Jose Lopez: everyone. Welcome to Homeschool for the Win. I'm so excited that you all are here in this new episode. ⁓ My name is Jose Lopez. Homeschool Help With Jeanette: and I'm Jeanette McBee with Home School Help with Jeanette. Jose Lopez: And we, and Jeanette, do you wanna introduce our guest? Homeschool Help With Jeanette: Absolutely I do. So I've known Heather for a few years now. ⁓ She's great friend of mine. I appreciate her spirit to homeschool her kids. She says that she grew up in church and has been a Christian since she was a small child. She's been married to John for almost 26 years. That is awesome. Congratulations. They have five children ages 22, 19, 17, and almost five. Heather never thought she would be a stay at home mom and homeschooling was definitely not on her radar. I hear you. Jose Lopez: Yeah, we can relate, we can relate. Homeschool Help With Jeanette: Yes, she gives credit to the Lord for the way he has directed their family and he is thankful for and she is thankful for his mercy and grace when they follow him in perfectly. She loves encouraging others in their parenting and walk with the Lord and you've certainly done that for me and my family. I know you've done it for others. So we are so excited to have you on the podcast today. Wonderful. Wonderful. Heather Oosterhuis: I'm excited to be here. Jose Lopez: Well, welcome. And so, Heather, you're joining us at this special segment that we call the Homeschool for the Win Check-in. So every podcast we want to do a check-in where we answer questions where we can get to learn about each other and learn about our homeschool journey. So this prompt, our question this week is, what is your homeschool win or adventure that you may have on that you want to celebrate or say that how you've been enjoying homeschooling this week? So ⁓ I'll go first if that's okay. ⁓ So my own school win is that my son, he's 11 years old, we actually tried ⁓ disc golf this year, or this week, sorry. It was so much fun. We didn't know what we were doing. My son had to climb a couple of trees and crawl into bushes to find our disc, but it was a great adventure that unlike when it gets warmer outside, because it's cold right now, the winds Homeschool Help With Jeanette: Go for it. You Heather Oosterhuis: Love it. Jose Lopez: gets warmer outside we'll definitely be able to play outside especially in the summer. Heather Oosterhuis: Love that. Homeschool Help With Jeanette: Yeah, Heather, what was yours? Heather Oosterhuis: So my win, I loved seeing my son come home with three really old laptops and start tearing into them with screwdrivers and pulling the parts out and kind of inventing things with them. And I just, had to take a picture for, ⁓ just for my own granny album someday. I don't know if you guys do this, but just, I need to have pictures when I'm an old lady. And so just to remember some of the good times and the wins. And I just, it's kind of. really cool to see your kids pursuing things that they're passionate about. Homeschool Help With Jeanette: Yes, absolutely. Jose Lopez: I have to remember to take photographs. I was like too focused on the frisbee golf. was like, I gotta take a picture of this too. And I forgot and I'm like, okay, next time, next time I wanna take a picture. like I... Heather Oosterhuis: To be fair, a lot of my photos are like the hand is out and you can't, you know. I promise they're just for me and when I'm an old lady. Homeschool Help With Jeanette: No. Jose Lopez: You Okay. Homeschool Help With Jeanette: I think my homeschool win, well I would actually call it my husband's homeschool win. So he took me and my daughter for a surprise to the Des Moines Symphony. It was so fun. I don't think you can have a bad seat in that Civic Center. It's just, the sound was incredible. We just had a great time. So. Heather Oosterhuis: No. Jose Lopez: Yeah, that's awesome. Homeschool Help With Jeanette: Yeah, and she learned a lot. That was the first time she'd ever gone. So that was really exciting. Yeah, yeah. So Heather, we want to know about your homeschool journey. We are so excited to learn more about, yeah, what it looks like for you. I always feel like we have these so many wonderful homeschoolers in our area. I mean, why wouldn't we learn from each other, right? Heather Oosterhuis: Love that. Jose Lopez: Yeah. Heather Oosterhuis: For sure. I'm so thankful. Homeschool Help With Jeanette: Yeah, so our first question is what originally led you to home school and has your why changed over the years? Heather Oosterhuis: Yeah. So I would say what led us to homeschooling, when we first got married, my husband and I both have private school experience. And I think we just both thought that's the route we were going to go. ⁓ you know, as we toured our local Christian school options, we realized that ⁓ that wasn't going to be a go for us financially. And so we started looking at the local public schools and decided, well, why don't we interview some parents that have children in the public school that are making good choices because I'd already talked to a couple of homeschool people I knew and besides thinking that homeschooling was weird, I also felt like that was a lot of work. Like what they're describing is a lot of work and it felt overwhelming. So why don't I just interview the families that appear to have high schoolers making good choices in the public school? And when I quickly, we quickly realized that... They had just as much work, it just was different work. And in the end, it was all about intentional parenting. And so either way you go, public, private, homeschool, it's an extension of your parenting. we listen to ⁓ hearts ⁓ the parents that we were talking to, ⁓ things that they put into place to shepherd their children, we learned that any choice we made would be a lot of work. And it really came down to intentional parenting. We wanted to shepherd our children to know and love the Lord in all areas of life, ⁓ just academics, and to see that faith was a part of every aspect of life. ⁓ as we started learning more about homeschooling, the fit really clicked for us and felt like less work than being an intentional parent in the public school system. And no matter what choice a family makes, if we start with our end goal in mind, like what ⁓ are we looking for in what we hope our children will learn and develop as skills, as knowledge and character, and then we back up those steps that it takes to get there. of course, with the Lord's help, right? Like we don't have the control over everything. But it really comes down to just being an intentional parent. And you can be an intentional parent and shepherd your kids into who God created them to be no matter where they go to school. That shepherding is just going to look different in each choice. And bathing that decision in prayer is so key. No matter what choice we make, if the Lord isn't leading it, it cannot prosper. So I love the hymn, I know you're a music gal, I love the hymn, A Mighty Fortress is Our God. And there's a line in there that says, if we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing. And I play that every year when we're planning our curriculum, just as a way to remind me that it's not all about me, it's not all about my effort and my might. I have to have the Lord's help. Homeschool Help With Jeanette: ⁓ yeah. Heather Oosterhuis: So in the beginning my why was more about shaping their worldview and their love of God and his creation and that why didn't change but it did deepen and expand the longer that we homeschooled so ⁓ I Never wanted to kill their love of learning and their curiosity as we are going Along so a couple of books in our early parenting that really spoke to me were shepherding a child's heart by trip and give them grace by Elis Fitzpatrick. And so that idea of guiding and shepherding our children toward their need for a savior and not just merely looking for behavior modification or the outward appearance of obedience really hit home. And it applies in our home education too. We didn't want our children to have the appearance of knowledge. We didn't want them to be able to spout facts or perform well on tests. We wanted them to have a desire and curiosity to learn and to know how to learn because then they're set for life. And it doesn't matter if there's gaps, right? There's always going to be gaps. Or if I didn't teach something that was quote unquote essential for them, they know how to learn and that's going to set them up for life. So Deuteronomy 6, 6 and 7, and the words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children. Homeschool Help With Jeanette: ⁓ yes. Heather Oosterhuis: And she'll talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise. Home school just became an extension of our parenting. Jose Lopez: I just, love a lot of things that you're saying because that's, mean, looking at the future just for, from my perspective on just preparing for the future and looking at where homeschool families are going to go. Like for me, in my experience, it's been, you know, there's a lot of things that influence our kids. And so what are the things that we want to influence them for after they leave us in homeschooling? Is it that we want them to be influenced that we want you to get the best careers, the most money we want you to be, have the greatest status or is it really God has a vision for you and it's going to be more greater than what you could imagine and so how can we help you and guide you to trust in what's important to get to where you want to go so I love how that's kind of the foundation of the homeschooling journey that you've had and just how you're really leading your kiddos to the direction of what's important for their life. Heather Oosterhuis: With the Lord's help always. Jose Lopez: So, yes. so that makes 100 % sense of why ⁓ and the foundation of you homeschool. ⁓ And I just want to ask the question on the practicality of ⁓ you made the decision. going to homeschool now. So now I have to make the decision, how do I actually do this? ⁓ And when it comes ⁓ how do you choose curriculum without ⁓ falling into the decision ⁓ how did you do How did you decide this is the curriculum? ⁓ How did you do it? Or what did you do? Heather Oosterhuis: yes so i asked my husband this question because i was going over the questions with him and his response to this question was chocolate And well, that is totally true, but all kidding aside, decision fatigue is real. And I remember being at my first couple of homeschool conferences and feeling completely overwhelmed. Like there's so many great choices. How do I know what choice is for us? Because they all look so good. obviously covering everything in Prairie is essential. And I love processing all that with my husband. But I am very thankful that early on in our homeschool journey, we learned about different philosophies of education. So by choosing our philosophy of education, it eliminated 80 to 90 % of curriculum choices. Right out of the gate, it gave us a guide, got guide rails to follow that made a lot of that extra noise disappear pretty quickly. So thinking about your end goal, which is gonna look different for everyone, it might be what you want them to accomplish or learn or. know or be or what you want them to care about, those kind of questions. Ask yourself, how will you get to your end goal? Realizing that we as parents cannot do all the work, the Holy Spirit is really our main educator and guidance for us as parents, but also the educator of our children. We do have a role to play and we are responsible to the Lord for what he's calling us to do. But I love this quote by Charlotte Mason. The question is not. How much does the youth know when he has finished with his education? But how much does he care? And about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet? And therefore, how full is the life he has before him? So I don't think necessarily in terms of checking boxes with every curriculum need, right? I'm thinking more globally, how did God create each of my kids uniquely? What are their gifts and their struggles? How am I being called to steward those gifts and struggles? And then how can I not kill their love of learning? Right? Our kids are so curious. They're always asking why they're always wanting to learn things and how can I foster that? And what's the best way to do that? It's going to look different for every family and for every child. Homeschool Help With Jeanette: Yeah, that's absolutely true. I agree with you on so many things. Giving them that love of learning, like you mentioned before in the ⁓ previous topic, it solves a lot of problems on its own. And we can really continue to give them that love of the Lord and... Jose Lopez: So if you had. Homeschool Help With Jeanette: just help them on their way through all the subjects, know, all the topics that that there are. So as you're thinking about the curriculum and then kind of moving on, how did you start to prepare your kids for especially your teens for college, for, you know, either post-secondary education or a job or, you know, wherever? ⁓ their heart's desire is, right? And it changes. Like how did you weather all of that? Heather Oosterhuis: Yeah, you know. Yeah, well, a lot of prayer and a lot of chocolate. ⁓ Homeschool Help With Jeanette: I love the chocolate piece. I didn't expect that. Jose Lopez: I'm sensing a theme here. Heather Oosterhuis: Well, but whether, you know, whether we're doing it intentionally or accidentally, we're always preparing our children for our future. And if we want to be intentional about it, it does take some prayer and thoughtfulness. I mentioned before that as we began our homeschooling journey, we had an end goal in mind. and that at that time, it wasn't imperfectly clear focus. You know, if you look through a pair of binoculars, you can get some focus and a, and a big picture. of what you're looking at, but it doesn't get clearer until you're closer up in person. And I think it's the same way as years go by, we get more insight into who God has created each of our unique children to be, and we get a clearer picture of their interests and desires, as well as their weaknesses, and the focus zooms in more. Because we wanted our kids to love learning and to keep their curiosity and develop their faith as we live out our faith in front of them, That impacted our journey all along because we started with homeschooling. ⁓ And as the high school years come along, we can begin to feel the weight of their future feeling really heavy on our shoulders. I love, I'm going to reference Charlotte Mason again, she has a description of something she calls the great recognition. And she describes a beautiful fresco painting from the 14th century. on a church in Italy called the Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas and the Allegory of Christian Learning. And it's a beautiful picture of all the areas of knowledge. You you've got all these intellectual areas of knowledge and some spiritual areas of knowledge. And it's a reminder that all of these things fall under the heading that all of learning is guided by the Holy Spirit and that God is the supreme educator. and the Holy Spirit is the inspirer of genius, whether in sacred or secular fields. And I have this painting in our home as a reminder that I don't have to have it all figured out. I have a role to play, but the Holy Spirit is their teacher too. So I just want to give you an example of how this played out, how God's faithfulness played out and reminded me that He does meet us where we are, not just moment to moment, not just big picture, but in the everyday. So when our oldest was approaching high school, I went to this mom's gathering to learn what I thought was going to be about transcripts. And it ended up being more about how to help your very academically advanced student do college work in high school and excel on the ACT and get all these advanced scholarships. And I sat there feeling very defeated and on the verge of tears because our oldest had a lot of learning differences. And I kept thinking, this is not her path. And this is not where the Lord is leading her. How will I help her? How am I possibly going to guide her? Because I don't even know what her path is. So as they're passing around all these resources, these giant ACT books and the ACT prep, I'm like not even looking at most of them, but for whatever reason, this book comes in my lap and I decide I'm going to pretend to look at it and I open it up and The only thing on that page, it was a full blank white page, and the only thing on that page said, I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you and watch over you. Psalm 32 8. And that has become an anchor verse because in that moment I knew the Lord heard me. I know he heard my prayers in that meeting as I was fighting back tears. I know he saw us and I felt so much peace and assurance. that I didn't have to know the whole picture. I just needed to be faithful with the next step in front of me, go through the next open door he provided. Now that's not easy to rest in. It's not a checklist. It's not a formula. And later I shared this story with a friend who told me, guess what Heather, that verse is not just for you. That verse is for your daughter too. He will instruct her and teach her in the way she should go. Homeschool Help With Jeanette: Hahaha Heather Oosterhuis: He will counsel her and watch over her. And so that anchor verse for me, even now, as we're launching, we have several who've launched out of our homeschool and are onto their next steps in life. It's a reminder to me, even now, while they're not in my home and doing all the things that God's calling them to do, that the Lord is still there with them and he's being faithful and his spirit is leading and guiding them. And I trust him. I can trust him with their future. I do have a role to play and I need to be faithful to the Lord in that, but he has it figured out. So let's get practical. That's really flowery. But if you're nervous about homeschooling high school, I get it. I was there too. But I would say what helped me is taking a look at my local schools' websites. have ⁓ like graduation requirements and all of them usually have some kind of handbook. explaining what their classes are. And so our local school, for example, I was worried about math one year and they had, this is the path for the order of math if you are headed towards college and this is the path of math you might want if you are not headed towards college. And it just got my brain thinking about all the different paths that our students can take. And as I'm writing my transcript, this public school A is going to say English one. And public school B might have something flowery like British literature and traveling with students. And the basic idea is they're reading good things and they're writing about it. And so how does, how does that language of German translate into my English transcript that I will send to the college who speaks Italian, right? They're just all different languages trying to explain the same thing. Homeschool Help With Jeanette: Absolutely. Heather Oosterhuis: But practically speaking, there are so many great resources and I have found it a joy to have my homeschoolers home. They've all taken different paths with their high school. ⁓ So practically, there's lots of resources available and it's not as intimidating as I made it out to be in the beginning. Jose Lopez: think that's a powerful way to look at it. again, with ⁓ coaching high school students, that's the perspective to take, it's calming to know that you don't have to have it all figured out right now But if you're willing and trusting in the Lord in the direction that He's gonna go like that's where really That's really where you should be putting your strength in because it's really hard and it's hard for students to feel like hey You need to figure out your entire life By the time that you're 18 when I'm like, that's that's not really true. There's a lot of people I always look at Colonel Sanders who in his 50s and 60s started KFC and had like a huge restaurant chain and so if you were to tell him like hey you got to figure out your life when you're 18 years old he'd be like I guess I'll be a railroad man because because that's what he originally did where many years down the line he was running his own restaurant chain Homeschool Help With Jeanette: you Heather Oosterhuis: And I guarantee you he did not have a textbook that said how to run a restaurant chain and that, you know, like there's so many things that we are already doing, so many experiences that we have that fit into the category of the different subjects that are needed on a transcript. And so there's a lot of ways to think outside the box and still accomplish the goal of a strong education that prepares our students for what's after. our homeschool, whether it's college or working or different gap year experiences. Homeschool Help With Jeanette: Yeah, that's absolutely right. ⁓ So we were looking at kind of the practical in your home. Let's look outside of the home. ⁓ How did you look for community resources, things that would support you and your kids? I know sometimes people struggle with feeling that support from other moms or finding their people. So what did that look like for you and your family? Heather Oosterhuis: Yeah. Well, it was completely guided by the Lord. mean, there's there were there's a lot of in our area, there's a lot of homeschool groups. And in the beginning, there's just a lot of trial and error. think being willing to put yourself in groups of homeschoolers and kind of figure out, you know, who the Lord is bringing into your path to encourage you or for you to encourage or for friends for your kids. And that has changed over time. The different friendships that we've had as family dynamics, as well as their personal relationships, it's looked different in every season. I think as a young family, it looks a lot different than it looks, you know, in our high school years. And we have four, you know, older kids and then one fifth, a fifth kiddo who's almost five. And so we're kind of starting that journey over again. And I'm thinking, what did I do the first four times around for kindergarten? And finding the community for our five-year-old. think when I think community, Homeschool Help With Jeanette: you Heather Oosterhuis: one of the biggest questions I had and I hear other people saying as homeschoolers is what about socialization, right? And I always, this is not, these are not my words, but they have spoken to me over the years and because I don't know who to read them to, I think socialization depends on your definition of what socialization is. I mean, ⁓ if you feel like socialization all the eight year olds in one classroom, 23 of them, homeschooling does not, socialization does not look like that. But I would argue neither does the world. There, you know, when you go to start your first job as a 23, 24 year old, you don't say, okay, welcome to our company. This is the room where the 24 year olds work. You know, that's not, that's not practical. And so our, our definition of socialization, I think Homeschool Help With Jeanette: ever. Heather Oosterhuis: One of the really cool things about homeschooling is that a lot of homeschoolers are so socialized that they can talk to adults and young children and they don't really feel this awkwardness about people in different walks of life, different ages, people are people. And that's one of the things I love about it. so finding our community has not been, I people are everywhere. They're at the grocery store, but where you find your closest friends. I think being willing to talk to people at church. You know, if you have a church community, feel like that's vital. And then different homeschooling groups, different ⁓ field trips. mean, let's be honest, homeschoolers go to some really cool places during the day. And if they're not in school, they're probably a homeschooler. And so it's easy to meet people where they're at. I think it really helped me to join a mom. book club that was specific to homeschooling mothering. And those people became some of my closest friends and we began to do life together. And again, that's not a formula. That's just something that the Lord does as you seek him and you know, try different things. There's different groups that we tried and they were not our people and that's okay too. ⁓ The no's are just as valuable as the yes. Jose Lopez: That's so awesome. And I would also include just kind of the character building in that as well with the community. And so like that's another question I have for you too. You know, we're talking about community and really meeting the right people. And so how does that, how ⁓ does character building and just training the heart, how does that really go with kind of ⁓ academics, whether it's in the community or individually with your student? Like what are some tips or what are some things that you would say or recommend that other families look at. Heather Oosterhuis: Yeah, know, heart training, I think, has been at the forefront of our just, I would say, parenting journey, right? Like, I think a lot of those of us who are believers really value, you know, shepherding our child's heart. Those books that I talked about earlier, those ideas just carried into all of life. They started in our early years and they continue now. So I had a really wise mom years ago pour into my life and she said, I never want to sacrifice my relationship with my children on the altar of education. And I think about sometimes in those hard moments of parenting and homeschooling, we get so focused on you will do this lesson, you will complete the work and finishing the book or whatever hard thing it is. And it really struck with me that I'm also shepherding a heart. And sometimes that looks differently with our homeschooling than just finishing a book. So in that muck and mire of the math lessons, am I more concerned with finishing the lesson or in developing the character and heart for doing hard things well? Because at the end of the day, that math lesson and its 20 or 30 problems are not the real lesson of the day. They are not the most important thing. If I push so hard that I kill their love of learning, then I stifle their future. Do they have to love math? No, but they should be able to do hard things. They should know the value of working hard towards a goal and see the value of what math brings to the world and what it says about our creator. He is a God of order and not of chaos. So sometimes that means we stop after a few problems so they're not overwhelmed and we can talk and move on and talk about the heart and the character issues that are coming out in math because they do come out, you know, I think God is going to use all the things in our life, right? And he's going to use hard things. And if we're a homeschooling parent, we're gonna find some hard things in some of the subjects we teach our kids. So it's parenting. And other times it does mean finishing the math lesson well. And the Holy Spirit is the best guide in this, but that's not an easy formula to follow. We like checklists and predictable outcomes, right? If I do these specific things in this particular order, I'm going to get this product. My child is going to look like this. And the truth is I'm not that powerful. I have a part to play and I have a responsibility to the Lord for what he's calling me to do, but only the Lord can change the hearts of my children. Only the Lord can save them. And it's my job to shepherd them. and point them to the Savior, but it's not my job to save them. At some point, I had to do a reality check on my own heart and motives. There is so much trust, trusting the Lord in this homeschooling journey. And guess what? He's teaching and growing me alongside my children. Homeschooling and parenting in general have been the biggest tools that the Lord has used to make me more like Jesus. It's humbling and sobering. to commit to doing life as a family and know that my kids are watching my testimony be lived out before them. Does the Jesus we talk about in our Bible lessons and church, does that match the Jesus I claim to serve in my interactions at home? Whether you homeschool or private school or public school, this is lived out before our kids. With homeschooling, we get more hours to influence our kids for better or worse. And so. Homeschooling is just an extension of life and extension of parenting. And it's when we try to recreate the school structure or classroom model that we can really kill the heart and the beauty of education and relationships. So I would just say education doesn't have to come from a textbook or endless worksheets. It can come in the wonder and beauty of a lifestyle of learning together. And once I realized I didn't need to be the expert or have all the answers, Homeschool became so much easier. If I had to learn all the things and then teach them and grade them, that prep work would make me crazy. I love just learning with them, being curious with them, finding answers we didn't know. This is teaching them how to learn. And those elements are far more useful than the content in a textbook. Textbooks are shallow knowledge. They're really broad. But deeper knowing and understanding brings a sense of caring or passion about a topic. And so I prefer depth over breadth. And I love seeing that even that's starting to play out as I have two kiddos outside of homeschooling and one getting ready for their senior year. It's so cool to see God multiplying. the faithfulness that we brought to the table, as well as our imperfections. It's just so humbling and honoring to see what he takes with our offering. Homeschool Help With Jeanette: how you you kind of packaged all of that the the philosophy for homeschooling you package that so well and I know you probably didn't mean to it's just how it came out that you know relying on the Lord being open to him molding us molding our kids in the midst of just day-to-day life this is just what we're doing and it also sounds like that's what matters most in your home school. Is that right? Yeah. ⁓ in every home. Every home. Heather Oosterhuis: Absolutely. The math is just the vehicle for bringing out character issues. mean... Insert whatever subject you want. It's just another way for the Lord to use to point you to Jesus. Homeschool Help With Jeanette: That's exactly right. Jose Lopez: And I love when we learn lessons from our kids as well. As much as we're teaching them, we're learning lessons as well. One of our family mottos is we do hard things. And so whenever there's a, I'm having a hard time with my math or having a hard time writing a paper, it's like, well, it's a good thing that we do hard things. But I love it on the flip side when I complain about work or I complain about an issue that having. And then my kids will look at me and say, well, we do hard things, right? And I'm like, Okay, I okay. Yes, you are right. You are right And thank you God that we are giving you lessons that you can also teach us to also follow Homeschool Help With Jeanette: Yeah, it's humbling work. I mean, it just is. Heather Oosterhuis: But that's just pointing to you and your coachability as a parent, that you're allowing your kids the opportunity to speak into your life the way that you're speaking into their life. Homeschool Help With Jeanette: Yeah. Jose Lopez: Yeah, and it's always, it's like a nice confidence boost to say, yes, we're teaching them the right lessons and ⁓ yeah, that's right, if we do teach them how to take on hard things, we I guess we'll have to do it ourselves too. Heather Oosterhuis: Yeah, for sure. Homeschool Help With Jeanette: Right? Jose Lopez: Well, I mean, I feel like you kind of answered it, but we just kind of want to expand on it a little bit more. just looking back, you know, at looking back at your experience homeschooling, you know, what mattered most? And, you know, for some people who are just starting ⁓ homeschooling, you know, what and what mattered far less than you thought ⁓ in your homeschool journey? Heather Oosterhuis: Hmm. Yeah, I think finishing the book mattered a lot less than I thought. did not like we, I really felt like we had to do every jot and tittle that whatever curriculum or layout we had or else we failed. And when I really grasp onto the idea that it's okay to be like, you know what, you got a taste of that book. And if you really like it, you'll go finish it. Like we're moving on, you know, it's not You know, I don't have to cram everything down your throat just because I decided at the beginning of the year that this amount of work was a good idea. Life happens, know, sickness happens, babies happen, emotions and child development happen, right? And so when we take the holistic picture of shepherding our kids through life, sometimes that means we don't finish the book. ⁓ But I also I also feel like the comparison game, I. ⁓ matters a lot less. I think as homeschoolers, any parent really, we can hear what another family is doing or what another child knows and get kind of strung up about, well, we're not doing that. They're learning Greek mythology. ⁓ no, we're not learning Greek mythology right now. We're failing instead of saying, you know what, maybe we just aren't studying Greek mythology. My favorite, my favorite analogy of this, was sharing with a friend, I was planning homeschool one year and for several years I'm fully on board and I love the idea of teaching Latin to our family. I think there's value in it, it's beautiful. I love the curriculum we picked, but every year for multiple years in a row, it would be the first thing that would go every week. And I would spend the year beating myself up that we weren't doing Latin and next year recommit to do Latin. And my friend was like, what if you just don't do Latin? And I was like, what? No, I cannot conceive of not doing Latin. She's like, ⁓ you're already not doing it? How about you just say you're not doing it and then you don't have to beat yourself up for not doing it. And that was such a huge aha moment to me that I could not only save myself the anguish through the year of beating myself up for not doing Latin, but also that decision fatigue every year of how are we gonna do it? How are we gonna fit it in with all the things? Homeschool Help With Jeanette: you Heather Oosterhuis: I can just say, we don't do Latin. And you can too, whatever that is, that you, even though it's a good thing, too many good things ⁓ may not all be, that baggage and that regret might not be worth trying to cram in all the things. And sometimes the best thing you can do is just say, yeah, I think that's great, but it's not for us. So what mattered most, it wasn't just an education, it was a way of life. The memories we make, the exploring we do, the trips we take, the curiosity we explore together, all of that is what mattered most. Finishing every book or all the math problems or even staying on track, whatever on track means, right? That mattered so much less. Seeing my kids thrive and continue their love of learning, being carried out into adulthood is a gift that means more than any grade on a transcript. And those are skills for life. Homeschool Help With Jeanette: Yes, that's absolutely true. And I think it's something interesting that you mentioned about not finishing everything or staying on track like you mentioned. I think a lot of us homeschoolers, not all of us, but a lot of us ⁓ want so much to do homeschooling right. Because we love our kids so much. We want the best education for them. We try so hard to get it right. ⁓ end up beating ourselves up for it and that is not something that is sustainable. That's not something that's even helpful. You know, we can experience so much more freedom. Freedom in Christ that we don't have to fit into our own little man-made box. You know. ⁓ yes. Heather Oosterhuis: Well, I was so concerned about gaps. That was a big, ⁓ my, I got to teach them everything. And when I realized my education didn't teach me everything in the schools that I went to and my husband's education, there will always be gaps no matter where you go because a gap is just means you haven't learned all the things. And let's get real, we can't learn all the things. But what happened? What happened when I got married and decided that learning how to make sourdough was important to me? Guess what? I learned how to make sourdough. Homeschool Help With Jeanette: Exactly. That's right. That's right. Heather Oosterhuis: But if you had tried to tell me in high school, like you must learn to make sour dough because when you are older, you will want to make this for your family. ⁓ know, just ⁓ not going to go well. ⁓ we can teach our kids how to learn and give them a curiosity and a love of learning, they are set for life and whatever they need along the way, they're going to figure it out. Homeschool Help With Jeanette: Right? you Jose Lopez: Yeah, I 100 % agree. I love that. I love just building that curiosity. And Janette and I, we talked about it as well, of things that we wish we would have known, but we still figure it out as we go along. And I think that's the beauty of it, is just to continue to grow that curiosity for our kids. Well, Heather. It's been a pleasure to have you here and just hear all of your thoughts. And I think there's so many nuggets here that I've written down of so many things to take away. Obviously, we're going to ask about some of the resources and books that you recommended, because we'll put that in the show notes for any families that are interested in reading. I know there are a couple of books that definitely want to include on the show notes and read myself. And so definitely we'll get that to share. But we just appreciate you just taking time just to kind of talk to us and really just helping families just feel relieved of, know, there's a lot of pressure out there to feel like... ⁓ that you have to have it all together or you have to compare yourself to other, or we have to emulate what public or private schools are doing. And so to hear from, I want to call you a seasoned veteran of homeschooling, to hear about that experience of what you're feeling of like, whoa, no, you really have to pivot, make changes, adapt, and just kind of have fun along the way. It's refreshing to hear. Heather Oosterhuis: Well, I am super thankful for the different women who've gone before me and poured into my life and mentored me along the way. I'm thankful that I have some nuggets after a few years that are worth sharing. So thank you for the opportunity to pass that along. Jose Lopez: Yeah, well, we appreciate your time and we thank you all for listening in to this episode. if you have questions, feel free to share in the comments and we'd love to answer some of the questions or topics that you want to share from what we've discussed. We'd love to hear back from you ⁓ we just appreciate all the listeners just for listening in. ⁓ And so we thank you all. My name is Jose Lopez and we will see you in the next episode. ⁓ Homeschool Help With Jeanette: Jeanette McBee. Bye.