RAR #216: How to Teach from Rest

Sarah Mackenzie (00:00): My house is messy. The laundry's piling up in the living room. I don't know what I'm going to make for dinner. I just caught a child lying. Lied to me, completely lied to me, and I caught them, right? Or maybe another one was being so unkind to a sibling. We have problems, right? We have problems, and then I'm like, that's a problem. The problems feel like problems. The fact that we have problems feel like problems. (00:27): So here's the thing, this is the Teaching from Rest principle that applies here. Having problems isn't a problem. Having problems is just the work. This is the Read-Aloud Revival, the show that helps your kids fall in love with books and helps you fall in love with homeschooling. I'm your host, Sarah Mackenzie, and what you just heard was a little tiny snippet from a recent Circle with Sarah session. (01:02): Circle with Sarah is the premium coaching program for homeschooling moms inside RAR Premium. Every month I lead our members through some ideas and some journaling and we get really clear on the work we're doing in our home schools and why. Today I wanted to share a little bit of that goodness with you. What we do in Circle with Sarah is probably our member's favorite part of RAR premium. I mean, we all come to RAR premium thinking we want the family book clubs, and to let our kids meet the authors of the books we're reading, and to have access to those amazing writers on writing workshops, and all of that is so, so good. But consistently, when we ask our members what is the most impactful part of RAR premium, they almost always say Circle with Sarah. They tell us it transforms their homeschools, that they love homeschooling again and find joy and purpose again. (01:58): They tell us they have clarity about the kind of homeschool they want and that they also now have the skills and the steps to create the homeschool life they want. This fall in Circle with Sarah we are deep diving into the principles inside my first book, Teaching from Rest: A Homeschooler's Guide to Unshakable Peace. And I wanted to give you a sense of what that's like because we have a fabulous coaching lineup through the end of the school year, actually all the way through the end of 2023. Our lineup is so good. I'm very excited and I think if you like this episode, you're not going to want to miss what's coming next in Circle with Sarah. So I've got a replay for you today from one of our recent coaching sessions. (02:41): In this one we focused on Teaching from Rest if you have kids in first to fourth grades. Now, if you've got kids who are older or younger, stay with me because the principles of Teaching from Rest actually remain the same no matter how old your kids are. It's just that the struggles that come up, the obstacles and challenges, those tend to change based on the dynamics of our family lives, based on the ages of our kids. So homeschooling kids who are about ages six through nine presents a different set of challenges than homeschooling teens, for example. (03:13): So all season long in Circle with Sarah we've been spending time diving into those particular challenges at every level. So in today's replay right here on the podcast, you're going to get to hear Teaching from Rest in grades one through four, so with six to nine year olds. We've also had a session focusing on Teaching from Rest in grades five through eight, and then also Teaching from Rest when you have high schoolers. Of course, we also have a session on those early years. So we've really covered every age now and I wanted to share this replay with you, even if your kids are not in first through fourth grades, maybe they're older, maybe they're younger, maybe you've got a wide range of ages. This episode's going to be relevant for you too and I hope it blesses you. So without further ado, here's the replay. Let's talk about how to teach from rest. (04:09): So tonight we're going to talk about teaching how to teach from rest. When our kids are in about first through fourth grade, that principles of Teaching from Rest, they remain unchanged really no matter the ages of our kids. The principles we're going to talk about today will apply if you have a three-year-old or if you have a 13-year-old. But oftentimes the struggles that pop up change, and so what we're doing tonight is focusing on a few of those struggles that really show up a lot when our kids are in this age group, when they're about first to fourth grade or ages of six to nine. (04:41): So that's what we're going to focus on tonight. When our kids are about this age, a lot of times we're just doing our first real homeschooling work. When they're preschool and kindergarten, we're like, "We're homeschooling." And we are homeschooling, but maybe it amps up a little bit in our minds about what this means and doing it well when our kids are about first grade and on. So tonight I want to chat with you for a bit about those principles and about the things that come up, and then Kara and Courtney are here and they're going to hop on with me in a little bit, and we're going to do some journaling activities that are going to help us put these principles into practice in our own homeschools. So there are some principal journaling pages and maybe either Kara or Courtney, if you could pop that in the chat so we have it here at the bottom of the chat. So if you haven't gotten a chance to, you might want to print those off real quick. If you click that, it won't kick you out of Zoom or anything. You also don't have to. You could use just a blank piece of paper, but if you want to have journaling pages, we have some for you. (05:38): So let's start with one of the really common struggles that show up for a lot of us when we're teaching kids ages six to nine or so, and that is I don't have enough time to do all the things I need to. Do any of you feel that way? Is that a thing that you feel on the regular? I don't have enough time. There's too much on my plate, there's so much to do and not enough of me. Yes, I'm seeing a lot of yeses, absolutelys, a lot of exclamation points, all the time. "Only every day." Jordan says, yes. So that is definitely a situation where I find myself, and this can show up in thinking I don't have enough time for all of this. There's not enough me to go around, there's too much to do. (06:23): So when we're homeschooling kids in this age range, one of the things that makes it really tricky is that we often have younger kids in the mix as well, right? So we're probably also juggling babies and toddlers, maybe not always, but often. We're probably responsible for most of our family's life things, like driving to dentist appointments and dance practice. When you have older kids, you're not responsible for all of that. Even now I have kids in this age range, but I have older kids that can also help me drive to dentist appointments and dance practice, and it's a total game changer. There's other struggles that come up. We'll be talking about those. We talk about homeschooling teens, right? But things like driving to appointments, and activities, and doing the grocery shopping, and cleaning the bathroom, and making dinner, and doing the dishes, a lot of that ends up resting on us when our kids are in this stage. (07:22): In addition to that, our school age kids in this age, they need us for almost all of their schoolwork. So that's a big difference between now and when you have high schoolers, where you're just editing a paper or they're consulting you, they're getting some advice for something they're working on. When they're in this age, they need you for all of it. And if your child is not reading independently well yet, they need you for a 100% of their schoolwork. So you're needed a lot of hours by a lot of people, and so then I think it follows very rationally that of course we feel short on time. That's not an invalid way to feel, that's just our reality. I think this time crunch really feels extra intense if you've got all kids in this age group and younger. So tell me in the chat if all of your kids are about nine or 10 and under. No older than 10, because I will tell you those were the hardest homeschooling years for me by a long mile. (08:21): Yes, a lot of you. Okay. I never felt so crunched for time as I did when my oldest kids were in this stage. I also had toddlers and babies, and again, you're needed for all the school things, you're needed for all the home things, you're needed for all the things, right? And so that's a big, big piece, and I think know that. I mean, I know everybody kind of has a sweet spot in parenting. Like, oh, I really especially love parenting toddlers, or parenting teens, or parenting a 10-year-old or whatever. We might have an age range that we feel like we're better at than others. For me, when I had all kids aged 10 and under, it's very physically exhausting and everybody needs you for everything. So you're in a really hard part. So if it feels hard, it's because it is hard. (09:06): So it's not that you're not cut out for this, it's not that you are like, "What is wrong with me?" It's that you're doing something that's really, really hard. So let's talk about a principle from Teaching from Rest that I think can help with this feeling of there's not enough time, and it's because when we have this thought, when we think to ourselves, and I will catch myself thinking this quite often, there's not enough time for me to get everything done. I don't have enough time to get all this. There's not enough me to go around, any of those things. How do you feel when you have that thought? When you catch yourself thinking that way, what does it feel like in your body? How do you feel about your day? Anxiety, desperation, stretched thin, heavy, cringey, anxious, frustrated, stressed, guilty, despair, neck is tight, exploding, rushed, failure, overwhelmed. Okay, just reading all those words. Those are not words that we want to feel in our homeschool. We are not signing up for homeschooling because we're like, "I want to feel all of these things all the time." Right? (10:09): So it is true that you have a lot to do, but there's also something else that's true at the same time, and it's something that I think if we reminded ourselves of we might get a different feeling and it might actually help us experience our homeschool day a little differently. That is the truth that yes, we have a lot on our plates but also we have all the time we need to do the work that God is asking us to do. We have all the time we need to do the work God is asking us to do. (10:43): So when we catch ourselves thinking I don't have enough time, or how can I fit it all in, we get to the end of the day and maybe we have a huge list of things that are left undone, or we're always racing and moving around too quickly. That's me. If I have a lot to do, I am moving so fast. I mean, it's kind of a joke. I broke multiple baby gates in my house when I had toddlers and it was because I would barrel through around my house with a ridiculous amount of speed, because in my head I was like, "I have nap time. That is all I have to get all these things done." I would just move really fast with this baby gate at the bottom of our stairs. By the third time I had broken it, my husband was like, "Sarah, what in the world?" I was just barreling on through getting things done, right? Or maybe you look at your agenda and we know before it begins that you have too much on it, there's too much to do. There's no possible way for you to get everything done done, right? But we have all the time we need to do the things God's asking us to do. (11:51): Now, when I say that, how does that feel? If you were able to in the moment, and I know it doesn't change your circumstances, it doesn't change the fact that the baby just blew out their diaper and the five-year-old is not doing what you asked them to do, and then there's somebody sitting at the table crying over their handwriting because they can't get it to go right and they just erased a hole through their paper in frustration. Do any other kids do that? Mine do. The phone is ringing and you don't know what's for dinner. It's not going to change those circumstances, but what happens when you think, "Oh, I have all the time to do everything God is asking me to do." Doubt, perspective, reminds me that I'm not responsible for the outcomes and God is asking me just to be faithful. Lori says it makes her feel like crying. Puts things in their right places. Yes. (12:51): Okay, this is good. Karen says she understands but she doesn't believe it in her heart. We're totally going to talk about this. This is so important because if we just try and tell ourselves something, like if I said I have time to do everything on my list, that's not actually true. I could be instead of feeling like oh my gosh, there's so much to do and there's so much overwhelm, I'm going to think like I have time to get everything done. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's not true actually, and I know that in my gut. So it doesn't even feel honest. It doesn't even feel authentic, right? It's not calming or peaceful because it's just a lie. It's just me lying to myself. I do not have time to get everything done. I have time enough to do everything that God is asking me to do. And how do we know that this is true? (13:41): We have to believe that it's true in order to, we have to believe that it's true intellectually, and then we have to remind ourselves constantly that this is true because we forget that everything on our list or everything that we think we need to do is not everything that God thinks that we need to do. So one of the scripture verses that's very, very helpful here is Jeremiah 29:11. You all know it already. "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans for peace and not for evil to give you a future and a hope." I know the plans I have for you, and then he says they're peace and full of hope. That is not how I feel when I am stressed, or overwhelmed, or anxious, or my throat is getting tight, or all the things that you mentioned when I go, "Oh my gosh, there's so much to do and I don't have enough time to do it in." (14:31): On page 15 of Teaching from Rest, God doesn't call us to this work and then turn away to tend to other more important matters. He promises to stay with us, to lead us, to carry us. He assures us that if we rely on him alone, then he will provide all that we need. So reminding ourselves of those two things. Jeremiah 29:11 where he promises us plans that include peace and hope, and then knowing that he doesn't call us to this work and then 10 more other important business. He doesn't ask us to homeschool our kids and then give us all these babies and then be like, "Good luck. I hope you can manage to get it all in." But this kind of brings up something I'm kind of seeing in the chat. Reminds me that we may know intellectually that we have all the time we need to do the work God has called us to do, but part of the thing that this brings up, at least for me, part of the question this raises up in me is like, how do I know whether I'm doing too much or doing not enough? (15:54): So am I doing enough? That's the real question at heart there then, right? How do I know if I'm doing enough and am I doing enough? Am I doing too much? Am I doing too little? And how am I supposed to know? So is this a question that comes up for you, am I doing enough? And when it comes up, do you feel like it comes up because you're worried that you're doing too little or you're doing too much? Both, great. (16:19): I know, it's like that anxious, negligent. What do we call it? Anxious negligence, right? When the days are going really smoothly and quickly and things kind of go without a hiccup, we think oh, we're not doing enough. What am I missing? What am I forgetting to do? When the days drag on or they don't go well, we think, "How can I fit this all in?" I don't have enough time to do all the things. Or why are we doing so much? Or how do I know what I can cut? When you hear all these experienced moms say, "Do less." Right? I'm guilty of this. I'll say, "Do less." But I remember this feeling when my oldest were young and I would think do less of what? How am I supposed to know? This is when you're making a recipe and someone says add salt to taste. I hate it when recipes do that. I'm like, "To taste like what?" That's why I'm making a recipe, so that you can tell me what it's supposed to taste like. I need to know the amount of salt. (17:14): So when people say do less, I'm like, "Do less of what?" Everything feels very, very important and essential and I don't know how to do less. But these thoughts, I'm not doing enough, or how can I fit this all in, they cause me to feel inadequate because immediately I'm like, "How am I supposed to know what I can or what I'm supposed to do or not supposed to do?" So on the one hand, if it's joyful and easy we figure it kind of doesn't count, we're doing something wrong. On the other hand, if we're frantic and running around, we are stressed, and we're never quite content, we're kind of constantly second-guessing ourselves. (17:48): I think this something that is really pernicious in our homeschooling, is that we're we second-guess ourselves all the time. I will second-guess myself if I'm having a bad day, if my kids are having a bad day, if my husband's having a bad day, if the toddler's having a bad moment, right? I'm second-guessing everything, or nine, or 10, or seven-year-old, they can't tie their shoes, or they say something like, "Is France one of the states in the United States of America?" Or something and you're like, "I think I'm pretty sure I'm ruining you all." I don't know what to cut and what to do, but I just know that I feel like I'm going a million miles an hour, so I know I need to cut back, but all of this is essential and I feel like I'm dropping balls at the same time. (18:39): Then what happens is we feel all those words that you mentioned earlier, we feel anxious, and frustrated, and worried. So here's another bit from Teaching from Rest I want to read to you. This one comes from page 53. If God expected you to get 36 hours worth of work done in a day, he would've given you 36 hours in which to do it. If you have more to do than time to do it in, the simple fact is this, some of what you're doing isn't on his agenda for you. So the Teaching from Rest principle that might help us with these thoughts, with this thought of am I doing enough, is really just to acknowledge that that question itself is not a complete question. Am I doing enough is not a complete question. (19:28): Our next podcast episode, very excited to release it to you, it's going deep into this question. The whole episode is all about am I doing enough, this question. So don't miss that one. It comes out, it's episode 214. It comes out on September 29th. But one of the things I explore in that episode I want to dig into right now, and that's that question specifically, am I doing enough? Because I think a huge piece of our problem here is that we're asking a question that's not a complete question. Am I doing enough to what? When you're asking that question, you might be saying like in any given moment you might think, "Am I doing enough to help my kids pass a math test, help my son pass a math test for his grade level? Make sure that he can finish the Saxon three book." Or something, whatever you're using. (20:15): Am I doing enough to make sure my kids can read independently, that they'll be able to keep reading independently? Am I doing enough to make sure that they love reading? Am I doing enough to make sure they're prepared for next year's schoolwork, that they're ready to move on? Am I doing enough to help them form a strong faith, or to form strong memories in their childhood for them to remember so they'll remember their childhood fondly? These are all very different questions, right? Asking if you are doing enough to help your child finish a level of math is going to have a very different answer than asking if you are doing enough to make sure that your kids have fond memories of their childhood. So both of those are going to have very different answers than asking if you're doing enough to help your kids understand and love their faith, right? (21:07): They all have different answers and I think that's the problem with this question because it's too nebulous, it's too broad, it's not specific enough. So when I ask am I doing enough and I don't finish it, the answer is always no because there's not even an answer to the ... It's not even a question I can answer. So the answer is always no, and so then I always feel inadequate, and I always feel frantic, and I always second-guess myself. Am I doing enough? It's like this big nebulous question that there's no answer because it's not actually a question. So we just feel this sense, a vague sense of not enoughness, like we're never actually doing enough because we don't even have a clear goal. It's not even a real question. Enough to what? We're not really sure what enough means or what it would look like to do enough because we don't know what enough means, so we're not sure what we're trying to accomplish in the first place. (22:09): So I think this question, it would help a lot for us to get very, very specific about what we mean when we're thinking. In a moment when you're like, "Oh my gosh, I don't know if I'm doing enough to help my kid be a good speller." Maybe you look at... I'm trying to think of an example on the fly here, but maybe you look at your nine-year-old's writing or something and you're like, "Oh their spelling's terrible." Maybe you have a nine-year-old who's not reading yet, because I had a lot of late readers in my house, and you're going, "Am I doing enough? Do I need to be doing something different? Am I doing it wrong?" Forcing yourself to keep that question, make it specific. Am I doing enough to what? Those are two different things. So let's just tackle one of these at a time can be really helpful because now you actually have the hope of answering the question. (22:59): So we did a co-working session in August here at RAR premium, and you can watch the replay of this if you have not done it yet. It's completely worth doing it any time. In that co-working session in August, we talked about asking the question of what we want our kids to know, what we want them to do, and what we want them to love at the end of our homeschool year, or at the end of any class. And that can be really helpful here. What do I want my child to know, do, or love at the end of this school year? Because let's just take that example. My kid hands me something and I think, "Oh my goodness, their spelling. Are they ever going to be able to spell?" Or I have a kid that is not reading and I think, "Oh, are you ever going to be able to read independently? Am I doing enough?" Right? Well, stopping and saying okay, the question I'm really asking is, am I doing enough to help my child learn how to spell, or am I doing enough to help my child learn to read independently? (23:52): Well, what do I want my child, what do I want that child to know and be able to do and to love at the end of this school year? Take the reading example. I want my child to know how to read Frog and Toad by the end of this school year. I want them to be able to read Frog and Toad without any help from me. That's my goal, and I want them to be to love stories and love reading and not hate it. Knowing that, now I can actually, I've got a goal, now I know what my actual goal is, right? To help my child know, and do and love something. With math you might go, I want them to be able to know their whatever it is, their addition facts or subtraction facts or whatever. I want them to be able to do the end of year assessment at the end of their math book that I'm using this year. And I want them to love, well, I have very low expectations with my children loving math to be honest, but I want them to love learning and not come to the table with dread. (24:49): I think Courtney has the most brilliant idea here. She gives her son a stick of gum at the beginning of his math lesson every day, and that would probably cause a little bit of love to be more likely, right? But basically what you're doing is you're making the question smaller. You're saying am I doing enough to, and you're getting clear on what you mean, and then you're asking, well the only way to know if I'm doing enough is to find out what do I want my child to know, do and love. When you get clear on that, now you can actually answer the question, right? (25:17): Now I know, going back to that example of reading, if I want my child to know, do and love those things, then maybe 15 minutes of phonics and then me reading aloud to them every day, that's actually enough to help them get there. But 15 minutes of phonics every day and me reading aloud at different parts of the day, that's enough to get them to where we want to go. So now I don't have to second-guess myself. Now I don't have to question my own decisions or second-guess myself when I see another homeschooling mom doing something I'm not, using something I'm not, or if we meet another kid at co-op or at church who knows something or can do something my child can't because I'm clear about what we're doing and then figuring out what I want my child to know, do and love. So then I can answer that question of am I doing enough. (26:05): Now, there's a couple of practical things that I think are helpful to know here, especially if your oldest is in this age group. If your oldest is in first to fourth grade and this is your first rodeo through homeschooling, then there's a couple of things that I think are really helpful that homeschoolers who have been homeschooling for a while will tell you almost unanimously. The first thing is that you probably need less curriculum than you think and you probably need more time than you think. This is not all good news, but a lot of times we try and fix our anxiety about what our kids know and don't know, or can do or can't do by buying curriculum, and that very rarely solves the problem. Giving something a little more time in your schedule, which I know is really hard at this stage, especially if you've got other kids, other small kids, it can be really hard, but actually you probably need fewer books, resources, curriculum, lesson plans, and you probably need a little more time than you were thinking to make progress in that sticky area. So just knowing that is really helpful. (27:11): So if you feel like what's wrong with me, nothing's wrong with you. I think there's a good chance that if you were to ask a experienced homeschool mom if that was true, she'd probably agree. The other thing that's really helpful to know is that reading aloud can cover so much of your curriculum outside of just reading instruction, and math, and handwriting. With my kids in this age group from first grade through fourth grade, we do reading, writing, and math in very short lessons. We'll do a short lesson in math and a short handwriting and that's all. Just handwriting, not inventive writing, or composition or anything, just handwriting. Whether that's copy work or it's in a handwriting book, one or the other. Reading instruction and math. I'm like, what's the other thing? No, I said that, math, reading instruction and handwriting. Yeah, I did say them all. (28:00): Reading, writing, math and then almost everything else we do can be covered in with read-alouds. Your kids will learn so much history, so much social studies, so much science and nature, so much about the world through read-alouds. My husband recently was telling me how stressful it was when your kid says something and you realize they don't know. I wish I could remember this example he gave me, I'll have to ask him if he remembers. It was something that our kids didn't know and he just looked at me and said, "There's so much we have to teach, right?" Like there's so much they don't know and that feels really overwhelming, but you don't actually. I told him, "No, no, no, we don't actually have to teach." A lot of things that my older adult kids know, they just learned from books. They just learned from either read-alouds or reading on their own, or just from being in the world, from going to co-op, and going to the grocery store, and taking a camping trip. There's so much other things happening. (28:57): So in this age if you're overwhelmed, and even if you're not overwhelmed, you can just do reading, writing and math and read alouds, and I do short, short lessons, like 10 or 15 minute lessons, and everything except for reading aloud. So you don't have to pile on a whole bunch of stuff. Your kids don't have to do amazing maps, or memorize tons and tons of things, or do art study or picture study and lots of science experiments. You can bring a little of whatever lights you up and brings you joy. I love memorizing with my kids like Shakespeare and poetry. So I mean, it's fun for me. So we do that, but I never do science experiments. There's a 0% chance I will do a science experiment with my children this year. So just reading, writing, and math, read-alouds, and then whatever brings you joy, that can be a very, very full curriculum for this age, and knowing that you probably need less curriculum and more time can also help. (29:55): Courtney found a passage of scripture that will help us remember this piece, just like we had Jeremiah for the last bit to remind us. This is Corinthians 12:9. I don't have this one memorized. Corinthians 12:9, but the Lord said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me." I'm going to read that again. "My grace is sufficient for you." That right there, my grace is sufficient for you, on all those days where you're going, "Am I doing enough? Am I enough? Am I ruining my children? Am I cut out for this?" He says, "My grace is sufficient for you." Remember he's not calling you to this so that he can just like... And then leaving you on your own. My power is made perfect in weakness and we're bringing the weakness when it comes to homeschooling. Whether it's weakness in our patience, or our kindness, or our consistency, or our self-discipline and getting our school day started. I mean, name them, we've got the weakness, right? My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness, therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. That is good news. (31:21): Let's talk about one more place that we get stuck with at this age and then we're going to get into journaling. Some of us are going to feel this more keenly than others. So tell me how you feel when I just say this. I'm just going to start describing how I feel. We'll see if you resonate. My house is messy. The laundry's piling up in the living room. I don't know what I'm going to make for dinner. I just caught a child lying, lied to me, completely lied to me and I caught them, right? Or maybe another one was being so unkind to a sibling. We have problems, right? We have problems, and then I'm like, "That's a problem." The problems feel like problems. The fact that we have problems feel like problems. So here's the thing, this is the Teaching from Rest principle that applies here. Having problems isn't a problem. Having problems is just the work. (32:17): Stay with me for a minute. I know this one's hard for a second, but you're going to... It's really resonating, it'll really resonate truth in a second. If you were to walk into a diner or a restaurant, you're going to have lunch with your mom maybe or your sister or something, a friend. So you go into a diner for lunch and the waitress is sitting there and she's reading her novel, and she's got her feet up, and you're like, "Oh, hello, can we have a booth for lunch?" And she's like, "You want to eat? You expect to come here." I mean, it's a job, right? This is the point of the restaurant and your job is to seat us and ask us what we want to eat. That's the job, right? This is the job. (33:05): So I would have a tendency to look around and see I'm behind on laundry, I don't know what's for dinner and I have a child sassing me. And all of those feel like problems because they're all undone, because I feel like if my laundry was caught up, and my meal plan worked, and my bathroom didn't overflow, and my kids didn't talk back, then I would be doing my job. But actually you wouldn't have a job to do. This is the problem, right? When our kids don't know, we're worried about a kid because they don't know how to read. This is a very common thing in this age. So when you have kids of this age, if you have a child who is struggling to learn how to read, that feels like a problem, but having a child who's struggling to learn how to read is not a problem, it's just the work of homeschooling. We tend to make it mean something it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean we're not good at it. It doesn't mean they can't read, doesn't mean they won't read. Doesn't mean we're broken. It just means we're needed here. (34:03): We were made for such a time as this. We were made for such a child as this, we were made for such a homeschool as this. It doesn't mean anything is broken about you or your kids, it just means this is the work. This is actually the job we signed up for when we had our children and then again when we decided to homeschool, and maybe you were like, "Yeah, I didn't sign up for that." But somebody signed you up for it, whether that was someone handsome in your house, or God or someone, you were signed up for this work and having problems, being behind on laundry is not a problem. It just means that you're still needed to do laundry because this is the work. The endless meal planning, the never-ending tasks around the house, the kids who still need to learn to be obedient, and not lie, and to be honest, and to be kind, and not to interrupt when two other people are talking. None of that's a problem, it's just the work. (35:06): So I think what we do is when we're looking for these things to be perfect is we're looking for assurance that we're doing a good enough job. I want assurance that I'm doing my job and I'm looking for that assurance in the performance of my children, out. Like me saying that makes me... I just got goosebumps, like oh, I don't want that. I'm looking for assurance that I'm doing my job in the performance of my children, but my assurance needs to come from God, from the fact that God has called me his own, and that I'm an image of God, and that he loves me and has called me his beloved. That is where my assurance comes from. It does not come from the bottom of the laundry pile. It does not come from the end of our to-do list. It does not come because we finish the Saxon math book. We will never reach a point where we're like, "My job here is done." Until we're actually done homeschooling and then we don't have any more to do. (36:01): So let's think about another verse that can help us here. We are going to read Galatians 6:9. "And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up." Not growing weary, that's a prayer. We could pray that every day. Wake up, come Holy Spirit, help me to not be weary in doing good. And then five minutes later when we lose our patience, we can go, "Let's pray that again." Can you please help me not grow weary again, right? (36:43): There's another bit from Teaching from Rest here too that I wanted to read from. This is the very beginning. This is from page three. Whatever is getting in the way of your plan for the day, the toddler's tantrum, the messy bedroom, the sticky juice leaking all over the fridge and into the cracks of the drawers, the frustrated child, the irritable husband, the car that won't start, the cake, the dog dragged under the couch, whatever that intrusion into your grand plan for the day is, it's also an opportunity to enter into his rest. Surrender your idea of what the ideal homeschool day is supposed to look like and take on with both hands the day that it is. (37:28): Surrender your idea of what the ideal homeschool is supposed to look like and take on with both hands the day that it is. I have a hunch, I know this is true in my homeschool, that I would have so much more peace and joy in my homeschool if I surrendered this idea of a perfectly tidy home, maybe one that was even pretty enough to post on Instagram, with the laundry caught up, and a chore chart that everybody keeps up with, and children that behave, and kids that do their lessons without fuzzing, or arguing, or telling me this is the worst thing. (38:12): I was talking to a mom in my co-op this week who said her son was saying like, "It's the worst to be homeschooled. I hate being homeschooled. I want to go to school. When I grow up I'm never homeschooling my kids." And I told her, "Oh my goodness, my 17-year-old spent 10 years of his life saying these things to me, 10 years." He is 17 years old and I overheard him the other day say to my husband, "Well, I'm sure I'll want to homeschool when I get married and have children." I was like, can we all just take a moment? Because in those moments it feels like you are ruining them, and it's too hard, and it's too much, but we just need to surrender the idea of what our homeschool day is supposed to look like and take on with both hands, this is the work. The work that I'm supposed to be doing, the work that he's giving us grace enough to handle, right? Having problems is not the problem, this is the work. We are needed for absolutely such a time as this. (39:17): So that was actually just the first half of this coaching session. The second half is where we get super practical, and in this particular case we guided our members through a few very simple questions, I think there were five. They answer those questions to get very particular about how all of this actually applies with their specific children and their specific situation. Actually, this is really fun. In this case, we actually created a worksheet that is basically a Mad Lib to write a letter to themselves that will help them get really super clear about these principles, and how they show up with their own kids, and how they show up in their homeschools. I'll tell you, when we got to that point in the session, we are done with the five questions, we're putting them into this Mad Lib. Let me just pull a few direct quotes from the chat box. (40:05): Oh my gosh, this is the most powerful thing I've ever done. Wow, do you have a lifetime membership option? I need it. This is so good. I can't believe how practical the second part is and how calm and joyful I feel about homeschooling now. Those were just three of them. There were more. So I want to invite you to join us because yes, RAR premium has so much to offer your kids, but in particular it has this coaching program, Circle with Sarah, that will benefit your kids because it'll help you become the peaceful, joyful, homeschooling mom that your kids deserve, and it will help you get clear, and find peace, and shed the overwhelm and doubt that creeps in to all of our homeschools when we're teaching our kids, and leading and raising our kids, so join us. Like I said, we've got a session like this specifically geared for homeschooling grades five through eight. (41:00): So we cover a few different principles and how those apply with kids about age 10 to 13 or so. Then we're just around the corner from our session on Teaching from Rest in high school, where we'll be uncovering some principles and how they apply with our teens. So no matter what ages your kids are, there is a session or two here for you. Join us at rarpremium.com, or if you're on the go and you just want a super quick way to sign up text Sarah, that's my name, right? S-A-R-A-H. Text Sarah to the number 33777 and I'll send you a direct signup link, and then you'll get access to all of the Circles with Sarah, because everything, I should say this, everything we've done before is stored in a library you have access to at any time. So yes, we already did this session, but if you want to do those journaling pages and that Mad Lib and get those same practical results, you can just go to the replay and grab those. (41:54): You can also watch any or listen to any of the Circles with Sarah we've done before. And then our upcoming lineup for the next year, year and a half, it's truly going to be life-changing. I am beside myself with looking forward to it. I think it's going to be just absolutely spectacular. Then of course it's not just the Circles with Sarah, you get everything else in RAR premium too. Family book clubs, and your kids getting to meet authors and illustrators, and our really truly unique writing workshops for kids that are taught by their favorite published authors. I mean, there's really too much to outline here, but I am confident in guaranteeing that this is the best 20 bucks you'll spend every month in your homeschool. Okay, let's hear from some of our kid listeners about the books they've been loving lately. Clay (42:47): Hi, my name is Clay. I live in Boston and I am six years old. A book I have enjoyed lately is Elephant and Piggie, I will take a nap, because Gerald is tired and he takes a nap, and then Piggy gets tired and she takes a nap. At the end of their nap gerald says, "Turnip head." Because in his dream Piggy was floating and her head was a turnip. Blossom (43:27): My name is Blossom. I live in Boston, Massachusetts and I am eight years old. A book I have enjoyed lately is Farmer Boy. I like it because it has detail and tells everything they do. Speaker 4 (43:39): Hi, my name is [inaudible 00:43:45] and I live in Boxborough, I mean, Boston, and I'm four years old. Speaker 5 (43:51): Do you like books? Speaker 4 (43:53): Yeah. Speaker 5 (43:53): What's a favorite book you read? Speaker 4 (44:01): Like maybe Fancy Nancy. Speaker 5 (44:02): And why do you like Fancy Nancy? Speaker 4 (44:03): I like the pictures. Speaker 5 (44:05): Are they fancy? Speaker 4 (44:08): Mm-hmm. Dove (44:08): Hi, my name is Dove. I live in Boston, Massachusetts and I am 10 years old. My favorite book is the series called the Amazing Indian Children Series. And I like it because the characters are brave and I like the way I feel when I close the book. Chloe (44:29): Hi, my name's Chloe. I am six years old and I live in Alabama. My favorite book is Sisters Ever After because it takes a fairytale and adds a new sister and it's from the sister's point of view. Kate (44:49): My name is Kate and I'm 10 years old. I live in Alabama and my favorite book, well, my favorite book series is Keeper Of The Lost Cities. My favorite book in that series is Flashback, but I'm going to tell you an overview about the first book because I don't want to give you any spoilers. So it's about a girl named Sophie living in San Diego and she can hear thoughts. So she is living there, having a not so normal life until a boy named Fitz comes to take her to the Lost Cities. And I like that book because it's really fun and adventurous, and the main characters actually lose sometimes. Olive (45:38): Hi, my name is Olive and I am 10 years old. I live in Alabama and my favorite book is the The Wollstonecraft Detective Agency. I like it because it has some real historical figures, but it puts them in an absurd situation that you would not think they would be doing in real life, but it makes sense when you read it in the book. I also like how it includes their siblings as well. I just like books like that and it's a really fun book for me. Lucy (46:13): Hi, my name is Lucy. I am 13 years old and I live in Alabama. My favorite book is The Wizards of Once and I like it because it has two unlikely heroes, Wish and Xar. Wish is a warrior who's not supposed to have any magic, but she has an enchanted spoon. And Xar is a wizard who's always getting in trouble for lots of different pranks, and together they go on a quest to defeat the witches, even though they're witches and warriors and aren't supposed to even hang out together at all. This book is written by Cressida Cowell who also wrote How to Train Your Dragon. So if you liked that book, you'll like this book too. Sarah Mackenzie (47:13): Thank you. Thank you kids. I love your messages, I love your book recommendations so much. Hey, if you enjoyed this episode, you need to join us in Circle with Sarah in RAR Premium. We would love, love, love to have you with us. All you need to do is go to rarpremium.com to sign up, or you can just text my name Sarah, S-A-R-A-H, to the number 33777, and I will text you a direct link to sign up so it's quick and easy. And we make it easy for you to participate in what we're doing in Circle with Sarah, and then you can shed some overwhelm and get a lot of peace and clarity and really be able to live in a homeschool life that you love. That's what we do in Circle with Sarah, and I'd love to help you. I'll be back in two weeks with another episode of the Read-Aloud Revival. But in the meantime, you know what to do. Go make meaningful and lasting connections with your kids through books. (48:18): So many of us feel overwhelmed in our homeschool. There's a lot to do, and it feels like every child needs something a little different. The good news is you are the best person on the planet to help your kids learn and grow, and home is the best place to fall in love with books. I'm Sarah Mackenzie, I'm a homeschooling mother of six, the author of Teaching from Rest and the Read-Aloud Family, and I'm the host here on the Read-Aloud Revival podcast. (48:56): This podcast has been downloaded over 8 million times, and I think it's because so many of us want the same things. We want our kids to be readers, to love reading. We want our homes to be warm and happy havens of learning and connection. We know that raising our kids is the most important work of our lives. That's kind of overwhelming, right? You are not alone. In Read-Aloud Revival Premium we offer family book clubs, a vibrant community, and Circle with Sarah coaching for you, the homeschooling mom, so you can teach from rest, homeschool with confidence, and raise kids who love to read. Our family book clubs are a game-changer for your kids' relationship with books. We provide you with a family book club guide and an opportunity for your kids to meet the author or illustrator live on screen. So all you have to do is get the book, read it with your kids, and make those meaningful and lasting connections. (50:08): They work for all ages, from your youngest kids to your teens. Every month our community also gathers online for a Circle with Sarah to get ideas and encouragement around creating the homeschooling life you crave. They're the most effective way I know to teach from rest and build a homeschool life you love. We want to help your kids fall in love with books, and we want to help you fall in love with homeschooling. Join us today at rarpremium.com.