Your Homeschool Questions Answered! Teaching Respect, Routine After a Baby, Ambleside Online

How to reset when all your kids are having terrible attitudes and being disobedient and everything you do doesn't seem to help or change things. If everything is going south, it's time to just stop. Take a break. Walk away. Get some time to yourself or do something different. Take the kids out somewhere. Your home atmosphere is top priority. If you stop, it doesn't mean that you're a bad homeschooler or that your kids are going to fail or be behind. You can still be doing a great job with your kids and just stop to completely focus on the needs of your family and to address some character issues. Welcome to our life homeschooling. My name is Sherry, Christian, wife to my high school sweetheart Nelson, and thankful mom to 10 incredible kids. I'm the author of the blog and YouTube channel Our Life Homeschooling, where I share homeschooling encouragement for everyday moms. I believe that motherhood is ministry and homeschooling is simply an extension of parenting. My passion is to cheer on other moms who are at home doing the most important work of all, raising the next generation for the glory of God. Hi, and welcome to the RLife homeschooling podcast. I'm going to be doing a Q&A. I asked you on YouTube to send me all your homeschooling questions, so I'm going to be going through those. I got a lot of them, so I'm we're probably not going to get through them all, and hopefully I can get through the rest of them on the next Q&A that I do. If you're new here, my name is Sherry. I am a Christian homeschooling mom. I'm married to my husband, Nelson. We've been married for 25 years. Together, we have 10 children, ages 20 down to two, and I love encouraging other moms in homeschooling. We just finished our 15th year and starting our 16th year next in the next couple weeks. And I am still learning a lot of things. Our home school is still changing. We have a graduate. We have seven in school, two preschoolers. So, our kids are changing. Um, so I'm still learning a lot of new things. I don't have all the answers, but I do like to share some of the things that I've learned over the years homeschooling our kids. I hope that it will help some of you all. I'm going to go ahead and just start with the first question. Would you please share how you train your littles to do that morning routine? How do you get them to remember it? Are they independent or are you helping them for months and months? Teaching little children is a process. And so I think what this question or this person is referring to is that when my children are very little, so when they're 3 years old, I teach them to get dressed, make their bed, and brush their teeth. That is the three things that I require of them every morning. It's good for little preschoolers because they need something to do when they get up. They'll just get into trouble. um they're you know sometimes some kids will just play but they need something to do. So this gets them doing something gets that habit going. It's something that they can do on their own. Now having said that it's also something that is a process because sometimes I find myself saying to my 8-year-old, my 11year-old, have you brushed your teeth? Did you make your bed today? And you know, so it's it's something that takes a lot of time. So are they independent or are you helping them for months and months? Well, um the idea is for them to be independent. And I think over time it does happen, but they also need to be reminded of it. And for young children, yes, I am helping them for months and months. It's just that daily reminder. Forming habits takes a long time. And this is just a very basic habit that I think will help them throughout life. So I'm I'm willing to take that time to just help them remind them every day. And some of them pick it up more quickly than others. The next question is about teaching kids to respect authority. I actually had two questions on this. How do you help littles develop a healthy respect for authority? Um, and then will you kindly give an example on how you establish authority? I have a six, four, and two-year-old. Um, recommendations on how to help littles develop healthy respect for authority. If your kids do not have just a very basic level of respect for you as the mom, then you are not going to enjoy homeschooling. You're not going to enjoy being with them. You're not going to enjoy parenting. And nobody's going to really be learning very much. As moms, we are by nature very nurturing. It's our first instinct to be sensitive to kids. And that is that's a god-given instinct that we have. And it's so important. We know when the baby is hungry. It's like we'll do anything to just take care of them. It bothers us when our children are crying. We are very sensitive to the needs of our children. And I think that's really important. But we also need to establish boundaries. And as they get older, they test these boundaries um more and more frequently. And some kids learn what the boundaries are. And some kids it takes, you know, a little bit more time. But I think children in general know who is going to follow through with what you ask them to do and who they can just, you know, pull one over on them and and they're just going to get away with it. Kids know when someone is just telling them to do something, they're not really expecting them to do it. And they know when someone is going to call them on it and they're going to be required to do what they ask them to do. One thing that's helped me has been to remember never to give any consequence that I don't fully plan to follow through with. Every parent is going to have a different level of comfort on what the consequences are if they don't follow through. Um, this really delves into parenting. There are books and books about um about how to parent little ones, but I would say if you're going to ask them to pick up their room, to sit down and put these toys away, that you are fully prepared to follow through with any consequence that you tell them you're going to give them if they don't do it. Children need to learn that you are looking out for their best interest. Sometimes I see parents asking their kids, their two and three-year-olds, what they want when they're crying constantly. What do you want? Do you want this? Do you want the yellow one or the blue one? Trying to figure out what's wrong with them. And while it's true that little kids are not good at communicating clearly their wants. It's also true that two and three-year-olds don't really know what they want or what's best for them. You do. You're the parent. I had something like this happen even just today. I took the kids up to somewhere in our neighborhood where there's a sidewalk and they were all riding bikes and um my 2-year-old was riding his bike and he wanted to ride on the road. So, I sat down and I looked him right in the eye. And I think that is so important for young kids, get down on their level, look them right in the eye, and I said, "Look, you can ride your bike, but if you want to ride your bike, you have to stay on the sidewalk. You can't ride your bike on the road. If you're going to ride your bike on the road, then mommy is going to take you back home and you're not going to be able to ride. And I did not give out this consequence lightly. I was fully fully intending to take him back home if he was not going to stay on the sidewalk. I had some older children there that could have stayed with my other kids who were riding bikes, which was kind of nice. But um he learned pretty quickly that I was actually going to take him back home if he wasn't going to stay on the sidewalk. And so he stayed on the sidewalk. Now with little kids, it really is a process when they're young. Um some of them just listen more easily and others it just takes a long time and you as the parent just need to keep being consistent. You may not see results for even a couple years until they get a little bit older. Another thing that's really helped me is to realize that how my children are acting is not as important as my response to them. So you can be in a grocery store, for example, and your two and three-year-old is throwing a little tantrum. And of course, it's a little embarrassing, but two and three-year-olds throw tantrums. That's just part of being two and three years old. Adults do not, however, and so what matters is not so much that my kid is having it out in the grocery store as much as it matters how I respond to it. And so, it's helped me to remember that my response really is key. And then taking the child aside by themselves to a place that's completely separate from the situation really helps. And you can always do that when you're out at a grocery store, but here at home, um, sometimes I'll just pick the child up, take them into another room, and just quietly explain, "This is how it's going to be. And if you can listen to mommy, mommy is looking out for your best interest, then this will happen. But if not, then this is going to happen, and you're not going to like it. But those are the consequences for that kind of behavior." Another thing I learned happened a couple times. I've gotten a cold and I lost my voice and my kids were surprisingly obedient during this time. And I think it was because I talked a lot less and I followed through a lot more because I couldn't talk. My only option was to just do and so I tended to follow through more or even just look at them in such a way that they knew I mean business. I'm not just talking into the air. They knew that I was going to follow through because I just couldn't talk. I could only act. So, I hope those those tips can help some of you that are teaching your kids a respect for authority. How do you fit in dinner cleanup and what's the process like for putting your middle kids to bed? Um, right now in our home we have a lot of older kids, so it looks a little different than it did um when I had younger kids, but basically we have someone that's assigned to on kitchen duty for the whole day. They get one day a week, they're on kitchen duty, and then we assign a second person who's like their helper, and that person's uh jobs are a little bit lighter, but the idea is that they're working together to get the kitchen cleaned up. And quite honestly, my husband and I are always cleaning up, but we're helping with the kitchen, helping with other things that need to be done. So, we fill in where it's necessary, but we have one child assigned. They have one day where they have to do kitchen duty. And yes, it is quite a bit, but it's only one day a week. And it's teaching them responsibility. And also, when it's not their day to clean up, they learn to appreciate the person that is doing it. and to clean up after themselves so that person doesn't have as much work to do. For putting our middle kids to bed, okay, this has changed quite a bit over the years because when our kids were all little, we would just put them to bed between 8 and 8:30. So, we had our little bedtime routine. We would sing a hymn, we would pray together, we would tuck them all in bed, and then it was free time for me and my husband. It was great. And that has changed because we have a lot of older kids that are coming in at like 10 11:00 want to talk. We have middle kids who go to bed more around like 9:30. And then we have our little kids. So right now we're putting our little kids down the same time like between 8:00 and 8:30. And then our middle kids are allowed to stay up until 9:30. The expectation is that it has to be quiet. And so some nights we'll be a little bit more um firm and just say, "We want you guys to be reading a book until your bedtime. Sit on the sofa in the living room and read until it's 9:30." Um but then we have older kids that are up and so they're not always quiet, but our hope is that they will be quiet. And then my husband and I usually will go off by ourselves sometimes for a walk or back into our bedroom and just have a little bit of time by ourselves before we go to bed. Okay. The next question is about ambleside online and there were two questions on this. So I'll read both of them. Do you do all the Ambleside online books on the schedule for each year? If not, how do you go about choosing and eliminating books? When you do follow your Ambleside online schedules, do you use individual years and tailor them or do you especially use AO groups for your younger years and then allow them to rotate out into indep independent years when they're ready? Okay. I don't do Amblesside online groups because when I found Amblesside online, it was before they had come up with the group schedule and so I was already kind of in the groove of just making it work with what we had at that time. So I don't do groups. Um, however, I've done I've done both. When my kids were younger, they were in individual years and I set the schedule. I I looked at all the books for the year they were in and had them do them all. With my oldest, I really did almost everything. He went through each ambulide year. I did a lot of the books, too many of the books. Um, and that worked for a while having them in their own years. But then at one point it just became way too much for us and I realized I had to make some changes. Now, by that time, I had read most of the Ambleside books, at least in years 0 through six. So, I kind of knew which ones I really liked. And so, I've put together a list of our favorite Amblesside books, ones that I don't want to miss. I have it over on the blog. If you look up how we make Ambleside online work for our large family, I have a list of all the books um in every subject. So, history, free reading, um, science, nature study, all the books that are just must readads for me. And this is the list that I'm using now. Those are the books that when I go and sit down to do my child's checklist or when I think about the books that I'm going to be reading aloud for the next year. That's basically the list I use. I look I look at other places too for some readaloud books, but I'm always looking at that list of books, those must-have or must-read books that I want to make sure I'm getting to and that the kids are all reading. What do you think about Dr. Moore's book, Better Late than Early? How do you handle interruptions when you're reading to your children? Do you let them talk or ask questions abruptly, or do you ask them to stay quiet the whole time you're reading? I have not personally read Dr. Moore's book, Better Late Than Early, but I know what it's about. I have enough friends who have, and I have read parts of some of his other books. I am all for giving children plenty of time to play, um, giving them raw materials, and I I do think that our culture in general rushes children too quickly into learning to read. um kids, many kids aren't ready until seven, eight, even later sometimes. So, I am a firm believer in that. I also think that some kids show readiness very early. And if you have a child that is doing things like um pointing to letters, trying or asking you questions about what this says, what that says, what letter this is, trying to sound things out. Well, then your child might be ready. it might be time to start teaching them phonics or start with your reading program. So I I know that some children are just ready earlier. Um I also know that some parents, especially if it's your first child, there is just this pressure that you feel if your first child isn't reading by a certain time that you must be doing something wrong. And once that first child is reading, the pressure is kind of off a little bit for the next kids behind because you've done it once and you know it's it's doable. You can do it and there's not as much stress behind it. So if it's your first child, I would just I would just relax. It will come. The important thing is that you're reading to them throughout the day in small chunks of time. just 10 and 15 minutes here, 10 and 15 minutes after lunch before they go to bed, listen to audiobooks, or when you're in the car. Read to them a lot. And they will want to have that mysterious skill that you have to be able to read for themselves. Um, when I'm reading to our kids, do you let them talk or ask questions abruptly? Um, I do let the kids interrupt me or ask questions until it gets to a certain point. And if they keep interrupting, then no, it's okay. That's enough. Let's stop interrupting the story and let's just try and listen. So, it really kind of just depends on the day and how far it's going. Do you think it's possible to homeschool without participating in a co-op? Yes, I do. We've always been in a co-op. In fact, our co-op started with just five families. We just met up in each other's homes for a couple of years, I think, and then we moved into a church, offered us their building, and we've been meeting ever since. It's grown exponentially. It's the co-op that we still attend today. We love our co-op. These are our closest friends. It's been such a great option for our kids, such a great support, but not everyone needs that. If you have the kind of support you need, whether through church or family, um it kind of depends a little bit on your where you live, your community. Some people are living in places where there are tons of homeschoolers and there's just support and options everywhere. So, they don't maybe need as much of a regular routine or they don't need to be out of the house once a week or once every other week. other people live in places where they're the only homeschoolers they know almost and so something like a co-op is just more needed um for their particular circumstance. So I think it really all depends on your individual circumstances. While I find the HSLDA an amazing organization that has helped countless families in a crisis, do you feel it's necessary to maintain a membership with them or simply consult with them when a conflict with the school district surfaces? We've done both. Uh we've been members and we've not been members. I do think it's really important to support as much as possible support the organizations that are making homeschooling possible because you know maybe what if they weren't here and so I definitely feel it's important to support those organizations that are helping homeschoolers. Is it necessary? I don't personally think it's necessary but that's really on a family by family basis. After giving birth, how do you manage to wake up early and keep up the routine with the little ones? What time do they usually wake up and how long do they study in the morning? When studying other languages, how do you train them in conversation? After I give birth, we've had several babies right in the middle of a school year, and I've just learned that it's survival mode. Um, I don't want to make that sound like there's no order or we had no plan at all. We keep going with our regular routine, but I have just learned that lowering your expectations is so important because a baby is completely unpredictable. You don't know when they're going to be getting up in the middle of the night, so how much sleep you're going to be getting. Um, sometimes we still had a toddler who just had more needs like potty training. And so I just I think it's really important to be flexible. I usually did not get up extra early when I had an infant. I let myself sleep because I was up in the middle of the night. Um, we tried to keep our routine as much as possible. I can't remember exactly when my kids all woke up. I want to say 7:30 was a general time. I wanted them to stay in their bedrooms until about 7:30. Then if they were awake, they could come out. Um, so I didn't want kids getting up too early. But I think just realizing that that is a very temporary time. It's going to pass. It's going to get easier. And um, not being too hard on yourself during that time. It might not seem related, but what are your thoughts on contraception? I've had seven children in nine years and it feels like a lot. And I even have someone help with cleaning. Also, when you're assigning work, how do you know how much to give? Do you have consequences for not doing school work, piano, etc. Um, let me just touch on the last question. Um, if kids are not doing their schoolwork, we actually had an incentive for our kids. I haven't been doing it recently, but I did it for a long time. If our kids were as soon as they finished their checklist, they got just a little treat, piece of candy or something small that I kept in just a jar. It was a motivation for them that if they finished their checklist, they just had something to look forward to. So, that really, really helped. As far as the question about contraception, I can't speak for any other family or any other person's circumstances. I can only tell how God's worked in our family. We have 10 children, ages 20 to two. We did not come from a large family, at least not this large. We both have four kids. There were four kids in both of our homes. Um, and we did not plan on having this large of a family, but the Lord really changed our hearts when I got pregnant with our third child. We had two boys and I wanted to have them all kind of spread apart so that I could just give a lot of individual attention to each of them before having another child. And when I was uh when our second son was about 7 months old, I found out I was pregnant. And this was not in the plan. When I found out I was pregnant, I cried because I just thought our second son was going to be totally overlooked. And um I just wasn't sure how this was all going to work out because he was still very young. Fast forward, she was born. She was the sweetest, most innocent little baby and still is one of our easiest children. And I honestly felt um convicted about not being happy about this pregnancy. And the Lord really used this to change my heart, my husband's heart. Um, and we said, why wouldn't we want something like this? She is just a gem. Still one of our easiest kids. Um, and so from that point on, we just decided that we would take whatever children God gave us. This, um, this was a decision that we made freely. We felt no pressure or compulsion. we truly saw what an incredible blessing children are. And so I can't speak for anyone else or any other circumstance. Um I can say personally we've never been in any um financial difficulty. Not that things weren't tight or difficult at times, but we were never under any financial strain. I never had any serious health problems. If we had, that might have been a time for us to prayerfully consider um other options. That wasn't the case for us. We just accepted children when God gave them to us. And there were times when it was a lot. There were times that I got pregnant that I thought, um, I have my hands so full and my little one is only I don't know how many months old and I'm going to have another baby. How is this even going to work? But by the time that baby came, that the one that was the baby was now in a totally different place doing so many more things independently. And I think back to those difficult times and I'm so glad that um we continued trusting the Lord in faith because those times are over now. the challenging pregnancy, birth, the first year that's behind us and now we have our kids and these are the people that are going to be coming home for Thanksgiving. These are the people that are going to be by our side at the end of life. So, there were times that were really hard for me. There were times that my husband and I thought, "Wow, I don't this is really tough." But we were right in the middle of the investment time and that time passes and then you reap the rewards of putting in that time and that investment. So I can't give advice to anyone else. I can only say what the Lord has done for us. I do think people often miss out on a blessing that they don't realize they otherwise would have had. We have five boys, five girls, and it hasn't always been easy. There have been challenging times, but I'm so thankful that we pushed through and trusted the Lord through them and he was faithful to provide for us. How do you store your end of the year portfolios? You have so many kids and you collected all these great tidbits all the year. How do you keep 10 binders per year stored somewhere? Okay. Well, I don't have 10 kids in school yet. I've only I have one graduate and seven in school. Our second son is graduating this year. But yes, it is a lot of portfolios. I actually have a huge wardrobe out in our garage and that's where I store all the old ones. So, at some point I hope to give them to them when they leave the house. It's a nice little snapshot of each year of their life. But yeah, not a great option if you don't have a lot of space, but we keep ours in the garage in a wardrobe. How do you choose your readalouds for the year? Do you just choose one book at a time or plan it out for the entire year? I usually have I do use the Amblesite online book list. I also use Veraritoss Press. They have a great book list. There are others as well. But because I'm always reading, I usually have books that I want to read that either we haven't read yet or that we've read, but it was a while ago with my older kids that I want to read again. So, I usually have those in mind as I'm reading aloud whatever book I'm reading at that time. But, um, in case I don't, then I fall back on those other book lists and, um, we always have something that we're looking forward to reading next, so we just keep going. How to reset when all your kids are having terrible attitudes and being disobedient and everything you do doesn't seem to help or change things. I have been here. I have been there many times. And although I I feel like it's gotten a lot easier and better as our kids have gotten older, definitely the early years were the foundational years and everything was a little bit harder. I would say that if everything is going south, it's time to just stop. Stop. Take a break. Walk away. Get some time to yourself or do something different. Take the kids out somewhere. Your home atmosphere is top priority. If you stop, it doesn't mean that you're a bad homeschooler or that your kids are going to fail or be behind. You can still be an excellent homeschool mom, be doing a great job with your kids, and just stop to completely focus on the needs of your family and to address some character issues. So, um, for us, we just stop. And uh one thing that I think has helped that I don't hear anyone saying about sibling attitudes is not to underestimate the power of reading God's word to your children even just in small little bits. Just this morning I read a chapter from first Peter. The verse is finally all of you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart and a humble mind. I read this simple verse to the kids. I didn't talk about it a whole lot, but I read it and then I just asked them, "Okay, what is unity of mind?" And they all gave their suggestions. It means you're all working towards the benefit of everyone. You're not just thinking about yourself and your needs and your wants. What is um sympathy? It means looking out and having a tender heart when someone is hurting and listening to them. So, we went through each of these. The kids gave their answers for what they thought they were. And it seemed like their attitudes toward each other really started out from a better place for the day. And all I did was read one verse of scripture, asked them to explain it to me. We weren't having any problems or anything with this. This just happened to be the passage I was reading that morning. And a lot of times in the summer, I'll read to them just a snippet of whatever I've read that morning. And God used it to work in their hearts. And I could just see just a little bit more sensitivity among siblings. And wanting to genuinely love each other with a sincere heart. Homeschooling is not easy. Being with your kids all day is challenging, but this is disciplehip. You are working one on-one beside them. They're becoming a lot like you. And so the work you're doing is crucial. It's important. It's influencing the next generation. Thanks for listening. I hope this has encouraged you. I do one video a week on homeschooling encouragement for everyday moms. I'll see you next week. [Music]