[music]

Johna Lawrence: 00:00:00.252
You could look at it as a mistake or you could look at it as a learning experience and you know it doesn’t work now, which puts you more educated for the next time something like this comes along or a similar curriculum comes along and you realize, “Oh, that’s not going to work for my child. Because we tried that format before, we know to not use that one again.” So mistakes happen.

Gretchen Roe: 00:00:29.626
Good afternoon, everyone. This is Gretchen Roe for The Demme Learning Show, and I am so excited to have this conversation today with my friend Johna Lawrence. We’re going to talk about the fear of doing homeschooling wrong because we are both adept at having conversations with folks who are afraid they’re going to do it not exactly right. And so we want to disabuse you of a bunch of assumptions that you might have about what’s right and what’s wrong.

Johna Lawrence: 00:01:00.857
Hi, I’m Johna Lawrence. I am a veteran homeschool mom of four children and I have I can come to you today and tell you I started homeschooling, kicking and screaming when my husband said this is what we’re doing. And I said, “Oh, I can’t do that.” And I had successfully 23 years later graduated the last of four children. They went from kindergarten through high school, homeschooled, changed states, different personalities, different learning styles. And I’m not going to say I’m a master, but they successfully finished. So it can be done.

Gretchen Roe: 00:01:35.321
Well, I think it’s important to note that when your children don’t live with you, you’ve done something right because you’ve equipped them for the world in a terrific way. And you just sent your last one off to the Coast Guard. So that had to be a little hard.

Johna Lawrence: 00:01:50.634
It is. The house is so empty. Ladies, when they’re crazy, just embrace it. Maybe take a video, listen to it so you can play it later in life. But my house is very quiet except for a very large dog on occasion. [laughter]

Gretchen Roe: 00:02:06.337
Well, I’m delighted to have you join me for this conversation today because I know you and I have talked about this so many times in so many guises. This is a conversation we entertain at homeschool conferences and on the phone, probably on a weekly basis about, “What could I possibly be doing wrong?” So you and I did some brainstorming, and actually, I should say this accurately. You did some lovely brainstorming in my absence while I was at a homeschool conference. And so I just kind of want to go through our list. And then we had such great questions, I want to turn our attention to those questions. So I want to start with personal ability because I know this is often parents will come to us and say, “I can’t. I can’t homeschool because–” and there’s some shortcoming that they feel that they have.

Johna Lawrence: 00:02:58.662
Yeah, I was going to say we usually– “I can’t homeschool because I’m not organized enough. I can’t homeschool because I don’t feel that I’m equipped or educated enough. I can’t homeschool because I can’t do algebra.” You have to be a day smarter than your kid. And if you’re starting out wherever they are, I’m going to tell you first off, there’s an instructor manual that usually comes with curriculum that tells you what you’re supposed to teach. Read it the day before. You are equipped. I am a strong believer that our children are gifted to us in our lives and we are the best resource for our children. So you are the best resource for your child. So yes.

Gretchen Roe: 00:03:39.924
And I love what you said about, “Take one bite at a time.” I mean, it is like eating an elephant, but you don’t step back and look at the whole elephant while you hold your spoon. So.

Johna Lawrence: 00:03:51.246
They’re pretty overwhelming, elephants. I’ve been around a few, but just one bite at a time. It’s what you tell your kids too when they’re learning something. Just, “Let’s just do today.” Don’t worry about how we’re going to graduate high school. We’re going to learn what an A is and what a B is so yeah.

Gretchen Roe: 00:04:07.241
I often get a kick. I had a dad at the first homeschool conference of the year come up to me and say he was so concerned about teaching high school. And so we had a lovely conversation. And then I finally said to him, “So what year of high school is your daughter?” And he said, “Oh, she’s two”. [laughter]

Johna Lawrence: 00:04:27.487
Those are my favorite, Gretchen. Those are my favorite.

Gretchen Roe: 00:04:30.679
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Don’t borrow trouble, just take the next step. My husband and I laughingly say we homeschooled 21 years, one year at a time, because if I’d have had to look at the long game, I’d have run screaming for the hills.

Johna Lawrence: 00:04:45.198
And that’s exactly what I gave my husband. I mean, he said we wanted to homeschool. I said I didn’t want to homeschool. I didn’t think I was equipped. I tend to get scattered. My daytimer, or dating myself, but my calendar is all over the place. But I said, “Okay, I’ll give you one year and then we’ll test and I’ll show you I can’t do it and we’ll put the kids in school. They’ll not be harmed. Everything will be fine.” And we did that for several years until I realized I love being at home with my kids. I love getting to be the one that experiences those aha moments. But I definitely did not feel equipped that I could teach them how to read or I would know what to do and what to say. But we took one bite at a time. We took it one day at a time, one year at a time, one month at a time.

Gretchen Roe: 00:05:33.566
When that comparison voice of, “I’m not equipped” came up in your head, particularly in that first year, how did you tell it to get behind you?

Johna Lawrence: 00:05:44.804
A lot of prayer would be the first thing I did. One of the things I did, honestly, is I found– so we lived in Kentucky at the time. I looked up where there was homeschool groups. And I honestly, I had a kindergartener. You do not need to be in a group to be in kindergarten, but I needed it as a mom. So we joined a group so I could ask all those moms. So how did you do first grade? What did you do when they say no? What did you do–? I found a community that I could ask all those questions and I realized, yes, I felt inadequate, but guess what? Every single mom also felt inadequate at some point. And I realized I was the norm. Feeling inadequate is like that devil on your shoulder saying, “Oh, you can’t do this. You’re failing your kid. You’re going to mess this up.” And you got to have the counter on that that says we all feel that way. But look at our kids, they’re succeeding and they’re doing well,

Gretchen Roe: 00:06:46.497
Right. It’s I think it’s the hardest job you’ll ever love. But I think by this same token, it’s the hardest job you’ll ever engage in without really seeing the total fruit of your efforts for a number of years. And if we can acknowledge that, I think it’s a little bit easier for us. So talk to me a little bit more about comparison because you said we are all a little bit stuck in that comparison trap.

Johna Lawrence: 00:07:15.803
We are. So who here has social media? You see everyone’s family. I mean, and that’s do not– if you were to take two kids that are in a school system and they’re in the same class, you can compare them because they’re being taught the exact same thing. But your child is not being taught in the same way. My children were not taught the exact same way as Gretchen’s kids were taught. I can compare. I can look at Gretchen and she is so successful and her kids are awesome. Well, if I stop and I look at her kids too much, I can’t see where my kids are growing. So you need to stop looking outside of your box. Stop looking on the other side of the fence. Your kids, I would journal. My tip to you on comparison, compare your kid to your kid. So at the beginning of the year, start a little journal in your calendar or your personal journal. Just, hey, this week, little Johnny is struggling with his “at”] words in his reading. The next week, you can say, this week, little Johnny– and then at the quarter or the nine weeks or the semester breaks, go back and read where he was to where he is now and you can compare little Johnny to little Johnny and you will see the progress that’s coming that we don’t see when you’re in the thick of it, so.

Gretchen Roe: 00:08:38.949
I think that’s a great idea because we don’t reflect where we were and where we are. And as a creative writing instructor, I’ve always told parents, keep every composition, because over the course of the year, your kids will see that their writing capacities grow. But by the same token, just to be able to note Johnny couldn’t tie his shoes in September and now it’s the first week of April and he can tie his shoes, it might be a huge change.

Johna Lawrence: 00:09:12.401
And your little Johnny does not need to progress at the same rate as Miss Sally’s little Johnny because here’s analogy I like -someone gave it to me years ago – when you’re educating your child, you’re building a house of education. That house has to be on a foundation. That foundation is usually poured with concrete. And depending on what’s going on in the world, in the weather, that concrete cures at different rates. It could be that it’s too cool outside or it’s too hot or it’s too– the humidity. All those are factors that make that concrete cure at different rates. Guess what? Our kids’ foundation of education, they cure at different rates. But at the end, you have a foundation, you let it cure correctly, then you build the house and you’re going to be solid either way.

Gretchen Roe: 00:10:04.891
I think I’m going to take something out of order here because I think it’s also important. We talked about this in some of the questions that we got yesterday. But I think it’s a misnomer to believe your children won’t have any gaps in their academics. And I think it would be good for us to talk about that before we get too long in here. I’m going to actually circle back around to this when we talk about learning from mistakes. But I think it’s also important to recognize not every gap is filled in any child’s life, in any academic experience.

Johna Lawrence: 00:10:38.653
I agree. You want to avoid major gaps, I mean, which Math-U-See is great for coming back and finding the gaps with different products. But you’re going to miss something here and there. And I guarantee you – I have four kids – and I can say, that one missed out on his writing ability, this one missed out on their math ability because they’re designed differently too. They naturally are going to gravitate, and you go with them gravitating. But you’re not going to miss major gaps. So I mean that’s– and it all gets filled later in life. I promise you. It does get filled later. It might be that self taught to them. I would advise that you will look for the big gaps, but don’t worry about the tiny ones.

Gretchen Roe: 00:11:30.129
I think that’s good advice. So one of the things that you had said was an advantage. And sometimes, I know we see this as a disadvantage, and that is flexibility. Sometimes we’re so flexible. We look like the little blow-up guy outside the tire store, but we never go anywhere.

Johna Lawrence: 00:11:51.535
Right.

Gretchen Roe: 00:11:52.921
But– so can you weigh both sides of that for me?

Johna Lawrence: 00:11:57.667
So one of the advantages of homeschooling is being flexible. That means that on the fly, you have doctors appointments and stuff. You can shift what’s happening or your aunt needs you to come and visit for a few days. You can shift and adjust the schedule. You do not have to be on a Monday through Friday 8:00 to 3:00 schedule with your kids. Another advantage is let’s say you have to work some hours. You have to have a job, a part time job, a full time job. You can adjust when schools happening between you and your your husband. You can adjust when schools happening. It can happen on Saturday. It can happen on Sunday afternoon. Those are like schedule flexibility. The next flexibility is, let’s go back to Little Johnny. Little Johnny really loves horses and you’re trying to do a science study or whatever, you can flex and you convert it all to Mr. Johnny and his horses. Well, he becomes passionate about whatever he’s studying because now it’s something he wants to do. You’re not omitting the science. You’re not omitting the writing. You’ve just flexed it into a study that he is interested in. But you also can flex. Let’s say little Johnny struggles with math. Well, you can table maybe his writing for a couple of days and you just work on his math. That’s another way you as a homeschooler can be very flexible that is not available outside of the home environment.

Gretchen Roe: 00:13:31.606
Right. And I think we fail sometimes to take into account that we’re the best observers of our children, or at least we should be striving to be the best observers of our children. So to be able to see what they need and be able to meet them at that point of need is huge.

Johna Lawrence: 00:13:50.670
And whatever’s happening, like if Little Johnny is having troubles with stuff in January and it’s the curriculum that you purchased and you realize that maybe either you power through and you finish or you can stop and readjust what he’s learning and change your curriculum to be what’s best suited for him. Again, you don’t have a classroom of 30 kids that have to use all the same book. You can change it.

Gretchen Roe: 00:14:16.857
And it does make a difference as well. And that brings us to the next point, which I think is learning from our mistakes. You and I have both had conversations where moms have come up to us and said, “Oh, I wish I hadn’t bought,” and you can fill in the blank with a whole variety of different things. And I think it’s important for us not to, if wishes were horses, we would all ride. So let’s not wish for something that’s impractical. Let’s acknowledge that we made the best decision at the time. But we have the ability to make a different decision. And I’ve heard you coach moms through this before when you talk about that, so.

Johna Lawrence: 00:15:05.172
Yeah, that’s like don’t beat yourself up. We all make mistakes. Oh my goodness. If I counted the mistakes I’ve made, yeah, we would still be counting at the end of the show. But we’ve learned. So you could look at it as a mistake or you could look at it as a learning experience and you know what doesn’t work now, which puts you more educated for the next time something like this comes along or a similar curriculum comes along and you realize, oh, that’s not going to work for my child because we tried that format before. We know to not use that one again. So mistakes happen. I mean, what’s the biggest mistake is just staying in that mistake and saying, “Oh my goodness, we failed. We can’t do anything about it and nothing will ever change,” because you can change.

Gretchen Roe: 00:15:57.811
Absolutely. And I think that that makes a tremendous amount of difference in our lives to be able to say, “You know what? This was not the best decision I’ve made. And I can now amend that decision.” I often talk with parents who look at a curriculum and say it’s not meeting their needs. And so their first maneuver is to discard it instead of figuring out how they can modify it. And I know you’ve coached families through that. What are some of the things that you might ask a family to think about in the modification of a curricula?

Johna Lawrence: 00:16:34.559
Modifying a curriculum. So I find it easier when I’m actually talking to the family. Let’s see.

Gretchen Roe: 00:16:44.990
Because you can ask questions. So let’s use a family that I talked to in Saint Louis two weeks ago that the student had low muscle tone, and so holding a pencil was difficult and Mom was struggling through long division problems, and she said it was taking forever. And a simple modification might be do half the number of problems, right?

Johna Lawrence: 00:17:11.619
So I mean, let me just pull up with my own child. He did not like to write with a pencil or a pen, but I found I could put a dry-erase marker on the wall, not on the wall, but on a dry-erase board and he did his math on a dry-erase board and I would just scribe it down for him. That texture for that dry-erase marker made him feel like he could think through things and he had the freedom and it erased very easily. So his mistakes disappeared. And I found that was a modification. Another I have seen where if it’s truly that– for that family, have them draw in the sand. Have them tell you, “You stand there and you–” “Okay, so what would I put above the two on this line?” “Oh, I would write this.” “What do I write now?” And let him just dictate to you how you’re going to– because it still engages their brain. They have to logically tell you how to place your pencil and you’re enriching their education. You’re teaching them how to teach it, even. So it stays with them longer when they have to tell you, “Oh, and now you’re going to write below here. You’re going to write– and now we’re going to go to the 10s place and we’re going to regroup and you need to write above– and you’re going to write this.” How awesome of a tool is that? You’re changing how you’re teaching that curriculum. Same with writing. If your child is struggling with the actual physical writing, be their scribe. You don’t want to hinder that creative writing process in the rain over a mechanic issue because those are not connected, so.

Gretchen Roe: 00:19:01.139
I think one of the most valuable tools I have found in the last 10 years is my phone to teach creative writing. Because even when I have to write something for work or a couple of hobbies that I have, I’ll start by voice dictation. So I’ll open up an email and I’ll dictate my first draft. And then at least I have words on paper, and I can move those around until they are comfortable for me for what I want to accomplish. Why would we not want to equip our kids in the same way? So.

Johna Lawrence: 00:19:34.487
So tools that work for you, let them work for your kids. I mean, and there’s merit for your handwriting, for your kids to learn that skill and that it works handwriting things out. It goes in long-term memory in their brain. Yes, I’m not negating that at all. But stepping in and helping them be creative? Oh, yes, let them [crosstalk]–

Gretchen Roe: 00:19:59.568
How about the the lie we sometimes tell ourselves that says we have to do more. In order to be successful, we’ve got to accomplish more. We’re not accomplishing a significant amount.

Johna Lawrence: 00:20:13.868
One, I would say are you comparing yourself to somebody else? Step back and look at what you’re doing with your kids. There are big rocks of education. So like the reading and the writing and math, those are your big rocks. But are you adding so much extra onto your kids schedule that you are causing frustration? So is more always better? No, is more sometimes exactly what is needed? Yes. So little Johnny goes along, and he gets his big rocks done, but he’s done because he’s in second or third grade, then don’t worry about adding on an added creative writing or a science lab on top of the science class or a nature hunt and violin lessons and football practice and all those things. Be good in the what he’s gotten done. But let’s say little Johnny’s next year older sister thrives on everything. Then, when she’s needing more, give her more and be ready to hand that. But know that that’s a flexible thing you can take in and out for your kids.

Gretchen Roe: 00:21:29.551
And to be able to watch a child and say, oh, this is going a pace, and we are making good progress or to be able to pull back. One of the parents had asked us a question that I thought was really important. And that was how to help me using time well and feel that I’m not doing enough with four kids. And you and I talked about this yesterday. Not every day is going to be a great use of time. Some days just are going to turn out like you feel like you’ve done less. But if we can look at the cup is half full, as opposed to half empty, what kind of self-talk did you have in those kinds of days?

Johna Lawrence: 00:22:23.010
They’re still alive. At the end of the day, they’re still alive. They’re fine. They’re fine. On the really days that were hard trying to get things done, I again, I identified the big rocks. I had the illustration one time of time management where they have the jar, and they put the big rocks in, and then they put the little. And I realized I was trying to do all the extra things and not handle the big thing, so I learned to pivot. First thing on the schedule is we do the big big rocks, and then we figure out what else would fit in. And I would add in things. Let’s do two things and then we’re going to do lunch. We might watch a 30 minute show. We’re going to do a craft, and then we’re going to come back and do a couple of big rocks again. We mix it. But if we can’t get the big things done before lunch, I would make sure we just moved it to after lunch. But you need breaks. You need to reset brains. Sending your little ones outside to run laps around the house a few times is excellent for motivation in the school day because that’s just the way they’re created. They’ve got all this energy, and we as parents tend to go, “This is our schedule. We have to do A, we have to do B, we have to do C,” and their little bodies are vibrating. So send them out, let them burn some, and then they come back, and their brains are ready to focus again, and they’re able to get more done. But we tend to start, no, we got to check our boxes.

Gretchen Roe: 00:23:59.049
I think it’s the same for us, though, too I mean, I know in my homeschool years I found that I had to enforce a nap time in the afternoon. As my kids got older, anybody took a nap, but it was a brain break for all of us. We all went to our rooms. We read a book. We did that kind of stuff.

Johna Lawrence: 00:24:19.015
We called it S.Q.U.I.R.T time, and it was my favorite time of the day.

Gretchen Roe: 00:24:23.690
You called it what? Say that again.

Johna Lawrence: 00:24:25.803
S.Q.U.I.R.T

Gretchen Roe: 00:24:26.830
That’s what you said.

Johna Lawrence: 00:24:27.255
S-Q-U-I-R-T. Some quiet, uninterrupted reading time. [laughter] Everyone had to go sit on their bed. You had a book. You could have a toy if it was quiet and you couldn’t read yet, but you couldn’t get out of your bed. There was a timer set and it was my favorite time of the day.

Gretchen Roe: 00:24:49.207
I love it. That’s great. We’re definitely going to put that in the show notes. That’s awesome. So one of the questions that permeated several registrants’ mind was, how do we catch up when we fall behind?

Johna Lawrence: 00:25:06.546
Well, best thing is readjust the end zone or the goal line. Are you really behind? If you are doing the work, are you behind? And who’s saying you are behind? Let’s start there. Is it outside voices truly saying, “Well, you need to be done by May 1st because that’s when the schools get out, or you’re going on vacation on May 2nd, so you need to be done on May 1st. Could you not just make it a break and just continue on?” So one, readjust what makes you behind. Now, if you have a 10th-grade-aged child and you’re still in second grade, they’re a little behind if their ability is that they could do the work.

Gretchen Roe: 00:25:57.903
Another question that was asked that’s kind of tangential to this is, we tell ourselves that our kids are behind and maybe they’re not. But how do we overcome that fear of, we’re not doing enough so that, societally, people will perceive our children’s success? And I know that this is a song that plays through a lot of homeschool moms’ heads.

Johna Lawrence: 00:26:27.411
You know what you needed to have done. And let’s say you are not– you feel like you haven’t quite done the full curriculum of the year or what is needed for your child for the year. If the argument’s with yourself, then you need to figure out your schedule. If it proceeds from other people, maybe it is time to, “We need to get X, Y, and Z done, and educate your children on that X.” So while I have a story playing in my head. I have a friend of mine; they had a literature-based history curriculum and they would read. And her youngest thought that was just story time at their house. And finally, later in life, he finally goes, “Mom, when are we going to ever do history?” And she goes, “Been doing history.” He goes, “No, we don’t. You just read.” And I love all the books, and he could tell you the story, and he knew what was happening, and he knew a timeline. He just never realized that was their history. So the perception that he told other people outside too was, “We don’t do history. Mom just reads us stories.” So one, maybe make sure your children understand what they’re doing is their schoolwork because could be they’re telling people untruths

Gretchen Roe: 00:28:02.519
I’m sitting here trying not to laugh out loud because I’m envisioning the mom’s face when the son says, “When are we going to do history?”

Johna Lawrence: 00:28:13.289
I’m like, “What have we been doing all this time?” There are times. There are times that we– you run. There’s so much going on in your life that you’re running and you’re not getting to school. We’ve all been there. And those are the times where you do have to stop, put a break on things, and say, “What is more important right now? Is it the attending the co-ops, doing the field trips, doing the basketball and the soccer practices, or is it getting school done?” And maybe we need to do a reset on our school. And we’re going to take a week and we’re shutting everything else off and we’re just going to do school. And then at that time you can re-evaluate what comes back into your schedule. Because if your schedule is being dictated by the outside sources, it’s time to re-change the priority. Because you are the one that’s in charge of your schedule. And obviously if you work outside of the home, that’s an added factor. But you knew that going in or you know that. That’s how you have to schedule. And your kid’s education is the number-one priority. Whether they play soccer with the local– that’s not as important as their education.

Gretchen Roe: 00:29:29.401
I think one of the things that sometimes happens too is we don’t want to say no to our kids. So I have a child who wants to play soccer, and I have a child who wants to ride horses, and I have a child who wants to play on the local basketball team. And we’re so busy meeting those needs and desires of their hearts that we don’t stack the priorities right as far as school’s got to get done somewhere.

Johna Lawrence: 00:29:55.672
Right. We with four kids, we encourage them to like all the same things. So we can do one thing together, our kids all took taekwando. So that was our activity. We didn’t do other activities because we were in taekwando together. Which helped, they all were active, they all were doing something, and they all were thriving for something. But it was one location for us. As they kind of got older, you kind of have to start splitting some things. But we still are like, “You get one extra thing. If you want to do drama, that’s fine. That’s your one thing, don’t ask then, I also want to play soccer. You get one.”

Gretchen Roe: 00:30:35.853
Right. And I think there’s a difference there. I think this is a good observation here for you so I’m going to read you this. It says, “Awesome thoughts, ladies. With all the good motives of giving your children independently what they need, and being flexible about their needs and personalities, how do you balance that flexibility in giving your children the tools they need versus enabling them because of overcompensation?” And you and I actually talked about this yesterday because I want to tie this in with what happens, the question that we had that says how do we deal with kids who argue, complain, give us pushback, those kinds of things. And I think all of this sort of fits together with wanting to help our kids be the best they can be. But then being so immersed in helping them do that that we don’t allow them to stand on their own.

Johna Lawrence: 00:31:45.804
So the pushback I have, I feel like I have the epitome. The last child pushed me. So my biggest tool with him, and he was at high school level. We were we’re talking about consequences, giving them the tools to succeed. And then when they choose to not succeed, they choose to push back. What do you do? I mean, because you could put out incentives for your kid. But if they just don’t care, then what do you do? Well, maybe instead of incentives, there’s consequences. My example with my kid was– he and I butted heads. We were so much alike – and love him – but unfortunately, he got all my stubbornness. But we taught him.

Gretchen Roe: 00:32:41.046
No one in our audience understands that because you’re the only mom who has that child.

Johna Lawrence: 00:32:48.089
I know. I honestly could say the sky is blue and he would say, “Oh, no, Mom. It is purple.”

Gretchen Roe: 00:32:59.210
Other color, right?

Johna Lawrence: 00:33:00.375
I mean, any other color that you could think of so long as it wasn’t that color. We finally came to a point– my husband and I came in an agreement on how to handle him. And so I gave him his schedule for the week. And this is at high school level, which usually is where the biggest pushback and refusal to do what Mom says or I’m going to toe the line to the man, or however you want to look at that. But my husband and I would create a schedule and I would check in with him daily, every other day, but he was very independent on getting his stuff done. But at 5:30 on Friday, he had to turn everything in that was on that schedule. So if he didn’t want to work on Monday and he wanted to do everything on Tuesday, that was on him. But I would check in and we would– “Don’t forget. You got this due. Don’t forget.” I was the nag. But come 5:30 on Friday, he had to come and show it to his father and I, and we could say, “Okay, you got this done. You’re good for the weekend. You didn’t get it done. Guess what? You’re not going to go out with your friends. You’re not going to play games online with your friends. That’s gone.” He had the ability to come to us, say, Wednesday, and say, “I’m struggling in this subject, Mom. I’m not understanding. Can we extend my deadline on this one because I’m struggling?” As in a mature discussion with his parents, we could then extend it for him. We could give him that grace that we want all our bosses to give us when we struggle getting things done. But if he chose to never say a word and communicate with us, he paid the consequences. If he was in communication with us and we knew what was going on, we were able to give grace and extend out for him. So that is part of the consequences but also giving him the skills to communicate with coworkers, with bosses, “Hey, I got this, but I’m not understanding what you asked or–” We also gave him tools with Google. We gave him Google Drive to write all his notes instead of handwriting it, use Google Drive. I could then get on and look and see how his progress was going for the week. So I knew coming up on Friday, if there was nothing in that drive, we were going to have an argument. It was time to bring in Dad and make sure we were reinforced, but.

Gretchen Roe: 00:35:28.190
So toward that end, I want to talk about the difference between giving your kids the tools they need and then flat enabling them. And this is something that sometimes parents have a difficult time defining. So can you help our parents understand there’s a difference between assisting and enabling, and maybe we should redefine that again? So.

Johna Lawrence: 00:35:57.751
Well, I was going to say redefining assisting and enabling assisting is where you teach and you come alongside, but you don’t do. Enabling is basically you’re allowing them to make the mistakes with no consequences. You’re allowing them to not finish. So there’s a difference between– I’m trying to come up with a tangible.

Gretchen Roe: 00:36:25.405
Well, I can give you one from from Saint Louis two weeks ago. I had a mom whose son was struggling with the vocabulary of geometry. So he’s sophomore, high school, going through geometry, and he just wasn’t remembering the vocabulary. And I said, “Have you thought about having him do flashcards with the definition on the word and then the definition on the other side?” And she said, “Oh, I made those for him.” And the challenge with that is he has no skin in that game. So in that moment, that’s enabling.

Johna Lawrence: 00:37:04.736
Right. And to assist him, she should have– “Here’s some blank flashcards. Write your definition on one side, write the definition on the other.” Because, again, doing it yourself, you’ve assisted in giving them the tools. Thank you. Yeah, I always gave my kids one three-by-five inch, not foot, flashcard for math formulas. That was the only one you’re allowed to have. You couldn’t have a second one. You could erase, you could overlay it with stuff, but you had one layer. And they found if they had their flashcard, they wrote it for themselves, they memorized, but they couldn’t then have two flashcards. They only could have one. So they had to memorize to make space for another formula. I do say inch because I taught a co-op, and I had a kid bring in a three foot by five foot. [laughter] So I said three by five, so.

Gretchen Roe: 00:38:13.506
You have to celebrate the creativity, but by the same token, it’s like, “Really? Come on. You got to be kidding me, right?”

Johna Lawrence: 00:38:20.243
Yeah. But I was the kid in college that they said you could bring anything you could carry and a friend and I carried in our professor. [laughter] So I’ve already thought it through, kids. I already figured it out.

Gretchen Roe: 00:38:34.740
Actually, that’s kind of a clever idea. I can’t say that I can really complain about that. But I often say to moms, “You’re not going with your child to college.” You’re really not, so.

Johna Lawrence: 00:38:44.173
No. And the flashcards are an excellent tool to learning vocabulary, but you can’t do it for them. You got to give them that skill. I had a kid that went off to college. We did the flashcards in high school, not on a regular basis, but when she struggled with something she did, she went off to college and her degree was so heavy in terminology. She had – I don’t know – hundreds of flashcards that she constantly was going through. And one time I was like, “Where did you learn that?” And she’s like, “You taught it to me, Mom.” And I’m like, “I never told you to go and make flashcards in college.” She also color-coded all her notes. Here’s an inadvertent tool I taught her because we kept a calendar on the refrigerator. Everybody was a different color. And I looked at her notes. They were like a dream notes. All the dates were in yellow. All the names were in orange. All the locations were in purple. And she would come an hour after class. She would rewrite her notes. She would highlight all the things. She would tab and cross reference. And I was like, “Where did you learn that?” She goes, “From you, mom. I watched you keep a calendar with six people, and every one was color-coded, and you could look on a glance– and she goes, “And so I use it in my classes. Here’s a date. Here’s a location. So when I’m trying to search through my notes–” And I’m like, “Oh.” But she learned it by simple tools, not by me doing it for her. I mean, I gave her markers. I gave her highlighters. I’m a big calendar person. She had all those, but.

Gretchen Roe: 00:40:31.475
I think one of the things that’s important is recognizing that your children will have different capacities at different ages. And I know this came up in a conversation we had last week where we were talking about– don’t expect equivalent development in every subject area, as well. And sometimes I’ll have parents who’ll say, “Well, my son Owen is just lazy when it comes to math.” One of the things that might be doing it wrong is referring to a child as lazy. There’s some sort of impediment to their learning that we have to figure out what it is, and that comes from observation.

Johna Lawrence: 00:41:18.647
And I will say– yeah, because all our kids learn at such a different way. Some of them have to– yes. And I’m guilty. Gretchen, you hit me, and I’m like, “Oh, I think I’ve said that to my kid.” I need to go and apologize to him. And I’ve apologized to all my kids many times in life. But I have one– the one that didn’t like to hold his pencil. He didn’t like to write, and I’m like, “Come on, it’s just your name,” and he’s like, “I don’t like to do– I don’t like to make my O’s the right way because it takes too much effort.” And I’m like, “Really? It’s an O. Come on. You’re just trying to make me mad.” And he’s like, “No, no, it was a texture thing.” So you got to think outside of that box that they’re not being defiant sometimes. They just really can’t express to you, “I don’t like the feel–” Sometimes it’s the way the paper looks. I have trouble writing my math problems down because there’s these blue lines and I don’t like blue lines. Find what works for your kid because– is it worth the hill to die on because of the materials that they’ve been given when they can’t express what they know? So help them express what they know. And sometimes we have to stop being the driving force and come and the best leaders in life stand behind their squads because they can see what’s happening and the struggles that are happening. They’re not out in front. They’re behind them so they can see them to know, “Oh, they’re weak over here. I need to go and help them build that up, or they’re–” You can’t be in charge all the time. Sometimes you have to [crosstalk]–

Gretchen Roe: 00:43:16.851
One of the things that Dr. Holinga taught me a long time ago– Dr. Karen Holinga– she said, “You never teach to a child’s weaknesses. You teach to their strengths and then their weaknesses gradually become strengths.” I think that makes a difference for kids.

Johna Lawrence: 00:43:35.122
Oh, I think it makes a huge difference. And you were talking about different levels, too. One of our kids– she forgot how to read in second grade. She had a vision memory issue. She was reading and literally the next week could not read a book– could not read a sentence, and we had to step all the way back to first grade in her reading. But she remembered math, so we were still going ahead with math. I mean, it was a very time in life. And she’s able to now talk. She’s married. She’s graduated college, all the good things. But she can step back and go, “Well, during that time, Mom, this is what was going on in my brain.” And I’m like, “Oh, I am so sorry.” But we had to step back. Yeah, so what? First grade in this subject, second in this one, third over here. Guess what? She graduated. All in one year. Not that year, but at her end of the school year, she did 12 years. She graduated. We were all good.

Gretchen Roe: 00:44:37.836
So this question, I think, is important. And I know you’ve heard this before. Am I doing enough to set my child up for success beyond the homeschool years? And I know this is a question that a lot of parents ask. How do we get the answer to that?

Johna Lawrence: 00:44:54.326
Are you setting your child up to be able to function in society? Let’s start there. Can they carry on a conversation? Can they add, subtract, and can they write and sign their name and read? Okay, they’re going to be successful, I promise you. Have you loved on them? Have you given them security? They’re going to be fine. Why do I know that? Because just like Gretchen’s kids, my kids have graduated. They’ve gone on. I don’t take credit for most of their knowledge. I made sure they got to the finish line. I was their coach. But it’s functioning in society is what you want because we meet people all the time, kids, adults that are extremely intelligent, that I would love to have half of their brain knowledge in my head. And they struggle to look you in the eye and have a casual conversation because they’ve not got that skill. So homeschooling, you get to nourish that skill because you don’t have a peer group because everyone’s your peer group, and you get to have those conversations. You get to learn to converse with the grocery store clerk and the gas attendant, all those things. And you get to see mom do life. So yes, you’re preparing your child for success after the homeschool world by teaching them to live life.

Gretchen Roe: 00:46:29.136
And I like that because I think it’s important. When we’re standing there with the little gremlin voice that you talked about, the voice on your shoulder that says, “You’re not enough. You’re not doing it right,” we have to be able to push back because we want to shut that voice up in our children as well. We don’t want them to have that voice in their heads. So we have to take care to, maybe, draw a boundary around that voice in front of our kids as well.

Johna Lawrence: 00:47:02.452
And say, “Enough.” And sometimes as your kids are older, you don’t want to do it when they’re in like fourth and fifth grade, and say, “I don’t know if I can do this.” Never tell your kid that you doubt. But as they get older and they’re finishing up, let them know, “I questioned if we could do that. I wondered if we could do this. But we–” And let them know the whole time it was a “we,” not a “me.” I mean, and that’s some of the best teaching with your kids when they’re struggling is to just stop and sit right beside them and say, “Okay, we’re going to do this together.”

Gretchen Roe: 00:47:41.760
I heard a lecturer last week say something that I thought was pretty profound. She said, “Compliment your child on their effort, not the outcome of their effort.” And I thought, “Wow, that’s a really succinct way to recognize, ‘I appreciate the fact that you stuck with this project, even though you didn’t like it.’ Or, “I really appreciate the fact that you didn’t complain today when I told you we were doing all five of these things today. And having the opportunity to catch our kids doing something right instead of doing something wrong can be such a huge game changer in that own still small voice in her head.

Johna Lawrence: 00:48:22.316
And then on top of that, also remember to compliment them on their day-to-day life outside of the academics, because I have one kid who is not a college-bound at this time. As he says, he’s just not ready to settle down and do college. So he joined Coast Guard. But he thought through, made that choice. He worked for a while and I was able to come back and say, “I really admire the fact that you chose to put it on pause and you’re going forward.” I mean, that was a very wise decision. And I was able to say things to him like that in high school. I think that was a very wise choice that you declined going out with those friends tonight instead of doing schoolwork or whatever.

Gretchen Roe: 00:49:09.906
I think it’s important as parents for us to have those kinds of conversations. I have to say, when I look back on my homeschool years, I didn’t have those conversations as often with my kids. Maybe I did when they were teenagers, but I should have had the wit to trust them to know themselves from a younger age. So sometimes when you feel like, “Oh, I’m spinning all these plates and I don’t know how it’s going,” if you take a step back and you say to your children, “These are the things that I feel are important for us to accomplish. How do you think we can best accomplish them?” Sometimes kids have better ideas than we’ve ever thought of.

Johna Lawrence: 00:49:56.036
The other side too is why not share this plate spinning. Give some responsibility to our kids, quit taking it all on. Moms are not superheroes. We are. Given that image all the time, we go back to that comparison. We see other moms, they are so super because they do all the things. And I hear moms all the time say, “Oh, you must be Superwoman or Wonder Woman because you can do all the things.” I do one day at a time, one step at a time, what’s given to me. Also, though, to be able to say to your kids, even at a young age, “We’re going to do dinner. I need you to do this.” What you spend, it might take 30 minutes for them to peel that one carat in 1st grade. In time, you’re going to be able to say, “We need to put together a salad. Can you do that?” And they’re going to say, “I got that mom.” Start handing those responsibilities over because it is such a blessing to share and the light, the load is light when burdens. That’s why there’s two oxen on a team because they share that burden. Share it. It’s not a burden. You’re sharing responsibilities. You’re creating young, functioning adults.

Gretchen Roe: 00:51:11.083
Yes. One of the things that parents said to us in the questions that they ask is, particularly, how do you transition that responsibility over to your child as they reach high school age? So we have two follow-ups, webinars that will be in the show notes. One of them is a conversation that I did just a couple of months ago with Andrew Poudawa talking about crafting a college experience while you’re still in high school. And this might be a project for those of you with high schoolers and you’re trying to get them to take their reins, here’s an opportunity to listen to what Andrew had to say. He said, “What does every 14-year-old boy want in this world?” And that is for their mother to stop telling them what to do. And so he gives us some very practical tips. And then I have a second one that is an interview that I did with Jonathan Brush about a year ago from Unbound. And Jonathan, again, talks about transitioning that responsibility. And you as you transition responsibility, you have to expect that they’re going to drop the ball. So you have to treat it gently, hold it loosely. But both Andrew and Jonathan had great advice. So there will be some homework assignments for moms in our show notes to be able to pick up on that. We had a couple of parents ask how long it would take to deschool when they came out of a school experience. And I know you had talked to me a little bit about that yesterday.

Johna Lawrence: 00:52:50.062
I did. I so for my opinion, for what it’s worth, for every year your kids been in school, I like to tell moms you should plan on four to six weeks of deschooling them from what they’ve done before. So if it’s first grade, you’re going to a month, month and a half of this is how we do it. This is not how Miss Sally does, whatever Miss Teacher did. And the longer they’ve been in public school, you might even have to take pretty much the whole year to just deschool. And it’s not that you’re not doing school, but you’re going to just come up against the, well, that’s not how they did. That conversation of mom, that’s not how you do it versus mom saying this is how we do it. We are not them anymore. And it’s a deschooling. I want to say unschooling, but that is not the right term. It’s just you’re just trying to take the brick-and-mortar school out of your homeschooling environment.

Gretchen Roe: 00:53:52.469
And I think that makes a difference.

Johna Lawrence: 00:53:55.484
It does. And so–

Gretchen Roe: 00:53:56.702
It makes a difference in our attitudes long term, but it also makes a difference in our kids’ attitudes. You talked about the notebook. And I want to come back to this notebook before we finish because I don’t know if all of the parents who are listening caught that idea about making notes about where your child is in the process throughout the academic year because that becomes a source of encouragement. Why would I need to do that, Johna. It’s such a great idea. Help me understand as a mom who maybe I’m the mom who doesn’t like structure. So how would I do that and make it a doable part?

Johna Lawrence: 00:54:40.660
Well, there’s so many reasons actually to do it. I wish I had learned to do it earlier in life. One, if I struggle with structure, that it is just my gut. It’s like a returning point. I write down the notes and where our kids are, and I know what’s going on and we go forward and I just every week or every two weeks I can come back and look at it. It’s it’s like the steering of my boat. It is the the keel that’s going to keep me on track that oh, that’s right. This is where we’re at. This was what we were struggling with. I need to remember to be looking at that. It’s the constant reminder. Another thing that doing the journal for is there are some states out there that they want to see progress reports. And so if you’ve already been writing it, oh, it’s so easy to turn around and say here’s the progress of my kid. We were struggling here two months ago. We’re now no longer struggling with that. We’ve overcome that. We’ve now are moved on and we’re struggling with C and D now as opposed to A and B. Great tool for you to have when grandparents come in, and they’re like, why do you think you’re making a good job? This is exactly. Let me show you some of my notes, what we’ve been doing.

Gretchen Roe: 00:56:01.321
Well, the other thing I think. And I always tell parents, having that notebook with those notes is advantageous. Because I want you to write down the good stuff that happens. We’re acculturated to remember the difficult things. But if you write down the good stuff, then you’ll remember that your daughter referred to that place where you keep maps in a car, or we used to keep maps in a car, as the glove department. [laughter] Or, a fly swatter was called a swatter fly in your household.

Johna Lawrence: 00:56:35.449
Or, spicy food is bicy, not spicy.

Gretchen Roe: 00:56:38.785
Bicy. Yeah. [laughter]

Johna Lawrence: 00:56:42.803
And here’s something. My mom gave this to me, I guess, probably, 10 years ago. So I have a lot of history of vision issues and learning disabilities when I was young. And at one point, they told my mom, “She’ll never function above a third-grade level.” And my mom kept all those doctor’s visits, all those notes, notes from teachers saying, “Her handwriting will never be legible. Her vision is awful.” All those things, she handed them to me about 10 years ago. And while just to read, just different doctors, and what my mom struggled with, and now, she’s like, “I think, now, you can see it.” So if your kid’s really struggling, later in life, they might be 40, 50 years old when you give it to them. But you’ll know when it’s time to give it to them, to say, “Look how much you overcame.” And I didn’t even know half of that argument with my mom, or the arguments my mom had, until I graduated college. And she goes, “I would love to take you back and show whatever administrator who said, ‘I should put you in an institution because you would never function in society.'”

Gretchen Roe: 00:57:59.074
She’s a wise woman. I can’t believe we’ve reached the top of the hour. So what closing advice do you have for our parents today?

Johna Lawrence: 00:58:08.788
Love your kids. Take time. Step back. Just enjoy your kids where they are. You are doing enough. Let me tell you, you are enough. Your child was created for you. You are the parent. You are in this relationship because you are the perfectly designed parent for your child. Do not compare yourself to somebody else outside of your family. Because nobody lives inside your family but you guys. You are going to be a wonderful success for your child. Because no one loves your child as much as you. And no one’s going to go to bat, like my mom went to bat for me, as much as you’re going to go to bat for your child, so.

Gretchen Roe: 00:58:54.198
Absolutely. And if you can keep your accounts short, apologize when you hurt your children. Because we’re all going to do it. It happens. No matter how great our intentions, we’re human. We’re going to make a mistake. So if we can keep those accounts short, and we can speak positively to our children and sow the future into their lives, it’s going to be an amazing experience. Johna, thanks so much for joining me today. This is Gretchen Roe for The Demme Learning Show. You can access the show notes and watch a recording at demmelearning.com/show, or on our YouTube channel. Be sure to rate, review, follow, or subscribe wherever you may be hearing this, especially if you really enjoyed it. And we’ll look forward to coming into your room soon in the future for another conversation with The Demme Learning Show. Take care, everybody.

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