How to Tailor Homeschooling to Your Kid’s Strengths and Interests with Colleen Kessler

Pam Barnhill [00:00:01]:
Are you ready for homeschooling to feel joyful again? Do you long for support as you learn alongside your kids? Welcome to Homeschool Better Together, a podcast about building a homeschool experience that works for your family. I’m Pam Barnhill, and it’s time to step out of the overwhelm and into the wonder. Let’s do this. Colleen Kessler is an education consultant with a master’s degree in gifted education. She’s a passionate advocate for the needs of differently wired kids and is a homeschool mom of 4 gifted Time exceptional kids of her own. She’s the founder of the popular podcast and website, Raising Lifelong Learners, and she has authored more than a dozen books, like Raising Creative Kids, a collection of creativity prompts for children, and Raising Resilient Sons, a boy mom’s guide to building strong, confident, and emotionally intelligent families. And we are having her on today to talk about her newest book, The Homeschool Advantage. Colleen, welcome back to the podcast.

Colleen Kessler [00:01:08]:
Yay. Thanks for having me. I always love talking to you. one of my best friends in the world.

Pam Barnhill [00:01:13]:
That is right. It is always so much fun to get to chat with you about anything and especially about homeschooling things. And I love this topic so much because when I think about who has kind of been my mentor in this idea and, you know, both of us were school teachers. We both taught in the public school system for a number of years, and it’s so hard to let go of that school mentality. And some of us, it’s harder than others. And so you have definitely been a mentor for me in that, but let’s let’s start with that kind of idea. Let’s talk about what inspired you to write this book about focusing on kids’ strengths and passions. Why do parents need this idea so much in their homeschools?

Colleen Kessler [00:02:01]:
Yeah. This it feels I’m so excited about this book because it feels like kind of a culmination of all the things I’ve been speaking about and writing about for the past 15 years, really. And, we’re entering our 16th year of homeschooling. And like you said, I come from an educational background. My husband is still a school teacher, and so we see that traditional model of education and had lived it for so long, and my husband’s still living it. And the the more and more I homeschool, the longer and longer I homeschool, the more and more families I speak to who homeschool, the Morning guess firm I am in my belief that we’re the system is going about it all wrong, it’s it’s not it it seems like okay. So let me let me say that it seems like and is plays out often that, schools and even us parents, especially when we fall back into our own public school kind of, like, background, we focus on deficits. We focus on a deficit based model of education where we’re looking at what’s wrong, what kids are weak at, where they’re struggling, and we put the majority of our focus on that and spend so much time trying to shore up those weaknesses and build, and fill all the little gaps that we forget that the best way to motivate anybody, especially a child, but really any individual, is to give them more of what they love, and they’ll rise to any other challenge that comes their way because they’re doing what they’re passionate about and interested in doing.

Colleen Kessler [00:03:38]:
And the the best, I guess, example of this is our own lives as adults. We don’t spend our lives devoted to doing the things we stink at. We do what we’re best at and what we’re most passionate about. Our jobs tend to fall or trickle out from these passions and interests Once we decide to go to college or go to a trade school or go do whatever it is we’re gonna do to get our adult jobs, they’re they’re based on the things that we know we’re good at and we’re most interested in, and the best way to educate and get our our youth excited about their future is to give them more of what they love, and research bears this out. Research says that if we focus on a strength based approach to learning and to give kids more in their areas of strength, their weaknesses are going to be strengthened through that process. And I don’t mean throwing out all the stuff that they’re weak at. Right? I have a kid who’s dyslexic. I have a kid who has sensory challenges.

Colleen Kessler [00:04:41]:
I have a kid who has ADHD and struggles to focus. I can’t just say, okay. Well, you have ADHD, so I know you love video games. You could just play video games all day long. There needs to be, like, a well rounded approach to it. But when I’m focused on what that ADHD kid is is weakest at, I’m going to find a way to incorporate their strength into it. So he’s going to practice, reading skills through a video game that he’s gotta, like, text his his sister back and forth, you know, through the chat, and he’s going to be writing stories based on the things that he’s interested in or what’s happening in a game. And then in his areas of strength, he’s just gonna soar ahead.

Colleen Kessler [00:05:19]:
He’s 2 grade levels ahead in math because he can focus on that because he likes seeing how numbers work together. Does that make sense? I don’t know if I went off on a tangent there.

Pam Barnhill [00:05:27]:
No. It does make sense because as you’re sitting here, I I know you’re gonna explain to me, but as you’re sitting here and I kinda was internally chuckling about the fact that you’re saying, we don’t spend our lives as adults, like, focusing on the things that we’re not good at. And I’m thinking, like, why do I get up and exercise all the time? I really stink at that, but it’s good for me. And so I I knew you were gonna come back and hit with that balanced approach of sometimes. It doesn’t mean we ignore the things right. The areas of weakness. But I think the thing that we do too often is not focus on anything. You know, I don’t know if you’re even aware of this, but in our put your homeschool year on autopilot planning course, 1 of the things we do each year is we have the parents write 2 to 3 goals per child.

Pam Barnhill [00:06:13]:
And we always encourage them to make 1 of those goals very specifically about something your kids are good at. Because the goals you write for your kids are the things that you’re going to put your time and energy towards as a homeschooling parent. Because as you know, as parent of 4 kids that you can’t focus on everything equally all the time. Right? And by saying, like, my kid is good at x and making that a goal for this year that we’re gonna find the time to focus on the creative writing or the theater or whatever the case may be, then we are saying we are committing time and energy to that thing that my child has a passion for and my child absolutely loves. Because I think it’s easy for the thing that the kid is passionate about to kind of get pushed aside, not even intentionally, while you focus on everything else that you have to focus on, especially when you have more than 1 kid.

Colleen Kessler [00:07:08]:
Right. Yeah. And it’s easy to do that because when as a parent, you want what’s best for your kid. As a homeschooling parent, you get yourself all worked up about the idea that you have to do all the things and be everything to them. It’s so easy to see any issue in our our children or our family and blame ourselves. Like, we’re just not enough in this area or not enough in this area. And so then what we naturally tend to do is fix problems because those are what we see. Right? Our human nature is to fix what’s broken in front of us, and we forget that life’s about more than just fixing things.

Colleen Kessler [00:07:44]:
We need to fix that, but we also need to love life and love learning for its own sake. And so having that balanced approach with a heavy focus on knowing who our kids are, what they love, what they’re interested in, what maybe some of their goals are. And so so that we can pull that in to their lives in whatever ways we can. So you’d like, you mentioned theater, and if anybody’s followed me for any number of any any single day that those have seen me talking somewhere on Instagram or wherever about theater because it’s a big part of our lives. I’ve got a kid who’s passionate about theater. She doesn’t only do theater, but she does a lot of theater. And when she’s feeling discouraged or down or she’s struggling in an area, we pull feed her in. When she needs to write, she’s writing a a play or she did at 1 point.

Colleen Kessler [00:08:33]:
Actually, let me give you a really concrete example. This particular kid does not love science and math. She just never has. And 1 of the years in our co op, I was teaching a class to her age group about insects and creepy crawlies, and we had, an ecosystem, a little habitat in the the coop classroom, and the kids were learning about specific insects that were in it. And she came up to me at 1 point, and she’s like, mom, I don’t wanna do this. And I said, you have to learn about these ecosystems and how animals, you know, are interconnected and how they work together. And, you know, you don’t have to touch them, but do you have something else you could do or suggest? And she suggested writing a short skit about the ecosystem, and she got 2 of her friends who were also very anti creepy crawlies to work with her, and the 3 of them, while the rest of the group and I were touching they we were learning through a hands on approach into this little skit that they then cast and directed and costumed and presented to our co op on the last session. So they incorporated language arts and research and writing and science and, conservation and theater and dramatics and memorization into this project that they came up with, and they still remember to this day.

Colleen Kessler [00:10:03]:
I mean, they were 8 at the time and are all 16 or 17 now. They remember life cycles and ecology and this specific habitat because they were able to do it in a way that tapped into their strengths and interests instead of just doing what we were all doing as a class.

Pam Barnhill [00:10:22]:
Right. Okay. So I love so much that you’re talking about this because 1 of my questions for you is about the misconceptions. And I think a lot of times when parents hear, oh, you’ve got to tailor things to your child’s strength that it’s like, okay. You know, I’m not gonna make you do the creepy crawly stuff. You know, I’m gonna give you an out. I’m gonna let you walk away from that. And that’s not what you’re talking about at all.

Pam Barnhill [00:10:45]:
You’re really not talking about giving them an out. And you mentioned earlier the kid who wanted to play video games all the time and you don’t allow that. So when we’re talking about strengths based more child interest learning, we’re not necessarily talking about, I guess, you know, a form of unschooling that allows them just to do whatever they want to.

Colleen Kessler [00:11:05]:
Right. We’re not talking about anything radical. And the truth of the matter is everybody needs to decide where your comfort level lies anyway as a homeschool mom because your responsibility is to your child and your family, and that’s why homeschooling works. Right? And that’s, I think, really the core thesis of the book and why it’s called The Homeschool Advantage is because you have the advantage as a homeschool family to tailor it to the exact needs your kids and and you as as parents have and desire for the way that you wanna raise your family. And you can do this in a way that honors all of the beliefs and values that you have. So when I am personally talking about following my kids’ interests, I’m talking about doing that in a way that is still moving them along consistently in the most important things to me as a former educator and a parent, a little bit of reading, a little bit of writing, a little bit of math so they can balance their checkbook and not get taken advantage of in a mortgage negotiation when they’re older, but that really gives them a more solidly deep and, I guess, depth filled education in the area that I know that they’re gonna go into. Right? So that means not having an out, still having a well rounded education and being exposed to the different things that you want them to be exposed to. So they do have background knowledge in a wide variety of things.

Colleen Kessler [00:12:27]:
They can have conversations and they can think critically, and they can think creatively. But then doing those and finding out about that stuff in a way that is still going to be retained. Right? Because when we’re doing it in a way that speaks to ourselves, we’re gonna remember it more and honors their own comfort levels to some degree. That specific child will never dissect anything. She’s just not going to. That would be brutal for her. And so she learned about anatomy and physiology through online simulations and things like that, but she still learned about it. She just discovered it in a way that was more tailored to her own style of learning and her interests while all of those things that she’s going to need to be able to be successful in the types of programs she’s looking at going into post high school.

Colleen Kessler [00:13:20]:
Those are the things that she’s doing in a way that’s gonna make her successful. She’s taking an a class at a college right now and is not loving it. Has actually told me flat out, this is a lot of jumping through hoops. This is a waste of my time. This is busy work. And my point to her is you’re absolutely right. But you’re gonna leave me in a year, and you’re gonna go somewhere, and a professor is gonna tell you that they want things based on this rubric. And in order to get full points, you have to check all these boxes, and you’re not gonna be able to go off on your creative tangent.

Colleen Kessler [00:13:52]:
You’re gonna have to check those boxes if you want a good grade in the class. And so Time, you have to know how to check those boxes too. And so we’re tailoring it to their strengths, interests, and needs, but we’re also giving them the background knowledge that they need to be successful in other areas too.

Pam Barnhill [00:14:09]:
And isn’t that the truth? I mean, so often just learning how to pass the class is such a huge lesson in and of itself. Like, what things do I have to do? What hoops do I have to jump through to be able to accomplish what I’m looking to accomplish? So, you know, I can get into the college I want, or I can participate in the program that I wanna be in, or I can get the piece of paper that now gets me this job. A lot of what our education system has evolved into and the world at large has really become that kind of thing.

Colleen Kessler [00:14:42]:
Yeah. And wait. Let me say 1 more thing before I know you’re gonna ask me another question. But I think that that right there, what you just said, encapsulates so perfectly why homeschoolers have an advantage and why doing this alternative style of education, keeping them home and tailoring it to your own family makes so much long term success because they can learn to jump through those hoops. Right? They can learn to check those boxes, but that’s not all they’re doing. And like you just said, that’s what so much of our education systems have evolved into being, whether they’re public school, parochial school, private school, or a hybrid of sorts. So much of it is teaching to the test or checking the boxes or following the rubric, and they have less time to be creative and innovative and think critically and think creatively and test out the different things that they wanna test out. But we’ve got the ability to show them how to check boxes if they need if they’re if they wanna go into a program or setting that’s gonna need them to do that while still giving them the freedom to use the majority of their time to follow their interests and passions.

Pam Barnhill [00:15:54]:
Yeah. And that learning to check boxes does not take years to do. You don’t need to spend years, like, doing a textbook or taking certain kind of tests or anything like that. You know, my daughter is in trade school now. She went to cosmetology school after she left our Homan school. And it took her about half of the first semester to kind of learn to really I mean, she’ll tell me, like, oh, mom, I know how to study now. The rubrics and the learning the system and how to do things and exactly how to, like, make that studying work and everything. And now she’s just rocking and rolling through the whole thing, and it took her just a couple of months to get up to speed in exactly the kinds of things they were looking for.

Pam Barnhill [00:16:33]:
You know? And so I think it’s we don’t feel like in preparing our kids for for, let’s say, college or something like that. We’ve got to spend 4 years doing that. You can really do that in a very, very short concentrated amount of Time, and then spend the rest of your educational time doing something a little more interesting, and probably more something that’s better for them anyway. So Right. Well, let’s talk a little bit about this idea of, following your kids’ interest because I know the next question that’s gonna come up is, what if my kid’s not interested in anything?

Colleen Kessler [00:17:07]:
Yeah. I it’s it’s hard. Right? It’s hard because it seems like okay. So, actually, I was just having right before I got on this this podcast, I was having a conversation with my husband about our 11 year old because Pam away right now. I’m recording this from an Airbnb, which is an interesting challenge in and of itself. And he was complaining to me that the 11 year old has done nothing since I’ve been gone. That the only time he gets off of Roblox or Minecraft is when my husband gives him a very specific task to do, and then he goes right back on. And I said, of course, he’s 11.

Colleen Kessler [00:17:41]:
That’s what he wants to do. Like, he just wants to play and, you know, mess around. And so if you ask him what he’s interested in learning about or studying about or anything like that, he’s going to tell you, I don’t know. And he’s going to tell me that he’d just rather play video games all day because that’s exactly what him and his friends are enjoying doing. And, it doesn’t actually mean that he’s not interested in anything. He just hasn’t found the passion or the spark or the thing that makes him wanna grab for more and more and more yet, and that’s totally okay. Not everyone is like my now 16 year old who knew at 8 years old that she wanted to pursue a degree in performing arts, or my now 14 year old who has always wanted to work with animals and either wants to be a zookeeper, or she’s now talking about something different, like with horticulture and exhibit development, which is an interesting, little twist on that. But not everybody’s like that that may they don’t make up their minds super early.

Colleen Kessler [00:18:35]:
They just wanna dabble or they wanna Laney. And this is where you need to just be a student of your child, and you’ve heard me say that a 1000000 times, Pam. You need to watch what your kids are doing, see what they gravitate towards when they’re given free time, and then see where you can capitalize on that or give them more of it or also where you can expose them to other things. So these are you know, if your kid doesn’t know specifically what he or she wants to study, this is when you go to museums and you check out the farm park in the area or you go hiking or you try a couple different sports for fun or you go bowling or you just try a bunch of different things. You watch documentaries. You watch shows with them and talk about what you’re observing. You read lots of books because something’s gonna spark, and you’re gonna see that, or they’re gonna ask questions about something. And then you can give them more of it and see if it sticks.

Colleen Kessler [00:19:24]:
And if it doesn’t, then you can give them more of something else. But they don’t all have to be super passionate about something to make an interest driven focus to your your homeschooling or your education work. You just need to keep kind of spreading the feast. Right? Giving them more and more ideas and options and trying different things to see what they might want to learn more of. And for for us, that looks Time, you know, if nobody’s telling me or if they’re not telling me that they wanna study a specific, I don’t know, period in history or whatever, then I know we haven’t done much with American history from this time period to this time period. So at the start of next year, I’m gonna make sure that I’m reading them books that are either historical fiction or nonfiction that touch on those areas. We’re gonna watch some documentaries and then maybe do some studying so they have a background of that, and then we’ll see where the conversation goes from there. And if they’re super interested, we’ll dive deeper.

Colleen Kessler [00:20:22]:
If they’re not, I just want them to have a surface level understanding of all of those different areas because that’s what elementary and middle school education is is a wide arrangement of stuff until they get into their more college or advanced focused classes.

Pam Barnhill [00:20:40]:
Right. So by saying we’re gonna take a interest based approach, it doesn’t mean that the parent is never the 1 coming up with the material that you’re gonna study. That option is certainly on the table as well for you to either say, I’m gonna spread this feast for them to maybe spark an interest, or I think it’s important they know x, and so we’re gonna study x this year. You can still do that. Right?

Colleen Kessler [00:21:02]:
Absolutely. We studied human anatomy and the different systems of the body 2 years ago, and none of them really wanted to do much with human anatomy and physiology. They just really weren’t interested in it, but it’s important to know how your digestive system works and how nutrition feeds into your body so that you can force yourself when you’re our age to exercise because you know it’s good for you and you don’t really like doing it. And so that was important to me that they had that understanding and background so they could think critically as they get older and their bodies change and make healthy decisions for themselves and know why they’re making those healthy decisions for themselves. It was not because 1 of them has a burning desire to be an MD or a nurse or something like that because that’s important information for all kids to know. So sometimes I choose, sometimes they choose, sometimes we collaborate in our decision making, and I I try to give them as much autonomy as I can. And I think that we should all do that as homeschoolers because we have the ability to give our kids more autonomy than they would if they were sitting in a desk for 8 hours. But we also need to temper that with our own parenting.

Colleen Kessler [00:22:07]:
Right? We need to we need to keep in mind that, like you said earlier, balance of what people need to know to be contributing members of society and what everybody needs to know as they’re making the decision as to whether they wanna go to trade school to study something like cosmetology, or I was talking to my son’s friend the other day, he’s in his 2nd year of his apprenticeship program for construction work, and he just got his certificate for the skid the skid row thing? Skid not skid row, skid roller? Skid something? Whatever it is.

Pam Barnhill [00:22:41]:
Skid roller sounds more sounds more appropriate than that. Skid row.

Colleen Kessler [00:22:45]:
That you know, I’m thinking like, what is it? Little Shop of Horrors, the song Skid Row because my musical theater’s Morning, but he was oh, Skid Steer. So he was telling me about getting the certificate and then showing me how it’s helping him get up the steps in salary advancement, you know, and with his like, he’s he went through that. Your daughter went through that. My oldest son took 2 classes and decided that college wasn’t for him, and my daughter’s preparing for a bachelor of fine arts in a competitive industry. We need to make sure our kids are equipped to make the decisions that are gonna be best for their individual futures by giving them a healthy knowledge base and then helping them specialize as they figure out where they’re going to specialize. Or in the case of my son, who didn’t know when we got to the end of high school, if you wanted to go to college, if he wanted to go to trade school, if he wanted to be an entrepreneur, we wanna give them the opportunity and the ability to be able to do that. His transcript was accepted to the 3 schools he applied to. So we need to make sure they’re able to do whatever it is they want to do while still giving them that autonomy and freedom to explore.

Pam Barnhill [00:23:56]:
Yeah. Okay. So let me throw another little speed bump, actually. What happens if you’re like, okay. I’m all in, Colleen. I’m gonna do this. And, like, you talk to your kids, and they’re like, oh, mom. I wanna do, like, underwater basket weaving, and you buy all the supplies, and you get all the things, and you’re all ready and, like, it lasts for a week, and then they they change their mind and wanna do something else.

Colleen Kessler [00:24:16]:
Yeah. I so I would say don’t buy a lot of stuff at all in the beginning of anything because that’s always when you’re gonna get burned. Right? You’re always going to have somebody lose their their interest in something when you spend a lot of money. The other thing is that that you don’t have to go all in on anything. You just have to, like, expose them. Right? And if they’re super interested, they’re naturally going to start wanting to do more of it, and they’re going to show that interest. You also don’t need to make everything a lesson. So I think that so often and you and I have talked about this before, Pam, just as homeschool moms that it seems like every time I try to tap into 1 of these things, it back fires on me because then they don’t want do it because now it’s like work.

Colleen Kessler [00:24:59]:
And so we want we want to be careful. We wanna give them the exposure. I remember 1 example I I thought that they were gonna love. I bought a weaving loom because I have very artistic and creative kids, and it wasn’t a super expensive 1, but I set it out with all these textiles, and I was so excited about it, and they just looked at me like I was insane. And it sat there, you know, collecting dust for a while. I put it away, and about a year later, I pulled it out, and I just started weaving. And then I’d leave it, you know, half done, and somebody would come and they’d add another layer of something else, and then they’d add another layer, or someone else would come and add another layer. It became this, like, group project that everybody was kind of interested in to see how it turned out, and they learned more at that point about colors and textures and how changing things up added interest to something like, Tapestry, and we just hung it in our family room as a reminder of a collaborative project that we did together.

Colleen Kessler [00:25:54]:
But when I put it out with the expectation of somebody diving into it, it it didn’t Time, and so I don’t buy a lot of stuff. I don’t spend a lot of money unless it’s something that I really feel that they need to understand. So when we were doing the human anatomy kind of study or we were learning geology 1 year, I bought some specimen. I bought a rock tumbler. For human anatomy, I bought some games and things like that, but they weren’t going to be let off super easily. For their hobbies, I’ll help them, you know, get enough to get started or something that they say they’re super interested in, like underwater basket weaving. I’d get them initial materials to get started, but then they’d have to earn some of the the the rest of it or show a more advanced interest before I dump a lot of money in anything. Libraries are great.

Colleen Kessler [00:26:43]:
Friends are great. Taking individual classes in something is a great way to dabble. We did some glass blowing with a local glass artist a couple Time, and 1 of my kids really loved it, and we did a couple extras for her. 1 of my kids liked the blacksmithing aspect of the lessons that we did, and he ended up going and studying kind of like wasn’t really an apprenticeship, but he he took some private classes with this blacksmith for a while. And so I would say until you really know that there’s an interest, don’t spend a lot of money, but also don’t get yourself so tied up emotionally in whatever it is you wanna expose them to that you feel like you’ve wasted so much time and so much effort or so much money in something. It’s not personal. It’s just how kids are. Right? They lose interest and, that’s gonna be, you know, part of the gig too.

Pam Barnhill [00:27:33]:
Okay. So let’s go back to this loom for just a minute, this textile stuff. Let’s pretend that Colleen had had a kid who had just really taken to this textile idea and was all over it. And, like, that was their passion, and they wanted to spend all of their time and their energy doing textiles on a loom and off a loom and just that is not a very traditional academic subject. So how as a homeschool mom do you reconcile this kid’s passion for textiles with, we’ve got to learn how to do math and read and history and science and stuff like that.

Colleen Kessler [00:28:11]:
Yeah. So they do have to I mean, so okay. I never equate math the same as the other things, and that’s just that’s a personal thing. And my educational background coming out, Time, math is math. I feel that everybody needs a nice step by step by step approach to math. So I personally always advise parents, and I do for myself, I separate that out. So they are doing math, like, in a text Time kind of thing or when they were doing the glass, you know, when they’re calculating chemicals and stuff. They’re doing some science and some math with that, but that’s not taking the place of their math program.

Colleen Kessler [00:28:50]:
So my kids are still doing math with whatever they’re they’re interested in. So but if if my kid was really interested in that textiles thing, that’s a really super cool and fun thing that you could really incorporate a lot of different subjects in. You could learn the history of textiles, like when things started, where the loom even came from, how the different types of looms. It’s a simple 1, you know, with just the strings going up and down like a square, what lap loom or those ones that are more automatic. You could learn all about that. You could go to some crocheting and some knitting. You’re counting stitches, so you’re doing some math in there, But there’s the history, there’s how things were processed, the industrial revolution, all of those kinds of things, as well as some of the science behind it. Where do these yarns even come from? How are we creating different kinds of fibers from different kinds of, like, plants and animals and things like that? And then there’s the artistic, how the pieces go together, why different textures make something more interesting or more appealing.

Colleen Kessler [00:29:47]:
We would look on, like, Outschool or other Internet resources for classes. We’d look locally for classes. I wouldn’t take it all on myself because I don’t know all of this. We actually have a Time arts association near us that my kids have taken theater classes and dance classes at, and they recently started some crocheting and some knitting classes. So I’d probably have them take 1 of those from somebody other than me to see if they really liked that whole textile kind of thing Morning it was just that this was novel to them. But I would I would pull it all in. So they’d be doing research, they’d be doing writing, they’d be doing reading through all of that information, so you don’t have to isolate all of those different subjects. And then the the science, like I said, and the history of it, that all can be a lot of the reading and the writing and the research too, and then talking to people about what they’ve created.

Colleen Kessler [00:30:42]:
We’ve got some some public speaking and some, you know, articulation type things there. So you could really make if you wanted to do this, like, all in and just really focus on a kid’s interest and you wanted to do, like, an a unit study approach. Here’s the thing. I think so many families, right, Pam, and I’m sure that you experienced this too, have a hard time separating, like, the homeschooling from the curriculum itself and or and or the approach itself. Your homeschooling is what you do within the walls of your home or really the greater world and how you learn about all the different things you wanna learn about. The curriculum is the tool. The style of learning is the tool. Those are Ali tools you’re using to get the information, you know, to your kids in a way that makes sense for you.

Colleen Kessler [00:31:29]:
And I’ve heard you say this for however many years we’ve been friends, which feels like forever. The best curriculum, the best tool is the 1 that you’re gonna use. So if you’re going to use a history book that talks about the industrial revolution and you can incorporate sections of that into your discussion about textiles, then do that. But if you’re all if you’re someone like me who will use documentaries and books from the library to talk about the industrial revolution and be comfortable calling that history, then do that. And so you can you can really pull all sorts of things in in a variety of different ways if your kid is truly, truly passionate about that topic and is all in with you.

Pam Barnhill [00:32:10]:
So how often do you combine kids for things like this? If you had 1 kid who was really into this textile thing, because I I have a feeling their mom’s listening to this going Time, oh, Homan, this would be an awesome way to homeschool, but I got, like, you know, 5 kids over here. How are we gonna do this with all of them because I’m just gonna be pulling my hair out? So I have a feeling that you combine somewhat. Right?

Colleen Kessler [00:32:30]:
Yeah. It depends on kids. It depends on ages. It depends on seasons of life that we’re in. When my kids were littler, we combined almost everything, especially the stuff that I was doing when whatever vehicle I was using to make sure they were getting some reading, some writing, some science, some history, some exposure to critical and creative thinking, then I would combine them as much as I could. And that was easier to do, and I’ll I don’t think every I don’t think enough people say this. It’s a lot easier to do that when your kids are young. Elementary and even into middle school, early middle school, like my 11 year old, you know, going into 6th grade because you are in a little bit more control.

Colleen Kessler [00:33:13]:
As they get older, they have definite ideas about how they wanna spend their time and what they wanna do. And so it’s a little bit more challenging to pull them all together, but you can still do it. My 14 and 11 year olds do a lot together, but they also do things separately as well. So I would say you combine as much as you can comfortably with your kids and as in as many subjects as you possibly can when they’re younger while giving them time to progress in the way that they need to for the different areas, specifically the content areas. Right? When your kids are learning to read, you can’t have all of them necessarily reading the same book. You could be reading aloud to them the same book because their oral comprehension is gonna be different for their ages, but they’re each gonna get what they need personally out of that book. But when you’re reading having them read to you, you need to be tailoring it to their ability. Same thing with math, and you have to be able to go along with their abilities in that area.

Colleen Kessler [00:34:18]:
So I mentioned I have a 14 year old and an 11 year old, and my 14 year old and 11 year old are in the same math level right now. And because we do a lot together and because we focus on the idea that everybody learns according to their ability and their own timeline, neither of them feels badly or different about it. My 14 year old knows that math is her weaker area and she needs a little more practice, and she doesn’t feel badly that her brother is is a little bit ahead of her, and he doesn’t rub in to his big sister, that he’s a little bit ahead of her because he knows that that’s his area. When he needs to do some creative writing or he needs to come up with an idea to to do something to get Time off the computer, he’s gonna go to her because he knows her strength is creativity and coming up with really fun things Time scavenger hunts and adventures in the backyard. And if she gets to a stumbling block in math, she’s gonna go to him because he can explain it in a way that I can’t that taps into the way she thinks better. And so you combine as much as you Dawn. And then as they get older, you give them more time to experience and explore those interests individually. So, like, right now in my Homan school, like, going into next year, my younger 1, he wants to study a little bit more about meteorology and storm chasing because that’s something that’s been interesting to him lately.

Colleen Kessler [00:35:50]:
He was watching old episodes of Storm Chasers with Big Brother. And, my 14 year old with the the zoo training program, she’s been a part of this summer and the volunteer work she’s done. She’s developed an interest in horticulture and how certain people go into zoology with a focus on the plants that the animals eat to develop lifelike habitats for them. And so she wants to study more about how animals and the plants in their environment interact with each other and balance each other, and so they’re gonna do that independently, and I’m not gonna roll all of their subjects in together, but we’re gonna do some read alouds together, we’re gonna do some art projects together, and we’re gonna do a lot of field trips together. My senior, my rising senior, is not going to be a part of any of that. She has some very specific things she has to work on for next year based on the program she’s planning to go into, and if I took time away from that, I would be doing her a disservice. So she’s not lumped together with us at all anymore. So you have to look at the kids that you have in front of you.

Pam Barnhill [00:36:52]:
Yeah. And I think the most important thing to come out of that message other than looking at the kids you have in front of you is when they are younger, it is okay to combine and combine interests and do a little bit of Johnny’s interest, and then you can move to a little bit of Susie’s interest and stuff like that. And you don’t have to feel like you’ve got to spend all of those different plates at 1 time. Because at the end of the day, I mean, practically, we have a homeschool to run. We have a home to keep. We have, you know, those kinds of things that have to happen. And we could be giving our kids this homeschool advantage without having to tie ourselves up into knots to do it.

Colleen Kessler [00:37:27]:
Exactly. I meant to say that too. When we would follow, you know, the interest of 1, like, your example with textiles and that and somebody was following along who wasn’t super artistic and wasn’t interested in it, they would still do it, but then they would have a say in the next thing that we go deeply into. And so we switch things up, and then sometimes I split them up because they each wanted Time into something different, and I would give them a chance to go off on their own interest and then come together to share what they learned. So, again, the key is, like you said earlier, it doesn’t have to look like anything specific. It has to look like what is best for your family at a given time, and that’s that most important advantage, right, that you can tailor it. Because unschoolers follow this methodology of letting them do whatever it is and, you know, go from here. And eclectic people pull from all of this.

Colleen Kessler [00:38:12]:
And Charlotte Mason, people, like, want it to look like this particular way. And classical people, you know, you got to get your Latin in there too. And, you know, whatever it is, those are tools and those are strategies. And you can pick and choose from all of those depending on who needs what when.

Pam Barnhill [00:38:29]:
Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I love it so much. Well, Colleen, if there’s 1 thing you want parents to take away from your book or 1 reason actually, let’s switch that up. If there’s 1 reason why you think parents should read your book, what is it?

Colleen Kessler [00:38:43]:
Okay. So, actually, it goes a lot I think it ties into your other question as well, because you’re gonna read that book and you’re gonna come away knowing you can do this homeschooling thing. That there’s there’s nothing about homeschooling that is so scary that you can’t do it no matter what your background is or, you know, what your level of education is or what your style of learning or teaching is, that every single person who loves their child can homeschool them successfully if they are all in and they love their kids more than anybody else. Because the bottom line is, you know your child best. You know what they need best. You’re gonna advocate for them. You’re gonna find the thing that lights them up, and you’re gonna do it with your whole heart. And so as long as you you have that going in, you’re gonna be just fine as a homeschooler.

Colleen Kessler [00:39:34]:
And I think that if there’s anything that I do well in my speaking to people, in my coaching, in my in my membership community, in my writing is that I’m encouraging. And I I think that the the style of writing is very conversational, and it’s like you’re sitting down for a cup of coffee with me. So you’re gonna come out of it feeling like we just had a conversation that is pepping you up, and there are enough resources and little practical snippets in there that you can walk away from any little 5 minute chunk of reading and go do something that makes you feel good about your homeschooling and remind yourself that you are the best parent for your kid and and the best teacher too.

Pam Barnhill [00:40:21]:
I love it. Well, since you’re 1 of my favorite people to sit and have coffee and a conversation with, I could definitely endorse the idea of getting this 1 and reading it. So, Colleen, thank you so much for explaining all about the homeschool advantage and why it can be beneficial to our kids, and we appreciate you coming on.

Colleen Kessler [00:40:38]:
And I appreciate you having me. I always love talking to you. Thanks, Pam.

Pam Barnhill [00:40:43]:
That’s our show for today. Be sure to follow, subscribe, and leave a review so you never miss out on the wonder of homeschooling better together. To stay connected and learn even more about the homeschooling better together resources and to join our free community, visit hsbtpodcast.com. Until next week, keep stepping out of the overwhelm and into the wonder.