May 5, 2025 • 40 mins
Have you ever wondered how homeschooling can strengthen not only your child’s education, but your entire family’s faith and relationships? In "Building Faithful Families: Practical Homeschool Guidance with Steve Demme," The Colorado Homeschool Podcast host Kashia Davis sits down with renowned homeschool dad, pastor, and Math-U-See creator Steve Demme for a conversation brimming with encouragement and actionable advice.
Steve draws from decades of experience—raising four sons (including one with Down syndrome), pioneering math education, and leading the Building Faith Families and Building Faith and Family podcast—to share the real heart of home education. You’ll hear inspiring stories about launching young adults with confidence, nurturing unique learners, and creating a family culture rooted in Christ. Plus, Steve highlights the importance of supporting special needs families and the powerful community found through leaders like Stephanie Hubach and organizations such as Engaging Disability.
Listen in for biblical wisdom, practical strategies, and a transparent look at the joys and growing pains of parent-directed, Christ-centered home discipleship. Whether you’re just starting or you’re a seasoned homeschooler, you’ll come away equipped to build a faithful, flourishing family.
Ready for fresh inspiration and tried-and-true tips? Hit subscribe now so you never miss an episode of The Colorado Homeschool Podcast, and don’t forget to check out Steve’s Building Faith and Family podcast for even more transformative guidance!
Links mentioned in the show
Stephanie Hubach, Engaging Disability
Steve’s Podcast: Building Faith and Family
Ready to be equipped and inspired for your homeschool journey? Hit subscribe now so you never miss an episode, and join a community dedicated to Christ-centered, parent-directed education!
If you’re looking for support, resources, and inspiration on your homeschooling journey, visit CHEC.org. Don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast and share it with anyone who might benefit from the wisdom shared in this episode!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
I wanted to homeschool my kids. I thought, well, I'm a committed Christian. I
married a committed Christian. We'll just raise these kids up to be committed
Christians, not knowing that home education sometimes
is for the whole family. And we get transformed.
Sometimes more than our children are.
(00:24):
Welcome. It's the Colorado Homeschool Podcast.
Interviewing everybody, experts, parents, graduates,
all here to help you navigate this incredible journey called
homeschooling. And if you're looking for resources, tips, and help,
go to CHEC.org you'll find what you need. In the meantime,
subscribe, follow along. Well, hello
(00:46):
and welcome. We are so glad to have you today. My name is Kasia
Davis. I'm your host. And we have a treat. We've got Steve
Demi with us. Many of you guys, if you're like me.
Anyways, when I first met him, I felt like I was meeting a celebrity. He
happened to write the curriculum that my family use for math.
But Steve is a father, husband, a lover
(01:08):
of the Lord. He's been married since 1979, I think I
read. So long time. Praise the lord. He's got four
lovely boys, three of which are married and now six.
I call it parenting 2.0. Six grandkids. Is that right?
I love it. I'm. I'm in that club. It's so fun to be there.
And as I already mentioned, Steve is the author of the Matthew C.
(01:30):
Curriculum, which became Demi Learning, and that has
progressed to all kinds of things he's doing building
faithfamilies.org now. You can find him on podcasts, which we'll link
below. But, oh, my goodness, so many great nuggets
when you listen to what he has to say. So welcome, Steve. Thank you for
being here with us. Thank you. It's my pleasure. Awesome. I love
(01:51):
it. Well, I know you wrote a homeschool curriculum, so you've been
involved in the homeschool world for how long now?
We went to our first conference in
1984. Oh, wow. You were a pioneer.
That's what they tell me. But I didn't feel like it. So we.
We went to our first conference. At the time, we had
(02:13):
two boys out of the womb, one in the womb,
and. Oh, wow. Little kids. Yeah.
But the whole. The whole thought of home education resonated
with my wife and I, and we were sat there for two days and listened,
and we were sold. So nice. Yeah, it was
awesome. And we'd do it again in a heartbeat. I love that. Me
(02:35):
too. Yeah. So when we started, I was the
pastor of a small church, and I was also
teaching math in the local schools. It was a
small church, so I could do both. Okay, nice. Yeah. And
by the way, we not only have grandchildren, we have two puppies
now, so this is our third generation.
(02:57):
Is this your first foray into pets or you've had them before?
Well, yeah, some of our kids had pets, but I was never the big
guy with them. But my screensaver, which I can
see right below the screen here, is my two Cavalier King
Charles spaniels, which have just captured me.
And I have never been. Yeah, I don't. I don't even like to leave the
(03:19):
house anymore unless I can take them with me in the car. And, yeah, the
reason that we wrote Matthew C. People
often ask me, you know, what was your plan? And that's a pretty funny question.
If people know me, I don't have a plan. I know what I'm doing for
dinner tonight, and that's about it. So my wife is the
planner in the family. She has the calendar of the Medes and Persians, and everything
(03:42):
is. You can. Any questions for the next year, you can just ask my
wife. But we were homeschooling our
kids. I was teaching, I was preaching, and several other
things. And our fourth boy was born with down syndrome.
And I didn't know anything about Disability World. I didn't
know anything about children with down syndrome. I don't think I'd even
(04:03):
met anybody. And Johnny joined our family.
And in some ways, most of what I'm doing today
is tied to having John. He's in
the other room right now watching Star trek.
He's now 37. I just picked him up from work
an hour and a half ago. He works in our shipping department.
(04:26):
So our family works together. One of my favorite talks, which you can
find on my website or anywhere, YouTube, was the family that
stays together, stays together. And it
just. It's a huge blessing to be able to work together
now, although my sons are running the company for the last 13
years, and I'm focusing on the building faith families
(04:49):
with the podcast and the writing and the speaking. But as far as Demi
learning, that's my. That's my boys. Well, you segue in.
That's what we're going to talk about, is leadership. And how do you get your
children to launch. This is the thing, you know, you asked me
to talk about some of these things, and I never even had a plan.
I. I will tell you that the son that's running
(05:12):
Matthew C. He's the CEO. All the boys work in different
capacities, but the Guy that's running the show.
When he went to college, he and my older boy went to the same college
together. And it was my oldest son that started
noticing that. After he was kind of out from underneath my shadow and got
off and got to spread his wings a little bit in college,
(05:34):
he said, boy, you're turning a lot into pop.
So I feel like most of the things that I did,
I just did. And I think that's what dads
do more than anything is we provide an
example. He blames me for his political
involvement because I'm the guy that puts up the yard signs and works the
(05:55):
polls. And now he's real involved in
politics. But we tried to encourage our kids to each
find their own niche and to be who God designed them to be.
But when you ask about Matthew C. I had never
in my mind planned on even being a
teacher, let alone write a curriculum.
(06:16):
But when I was in Georgia, they were advertising for
teachers. It was an opportunity to meet the community where I was
ministering. And I found out I had a gift for it. And
then when my son with down syndrome was born, my wife and
I both. I don't know how to describe it. We ran out of
gas. She got Candida. Chronic fatigue, Epstein
(06:38):
Barr, same time. Really hard to function. I couldn't
even answer the telephone. I'm a pastor. I was
just emotionally shot. So we moved to a different state and I
began tutoring children in math so that we could put
food on the table. And since I was trying to do a lot more stuff
around the house while Sandy recuperated, had to be
(07:01):
flexible and tutoring fit the bill. But as I was
writing worksheets for the kids, I was tutoring because I wasn't happy with anything
else on the market. I found out that
at the end of one year, I had 100 worksheets. And then
homeschoolers are great networkers, even before social media.
And they found out I was writing curriculum and they said, we want to buy
(07:23):
it. So then I had to make teachers manuals, I had to make videos, etc,
etc, and they grew into this company. But it's a total
God story. And for those of you that don't feel qualified,
I'm still not a certified math teacher
and there's classes that I haven't taken, but I've taught at the
college level, so just be encouraged. You can do more than you think you
(07:46):
can. So that's. That's where the math you see came from.
Yeah, it's a God story. It. God's fingerprints are all over it.
Yeah. Well. And that is. Yeah. So I mentioned already that
we. We are hoping to have this air right before our Rocky Mountain
homeschool conference, which you're coming out for. I think you're teaching six. Six
classes, so quite a. A load for you. Thank you.
(08:08):
But we're trying to really highlight a couple of things. We're
doing something called a college life
launch. That's what they're calling it. So it's. It's college and career. So not
necessarily just college, but how do you get your kids prepared for that life launch?
And talking about leadership? And I listened to one of your podcasts on
the Building Faith Families Podcast, and you were talking
(08:30):
about Deuteronomy 6, which I feel like every homeschooler knows
Deuteronomy 6. But what. Why don't you tell us what you shared in
that? Because you started a little earlier than most people do in that
verse. Well, when I was in seminary,
before I got married, we had a class on Christian
education, and we had to write a paper on
(08:53):
education. So I did something very radical, but very consistent. If
you followed me ever since, I haven't swerved. When I want to
do research on something in scripture, I look up
as much as I can in Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation
with God's help. I've read my Bible through every year since
1976. If you want to do the math problem, that's a
(09:16):
lot of years. Yeah. And I'm in numbers. I just finished
numbers this last weekend, and I'm in
Luke, so I read the same in the Old Testament, New Testament.
So when I did my study of scripture on education, I wrote this
paper, not having heard of home education, but I wrote
my paper and I said, you know, if there's a millennium in the future, which
(09:38):
is a vision, you might say, who will be the
teachers, what will be the curriculum? And I said,
parents are the ones that God has raised up to train
their teacher, train their children, and the curriculum should be based
on Scripture. Now, to most people today, that's like a
duh, of course. But in the 70s, when I was in
(10:00):
seminary, that was a whole lot. But it was later,
when my wife and I went to these conferences, had already gone to some
meetings with home educators. We began meeting people,
and we just liked the fruit that we saw in their
families. And so when you put together the root found in scripture and
the fruit which you could see teenagers who are still
(10:21):
having a nice relationship with their mom and dad, my wife and I's
heart, you know, Beat. So for years, the verse. Out
of all my studies, the one verse that stuck with me the Most was
Deuteronomy 6:7. You shall teach your children
diligently when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way,
when you rise up and when you lie down. And I read the first
(10:43):
half of that verse and I said, we need to have family devotions.
Now, I came to Christ in that beautiful state of Colorado as a
teenager, but my wife grew up in a Christian home. She knew what
family devotions looked like, I didn't. But with God's
help, we made it a consistent thing in our home. That was
the first non math book I wrote, Family worship. And
(11:06):
then the rest of the verse, sit in your house, walk by the way, you
have to be with them. And I thought, this sounds like home education.
So that was our twofold thing for me, that
was my vision. I wanted to teach them the word of God, and I want
to model it in front of them while I'm with them, when I walk,
by the way, etc. So I remember going to the dump one time
(11:29):
and I had the radio on and I'm listening to a conservative talk show
host and somebody referred to Reaganomics. Well, the boys said,
what's that? So I turn off the radio, we had a discussion on
economics, and when we went shopping, we went shopping
together as a family. And I taught them how to do comparison shopping, etc. I
taught them how bad Coca Cola was, etc. So.
(11:52):
Taught them how to read labels. Yeah, taught them how to read
labels. And so we just, we just did life
together. But then after all these years of home
education, I was speaking on Deuteronomy 6,
7, and a mom came up to me and she said, you
know, you start with the seventh verse, but
(12:13):
why don't you start with the fifth and the sixth verses? And I said, I
really don't know. So I got out my Bible and I opened it up
and here's what it says. And you see, I'm not looking at any notes. I
got this. I love that you shall love the Lord
your God with all your heart, soul and might. Only
says three in Deuteronomy. But when Jesus quoted it In Matthew
(12:34):
chapter 22, he added another one, mind
and strength. But still the idea was, you need
to love God with everything in you. And then the second verse
says, and these words, which I command you today, shall be on
your heart. In other words, not in your notebook, not
in some, but right down deep, you want
(12:57):
God to write it on the fiber of your heart.
And as I read those two words, I went, oh,
that makes so much sense. How can I teach my
children to love God in His word if I don't love God in His
Word? That was the first thought I had. The second thought
was, I wonder if I'm an Ephesian.
(13:19):
Because in Revelation, chapter two, when God addresses the
church at Ephesus, first of all, he gives them
four, I think, wonderful affirmations. You've done this. You've done this.
You've done this. That was me. I was doing everything I knew to
seek first the kingdom. But then he says, but you've lost your
first love. And I went, oh, God, I hope I'm not
(13:41):
in that group. And so I began to earnestly
pray. I mean, I took this very seriously.
God, this is the first and great commandment. This is it.
This is where the buck stops. Help me to love you with all my heart,
soul, mind, and strength. And you know what?
That led into this. And this was in
(14:04):
2011 and 2012. God heard
my prayer, and he led me into the gospel in
ways I'm almost ready to cry.
I love God more now than I ever have because he showed
me how much he loved me. And we love because he first
loves us. I mean, he always takes initiative. But he also
(14:26):
revealed that I had baggage. I had stuff
that was not only hindering my relationship with my family,
it was hindering my relationship with God.
And somehow when I prayed that prayer,
because it was only a few years ago that God made me know that when
I prayed that prayer, I opened the door. You
(14:48):
remember it says in Laodicea Church, Revelation
3. I. I stand at the door and knock. He was
talking to Christians. He was talking to the church. He says,
I want to go deeper in your life, but you have to let me
in. And somehow when I prayed that prayer, God came
in and God began to work deep in my life. And it was the
(15:10):
hardest year of my life. It was the best year of my
life. And right now, order has been
restored. You might say I'm walking in
Deuteronomy 6:5,
6:667, and 6:8 says, you know, write the
scriptures on your door. I got scriptures above my door upstairs, too.
(15:31):
So literally, let's do it. I really do.
Yeah, I believe you. I wanted to put them all over the place. My wife,
she's got more taste than me, so we get this real nice little thing.
But. But the point is, I.
I wanted to homeschool my kids. I thought, well, I'm a Committed Christian. I
married a committed Christian. We'll just raise these kids up to be committed
(15:53):
Christians, not knowing that home education sometimes
is for the whole family and we get
transformed if sometimes more
than our children are. So that's
Deuteronomy 6, I really believe is where it
starts. And that's for every parent. How's that? Did that answer your
(16:14):
question? Yes. That's so good. I say that all the time when I. So in
my role, I talk a lot to brand new people who are starting homeschool and
I tell them they need to write out their vision, understand why you're doing this.
And in doing that, you know, I want them to think about what the
end goal is in homeschooling, what their annual goal is, all that. But I
tell them the biggest thing that you also need to remind yourself is that you're
(16:36):
a student. You're going to be a student of your student and you're going to
have to adapt. And I mean, we're talking that my conversation with
them is more in regards to education, but that is.
Well, maybe I'm teeing you up. What would you say is
successful education? Just what you
said. We did the basics.
(16:58):
You know, I obviously did the math. My wife taught them to read.
And that needs to be done really, one on one.
I get a little nervous of co ops that teach math and reading because
you have to move at the child's pace when you're developing your foundation.
But when it comes to science and history and all these other kind of
subjects, we did that as a family. I mean, we did that using unit
(17:20):
study method. And so we kept
together just different levels of difficulty based on how old the kids
were. But yeah, we really wanted
them to develop a love for learning.
We felt it was our job to give them tools, which that was
something we could do. But then we wanted to inspire them in the
(17:43):
proper sense of the word. We wanted to encourage them. And
so we didn't even have a television until my oldest was 16
because we wanted them to read, we wanted them to go outside,
we wanted them to explore their interests. And you
know, my oldest boy, he was real interested in creation, so
I remember taking him to creation conferences. And this is before
(18:06):
Ken Ham even came to America. So if we
would find something, we would go to it. We encouraged that. My
second son wanted to go shoot Bambi, so I went
to hunter safety classes with him. And I would sit in the woods and
bray while he ran around shooting things. And then. And then you probably
had to pray. Well, be
(18:28):
safe so my wife might disagree. Anyway,
so then we. He wanted to be in film.
I arranged him to meet this film guy, and we.
He got all the old cameras in the family, but he's the one that made
the Matthew C. Videos and put all the subtitles on them and stuff. He did
that. And that's what.
(18:51):
That's the kind of learning, when you think about it, this. The
second commandment is to do to others. You have them do to
you. Doesn't everybody want to have an education like that, where you can
pursue the things that kind of light your fire and.
Yeah. Give them flexibility. I love what you're saying. It makes me think
of. I think it's Psalm 119 that says, thy word is
(19:14):
a lamp unto my feet and a light into my path. I might have reversed
the words, but he doesn't tell us the whole plan. It's one step at a
time. And he kind of just did this delight. So it sounds like
you were very, very involved in homeschooling, because a lot
of. A lot of dads are like, my husband was supportive when I first started.
Maybe he looked at me a little cockeyed, like, are you sure? But it didn't
(19:35):
take long for us to be united in that purpose. But it was me. I
did it. Outside of, like you said, the demonstration of
faith and living it, not just being
a doer of the word, but a hearer. I mean, a. Not a hearer only,
but a doer of the word, the application of it. But it sounds like you
were involved. Yeah,
(19:56):
we had. We had. You know, we read the Bible. We used to read a
chapter a day out loud as a family, if we had time, we
sang a hymn. If we had time,
we would go around the room, and each person would share some insight that they
received that day. We'd open and close with prayer.
That was really one of the most important things that we did. And then we
(20:18):
taught them to read. And our oldest, though, was really smart.
We just read so many books to him as a child that he
picked up reading on his own. It was a little scary,
but firstborns are like that. And then mine was. And then my second
born. Fast forward a little bit. So when the kids were a little bit
older, we had a band. You know, we're homeschoolers. And we're driving down the
(20:41):
road, and I see this historical marker. Hadn't
noticed it before. So I pulled off onto the shoulder to read it,
and one of my sons in the back seat said, papa, we already had
history this Morning. But the thing
was, is that I really like history. I like to know why
things are the way they are. I almost wrote a history
(21:04):
program, but God wasn't in it. But I
really liked history. But the thing was, is he caught
that, and he. He. This
son and I did a speaking tour of Australia one time, because
over there, most of the kids that were homeschooled only went up to
about eighth grade. And then they went back into the public schools,
(21:26):
and we wanted to give them a vision. So when
Ethan, this was my second son, had graduated from college, we went over there
and did this speaking tour. And he used to do a talk called Homeschooling.
How I survived was pretty funny. And it
was pretty good, though I learned stuff myself when he would speak. And one of
the things he said was my dad used to always stop and read
(21:48):
historical markers. And we would go outside at night and he would show us
constellations, and we would go on field trips, and we were always
learning something as a family. And he said, I kind
of sighed when I was in school. But then the other day I was in
college and I'm walking down the street of this town and I stopped and I
read this historical marker. And he said, it scared me a. Little
(22:10):
bit because I became my dad.
I like to say that you catch a fire from someone that has
a fire. Yeah. And, you know, I love what you're saying.
I'm totally loving it. Yeah. And if. And if you don't have a fire, pray
that God will give you a fire. Or go to things like reenactments
(22:30):
or parks where they have rangers who
really like being a ranger. And
I don't know, it's something about the
enthusiasm. And by the way, that word enthusiasm and
inspired both come from. If you take the etymology of the world,
enthusiasm is entheos in God.
(22:52):
Inspire is in the spirit. So this is
God stuff. I hear worship in everything you're
saying. I mean, that's really it. Right. And you mentioned, am I like
the Church of Ephesus? Did I lose my first love? And I
think it's really easy to do. I mean, just from a homeschool mom
perspective or. Or Father. It's so easy to get into
(23:14):
the checklist. And I gotta do this, and I gotta do this, and I gotta
do this, and. Or I call it them Mary and Martha. Right. Like, I fall
into Martha very easily. Cause I've got a lot to do. But you're.
I. What I'm hearing from you is the. I mean, the adage to stop and
smell the roses or stop and read the historical markers just
to find those things and delight your children. And that do
(23:35):
delight them. I loved what you said about your kids being different. Like
the one who was just really academic versus the one who was more
into the videos and pursuing those things. So with
all four of your boys, would you say that they're varied
very greatly or were there some overlap and things that they
found interesting together?
(23:57):
People ask me if they were adopted because they're so different.
Really? Oh, yeah. I love that. However.
Yeah, see, I don't want to cry right in the broadcast, but like my.
My first and third son with John, my
son with Downs, they have game nights to this day.
(24:19):
Like, yeah, like a Friday night. We host them now.
And so we have the granddaughters upstairs, my wife and I, and then
all the adults with the spouses are like five of them. They go
downstairs. And this is not Monopoly risk stuff. This is
in depth, you know, like terraforming Mars or whatever and all this kind of
stuff. But they still do board games, which they did when they were
(24:41):
kids. And then my. And my oldest two
went to college together, and I only had to buy one
car and one cell phone. This was way back in 20 years ago,
so cell phones were just kind of hitting the market. And
I don't know, I heard that they had dinner every night together for three
(25:02):
years. I mean, my wife
and I started this journey because we wanted to be close to our kids.
But then to see that my wife. I mean, that my kids have maintained
relationship with each other is just. It's just beautiful. I
mean, so we get together at our house, Mother's day, Easter,
Christmas, etc. And. And to see that my
(25:24):
kids still love each other, but yet they really are different.
They got three different churches. We're the most ecumenical
family. Three different
churches and the grandkids. Two are
in a school, four are in a hybrid
homeschool thing. And, you know, it's not my
(25:45):
job to manage them anymore. They're adults. It's my job to come
alongside them and just love on them and pray for them and how can we
serve you and how can we help? If you take yourself back to when your
kids were in that high school age, did you have that pressure to kind
of try to help them map out their life, or did you really have that
same. What you're demonstrating to me is that it was one step at a time,
(26:06):
that you just watch the passions and you help them along that
step. And you're saying you didn't Have a big plan. So there wasn't a lot
of, like, pressure or stress. Well,
we wanted to raise them to live forever. That was the
goal. And the thing is, is when you aim for
the kingdom, then the other things will follow.
(26:29):
They've all done well in their own sphere. And
it actually surprised me that they all wanted to work for Matthew C. When they
graduated from college, because I thought one would go into politics,
one into film. I thought one would be a professor by now. He's already got
two master's degrees, but they still do different things and they have
different hobbies. But yeah,
(26:51):
we're still pretty close. But when they were in high school,
you know, we went through some tough times. I shouldn't say
tough times, but some challenging times. One of the things that
I wish I had done is my wife is the one that sat down with
them and read about.
It was a book by Dr. Dobson. It focused on the family.
(27:14):
Was it bringing up boys? No, it was
more about just understanding the changes that you were going through when you became
an adult. And, you know,
you want your kids to grow up, you want them to cut the umbilical cord,
you want them to become independent, but it's really hard. For a
moment, I found out because my wife, I communicate.
(27:36):
It was easy for me because I'm the dad and we're still pretty much
the same relationship as we had all the way through. But my
wife, she watched them having to kind of stop
being her little boy and being a man and making
decisions. And so. Oh, it was something about adolescence.
There's a book, Something about Adolescence. And I
(27:59):
did have the talk with each of my sons, which
was nerve wracking because no one had ever had to
talk with me because I knew everything. So, you know,
I did the best I could with what I had and I would talk to
them and we pretty much just tried to feed their interests, you know, like,
one son couldn't wait to get his driver's license. I understood
(28:20):
that. I got mine like 11 days or something after I was
allowed to. But my oldest boy, he goes, what do I need a
car for? I'd rather have a computer. So we got him a laptop.
Instead of paying thousand dollars in insurance, you buy him a computer.
So. And they were just all different and
it was okay. And we were viva la difference.
(28:44):
Okay, was that France or was that French? Yeah, it's
God bless the difference or something like that. Okay, yeah,
celebrate the difference instead of, you know, kick against it. So,
yeah, H, that's a good thing to tell Yourself, Right.
Not just within your family, but within your community. Because the comparison
of, like, well, so and so's kids are doing whatever, but. Yeah, I
(29:07):
hate that. Yeah. And, you know, that's one of the things I talk
to people, I say, you know, comparison is the enemy of vision.
Oh, number one. Okay, tell me, number break that down. Why is it the
enemy of vision? Because your kids are your kids, and
God created them in his image to be unique and have their own giftings
and their own talents, and to compare with
(29:30):
somebody else. It just doesn't work, number one. Number
two, there's no condemnation. Jesus did not
come into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world.
Romans 8. One needs to be on every refrigerator of homeschoolers. There is
therefore now no condemnation to homeschoolers in Christ Jesus,
because we can do that. We beat ourselves up. And I think it's the
(29:53):
Achilles heel of the earnest Christian.
If you don't really care as much, then.
But when you are really wanting to be diligent, you want to be a
great mom, you want to accomplish all these objectives, make sure that your
kids have the tools that they need. It's easy to
beat yourself up. And that's not your job. That's the devil's job. By
(30:16):
the way. God is the encourager. And
so that's another thing. I try to contribute, but we also learned each other's
personalities because we felt like your personality helped
shape what field you might like to go into. So even in
within Demi learning my introvert,
you'll never see him at a conference. He's got a
(30:40):
cubicle back in the corner, and he likes
it. He likes plans. He likes. Oh, yeah, you can't spring stuff on him.
My other one, I can just walk in right now. We'd have a meeting, we'd
be done. Because he and I can just wing it. We're the extroverts.
But so we. We help them to know that it's okay to
be an introvert and it's okay to be, you know, a
(31:02):
personality that's much more focused on a task rather than
meeting with people and all those kind of things. So, yeah, but
God brought those things into our life right when we needed to. You know, I
was at a conference and I heard this guy speak on personalities. I bought his
stuff, went home. We did it as a family. I love that.
And what I'm hearing you say is that God is going to meet you where
(31:22):
you are. God gave you these children for a purpose, Right?
And it's like the body of Christ. We're all many members of one
body, so we have to be varied. Otherwise it's weird, right? Like you've
heard that what would be an eye if it was only an eye
in a body, it's useless. Right. You have to have things that process it. So.
So. And yeah, I
(31:43):
just add this because you just pushed another button. Do it.
Well, I am talking to the special needs parents out there, and
one of the things that my wife and I look for now that we are
just the three of us, is a church that's
inclusive. So we go to a particular church and I'm not going
to tell you what denomination. You have to ask me that in person. But
(32:07):
I think one of the main reason we go there is, yes, they have nice
theology and they have good preaching, all that. But it's because Son John
is an usher and John goes with me to men's groups
on Thursday night. And he's a part of the team. He'll tell you.
Team. He's a part of the team and
he likes to serve the church and not be treated
(32:28):
as a special needs project. He wants to be treated with
respect and dignity just like everybody else.
And there's a friend of ours named
Stephanie Hubach who's written a book on special needs, and she says when the
church doesn't embrace people with special needs, the church
is handicapped because people with special needs
(32:50):
add something to the body of Christ. I do love that. And I. We
talked about this beforehand. Steve is going to be speaking at the
Unique Learner seminar also, which is on what we call our bonus
day. We have like half of the day for brand new to homeschooling, and then
the other half is just for families that fall in that category of unique learners,
whether they're gifted or they have some challenges and everywhere
(33:12):
kind of in the spectrum. So. And I hear that all the time. I
feel like the unique learners, really gifted
and also really struggling and maybe sometimes both in different
areas. Right. They feel like they can't find that
community. So church homeschool groups, do you have
any? I mean, since we went there, let's. Let's wrap up our conversation
(33:35):
with some tips on how you navigated that. We were blessed
to connect with a group early on who oversaw
all of our education for John, you might say. But they
trained us to do the therapy at home, so we were able to do
the deep pressure squeezes and the eye exercises and the cross
patterning and all kinds of things. It was nacd,
(33:57):
but that was. It was the same philosophy
as our family, that families first, God,
family, boom. And so they didn't try to replace
us. Instead, they trained us.
Yeah, that's a really great word. Even just that. Don't try to
replace a family. Train the family. Oh, yeah.
(34:19):
And that was night and day. But you do need community. And
so we had community. When we homeschool everybody, Our house was
community and our church was nearby, and so we had
community. But when my oldest three boys
got married, moved out, and just John and Sandy
and me, and we were out in the country with nothing to do, so we
(34:40):
moved into the city because now Tuesday night he
goes to taekwondo, and Wednesday night he
goes with his older brother out to eat, and then they go play video games
at his house. Thursday night he goes to men's group with me. Once a month,
there's a adult with disability on Monday nights, he does special
needs with Special Olympics. He just went to the Tim
(35:02):
Tebow, you know, prom thing. So,
yeah, John has community. But, yeah, we had to work
at that a little bit, and living where we were, out in the middle of
the boondocks was not conducive to that. So,
yeah, we moved because of that. Yeah. There's wisdom in that, too.
Recognizing what the family needs and pivoting. Yeah. Because you can't
(35:24):
just. Yeah. Expect it to come to you. You maybe have to do some work
to make that happen. Yep. But God will lead you
there just as much as he'll lead you anywhere else. And just. Yeah.
Our mission from CHEC. We say we envision families honoring Jesus
Christ by embracing home discipleship that is Christ centered, parent directed, and free from
government control. And we're the state organization for
(35:47):
homeschooling and doesn't say anything about homeschooling. And I feel like this
conversation was exactly that. We're talking about parents discipling their children
to train them up and by living by example. Oh, this
was really good. I wish we had more time. And children
discipling parents. Exactly. We're
really the ones learning and being refined. It's. It's a journey that is
(36:09):
definitely mutual. It's one of the things
that when people say, do you think I could be a homeschooler? I
said, well, first of all, I would ask you, are
you willing to learn along with your children? In other words, are you a
lifelong learner yourself? That's my definition of a
disciple. A lifelong learner. And it takes
(36:31):
some teachability, takes some humility. But
if you're willing to learn along with your kids, it's A chance for a do
over. You get to learn everything academically, but you also get to develop
your own character, and your children will help you. You know, when you
read about patience in the morning, you get my point. They're
going to exactly give you opportunity to work that
(36:52):
muscle. That's so good. Amen. Well, thank you. Let's
wrap this up by. This is so hard. I hate. I hate
even asking it. But if you were to give one great tip, what was the
best tip that you received, particularly as it pertained to,
like, your young adults or high school students? Do you have a tip
that you feel like, oh, yeah, I want to make sure I share that. I
(37:14):
would say that. Keep short accounts. I don't
think anybody ever told me that, but that was one of our things. If you
mess up, ask forgiveness, and don't
feel like as a parent, you have to be the expert.
And sadly, I kind of embraced. I don't want to
dig up a snake here. I can't kill real fast. But
(37:38):
that overarching patriarchy thing where
the husbands are supposed to rule with the rod of iron and stuff,
that is not in the Bible. We are supposed to be servant leaders, and
we're supposed to be builder uppers, not Lord or overs. And
Jesus came to serve, and I had to learn
that. I drank the Kool Aid on the other thing for a while, and I
(38:00):
had to repent, apologize to my wife and my kids,
and learn to serve. And as opposed to owning
the remote. You get the point. So, yeah,
man. Steve, I really have appreciated you. I appreciate how
authentic you've been and genuine. And like you said,
that lifelong learner requires humility. And, man, I really
(38:23):
pray that the ladies and the husbands and the children, whoever is
listening today, that they. That that resonated with them, that that's really what God
died for, right? So that we could be sanctified
and be transformed and see him face to face one day. So now I have
a question for you. Okay. May I close with prayer?
Yes. We should have opened with prayer on the radio. We prayed before we. We
(38:46):
started, but we did. Yes. So Keisha's already had
her shot. Now it's my turn. Okay.
Father, thank you that you are more involved in
our home education than we even know. Thank
you for being so near to us. Thank you for sending your
spirit to teach us and to be with us. And thank you,
(39:08):
Jesus, that you're praying for each one of these families right this
minute. And so we say amen to these prayers and
help us as we journey along with you in Jesus
name. Amen. A great promise that came to me while I'm
praying. Isaiah 54:13 all
your children shall be taught by the Lord, and
(39:30):
great will be the peace of your children. When my wife and
I burned out,
I used to wonder, what did we do that year? I've asked the kids. They
can't remember. They did fine, but I felt like we were
just shot. We were just trying to put one foot in front of the other.
And God made me know that he loved our kids
(39:51):
more than we did, that he wanted them to succeed more than
we did. Because that verse Isaiah
54:13. So that's a good promise. That's a
great way to Amen. Thank you. You're welcome.
Thank you so much for joining us today. The Colorado Homeschool
Podcast is a ministry of Christian Home Educators of Colorado.
(40:12):
We have been motivating parents to disciple the next generation
by Imperial Embracing Home Discipleship that is Christ centered, parent
directed, and free from government control. We invite you to join us in
this mission. If you want to support homeschooling in Colorado, go to
CHEC.org donate in the meantime, share this with
your friends and make sure you subscribe. That really helps us. Thank
(40:34):
you.
Brought to you by the podcast upload.com. Empowering
faith driven voices.
I wanted to homeschool my kids. I thought, well, I'm a committed Christian. I
married a committed Christian. We'll just raise these kids up to be committed
Christians, not knowing that home education sometimes
is for the whole family. And we get transformed.
Sometimes more than our children are.
(00:24):
Welcome. It's the Colorado Homeschool Podcast.
Interviewing everybody, experts, parents, graduates,
all here to help you navigate this incredible journey called
homeschooling. And if you're looking for resources, tips, and help,
go to CHEC.org you'll find what you need. In the meantime,
subscribe, follow along. Well, hello
(00:46):
and welcome. We are so glad to have you today. My name is Kasia
Davis. I'm your host. And we have a treat. We've got Steve
Demi with us. Many of you guys, if you're like me.
Anyways, when I first met him, I felt like I was meeting a celebrity. He
happened to write the curriculum that my family use for math.
But Steve is a father, husband, a lover
(01:08):
of the Lord. He's been married since 1979, I think I
read. So long time. Praise the lord. He's got four
lovely boys, three of which are married and now six.
I call it parenting 2.0. Six grandkids. Is that right?
I love it. I'm. I'm in that club. It's so fun to be there.
And as I already mentioned, Steve is the author of the Matthew C.
(01:30):
Curriculum, which became Demi Learning, and that has
progressed to all kinds of things he's doing building
faithfamilies.org now. You can find him on podcasts, which we'll link
below. But, oh, my goodness, so many great nuggets
when you listen to what he has to say. So welcome, Steve. Thank you for
being here with us. Thank you. It's my pleasure. Awesome. I love
(01:51):
it. Well, I know you wrote a homeschool curriculum, so you've been
involved in the homeschool world for how long now?
We went to our first conference in
1984. Oh, wow. You were a pioneer.
That's what they tell me. But I didn't feel like it. So we.
We went to our first conference. At the time, we had
(02:13):
two boys out of the womb, one in the womb,
and. Oh, wow. Little kids. Yeah.
But the whole. The whole thought of home education resonated
with my wife and I, and we were sat there for two days and listened,
and we were sold. So nice. Yeah, it was
awesome. And we'd do it again in a heartbeat. I love that. Me
(02:35):
too. Yeah. So when we started, I was the
pastor of a small church, and I was also
teaching math in the local schools. It was a
small church, so I could do both. Okay, nice. Yeah. And
by the way, we not only have grandchildren, we have two puppies
now, so this is our third generation.
(02:57):
Is this your first foray into pets or you've had them before?
Well, yeah, some of our kids had pets, but I was never the big
guy with them. But my screensaver, which I can
see right below the screen here, is my two Cavalier King
Charles spaniels, which have just captured me.
And I have never been. Yeah, I don't. I don't even like to leave the
(03:19):
house anymore unless I can take them with me in the car. And, yeah, the
reason that we wrote Matthew C. People
often ask me, you know, what was your plan? And that's a pretty funny question.
If people know me, I don't have a plan. I know what I'm doing for
dinner tonight, and that's about it. So my wife is the
planner in the family. She has the calendar of the Medes and Persians, and everything
(03:42):
is. You can. Any questions for the next year, you can just ask my
wife. But we were homeschooling our
kids. I was teaching, I was preaching, and several other
things. And our fourth boy was born with down syndrome.
And I didn't know anything about Disability World. I didn't
know anything about children with down syndrome. I don't think I'd even
(04:03):
met anybody. And Johnny joined our family.
And in some ways, most of what I'm doing today
is tied to having John. He's in
the other room right now watching Star trek.
He's now 37. I just picked him up from work
an hour and a half ago. He works in our shipping department.
(04:26):
So our family works together. One of my favorite talks, which you can
find on my website or anywhere, YouTube, was the family that
stays together, stays together. And it
just. It's a huge blessing to be able to work together
now, although my sons are running the company for the last 13
years, and I'm focusing on the building faith families
(04:49):
with the podcast and the writing and the speaking. But as far as Demi
learning, that's my. That's my boys. Well, you segue in.
That's what we're going to talk about, is leadership. And how do you get your
children to launch. This is the thing, you know, you asked me
to talk about some of these things, and I never even had a plan.
I. I will tell you that the son that's running
(05:12):
Matthew C. He's the CEO. All the boys work in different
capacities, but the Guy that's running the show.
When he went to college, he and my older boy went to the same college
together. And it was my oldest son that started
noticing that. After he was kind of out from underneath my shadow and got
off and got to spread his wings a little bit in college,
(05:34):
he said, boy, you're turning a lot into pop.
So I feel like most of the things that I did,
I just did. And I think that's what dads
do more than anything is we provide an
example. He blames me for his political
involvement because I'm the guy that puts up the yard signs and works the
(05:55):
polls. And now he's real involved in
politics. But we tried to encourage our kids to each
find their own niche and to be who God designed them to be.
But when you ask about Matthew C. I had never
in my mind planned on even being a
teacher, let alone write a curriculum.
(06:16):
But when I was in Georgia, they were advertising for
teachers. It was an opportunity to meet the community where I was
ministering. And I found out I had a gift for it. And
then when my son with down syndrome was born, my wife and
I both. I don't know how to describe it. We ran out of
gas. She got Candida. Chronic fatigue, Epstein
(06:38):
Barr, same time. Really hard to function. I couldn't
even answer the telephone. I'm a pastor. I was
just emotionally shot. So we moved to a different state and I
began tutoring children in math so that we could put
food on the table. And since I was trying to do a lot more stuff
around the house while Sandy recuperated, had to be
(07:01):
flexible and tutoring fit the bill. But as I was
writing worksheets for the kids, I was tutoring because I wasn't happy with anything
else on the market. I found out that
at the end of one year, I had 100 worksheets. And then
homeschoolers are great networkers, even before social media.
And they found out I was writing curriculum and they said, we want to buy
(07:23):
it. So then I had to make teachers manuals, I had to make videos, etc,
etc, and they grew into this company. But it's a total
God story. And for those of you that don't feel qualified,
I'm still not a certified math teacher
and there's classes that I haven't taken, but I've taught at the
college level, so just be encouraged. You can do more than you think you
(07:46):
can. So that's. That's where the math you see came from.
Yeah, it's a God story. It. God's fingerprints are all over it.
Yeah. Well. And that is. Yeah. So I mentioned already that
we. We are hoping to have this air right before our Rocky Mountain
homeschool conference, which you're coming out for. I think you're teaching six. Six
classes, so quite a. A load for you. Thank you.
(08:08):
But we're trying to really highlight a couple of things. We're
doing something called a college life
launch. That's what they're calling it. So it's. It's college and career. So not
necessarily just college, but how do you get your kids prepared for that life launch?
And talking about leadership? And I listened to one of your podcasts on
the Building Faith Families Podcast, and you were talking
(08:30):
about Deuteronomy 6, which I feel like every homeschooler knows
Deuteronomy 6. But what. Why don't you tell us what you shared in
that? Because you started a little earlier than most people do in that
verse. Well, when I was in seminary,
before I got married, we had a class on Christian
education, and we had to write a paper on
(08:53):
education. So I did something very radical, but very consistent. If
you followed me ever since, I haven't swerved. When I want to
do research on something in scripture, I look up
as much as I can in Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation
with God's help. I've read my Bible through every year since
1976. If you want to do the math problem, that's a
(09:16):
lot of years. Yeah. And I'm in numbers. I just finished
numbers this last weekend, and I'm in
Luke, so I read the same in the Old Testament, New Testament.
So when I did my study of scripture on education, I wrote this
paper, not having heard of home education, but I wrote
my paper and I said, you know, if there's a millennium in the future, which
(09:38):
is a vision, you might say, who will be the
teachers, what will be the curriculum? And I said,
parents are the ones that God has raised up to train
their teacher, train their children, and the curriculum should be based
on Scripture. Now, to most people today, that's like a
duh, of course. But in the 70s, when I was in
(10:00):
seminary, that was a whole lot. But it was later,
when my wife and I went to these conferences, had already gone to some
meetings with home educators. We began meeting people,
and we just liked the fruit that we saw in their
families. And so when you put together the root found in scripture and
the fruit which you could see teenagers who are still
(10:21):
having a nice relationship with their mom and dad, my wife and I's
heart, you know, Beat. So for years, the verse. Out
of all my studies, the one verse that stuck with me the Most was
Deuteronomy 6:7. You shall teach your children
diligently when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way,
when you rise up and when you lie down. And I read the first
(10:43):
half of that verse and I said, we need to have family devotions.
Now, I came to Christ in that beautiful state of Colorado as a
teenager, but my wife grew up in a Christian home. She knew what
family devotions looked like, I didn't. But with God's
help, we made it a consistent thing in our home. That was
the first non math book I wrote, Family worship. And
(11:06):
then the rest of the verse, sit in your house, walk by the way, you
have to be with them. And I thought, this sounds like home education.
So that was our twofold thing for me, that
was my vision. I wanted to teach them the word of God, and I want
to model it in front of them while I'm with them, when I walk,
by the way, etc. So I remember going to the dump one time
(11:29):
and I had the radio on and I'm listening to a conservative talk show
host and somebody referred to Reaganomics. Well, the boys said,
what's that? So I turn off the radio, we had a discussion on
economics, and when we went shopping, we went shopping
together as a family. And I taught them how to do comparison shopping, etc. I
taught them how bad Coca Cola was, etc. So.
(11:52):
Taught them how to read labels. Yeah, taught them how to read
labels. And so we just, we just did life
together. But then after all these years of home
education, I was speaking on Deuteronomy 6,
7, and a mom came up to me and she said, you
know, you start with the seventh verse, but
(12:13):
why don't you start with the fifth and the sixth verses? And I said, I
really don't know. So I got out my Bible and I opened it up
and here's what it says. And you see, I'm not looking at any notes. I
got this. I love that you shall love the Lord
your God with all your heart, soul and might. Only
says three in Deuteronomy. But when Jesus quoted it In Matthew
(12:34):
chapter 22, he added another one, mind
and strength. But still the idea was, you need
to love God with everything in you. And then the second verse
says, and these words, which I command you today, shall be on
your heart. In other words, not in your notebook, not
in some, but right down deep, you want
(12:57):
God to write it on the fiber of your heart.
And as I read those two words, I went, oh,
that makes so much sense. How can I teach my
children to love God in His word if I don't love God in His
Word? That was the first thought I had. The second thought
was, I wonder if I'm an Ephesian.
(13:19):
Because in Revelation, chapter two, when God addresses the
church at Ephesus, first of all, he gives them
four, I think, wonderful affirmations. You've done this. You've done this.
You've done this. That was me. I was doing everything I knew to
seek first the kingdom. But then he says, but you've lost your
first love. And I went, oh, God, I hope I'm not
(13:41):
in that group. And so I began to earnestly
pray. I mean, I took this very seriously.
God, this is the first and great commandment. This is it.
This is where the buck stops. Help me to love you with all my heart,
soul, mind, and strength. And you know what?
That led into this. And this was in
(14:04):
2011 and 2012. God heard
my prayer, and he led me into the gospel in
ways I'm almost ready to cry.
I love God more now than I ever have because he showed
me how much he loved me. And we love because he first
loves us. I mean, he always takes initiative. But he also
(14:26):
revealed that I had baggage. I had stuff
that was not only hindering my relationship with my family,
it was hindering my relationship with God.
And somehow when I prayed that prayer,
because it was only a few years ago that God made me know that when
I prayed that prayer, I opened the door. You
(14:48):
remember it says in Laodicea Church, Revelation
3. I. I stand at the door and knock. He was
talking to Christians. He was talking to the church. He says,
I want to go deeper in your life, but you have to let me
in. And somehow when I prayed that prayer, God came
in and God began to work deep in my life. And it was the
(15:10):
hardest year of my life. It was the best year of my
life. And right now, order has been
restored. You might say I'm walking in
Deuteronomy 6:5,
6:667, and 6:8 says, you know, write the
scriptures on your door. I got scriptures above my door upstairs, too.
(15:31):
So literally, let's do it. I really do.
Yeah, I believe you. I wanted to put them all over the place. My wife,
she's got more taste than me, so we get this real nice little thing.
But. But the point is, I.
I wanted to homeschool my kids. I thought, well, I'm a Committed Christian. I
married a committed Christian. We'll just raise these kids up to be committed
(15:53):
Christians, not knowing that home education sometimes
is for the whole family and we get
transformed if sometimes more
than our children are. So that's
Deuteronomy 6, I really believe is where it
starts. And that's for every parent. How's that? Did that answer your
(16:14):
question? Yes. That's so good. I say that all the time when I. So in
my role, I talk a lot to brand new people who are starting homeschool and
I tell them they need to write out their vision, understand why you're doing this.
And in doing that, you know, I want them to think about what the
end goal is in homeschooling, what their annual goal is, all that. But I
tell them the biggest thing that you also need to remind yourself is that you're
(16:36):
a student. You're going to be a student of your student and you're going to
have to adapt. And I mean, we're talking that my conversation with
them is more in regards to education, but that is.
Well, maybe I'm teeing you up. What would you say is
successful education? Just what you
said. We did the basics.
(16:58):
You know, I obviously did the math. My wife taught them to read.
And that needs to be done really, one on one.
I get a little nervous of co ops that teach math and reading because
you have to move at the child's pace when you're developing your foundation.
But when it comes to science and history and all these other kind of
subjects, we did that as a family. I mean, we did that using unit
(17:20):
study method. And so we kept
together just different levels of difficulty based on how old the kids
were. But yeah, we really wanted
them to develop a love for learning.
We felt it was our job to give them tools, which that was
something we could do. But then we wanted to inspire them in the
(17:43):
proper sense of the word. We wanted to encourage them. And
so we didn't even have a television until my oldest was 16
because we wanted them to read, we wanted them to go outside,
we wanted them to explore their interests. And you
know, my oldest boy, he was real interested in creation, so
I remember taking him to creation conferences. And this is before
(18:06):
Ken Ham even came to America. So if we
would find something, we would go to it. We encouraged that. My
second son wanted to go shoot Bambi, so I went
to hunter safety classes with him. And I would sit in the woods and
bray while he ran around shooting things. And then. And then you probably
had to pray. Well, be
(18:28):
safe so my wife might disagree. Anyway,
so then we. He wanted to be in film.
I arranged him to meet this film guy, and we.
He got all the old cameras in the family, but he's the one that made
the Matthew C. Videos and put all the subtitles on them and stuff. He did
that. And that's what.
(18:51):
That's the kind of learning, when you think about it, this. The
second commandment is to do to others. You have them do to
you. Doesn't everybody want to have an education like that, where you can
pursue the things that kind of light your fire and.
Yeah. Give them flexibility. I love what you're saying. It makes me think
of. I think it's Psalm 119 that says, thy word is
(19:14):
a lamp unto my feet and a light into my path. I might have reversed
the words, but he doesn't tell us the whole plan. It's one step at a
time. And he kind of just did this delight. So it sounds like
you were very, very involved in homeschooling, because a lot
of. A lot of dads are like, my husband was supportive when I first started.
Maybe he looked at me a little cockeyed, like, are you sure? But it didn't
(19:35):
take long for us to be united in that purpose. But it was me. I
did it. Outside of, like you said, the demonstration of
faith and living it, not just being
a doer of the word, but a hearer. I mean, a. Not a hearer only,
but a doer of the word, the application of it. But it sounds like you
were involved. Yeah,
(19:56):
we had. We had. You know, we read the Bible. We used to read a
chapter a day out loud as a family, if we had time, we
sang a hymn. If we had time,
we would go around the room, and each person would share some insight that they
received that day. We'd open and close with prayer.
That was really one of the most important things that we did. And then we
(20:18):
taught them to read. And our oldest, though, was really smart.
We just read so many books to him as a child that he
picked up reading on his own. It was a little scary,
but firstborns are like that. And then mine was. And then my second
born. Fast forward a little bit. So when the kids were a little bit
older, we had a band. You know, we're homeschoolers. And we're driving down the
(20:41):
road, and I see this historical marker. Hadn't
noticed it before. So I pulled off onto the shoulder to read it,
and one of my sons in the back seat said, papa, we already had
history this Morning. But the thing
was, is that I really like history. I like to know why
things are the way they are. I almost wrote a history
(21:04):
program, but God wasn't in it. But I
really liked history. But the thing was, is he caught
that, and he. He. This
son and I did a speaking tour of Australia one time, because
over there, most of the kids that were homeschooled only went up to
about eighth grade. And then they went back into the public schools,
(21:26):
and we wanted to give them a vision. So when
Ethan, this was my second son, had graduated from college, we went over there
and did this speaking tour. And he used to do a talk called Homeschooling.
How I survived was pretty funny. And it
was pretty good, though I learned stuff myself when he would speak. And one of
the things he said was my dad used to always stop and read
(21:48):
historical markers. And we would go outside at night and he would show us
constellations, and we would go on field trips, and we were always
learning something as a family. And he said, I kind
of sighed when I was in school. But then the other day I was in
college and I'm walking down the street of this town and I stopped and I
read this historical marker. And he said, it scared me a. Little
(22:10):
bit because I became my dad.
I like to say that you catch a fire from someone that has
a fire. Yeah. And, you know, I love what you're saying.
I'm totally loving it. Yeah. And if. And if you don't have a fire, pray
that God will give you a fire. Or go to things like reenactments
(22:30):
or parks where they have rangers who
really like being a ranger. And
I don't know, it's something about the
enthusiasm. And by the way, that word enthusiasm and
inspired both come from. If you take the etymology of the world,
enthusiasm is entheos in God.
(22:52):
Inspire is in the spirit. So this is
God stuff. I hear worship in everything you're
saying. I mean, that's really it. Right. And you mentioned, am I like
the Church of Ephesus? Did I lose my first love? And I
think it's really easy to do. I mean, just from a homeschool mom
perspective or. Or Father. It's so easy to get into
(23:14):
the checklist. And I gotta do this, and I gotta do this, and I gotta
do this, and. Or I call it them Mary and Martha. Right. Like, I fall
into Martha very easily. Cause I've got a lot to do. But you're.
I. What I'm hearing from you is the. I mean, the adage to stop and
smell the roses or stop and read the historical markers just
to find those things and delight your children. And that do
(23:35):
delight them. I loved what you said about your kids being different. Like
the one who was just really academic versus the one who was more
into the videos and pursuing those things. So with
all four of your boys, would you say that they're varied
very greatly or were there some overlap and things that they
found interesting together?
(23:57):
People ask me if they were adopted because they're so different.
Really? Oh, yeah. I love that. However.
Yeah, see, I don't want to cry right in the broadcast, but like my.
My first and third son with John, my
son with Downs, they have game nights to this day.
(24:19):
Like, yeah, like a Friday night. We host them now.
And so we have the granddaughters upstairs, my wife and I, and then
all the adults with the spouses are like five of them. They go
downstairs. And this is not Monopoly risk stuff. This is
in depth, you know, like terraforming Mars or whatever and all this kind of
stuff. But they still do board games, which they did when they were
(24:41):
kids. And then my. And my oldest two
went to college together, and I only had to buy one
car and one cell phone. This was way back in 20 years ago,
so cell phones were just kind of hitting the market. And
I don't know, I heard that they had dinner every night together for three
(25:02):
years. I mean, my wife
and I started this journey because we wanted to be close to our kids.
But then to see that my wife. I mean, that my kids have maintained
relationship with each other is just. It's just beautiful. I
mean, so we get together at our house, Mother's day, Easter,
Christmas, etc. And. And to see that my
(25:24):
kids still love each other, but yet they really are different.
They got three different churches. We're the most ecumenical
family. Three different
churches and the grandkids. Two are
in a school, four are in a hybrid
homeschool thing. And, you know, it's not my
(25:45):
job to manage them anymore. They're adults. It's my job to come
alongside them and just love on them and pray for them and how can we
serve you and how can we help? If you take yourself back to when your
kids were in that high school age, did you have that pressure to kind
of try to help them map out their life, or did you really have that
same. What you're demonstrating to me is that it was one step at a time,
(26:06):
that you just watch the passions and you help them along that
step. And you're saying you didn't Have a big plan. So there wasn't a lot
of, like, pressure or stress. Well,
we wanted to raise them to live forever. That was the
goal. And the thing is, is when you aim for
the kingdom, then the other things will follow.
(26:29):
They've all done well in their own sphere. And
it actually surprised me that they all wanted to work for Matthew C. When they
graduated from college, because I thought one would go into politics,
one into film. I thought one would be a professor by now. He's already got
two master's degrees, but they still do different things and they have
different hobbies. But yeah,
(26:51):
we're still pretty close. But when they were in high school,
you know, we went through some tough times. I shouldn't say
tough times, but some challenging times. One of the things that
I wish I had done is my wife is the one that sat down with
them and read about.
It was a book by Dr. Dobson. It focused on the family.
(27:14):
Was it bringing up boys? No, it was
more about just understanding the changes that you were going through when you became
an adult. And, you know,
you want your kids to grow up, you want them to cut the umbilical cord,
you want them to become independent, but it's really hard. For a
moment, I found out because my wife, I communicate.
(27:36):
It was easy for me because I'm the dad and we're still pretty much
the same relationship as we had all the way through. But my
wife, she watched them having to kind of stop
being her little boy and being a man and making
decisions. And so. Oh, it was something about adolescence.
There's a book, Something about Adolescence. And I
(27:59):
did have the talk with each of my sons, which
was nerve wracking because no one had ever had to
talk with me because I knew everything. So, you know,
I did the best I could with what I had and I would talk to
them and we pretty much just tried to feed their interests, you know, like,
one son couldn't wait to get his driver's license. I understood
(28:20):
that. I got mine like 11 days or something after I was
allowed to. But my oldest boy, he goes, what do I need a
car for? I'd rather have a computer. So we got him a laptop.
Instead of paying thousand dollars in insurance, you buy him a computer.
So. And they were just all different and
it was okay. And we were viva la difference.
(28:44):
Okay, was that France or was that French? Yeah, it's
God bless the difference or something like that. Okay, yeah,
celebrate the difference instead of, you know, kick against it. So,
yeah, H, that's a good thing to tell Yourself, Right.
Not just within your family, but within your community. Because the comparison
of, like, well, so and so's kids are doing whatever, but. Yeah, I
(29:07):
hate that. Yeah. And, you know, that's one of the things I talk
to people, I say, you know, comparison is the enemy of vision.
Oh, number one. Okay, tell me, number break that down. Why is it the
enemy of vision? Because your kids are your kids, and
God created them in his image to be unique and have their own giftings
and their own talents, and to compare with
(29:30):
somebody else. It just doesn't work, number one. Number
two, there's no condemnation. Jesus did not
come into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world.
Romans 8. One needs to be on every refrigerator of homeschoolers. There is
therefore now no condemnation to homeschoolers in Christ Jesus,
because we can do that. We beat ourselves up. And I think it's the
(29:53):
Achilles heel of the earnest Christian.
If you don't really care as much, then.
But when you are really wanting to be diligent, you want to be a
great mom, you want to accomplish all these objectives, make sure that your
kids have the tools that they need. It's easy to
beat yourself up. And that's not your job. That's the devil's job. By
(30:16):
the way. God is the encourager. And
so that's another thing. I try to contribute, but we also learned each other's
personalities because we felt like your personality helped
shape what field you might like to go into. So even in
within Demi learning my introvert,
you'll never see him at a conference. He's got a
(30:40):
cubicle back in the corner, and he likes
it. He likes plans. He likes. Oh, yeah, you can't spring stuff on him.
My other one, I can just walk in right now. We'd have a meeting, we'd
be done. Because he and I can just wing it. We're the extroverts.
But so we. We help them to know that it's okay to
be an introvert and it's okay to be, you know, a
(31:02):
personality that's much more focused on a task rather than
meeting with people and all those kind of things. So, yeah, but
God brought those things into our life right when we needed to. You know, I
was at a conference and I heard this guy speak on personalities. I bought his
stuff, went home. We did it as a family. I love that.
And what I'm hearing you say is that God is going to meet you where
(31:22):
you are. God gave you these children for a purpose, Right?
And it's like the body of Christ. We're all many members of one
body, so we have to be varied. Otherwise it's weird, right? Like you've
heard that what would be an eye if it was only an eye
in a body, it's useless. Right. You have to have things that process it. So.
So. And yeah, I
(31:43):
just add this because you just pushed another button. Do it.
Well, I am talking to the special needs parents out there, and
one of the things that my wife and I look for now that we are
just the three of us, is a church that's
inclusive. So we go to a particular church and I'm not going
to tell you what denomination. You have to ask me that in person. But
(32:07):
I think one of the main reason we go there is, yes, they have nice
theology and they have good preaching, all that. But it's because Son John
is an usher and John goes with me to men's groups
on Thursday night. And he's a part of the team. He'll tell you.
Team. He's a part of the team and
he likes to serve the church and not be treated
(32:28):
as a special needs project. He wants to be treated with
respect and dignity just like everybody else.
And there's a friend of ours named
Stephanie Hubach who's written a book on special needs, and she says when the
church doesn't embrace people with special needs, the church
is handicapped because people with special needs
(32:50):
add something to the body of Christ. I do love that. And I. We
talked about this beforehand. Steve is going to be speaking at the
Unique Learner seminar also, which is on what we call our bonus
day. We have like half of the day for brand new to homeschooling, and then
the other half is just for families that fall in that category of unique learners,
whether they're gifted or they have some challenges and everywhere
(33:12):
kind of in the spectrum. So. And I hear that all the time. I
feel like the unique learners, really gifted
and also really struggling and maybe sometimes both in different
areas. Right. They feel like they can't find that
community. So church homeschool groups, do you have
any? I mean, since we went there, let's. Let's wrap up our conversation
(33:35):
with some tips on how you navigated that. We were blessed
to connect with a group early on who oversaw
all of our education for John, you might say. But they
trained us to do the therapy at home, so we were able to do
the deep pressure squeezes and the eye exercises and the cross
patterning and all kinds of things. It was nacd,
(33:57):
but that was. It was the same philosophy
as our family, that families first, God,
family, boom. And so they didn't try to replace
us. Instead, they trained us.
Yeah, that's a really great word. Even just that. Don't try to
replace a family. Train the family. Oh, yeah.
(34:19):
And that was night and day. But you do need community. And
so we had community. When we homeschool everybody, Our house was
community and our church was nearby, and so we had
community. But when my oldest three boys
got married, moved out, and just John and Sandy
and me, and we were out in the country with nothing to do, so we
(34:40):
moved into the city because now Tuesday night he
goes to taekwondo, and Wednesday night he
goes with his older brother out to eat, and then they go play video games
at his house. Thursday night he goes to men's group with me. Once a month,
there's a adult with disability on Monday nights, he does special
needs with Special Olympics. He just went to the Tim
(35:02):
Tebow, you know, prom thing. So,
yeah, John has community. But, yeah, we had to work
at that a little bit, and living where we were, out in the middle of
the boondocks was not conducive to that. So,
yeah, we moved because of that. Yeah. There's wisdom in that, too.
Recognizing what the family needs and pivoting. Yeah. Because you can't
(35:24):
just. Yeah. Expect it to come to you. You maybe have to do some work
to make that happen. Yep. But God will lead you
there just as much as he'll lead you anywhere else. And just. Yeah.
Our mission from CHEC. We say we envision families honoring Jesus
Christ by embracing home discipleship that is Christ centered, parent directed, and free from
government control. And we're the state organization for
(35:47):
homeschooling and doesn't say anything about homeschooling. And I feel like this
conversation was exactly that. We're talking about parents discipling their children
to train them up and by living by example. Oh, this
was really good. I wish we had more time. And children
discipling parents. Exactly. We're
really the ones learning and being refined. It's. It's a journey that is
(36:09):
definitely mutual. It's one of the things
that when people say, do you think I could be a homeschooler? I
said, well, first of all, I would ask you, are
you willing to learn along with your children? In other words, are you a
lifelong learner yourself? That's my definition of a
disciple. A lifelong learner. And it takes
(36:31):
some teachability, takes some humility. But
if you're willing to learn along with your kids, it's A chance for a do
over. You get to learn everything academically, but you also get to develop
your own character, and your children will help you. You know, when you
read about patience in the morning, you get my point. They're
going to exactly give you opportunity to work that
(36:52):
muscle. That's so good. Amen. Well, thank you. Let's
wrap this up by. This is so hard. I hate. I hate
even asking it. But if you were to give one great tip, what was the
best tip that you received, particularly as it pertained to,
like, your young adults or high school students? Do you have a tip
that you feel like, oh, yeah, I want to make sure I share that. I
(37:14):
would say that. Keep short accounts. I don't
think anybody ever told me that, but that was one of our things. If you
mess up, ask forgiveness, and don't
feel like as a parent, you have to be the expert.
And sadly, I kind of embraced. I don't want to
dig up a snake here. I can't kill real fast. But
(37:38):
that overarching patriarchy thing where
the husbands are supposed to rule with the rod of iron and stuff,
that is not in the Bible. We are supposed to be servant leaders, and
we're supposed to be builder uppers, not Lord or overs. And
Jesus came to serve, and I had to learn
that. I drank the Kool Aid on the other thing for a while, and I
(38:00):
had to repent, apologize to my wife and my kids,
and learn to serve. And as opposed to owning
the remote. You get the point. So, yeah,
man. Steve, I really have appreciated you. I appreciate how
authentic you've been and genuine. And like you said,
that lifelong learner requires humility. And, man, I really
(38:23):
pray that the ladies and the husbands and the children, whoever is
listening today, that they. That that resonated with them, that that's really what God
died for, right? So that we could be sanctified
and be transformed and see him face to face one day. So now I have
a question for you. Okay. May I close with prayer?
Yes. We should have opened with prayer on the radio. We prayed before we. We
(38:46):
started, but we did. Yes. So Keisha's already had
her shot. Now it's my turn. Okay.
Father, thank you that you are more involved in
our home education than we even know. Thank
you for being so near to us. Thank you for sending your
spirit to teach us and to be with us. And thank you,
(39:08):
Jesus, that you're praying for each one of these families right this
minute. And so we say amen to these prayers and
help us as we journey along with you in Jesus
name. Amen. A great promise that came to me while I'm
praying. Isaiah 54:13 all
your children shall be taught by the Lord, and
(39:30):
great will be the peace of your children. When my wife and
I burned out,
I used to wonder, what did we do that year? I've asked the kids. They
can't remember. They did fine, but I felt like we were
just shot. We were just trying to put one foot in front of the other.
And God made me know that he loved our kids
(39:51):
more than we did, that he wanted them to succeed more than
we did. Because that verse Isaiah
54:13. So that's a good promise. That's a
great way to Amen. Thank you. You're welcome.
Thank you so much for joining us today. The Colorado Homeschool
Podcast is a ministry of Christian Home Educators of Colorado.
(40:12):
We have been motivating parents to disciple the next generation
by Imperial Embracing Home Discipleship that is Christ centered, parent
directed, and free from government control. We invite you to join us in
this mission. If you want to support homeschooling in Colorado, go to
CHEC.org donate in the meantime, share this with
your friends and make sure you subscribe. That really helps us. Thank
(40:34):
you.
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