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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
#123: Homeschooling Doesn't Have to Be Perfect.. To Be Perfect—with Audrey Rindlisbacher
What does 25 years of homeschooling experience teach you about education, purpose, and raising confident children? Audrey Rindlisbacher takes us behind the scenes of her journey homeschooling six children from the days when resources were scarce and stigma was strong.
Like many parents, Audrey initially questioned her qualifications. "I remember pacing the kitchen floor asking my husband, 'Are we just supposed to take this leap of faith and hope in 10 years that we didn't royally screw up our kids?'" That familiar fear nearly prevented her from discovering what would become her life's work. The turning point came at a homeschool convention where she witnessed education through games—an approach that shattered her preconceptions about learning.
Audrey shares revelations that transformed her homeschooling philosophy, including Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences theory. While traditional schools target just two types of intelligence (linguistic and mathematical), homeschooling allowed her to nurture all nine forms of intelligence in her children. This personalized approach helped each child discover their unique gifts, particularly benefiting those whose strengths lay outside conventional academic areas.
Rather than simply recreating school at home, Audrey focused on equipping her children with essential skills for lifelong learning. The common thread? Keeping doors of opportunity open while honoring individual passions and learning styles.
Perhaps most surprising is how homeschooling became a journey of self-discovery for Audrey herself, leading to writing "The Mission Driven Life" and creating academies for both mothers and teens. Her story demonstrates how educating your children can unveil your own purpose and talents.
If you're considering homeschooling or struggling with doubts, Audrey offers this encouragement: "You can do this. Your unique way of being and skillset are gifts to your family, and they can blossom in a homeschool environment." Subscribe now to hear more conversations that will inspire your educational journey!
To learn more about my book The Mission Driven Life: Discover and Fulfill Your Unique Contribution to the World: https://www.audreyrindlisbacher.com/the-mission-driven-life-book
To purchase book: https://the-mission-driven-life.mykajabi.com/store
To Learn more about what we do at The Mission Driven Mom: https://www.themissiondrivenmom.com/
To get a FREE tool that will help moms overcome worry and mom-guilt: https://www.themissiondrivenmom.com/worry-opt-in-for-socials
What is the most important thing we can teach our kids?
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Welcome, and with us today we have Audrey Rindlisbacher. Audrey, thank you for being here, thanks for having me. So you've been homeschooling for quite a while, correct? Oh yeah, tell us how long, and what even got you into this space.
Speaker 2:So my oldest is 30, and he went to private school for one year and then we started homeschooling. So and I have six and I still have kids at home, so it's been one or all or most of them for I guess that's 25 years, so it's a very long time. Wow, yeah, back in the day before there was as much. There's so many resources now and there's so much great curriculum. It's like a million times easier but and the stigma is gone and like all of the hard things, I kind of consider myself a pioneer, but there are other people.
Speaker 1:they were doing it a generation before me, so yeah, and I guess it's the way that it kind of always was done until they brought the education system in in the last hundred years. But it is funny how everybody jumped on that. What made you decide to go from the private school to homeschooling?
Speaker 2:So what happened was, you know, I had, I had one, I have six, so there are boy, girl, boy, girl boy, girls. How they came, it's just kind of cute. And um, by the time, so my oldest is a boy. So when he was like I don't know, three or four or something, I just started teaching him stuff, cause I figured that's what a good mom does, you know. And we, I put together this little kind of like preschool in the house and I had, you know, I don't know, I ran across Montessori at one point early on and actually made all the little cards where you like, trace the sandpaper letters and all of the things you know follow the Montessori method. So we were doing this preschool and I had actually taught him the letters and we were starting to do reading by four or five, and I just loved it, we were having a ball, I just thought it was great. But then, um, I thought, well, as as so many of us do, I thought, well, I'm not an expert in all the things, like, I don't have a teaching degree, I'm not a professional, and of course this is what people, this is what friends and family are saying to me anyway. So of course I'm just believing them and thinking I you know I can't do all the things, so this is what we'll do. Well, okay, so so that's kind of I'm logged that away in the back of my mind.
Speaker 2:And then a few things happened. One thing that happened was that, um, they sent I don't know why this happened this particular year, but in the mail I got a notification from the county, I guess, or maybe just from my local ISD, with all of the test scores from all the elementaries, middle schools and high schools that year of how they did on their standardized tests. And it was ridiculous. I remember looking at that, there were like two schools on this list of several dozen schools that had over like a 50%. And I remember looking at my husband like, okay, I know, these tests aren't that hard. I don't understand what's happening. Why are the kids not passing the standardized tests with you know doing better? So that was one thing that I was like, oh, wait a minute. Um, this isn't good. And then in the meantime my stepsister Jonah would have been, yeah, probably three or four or five, she was she decided to go to a local homeschool convention and I the only experiences I'd ever, and I was reading on here on your website, you had this kind of experience.
Speaker 2:I had met two homeschooling families at this point. The first homeschooling family I met was at church and they were in youth group with me and they were super weird. So I, you know, had a really bad taste in my mouth. I mean, you know, like all of the of the typical, they didn't have any sense of style, their hygiene wasn't real great, you know, they were awkward socially, all the things. And then later on, when I was in college, I had been a gymnast and so I coached gymnastics and I had these two little girls on my team who were the best behaved, sweetest, kindest, nicest little girls in the world and I was shocked when I later found out that they were homeschooled. So those were my two reference points. So like kind of the you know the whole range, the whole spectrum, really bad to really good.
Speaker 2:So I go to this homeschool convention with my stepsister and I think what really was the game changer for me because I I can, I still have the image of it imprinted on my memory we went they, you know I think it was at a college campus or something and we went to different classrooms and you know they have different speakers and whatnot, like they still do. And this I walked in this classroom and this woman had games, dozens and dozens of games, spread across this whole big long table and in front of the table and all along the floor, and her whole presentation was how their entire homeschool was playing games. All they did was play games and there were all kinds of different games math games and science, like all kinds of games I didn't know existed, that actually looked pretty fun, geography games, like all the games and my mind was just blown Like that opened my world wide up as to what education was, what it could be. All the the, the incredibly different ways that people went about it like just blew my mind. But still, even after that, I was like, but I'm not qualified, I can't do it.
Speaker 2:And so we found this cute little private school and my son went there and then, of course, you know he's getting older by now I have three and just as time went on, I think he was there for a year, year and a half, and I started just trying to get more information, trying to find people, talk to people, asking questions, and I finally just decided, well, OK, I'm never going to be able to afford it for all my children, like I already have three. How are we going to pay for private school for 12 years for three children? I don't know how we're going to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And maybe we could have. But you know, at the time we were, you know, still kind of young and poor. I also thought if there was going to be a time to try it, now would be the time they're young. I can't maybe mess them up too much before we put them back in and try again, you know, back in whatever school. But of course I was petrified. I remember pacing the kitchen floor. I said to my husband are we just supposed to just take this leap of faith and hope in 10 years?
Speaker 2:that we didn't royally screw up our kids Like, is that what we're going to do right now? It just felt so, so risky, so scary, so big. But then, of course, like so many people experience you experienced, we tried it, I learned more, we got better at it and we just kind of never looked back. It was just always, always the way that we did things ever since then.
Speaker 1:So wow, and I love that that you're so honest about how scary it really was. And yeah, you do. You think, oh, am I going to mess this kid up? But we don't realize that, like just parenting them, we could mess them up anyway. Like why do we think the school is going to resurrect us from doing the bad job as parents, Like, if anything, we're fixing whatever the school did in the meantime?
Speaker 2:Do you know Cheryl, one of the things that gave me confidence actually early on was actually scripture, because one of the things I finally realized was wait a minute. If God trusts me to teach my kids what are the very most important things to know, then certainly we could throw some geometry in there. Like that was kind of my so true, you know, the salvation stuff is way more important. So if he's okay with me giving that a stab, then maybe with some resources and some help behind me, we could just throw the other stuff in. And that actually gave me a lot of confidence because that made me think well, then maybe, maybe God would trust me with this too, and so let's try it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I find that the people that have that negative connotation around the homeschooling, it's because they've never looked into it. So I mean, and there's so many things like that too, you know whether you're talking about pharmaceutical or whatever.
Speaker 1:Um, food dies the food. It's like if you never looked into it, of course you're just going to go with the mainstream, what everyone else is doing, um, but if you actually take the time to look into why the school system actually went from the one room schoolhouse to these big jail, like looking buildings where it's just remote, you know, memorization to everything, and how the Rockefellers invested so much money, that's always the biggest thing for me. It's like so did he really want to like make people that were going to come out and be like competitors to his oil business? I mean, that would be the craziest thing, yeah, so it's just like looking at little things like that and are so eye opening. And I love what you were saying about the game schooling, and that was probably back in the 90s, if your son is thirties, about 11 years younger than me. So I didn't.
Speaker 1:I just learned about game schooling in the last year and I've been floored Like, wow, we can just do this and have fun with it, you know, or even just using games. I think we think of games as being something of the nineties. And now there's social media and so you know, people just look at their phones and stuff. But we can go back to that sitting around the table and doing a game or sitting on the floor, sitting outside on a blanket and doing a game together, and it's so. It's such a good family bonding. On top of like that, you can have the geography and and, yeah, there's so many games.
Speaker 1:I didn't really grow up playing many games. But the homeschool groups that, um, you know that we meet with one of them every couple of months. They have a game day and people bring all their games. And, yeah, there was one where you have the, the um country, and you're asking a question to the other person like can you find which one? And you know it asks you something about the state, and so you're learning the whole time. But you're having fun because you're getting points and stuff. So, yeah, it's amazing. That was so eyeopening for me that this could really actually be enjoyable.
Speaker 2:Well, that's the thing, right, Like just the whole perception that elementary and you know. And then, of course, just reading Montessori and getting a totally different perspective on, you know the, the way that her classroom functioned and the way that the children just roamed and found their own, their own work and sat quietly and did their work and their self-discipline those young children had, and was really enthralled by that. And then I just started reading stuff and of course I found classical education and then I was totally hooked and then I was like, oh, this is totally what we're doing, and got my own education in the meantime, which was, um, you know, just a joy. We got to learn so many things and discover so many things together.
Speaker 2:So one other huge motivation for me was my husband and I had both had several years of college. I didn't finish, I didn't graduate until later. I had about three years done when we married. But, um, you know, I I felt like that by that time I'd spent 15 years in school and I had really, honestly, no true sense of self, like I liked myself, and I thought I was a nice person, but I did not know what I was really good at. I had never really had a chance to discover my gifts and talents, and that was a huge driver for me. I kept telling my husband, like there's gotta be a better way. There's gotta be a better way for people to to be educated such that by the time they're 17 or 18 or 19, they have a much better sense of self and much more clarity about the direction that they need to head. So that was a huge goal for us from the beginning too.
Speaker 1:That's so huge and the amount of time that kids are in school, it's like what are you doing all day? But, yes, how would you ever allow for, you know, 30 kids in a classroom? It's it's not possible to have each of them find their talents and their gifts and their dreams and and what the world needs, and you know. So, yeah, it's hard, it's really not possible in a school setting and they kind of busy us outside of the school hours with sports and homework and you know the work schedules of the parents that you're not like homework and the work schedules of the parents that you're not like okay, let's go explore when we all get home from work and school today. So it's near impossible.
Speaker 1:But yeah, my sister's three all just graduated in the last five or six years and, yeah, none of them really were like I want to be this, and the one that was was like I want to be a cop, but that's because his father was a cop. Where I became a government worker, because my parents were government workers it's like are you just doing what you know?
Speaker 1:because, yeah, it's familiar and I think that's why so many people become teachers too, because they're like I don't know what I want to do. I've been hanging out with teachers for 13 years. Let's do that. I know that job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah and it's not necessarily bad, but just a stronger sense of self was a huge goal for me, so Right. Right.
Speaker 1:Um, now okay. So with having six, did your kids ever give you pushback or like want to go into school or go in for any amount of time? So yeah, we did.
Speaker 2:So for me, um, now, most of them were home a lot most of their growing up, but for me, I felt like the fundamental principle was not necessarily everybody's home all the time, but more like mom and dad own it. Like you are not depending on someone else to know where your kid is at or whether they're struggling with reading or any of that kind of stuff. Like you're aware you're in tune, you're owning it and you're finding solutions. And so we did. We did a myriad of things just depending on what our family needed. So sometimes, uh, like, for example, I had two caboose children 18 months apart. That were both surprises, and so I was carrying a baby around while I was pregnant again, and so for a semester we were like you're in charter school. If you hate it after a semester, that's fine, but mom's gotta rest and take care of the babies. The older kids did some online work. The elementary kids went to charter school and then they were ready to come home. I guess we haven't done really much public school, but charter schools, some private schools, definitely online coursework, especially as they got older.
Speaker 2:And every I was talking to somebody the other day she was. Somebody was asking me about homeschool the other day and I was like you know, I really feel like a big component of your level of success is your why? Because there are people that are doing it because they have something that they're moving toward, but then there's other people that are doing it out of fear, and my experience has been that the people that just don't have a plan and they don't have a goal and they don't really have a vision of what they're trying to do in their homeschool they often fail quite a bit. It's very frustrating, negative experience for everybody, because all they know is I don't want that, I'm afraid of that, I'm running away from that. Um, it's really important to eat. It's okay to start there. It's okay If, if, that motivates you and gets you out of your chair. But you've got to. You've got to plug some wise in. You've got to have a bigger picture of what you're trying to create. I mean, relationships between my children was also a huge motivator for me. I felt like I hardly ever saw my siblings growing up, and my kids have a lot of shared memories together and one of their favorite things to do is watch old videos of when they were little. When we get together, so, um, I'm really grateful that they had that time together and that that bonding.
Speaker 2:But I I attended a years ago, I, somebody, I can't remember why, but they decided to do this. I think it was just for people that were inquiring about homeschool. This woman just said, okay, well, I'll put a panel together at my house. So she got a bunch of seniors in the area who were you know, it was their quote senior year, 17 to 18 year olds and she put them on this panel and we just came and we just asked them questions and it was across the spectrum, like kids who had never done any math to kids who had just got off a world tour for piano performance. So it was. It was an incredibly wide spectrum and you could tell that you know some of them were siblings, and so it was.
Speaker 2:It was all about the family culture. Like the family culture was determining how the kids were thriving or not thriving. So a lot is riding on the expectations that you set, the vision that you have, and it's not so much about you can find somebody to tutor whatever. Like it's not. That's not really tough. There's so much good curriculum, there's so many online schools, like there's a lot of good resources. It's really, I think, about parents who are on fire about it, who are who are. I think the very best thing I ever did was work on my own education. I just learned alongside my children. I was very serious about reading classics and about, you know, marking my books and about writing papers and doing things that my children were doing and that set an example, but also an expectation that we're not just bumming around the house, we're actually actively learning.
Speaker 1:So did you do family style learning? Where it was, everybody sat at the table and we're going to do this topic and divvy it out on, you know uh, difficulty levels, or did everybody kind of have their own stuff? How? How did that work on your day to day?
Speaker 2:Uh, yes, both, and it just depended on how many kids were at home and their ages. So we always did family devotional and often I would sit at the table while they had their different levels of math or whatever that kind of thing. Sure, we always did family read alouds and family discussions of of of classics, and then sometimes we would do some forms of writing or I would have them take a writing class and then bring writing to share with us that they were working on. Um, so just depended how how many kids were there. Right now I've got one graduating from a charter school and one doing online stuff, and that's, that's my last two left at home. They're a junior and a senior.
Speaker 2:The, the charter school kid. It's just also unique. It's just kid by kid. So he was in a really unique situation because the child older than him was five years older, so she was already gone by the time. He was in middle school and his little sister was a full-time competitive gymnast. So she was gone six, seven hours a day and he's taken a couple temperament and personality tests. He's 99% extroverted. So for a while we had him with a private tutor and another kid and they were having a great time reading their Homer and all of their things and he loved it. But he was just, I mean it finally, it finally kind of all kind of hit the fan. I guess middle of his freshman year he just came into my bedroom one night crying and he just said I am so lonely, I'm so lonely. And so we found a classical base charter school that he could spend time in. And he, he, just it just was a perfect match. And he, he just needed some community, he needed peers.
Speaker 1:So can you explain for us, like, what the charter school is in relation to homeschooling? Is it? Is it a school? Is it a private school? Um, is it just for homeschoolers? How does that work?
Speaker 2:So lots of charter. I mean charter schools. What it traditionally means is it varies state by state and there are good charter schools and not good charter schools. Um, private schools are privately funded and tuition based, and we have done those as well. Charter schools are, um the way that it works in the States that I've been in, like I'm in Texas now the way that it works is you put in a charter to the state and you say I want this type of school, these are the kinds of things that we're going to learn. And you, you have to provide some of your own funding and your own buildings. So you have to have some private funds in it, you have to have some people investing in you, and then you can tap into partial government funds per child, um, but you don't have to answer to the government for your curriculum. So, um, well, you, you put forward what you're going to cover, but it's it's individualized. It's not government curriculum, it's individualized curriculum, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:So in the case, of my son, I don't know if you've heard of Hillsdale College, no, so Hillsdale College is a leading liberal arts school. It was founded in the mid 1800s by abolitionists. It was the first school in the United States to let blacks and whites and women all receive the same degree and they don't take any government funding whatsoever. And the charter school that my son has been attending was the very first charter school they founded by. They have a Barney foundation charter school initiative and they've they've populated. That was 10 years ago. They founded his school and they have quite a few across the nation Now.
Speaker 2:I have a girlfriend who just was helping found one in her area in Nevada. Um, these charter schools where they read all original writings, so they go to the original sources, they have classical discussion and, um, cool things like that. So they read their Cicero and their Homer and their, you know, herodotus and their all the all the great thinkers, aristotle and all the people. So he has loved it. It's been a good fit for him, because that was kind of the way that we started to lean in our home was towards classical education and he was well prepared for that. But he was just too lonely to be at home alone all day, every day.
Speaker 2:Um, I had one child who did college his senior year. Another child who nannied in Ecuador her senior year. Um, we did homeschool co-ops. I had another son who took math at the local um high school as well as driver's ed, and then he read books for me and we discussed them, and then he did online science while he studied, uh, while he worked quite a bit um, and pursued his music. He's still pursuing a music career, releasing music and having a great time. So, um, yeah, every, every child was very different.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's so cool. And I know, like for me in the beginning, when I was thinking about the homeschooling, I'm like, oh my gosh, what about? Like the proms and the stuff like that? And then I now that I'm like in it, I see all of the cool stuff that you get to do as a homeschooler and I'm like, okay, that was the carrot that they were dangling so that people would go to school. Um, but yeah, have you had any kids? Or like, even if your kid is a homeschooler and they really want to go to a prom, like they can go as a date or you can just set up a prom.
Speaker 2:Sure Well, some areas the area has a homeschool prom.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah and there's. I mean there's large supportive organizations now across the country that do all sorts of things like that. There's a huge local organization that does homeschool sports so you can go early afternoons and practice and be on teams they compete against each other and go to nationals. I mean there's, yeah, there's all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, there's really nothing holding you back Once you know that information. It's like as long as you can make it work with the financials. And how did you? Did you, um, were you leaving a job or were you staying? Planning on staying at home with the kids anyway? I mean, when you have six, it's like daycare adds up.
Speaker 2:So um, I wanted to be home. I knew I wanted to be home when they were little. So my situation was kind of unique. I'd already dated my husband for five years. I actually did some mission service in Europe and then I came home and it was right between us. We were in love, we wanted to do it and right after like literally two weeks before we got married, I had to have surgery because I had ovarian cysts which turned out to be endometriosis, and they said you're all clean, get, get pregnant now. So I was. So we were married and I was pregnant by May. Um, cause, I had. They were like you are, you've got this disease. You know, we don't, if you don't do it now, while you're all cleaned out, we don't know what will happen if, if that'll put off childbearing. So just have a baby right now. So I was, you know, on our first anniversary I was eight months, eight months pregnant. So we just I mean, we just got it going. We were just having kids and I knew I wanted to be home when they were little. So I didn't actively pursue career.
Speaker 2:Um, as time went on, I found passion, projects. I worked on my own education. That turned into writing curriculum and teaching courses for colleges and and things like that. Then eventually I created my own courses and eventually wrote a book and now I have a mom's academy and a teen academy. So I just I just turned my passions into work that ended up being bringing money in.
Speaker 2:But in the beginning it was like, yeah, I'll live, I'll live poorer. You know, and and I I remember I can't it probably wasn't Dave Ramsey, I don't know who it was. Back then there was, I happened across something I don't know if it was an article or a book or what it was and they were like okay, if you want to stay home, like, think about all of these things, add up, add up the extra car, the wardrobe, the daycare, the all of those things, and pretty much, if you want to make it work, you can. It wasn't always pretty, like I'm not gonna. You know, my husband was a hundred percent commission based. He was a realtor. So it was up and down, we tried to save when times were good and but we just made it work because it was important to us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I love what you said about like, as they got older, you took it upon yourself to do things that sparked your interest and your dreams and even brought in an income, because I think we have this idea that, like you know, a lot of times parents will say to me well, we need two incomes, I can't stay home. And it's like well, wait a minute, yeah, you don't have to stay home for 18 years, or you don't have to not have an income for 18 years. Your kids will get to a point where they don't need you all hours of the day, could you?
Speaker 2:you know, do some. Can you make it for three or four years without an?
Speaker 1:income Like let's just start there and if you can do that, you know we can brainstorm at what you could do down the road. Or you know you could do things like you know clean houses maybe when your partner is home.
Speaker 2:Yeah, people do all sorts of things they go.
Speaker 2:I have friends that go to where is it California or somewhere and they just have an annual trip. While they're go pick all kinds of fruit and they bring the cases home and they sell them door to door and they bring in several, you know, five, six, 10,000 extra dollars a year with this two or three week family project that they do Like. There's a lot of things. You would be surprised how you can bring your family along with you on whatever those passion projects are and, like I said, I was very passionate about having my kids. The first thing that turned me on to oh whoa, there's so much more we could discover about ourselves was when I found multiple intelligences and I was like this is brilliant and I, you know, I don't know if you've ever heard of Gardner and his, his multiple intelligences. It's so fantastic and he talks all about how. I mean they did extensive research for ever and ever and ever on lots of people and there are different ways that you're smart and our school systems only target two types of intelligence the linguistic, intelligent and mathematical intelligence. But there's nine ways of being smart and our school systems only focus on two. So, if you like my third, one of the reasons he was reading with me I mean, he, he, he wasn't dyslexic or anything but linguistic intelligence was his last intelligence. Musical intelligence and kinesthetic intelligence were his tops, and so he needed to do sports, he needed to run, he needed to be active, he needed to do music. Um, and that nurtured him. And he's read. He's read Jane Eyre, he's read some great classics that you know.
Speaker 2:People are often surprised by the breadth of his education and he still reads and listens to books, a lot, which he would not have done if you know. He would have been in a system that would have beaten the heck out of him and told him that he wasn't smart and he wasn't, he wasn't good at those particular things. So that was really really helpful and and and helped me in my homeschooling. But it also just helped me see, oh, there's a lot of things.
Speaker 2:You can continue to discover cool stuff about yourself your whole life, um, but that's when I started to realize, oh, we can really tailor this and these kids can really thrive. They don't have to be stuck, they don't have to, you know, be beaten up in a system that doesn't work for them. That was really, that was really a lot of fun to discover. And then after that, I just discovered more and more and more, and then things about myself and things about them, and I just played around. I realized I could write curriculum. I started getting invited to speak, which shocked me, turns out I'm pretty articulate. So then I just started speaking in the homeschool space. A lot you know, and anyway, one thing led to another, but I love that and all right.
Speaker 1:So, as you're carrying your kids through the years, were you ever thinking like am I doing enough curriculum with them? And specifically I mean like, should they be taking a Spanish class? And what about geography and how? Much history should I be doing at six years old? You know, and as you get through to the ages where they're about to graduate, like what are our next steps? And that ties into you know, you having a goal for your child.
Speaker 2:Is your goal college If it is why?
Speaker 1:What you know? What do they really want to do? What are they passionate about? How did you ease your worries and know that what we're doing is enough or maybe we need to add a little more to the table?
Speaker 2:Well, in their elementary school years I tried to at least keep them at pace with their math and have them enjoy learning and love reading, because you can self-educate all your life If you have one of. Somebody taught me early on and I can't remember where this came from, cause I was like ingesting all kinds of like lots of books on education and learning and like all kinds of stuff but one of the things I realized early on was that we live in an information age. There's no way to know all the things You're never going to be able to, and so what actually is the better thing to focus on is skill sets, so that when they leave home they have the skills to be lifelong learners, they have the skills to pick up on whatever they'd like to pick up on later on, when and if that becomes necessary for whatever project they're working on. And so I wanted them to. I wanted all my kids to get through Algebra 2. That was kind of a standard that we set. I felt like if you want to pass the GED, if you want to go to college, if you know, if you want those doors to remain open for you, you need the skill set through Algebra 2. So just know that that's happening. We're not taking that off the table for anybody. Just get your mind around it and let's get to it. We found Math UC, so, hallelujah, thank goodness, most of my kids really thrived with that and that worked well.
Speaker 2:And as far as sciences go, by the time they got to high school I wanted them to do some sciences. I didn't always have the skill set to do that, so we found tutors or did online classes. Again, just a skill set for understanding why science matters. We live in a science age. We speak the language of science, it's in our newspapers, it's in our books, we use science to validate even the social realm with the social sciences. So they just needed proficiency in the skillset of speaking the language of science and understanding why it mattered, and then, of course, being able to read and write and speak well. The articulate voice is the commanding voice. People listen to people who can speak well and who can read well. So that was where my priorities were, but it was.
Speaker 2:It was a lot about I wanted them to be able to dig into a book and so I you know my work is has focused really heavily on the natural moral law and true principles. What's a principle? Why do principles matter? How are they God's way of guiding us in life? That was a huge. That's been a passion project of mine for 20 years. So as I taught my kids and as I was figuring all of that out, that was a huge priority. Where's the truth here? How can we link that truth to scripture, to real life? How can we live according to higher truth?
Speaker 2:And so the skill set of digging into a book and getting a lot out of it, discussing it while discussion is a timeless mode, I mean education 300 years ago in the United States was uniform. It was the Western way of education. You read a classic, you got into a cohort, you discussed it and discussed it, you wrote about it and you used your commonplace book. You did that over and over and over again. That's the basics of learning. So just keeping those skill sets at the forefront of my mind was super duper helpful. Then I wasn't necessarily trying to check off like everybody's got to have physics. You know, maybe, maybe not, but can you kind of speak the language of science? Do you understand why science matters? Do you? You know? Can you work some math equations? Cause I just wanted all the doors to be open. I didn't want to handicap them by by setting my expectations low. Or I know people who are like no, this is freedom, they have their choice. They can choose yes To a point.
Speaker 1:I don't want to leave any doors closed for you so we're going to leave these doors open, because you know they could be 30 years old and say, mom, you didn't get me to the point where I could go to college so I never got to become you know this or that. So it's like, yeah, we're going to do what you need to do so that the doors are open to you, but within that, you know, and like I had a mom on one time and she's like my kid is just into equestrian stuff and that's like what her child did and would travel all the time.
Speaker 1:And so yeah she got to a point when her daughter was old enough that she's like, all right, we don't really need. She knows what she wants to do with her life. This is what she wants to do. So we're going to do enough to just get you know the graduate degree from the high school. Yeah, but yeah, it's like once they know what they love.
Speaker 1:But yeah, you don't want to close doors to them either, and I think for me, like a lot of times, I worry, you know, oh my gosh, are we do? We have to make sure we talk about the Mayas and Incas?
Speaker 1:And you know like how are we going to get it all in but like today we took a walk and I never had this in school where you just kind of like, look at the world around you and, oh, do you hear that that's a woodpecker?
Speaker 1:Why is he making that sound? Okay, and you're talking, like you said the discussion, talking with your kid about why that woodpecker is pecking on the tree and, um, you know, just looking around where you know we have a mountain behind our house, so we're walking. I'm like this looks like it could have been maybe a huge river at one time, cause it's just like this valley in the middle with a little stream going through. I'm like, isn't, wouldn't that be cool? We could, we could try to find some aerial pictures of 50 years ago or a hundred years ago and see if you know, just having those conversations with them to know that, like, see if you know, just having those conversations with them, to know that, like, that's something, that's a possibility, and I don't ever remember anyone ever having that conversation with me over anything in the outdoors at all.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, oh, I've got a good friend who loves birding and that's what they do. They just go birding a lot. Yeah, I mean you just the, just the breadth of knowledge, that the ability, the awareness that that you can notice things and that you think about things and you ask yourself good questions and you're curious and you know we beat that curiosity out of them. Sir Ken, is it Sir Ken Robinson? I think that's his name. Have you ever watched any of his stuff?
Speaker 1:No, I went to public school. Wow, that's his name.
Speaker 2:Have you ever watched any of his stuff? No, I went to public school, wow, no, he had. He used to have some really good YouTube videos about. He was showing statistics of the drop-off rate of when kids go into school, their level of curiosity and proficiency in certain things and the drop-off rate after so many years of of of public schooling and it was really fascinating to see what really does happen cognitively if they're forced into that box too much that they really do lose natural curiosity and creativity and initiative and discipline that is inherently there to be developed if it's nurture.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'll have to look into that. That sounds so cool and I love what you were saying about the principles that are in everything. And you wrote a book right, the Seven Laws of Life. Yeah, the Mission Driven Life.
Speaker 2:It's back here.
Speaker 1:I love that Tell what made you write that? What is it about?
Speaker 2:This book was actually born of some interest around the concept of life mission. I kept bumping up against it, knowing people who were doing things in the name of mission that were really awesome and in the concept of life mission, I kept bumping up against it, knowing people who were doing things in the name of mission that were really awesome and in the name of mission that were really not didn't seem so awesome. It seemed like it was kind of destroying their lives, and I wanted to understand it better, and so I tried to find some really good books on it. The dream givers, a pretty good one, but I couldn't find really. You know, purpose-driven Life is a really beautiful book, but it's it's really very, you know, it's about it's about building your relationship with God, which is wonderful, but that's not necessarily what I wanted to understand. I wanted to understand do we have a mission or missions, and, and, and what are they? And what do they look like, and what does that mean, and why do we keep using that term? And? And so I I started.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you've ever read the Hiding Place, no, Okay, so this is a true story about a family called the Ten Booms who lived in Holland during World War II and they saved the lives of over 800 people and the Hiding Place is the story of how they did that. But it's also the story of just an amazing family and when I first read that book it was a total life changer. I was like, okay, all I want in life is to be the Ten Booms. How can we do that? They are my idols. We need to just be like Ten Boom family. But I held him up on this pedestal and I really didn't know how to get there. Like they seemed so perfect. We could never be that perfect. Then, a while later, kind of while I was in this space of thinking about this concept of mission and wondering about it, partly because now my kids were getting older and we're trying to discover their gifts and talents and I'm trying to pair that with needs in the world and all this stuff is on my mind.
Speaker 2:So then I happened upon another book by Corrie Ten Boom, who was the daughter that's talked about in the Hiding Place, and it's called Father Ten Boom, god's man, and it was actually a bunch of letters that she found that he had written when he was a young man and they were just starting their family. And as I read through this book I was like, oh man, they had a whole bunch of the same problems I have. Their marriage struggled, sometimes, their finances were a mess, he was majorly in debt. They were uh, they struggled with their children. They, they struggled in their, in their business, you know all these. They had problems, like I had. They weren't always perfect, and so then I just went and found all her other books and just devoured them. And then I started reading about other men and women that I really idolized and looked up to mother Teresa or Ben Carson or um, I don't know. I have a whole bunch of um mission driven stories on my podcast, and so then then then I got turned on to okay, wait a minute, maybe there's a pattern. What can they teach me? So then I just started for like a year or two. I got up early in the morning and I studied the lives of all these great men and women that I really looked up to, trying to see if there was a pattern to how they became the great men and women that they became. And I discovered a pattern and I call it the seven laws of life mission. My book delineates those laws and I take you through the lives of the Ten Boom family as an example of how they lived. These seven laws there's four foundational laws loving God, loving yourself, loving truth and loving humanity. And when you do those four things, it prepares you to hear the call of how you can pair your gifts and talents with needs in the real world. And then there's leadership laws you discover your, uh, you hear the call and you act courageously and you do it again. It's kind of like asking.
Speaker 2:One of the things I talk about in the book is that we have multiple missions. You know, is my motherhood my mission? Of course? Is being a great wife part of my mission, of course? But is building curriculum and helping moms part of my mission? Yes, and so there's multiple things we may feel called on to do. We're looking out at the world and matching our own abilities with needs that others have a way and we talk a lot about servant leadership. It's really the pathway to true servant leadership, and the um, the 10 booms, were just this beautiful example and I wanted to use. You know, I wanted you to be able to see this happen in the lives of real people and how they became the great men and women that I totally loved and admired. Um, but on my podcast there's a bunch of other examples. I take you through I just call them mission driven stories and I take you through the lives of men and women who have followed this pattern and this path to discover.
Speaker 2:The subtitle is Discover and Fulfill your Unique Contribution to the World. So it's a way of looking at the world through the lens of. I was placed here. I love. One of the books that we use in my academy is Cure for the Common Life by Max Lucado, and he talks about you know. God fashioned you for a work. You're here to do things to help your brothers and sisters, and what can you do for them? How can you serve them in meaningful ways? So this is just a pattern, a path to follow, some road signs to point you in a direction, if that's something that appeals to you if you want to be more mission driven. My academies help people through those first four laws of building a solid foundation to hear the call of mission and and stuff. But but that's, that's what the book is about.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's so cool, wow, I mean, yes, we will definitely all check that out. I'm going to put links to your book and the academy, okay, and you have one for teens as well. I'll put links to everything in the description, but you mentioned before having an Academy for teens.
Speaker 2:Yes, I started out. I had an experience. I don't know if you want to hear the whole story, but I I was in a space with moms and I saw their pain and I realized I had learned things that could help them, that this path would be a benefit to them, and so I built a cause curriculum's what I do, it's what I know how to do. And so I built uh cause curriculum's what I do, it's what I know how to do. So I built a program called the Mission Driven Mom Academy and we have three different levels where I take them through, uh, these foundational laws and, um, after, after that had been going for probably a couple years, the moms started to ask for something for their teens. Um, they were like I want to infuse this language into my home better.
Speaker 2:We, we put a lot of family read alouds into the program. We teach you principles and then you apply them in your family, in your home, in your life, um, so you can build a more principal, mission centered home. But they wanted program for teens. So we developed that I don't know three, four, five years ago, something like that. And there's some schools charter schools, homeschools, you know, co-ops that use it, individual moms with just their teens. You can buy just a year access or a lifetime access at themissiondriventeencom. But yeah, there's a. There's a teen program that takes teens through it too.
Speaker 1:You know, and when I look at kids today in school, um, you know our society in general, I think I think about this a lot. They have taken away our, our mission and just survival. And you know, when you were talking about all of the different missions, that we have a mother, a wife knowing that I, or even we, need to, as a family, make sure that we have enough to eat, and it really took pride to make sure that you were either hunting or, you know, planting your crops and doing that hard labor, and then you actually got to utilize the fruits of your labor and you needed it to survive and you felt good about yourself and they've, like, taken all of that away from us. I know, you know, yes, it's wonderful that I can just go online, order my groceries and pick them up at Hannaford later that day, but, um, is there any?
Speaker 1:Like you know, I, of course, when I cook food, I feel like happy and fulfilled that I've cooked a meal for my family, but it does, you know, it takes away a lot of our mission to. You know, just that survival. I think when you look at depression rates and anxiety rates, I think that has a lot to do with it, and it's not just the food aspect, it's you know. You hear about soldiers that end up coming home and they're more depressed at home. They actually want to be away at war because there they were, they had a purpose.
Speaker 1:They were like this is my you know I've got my band of brothers and this is my purpose, and then you come home and it's like everything's kind of done for you, Just go sit at this job and then leave eight hours later, which is what I did in my government work for 16 years and it's so unfulfilling. And not that every job is that way. My husband does love his job he does, he's in the trades but a lot of them are. And yeah, I think about that a lot when you think about why are we so depressed and have so much anxiety and your book just sounds like it would really help ease that. Finding you know your purpose, your why. Why are you here? Yeah, Because I think they like us to think that we're all here by chance. Just kind of poof, here you became. But there is actually a reason in everything in your life that happens for a good, even if it's something bad.
Speaker 2:It does have a reason too which is hard to kind of sit with.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, audrey. Anything else that you would like to make sure that you touched on before we close up for today, I guess?
Speaker 2:I would just be. I would just love to encourage your listeners to just. You can do this. You have unique things that you bring to the table, and your unique way of being and your unique skillset and gifts are a gift to your family and they can be um, they can blossom in a homeschool environment. You can bring your children with you to do those things that are, that are meaningful.
Speaker 2:I had, home, been homeschooling for I don't know a few years not not a long time and I was still just getting so much grief from family. I finally went to a woman who she actually had been homeschooled and she, she was kind of a mentor to me and and I said you know, so painful I don't know what to say to them. Like they just think that this is a terrible idea. So what, what? How long is it going to take? You know what's? What's it going to take for them to to believe me and trust me and think that this was probably a good idea? She said, audrey is going to take 10 years and uh, and she's like, yeah, but it just it's going to take people a while to get their mind around it, to see the fruits from it and to really get on board.
Speaker 2:And it's so funny because years later I don't know if it was exactly 10, but like, one of the big naysayers was my father-in-law and he actually did pull me aside years later and say to me I think you're such an amazing mom Uh, just incredible what you've done for these grandkids of ours, and you know I'm really proud of you. I think I'm sorry that I was kind of a naysayer back in the day. So just trust your gut and trust that, that inspiration, that intuition that tells you that this is right for your family. You know, you can always go back or whatever if that's what you really need to do, but just try it, just do it. There's, there's always go back or whatever if that's what you really need to do, but just try it, just do it. There's, there's so much support, there's so many resources. It's and, and, and. You're capable, you're totally capable.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's awesome. Yes, and I think that is one of the hurdles to homeschooling is there will be people that are like you're crazy and you're messing them up. It's one thing if you think you're messing your kids up and you're you know, you can kind of pep talk yourself like you have this, you've got this. But when other people are worried that you're messing your kids up or their grandkids up, it's like oh geez you really have to know your why.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like you said before, why are you doing this? What is your goal? And just focus on that, because this too shall pass. 10 years will go by and they'll be like, oh all right. Yeah yeah, her kids are pretty well adjusted, yeah yeah. Thank you so much for joining us today. Like I said before, I'll put links to everything your podcast, your book. Like I said before, I'll put links to everything your podcast, your book, your academies, uh, right in the show's description and, um, I just had such an enjoyable conversation with you. Thank you for inspiring and doing all that you do for the homeschool community. Yeah, thank you, cheryl. So great to be here.