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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
#119: Homeschooled on a Boat— Now Homeschooling Her Daughter: Shellbe’s Incredible Story
What happens when you grow up homeschooled on a sailboat, then experience public school, only to return to homeschooling as a parent? Shellbe's remarkable journey offers a window into an educational path less traveled, filled with powerful insights for any parent questioning traditional education.
Born to parents who rejected conventional schooling, Shellbe spent her early years cruising the Bahamas on a sailboat. Her "classroom" was the open water, where learning to navigate charts, catch fish, and take responsibility weren't electives—they were survival skills. Using the Calvert School curriculum, her education blended formal academics with real-world application in ways most children never experience. "I knew responsibility," Shellbe reflects, recounting how she sailed dinghies with her toddler sister at just eight years old, learned to recover from capsizing, and developed problem-solving skills that have served her throughout life.
When Shellbe entered public school in seventh grade, the contrast was stark. The rigid bell schedule, curriculum gaps, and social dynamics created challenges that shaped her understanding of what education could and should be. Despite her strong foundation in reading and writing, she struggled when the system couldn't accommodate her learning style—an experience that would later inform her approach to teaching her own daughter.
Now homeschooling as a single parent, Shellbe has crafted an education for her daughter that honors both structure and freedom. With formal lessons sometimes just twice weekly, learning happens organically through exploration, measurement, and discovery. When her five-year-old spends a morning examining caterpillars with a magnifying glass, creating habitats, and measuring specimens, Shellbe recognizes this as valuable education that transcends textbooks.
Whether you're currently homeschooling, considering the leap, or simply curious about alternative educational paths, this conversation will challenge your assumptions about how learning happens and what truly matters in preparing children for a fulfilled life.
Connect with Shellbe:
Instagram and Facebook are @Vital.Roots.Coaching
Shellbe is offering a FREE masterclass on how to have an Empowered Pregnancy & Birth next Friday the 16th!!
What is the most important thing we can teach our kids?
HOW TO HANDLE AN EMERGENCY!
This could mean life or death in some cases!
Help a child you know navigate how to handle an emergency situation with ease:
Let's Talk, Emergencies! -and don't forget The Activity Book!
The Tuttle Twins - use code Cheryl15 for 15% 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, and with us today I have Shelby from Florida. Shelby was a homeschooled student herself and now homeschools her daughter, shelby, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. I'm really excited to tell this story.
Speaker 1:So let's start from the beginning. What even made your parents homeschool you in the first place?
Speaker 2:So that's such an interesting question because since you asked me months ago to come on and talk about my story, I've been talking to my parents about this more and my parents did not have a great experience in school themselves and they decided to go kind of against the grain in their own lives. So they bought a sailboat. They were like 19 and 20, probably and they bought a sailboat and the story is really cute because my dad comes and he's like honey, look what I got. And it was like a 21 foot sailboat and it was like all beat up and my mom's like what the hell is that? And he's like, come on, we're going to go cruising. And she's like what are you talking about? So fast forward. They were. They cruised on boats for 30 years, 40 years, 40 years, a long time.
Speaker 2:So with that lifestyle um, I was born when my mom was 25 and they just were like working a homeschool, absolutely, because they didn't have great experiences in school. So we cruised around the Bahamas my sister's four years younger than me so we cruised around the islands and we did a Calvert school homeschooling back then and it was. It was really awesome. I loved it and I felt like I learned so much. I don't want to jump to the part of you know, the next part where I went into public school and the transition there, but yeah, I was always homeschooled.
Speaker 1:So. So were you always living on a boat, or did they have like a home that you'd go to sometimes?
Speaker 2:No, we were, we lived on a boat until I was 13. Well, no, actually I correct, we had a little house on an island in the Bahamas, but I mean that might have been. That should have just been a boat, because it was literally, if you can imagine, a little Bahamian island shack. You know, it's all wide open, birds would fly through, lizards were crawling on the floor. It was very Swiss Family Robinson, minus the shipwreck in the beginning, so Swiss Family.
Speaker 1:Robinson, minus the shipwreck in the beginning. So I mean I have so many questions about just like, what do they do for money?
Speaker 2:If you don't mind me asking, no, of course, that is the number one question. It's usually how did you get food and how did you have money? So we and this can always be a multi-part podcast here, we can go all through all the things but we lived a very simple life. And when you don't have, you know this was in the 80s, so things were different with boating then when you don't have an electric bill, a cell phone bill, a cable bill, a car payment, then you think about how much money you don't need. So we would come to the Florida Keys and my mom would bartend, my dad would build boats. They'd stock up the boat with food and lots of beans and rice and canned goods and dad would do some maintenance on the boat and then we'd take off cruising and back then you didn't need a passport to be in the Bahamas. They were pretty fluid, pretty easy. So we stayed there for a while without coming back, like we'd have different stints. Then we did come back. They would just stock up the boat again.
Speaker 2:So we lived a very simple life. We caught rainwater. That's how we had water. Nowadays boats have water makers. Back then, literally it was just jugs, or however. My dad set it up and then we fished all the time spearfishing. My sister and I would just spend our days fishing and making little fires on the beach and cooking our food. It's crazy to think about when I tell the story. It's really amazing.
Speaker 1:I love it. That would be my son's dream to do that. Did you ever get caught in any storms?
Speaker 2:So not too bad. I mean, by the time I moved to Florida off of the boat I think we had um counted that I had we had been through like 13 hurricanes. But my dad is my dad's very weather smart, because again in the eighties he didn't have the weather channel, he didn't have YouTube. Um, we did do some boating. I did boating personally in my adult life, so that it was very different. So we had navigation. I didn't have to read the charts like my dad did.
Speaker 2:My dad can look at the sky and know exactly what the weather is doing. He used to listen to NOAA Weather Radio, which, if anyone listening knows what that is, they can totally understand this. It's a computer generated voice and he talks about like when he talks about the weather, it's literally coordinates and how the weather is moving. So you have to create this whole picture. So my dad was really really great at that. So we were. I mean, there were some times where we'd hunker down for a storm. We lived in Jamaica and we were there for the worst hurricane still on the scale in Jamaica. We were in a house for that one, though we were just visiting.
Speaker 1:So I feel like you guys. It's kind of exhilarating. Yeah, I feel like you guys were the first unschoolers, because I mean I just can't imagine with this lifestyle that you were really Like. Your mom was like okay, let's sit down for our book work from 8 to 12 today.
Speaker 2:No, and I mean, I remember it being structured in a sense, you know, probably like when I got more towards middle school, it was structured because the curriculum we had so it was Calvert School out of Massachusetts or something I don't remember Maryland, I don't know, but I would actually Massachusetts or something.
Speaker 2:I don't remember Maryland, I don't know, but I would actually write a paper or I would do a test and then we would mail it in which is so funny to think now Like we'd take the boat to the mainland, go to the post office I'm like geez, that would take forever and then mail it in and then the teacher would grade it with a red pen and then send it back to me. So whenever I've gotten asked a lot like well, how did you really know you were doing good, right? I'm sure us homeschool parents get that a lot Like but who's grading it? I mean, how do you really know? And I'm like the curriculum is set up that way. So we would send it in and then I would get my reports back, and I always love to write, I love to read. So that was the setup.
Speaker 2:But you're right, it was very unschooled. We would a typical day now granted, this is a long time ago, so I'm trying to remember exactly A typical day would be. We just wake up and put our bathing suits on, because we, you know, we're on a boat, and then we just sit down, and a lot of it was self-taught, you know, because that's how homeschooling really is, kind of set up the curriculum, and I remember that being even more so than what I'm running into homeschooling my daughter, more self-taught. So, yeah, we would just do. Maybe my parents say maybe two hours maybe, but I don't know, you know, I think parents forget what it was like 30, 40 years ago, you know. They're like, oh yeah, we were very rigid. I'm like, no, you weren't, and then we would be done, you know.
Speaker 1:And that is a testament to what I've heard, something that one of my guests had said a while back and it always stuck with me. They said I wish I could remember who. They said everything you need to know to be successful in life, you can learn in the high school years Everything before that can be play, and you'll end up, if not farther ahead, you'll end up. You know just at the same, probably farther ahead. But yes, the things that like you need to know to really survive in the world. Right, and I mean you guys were surviving. You knew how to fish and build a fire and you know so find food and water. I mean that's that's surviving. That is up until the last couple of decades. That is just how everybody survived for thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of years. And uh, well, that might be an exaggeration, I don't know how many thousands, but at least a few thousand.
Speaker 1:You know, like it's only recently that we have a grocery store. That because even I grew up with like we didn't go to like a Price Chopper or Walmart for groceries, there was like a corner store. And I'm in upstate New York, you know I went to like a city school but we still walked around the corner to get our meats, our you know vegetables, our fruit, and we probably made that trip every couple of days. So it wasn't like this one box store that you get everything at. And I mean I'm 41. So just in my lifetime, how much that's changed. And then my mother's and my grandmother's I mean that was like my grandmother's was like you're growing food. You know, in Poland you're growing what you're eating. You're not going to a grocery store for much. So it is it's so funny that you know people think the idea of homeschooling is such a foreign concept, but it's like what do you really need to know in life? You?
Speaker 1:need to know how to find food, which you learned from fishing, and how to make it, and how to get warmth and shelter. Yeah, what a beautiful way to grow up. It was just you and your sister.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and my sister and I my younger sister, and I think that you know. So I will fast forward a little bit and say that I was put into public school in the middle of seventh grade, so we can get into that in a second. But I want to say the comparison I knew life skills, like I literally knew responsibility, and that's what I. It's so cool that I have that and I'm able to teach my daughter that, and I watched my sister teach her daughters that. I let her do dangerous things safely and I think we talked about this when we were on, when you were on, fearless Motherhood with me. Because I knew responsibility. I mean I have pictures of myself. Um, because I knew responsibility, I mean I have pictures of myself.
Speaker 2:So I was five or six, have my little one and a half two year old sister in a little sail dinghy and I'm just sailing around the Harbor. And then, when she got a little bit older, I'm going to go ahead and give my parents credit and say maybe she was like four and I was eight. We would sail through the Harbor and we'd flip the dinghy and the people in the Harbor would say, oh my gosh, those kids over there, they just flipped the boat and my parents were like, oh, they're fine, they do that on purpose, because we knew my dad wanted us to know how to flip it back over.
Speaker 1:You know, with the mast and the sail up.
Speaker 2:And so we knew those responsibilities and my dad would say you know, if something happens with your sister, what are you going to do? Like we learned these life skills so quickly If the outboard dies throw the anchor, like immediately, and those things I just got chills thinking of that. Those things have transpired into my life and when I have been in situations that are I don't know, you got to think quick. I remember those and then I think it's beautiful too was the bond that my family of four had and the trust we had in each other, because there's no time for dad, I don't want to.
Speaker 2:It's like did you tie up the dinghy? Well, maybe, well, I don't know, it's not that it's yes or no. That's our car. Essentially, we're anchored out in a harbor. Did you tie it up? Did you tie it up properly? There's no time for BS, it has to be done. And so there was that level of trust between all of us and I think that, coming back to the homeschooling aspect of that because we were with them full time, which I think ultimately is one of the main reasons why we're homeschooling right, so that we are teaching our children we got to build those life skills and that bond as a family. I mean, I live on the property with my parents now, not because I have to, because I want to we have that great bond of trust and very tribal.
Speaker 1:So I think that's one of my biggest takeaways. So why did they put you in public school in seventh grade? Oh, drum roll.
Speaker 2:Okay. So my mom this is what I think. I've thought about this a lot since you and I talked. What I think is my mom had a medical scare. We were living in the islands. She had a really bad asthma attack and had to be life flighted to Florida and that was pretty scary for all of us, obviously, and back then I mean the Bahamas if any of the listeners have been there, you know it's out there, it's pretty far out. Well, where we lived was really far out in the islands and again, it was in the 80s. So that was scary.
Speaker 2:And when she came back from that she had a sense of like insecurity. Like she has seen a holistic doctor and she was doing well, but she had a sense of insecurity. And so my dad was like you know, we've lived this nomadic life for this long. I was about to turn 13. Sorry, I was about to turn 13. And my dad was like, okay, maybe I should like, let her have my wife have that white picket fence thing if that's what she wants to try. And my dad was like I don't know, I have two girls, you know, they're going to be teenagers and it's pretty sheltered out there, sheltered in a sense of like dad wanted us to have the best of both worlds. Like he wanted us to know what a mall was like, because that was big in our time in the eighties and early nineties. He wanted us to know current music so we could be quote, unquote, cool, you know, and kind of the know the normal things like go know what a Walmart is or how to how to really live in different societal situations.
Speaker 1:Hey everyone, this is Cheryl. I want to thank you so much for checking out the podcast. I'm going to keep this short and sweet because I know your time is valuable. I want to ask you a serious question Do your kids know what to do to actually save their life in an emergency? The most important thing we can talk to our kids about is knowing their first and last name, knowing mom and dad's first and last name, mom's phone number, dad's phone number, their address, what to do if they get lost, what to do if someone who's watching them has a heart attack, a stroke, an accident where they fall and your child needs to get help.
Speaker 1:We live in a world where there's no landline phones anymore, basically, and cell phones lock. Does your child know how to call 911 from a locked cell phone? It is absolutely possible, and my book demonstrates how to do that, whether it's an Android, whether it's an iPhone and, most importantly, it starts the conversation, because I was going through homeschooling curriculum with my kids, realizing that, gee, maybe they skim over this stuff, but they don't get into depth, so my child's not going to remember this should an accident occur, right? I asked a couple of teachers what they do in school and they said they really don't do anything either other than talk about what to do in a fire during the month of October fire prevention month. So I wrote a book because this is near and dear to my heart.
Speaker 1:I have had multiple friends that have lost kids in tragedies and I don't want to see it happen again if it doesn't have to. We were at the fair over the summer and the first thing I said to my son when we walked through that gate was what's my first and last name, what is your first and last name and what is my phone number? And if you get lost, what are you going to do? You can get my book on amazon and I will put the link in my show's description again. It's called let's talk emergencies and I really hope you'll check it out because there's just no need to be scared when you can choose prepared so that was the initial um.
Speaker 2:So we moved to north florida because my parents were familiar with that area. And then here we are, it's 1992. We're on five acres in the woods and we have home videos of us in our bathing suits with our ducks in the yard, because we literally are like we live in our bathing suits, like where's the water? And um and my I was like I want to be normal, I want to go to school, because we had seen um like 90210 or something like that. And so my dad was like, oh, he's very anti the system, you know. But again he's like what are you gonna do if you're gonna homes? And I think this is a good takeaway. So listen up, mamas and daddies. If you you're going to homeschool, you have to be doing something with your children. There has to be something else going on. I think it would be difficult I'm not saying don't do it, but I think it would be difficult to homeschool in a neighborhood where your children are the only homeschooled children and the only things for them to do outside of school for those two hours is video games or watching TV. You know there has to be, you have to have a garden, you have to have hobbies and things for them to do. So back then we didn't have homeschool co ops, you know, we didn't have things for us to get involved in. So the kids in our area were very rural area. They were all going to school.
Speaker 2:So my dad made the difficult decision. He put us in public school and I remember it was the middle of seventh grade. Now my sister had never been away from me. Oh, I have to. I have to digress. I went to school for a second in third grade. I forgot about that, but I'll continue. So my sister had never been away from me. I'm put into public school. My sister goes to the elementary school. I go to the middle school. I'm crying my eyes out. My little sister's like this is cool, let's go check this out. I'm like you're taking my sister away, you're separating us. I don't want to be normal anymore, but I did it.
Speaker 2:And then my experience in the classroom was difficult because I went from and I don't even know if it was just the one-on-one, but it was the curriculum change. The textbooks are different and I remember looking through and like I don't know how accurate this is, but this is just a memory. Like the answers were in the back of the book. You know, like the glossary or whatever, like for the vocab words or something were in the back of the book. And I was kind of looking around like did you guys know? The answers were in the back of the book. Like in my book you had to read the whole chapter to get the answers to the question, you know. So I'm like well, that's weird. And so I'm going to go back real quick because I forgot.
Speaker 2:I had a little stint of third grade. We were in the Keys and my mom had a moment where she was like maybe she needs to be socialized and go to school and it's weird to say this now because my parents are so not like this anymore. But I went to third grade for like three weeks and it was awful and I cried every day. But my mom said you said I really want to do this. So I tried to push you and say, honey, you said you want to do this, so I need you to give it a good chance. And I remember crying and the teacher said Shelby, come write your name on the board, because you're just not listening, or something like that. And I was like I don't know how to write my name on the board. What does that mean? And that's it. That's all I remember from the whole experience, but it was awful and yeah, so that's a little tidbit of the why we did that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's got to be a big change. I mean, the curriculum is did that? Yeah, that's gotta be a big change. I mean the the curriculum is one thing. How did it work out with the other students, like, were you able to easily make friends? Did you eventually? Did you finish out 12th grade in school?
Speaker 2:I did so, um, I I like I said, I've thought about this a lot and I there's a lot of emotion attached to this. So when I was thinking about doing this, I kind of wanted to to touch on that a little bit, versus just the curriculum side of it, because I came from a country and I think I think this might be a little bit valid I came from a country, primarily a black country, and then I'm put into North Central Florida, somewhat racist back then. That was very confusing to me, you know, because we are in the South. So that was very confusing. So here I am in school and it's like all of everyone that had started sports already played sports. So I wasn't going to be an athlete because I knew how to spearfish and sail and make fires and feed myself, right, but I don't know how to play softball.
Speaker 2:And then the racism was confusing to me because I and I'm going to say this in a very childlike way, okay, when I I was like I don't fit in here. And then I was like, ooh, black people, you're my family, right, and so I gravitated and I was like they became my closer friends. However, in this area that wasn't very accepted. So then I was confused and then I was confused by this racism that I was encountering. So that was difficult with making friends. I remember feeling embarrassed about my story because it wasn't normal, so I didn't really tell people like where I came from. Also crazy, because it's so freaking cool what I experienced as a child.
Speaker 1:What is your heritage?
Speaker 2:I mean I just grew up in the Bahamas Like I'm American, but I just mean coming from living on a boat.
Speaker 1:What is your mom and dad, though?
Speaker 2:They're white Americans.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you were encountering racism.
Speaker 2:Living that alternative lifestyle.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you were encountering racism against you or From the other side. Really From the way, because I mean, you definitely have a darker complexion. But yeah, I wouldn't. If you were in my school I wouldn't even know, like no, there's a black person, there's a white person. So I was just wondering how, like, who was being the racist and why would they even think that? Because you would think in Florida that it's actually a lot of people coming up from like Cuba and you know, I'm in a different part of Florida though, so I'm in North Florida.
Speaker 2:So that's basically South Georgia. So the reason I bring up the racism was because that was a thing that is taught and to me it's an experience that is taught and when you go through the public school system or you're around other children a lot like my daughters you know around a lot of different people. Yeah, I was getting. When I say racism, I mean from like like all the black kids hung out together and all the white kids hung out together, and that's just how it was. And so when.
Speaker 2:I became friends with someone because she sat next to me and I really liked her and we became friends. Then it was like, well, like maybe her mom didn't really love that she was hanging out with a white girl and I would go over to her house and that was a little bit weird. Or like you can't really have a black boyfriend because that's not really accepted here, so things like that. And so then that added on to, now I'm in a class of 30 kids. I'm not sure who the hell I'm supposed to be friends with, because I don't really know how to like. I was always very social, but I'm like I don't know in this situation.
Speaker 2:So the social aspect was difficult, um, along with learning the curriculum. And um, I want to say too that when I like, okay, so I'm learning. Something like math was always difficult for me in public school. So you know, you're going along. And then I'm like oh, I, I didn't catch. Like A plus B equals C, right, oh, I didn't catch what B was. And then the bell rings and they're like okay, shelby, we'll touch on that Monday. Well, now, it's Monday.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're not from that. You're like wait, if I'm in this and learning, I need to know why. Wouldn't you just tell me now?
Speaker 2:Right, and so I couldn't. That made me I fell behind. I fell behind in that sense, and so then that just kind of continued along and I also got a little bit defeated where I was just like nobody's freaking listening to me, nobody cares, you know, and so then I just was having fun. I was like, wow, look at all these friends, and then I'm making friends. But kind of knowing where to fit in also kind of always was there, I think a lot because of just when you I think maybe people that travel and move schools have the same experience, though I mean, if you move from California to New York, you've got to reinvent everything. So that was just my experience. But as far as the schooling goes, that was difficult for me because I could have done better.
Speaker 2:I know how to learn. I had a great foundation. The system failed me in that sense because I never learned what B was. So how do I learn what A plus B equals C? So then ninth grade, I go into high school and I'm put into like basic pre-algebra or something like that, and I was like, okay, kind of getting it. But you know, with math, if you never learned what B was, now you can't figure out the problem, and so I just continued to struggle, continued to struggle and just coasted by. And yeah, I mean I don't know why it's embarrassing to be like I didn't do very good in high school.
Speaker 1:You said that when you were living on the boat and homeschooling, you loved reading Did you carry that love of reading into the school system with you.
Speaker 2:I did and I actually loved. I love to read and I love to write, like in high school I was thinking about this again the other day I had a few like pieces of poetry published in these major like coffee table books, so funny. I was like it was $50 at the time and I think, oh God, I wish I would have spent the $50 to buy the book so I could have it. But like I would write things and send it off. But at the time $50 was like oh, that's like too much for a book. But yeah, I did, I carried that all the way through and I love to write. I mean, I had just have notebooks upon notebooks upon notebooks of my writing. It was just the math and it was just a matter of I just wasn't that interested and I wasn't getting that feedback, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because it's not like they say to you in school okay, well, when the bell rings and I say we'll touch on it tomorrow, who's going to bring it up tomorrow? Is it Shelby's job as the student to come in and say, okay, can I take this time now, away from the other 29 kids here so that you can explain it to me? Or is it the teacher's responsibility to say, like, let's meet up after school? It's like we never have these conversations in the beginning of the school year to say, like, how this is going to go. And it's the same thing with. You know, I always. That's kind of why I wrote my book.
Speaker 1:You know let's Talk Emergencies Cause it's like nobody I wrote my book. You know let's Talk Emergencies because it's like nobody is having that conversation in the beginning of the school year of whether it's kindergarten first, second, third, of like now what are the parents teaching the kids and what are the teachers teaching the kids, and everyone thinks the other one's doing it Right. You know, teachers are like I'm not teaching your kid, your phone number, your first and last name, their first and last name. That's your job. You're the parent and the parents are like we're so busy we send them all day to school. We don't really think about the other stuff that we have to cover, so, yeah, that carries on through the high school where, when you're homeschooling, it's like well, I know I'm responsible for it all.
Speaker 2:So let's get her done Exactly and knowing where your child is, you know, like where they can not excel, but where they can go a little further, where you can push them, where the other side is like, well, you know, like my daughter's, she's five and she's doing kindergarten curriculum with the Good and the Beautiful, which I absolutely love. I love it. It's so simple and it's just like you open the book and you do the lesson. It's right there. So when we started she wasn't really grasping the language arts. It was right before she turned five. She wasn't really grasping. I'm like, well, I don't, it's fine, Like I don't, you don't need, I'm not going to push you. And then math, she loved it. And so we just were going and going, and going and going, and then I introduced the language arts again and it was right, at the right time, because then she was picking up on it.
Speaker 2:But I read to her. I mean, we read chapter books every night, every time she's on the potty. That's a new thing that she's always wanted. Come read me a story. I know I say it like that because I'm like I could do the dishes while you go potty and then we could reconvene. And she's like, no, I need a story. I'm like okay, so I sit on the floor.
Speaker 1:Hilarious. I love it. Okay, so you graduated, and what made you decide? Did you go on to college or take a different path?
Speaker 2:I did not go to college. Well, I went to the Paul Mitchell Hair Academy, so I will call that college, because it costs a lot of money and it's very prestigious school, so I guess that would be a trade school. So after school I was in the restaurant business. I bartended, I served for a long time, managed a few restaurants and then, when I was about 25, I decided to go into the hair business. I've always liked to be very independent, have control of my own schedule, and that was an amazing career. Further on, I ended up in the yachting industry. I had my own boat, I went back to the islands on my own boat and then I got into the yachting industry and I was a chef on yachts, first mate, and so that was all really cool.
Speaker 1:Transition into you don't look old enough to have all these lives.
Speaker 2:I needed that today, Cheryl, because I just turned 44. I needed that.
Speaker 1:Really, I know I'm 41. I hear you Everyone's like, I like it's great.
Speaker 2:But it's also like every day waking up like you're hung over and you never drink.
Speaker 2:That's what 40 is, I know. And then the perimenopausal, that's a whole nother thing. Oh my gosh, I'm just like, oh, this is cool. I've never had PMS before, but this is a new experience.
Speaker 2:Um, I wanted to mention too that my sister, my younger sister, she did, I think, third through eighth grade in public school and she met her lifelong best friend, um, in fifth grade and they just stuck together like glue and still are till this day. And so after eighth grade they both were like I want to do homeschool, I don't want to go to high school. Shelby didn't have a great experience, um, so her parents and my parents allowed them, or gave them the opportunity to do homeschool for high school. It was cool because they were with each other, so they would do their school in the morning and they did American homeschool for high school. I don't even know if that's still around, but they did that. And then they both were done with high school by 16 and they went off to trade school, my sister almost 16, 17.
Speaker 2:My sister went into EMT school, which she ended up not doing. She sailed off into the sunset, met her husband, had children, yeah, so she did not continue with that. But um, and then our friend, she became a hairstylist and still, I mean, she's a stay at home mom now, but she did hair up until you know. So she already had a fully booked client list by the time she was, before she was 19, because she had been doing school. You know, she went to school and everything. So that was a great example too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I love that idea. That's like, okay, do we have, you know, two kids from different families? Well, it's like trade off on how we do things. Oh, they have that bonding and the life experiences you know to figure out what they want to do as a career. And you both went back to sailing, which is that must have made your parents so happy. Oh, my gosh, I love that.
Speaker 2:In 2015, my sister and her husband had bought a new boat. My dad had just finished building his 63 foot trimaran and he had just turned 60. Turned 60. And I was living in St Pete. I had a salon, I was very successful and I had built up my clientele list and I was loving it, and my partner at the time. I said do you?
Speaker 2:want to go get a boat and go cruising with my parents and my sister Because they're going. They're going to go to the islands and we're just going to sit here and go day to day work. When I put my mind to something, we can do it so fast forward. About a year later we bought a 43-foot trawler and I hopped up there at the helm and I was like you throw the lines, I'm gonna figure out how to run this baby. And I only hit the dock once. The whole time I had the boat and it was very little nudge. So I ran the boat and that was. We went cruising, so my parents on their boat, and then we would raft up next to each other, so they had both their babies on either side, which was great. My dad got diagnosed with leukemia about three years after that. He's still alive and well, but I'm so glad we did that because he was able to bring his girls back to that environment that he started us in. So that was cool yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you wonder, like you're living this life of you know you're not really in the system and you know I'm sure he's eating healthy, how do you get leukemia? Like you know, I, I, I get it with the people that are like taking in these processed foods every day and you know all the shots that they're giving us and radiation and everything else fluoride in the water but here he's not like really living that lifestyle. You wonder.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm going to tell you, because I'm pretty much an open book and he's not going to listen to this.
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.
Speaker 1:Use the link in my show's description or at the homeschoolhowtocom under the listener discounts page. I also want to let you know about some other books that the Tuttle Twins have out America's History, volume 1 and 2, which teaches all about the inspiring ideas of America's founding without the bias and hidden agendas that's found in other history books for kids and most likely in the schools. There's also books on how to identify fallacies, modern day villains all stuff that we want to be talking to our kids about. Whether you homeschool or not, these books bring up important discussions that we should be having with our children. Use the link in my show's description or, like I said, at thehomeschoolhowtocom under listener discounts.
Speaker 2:He did not eat healthy. He's one that's like sees the day. So here we are. Um, he was never a heavy drinker, never a heavy anything, but he was always like a like he'd have a cigarette and he'd have, you know, he'd just smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke till they were gone. He had he ate whatever he wanted. Um, we ate.
Speaker 2:I think that a lot of it was a lot of processed food, because when you travel like that like I ran into this when I stocked my boat when you travel like that, you have to think of shelf stable things. So they were just buying like cans of soups and things. And I remember sitting on his boat one time going oh my gosh, dad, have you looked at the ingredients in this and did it. And he's like no baby, you just bless the food, which I agree with. But also I'm like but there are a lot of like carcinogens in here. He also ate about 125 tubs of ice cream while he was building his last boat. I love the man dearly and he's taught me all the life lessons, but I will not say that he has been an epitome of hell, though. He's had one hell of a life, though. I'll tell you that much.
Speaker 1:I bet. So, you have your daughter. What made you decide to homeschool her?
Speaker 2:Um, it was never even a question, never even crossed my mind. Um, I the thought. I think the first thing is the thought of dropping her off somewhere to let someone else I'm trying to say this very wisely, like my parents said to me you know, if you how do they say it? Whatever you don't teach your children, someone else is going to, and so fill them up with what you want them to be filled up with. So I just knew, from the moment I just ever thought about having kids, the moment I got pregnant, I was like I am absolutely homeschooling her and my sister has a daughter who's three years older. So she's a little bit like you know. She picked out the first curriculum that we used and it's it's kind of a normal thing, and my parents are very much against the school system now and the schools are, you know, even worse than they were back then. Um, it wasn't much of a question and I knew that I could. I knew that I could educate her. Well, I know that I can, and watching her learn and doing things like and since this podcast is parents listening going, should I do this? I just want to give an example of, for, for one, we do school, maybe two times a week. I mean, she's doing kindergarten, but maybe and I learned that I felt more encouraged about that after talking to you on Fearless Motherhood, because you shared you know, like how often do we crack open a book? But like the other morning I'm sitting outside having coffee doing like some journaling stuff for work and she's over there with a magnifying glass looking at caterpillars Well, this is interesting. Well, this is interesting. And she was saying interesting, so cute. I don't remember how she said it. And then she found like five different types of caterpillars, got a Tupperware, put all the food for them in there, put a screen over the top, I mean, built this whole habitat for them. She was measuring them with her little measuring tape. So I was like check, school's done for the day. So that's a lot of what we do.
Speaker 2:And then, of course, like any other mom, I have these moments where I think, oh, my God, should we be further along in this book? Should I be doing this more? And then we sit down and I'm like okay, sound these words out and see if you can read it. I'm like, okay, so this is a vowel. And she's like I know A-E-I-O-U and sometimes Y and I was like where the hell did you get that from? And then she's like the reading is just coming along super fast and we're literally on like the fourth lesson in the kindergarten. You know language arts.
Speaker 2:We do so many things or we're driving in the car and I'm talking to her about time. I think I also learned that from you. I ask her math problems all the time. Last night at bedtime I'm like what's 40 plus 10? She's like I don't know. And I was like, okay, well, put up your fingers. And then she just counted and then I said what's 40 plus five? And she goes 45. And then we just kept running through it and I'm like we're getting ready for bed. So we're doing that all of the time. I'm pushing her to spell words, I'm pushing her to use her imagination, and that's actually relevant in her world, so it makes so much more sense to her.
Speaker 1:You know why she would have to know that. Yeah, my son wanted to buy something off of Amazon today, so I was like, okay, well, let's write down the amount that it is. Now I want to show you how we calculate tax, where I could have just gone to the checkout screen and showed them. But I was like, get out your calculator, we're going to write this in. And you know we're 8%. So I don't know if that's how it works on Amazon, but it was a good way to show them, like, this is how much, how we would calculate tax. Now we got to add these two up and you know he was taking the money out of his piggy bank, so he was minusing it from his little total and yeah, it's like so all that takes 20 minutes. But that's a math lesson. Just because it didn't go in exact order. It was relevant to his life for what he wanted to do at that time, so that's why it was important Real life experiences.
Speaker 2:The other night on the other day for my birthday, my eight-year-old niece was like how old, are you?
Speaker 2:And it was great because my mom, my dad, my sister are there. Everyone paused, no one answered the question. And I said, or my sister said, well, she was born in 1981. And so my niece is just looking at her, like okay. And so she grabs a piece of paper and says figure it out. And I don't know what she knows, I think she's in third grade. So we're like, okay, this is the year 2025, you know, do the subtraction. And she's carrying. And I look at my sister and I go, she knows how to do that. Is that how you do that? And I was like this is really awesome. And so she goes oh, you're 44. And I was so impressed but, like everyone in our environment were like, give her a second Just see if she knows how to do it.
Speaker 1:That's so important, right? Not just quickly answering. I remember my sister would always answer like if I'd ask her kids something, she'd answer for them. I'm like, let them speak, it's good for them. And they're all very quiet kids now, so my kid's not quiet at all, so there's a trade-off to like if this is good or not, but I do let them answer questions when adults ask them things.
Speaker 2:And it's the. The answers can be so entertaining. We're driving along the other day and Selah says to me oh, I just saw one of those Um, what are they called? And I was like, well, what, like, tell me about it, what do you mean? She goes. Oh, she said I'm just going to say it like it is, she's five, I'm just going to say it like it is. I said, okay, she goes, you know dead people? And I said, oh, a cemetery. Yeah, yeah, that's what I was going to say. So, anyways, I just saw one of those and I was like, oh, my God, that was so cute. So I'm just going to say it like it is. But I didn't, I didn't start coming up with a thousand suggestions, I just let her think. And it's so cool when you do that, because then you get these funny things that come out of their mouth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's a very good takeaway too, to like give them that moment to let them process it and say what they is on their mind, cause then a question will automatically come out of that too, and that's so cool.
Speaker 1:Now the question I get a lot of times. Well, two different questions. So you're a single mom and you have an only child that you're homeschooling. So first question people always ask me like or we'll say, oh, I would homeschool, but I can't. I'm a single mom, I have to work. So how do you make that work?
Speaker 2:Well, good question. Um, back to the, we only do two, two days of school, maybe every week. Um, I'm I'm really in a fortunate position because I have my sister and my best, our best friend, right down the road. Um, so there are times when so for my work, I'm a holistic life coach. Um, I also am a hairstylist, so I do have some clients that come to my house. So both of those things are kind of fluid with. You know, if I need to cancel, I need to reschedule. So I've created my income, um, to my not my income my job to be flexible so that I can do that. So there are times when she'll just go to my sister's house when I have to work. But as far as homeschooling, yeah, we just it's. You asked me this before and like the difference of just with one child it is, I would say, maybe easier because it's just I can stick to what she's into. Yeah, I don't know. Does that answer your question?
Speaker 1:And you're not obviously too worried about the socialization aspect. There's a lot more. Well, first of all, because of how you grew up, you know how to converse with people. You had your sister and you had books. There was always adventure. It's not like you were like locked in a basement. I think that's what they think homeschoolers are, you know. And now there's just so many more things. Whether you want to do a co-op or want to do a play group or want to do you know, there's so many places to meet homeschoolers. So yeah, and obviously with your sister right nearby homeschooling it. It's like there's just so many opportunities now it's really not a concern. I take it.
Speaker 2:Well, no, and as far as the socialization, so as when I was growing up, on the boat, we hung out, we were very social. I mean, my dad is a musician so he's always playing guitar. I mean I spent countless hours in tiki bars on the beach at, you know, around bonfires. I mean there were people coming and going, other kids on sailboats. So we and we lived in Jamaica for a little stint too, so I had a lot of, you know, Jamaican influence and a lot of friends there. So there was definitely not a lack of socialization, but we hung out with a lot of adults. And so the way I look at that is I'm not raising a child like I'm raising an adult. So I want to, you know, expose her to a lot of different people and so she can converse with an adult very easily. And my parents said that we were like that too, Like people would come to the Bahamas and I would just we we'd take them in our boat and say, oh, this is the kind of fish we catch here, this is this island, which is cool that later in my life I became, I worked on charters on yachts in that same space in the Bahamas. So as we're sailing down the islands. I'm giving the tour of like, oh, this is the island I grew up on and this is where you get this. That was really cool, but a lot of socializing.
Speaker 2:And then, yes, we have, my sister has two daughters and then our best friend has two daughters, so there's five girls. I mean, she is barely an only child. She has two little ones following after her, stealing her, things, picking. We have ages eight, all the way down to two. So she's very much barely an only child. She has lots of and lots of adults. Much barely an only child. She has lots of and lots of adults. She just spent two hours with my mom and her friend at my mom's house because she just wanted to hang out with them. So she didn't even want to hang out with me, she was hanging out with the adults, or the older adults.
Speaker 1:So, all right, what would be your parting like words of advice or encouragement to the parents that want to homeschool? But it's a scary step. They might think they have to quit their job. They might think that their kids are just going to be weird. What would you say, or what sort of words of advice do you have to them?
Speaker 2:As far as being weird, someone said to me once so there were no weird kids in your public high school, and I was like oh, that's a really good one.
Speaker 2:That's a really good point. So I don't. I have never met a real. I don't think I've ever met a weird quote unquote I don't even know what that even means. Right, homeschooled kid. I mean all the kids I've met that are teenagers and in their early twenties that were homeschooled, are dynamic. They've done so much where I'm like holy moly, this is awesome.
Speaker 2:So I don't again back to what I said do something with them, get them involved in something, because school is going to be done quick, curriculum is going to be done quick. Go work on a farm, learn how to garden, get outside. That's the most important. If you're going to just put them in front of the video games because you have to work afterwards, then try to figure something else out. Also, I would say reach out to other moms in your area and homeschool groups in your area and someone had mentioned this at one point, maybe on a podcast I listened to those other moms are eager for you to homeschool your child too. So if you reach out and say, hey, I want to pull my kid out of school, can you help me, is there anything? And they would be like, yes, I'll take the kid a couple of days, you take my kids a couple of days or whatever. And maybe you even said that, cheryl, I might be quoting you, but that would be my recommendation.
Speaker 2:And this is blunt, but it's a scary world out there and I can't imagine. I mean, I feel like you're pretty transparent and blunt on your podcast, but I can't imagine watching the news and seeing a school shooting and then getting up the next morning going have a good day. Bye, I just. There's no frigging way.
Speaker 1:So yeah, those always like it's so backwards because people are like, well, it never happens. And then it's like, well then, why are you training them for combat, basically like three times a year in school to do these things, which the event of the practice I think is traumatic enough, absolutely, the fact that mommy sends you to some place where we have to practice what would happen if you were to have a shooter come after you? We don't practice this in the grocery store, we don't practice this at the mall, we don't practice this at Chuck E Cheese. So why? And then we just send them every day and pay the taxes, right, Like it's crazy, nobody just has to think about it. Like why would I send my kids somewhere where the like I'm not going to send them into, you know, the military right now, because I don't want them getting attacked, so why? Why would we send them to a place where it's?
Speaker 1:yeah, and if it doesn't happen often enough, where, if they just say, oh, it never happens, the statistic is so low, then why have these trainings for it?
Speaker 2:Like. Well, you know the statistics of vaccinating too, I mean I'm pretty passionate about that subject.
Speaker 2:I was told once, like if you walked into a party and there were a thousand cupcakes and one of them had arsenic in it, would you let your kid pick a cupcake off the table? Hell, no. So there's your statistics. Right, and back to the advice. Because I know we have to wrap up. I want to say just trust yourself and know that you're going to make the right decisions. And the curriculum is made for homeschooling. So it's different. It's different than what they're getting in public school. So go on to the good and the beautiful. If your child is in that age range, talk to some other homeschool parents, reach out and just try it. I mean it's, it's the absolute best thing you can do for your child. I really believe it's. It really is. And and I will use this quote from another podcast she said this is the inconvenient truth. I'm going to say the inconvenient truth Is it your child and their well-being, or your career? Make some changes, because I'll tell you and I know that's a blunt statement, that's why I'm using her inconvenient truth.
Speaker 2:But I live a very simple life because I will not go get a nine to five so that I can be more financially comfortable and send my kid to school. I won't. Every month I figure out how to pay for what I need to pay for, because I'm not going to take time away from her, and that includes I started a cleaning business and I was like I'll go clean houses, that's great, I could take her with me, or da da, da da. A couple of times I had to cancel because she's sick. I'm not leaving her when she's sick, no brainer. So I stopped the business, even though it was making good money. It was just not. I'm not going to do it. So to me I think it's just priorities.
Speaker 1:Sorry, that's kind of blunt, but yeah, these priorities are ingrained in us and you really have to stop and think why, why you're doing what you're doing. Why are you sending your kid to school? Why are you going to sit in a cubicle or whatever it is all day, and is there any other way? We're just not. School doesn't teach us to think outside that box. So it's kind of like these podcasts and conversations like this to help urge people to think outside that box. And Shelby, where can people find you if they want to follow you or see what else you're up to? Go ahead and let us know.
Speaker 2:Thank you so Vital. Well, you can find me on Instagram at Island Fever or Vital Roots. Holistic Life Coaching is my business and this falls under the umbrella of my holistic life coaching, because obviously holistic is everything. So that's everything from. I want to homeschool my kid, but I don't know where to start. So the first thing I would say is go listen to the Homeschool how To podcast with Cheryl, and then let's talk and we'll talk about curriculum and I'll help you. So that's one of the things I offer in my holistic life coaching course. So, yeah, vital Roots, or just look me up Shelby S-H-E-L-L-B-E. That's how I'd love to help. Thank you for having me, cheryl.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I will link all that in the show's description. Shelby, thank you so much for joining me today. This has been such a fun conversation, thank you. 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. 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.