00:00 - Janae daniels (Host)

Have you ever had those days where it's just tough and you're like how am I going to homeschool today? It's all I can do to feed the children? Well, today we're going to talk about a way that you can stay consistent and keep your sanity while you're homeschooling. But before we get into today's episode, if you haven't already signed up for the newsletter, you might want to. In the newsletter I share tips, tricks, as well as encouragement to help you keep going in your homeschooling journey. You can sign up for it at wwwschooltohomeschoolcom or you can check out the link in the show notes if you'd like to sign up. Okay, y'all, there are days when it's all I can do to keep it together. Right, maybe I'm tired or maybe I've been. It's been a long week or a long couple weeks, but I know I've got to keep homeschooling right and I have to stay consistent, because the consistency piece is the key to a to a. A thriving homeschool really, um, as long as we can say it, stay consistent over time, like with a compound effect, um, we, our kids will be fine, but we have to stay consistent. And so the challenge comes with those days that are really tough, that that we think, oh my gosh, literally like I have to feed the children, and that that might be all I can do today, right, um, is keep them alive. Um, and so I learned this hack that I thought was brilliant when I heard it, and it's so. I didn't. I did not come up with this on my own. Y'all you need to understand that this hack comes from some long time homeschooling gurus Um, these women have been homeschooling forever and they know their stuff. One is Pam Barnhill and the other is Cindy Rollins, and if you've never read any of Cindy Rollins' books, they are so good. She's a grandma now and her kids are all grown, but both Pam and Cindy just are full of wisdom and knowledge, and so I heard about this from them, so I cannot take credit for it. But the idea is a minimum viable day, okay. So what is that? What is a minimum viable day? So you have to decide on the days that are really tough. What's the minimum amount that you can do that would make you feel secure in your homeschooling, Like, okay, I can check the box with a clear conscience that we did homeschooling and the children learned something, but what would be that minimum, that minimum thing that you'd need to do. Now, when you're de-schooling, I tell you, just do the minimum reading, writing, math right.

03:00

But after after you've done with de-schooling and you're ready to start doing a little bit more and the kids are adjusted and you're starting to get their hearts back and they're happy again, a lot of people like to add a little bit more. We do history, I do civics with the kids, along with reading, writing and math, and then I'll do different kinds of unit studies over time and sometimes they're short unit studies and sometimes I wouldn't necessarily call them unit studies, right, we just pick a topic and study it one day. So the first year, right, your whole job reading, writing, math. But then, as your time goes on, usually parents like to add a little bit more. As moms, we go okay, really, I'd like to bring in cooking, or I'd like to bring in language, or I'd like to bring in this, and so we start to add a little bit more. I think a lot of us end up trying to do too much and so we have to come back.

03:59

But with the minimum viable day, you have to ask yourself what's the minimum viable day? We ask our. You have to ask yourself, like what's the minimum you could do in a day for those days that are going to be rough Because there will be days that are going to be rough what's the minimum that you should have your kids do to feel good about your homeschooling day, still Like, okay, we did, at least we did this. Okay, I can feel good of checking the box, that we did a homeschooling day, right. What's that minimum? And for each person it's going to be a little bit different. Everyone's going to be different. For me it might be reading, writing and math, or it might be if we can do read aloud and they write something. Then I can, with a clear conscience, say, yeah, it was a rough day, but we got the reading done and we got, we got the writing done. So we were going to check the homeschooling box. That's that's it. Like it's a minimum viable day. Now, normally that's not going to be every day, all day, you know, for years at a time.

05:04

But for those times that you've you've gone through the de-schooling process and now you're trying to just be consistent, what are those minimum viable days? For the days that are really tough for you, or the weeks that are really crazy and you have a lot going on as a family. Personally, that doesn't have a lot to do with homeschooling those minimum viable days come in handy to keep you consistent, all right. Well, maybe this week it's been a tough week and we were able to a couple of days of the week we got through all the things that we wanted to get through. That, man, thursday and Friday were really tough because we found out this thing happened and and kind of threw off our schedule, but we were able to get our minimum viable days in. We were able to get those couple things that made me feel good.

05:56

Good, maybe it's that you do a morning basket which I'm going to touch on morning baskets in a future episode but the short of a morning basket is something that you do every morning or several mornings as a family, and everyone's morning basket looks different. And maybe, maybe for you that's it. You're like well, we did our morning basket, we did our scripture study and we said a prayer and we said, right, sang a song and we had breakfast. That counts, or maybe it's. You know, we, uh, we did a poetry recitation and we did some math, right, everybody is going to be different, but for you, I want you to think about, for you to have a clear conscience. What does a minimum viable day look like for you with your kids? Because you're the one that, ultimately, you know, we, as parents are the ones that are facilitating our kids' education, and, and so we have to decide, like, what does that look like for us as individuals? And, again, each person is going to be slightly different. It's not going to look the same for every person.

07:08

And, and the key again, the key to homeschooling is consistency. Um, and with our minimum viable days, it helps us to stay consistent. I I usually try, during the summer, to do some homeschooling a few days a week, not every day, but I try a couple days a week, even during the school year. Um, we, I don't have my kids do reading, writing and math every single day, just because they have enrichment programs that they go to that are, you know, all day, one day a week, and so on those days, my kids don't do reading and writing and math because they're gone from 8 AM to 3 PM or 8 AM to 4 PM and they get home and they're tired, and so we'll still read aloud as a family, but I won't necessarily have them do a math, any math, or I won't have them do a writing assignment because their day was already full.

08:05

So I'm talking about the days that are like your traditional homeschooling days, right? And when the times get tough, rather than just laying on the couch and like I can't do anything, and then you feel guilty and it kind of becomes a spiral like, oh, now I'm a bad mom because we didn't do anything and I'm supposed to be homeschooling and you know the minimum viable. Take that pressure off your mind that that you're a bad mom and that you didn't do a homeschooling day. But if you can do at least a minimum viable day, an MVD, a minimum viable day then you can have a clear conscience. That's part of the. The purpose of a minimum viable day is that that you can have a clear conscience as a mom and it helps you to stay consistent.

09:00

Now, is every day going to look like that? No, not necessarily. Um, there's going to be days that are so full of wonderful things that you do together as a family, that you that you're cooking with the children and you're doing field trips and wonderful things, but these are for the days that those days aren't happening, right? So that's it. That's the hack is I want you to decide on for the days that get tough, what's the least that you could have the kids do, on those days where you can rest with a clear conscience as a mom. And again, your day and my minimum viable day and my minimum viable day are not going to look the same because we have different expectations for ourselves, um, we have different expectations for our kids. Our lives look different, our experiences look different, and so and and I don't want you to compare yourself to somebody else's like somebody else's minimum viable day and your minimum viable day are not going to look the same, and that's okay.

10:09

And maybe your, your capacity at this point in your life is less than, say, another time in your life. Maybe, maybe you just had a baby, um, maybe you've experienced a death, maybe you know that life throws curve balls at you, maybe you've gotten tragic news and you're just trying to survive. Um, your capacity is going to change throughout your life. Like our capacities change. My capacity as a young mom with little children looks much differently than my capacity now, with my youngest being nine and very self-sufficient, and having adult children and teenagers that are self-sufficient. Right, my capacity is different.

10:55

I recently had a young mom tell me. She said I wish you know, I look at you and you do all of these things and I'm I'm barely able to stay afloat during the day, like I may be barely able to take a shower. And I said to her I was like, look, I'm in a different phase in life. Look, I'm in a different phase in life. You should compare me. Well, you shouldn't compare ever, but but if you wanted a fair comparison, compare me as a young mom with littles and and babies to you as a young mom with littles and babies, and we'd look pretty stinking similar. Our capacities are limited because of the phase in life that we're in with our children and so, again, you don't actually want to compare yourself to anybody but yourself, because comparison robs joy. But if you do find yourself comparing, you have to look at life circumstances and our capacity, at where we are in life at any given time.

12:01

But my minimum viable days now are not the same as they were when I first started homeschooling. Right, that first year we were just trying to figure things out and it was hard and it was rough. By years two and three, as my capacity grew in things, things changed. But now y'all, legitimately, my minimum viable day is if they got some writing done and if they got um reading done and we did read aloud or good, we're good. Now, again, that's not every day. Those are. Those are on the hard days when I have to stay consistent, but things are really busy and really crazy and, um, just we're, we're not in our normal routine of things. Um, that's, that's what I do.

12:52

To stay consistent is like, okay, at least we got those things done. I can write it down on their schedule like check the box. That way, if the state comes, I can say, yes, I've got a clear conscience, yes, we got some homeschooling done. So I want you to decide what does your minimum viable day look like? And again, maybe your capacity is higher than than mine and that's that's cool. Maybe you're like, nah, that's about all I could do. Or well, if we get read aloud done, then I'll consider it. But you have to decide what that looks like for you and your family and to have a clear conscience and feel like, okay, I checked the boxes with the state, with the expectations that my state has, or whatever. So, but I found that when I discovered this idea of a minimum viable day, it took pressure off me to and, and took that relief off like, oh, if I don't do all the things all the time, that I'm a bad homeschooler and a bad mom and I'm failing my children miserably, right, it took that pressure off my heart and my mind. So I want you to think about it, think about what your minimum viable days are.

14:02

And a couple of shout outs to some moms that are now going on their second and third years of homeschooling and I think, uh, I just want to say to Amber and Abe um, you're doing so great, it was so great to meet y'all, and um, I'm so thrilled for your family that you've taken the plunge and that you're you're taking your kids' hearts back and you're you're doing the hard work. Um, well done, ashley. It was great meeting you and Ruby, thank you so much for um your kind words. Uh, super excited about how far you've come over the last few years. Um, as you've, as you as you've stayed in touch y'all when you message me. Um, as you've, as you've stayed in touch y'all when you message me.

14:53

I read all of the messages like I read them and I love hearing about your successes and your wins and, um, the beautiful things that you're doing with your children. You are doing a good work, you are doing an essential work and you're doing the most important work that can be done and that should be done. That's rearing our children as good human beings, love God, who are turning our hearts to to him. And so well done all of y'all. It was so good meeting some of you Amber and Abe Ashley. It was so good meeting you a couple weeks ago. All right, y'all, you are doing better than you think you are. You got this. We will talk next week.