And I know this is a big and potentially controversial statement, especially when we extend it into some categories like sleep, or food, or screens, or education, or social interactions.
But just as adults learn best through experience, children do too. And we learn actual wisdom, not just logic and knowledge, but wisdom by navigating real life choices rather than following socially imposed rules. And I believe that when children are trusted to self regulate, they will cultivate a natural sense of balance.
And I know this can seem scary if this is not the approach that there’s been since the beginning, because a child who’s allowed to determine her own bedtime, for example, will eventually listen to her body and find a rhythm that works. But many kids including my kids in the beginning were not raised this way so there can be kind of a pendulum swing moment If something has been regulated from the outside, they’re gonna have to learn actually how to intrinsically regulate that and that can be an adjustment. Or if children are given access to foods without their, the foods being given morality, like good or bad, um, they will learn to listen to their body and how they feel on those foods rather than rebelling against dietary rules.
And I know this, um, may be an interesting one to hear from me because I write so much about healthy food and the way I approach this in my house is that as the person responsible for buying the food, I try to make sure we have always in the house, a lot of, a wide variety of nutrient dense foods. And I don’t personally buy foods that I consider not foods, like processed foods.
Um, and that way they’re always available for them. And as kids grow, I’m sure you guys see this too, depending on the ages of your kids, sometimes they are absolutely starving and will eat insane amounts of food. Sometimes they’re not as hungry, but rather than me trying to get them to finish the food on their plate, At a meal, or telling them not to eat too much, or that dessert is a treat, um, after you eat other food.
We have educational conversations about these things. They see how I approach this in daily life. Um, and I, and I trust their wisdom. Even if some days that means one of my teenagers eating three pounds of meat because he’s really hungry after workouts. Or even if that means one of the younger kids only wants to eat oranges one day.
Um, I trust their body’s ability to navigate that, I make sure that they have access to a wide variety of foods. And, um, I already see them having a healthier relationship in some ways with food because of this than I did. I had to really, um, kind of delve into my inner emotions around that and develop a healthier relationship with food.
And especially with dieting in my adult life after over dieting for so many years because I had not learned how to trust my own body. And because some foods had been forbidden, they became enticing. And I got to, um, let go of the layers of attachment related to that. Let go of the layers of attachment related to morality or foods being good or bad.
And looking at them instead as being nourishing or not. And to learn how to have a joyful relationship with nourishment rather than a restrictive one. Um, I do find this is a balance. I don’t expect my kids to figure this out and navigate this perfectly from day one. However, I hope to create a safe environment where they can begin that experimentation.
And, like I said, I do think it is a balance. Um, this is not a totally hands off. This is not me, um, providing no food in the house and telling them to figure it out. This is a connective based approach. And one thing I’ve noticed about this, in the last few years, as I’ve gotten better about approaching even my own food choices from a place of nourishment and pleasure and joy and enjoying what I was putting in my body and making it, you know, slow meal time, sitting down, truly enjoying food and making choices based on how can I most nourish and love my body versus how can I just hit check marks of the right macros or how can I make sure I’m not eating too many calories.
I’ve noticed that my kids, especially my younger ones, have paid attention to that and without me applying any pressure whatsoever, have started modeling it. And so, at one point, a while back, I got really pretty dishes that I liked. And, um, I started becoming more intentional with making sure I was actually nourishing myself because I realized I had been under eating and I’ve talked about this some before.
Um, and so I would get up and I would make a delicious meal that had enough protein. I would make some either seafood or grass fed meat and eggs and sauerkraut and berries or whatever it may be. And I wouldn’t expect them to eat that. I would just get up and make that and enjoy it. And then slowly, one by one, that my younger kids all started asking if they could do that too.
And now, we get to make breakfast together and share that calm, slow morning together. And they’re naturally wanting to eat those foods and they love them. They get excited by the idea of them. They get to choose them. And rather than me forcing that from the outside, I’ll just ask them at night, like I’m making this for breakfast.
If you would like it, let me know and I can put some extra in the pan. Um, and it’s led to more connection. It also has led to more curiosity in them. Um, asking about nutrition. They got curious about their genes and how they can best support their individual bodies, which is something ironically I do with athletes and work with people on.
I hadn’t pushed on them, now they’re curious about it. And now they have copies of their own genetics, and they know which ones of them might benefit from more B vitamins, or might need some extra protein support, or might need choline. And they’re making those decisions, not because I pushed it, but because they’re curious.
And I think that’s where the difference is. And as a counterpoint here, I would give the example, this is a silly and also a little bit extreme in my case example, that when I, I wanted to get my ears pierced as a kid and I wasn’t able to until my parents decided the arbitrary age of 13. So I finally got my ears pierced and then a couple years later when I wanted to get a second piercing in my earlobe, they said no.
And I can understand their reasons for that and that, but at the time that created an enticing kind of atmosphere around piercings for me because they were forbidden. And so by the time I was 18 and able to make that decision, I at one point, I think, had up to 33 piercings in my body. And it took me realizing at one point, when I couldn’t sleep on either side of my body because I had piercings in my ears, that this was not actually comfortable, nor fun. Nor did I actually want that, but because it was forbidden it became enticing.
So, I wanted to avoid creating that situation with my kids. Not just in piercings, but also in the, because, you know, piercings could be removed, but in things like their relationship with food, especially their relationship with themselves, their relationship with learning, their relationship with their environment, um, with their habits, all of those things.
And so, I have certainly, by no means, done this perfectly, but that’s kind of what I’ve tried to keep in mind as, to guide my parenting approach is that they are their, in their own infinite autonomous being and to help them develop trust in themselves as a partner and through connection, not through coercion.
And it’s kind of a beautiful full circle moment about this recently. My 13 year old daughter wanted to get a second piercing as well. And I got to, like when she asked about it, I felt all those memories of when I wanted that. And I was so happy to be able to get curious about it with her, ask her what she liked about that, realize that earlobe piercings can be taken out, that it’s not long term harm to the body, and to be able to take her to go get those.
Um, and in fact, when we got to the place, the piercing place, she got the first, the second hole after her first one, and was like, well, that didn’t hurt at all. Can I get another one on each side? And I asked her, Like, what she thought, what her opinion was, and why she wanted to, and if she wanted to spend money on that, and she did.
And so, she was able to. And in some silly way, it was so healing for me, um, kind of to get that full circle moment. Now, I would guess that critics of this approach could understandably argue that children do need structure and limits, and that they can’t learn intrinsic motivation and boundaries without us giving them external limits and boundaries.
However, I really feel that true structure arises when children are given the space to experiment, to fail, and to learn. And I feel like if we over micromanage our children, um, and they’ll comply in the short term, but they might struggle with self discipline in adulthood. Whereas my hope is that a child who experiences autonomy develops a strong internal compass from a young age because they’re able to learn through natural consequences, not through fear of punishment or motivated by external rewards, including my approval.
And I will say that is the toughest one that I’m still learning to navigate and I’m sure don’t do well some days, but I don’t want them to do things for my approval as well. I hope, um, and I tell them and I hope that they hear that message over and over that I love them unconditionally. And that they, there’s never anything they could do that would diminish that, nor do they ever have to earn it.
And also I feel like it’s important to, to highlight that I’m not talking about abandoning guidance. Um, rather it’s what I see as a shift in my role as a parent away from enforcer and into mentor. Someone who they know and I hope they know loves them fiercely, um, and trust them. Someone who hopefully models wisdom, always is there for support, and is curious and encouraging versus controlling it.
My hope is that my kids never have the feeling, I can’t tell mom. I hope that they always feel that they will have a support system in me. And I just want them to get the message that I trust them, and that I model behaviors that I want them to hopefully pick up, and trust them to choose whether they want to or not.
It’s realizing that each child is an infinite autonomous being. And acknowledging that they are not extensions of me, that I get to walk this journey with them when they’re children, but I don’t own them or possess them. They’re not extensions of me, but they are their own sovereign individuals on their own journeys that, like I said, I just get the honor of sharing and witnessing.
Because our role as parents is not to shape them into who we think they should be, but to create an environment that nurtures their natural curiosity and passions and in the homeschooling part of this, I’ll share some examples of, um, kind of famous case studies in history for that. But I also think there’s a caution in like famous case studies in history because each person in their uniqueness is bringing something important to the world in their own way.
So it’s also stepping back from the idea that our child needs to become the next Thomas Edison or, um, you know, whatever the case study is. And honoring their own uniqueness. I really feel that when children are met with respect and trust, they can learn deep self trust that carries into adulthood and that this is one of the best gifts we can give them.
So instead of raising individuals who rely on external validation, we can hopefully um, nurture adults who are confident in their own inner knowing. And this is something I’m still very much on the path of in my adult life is learning to trust that deep inner knowing, um, to be able to navigate life with clarity and creativity and resilience.
So ultimately, um, parenting through the lens of sovereignty and autonomy is to me an act of profound trust, not just in children, but in life itself and in myself. And that’s been the one I’ve probably been the slowest to learn because it requires a shift away from fear based control, and I understand the instinct for that.
That’s I think many parents this comes absolutely from a place of love and that there’s an opportunity for some deeper exploration within ourselves toward a belief that each child is already inherently whole and capable and wise and coming from a place of honor of that. I would encourage you even for a second just to consider the difference in how you would feel as an adult if someone came to you with a place from a place of extrinsically trying to push you into doing something that they wanted versus they came from the energy of acknowledging that you were already capable and whole and wise, andwanting to go on that journey with you. Even if all the words are the same, the feeling is so different.
And I feel like if we honor their autonomy, we empower our kids to become self directed learners and thoughtful decision makers and compassionate human beings who trust themselves and their place in the world. So, really the essence of this can be summed up that rather than seeking to shape or restrict or mold or get them to do what I want, my hope is to simply hold space for the infinite potential that is already present within them and to, from a place of my own curiosity and respect and love, get to watch that unfold and support them in that unfolding if I can.
So that was a longer than I expected deviation into parenting. But I feel like that was a helpful context to now talk about homeschooling, because hopefully that, um, kind of reframes the lens from which we’re looking at school. Because if that’s how we’re approaching parenting, then of course also, that would extend into if we are teaching them at home for, in a school capacity, how that would look as well.
So, in the way I homeschool my kids, and in what I’m working on with UNSTITUTE, the core principles really emphasized prioritizing the connection and deep understanding and curiosity of each child’s needs, fostering intrinsic motivation over external rewards and punishments, um, and I think that’s a big one.
That can be a big shift for parents with that moving away from external rewards or punishments. And this is something that, um, my ex and I still have different viewpoints on. And sometimes it’s, you know, interesting to navigate that. Um, but I also in homeschooling, whenever possible, try to follow a child led, interest driven approach with learning experiences.
And thankfully, with the internet and even with AI, there’s infinite ways we can do this now, it’s gotten a lot easier than it used to be. And this, like I said, stems from the evolution of my parenting philosophy, um, transitioning from that more strict, structured parenting style to this more, um, flexible, child centered approach.
And Um, there is the aspect, if you’re homeschooling, depending on what state you live in, of balancing state requirements with child led learning. And some states do have required things that you need to do with them each year to meet the state requirements and be able to homeschool. And this varies state by state.
You can find this information on online. And there’s also resources like H. S. L. D. A. which stands for Homeschool Legal Defense Association that have some great resources. If you kind of want that all in one place. Um, my approach to this has been to check the boxes for the state as efficiently as possible and actually to get the kids involved in that process so they know what the state requirements are that they have to check off for each year, which subjects what they need to show, and they also know that once they’ve kind of a silly job, they have to do throughout the year and that once it’s done, they’re done with it for the year.
So they manage that and often get it done in a couple of months versus the whole year to free up time to do other things. Thankfully also for those requirements, there are amazing, tremendous, um, online resources like Khan Academy and now many others that let you kind of get the easy check mark that you need to show at the end of the year.
Again, this does vary state by state, um, and I live in a pretty easy state for this. Um, but I view that as one kind of separate thing, and I actually don’t view that part as what the kids are actually learning. That is simply the boxes that we have to check for the state. Um, then there’s the actual learning part, which is the child led, curiosity driven, kind of delving into what actually lights them up and excites them.
It’s them having plenty of time to pursue their own interests, whether it be, right now I have one who has read eight books in the past week. I have one who is really into art. I have one who, as a school project, um, I gave her free reign and a budget to completely redo an extra room in our house that wasn’t being used and she built the most beautiful library complete with a rolling library ladder that made my childhood beauty and the beast dreams come true. And it’s absolutely gorgeous and she did that as a project and through that she learned budget management, she learned a ton of diy skills. She got to work with my dad on some of those things and spend time with her grandfather. She learned like all kinds of aspects of that color theory for the design. Um, she got to rewire a light. Just so many things were built into that. And she had fun. She also realized how much work it was.
She was getting pretty tired by the end. But they all are pursuing their own things. This also means that if school can be checked off pretty quickly for them, the parts that the state needs, they can delve deeper into what truly lights them up. So I have one high schooler who’s, taking, by choice, lots of extra anatomy and health classes because that’s what she’s interested in.
And I have a few who are in athletics and they have more time to devote to things related to that, to their practice and their training. And so, it’s realizing they’re each going to be so different and to create the space for them to express whatever it is they’re interested in. Um, I often get questions about typical school days.
And I will say there’s not necessarily a typical school day in my household because they more manage when they need to get things done. I have some that are up at 6 a. m. and done with anything they need to do in the first few hours of the day. I have others who are after dinner still working on stuff they need to do or want to do.
Um, and then kind of a mix of everywhere in between there. And so there’s not really a typical day. There’s also, we live in a sunny climate, there’s times where during the middle of the day it’s spontaneous beach day or, um, sometimes my son will go for a hike. Even the other day, he did, I think, a 27 mile hike, but it’s them getting to direct their own schedule.
Um, we also have tried to make an effort over the years. We do like often Friday field trips. I don’t do this as much now that a lot of them are older, but when they were little, every single Friday, my sister in law and I would take all of our collective kids on a field trip somewhere, especially places that had hands on learning.
And that was so fun for them, and I wanted them to get experiences with lots of different things, so they could figure out what they were even curious about, or what lights them up. And I feel like, especially with little ones, this is a really, um, that was really helpful and impactful. Another part of UNSTITUTE and my homeschooling approach is, again, through the lens of a non coercive approach, um, just emphasizing and encouraging practical life skills.
So, um, it’s not externally enforced by me, but we have a contract. My kids and I have a contract that before they can have a phone or a car, they have to have a profitable business for one year. And through this they get to learn a lot about financial management and risk taking, skill development and problem solving.
They often get to try a few things before something works. And I get to kind of go with them on that journey and answer questions without taking away their autonomy and that. Um, the same thing as household management. There are seven of us who live in one house. And there are a lot of things that go into a household with seven people.
A lot of meals that need to be created, laundry to be done. Um, just things to keep up with because, you know, Murphy’s Law is real. And so, I noticed this autonomy actually really coming into play when one day I got home from podcast. And I, I think I’ve shared this story before. They had developed their own system for keeping up with the kitchen that did not include me.
They had created a chart with every meal of the week on it, and they had divvied up based on age and ability level, a number of meals for each of them that they would be in charge of cleaning, and they have the whole structure lined out of how they would, what was included in cleaning as far as washing dishes, putting them away, unloading, wiping down, sweeping.
Who had what meals, and then what would happen if they didn’t do those meals. So they had, they developed a barter economy of it if one of them wasn’t home, and it was their meal, they could do an IOU system. If somebody missed their meal, somebody else could bid. It was this whole intricate system that they developed.
It’s purely on their own. Um, and it just like really showed me their inner responsibility around that, because that didn’t come from me at all. Um, and then within that too, just whenever there are opportunities, inviting them into ways to learn other practical skills, whether it be changing a tire when there’s a flat tire, um, basic household repairs, gardening, which I enjoy and which I do, and they often will just join me because they want to and get to learn through that.
Um, or any other hands on activities when possible. And just like I talked about in the parenting conversation, in homeschooling I try to keep the focus of really encouraging curiosity and intrinsic motivation, and that’s actually my lens through which I evaluate things related to homeschooling, is does this help enhance or support their natural curiosity, um, their intrinsic motivation, their inner sense of trust and responsibility.
Within this, um, really trying to be a support, not ever a force of direction, but a support in fostering their natural interest and allowing enough time for them to have boredom and experience boredom so that they get to explore things that they might actually be interested in. Um, one part of this for me is that because I’m not sending them to a private school or having expenses related with them going to school, I have certain resources as essentially an open ended budget item on my own budget, which are if they ask for books or for art supplies or for learning materials or anything to do with an interest they’re exploring, um, I try to make sure that’s always available to them.
And I have had a couple kids, especially on the books thing, that have made this quite the budget item and I absolutely love that. Um, I’m happy to spend the money on the books and love to see their interests get to emerge. Um, but like I said, in the parenting conversation as well, I feel like in the realm of homeschooling, it’s harder because if we were in school, we experienced a very structured approach to school.
And even if we’re homeschooling there, I understand the easy tendency to want to recreate that structure at home. And in some ways I did that with my older ones more than I even do now, but what I would encourage or at least invite Is for parents to shift into a role of becoming curious observers of our children in the way we parent and in the way if applicable that we’re homeschooling them. And to visit with their reality and to collaboratively problem solve rather than imposing solutions.
And if you’re interested, I could do a whole follow up episode that would delve into how I approach if you are, if you want, let me know situations like, okay, what about when they fight? What about when they don’t clean their room? And I think my answer to that might surprise you. What about when they don’t want to eat anything besides toast for three days, whatever it may be.
I’m happy to share my own approach to those. If you guys are interested, just let me know. Um, but I will say I have been humbled and blown away over and over as a parent, when I have done that, by the solutions they figure out when I don’t give them the answers and when I don’t swoop in and rescue them from boredom or swoop in and rescue them. I have seen over and over how often their solutions will far exceed the one I would have given them and far exceed even sometimes what I would have thought they were capable of or comfortable with. So sometimes they will choose an approach that I was like, wow, I didn’t even know you were capable of doing that. That’s amazing. Um, so really all that to say, that’s an invitation to just approach from curiosity rather than from assuming we know better.
And you might find yourself surprised over and over by, um, by just how incredible they can be in that realm. Um, just for fun, I wanted to quickly go through some historical examples of this, because I also know when, when we were raised in the school environment that had more structure and kind of have only seen that way.
Um, and like that’s still the system that exists today. It is hard to think of alternative systems and to not doubt that they might somehow be letting our children down or not giving them an advantage in life. Um, and I do think they’re each unique and of course this is for each family to decide and hopefully in collaboration with our children.
But there are some pretty outstanding examples throughout history of people who didn’t have the traditional school experience and who seemingly contributed to the world in beautiful ways and whose names we still remember. Not that that’s the metric, but one would be Thomas Edison, whose mother homeschooled him after a teacher labeled him as essentially not able to learn. Like he wasn’t considered smart enough to go to school.
And he said later in life that his personalized education allowed him to explore his interests, leading to his success as an inventor. And I don’t know if this story is true, um, but I remember reading one time that he, when he was sent home from school and they told him, they said they basically couldn’t teach him because he wasn’t smart enough, his mom got a letter and he asked what the letter said.
And she told him that it said essentially that you are too smart for them to teach you at school. And they’re asking, and so then she ended up homeschooling him. And after her death, he actually found the letter. And it instead said that he wasn’t smart enough, but because he was never given that, he never believed that, obviously we now still know the name of Thomas Edison.
Same with Alexander Graham Bell, who was homeschooled by his mom until he was 11, um, which he said also fostered an environment for his inventive spirit. Agatha Christie was homeschooled by her mom who believed formal education was unnecessary and she says that this early education fostered her love for reading and storytelling, leading her to become one of the best selling authors in history.
As a side note related to that, statistically, actually, the best thing we can do for our kids, um, even in the realm of homeschooling truly is to read to them when they are young and to make access to things they can read as they get older. Never to force it, but kids love stories and so the more we’re able to do that, um, that actually does, that has some statistical backing as well.
Um, Sandra Day O’Connor was homeschooled on her family’s remote Arizona ranch and she credits this with her strong foundation in reading and critical thinking and she was, of course, the first woman to serve on the U. S. Supreme Court. Eric Domingue, I hope that’s how I pronounce his last name, um, he’s a Canadian computer scientist who was homeschooled by his father, who believed in non traditional education, and he’s an example of the one that chose to enter the more mainstream education at a higher level, caught up, um, I would guess in less than a year, um, entered university at age 12, and completed his PhD in mathematics by age 20 later becoming a professor at M. I. T.
Um, so there are definitely outliers. And my encouragement would be to, when we hear those rather than think, well, yeah, look what they did despite being homeschooled or despite not having a traditional education to consider for just a moment. What if that is also partially not in spite of, but precisely because of they’re out outside the box and non traditional approach.
And I also know that this is scary and that if you have never homeschooled, it can feel like your worries, you’re gonna mess it up or you’re gonna let them down or they’re not gonna learn everything they need to learn. Um, and I think there’s actually a lot of data to support this more child led and interest led learning because as adults, we can recognize the things we’re interested in.
We remember, we learn, um, we don’t need external motivation to do that, but we don’t trust our kids to do the same. To touch on a couple common objections, like I said, especially in the parenting realm and homeschooling as well, if we haven’t always had this approach, there is kind of often a kind of handoff period where kids do have to learn the intrinsic motivation and also to trust us that we trust them. Um, so kids who are accustomed to a lot of structure, they may initially resist self directed learning or simply just not have the experience of knowing how to do it yet.
So that’s creating the opportunities for them to do that and trusting them to learn as they go. So if, um, I think in that just like give them the grace of the adjustment period. With homeschooling especially, um, of course the other one that comes up often is socialization and interaction with their peers.
So a couple of notes here, um, for one, I will say that none of my kids seem to have a lack of social interaction through youth groups at church, through sports, through friends in the neighborhood and whatever it may be. But I also challenge the idea that it is the best or even like most psychologically healthy for kids or that they need to be in isolated groups of peers, their exact same age, or that that is their ideal learning environment.
Um, I personally would suggest that perhaps maybe they actually can learn more through being in less homogenous groups. And that through interaction with people their grandparents age, or their grandparents, or people much younger or older than them. They actually are learning more about social dynamics than they would with just their peers.
Um, I also think that there’s, in today’s world especially, kind of endless opportunities for group activities that exist outside of just school. And that many places, um, including the state where I live, my kids play on the sports teams for the local high school. Um, and they’re allowed to do that as homeschoolers.
So they actually get a lot of the social aspects of school without being in the school itself. And while there’s, of course, time for socialization in between classes in school, most time in school is spent in the classroom learning, not, or like focused on the teacher, not focused on their peers anyway.
So they certainly have not missed getting to create social groups. But all that to say, this ended up being longer than I expected, and I’m happy to do follow up episodes, especially with any specific questions that emerge for any of you. I would love to hear those. Please leave a comment or, um, message me on Instagram.
But just a quick recap, um, for me personally, I feel like this has been a journey of learning, mostly for me, um, throughout the course of all of my kids various ages, um, in both parenting and in homeschooling, and I’m very much still learning. And I encourage parents to just consider as an option potentially any of these things with a little bit of open mindedness and curiosity ourselves.
Um, I don’t think, of course, that this, what worked for me, is going to be the right fit for everybody by any means. However, I think that there is always something to gain from any other approach we encounter. And that just approaching something with an open mind, we might get a few things that we can you know, implement that are really helpful or that like build more connection with our kids, which to me is, is the goal is maintaining that connection with them in a healthy way as they get older.
And that there’s so much to be gained simply from the shift into more curiosity and less assuming that we always know the right answer. And that to me, at least for me personally has shown up over and over in essentially every area of life. Um, again, it to me goes back to connection, curiosity and supporting their own intrinsic motivation.
Um, this is also why, like I mentioned in the beginning, I have not released Unstitute yet because in the initial feedback groups, I have found what most parents wanted was a kind of set it and forget it system that taught the check boxes of school. And as hopefully I’ve explained a little bit in this episode, um, it is more of a complete framework shift and paradigm shift than something you can just follow, um, by the books, because each child is also so different. They’re each their own unique, infinite, autonomous being, and so there is not a system, and I think this is a limitation of the school system as well, there’s not a system that works best across the board for every single child.
And it does take more work, as parents, and especially homeschooling parents, to sit with that, to adapt that to each child, and to create in the ways that we can and that we’re responsible for in their environment and in supporting them. What is ideal for them? And it requires more work. It requires more curiosity.
It requires more self regulation. It requires going into the parts of us that are uncomfortable when they get triggered. Um, and so it’s not something I can hand off as a simple, just follow this method system. It’s more of, um, a curiosity based learning for parents as well. So, um, If that is something you’re still interested in, I would love to hear, especially I’m looking at ways that I can introduce this as maybe a series of sort of master classes for the parents that give loose suggestions and framework for building an adaptable system for each child or building an adaptable environment for each child.
Um, but from what my initial feedback, it seems many more people were wanting kind of a set it and forget it system and I don’t feel that’s ideal for children. So that’s why I haven’t released it yet. Um, whether or not I release it and whether or not you homeschool, I would be curious how you felt about this episode.
If there are any parts of this that resonated with you or that you already do, um, or anything you’ll experiment with in your own life, um, or already are perhaps. And my key takeaways really would action steps come down to, really summed up in just approaching each of our children as their own infinite autonomous being, getting truly curious about them, um, visiting with their reality instead of enforcing ours upon them.
And whenever possible, even if it’s just through a parenting lens, not even homeschooling, allowing their interest to guide their learning. Also, when we can in a supporting role as parents help with the development of practical life skills. And trusting in their innate curiosity, um, and their innate wisdom and motivation to guide their learning.
So as always, like I said, that was longer than I expected. I would truly love to hear your feedback. So if you, I would love to hear how that landed for you. If you do things similarly, if you have a drastically different opinion, I actually love to hear that too. Um, I think that’s another thing we could all model for our children and for each other is that people can have different viewpoints and still have love and respect from each other and still learn from each other.
Um, when it comes to curiosity, I also hold the belief that there is something beautiful to learn from every single resource we encounter, every book we read, every person we encounter. And life’s really fun when you approach it that way. I’ve learned some really fascinating things from Uber drivers while I was on a trip, for instance.
Or from people who I’ve met on a walk in the woods. So, to sum up this whole episode, I would invite you to approach parenting, homeschooling, your children, life in general, with more curiosity, and see what comes from that. But for today, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for sharing your time, for visiting with my reality, for listening, for all the feedback that you give, and for sharing your most valuable assets, your time, your energy, and your attention.
I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of the wellness mama podcast. And if you ever find an episode, valuable, I would be honored if you would be willing to share it with someone, or to subscribe and leave an honest review, as that helps other people find this podcast, and helps the community grow.
Thanks for listening, and get curious.
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