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Hello, welcome back to Call the Homeschool episode #298 focusing on what matters and stop getting distracted.
Hello and welcome back friends.
I am not feeling fantastic today if you can hear it in my voice.
I finally caught what my kids have been coughing in my face for the last week.
0:20
I was making you could go so hard because they were quote UN quote covering their mouth, but then when coughed directly in my face.
So all the garlic, all the zinc and everything.
I just need to rest and I'll be fine.
But I'm sounding a little sick today, so I am going to keep this very short and sweet.
0:38
I'm excited to talk about this topic because it is something that I have needed a reminder with of staying focused and not getting so distracted.
And so I hope that this will be helpful to you too.
So did you know in all my years of homeschooling and currently I rarely go to homeschool conventions and I rarely follow people who share homeschool curriculum or lesson and plans.
1:03
Why?
Because I will abandoned something that is working and I will chase the new shiny thing.
That doesn't mean I won't ever try a new curriculum, but I have found that if something is working, don't go and mess it up.
With my seven-year old, I went back to all the things that worked with my oldest children and it has been so awesome because I knew the things that worked with the very simple language arts lessons and and reading the way that we did.
1:29
It works so well.
And so with some of my kids I tried to chase some new shiny things and I never got the results that I did with those big kids.
So for my youngest guy, I went back to all of those things I know work so well and so with my seven-year old have gone back to the simple language arts, back to all the basics and we have been having a really great time.
1:51
I know I have clients that have talked to me about this too and they struggle with it and they see a new chore chart or a new way to get your kids to do their school and thinking those will solve their morning chaos.
Or they see a new book and have FOMO and decide they need to get that too.
2:07
I have found for me, it is best that if I want something to supplement our school, that I go and look for that thing directly.
So instead of following somebody who's going to giving all of these new ideas and these new markers, this new paint, this new whatever, instead of following that of when I know we want something to supplement our school or we want to study that, I go and look for that thing directly.
2:31
So for example, my son is going on a humanitarian trip to Guatemala this summer and I thought how if we go and study the country, the history, the Mayan culture, everything with Guatemala.
Now I know I don't want anything online so I don't look at that.
But I do love good books.
2:47
So I went to Amazon and you can also just Google books about Guatemala for children, Guatemala, historical fictions, folk legends, folk tales, all those things, and started to look up different books.
This makes it easier for me to not get distracted by all the possibilities because I'm just looking for a few good books out there.
3:08
Another thing I can do to get distracted is by my time.
Now, these last couple of years have been quite a change for me, and it was a really interesting change.
I called it my midlife crisis, but it was a midlife.
What's the nicer word?
Is it just change?
3:24
I'm, I'm spacing on the word, but transition, midlife transition.
And so the idea I feel like I that my kids just don't need me anymore and kind of was sad, right?
I've just like nobody really physically needs me.
Like they used to need me.
3:41
And I started to fill my time with things that distracted me.
Now these weren't these bad things, but I did lose my focus.
I realized that my baby didn't need me.
It just looks so very different now.
At one point I was trimming 70 fingers and toenails, right?
3:56
Tying all these shoes, helping everyone brush their teeth.
There were a lot of physical demands on me when my children were younger, making food, helping them clean up after themselves, using the bathroom, all the things that required a lot of physical attention.
And now that my kids are getting older, I don't have those physical demands anymore.
4:14
But however my children made me more emotionally now.
Now there are questions of what to do with friends, situations being life choices.
Do I serve a mission?
Do I go move to another country?
What do I do with these friendships?
Should I date this person?
4:31
Marriage questions.
And I don't know if I've announced this yet but I got permission.
But I'm going to be a grandma this year so I also get parenting questions and relationship questions.
I also have two missionaries out right now and they need a lot of emotional support when I get to talk to them.
4:47
This has helped me to bring my focus back to my family and realizing that I need to let some things go because I want to be there for my kids.
They are my focus and my priority.
As I have prayed about this, I realize the thing that I can let go of and the thing that I'm choosing to let go of is writing the monthly lesson plans.
5:10
It has been so fun for me, but it is very time consuming and it is taking me away from my kids too much.
However, I don't want to leave anyone lost with planning their school so everyone in Mama's members, I will still be helping them plan their lessons.
5:28
I'm excited about this because now I can completely customize plans for each family.
For example, we decided next month we're going to learn about Groundhog's Day and make a craft.
We're going to learn about Saint Valentine and have a Valentine party.
I also get to take my oldest daughter to Europe in March, and I wanted to study the countries where we are going.
5:45
We found folk tales, historical fictions about the different places, and we're going to learn about them in school.
My challenge for you is to remember what is your priority and then make sure that your priority is your focus.
When you are focused on what is important, you can remember to say no to the things that take you away from that, even though they might be good things.
6:10
I'm going to leave all my old lesson plans up on my site in the membership, if those in the membership can use and if anybody else wants to buy them, they will be there.
But in Mama's members, I'm going to help people create their custom lesson plans.
So we can do that in Group calls and in private coaching calls.
6:25
And one of our group calls the other day, somebody was learning about Shakespeare and I thought, oh, how fun.
I could help you with different books that I loved and different things that we did.
And so just really helping everybody's into education to be completely individualized and helping me to keep my focus.
What what is my priority?
6:43
Friends, I love you so much.
Hope this episode has helped and I will talk to you next week.
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