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The Homeschool How To
I don't claim to know anything about homeschooling, so I set out on a journey to ask the people who do! Join me as I chat with homeschoolers to discuss; "why are people homeschooling," "what are all the ways people are using to homeschool today," and ultimately, "should I homeschool my kids?"
The Homeschool How To
#117: Homeschooling Seven Kids Through Her Real Estate Career
Ever wondered if you could pursue your career dreams while homeschooling your children? Natalie Watts proves it's not only possible—it's transformative. As "The Thoughtful Realtor" and mother of seven homeschooled children ranging from 5 to 16 years old, Natalie shares her remarkable journey from traditional expectations to entrepreneurial success.
Despite growing up in public school herself, Natalie embraced homeschooling after marrying into a conservative family with homeschooling roots—her in-laws were pioneers in making homeschooling legal in Minnesota. What makes her story particularly compelling is how she integrates her thriving real estate career with her children's education, creating authentic learning opportunities every day.
Natalie's approach centers on "delight-directed learning," focusing on subjects that genuinely interest each child rather than forcing traditional schoolwork. Her children participate in various aspects of her business based on their natural inclinations—designing marketing materials, learning videography, practicing handwriting through client thank-you cards, and experiencing real-world math, communication, and problem-solving. This practical education has yielded impressive results: her children excel on standardized tests, have become exceptional readers, and are specifically requested as employees by local businesses who recognize their unique capabilities.
Beyond academics, Natalie emphasizes character development through what she calls "grit training"—"doing what you don't want to do to be who you should be." Her family's focus on work ethic, critical thinking, and relationship skills has prepared her children for success in ways traditional education often misses. Meanwhile, her community-focused business approach earned her "Business of the Year" in her first year and recognition as a top 10 realtor in her state.
Want to learn more about integrating entrepreneurship with homeschooling? Connect with Natalie on Instagram @thethoughtfulrealtor where she mentors other parents building businesses while educating their children at home.
✨ This episode is brought to you by Excelsior Classes — live, online courses for homeschoolers taught by passionate, Christian instructors. Whether your student needs support in core subjects or wants to explore exciting electives, Excelsior offers rigorous academics in a nurturing environment. Learn more at excelsiorclasses.com!
The Tuttle Twins - Do you want to help your children learn about true history, personal freedom, responsibility, and individual rights? Then check out The Tuttle Twins books by clicking HERE!
Use code: Cheryl15 for 15% off the age 5-11 series!
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Welcome to this week's episode of the Homeschool How-To. I'm Cheryl and I invite you to join me on my quest to find out why are people homeschooling, how do you do it, how does it differ from region to region, and should I homeschool my kids? Stick with me as I interview homeschooling families across the country to unfold the answers to each of these questions week by week. Welcome with us. Today I have Natalie Watts and Natalie, thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 2:This is fun.
Speaker 1:This is fun, especially when I've been talking to someone on Instagram and I really kind of forget how we even connected in the first place, cause sometimes people reach out to me, but then other times, like, I see someone put in a comment on someone else's post and I'm like, oh, will you come on my podcast? So I never know what I'm getting into, cause I'm super disorganized as well. So, but you are a realtor months ago. So yeah, it's been a while You're a realtor.
Speaker 2:We talked like three months ago, so yeah, it's been a while.
Speaker 1:You're a realtor mom that homeschools her seven kids, and you homeschool through your business, so this sounds really cool. This intrigued me, so let's just get back to the very beginning. Well, what state are you in? How many kids do you have? And you don't have to say all their ages, because you probably don't even know at this point when there's seven.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm from Minnesota. I've always lived here and I was public school growing up. I actually really liked it. I graduated from a charter high school but my husband homeschooled and his parents were actually the pioneers of making it legal in Minnesota. So they were among, like, the families who did that. And you know, it's funny because when I was in the eighth grade, we had to do a debate class and I never like this was before I even knew who my husband was or anything or anything about homeschooling but we like drew subjects out of a hat and we had to do homeschool versus public school and I let my partner pick what she wanted. So then I did homeschool and I basically proved why you should homeschool your kids, even though that was never my plan. So it's kind of funny. I have an interesting journey, but yeah, so now I have seven kids that I homeschool and never thought that would be me, but here I am. So what?
Speaker 1:ages, like what's the youngest and the oldest. We'll just do that.
Speaker 2:I have twins that are five, and they were surprise twins. They came we were on our way home from a camping trip and I went into labor. We had home births for all of our kids, so we were getting ready to have the baby at home, but the baby wasn't coming. So then we went to the hospital and they were like, oh, so you have twins. And we went in to see if there were twins at 20 weeks and they showed us one baby. So we were just like, okay, we're wrong. The dreams my husband was having, he was wrong. The way I was feeling. I was wrong. And then there were twins and it was great, though it was completely uncomplicated, I was able to push that. They were both head down, facing back. I was able to push them both out vacations. So those are my twins and then my oldest will be 16 in just a couple of weeks. Oh, fun. So 11 year gap there.
Speaker 2:Did your husband have to talk you into the homeschooling? The short answer is no. You know, it's funny when you're like young and in love, right, you're like do what you. You know you, you're kind of dumb. So I just went along with what I knew was important to him, um, and then I'm actually really, really glad that it is what we did. So it worked out really well. Um, I wouldn't have it any other way, and it's so funny that now it's kind of like the trending thing to do when we were sort of the outcasts when we first started.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so you started from the very beginning. They've never been in public school, yep. And so if your oldest is, you said 16?, yep, okay. So how? How do the older kids feel about it? Like, are they happy that they are? They like, oh, look at all our friends are coming onto the bandwagon of homeschooling, or you know, have they ever talked about wanting to go into school?
Speaker 2:Yeah, my oldest, so he's on the football team. Heaps, we, our kids, play sports for public school. Um, and he's on the football team and they give him a pretty hard time about being homeschooled. So last year was our first year where we really struggled with them Like, oh, I want a home or I want a public school. And I was like, um, no, because there was a lot of bullying, even on the football team. And so I was like, like, why would I put you in school to make this worse? Um, and now sports are back in swing again for the spring and people have actually been a lot nicer to him this year, so hopefully things get better. But that's really all we've struggled with. Most other kids don't?
Speaker 1:they don't ask to go to public school, that's hard and yeah, and they're getting to that age where, like, they want to be around the girls and vice versa.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I can imagine that is going to be the struggle, Like we have a lot of homeschoolers in our area, but it's just. You can imagine the kids are going to be like, well, what else is there out there? But then again we're in a small district so it's like, well, there's like five more girls you could pick from. Just go down to Stewart's, You'll see one of them there.
Speaker 2:Are you guys in a big town or is it kind of small? We're so we're like a wannabe small town. So we're not quite a small town but we have like 8000 people. We're growing kind of rapidly though, but we're not anything like a normal city, I would say. Thankfully, my 16 year old has said that he's he came to me and he's like I'm not gonna have a girlfriend until I can support her, and so now that he'll get his license next month, he is, you know, can drive himself to a job. I was like you're either gonna have to take a scooter or you're gonna have to use you know I'm not driving you to your dates and I'm not paying for them. So, um, yeah, so thankfully he's not really interested in that at this point. I'm sure his best friend just got a girlfriend though, so we'll see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not really looking forward to those years or conversations. All right, so now you are a realtor, you have your own business and you kind of like entrepreneur, mentor people who want to homeschool and be be a realtor as well. But so how did you even get into the idea of like, hey, I have seven kids, I think I'm gonna start a business, or did you already? Had you been doing that from the beginning?
Speaker 2:no. So I married into a very conservative family that really believes like the woman should stay home and just be with the kids and you don't work. And I had gone to. I raised myself, growing up from a very young age, so I didn't live with like my parents, I just took care of myself. So I was pretty independent, had my own apartment and married into a family that believed in. They don't actually like do dating, they do betrothal, if you're familiar with that at all. So it's like, yeah, that's good, just stay out of it, but anyway, so you basically don't date before you're married and you're just.
Speaker 1:It's just a very conservative approach, but anyways, that's like all right, you're stretching the word conservative, because like conservative here means like we might have chickens. We voted for Trump, we might own a gun.
Speaker 2:He was raised like. You know. I'm trying to think of, like, what would be the closest thing to it, um, amish. You know, women, I mean they're not at all amish, but I feel like that would be. So you know, the women wear skirts and head coverings and, um, they don't vote, they don't take up arms. You know, just very, uh, what do you call that like? I guess I could just call it off, okay, amish with no beards or hats or no other word.
Speaker 1:I don't know um oh, but they use electricity.
Speaker 2:Okay, it's totally like not Amish, but I mean I guess I could see the similarities. But so, anyways, all that to say, like I was totally not like that, like where did you two meet? That's even weirder. My sister married, like she dated his older brother and they weren't there. You know, he, they're not like that at all. So his three older siblings were not like that and he was kind of the guinea pig on this new way of life and he's one of nine. So anyways, basically we met through our brother and sister who dated, and then they were married for 20 years and he did go in the military, despite how he was raised. So his brother was a pilot and flew the osprey, um, and did that until covid and then got out of that um, due to requirements, right, yeah, um, and so he just uh, started flying for delta actually, but anyways. So that's how we met. As crazy as it is, um, they were not weird and we were just like trying to be weird, I guess. Okay.
Speaker 1:So his brothers were not raised with the like um, sort of Mennonite kind of thing. But they switched midway and were like nobody, I don't even know, what they would call it.
Speaker 2:I guess they were, just like they weren't Amish or Mennonite or anything. It was just like very not the kind of conservative that you and I would think of conservative, but just like I guess they call it conservative. So I don't know, maybe.
Speaker 1:Or like living in 1800s or something. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Basically.
Speaker 1:But not all the siblings grew up that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so he's number four in the lineup of nine, and so the oldest two you know, nobody really knows what they're doing with their first and second kid, Right. And then you kind of get these like weird ideas. And so then they just decided that this was how they thought it would be really good to protect your heart before you got married. And so they practice this thing called betrothal. And I will say, when they believe in betrothal David, my husband is the only one who actually ever did betrothal I think everyone figured out wow, that doesn't work.
Speaker 1:But it worked for you so far.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I mean everyone's out of the house now.
Speaker 1:They're all old and you no one's not everyone's married, but they're all out of the house. So if you don't, if you didn't date him, like what did you guys, how'd you?
Speaker 2:discover that you might want to get married no, you have to talk to each other on the phone or we did talk on the phone, um, yeah, we did talk on the phone, um, and then he wasn't supposed to talk to me on the phone. He realized. So I mean the whole thing was kind of dumb because I lived in my, like I was working at the Mall of America at the time, at Express, and you know he was doing construction and like I mean it was just I don't even know. This is such a weird story. But so I thought it was normal to talk to people on the phone. For him it was weird. So then he stopped talking to me and then he tried to like everything was kind of, you know, like if you read about something and then you try to implement it, like that was what they were trying to do, but it's so not real, like it's not the reality. So, unfortunately for us, it was like horrible because he was trying to do things that would like make his parents happy and it just wasn't working. Like I lived on my own, my parents were divorced, I didn't even talk to my mom, my dad lived like far away with my stepmom, who didn't like me, and they're like trying to make my dad be involved, right, and so he goes and he asked my dad you know, can I pursue your daughter? And he's like I don't care, you know. So the whole thing was just like weird, but anyways. So I don't even know how we got off onto that, but that's how we met was through my brother, or my sister and his brother, who married for 20 years and then they got divorced. In-law the good daughter-in-law I don't think. No, they don't like me at all. I am like I am not the daughter-in-law. They like they wish I was, you know, still at home with the kids. Oh, that's how we got on to this.
Speaker 2:So I stayed home and we had seven kids, my first three, my oldest was two when my third was born, so they were very, very close in age, um, and I really loved it. Like I loved being a mom. I love staying home. We did a lot of gardening, we raised chickens, we did seed saving, we did all this stuff and it was like kind of a fun world. But I went to a charter business high schools downtown St Paul. We had to graduate with tons of hours working for big corporations. Like I just loved business and marketing and so my heart was always there and my husband had his own business, but we didn't do things the same way and it was actually worse for me to help him with his business than it was for me, so I just stayed out of it.
Speaker 2:And then, okay, so 2020, 2021, somewhere around there we decided that I should like he could kind of tell that I like I loved being with my kids, but there was still a piece of me that was missing. And so he's like why don't you get your realtor's license? That's something that you can do while you still have kids. And so I kind of strategized and I was like how can I do this? Because I knew that I didn't want to be a mom that worked from home but just ignored my kids. I was like I have to. If I'm going to do this, I have to be able to homeschool my kids through my business, and we had already done unschooling or delight directed learning, where we didn't teach from textbooks or sit at a table Like we just thankfully, I had so many homeschool mom mentors when you know from my husband's parents group where they would all get together and the reason they homeschooled was they didn't want the traditional public school experience where, kind of like right now, what we're facing is people don't want their kids in public school, but they also are trying to recreate public school at home and I'm like that's not good. So, anyways, we I just kind of came up with a blueprint like how was I going to do this?
Speaker 2:The twins were just born, so they were really young and kind of came up with a plan of, okay, this is how we'll do implement math, and like my kids would go to work with my husband doing construction already. So we had an idea a little bit of how this would work. But yeah, we just like it's just delight directed learning, so we really only teach them things that they're interested in. So, like my daughter really loves design and she's super organized type A's, so she does things like that in my business that she enjoys doing. And then, like my son is really into design, he's learning how to make videos so for like flying a drone and doing those kinds of things. So we've just figured out, you know, and my little girls help write the cards, like to my clients for handwriting. So that's kind of how we do it.
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Speaker 2:That was my plan, and it's worked pretty well. I'm the busiest I've ever. Ever been before, though, and so I'm you know you're kind of constantly reevaluating how do I do this? So I just hired an assistant because I'm not willing to put my kids on the back burner for the business, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. I mean, I'm just imagining you like carting these seven kids around to oh, we have a house showing, let's go, and you all roll out in the bus and we do have a 15 passenger van, but yeah, I haven't taken all of them with me for a long time, but it's nice because my kids.
Speaker 2:My clients, most of them, have kids, so I'll take whatever age range my other clients have. And then they have somebody to talk to, which gives the parents like an opportunity to walk around without their kids hanging on them, that's awesome, that's so cool.
Speaker 1:So I mean, yeah, there's so much that you can get into just from the marketing aspect to the financials. I mean just teaching your kids how it works, you know, to buy a house and what's like, what's the market like and okay, this can house can be worth this, you know this year. But the market could drop, and so I mean that are you like consciously thinking about that as you educate them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, basically everything is constantly learning. You know it's we teach. Making breakfast is homeschool, even you know. So, like one of my, my kids cook from a very young age. So even my seven year old she knows how to. You know, we talked about fractions and we'll add the amount of cups of flour we need, based on like one third plus one third plus one third. Okay, now we got to our one cup.
Speaker 2:So it's not even just through the business that we homeschool, but it's just kind of the practical applications. And I will say that the best part about this is the kids are really learning like how to be the change they want to see in the world, how to learn real life, like principles and applications. Like my two oldest just got back from New Zealand, from 10 days visiting my sister who lives out there, and you know like they learned how to do homeschool while they were in New Zealand. But when you say homeschool, it's so you're not sitting down doing a textbook, right, you're just like learning about the world, like that's your geography class and that's, you know, phi Ed, right, you know, you just figure it out, but so do you guys have any requirements in Minnesota that you have to report?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we do have. There is standardized testing that you have to take every year In Minnesota. You're not required to report it to anybody, but you're supposed to have it available if you, you know, if somebody asked, but I've never seen anybody ever get asked. And then they do have like suggested requirements. So they have like okay, if you graduate, you should have this and this and this. But the parent is the final say and so you get to say when your kids graduate. So I do know some parents that graduate their kids when they're 16. And it's not because they took a bunch of extra credits, it's just they decided they were done and they graduate them. Wow.
Speaker 1:So all right. So when you look at like their future I mean I know right now like I'm not a big one anymore to push the four year degree because it's kind of a waste in a lot of instances but sometimes it's necessary what does that, like long term, look like for you, since you have a 16 year old now you know? And how do you prepare them, like when you do this sort of unschooling approach, to make sure that if, like, they were to go into a university, that they're going to be okay with that, as far as even learning from a textbook, knowing how to manage?
Speaker 1:I mean they know how to manage time, probably more than any other kid does. But, um, you know, or is that even their goal? Are they like from the get-go?
Speaker 2:like no, mom, I don't even want that, don't worry so we've pretty much told them we'll support them in whatever they want to do. Noah next year will be old enough to do post-secondary, which is where you get to take college credits for free while you're doing high school. So it's called dual enrollment, so you can graduate with an associate's degree. Pretty much he hasn't wanted to so far, so we haven't had to face that yet. I'm not really interested in pushing for college, but if they wanted to I would support them. And they are knocking the standardized tests out of the park and we're actually focusing a little bit more on relationship building and connections and networking, because I think that that gets you a lot further than just a degree. So that's kind of what we emphasize at this point and how to have the right. We do a lot of character building and character training. So like work, ethic, grit, you know, just critical thinking, those are the kind of the top three things we actually teach at our house and that's easy to teach through every day.
Speaker 2:Grit is, um, joey, I'll tell you our little family motto of grit Um, it's doing what you don't want to do to be who you know, who you should be.
Speaker 2:So immersing yourself in difficult situations, like one of the things they know is we signed up for a homeschool co-op. We really didn't like, found out it wasn't a good fit, but you didn't have the option to try it out, and so we're finishing out being there and paying a boatload of money and fulfilling a bunch of volunteer hours because we committed to it and seeing it through, you know, and so they see that example, like the financial cost and how you should be careful before you sign up or something, or just you know the sibling relationships, right, like, we used to run a homeschool co-op in our town and that was something. Grit was a class that we made the kids take and it was putting all the students in a room and immersing them in a challenge that they had to solve together before they were allowed to leave the class and go on to the next one, and so that was their favorite class and that was really, really fun.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's cool. I've never heard anyone talk about it like that. That's really neat, yeah, so. So, even with your unschooling approach, they do really well on the standardized tests.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh yeah. I mean my kids. So we taught them how to read at a really, really, really young age. So they are all exceptional readers. They check out 27 books at a time from the library. We have bookshelf upon bookshelf. I mean we can't even keep enough books around, which is why it's so hard to spend like 25 bucks on a book, because they just read through them so fast.
Speaker 2:And I remember going to a homeschool convention once and complaining to one of the speakers like we can't get our kids to stop looking at books. And he was like you're crazy, like I would give anything for my kid to not want to put a book down. So there is a woman who goes around I can't remember her name, but she goes around all over the country to teach people how. You don't even need textbooks, you don't need classes, you don't need anything, just teach your kids by giving them books to read. And they're not even like educational books. I don't even know what they are because we didn't use her approach. But I was amazed because we were up north camping and my daughter was like oh, we're going north. We were like on a hike somewhere and I was like how do you know we're going north, she's like, oh, the moss is growing on this side of the rocks. And I was like, how do you know that? And she was like, oh, it's from the underground railroad book I read.
Speaker 1:So I mean like it works my son would be like well, it's from wild kratts yeah, I mean there's that too, but same thing, yeah, no kidding, um, but yeah, they just read so much that they um learn so much just from fiction books, non-fiction books.
Speaker 2:A bunch of them are into history. Some have asked for history to be on the standardized testing, which honestly, I think the world could use a little history in their standardized testing, because it's only being rewritten right now it could use the right history, not just what they want to cherry pick and how they want to put the spin on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and.
Speaker 2:And they're teaching me so much like I don't even know. So we were kind of joking around at our house once and one of the kids said something and I said that we were running like a dictatorship or something. We were just joking around. He goes no, this is a and you probably know what this term is. I don't, which is a little bit embarrassing.
Speaker 1:But he's like no, it's a oligarchy or oligarchy. I don't know what it is and I was like yeah.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't know the definition.
Speaker 1:I only know it Cause uh, I don't know what's that one guy that was on Fox he used to always talk about.
Speaker 2:I don't know, but if he's, I mean he was joking right, cause he was upset with, however, we were making the decisions to do something that he didn't like. But there's no, they are so smart and I think it's because we just do so much with them, um, where they're constantly at our sides whatever we're doing in real life, so they're learning how to have real adult conversations, learning how to interact. You know, we make them make the foot like I have to make a point that my kids call the dentist or they call the doctor, whatever whoever it is, to make appointments. If we need to get, like, a refrigerator filter, we have to order for directly from their factory. So we make them do those phone calls. We make them do the research if we need to fix something, or you know. So, when you kind of, it's so much easier to do it yourself, but when you make your kids do it, they really learn so much.
Speaker 1:That is so true, like I'm just thinking. This made me think of my sister. Her oldest had graduated and he got like a speeding ticket or something and they mailed him the little thing which I think says like, are you pleading guilty or not? And if not, I think you got to show up at this date. So I think he put in guilty and then slipped cash in the envelope. And then he said to her how do I fill out the envelope to mail this back? And she's like wait what?
Speaker 2:are you?
Speaker 1:mailing and she's like you don't put cash in here. And we, like he didn't know how to fill out the envelope, but he had graduated high school and I'm talking like in the last five years. It's not like he's a stupid kid, they just never taught him that. And then I think, as parents, when you send your kid off to school all day, I mean they're gone from, it's dark in the morning when they leave and dark when they come back from sports and stuff Like you don't think about like Hmm, what didn't they teach you today that I need to fill in the gaps with? That's why I wrote the, I wrote the book. Let's talk emergencies Cause, like I'm, like, kids don't even know their parents first and last names. So you know, they just know like mom and dad, but there's nothing out there saying like you've got to train them how to call 911 if your cell phone's locked or if grandma collapses and you know all she has is a cell phone.
Speaker 1:Like how to call 911 from her cell phone? But yeah, you're right, we don't think about that. That's brilliant to have them call and make their dentist appointments. What age do you start doing that at?
Speaker 2:I mean pretty young. I mean they all want to be on the phone and call their my sister, who lives in a different country, or you know one of their friends. So if that's, I think, as soon as they start expressing interest in using the phone, they're going to have to do the things they don't like to, and like my 15 year old. So my kids have all worked for us. We're both entrepreneurs, but we really want them to learn how to submit and respect other authority too, and so my daughter will be 15 in June. So in Minnesota, you can work for people when you're 14. And this is what you might actually find interesting.
Speaker 2:I had three business owners in New Prague one for a garden center, one for the lifeguard position at the local indoor pool.
Speaker 2:I can't remember what the other one was, but they all called me because I used to run this homeschool co-op in our town and they said we need more homeschoolers to work for us, because there's a difference in the kids who are homeschooled than the ones who are not, which isn't a general statement.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying that there's not good workers in public school or that all homeschoolers are good, but I do think it's interesting that they want homeschoolers to work for them. So my daughter is going to be 15 and she loves gardening and doing the kind of homesteading stuff. So she had to call her today, this lady who inquired about homeschoolers working for her company, and she was like what do I say? I don't know what to do. She was like terrified. She didn't even know like how she should leave a message, which I understand. A job is, you know, intimidating, but so that was kind of a fun experience for her and all my daughter wanted to do was text her though I'm like you are not going to text her, like you can call, you can leave a message and if she texts you back.
Speaker 1:That's one thing, but you're not going to have your first impression be a text message, right, and that's so important. I mean you just think of the kids today. I mean they won't even pick up a phone call from a number that they don't know. And I get it. There's so much spam. But if it's the same area code, chances it's. You know, yeah, um, you know, and you've applied for a job and now you're getting a phone call. Chances are it's the job, so pick it up but yeah, I know people.
Speaker 1:I remember a co-worker of mine telling me that his daughter and her friends would not pick up the phone call so they kept missing these job opportunities. Um, apparently they didn't listen the messages either, but uh, that's so, so, so, okay. Oh, I had a question from all right, I'm thinking back to like you started doing the realtor stuff when your babies were just born. How did you juggle that? Did you wait until they were all asleep and or until your husband was home from his business to watch them so that you could get your stuff done? How does it physically work?
Speaker 2:So to get your real estate license, you either have to go in person to a university or you can do it online. I did the online routes and I just purposed to do it after the kids were asleep. So I did all my education and I'm because I raised myself, I'm a no excuses, just results, personality, I'm very driven, a self-starter, all these things. So like really high standards for myself. And you could only do X amount of hours every day, like the computer system would shut down if you tried to do more, so I maxed out my hours. Anyways, all that to say, I got all my education done and my first, so my first 30 hours that's when you can take your state and national exam and I did that, I think, in three weeks, which was like record time.
Speaker 2:I took the test, I passed both exams on my first try and you have to like this is kind of the crazy part when you become a realtor, you have to get like your veins scanned and your eyes scanned because they want to make sure you're not a felon, um, cause they don't want, you know, felons going in people's houses. So I wasn't a huge fan of that, but it's fine, I get it, I guess. So I did that. And then you have to go take another 60 hours of tests and exams that like not exams but like unit tests and whatnot. And then when you're done with all that and those are all proctored, I got my license and that was six weeks total. So like record breaking, like most people have not ever done that. So I did that because I knew time was of the essence if I was going to make it happen.
Speaker 1:Seven kids.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, I couldn't even get dinner on the table before 8pm tonight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I don't like cooking in general though, so that was like I hate cooking. I was never a cook. That's one of the reasons my in-laws don't like me very much, but so we probably just did boxed macaroni and cheese. But I, so I would probably start around. We don't go to bed early. The kids stay up with us till everyone goes to bed, so it'd probably be around like 10 that I would start, and I don't think I would go to bed till four in the morning.
Speaker 2:And it was only you know, that's why I pushed through so hard was I didn't want to do that forever, because that's hard. So I did that, and then I just you know I it was important to me. I joined a brokerage that I could do my own thing. I didn't join a team, I didn't do anything. I just said this is how I want my business to be done. I'm going to be different than everybody else and I'm not going to look at how another, like a single realtor, did what they did. I didn't know how anyone else ran their business, but my brokerage would also make sure I was in compliance and I just focused on the way I would market and run my business Like I wasn't going to show up in a suit right, like I got seven kids, but I make things happen and I was going to work really hard. So usually I'm in jeans and I don't know what, whatever shoes I'm wearing, in a, in a top. But my community voted me business of the year.
Speaker 2:First year I was in business and and in a small town you're probably somewhat familiar with this like if there's a realtor in town, everyone knows who they are, they've been there forever and that's who people use, and so I knew that I was already in a flooded market with established realtors, but I wasn't trying to like be competition to them or anything like that.
Speaker 2:It was just this is I wanted. I was going to do things a different way, and so my community community also gave me the name the Thoughtful Realtor. So that's my name, the Thoughtful Realtor, and it's about growing a community, not just a paycheck. So then my community voted me. I was the only woman who was even voted into an award category that year and that was really fun. And then the next year I was top 10 realtor in my state with my brokerage. So that was even cooler and, yeah, just like lots of cool things. So it it's, it's possible, and you just have to be really intentional every day. You almost have to take it one day at a time, otherwise you'll get overwhelmed and probably quit.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I'm just thinking like having kids doing it yeah, like you're doing all that till four in the morning. You got babies, so they're probably waking up, needing to be fed and you're so what you know? You're getting interrupted and then you get back to the desk. Where was I so? I can't even imagine like you made it through that, but congratulations that is awesome it was tough.
Speaker 2:But again, like I think I just have a really high tolerance for stuff too, because just how I grew up.
Speaker 1:But yeah, yeah so, okay, how do you manage? Like the food, then, if you you don't even like cooking, you probably utilize the kids, especially now that they're older. But, like, how did that even work, even in the last five years? Do you have the babies? You know all these kids. They're eating. What is what does your meal plan look like? I wish we had a meal plan we've tried.
Speaker 2:I would love like if any one of your listeners actually has a meal plan. That's like easy, like like we would make meal plans but we just never made the food. So where you'd?
Speaker 1:like go grocery shopping?
Speaker 2:I don't know, we would just I don't know. I mean, it's such a good question that should have like an easy answer. My husband does like he'll come from home from work and cook, or my oldest son loves home cooked meals, so he would often do something. Everyone just kind of pitches in. If nobody started cooking and somebody's hungry, then somebody will just start making the food. We try to eat pretty healthy. We grind our own wheat, we have a Nutramil, we eat healthy. We just don't have a plan. We're totally the type B family.
Speaker 1:That's so funny. I know it's like my biggest thing. I mean, I love and I've tried to make meal plans too, like, let's you know, every Thursday I sit down and like, okay, what are we having every night for the next week and what do I need for those ingredients and what do we already have in the pantry. So I'm not overbiting, but still it's like just to figure out what you're doing for seven nights of meals that you didn't just have the last seven nights is so hard, especially when you're getting interrupted and you're. So I'm like, okay, I'm just going to have like 14 meals and we're just going to rotate through them all. But still I have yet I've like put stuff together. But yeah, it actually implementing it has been hard. Yeah, I'm with you.
Speaker 2:I just don't have there's not nine people in my house and I find it hard with four. Yeah, I don't know. I can't even tell you what we ate yesterday. I don't know. We've all we eat every day. I just don't know how it ends up happening.
Speaker 1:Somebody just ends up doing it that is so funny and are there like always dishes?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is so funny, and are there?
Speaker 1:like always dishes? Yeah, are there always dishes in your sink with nine people in your house?
Speaker 2:Well, my third oldest. It's his job to do dishes after every meal, so he does the dishes and we rotate that out seasonally. So currently that's his job, but we don't always make it that way, like, at one point it was my oldest, and then it was my second oldest, and now it's on my third oldest oldest and now we're transitioning to it being my fourth oldest job what are some of the other jobs that they take on?
Speaker 1:what are some of the other jobs that they take on in the household?
Speaker 2:um, my oldest has switched to the laundry so his job is just to keep it running, because he's got the most going on, so he just makes sure everything goes through the washer and the dryer. Um, my oldest daughter her job is to unload the dishwasher. In the morning she's supposed to unload the dishwasher, the oldest loads it. But even worse, transitioning now our twins and our seven-year-olds so our five-year-olds and seven-year-olds do the unloading of the dishwasher. Now they're like learning how to do it and then our seven-year-old sweeps. We really should have more responsibilities for them. Like when we first had our first three so my almost 16, almost 15, and my 13-year-old they had so much more responsibilities than my younger kids do now. I think that's just what happens naturally, right, like you end up getting more relaxed as time goes on. So I wish we had more chores, because they had tons of chores growing up.
Speaker 1:You guys know I am a big fan of the Tuttle Twins. I had Connor Boyack, the writer of these books, on episode 24. I reached out to his company asking to let me be an affiliate because I strongly believe in their books and their message. In the H5 through 11 book series, which I read to my son all the time I mean, he actually asks us to read these books with him. Book five, road to Serfdom, talks about what happens to a local town with local businesses when corporations start moving in.
Speaker 1:Book six, the Golden Rule, talks all about Ethan and Emily's experience at summer camp through a series of cheating and manipulation on certain races that they're required to complete. It talks about how the golden rule of treating others how we want to be treated ourselves is how we all should be conducting our lives. Education Vacation talks about John Taylor Gatto and the creation of the school system and what it was actually intended to do, which you get to learn about by following Ethan and Emily on a trip to Europe. And book 11, the Messed Up Market, takes you through the journey of kids trying to create small businesses as they learn all the laws and rules that government has put in place to actually make it very difficult for them. You learn all about interest savings versus borrowing, low interest rates versus high interest rates and supply and demand, and these are just some of the books in that series.
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Speaker 2:But we also had like homesteading things. So there was like gathering the chickens and cleaning out the chicken coop and all of those things um doing the gardening. But we don't do that as much anymore yeah, our chicken coop.
Speaker 1:It's pretty gross, but I don't even want to send my son in there. He wants to clean it out, but it's like there's so much ammonia from there. I'm like, no, I feel like you're gonna get a disease or something. I'll let me get the disease. So, because he won't even wear a mask for that, we've like just put such a bad like inkling about masks on him so that he's just like, no, I'm not wearing a mask for that.
Speaker 2:I'm like, well, this it might actually work, for these are particles that can't get through it's gross in there is like when we don't have a chicken coop at our new house. But yeah, it does get gross if you're not on top of it, for sure all right.
Speaker 1:So what are? What are some of the other things that you were kind of thinking about, that you wanted to talk about while we had you here, as we're running up on 40 minutes or so, oh sure, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I just like I just kind of wanted to inspire and encourage the person who feels like they want to homeschool. They have a passion for you know, I think for me, recognizing that I had a passion for business and that that doesn't have to die or go on the wayside, but that there is a way to do it, like with your kids and homeschooling. I just think that it's important to learn that you don't have to and you push this on your Instagram page a lot Like you don't have to sit at a desk you shouldn't even sit at a desk bringing the public school to your house, um but that they're like don't underestimate the power of just like teaching your kids alongside you and including them in what you're doing, and like how much they learn through that, and then being a realtor is a great way to do it. If anybody's interested in being, you know, doing that like that's such a great way to learn all the things in public school. So that was just what I wanted to kind of encourage people in.
Speaker 1:I love that. Oh, you know what I was going to ask you too. How did you get your kid? You said that you got all your kids reading at early ages, and so you know, especially with homeschooling, you hear the whole like well, wait until they're ready and their synapses are connected and don't push it, because if you push it they're not gonna like it and then they won't end up being kids that love reading. So what was your approach to that? And then how did you get them to actually love reading where they like? Do you guys read all the time? Do you do screens at all? Or they got nothing else to do other than open a book? Yeah, no.
Speaker 2:So it's funny, I don't. I wish I had it in here. I don't know where our homeschool books are. We we moved like six months ago and some stuff still in boxes, but when Noah was little. So my mother-in-law actually had this great reading program. I'm so thankful she came across it because I feel like all my friends have overcomplicated teaching their kids how to read, like they have these little mini flashcards and all these things and their kids struggle and they're so upset they don't get it and I'm like, oh my goodness, I just want the world to know about this program. So I'll tell you about it.
Speaker 2:But the way it started out was there's this woman named Char Lockhart, I think it was. She was extremely passionate about teaching kids how to read, but she did it with like a big chalkboard and she'd have the kids first learn how to do it in. I think she taught does your consonants and then one vowel. So your first week or however you break it up learning is B, d, f, g, a, and so you're learning the sounds of those and look how to write those. And then, once you have those down, then you go to the next five consonants and vowel, and then after that you do your blends but she just breaks it down in such an easy way. But it was was like super old school. She typed it up on her typewriter and it was in this orange book called um, something phonic I can't remember. I'll send you a picture of it because you have to see this or this thuring binder, and um, it had an audio cassette tape in it. But then this company called and you might have heard of them before reading horizons. There's other horizons programs, but that's not this one reading horizons and they bought, after char died, they bought her, her, the rights to her program, essentially, and then they turned it into a digital program online, and the customer service with this company is beyond exceptional, so good. And they basically just took what she did and sort of modernized it.
Speaker 2:And so I didn't use the orange theory binder with my last three, my most recent three, whatever you call them, right, I'm done having kids, but my youngest three, that's what I'm trying to say. And so if you go into Reading Horizons, they do the exact same things. It is in front of a computer, which I'm not a huge fan of, but we don't do anything else in front of the computer. So that's fine, but the best thing about it is like teaching my kids to read was like I don't know. It was super easy.
Speaker 2:But I also love that with my older kids, I can focus on them, and my younger kids can do this without anything. So they are done with the like big first part of the program, and they just brought me books and they just started sounding them out and reading them. So all I had to do was help guide them through what they knew, so they'd start sounding out the words, and then I was just able to refine it a little bit. I'm like this is the program. Nobody. I think people like to do things the hard way, though, because people prefer the flashcards, they prefer the little tiny, you know whatever, antonio, this program I think every parent should, and, and it works really well with dyslexic kids too. I have one kid that started out reading backwards and they just didn't get it for a while, but it was easy for them to fix. So, anyways, if there's anything anybody should ever buy, as a homeschool parent, I am telling them they should go to Reading Horizons, because it is beyond exceptional. All right.
Speaker 1:I'm going to give that a try because we are, yeah, my son's six, and we've been, you know, trying, we've been working on it for, you know, two years now and it's, it's not like he's not making progress, he sure is. But I just don't want it to be difficult. Like, I want him to enjoy it and it just seems like you know, I keep switching around what we're doing, enjoy it. And it just seems like, you know, I keep switching around what we're doing and you know, and I don't want it to look like school at home either, which, like you know, I, like I really liked the all about reading when we did the pre-reading course, I liked it. But that is, it's school at home and that's fine. But like, yeah, there's I don't know I now I would love to have something where he could be a little bit more independent with it, because then it could be like okay, go work on that while I do this, or something.
Speaker 2:And my kids they wake up, my twins they wake up every day asking to do it. They want to do reading all the time. They love it so much. The way the program has been designed is remarkable and I think not enough people know about it.
Speaker 1:I've never heard it. This is the first I've heard of it and I've talked to a hundred homeschoolers.
Speaker 2:I know. But people I think people just like you know there's so many affiliate programs out there that people make money off of, so those are the ones that people hear about. I'm not aware of any affiliate marketing with this one. Maybe there is, I don't know. Maybe I can be the first know, maybe I can be the first, I'll be their affiliate marketer for them.
Speaker 1:It's just so. Yeah, this is cool, right, and I've asked that too because I have the curriculum series. I mean, I literally interview people just on curriculum. No one's ever talked about reading horizons, um, but yeah, I've said that like, okay, all about reading and the good and the beautiful. Are they really the best programs or are they the ones with the best marketing strategy? Yeah, I don't know. I I liked them both, but I don't know if there isn't anything better, you know yeah, um, so I will definitely try this out.
Speaker 2:I like that. We have, like our family has families that have gone before us that have homeschooled all of their children and graduated them. They have successful businesses and they have all like they all do things Like we learned how we do what, the way that we do things. We learned from those families that went before us and I'm just so grateful for that, because I know there's families that are just trying to do their hardest. They want to do what's right and they are doing all this research and figuring it out. I'm like you guys, it's really just so much easier than you're making it, and Reading Horizons is definitely one of those things, so you should try it out. It's not expensive and their customer service is truly incredible. Give it a shot. I would love to hear what your son thinks of it. Oh, awesome?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that would be great. And then so the second part of that was how did you get them to just love reading Like, is there a secret?
Speaker 2:I hated reading growing up. I wasn't a reader, I didn't read, so they certainly didn't learn it from me, I guess I just I think it's the program that my mother-in-law taught them, like the Shars program they once you, I think, because it's not a stressful way to learn how to read. They have the desire to read. When it's being pushed and you feel like you're not enough or you're not learning it right, or you're being told you know you're dyslexic and so you can't get it right, you kind of just lose the excitement for it. But if it's something that they're learning to do in a fun like the girls waking up begging to do their stuff and then they bring me books then they're sounding them out and reading them to me. Like I didn't teach them that, I didn't try and push that. It's just something, I think, because they enjoyed the process. That's how it happened.
Speaker 1:I don't know, that's my best guess yeah, I'm sorry, and it sounds like you. Let them read the things that they want to read.
Speaker 2:So, whether it's fiction or non-fiction, we do have rules about what they can read. Um, yeah, they know there's things that we don't want them to read.
Speaker 1:So they'll bring me books and say you would want me to get this right.
Speaker 2:So like we don't do magic at our house, kind of stuff like that. So there's no magic, there's no. You know, we try to be really careful. And there's books. There's books like the Sugar Creek Gang was revised at one point. Those are really fun books for boys and at one point they were revised. So we have all the books from the series when it was first made, and so that's really important too, because people come in, change it up and then it's no longer really that good, because a lot of our books focus on character building. But yeah, we let them pick out what they want. It just has to fall under our criteria too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that makes sense. That makes sense, but you're not like here. Read this book on the aztecs, you know if they're not into it.
Speaker 2:I've never given them any books to read, ever. They all choose their books. So the boys tend to pick, so our kids from. So my 10 year old reads chapter books she's really into like babysitters club, hardy boys, nancy, drew. And then my older kids, um, like olivia she's, she reads like books this thick and I don't even know what they are. But, um, they check it there, do, they go through them so fast they can't even keep up. But then my boys really steer to towards just his real life history. Like malachi will read textbooks for casual reading, like you know, the big books.
Speaker 1:So there's your knock grass history, you know like, okay, that's amazing, that's awesome, all right, uh, where can people find you? If they, you do I. I like your Instagram page. I was looking at it today and actually you gave me an cause. I was, you know, you have one of your pinned posts, kind of like what you didn't know about me, and I'm like, oh, she sounds so interesting and I was like, geez, I should have this.
Speaker 1:I paid, I paid this company to like help me organize my Instagram page a couple months ago, and so they did that for me. They like interviewed me and I didn't know what this was going to turn out like, but they made like a post, kind of like that, and I'm like, oh well, that's what you were going to do. Like I could have done that Me and chat GPT could have like hooked up and made a nice post for Canva, but no, but they, they did some other things too that that worked out well, but it's just kind of funny Cause I'm like, oh, I love the way yours is put together, so now I'm going to have to copy on that.
Speaker 2:But I paid. I pay a coach a lot of money to give me guidance on that kind of stuff. I don't focus a lot on growing my followers when we're just like nurturing the people who do find me and that was my best performing post and my coach told me it would be because she's tried it on hers and then everyone asked for me to do it again. So I've been trying to make you know 12 things. You don't know me brown too but I haven't had time yet. Yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, so I'll have to put that and you have it like pinned up to the top.
Speaker 2:So that's one of the first things people see. Yeah, it's up there.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, no, I really like that. So, yeah, where can people find you? On Instagram or any social media?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I only use Instagram, and they can find me at thethoughtfulrealtor.
Speaker 1:And so where did they come up with thoughtful? You said that your community dubbed you that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I well I'm.
Speaker 1:I'm very intentional about making other people feel thought about and um well, you send thank you cards, so that might be where it came from.
Speaker 2:Thank you cards, we do thoughtful boxes, we just I'm really big about being the change that we want to see in the world and being super authentic and so just supporting a lot of local small businesses. I mean that's just like a whole nother conversation, but just really, really, really investing in people and making sure you're taking note of. Like you know, I know one of the one of the girls in town. She's 21. She started her own boutique on Main Street and she just celebrated her two-year anniversary and so knew her favorite coffee drink and ran across the street to the local Cedar Press Coffee instead of Caribou. Right, you get her favorite drink, you bring it over there. It's just stuff like that.
Speaker 2:But you're doing it all the time and I actually just hired my assistant. I know this sounds a little bit disingenuine because it's not me doing it, but there's just when you get to the point where your business is so big you have to get more people to help you. So I just hired an assistant to actually help me with all the people I couldn't get to. So the notes are still from me, like I text her what I want them to say, but now she will hand deliver things for me with a note from me, or she'll mail packages off that I've picked out. So just be. You know you have to expand to be able to keep going. There's just not enough time in the day for me to get to everybody personally, but it does come from me now. It's just somebody else delivering.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that. Okay, so I will link your Instagram and the Reading Horizons website in the show's description. Anything else that you want to let people know about that you're working on?
Speaker 2:They can DM me. If you're interested in being a realtor that homeschools their kids, you can send me a DM at the thoughtful realtor and we can chat Awesome.
Speaker 1:Awesome, Natalie. Thank you so much for joining me today. This has been so fun. I'm excited to try the Reading Horizons. I'm definitely going to do that and get on my post about how crazy my life has been.
Speaker 2:Yes, I can't wait All inspired by you, girl, I'm going to watch for it. Natalie, thank you for joining me. All right, have a good night. Thank you, you too.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of the Homeschool How-To. If you've enjoyed what you heard and you'd like to contribute to the show, please consider leaving a small tip using the link in my show's description. Or, if you'd rather, please use the link in the description to share this podcast with a friend or on your favorite homeschool group facebook page. Any effort to help us keep the podcast going is greatly appreciated. Thank you for tuning in and for your love of the next generation.