Sarah Mackenzie (00:00): Have you ever worried that you're not meeting all of your child's needs, academically, emotionally, spiritually, even socially? Like pretty much every day, right? We are not alone. In fact, I think most of us have asked ourselves that question at one time or another. Am I meeting my kid's needs? Am I giving my child everything they need? (00:23): I'm Sarah Mackenzie. This is the Read-Aloud Revival podcast, and today that's exactly what we're talking about. (00:42): Welcome back to the show. In this episode, you're going to hear the replay of a Circle with Sarah live where we tackled this very fear head on. This fear of can I possibly give my child everything he or she needs? Now, if you don't know, Circle with Sarah is my online homeschool mentoring program. You'll find it inside RAR Premium. Every Monday, members get a quick five to 10 minute podcast with just the encouragement they need to be the peace-filled joyful homeschool moms they're called to be. And about once a month we meet on Zoom for what we call a Circle with Sarah Live. That's what you're about to hear. This one is asking the question, what is education for anyway? Because if we know what education is for, we are better able to understand if we're meeting the needs of our child in a way that we can feel good about. (01:40): In this conversation between myself and Kelsey Murphy, the RAR community manager, you'll hear why education is really for love. And how, what that actually means can help you reframe the entire way that you look at your kid's education. You're going to hear the three main areas of connection that actually matter, connection with Christ, connection with ideas and connection with each other, and of course, you're going to hear practical, doable ways to weave all of these connections into your daily life in a way that feels simple and doable. (02:16): Now, if you've been feeling weighed down by the myriad responsibilities on your shoulders as a homeschooling mom, I think this episode is going to encourage you. So dig into that pile of laundry or take us along while you cart the kids to soccer or you clean the bathrooms or whatever you're up to at the moment. I hope this episode reminds you that homeschooling is about relationships, not checklists. And that's really, really good news. (02:48): Well, we are just delighted to have you with us tonight for this Circle with Sarah. We're going to be talking about how education is for love. We're going to dive all into what that means. Kelsey, welcome back. We're here on Circle with Sarah Live. Kelsey Murphy (03:01): I know, I'm so excited. Sarah Mackenzie (03:04): So we're going to talk tonight about how education is for love and what we mean when we... If you ever hear people say random people, I don't know, say that homeschooling is about relationships, we're going to talk all about what that really means tonight. We're going to have some time for Q&A toward the end, so if you've got questions jot them down so you don't forget, and then I'll let you know when it's time for that. And then you can pop them into the chat. We'll try and answer as many as we can. But let's open up with prayer and then we've got a quick poll for you. (03:37): Come Holy Spirit. Lord Jesus, thank you so much for the gift of each and every woman who's here tonight, and for all of the families that each of these women represent. We ask that you give us wisdom and help us feel loved and know your love tonight. Help us remember that you're always with us and that we can trust you, and help us hear what you have for us tonight. Because each woman who's here tonight and exactly what she's facing and what she's going through and what she's worried about. I ask that you would help us hear your voice and serve you better. In your name we pray, amen. (04:17): Okay, so we just want to start with this question. How do you feel when you see this? Sometimes I worry that I'm not meeting my children's needs in academics, their health, your kids' faith life, your kids' emotions, developing friendships, their life skills. What keeps you up at night? What is currently making you worried? I wonder how many of us are just like tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. All of the above. We should have made that one of the options. (04:49): There's so many different areas of their lives, right? A lot of times I know that I'll feel like I'm doing okay in one area, completely forgetting about another area, or I just worry, what am I forgetting? Especially if things kind of are going smoothly for a minute, I'll think, "Surely I'm forgetting something." (05:04): It depends on the child and it depends on the day because I often feel like mothering is whack-a-mole with my worrying. I'm always worrying about one kid more than another, one set of circumstances more than another, and it's just a matter of which one I'm more worried about right now in what area. Kelsey Murphy (05:22): It looks like most everyone has answered. Sarah Mackenzie (05:26): Okay. So everything, the answer is everything. We're all worried about all the things. Kelsey Murphy (05:30): Yes. Sarah Mackenzie (05:31): Mostly about academics and emotions it looks like. Kelsey Murphy (05:36): I mean, we set that up as not a trick question, but we kind of expected that all of these would be checked, right? This is a lot to carry, so we're going to talk about that. Sarah Mackenzie (05:48): So one of the things I think that is really helpful to remember is that we're not actually responsible for meeting all of our kids' needs. We think we are, but that was never actually our job in the first place. So we tend to worry about how can I meet my kids' needs in their academic life, in their schooling? How could I meet their needs to make sure they're learning enough math to go to college and that they can read on grade level and that they can write an actual paper that somebody could read and understand, or even legibly enough that somebody could read it, right? Kelsey Murphy (06:20): Yes. Sarah Mackenzie (06:21): So we worry about those things. We worry about their health. We worry about whether they have friendships. We worry about how they're growing in their relationship with Christ. We worry about all these things, but actually our job was never to meet all of their needs. And that feels like a negative statement, but it's actually really positive. (06:39): One of the things we really want to highlight tonight and remind ourselves of is that the greatest commandments, we know this, right, the greatest commandments are that we love the Lord with all of our heart, our soul and our mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself, right? These are the things that we know are the greatest commandments, and so if we were to think about our homeschool and our kids' education in service to that, then we would think that education is for love. Love of God and love of each other. Everything that we do in our homeschool is for that purpose because that is our purpose, right? That is the commandment. (07:17): Another way of saying that education is for love is that homeschooling is all about relationships, relationships with God, with each other and with ideas because that connection between our kids, each of us, our kids, us, all of us, and God, our connection between each other and then our connection with the ideas that we're encountering, that is actually the heartbeat of homeschooling. That is the heartbeat of education no matter where your kids go to school. It's just that in homeschooling, we have the ability to shape it a little bit more than we would if they were in school, right? I think it's really easy to forget that the relationships are why we're doing this in the first place. Kelsey Murphy (08:01): Yeah. I mean, I think we all know this at our core, and this is why we're homeschooling because we care so much about relationships and about cultivating those relationships inside of our home, but we also undervalue it at the same time because it's hard to measure and it's hard to quantify relationships, and so it's easy to just push that down or push that aside and let other things rise to the surface, like what curriculum we're using or what style of homeschooling we're doing, especially when we're comparing our homeschools to anyone else in homeschool. Sarah Mackenzie (08:38): Not that any of us here do that. For sure. Kelsey Murphy (08:41): No, never. Yeah. And so all of our homeschools are going to look different, obviously, because we have different people in our homes. We have different styles of teaching, learning, and there's so many things going on. But at the core it is about relationship and connection. So how do we keep our focus on that? Sarah Mackenzie (09:08): It's tricky, I think, especially because I just saw someone in here said, "I feel like I'm doing great with the relational emotional health side of things. But then I feel like when my in-laws find out that they're two years behind in math, I'm going to be in big trouble." Kelsey Murphy (09:21): Oh gosh. Yes, yes, because then there's this outside pressure that we feel as well that's very real. That pressure is very real. Sarah Mackenzie (09:29): It's very real, and especially when there are people that love your children so much that they feel like they should let you know exactly where you might be dropping the ball, as if you haven't thought of that yourself or worried about it yourself already. Kelsey Murphy (09:41): Right, right. Like it's not on your mind already. Sarah Mackenzie (09:44): Oh, such a good comment. Did you see this one, Kelsey? "No one ever asks you how your relationships are when they find out you homeschool." Oh my gosh. Kelsey Murphy (09:53): It's true. Sarah Mackenzie (09:54): It is true. Yeah. That's such a good point, which is really interesting because one of the things I know that stuck out to me about homeschooling right away was the enhancement of our family relationships, like my relationships, especially with my kids, but this is kind of a side story, but a friend of mine was just at a homeschool mom's nights and somebody else told me, "Oh, hey. Your friend Tania told the story of how she started homeschooling." Because we were all going around talking about how we started homeschooling. And she mentioned being at your house. Her kids are a little bit younger than mine, so my oldest was probably 12 because the twins were just born. So probably about 12. And she mentioned how delighted she was by your kids and the way that Audrey scooped up her young girls and went over and did a paper craft with them, of course, if you know Audrey then you know- Kelsey Murphy (10:45): Of course she did. Sarah Mackenzie (10:46): Yes. It was right on brand for Audrey. Kelsey Murphy (10:48): Yes. Sarah Mackenzie (10:50): And just the way that we were all interacting with each other. What's so interesting is how many times have you heard people say, "Oh..." The thing that draws us into homeschooling or want to homeschool is usually relationship based, I think. When people see the way that your relationships are, they're like, "Wait, how do we do that?" It's much less about academics, but you're right, nobody goes, "Oh, you homeschool? How are your relationships? What's that like? What is the warmth level in your home?" Nobody talks about that. Kelsey Murphy (11:19): Right. It's true. I'm guilty of this even amongst my good friends that homeschool. I'm like, "Well, what are you using for math and what does the structure of your day look like?" We just quickly jump into those things so easily. Sarah Mackenzie (11:32): I actually think we tend to forget, as homeschooling moms, how much... Okay, when you're with your kids all day every day, they don't seem that delightful all of the time, right? And then I found at one point that almost all of the people we were hanging out with were homeschoolers, like at co-op or church or whatever. My kids were homeschoolers and it's like I didn't have a gauge for... So I felt like the kids are being, they're rude or they're sassy or they're misbehaving. And then you see maybe a child who's not homeschooled who's your child's age, and it's like, oh, actually we're doing okay. It's actually kind of tricky. It's like if you are always in it... It's that whole idea of you can't see the label from inside the bottle type of a thing. So it's really tricky. And we are seeing all of their arguments and squabbles and math tears and arguments over spelling lessons or math lessons or whatever, and we're going to talk about that too. (12:30): The thing that we wanted to talk about tonight is that everybody who's here has a different homeschool. We have different personalities in our home and temperaments. And we, as the homeschool mom actually, are made a little differently all from each other. We have different priorities. For some people here, getting outside is going to be their number one priority during the day. For others who are here, it's going to be making sure that their basics are done. For some of us here, it's going to be making sure the co-op homework is done. For some of us here, it's going to be something else. Everybody has a slightly different... That's the beauty of homeschooling is we're all unique and we get to follow God's call for our own families. (13:08): But no matter how different we are, there are three pillars here that we all share, and that is that because education is for love and because homeschooling is about relationships, then we can focus on the bedrock of our homeschools, which is the same. Which is connection with Christ, connection with each other and connection with the ideas that we encounter in the books that we're reading, in the lessons that we're learning. That connection ends up being the bedrock of the homeschool. (13:35): And that's what we mean when we say homeschooling is about relationships. Obviously, it doesn't mean that we don't do math or we don't do grammar... Some of us don't, but that we don't... We're not talking about like, "Oh, this science or the history or the co-op is not that important." What we're saying is all of that is a window dressing compared to this bedrock of relationships. That's really the heart of the homeschool. And that's actually what our kids will take with them. They're going to forget what you taught them about Ancient Greece or the periodic table, right? They're going to forget details about the lessons that they learned, but they're definitely going to remember the way that they felt, and they're going to have it in them, those relationships, they're going to be carried with them. (14:16): So when we put the focus on connecting with our kids in those main areas, connection with Christ, connection with each other and connection with ideas, I think it sort of helps put everything else into place because then we can feel a little bit more at ease with what we're getting to or we're not getting to. We can feel at more at ease about what we're worrying about or not worrying about, or what we're like, "This is a problem that I would like to address now, or this is one that can wait till later," because we're focused on those most important things that are the core of homeschooling. Kelsey Murphy (14:46): So tonight we are going to unpack each of those connection points a little bit, and we're going to share just some practical tips that we've found that work. But just remember that you are the expert of your homeschool. So even though we're sharing these things, it doesn't mean that you need to change anything and implement them right away. (15:08): So we're going to start with the first one, which is connecting with Christ. And this is an area that I personally tend to over complicate quite a bit, and that's primarily for two reasons. One is I didn't grow up in the church, and so I didn't have faith lived out and modeled for me, and so I feel like I'm just making it up as I go along with my own kids. The second part of that is that I am married to a pastor, and so I put this self-imposed pressure on myself to make sure that we have everything figured out. Not that we're perfect, but I for a while thought, yeah, I should be having a seminary in my home, basically. We should be doing Bible all the time, and I am raising these little mini theologians. (16:05): And that's not really what I... It wasn't sustainable, and it's not really, I think, what I was getting at. And so one of the things that has really just revolutionized how I incorporate faith into our homeschool is just by reading scripture with my kids straight from the Bible. I know that sounds so simple, right, and really it is. But as I was a couple of years ago trying to set up this seminary style learning in my home, went back and forth with so many different Bible curriculums and different church history resources and timelines, and all of these things that are wonderful. We live in such a great age where we have all of these biblical resources at our fingertips, and I think it's great to take advantage of those, but I was losing sight of what was actually important, which was reading God's word and reading it together. (17:10): And I was trying to do my devotional time and have a kid's devotional time and do all these other things, and I realized, what if we just read scripture together? Sarah Mackenzie (17:22): Yeah. Kelsey Murphy (17:23): And I own a lot of children's Bibles, and there are some excellent ones. So it's not like I just threw them in the trash and said, "We're never using these again." Sarah Mackenzie (17:31): Right. Kelsey Murphy (17:31): But I did just go straight to scripture, and this actually was modeled by Maria Von Trapp. I think you guys have heard me talk about how much I love- Sarah Mackenzie (17:41): Yes. Kelsey Murphy (17:42): ... the Von Trapp family singers. Her autobiography is just amazing, and she was so instrumental in bringing faith and that spark back into the Von Trapp family. And she read scripture, she opened her Bible and she read. And she had a range of ages, right? But the wonderful thing about the Bible is that our kids are going to pick up on things no matter what. (18:09): For a while, I think I thought it was just too difficult to get through, and so I just shouldn't bother. But my kids do pick up on things, not every little thing, and we're not dissecting every single verse and Bible story. But reading it together has been so life-giving and just wonderful for me and for them, and they do pick up on more than I give them credit for, and it sparks some really great questions and discussion. Sometimes we talk a lot after we read a passage, and sometimes I finish reading and then we move on. It just depends on the day. Sarah Mackenzie (18:50): I love that so much. A question is, I'm curious for those of you with older kids or grown kids, do your kids feel like Bible in your homeschool made it seem forced? But I actually think when you're doing it, you're talking about, Kelsey, where you're reading scripture, it actually just makes it normal that you read scripture every day. Kelsey Murphy (19:05): Yes. Yeah. Sarah Mackenzie (19:06): Or most days even. Don't put the pressure of yourself on every day. So in our homeschool, a lot of times we would read scripture during morning time and it was like I would read scripture and then we would put it aside and then I would read poetry and then we would read our read aloud. And it just became like, this is what we do. It's sort of does reading aloud feel forced if you read aloud every day? Well, not really. Kelsey Murphy (19:23): Right. Sarah Mackenzie (19:24): But if we were doing a literature curriculum, I might feel forced. Another thing that we did, and I didn't do this until later now, there are so many great Bible podcasts. So when my oldest son, who's now 19, I think he was a junior or senior in high school, we started listening to the Bible in a Year podcast. (19:42): And actually the funny story about this is that I actually was like, I'm going to listen to this Bible in a Year podcast where Father Mike Schmitz was reading a passage every day. Like every day you'd listen to another passage. And I was like, "We're going to listen to this all together as a family." And my friend Pam was like, "You don't want to listen to that with the little kids," around because then he goes on to explain what's happening. And you don't get that far into Genesis before you're like, "We don't really want the kids to totally know what's happening here. Not yet." Kelsey Murphy (20:12): We read aloud those passages real quickly and just... Sarah Mackenzie (20:14): It's like... Yeah. So that was kind of funny, but we listened to Bible. There's lots of different kinds of devotional Bible prayer type podcasts that would also be a really nice way to listen in your car or at breakfast, especially if I'm always looking for things I can put on if my kids are squabbling a lot that are audio because it makes everyone be quiet to listen and just eat, and use your mouth to eat and not to talk at the moment, please. So yeah, that's another really low pressure way. As you were talking about using curriculum, Kelsey, I kept thinking this is one of those things where we feel like if it's too simple and straightforward, it must not be enough. Kelsey Murphy (20:56): Right. That's exactly what I thought. Sarah Mackenzie (20:57): Yeah, which is, I think- Kelsey Murphy (21:00): Which is crazy. We're talking about God's word here and I'm like, I don't know. Sarah Mackenzie (21:04): Is it enough? Maybe it's not enough. Kelsey Murphy (21:05): Is it enough? Sarah Mackenzie (21:07): Yeah, yeah. Simple prayers in the normal part of your family life too. I think this is another area where we take it for granted that not... most families today do not pray before meals, and so we think it doesn't count. It counts. If your children are learning to pray before meals every time they eat, they will be different than everybody else when they get older. It will be like, "Whoa, this is just how we do things. But I did not realize that this is how the rest of the world doesn't do it." (21:35): So I think sometimes we forget. Exactly like we forget that most kids are not read aloud to, so it doesn't really feel like it counts as anything, but it counts, right? In the same way, more so of course because talking about prayer here, it might feel routine, it might feel unimportant, but that routine is imprinting itself on our kids. (21:55): Any kind of those prayers during the day that are quick and either part of your routine because it's a certain time of day, or not, just teaching our kids, you can always go to Jesus. You can always be... The different ways of praying is helpful. And then I think this is something that I really think homeschooling families get more of an opportunity of than other people, which is the opportunity to need to ask for forgiveness, especially as homeschooling mothers. I have an abundance of opportunities to ask my children for forgiveness because I make mistakes all the time, and snap at a kid or say something unkind. (22:32): And rather than seeing those as failures, and this kind of goes back to that comment about the arguing over the relationships. Because we know that homeschooling is about relationship, that doesn't mean homeschooling is about harmonious relationships all of the time. Because relationships are not harmonious all the time, not if they're actual relationships, right? (22:54): I always think of that Bible verse, "Iron sharpens iron as one man sharpens another." That is not a delicate, harmonious, peaceful experience. Iron sharpening iron is loud, it's hard, it's rough, it's sharp. And so relationships, even the sibling squabbles or us making mistakes and needing to apologize to our kids is, again, this is the lab where our kids are learning these things and what a great opportunity for them to be able to learn them from us. And we have a lot more opportunities to teach our children, let's say, to model for our children what humility looks like because we make a lot of mistakes. And by we, I mean definitely me. Kelsey Murphy (23:36): And me. Me too. Yes. Something I started doing more recently as well because I feel like I was wanting to implement more prayer and connection with each of my kids individually throughout the day, but trying to find time for that is crazy. And so instead what I started doing was just praying with them individually. The way I set up my homeschool is that we do a lot of subjects together, so we do our morning time and history and science, if we're doing science, and read aloud, we do that together. And then I work with my kids. I rotate them through one-on-one doing, we call it math and reading. So it's really just math and language arts, and that's just because they're at different- Sarah Mackenzie (24:27): Levels. Kelsey Murphy (24:27): ... ability levels, so we can't do that all together, right? And so I kind of thought, well, what if when they come in and sit down and before we start working, I just pray with them really quickly? And it's really informal and just, "Can I pray for you? Do you need prayer for anything? Let's just pray for our day." And that idea of attaching a habit to an already established habit is really helpful because I can spin my wheels a lot trying to come up with a new system for prayer in our homeschool or- Sarah Mackenzie (25:03): Color-coded, blow it up on a poster. Oh, yeah. Kelsey Murphy (25:05): Yes. Oh my gosh, that is me. I'm like, "Let's get going on this routine." But it was just much more simple to just add it to something we were already doing. It was a little awkward at first because my kids came and they sat down and they were like, got their math book, and I was like, "Hey, can I pray for you?" And they're like, "What?" Sarah Mackenzie (25:29): Why? Kelsey Murphy (25:30): "What are you doing?" Yeah, like, "Why?" And I'm like, "Well, do you need prayer for anything?" They're like, "No, I'm fine. I want to get my math done." And I'm like, "Okay, well, we're just going to pray." So it feels a little clunky and awkward, maybe. It did for me, but that's okay. Again, it's just establishing those habits. And like you were saying, Sarah, they count, those little things count and they add up. (25:53): Just like the prayer at the dinner table, I have learned that that has given my kids, especially my really little kids, a safe space to learn how to pray and to practice praying within the comfort of their family all sitting around at one table, not judging them. And that's been a really... Although, I do have kids that are like, "Hurry up, I want to eat." Sarah Mackenzie (26:20): To eat. Kelsey Murphy (26:21): Yes, "Let's get to the eating part." Sarah Mackenzie (26:23): Yeah. Kelsey Murphy (26:23): But I think just those very simple, informal daily habits can make all the difference. Sarah Mackenzie (26:33): Something that I think is worth pointing out here too, as we're talking about connecting with Christ, this connection with God and helping our kids develop their relationships with God is that there is this tendency, especially I think for homeschooling moms to think, if I do my job correctly, then my kids will hold onto their faith. So then we judge or determine our own success or failure as homeschool moms based on whether our kids hold onto their faith as they get older. Kelsey Murphy (26:58): Yeah. Sarah Mackenzie (26:59): But their faith journey is not yours to walk. So you were never asked to walk their journey with Christ for them. Again, we're not doing it for them, we're just walking alongside them. So I think all of these ideas of a simple prayer at math, I could totally feel how my kids would be like, "Why do you want to pray for me?" Especially since I don't usually ask them if I can pray for them. Kelsey Murphy (27:18): Yeah. Sarah Mackenzie (27:19): What a beautiful habit, too, so that as they get older, they're like, "You know who I could call if I need someone to pray for me? Mom, because she's always been praying for me and always asked to pray for me." But that's what we do. We give them the experience, the opportunity to connect. It's like an invitation to connect with Christ. But we don't use it then as a, "And if I do it right, I will get this particular outcome." Because remember, that's not what God asked us to do. Kelsey Murphy (27:45): Yeah. Sarah Mackenzie (27:46): We're not supposed to meet all of their needs. We're supposed to walk alongside them, so we're giving them scripture and we're giving them prayer, and we're giving them the opportunity in our homes, an invitation to connect with Christ, and that's what our job is. (28:06): The second connection point is connecting with ideas because this is what we do every time we read aloud, every time our kids are reading on their own. It's actually the foundation of learning. Really what learning is at its most basic fundamental unit is connecting new information to information you had before, right? That's what learning is. And so giving our kids the opportunity to connect not only with Christ, but also with ideas that they encounter in the books they read, the lessons, this idea of learning being primarily about connection, about connecting what you're finding out now to what you've known before and seeing how things are alike or different. It's the fundamental idea of education in that we have gotten to this point where we sort of think that finishing books or finishing a certain number of lesson plans is when we know our kids are educated. (29:00): But really it's just this opportunity... We talk about it Circle with Sarah as uncovering rather than covering. You can't cover the Civil War, but you can uncover ideas about the Civil War. You can't actually even cover long division because you can't do every long division problem that's known to man, right? But you can uncover long division and teach your kids this is how it will be done when you do it, right? (29:22): In the same way, we want to invite our kids to connect with ideas, not to cover stuff, but to connect with it. And this is really the heart of what our family book club guides are. We are really focused... Even the way we've organized them are laid out in a way to make it clear that connecting with each other and connecting with are at the heart of it. That's what those... The whole family book club guide is based on connection rather than uncovering anything that you find in the book. Kelsey Murphy (29:50): And it's especially fun, I think, when you can expose them to an idea and then years later connect to it again. Or they might even come to that connection themselves of, "Oh, this was like this." We can expose them to it. And then they have that kind of scaffolding in place so that when they encounter it later, they can, as they get older, make deeper connections because they can understand a concept more and they have that background knowledge. I am definitely an all or nothing person. We're going to do all of it or we're going to do none of it. Sarah Mackenzie (30:27): Yep. Kelsey Murphy (30:28): And I bring that mentality into my homeschool sometimes, and it really is a disservice to myself into my kids'. Sarah Mackenzie (30:36): This idea of them connecting what they're learning or seeing to other things that they have learned before comes up for me in surprising ways. So one of the things that just came to mind was that my kids, my 11, 11 and 13-year-old and I are watching When Calls the Heart. We watch an episode almost every single night. We love it. We're in the fourth or fifth season now. (30:59): But anyway, we got to this episode not that long ago where one of the characters, Rosemary LeVeaux, for those of you who are in the know, is trying to be basically a matchmaker. And she has this love poem, a poem I think by Elizabeth Barrett Browning that she asks a little boy to put into the coat pocket of a man because she's trying to get these two people who like each other to get the courage to talk. (31:22): So the little boy named Cody, he does. He puts it in a coat pocket, but he puts it in the wrong coat pocket. So now there's just confusion, love triangle type vibes. As we're watching it, I'm sitting there thinking, "Oh, this reminds me so much of Shakespeare." And Claire, my 13-year-old was like, "Ugh. I mean, if this isn't Midsummer Night's Dream, I don't know what is." And I was like, I wanted to be like, "Did everybody..." There was nobody. It's just me and my kid. But I was like, "Does everybody hear that? I homeschooled these children just to [inaudible 00:31:50]" Kelsey Murphy (31:49): Yes. Sarah Mackenzie (31:51): "Does anybody want to hear how that happened?" Because it comes up at unusual times where they make a connection that every once in a while... Kelsey Murphy (31:58): Yes. Sarah Mackenzie (31:59): We have so many moments where they'll say things like, "What country is Montana in?" And you're like, "Oh my gosh, how do you not know this?" Kelsey Murphy (32:05): Yeah. Sarah Mackenzie (32:06): Or they don't know how to tie their shoes, or they don't know something that's just super obvious. We tend to focus on those. But there are also these other moments where they say something, like where did you learn that? Kelsey Murphy (32:15): Yes. Sarah Mackenzie (32:16): And it's not always stuff that we taught them. I have another memory of one of my kids saying something super sciencey, and I can't remember what it is now off the top of my head, but I remember being like, "Where did you learn that?" And I was so expecting them to say, "From one of your read alouds, Mom," or, "One of our books." And instead they said, "Wild Kratts." Kelsey Murphy (32:33): Yeah. Sarah Mackenzie (32:33): But I gave them the TV show, too, so it's fine. Kelsey Murphy (32:37): Hey, they learned something, so it counts. Sarah Mackenzie (32:48): So we've got connecting with Christ and connecting with ideas. And then another pillar here is connecting with each other, which we've talked about a little bit already. So we got to go back to the family book club guides and the idea that we build these on this principle that homeschooling is about relationships. Kelsey Murphy (33:06): Yeah. Sarah Mackenzie (33:06): So making these connections with the ideas and with each other is what it's all about. Everything else sort of falls underneath those main goals. We put those conversation starters in every family book club. We intentionally changed the name. They used to be called open-ended questions, and instead we changed them to conversation starters to remind us that these are not quiz questions. We're not asking questions for our kids to answer, like we're drilling them or quizzing them. Kelsey Murphy (33:34): Right. Sarah Mackenzie (33:35): We're inviting them into a conversation. And in order to invite them into a conversation, they have to understand that we're not looking for a certain answer. One of my favorite ways to think about this is that if I was to tell my sister or one of my best friends, "You have to read this book, it is so good." And then they were like, "Okay. Hang on." And they looked up some comprehension questions and were like, "I just want to make sure that you actually read it before we talk about it. I want to make sure that you actually read it. So where did this story take place?" No one asks questions like that. Kelsey Murphy (34:09): No. Sarah Mackenzie (34:10): [inaudible 00:34:10] actually interested in knowing what my experience of reading the book was like. Kelsey Murphy (34:13): Yeah. Sarah Mackenzie (34:13): We ask questions that are like, "Oh my gosh, what was your favorite part? What did you love about it? What did you hate about it? What stuck out to you?" Those are the kind of questions that you ask because that invites a conversation. And so we want to make sure that when we're connecting with our kids, we're doing the same thing. We're connecting with them, not so that they tell us the right answers, but so that we can actually build a relationship Kelsey Murphy (34:33): For sure. I think conversations are so powerful. It's such a powerful tool for your homeschool. For me, personally, it's been especially wonderful as a teaching tool because I have a couple of my kiddos with some just learning challenges, a combination of dyslexia and reading vision, tracking issues, and one of my kiddos with autism. And so conversation has really opened a lot of doors for learning to take place. So for example, we do this a lot for history. (35:13): We're in American history right now, and so we had kind of taken a break and I picked back up and was like, "Okay, guys, let's talk about just basic timeline of events." And we kind of just went through these important events in American history and we talked about, well, why was it important and why was this decision so impactful? And we had this wonderful probably 20, 30 minute discussion. If I had asked them to sit down and write a paper or write their own timeline and fill in each event... Which by the way, these are not bad things to do. Sarah Mackenzie (35:53): Yeah. Yeah. Kelsey Murphy (35:53): My kids at this point, they are not capable of doing that. And they would've sat down and been like, "Well, I don't know anything," because they can't produce anything. Instead, I sat down and had a conversation with them, and I was actually, honestly, very surprised at how much they were remembered and how they were able to articulate it. And so that's been a huge blessing in my own homeschool. Again, this is stuff that's hard to measure because they're not producing work, they're not producing written work and projects. And those all have their place, for sure, and I think we will get there. But right now it's been so wonderful just to be able to sit and have a discussion and it feel like learning is taking place. Sarah Mackenzie (36:45): Yeah. Kelsey Murphy (36:46): And they feel empowered, too, because they are able to express these things. And I really do think that having robust conversations in your home sets your kids up for success as adults because they will be articulate, they will be able to communicate their thoughts. My kiddo with autism, especially, recently several people have commented unsolicited, "Wow, he's so articulate. He's doing so well. He's expressing himself so much better." And I think it is because the bulk of our learning is having a conversation. Sarah Mackenzie (37:23): Oral. Kelsey Murphy (37:24): Yeah. It's oral, yes. He is very orally literate. He is very quick to make connections between books that we read. And can he sit down and write a paper? No, he can't. But if you ask him to talk about it, he can share it. And I think that's really valuable and something that's maybe not valued enough. Sarah Mackenzie (37:47): Again, because if it's not measured, then it's not usually... Or it's not measurable, I should say. It's harder for the culture or the school system or whoever we're reporting to, to value it and give it credibility. So similar, Drew, my 19-year-old, I keep talking about him tonight, but I remember for years and years up into high school, if you asked him to write a paragraph about something, he would write the shortest, dumbest paragraph, as few words as possible to get done with it. If you asked him to tell you about it, he would be articulate and interesting and he'd be connecting all of these ideas. Kelsey Murphy (38:24): Yeah. Sarah Mackenzie (38:25): But it was like the disconnect for him would be... But getting that out onto paper doesn't really work. Now in college, he's able to do it just fine- Kelsey Murphy (38:34): Sure. Sarah Mackenzie (38:35): ... but I think because the written work then is we can measure it, we can look at it and be like, "Oh, see, there's proof. There's proof that he's making connections." Well, there's that proof also in conversation, so that's so good. I love that so much. Kelsey Murphy (38:50): Yes. Sarah Mackenzie (38:50): I also think I heard Laura Berquist say this once. Laura Berquist is the author of the Mother of Divine Grace curriculum. She's the president over there, Mother of Divine Grace. And a long time ago, way at the beginning of my homeschooling, I heard a recorded talk she gave where she said that without a doubt, without question, discussions were the most impactful part of her homeschool, like having conversations with her kids. And, again, I think it's one of those things we just take for granted because we think that they don't really count. And they take a lot of time, and they take a lot of energy. Kelsey Murphy (39:26): They do. I think that's kind of the problem, not the problem, but what we see as a problem, they take a lot of time, but then there's no end product that we have. We don't have a paper written something to show for it, and so we feel like, "Well, we've spent all this time and then there's nothing to show for it." And so that's hard, but really it does add up and our kids do become good communicators. That's what I want for my kids. I want them to be good communicators as adults, to be able to express their needs and desires and communicate well. So I do think that's really important. Sarah Mackenzie (40:04): And then again, okay, I just want to revisit this one more time to make sure we really think about it because this idea of connecting with each other, I think if we go, okay, homeschooling is about relationships, relationships with Christ or relationships with ideas and relationships with each other. It's tempting to think that I want all of those things to constantly be growing at the same rate and to be harmonious. And so when our relationships with God are feeling kind of dry, when our relationships with ideas are kind of struggling because we've got a kid who's struggling to read or struggling in some other area, when our relationships with each other are struggling as they usually are with the people that we live with in our homes, right, on some degree, we tend to think it's not working. But actually our iron sharpening iron, that means it's working. We're not going for harmony here, we're going for growth. Kelsey Murphy (40:48): Yeah. Sarah Mackenzie (40:48): And so the sibling squabbles, the fact that your kids are arguing, it's all training ground. That's where they're learning about connection and interactions and relationships that they're going to take with them forever, even when it doesn't feel like it's the most harmonious, and you wish it was less stressed. Kelsey Murphy (41:07): Yeah. Yes, but growth over harmony, that's a really good perspective to have, for sure. Sarah Mackenzie (41:19): Okay, so we're going to take just a couple minutes and if you have a notebook or a journal, and you know we're going to do journaling tonight, right? If you have a notebook that you like to journal in, you can pull that out or you can use the Notes app on your phone or just a piece of scrap paper for just like three minutes, not very long. And just jot down an idea, or a few if you like, of ways that you can focus on connecting with Christ and connecting with ideas and connecting with each other. And then just circle one that you're like, "Okay, this is one that I want to try this week." Because we don't want to try everything all at once because that's overwhelming and it never works. But even intentionally going, "You know what? This week we're going to focus on, this kind of connection in this tiny way," will help us focus on the most important things. (42:06): All right. Our job is to invite our kids into connection with Christ, connection with ideas, and in connection with each other. The invitation is our job, not the outcome of it. Not whether they accept the invitation 20 years from now when they're adults, or even today if they're three years old and throwing a fit. They might not accept our invitation either. But the idea, our job is to invite them into connection in those primary ways. Kelsey Murphy (45:24): I love that. It takes the pressure off, because the reality is our kids are going to grow up and their homes are going to look different than the ones that they're growing up in now, right? I don't necessarily need my kids to replicate exactly what I'm doing. I just want to invite them into a relationship with Christ, a relationship with me, a relationship with their siblings, and with ideas. Sarah Mackenzie (45:53): Which feels to me like the idea of bringing your basket. So Jesus feeding the 5,000 and how what he didn't ask them to do is, "Can you feed all of these people?" What he asked them to do is, "Bring me what you have and I'll make it enough." And that takes two things. The outcome was not the job of the disciples. That was the Lord's job. But the obedience in bringing the basket was their responsibility, and so I think that's where there's both of these things are true. The outcome's not our responsibility, but the obedience, the act of obedience is. And the invitation actually is our responsibility. (46:28): So it's not that we can just sit back and be like, "Well, God's got it, so I don't have to do any homeschooling, parenting, whatever." No, because our job is that invitation into connection, and that is going to take work and faith and commitment and love and diligence, and the ability to understand that the outcome is not a responsibility. Kelsey Murphy (46:46): Yes. And I mean even Jesus modeled this over and over in scripture by inviting his followers to listen to his words. He says again and again, "Those who have ears, let them hear." He's welcoming them and offering an invitation, but he's not forcing anyone to accept. Sarah Mackenzie (47:05): Oh, okay. Well, I think we're going to wrap for tonight. We have been trying to put our mission here at Read-Aloud Revival everywhere. That mission being that we are aiming to make meaningful and lasting connections with our kids through books. We use those books to connect them to God and to each other and to ideas. (47:27): I hope that conversation encouraged you, and I hope it encourages you in the coming days as you prioritize the relationships in your home. If you'd like to join us for Circle with Sarah, we'd love to have you. Like I said, it's my mentoring program just for homeschooling moms. It includes a Monday morning tiny podcast episode, just the thing to start your week. That runs all through the school year. And then we do Circle with Sarah Live on Zoom about once a month. And a couple of times a year, we do a special retreat on Zoom. That's a day and a half of encouragement. This last time at our retreat, we got some feedback from attendees saying that the retreat alone was worth the entire cost of RAR Premium for the year. So that's pretty awesome. (48:09): Anyway, you can find out more and you can join us for this kind of mentoring if it's just what you need by going to rarpremium.com. Now let's hear from Read-Aloud Revival kids about the books they're loving lately. Speaker 4 (48:23): Hi, my name is Nora and I'm from Menifee, California. A book I recommend is A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck, which my mom read to me. It's a Newbery Medal winner, and I loved it. It's really exciting and you don't know what's going to happen. It's about a grandma and her granddaughter, Mary Alice, who goes to live with her grandma during the Great Depression. Goodbye. Speaker 5 (48:48): Hi, I'm Lydia. I live in Woodburn, Oregon. And a book I really enjoyed this year is called The Scarlet Pimpernel. It is full of adventure and danger and revolution and romance. I think it was my favorite book this year. It is so fun. I really enjoyed it. Speaker 6 (49:09): My name is Heath and I'm 11 years old, and I'm from Houston, Texas. And my favorite book is The Warden of the Wolf King by Andrew Peterson from The Wingfeather Saga. I recommend this book because I like how the author ties the past with the present. Speaker 7 (49:29): My name is Silas. I'm eight years old. I'm from Houston, Texas. And my favorite book is The Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson. I love all the books because there's a lot of sad parts and how they tie it all together. Speaker 8 (49:44): Hi, I'm Everlyn. Speaker 9 (49:44): We're [inaudible 00:49:45] Speaker 8 (49:44): [inaudible 00:49:45] seven years old. Speaker 9 (49:51): We're from Tyler, Texas. Speaker 8 (49:54): Tyler, Texas. Speaker 9 (49:54): And we love [inaudible 00:49:57] Speaker 8 (49:57): I like it because I like their missions and their names. Speaker 9 (50:03): I like it because I like their adventures, the commuting car, and all of them. Speaker 8 (50:11): My favorite is The Vanderbeekers on the Road. Speaker 9 (50:16): Mine is Vanderbeekers Ever After. Sarah Mackenzie (50:19): Fabulous. Thank you so much, kids. Hey, if your kids want to leave a message to air on the show, we need some more messages. I especially love messages from older kids and teens, but we need more messages from absolutely all of you. So encourage your kids to leave a message. Go to readaloudrevival.com/message to see how you can leave a voicemail that will air on the show. (50:40): I hope you enjoyed this Best Of episode. I'll be back in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, go make meaningful and lasting connections with your kids through books.