March 7, 2026 • 45 mins
In this episode of The Homeschool HowTo Podcast, Cheryl sits down with Stephany Rios — a homeschooling mom of five — to talk about building a business from home, navigating dyslexia, and learning to let go of school timelines.
Stephany shares:
• The preschool bus moment that made homeschooling non-negotiable
• Running a jewelry business while homeschooling
• What to do when curriculum isn’t working
• Discovering her daughter’s dyslexia
• Practical tools that helped
• Why being “behind” isn’t failure
• Creating a morning rhythm that works
• How real-life learning beats rigid schedules
If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re doing enough…
If your child struggles with reading…
If you’re juggling work and homeschooling…
This conversation will remind you that you have time — and that love of learning matters more than checklists.
Find Stephany:
IG @ivianaandco; @stephriosblog
www.stephriosblog.com (Blog)
www.ivianaandco.com (Jewelry)
Home(school) with Steph Podcast
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🎹 Looking for a fun, simple way to introduce piano at home?
We’ve loved using Simply Piano. It turns lessons into interactive challenges so kids can start playing real songs right away — without pressure or frustration.
👉 Click here to check it out!
📘 Feeling overwhelmed about where to start with homeschooling?
After three years of interviewing homeschooling families, I compiled the best advice, practical tips, key questions, and trusted resources into one clear, actionable e-book: The Homeschool How To Complete Starter Guide.
👉 Grab it here!
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_01 (00:02):
I didn't plan to homeschool.
I started asking hard questions,realized how little control
parents actually have, and madethe hard decision to leave a
government job to homeschool mykids.
Now I interview otherhomeschooling parents to learn
how this all works.
I'm Cheryl, and this is theHomeschool How to Podcast.
Let's learn this together.
(00:23):
Welcome, and with us today Ihave Stephanie Rios, mom of five
and homeschooling mom.
Stephanie, thank you for beinghere.
Yeah, thanks for having me,Cheryl.
SPEAKER_00 (00:32):
It's good to be here.
So what are the ages of yourkiddos?
You look so young.
Thank you.
I'll be able to take that as acompliment for as long as I can.
My oldest is 13, and then wehave we kind of do it every
every other year, baby, for awhile.
We have a 13-year-old, an11-year-old, a nine-year-old,
and a seven-year-old.
And then we had a littlecaboose.
She's three.
SPEAKER_01 (00:52):
Yeah.
That's awesome.
Okay, so what made you decide tohomeschool in the first place?
SPEAKER_00 (00:56):
Yeah, so it, you know, there's a few, a few
different reasons, but we kindof everything culminated and
then it was just like, this iswhat we're doing.
When I was getting starting tothink about sending our oldest
to school, first of all, I wasjust like, no, that was too
fast.
I am not ready for her to begone.
Five days a week, every day, youknow, seven years ago or so when
(01:19):
she was ready to go intokindergarten.
We didn't have the schoolchoices in our area like we do
now.
We live in a small rural town inIdaho.
And at the time, my option forkindergarten was five days a
week, all day, you know, eightto three.
I was just like, I don't thinkthis is gonna work for her
personality.
She just, so sweet, a little bitquiet, really tenderhearted.
(01:43):
We'd never been away from eachother.
And I was like, I just don'tthink either one of us want
this.
And so I started bringing it upto my husband, and he says,
uh-uh, no, we're not gonna havethose weird homeschool kids that
don't know how to talk topeople.
I was like, I really think I cando this.
Like, I wasn't homeschooled, hewasn't homeschooled, we didn't
(02:04):
know anybody who washomeschooled really, but I said,
I think I can raise her as ahomeschooled kid, and she won't
be weird, I promise.
And he's just like, I don't knowabout this.
And so a little bit more timegoes on, and I had some friends
who had kiddo, kiddos who werelike a year older.
And so they were going topreschool, and there was just
(02:26):
some really unfortunatecircumstances happening on the
preschool bus that waschaperoned.
And I'm telling my husband aboutthis, and I said, These kids
can't even be protected by thethe chaperone for whatever
reason, there's things going ona bus.
Like it's a closed environment,it should be pretty well
contained.
It's one preschool class, andthere are devastating things
(02:48):
happening on this bus.
And it was just kind of a few ofthose things were going on, and
I just said, I can't do it.
I can't send this sweet littleinstant baby off into this world
at five years old.
SPEAKER_01 (03:00):
Some of the things, if you don't mind saying, just
for us who haven't sent our kidson a bus.
SPEAKER_00 (03:04):
Yeah, so yeah, I don't think there's any harm
with me saying it was years ago,and but there was some there was
a child who was inappropriatewith body parts that they wanted
to touch and body parts thatthey wanted to show.
Yeah.
So it's like one of your worstnightmares as a mom.
And I'm thinking, a chaperonedpreschool bus.
(03:25):
No, I can't do it.
I can't do it.
And so it was like this first, Ihave this poll to keep her home,
anyways.
I'm not ready to let her go.
And then that happens, and I'mthinking, absolutely not,
absolutely not.
We're not going anywhere.
So that your husband agreed.
So then he agreed, and it was awild time.
I had my fourth baby this in thespring of 2018, and that was her
(03:51):
kindergarten year in the fall.
And so we started kindergartenwith a newborn, and in that same
year, my husband sold hisbusiness and joined me full-time
in my jewelry business, and westarted to run the jewelry
business as our full-timeincome.
All of it happened in the sameyear.
Wow.
What kind of business did hehave?
He had a cell phone repairbusiness.
(04:12):
I he would and the jewelry wasmore lucrative.
No, it wasn't at the time.
At the time, it was a littleside hobby, and I was getting
ready to shut it down because Iwas tired.
And he was just really burnt outfrom his business.
A lot of a lot of things hadchanged in the industry, and it
wasn't as profitable as it hadbeen for us.
(04:33):
And he kind of just said, like,I'm done.
So he found a buyer, sold it.
I had a baby, but I still hadorders coming in.
He's like, We're not shuttingthis down.
I'll help you scale it.
And so he did.
Wow.
I love this story.
SPEAKER_01 (04:47):
Okay.
While we homeschooled.
Okay.
So you know why I love thisstory?
One, both of you are like, we'redoing our own businesses, like
kind of F the government.
I am working for the man.
All right.
I'm gonna be my own man.
So you make your own hours, yourown rules.
You, you know, you do what youcan um to get by and you're home
(05:08):
with your kids, but you're alsoliving this life where like this
is your livelihood.
Like you have to work, you haveto raise four kids and make sure
that they're like not dying.
Like they need food every day,they need clothes washed, they
need supervision.
Uh and then you're homeschoolingtoo, and you're like, we gotta
educate them a little bit.
Yeah, this is so cool because somany parents are like, oh, I'd
(05:31):
love to homeschool, but I can'tbecause I work.
And it's like, no, no, no, thisis possible.
You don't understand.
So, yeah, lead us into that.
How did your day-to-day workback then?
SPEAKER_00 (05:40):
So when we first, well, from the get-go, my
husband really hasn't beeninvolved in homeschooling.
There's been like a spurt or,you know, like a little time
frame here or there where he'lljump in and get involved.
But it's 99% me.
Just because I think I he neverliked school to begin with.
And now that we've homeschooled,he's settled right into it.
(06:00):
But that's always been my mainrole.
So my main main role is alwaysmore of that traditional
homemaker role.
I'm the one doing most of thecooking, the grocery shopping,
most of the laundry.
And now you're saying, like,wait, when do you run a
business?
And I'm thinking exactly thesame thing, right?
So he jumped in and he handledorder fulfillment, customer
(06:21):
service.
Um, we hired makers to make thejewelry.
So I do the designing and theycome in and make um and do the
shipping.
And so all the time-sensitivethings were getting taken care
of by him for our the businessaspect when we work together in
my jewelry business.
He's doing back doing his ownthing now, and I still have the
(06:41):
jewelry business.
But, anyways, so back then whenwe started, it was very much I'm
still taking care of the kiddosmost of the time, I'm still
taking care of the householdmost of the time.
So I am a homeschool in themorning type of mom because I
can't trust myself to do it if Iput it off.
If we if we start doing things,we'll find other things to do
(07:01):
and we'll never circle backaround.
So we get up and we havebreakfast.
But because we are both workfrom home and um my jewelry
studio is in the basement,that's where I'm filming from
today.
But we get to have breakfasttogether, which is so great
because I know a lot of familiesdon't in the hustle and bustle
of let's get out the door by7:30 in the morning.
Uh, we have breakfast aroundlike 9-ish, 8 30, 9-ish, and
(07:26):
then I jump right into school,and I've always done that.
You know, I really miss thoselittle kindergarten years where
school's done in 20 minutes.
That was so nice.
So yeah, I do this.
SPEAKER_01 (07:37):
Yeah, and do you spend on it now that you have a
13-year-old and 11-year-old?
SPEAKER_00 (07:42):
Yeah, I we're still done by noon.
Just like you know, there's someaspects of it that they're doing
on their own now, and so theycan get going.
A lot of times we're done bynoon-ish lunchtime.
It just works best for us to getit kind of out of the way, so to
speak.
And then we have lunch, and thenthe afternoon, that's when I use
(08:03):
I use that time to catch up onchores, or if it's nice, we'll
get outside, uh, do some of mywork.
Not every season has been likethis when I have the new babies,
but right now I get up a couplehours before the kiddos, and
that's when I get my work in.
But back then, when the kiddoswere younger and I wasn't
getting all sleep every night,it was just kind of I'd squeeze
(08:26):
it in when I could type ofthing.
But one thing that was superbeneficial was my mother-in-law,
probably about six years ago,started taking my kids one
afternoon a week.
And so that gave me a solid,okay, I've got four hours of
uninterrupted time where I canget some work done, I could
count on it, and that was superhelpful in building a business
(08:48):
while homeschooling.
SPEAKER_01 (08:49):
And, you know, just to put this into perspective, so
you built a business where youcould actually pay people to do
certain aspects of it, even withhaving the four kids and the
homeschooling and like justsqueezing it in or having four
hours a week to work on it.
You've got to have some sort ofknowledge on like this is the
most efficient way, this is thebest platform to sell on.
(09:12):
Because a lot of that I wouldimagine is research too.
What are designs that peoplelike?
How what's the best way tomarket it?
SPEAKER_00 (09:18):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (09:19):
Um, how many posts do I have to do a week on it?
You know, do I need an Instagrampage?
That's a lot of it too, right?
SPEAKER_00 (09:25):
Yeah.
Our business has an interestingstory because there was a
third-party platform that wasreally lucrative for us.
It's where we made 99% of oursales for five years.
So from like 2018 till the endof 2023, we did enough in sales
(09:46):
on this platform to sustain ourbusiness.
So we were very fortunate.
However, I never really learnedhow to market on my own.
And then that platform the weekbefore Thanksgiving, so like
leading right up into holidays,we'd stock for holidays and
everything, they went bankrupt.
And we basically didn't have abusiness anymore because I
(10:08):
hadn't learned all of that.
So it made it possible to scale.
It also was like, it was almostlike cheating in a way, because
we had this platform doing ourmarketing, right?
They took a commission off thesales.
What was it?
What was the platform?
It was Jane.com.
They were based out of Utah andit was an online marketplace,
and it wasn't as saturated asEtsy, and they ran it
(10:32):
differently where they did likethree-day auctions or not
auctions, three-day deals.
So we would have a style ofearrings, say we put this hoop
on for three days, and we couldsell, you know, two or three
hundred pairs of earrings in acouple of days.
Yeah.
Whatever they were doing, theywere doing well until they
weren't.
And then our business wentunder.
SPEAKER_01 (10:52):
They're just why we have to take money for
ourselves, man.
Somebody did whatever they weredoing, yeah.
Maybe it made more sense forthem to like disband and switch
under a different company, andyou just yeah, I don't know.
I don't know.
Well, that's too bad.
SPEAKER_00 (11:06):
So at that point, that must have been devastating.
Devastating because we, youknow, it's one of those live and
learn type of things, but we'dbeen so busy with it we didn't
make a backup plan.
It was so good.
We thought, how would this evergo under?
They don't hold inventory, theydon't have assets, they don't
have a big overhead, and thenthey did, you know.
You have some C-suite executivesthat want a bigger paycheck, and
(11:26):
money dries up.
SPEAKER_01 (11:27):
Yeah.
I mean, geez, if Instagramknocked me off tomorrow, I'd be
like, I have no audience.
SPEAKER_00 (11:34):
Right?
SPEAKER_01 (11:34):
Yeah, and so to think about that stuff.
SPEAKER_00 (11:37):
The interesting thing was a month before that
platform went under, I hired abusiness coach because I started
to recognize I'm like, I reallythink I want to learn and build
out my own customer base.
And if I hadn't had that supportin place when the business went
under, I don't think I wouldhave continued.
I think it would have been toohard trying to raise the kids,
(11:57):
trying to homeschool, trying tofit it all in, wanting to know
where I should put my time, whatare the strategies.
And so having a business coachwas really instrumental in
helping me rebuild my businessand get it to back to a place
where I have hired a couple morepeople again to work with me and
I am paying them so that I havetime to homeschool the kids
still.
SPEAKER_01 (12:18):
And I love that too, because it's like, well, how
much more money could you makeif the kids were in school and
you were spending 40 hours aweek doing this?
But when you look at life,what's important and you know,
you're never gonna get this timeback with your kids.
So why don't you talk a littlebit?
I love that you were giving usthe breakdown of the day.
What about after lunch?
What does that look like?
Or what did that look like foryou then, and what does it look
(12:39):
like now?
SPEAKER_00 (12:40):
Yeah, so I you know, back when I was having having
the babies, had l had littleones around, there's always like
that nap time, quiet time, thehouse is clean, everything's put
together, and there's you know,some solace for an hour.
Now it's just like afree-for-all, right?
SPEAKER_01 (12:57):
But then that hour hits and you're like, you
literally stand there frozen inthe middle of the room, like,
what do I do?
What do I do?
You're like all day long I'mthinking of a million things to
do, and right now I can't thinkof one.
SPEAKER_00 (13:07):
One, nothing, nothing, yeah.
And so things look a lotdifferent now that the kids are
older.
Sometimes they want to have aplay date.
Sometimes they um want me totake them somewhere.
And so it's I try to get up andget most of my work done that
has to be done in a day beforethe kids are up.
So that way when the afternoonhits, I can kind of like ebb and
(13:28):
flow based off what they're kindof wanting to do.
Not to say they rule the roost,but they kind of do, you know.
But for example, I have a sonwho loves to bake.
He loves to bake.
Really, he just loves to eatsugar.
So every day it's like, Mom, wegotta make our cookies.
So a lot of times we'll makecookies.
I've got a boy who loves to beout and about and play sports,
so we'll go to the park so hecan shoot hoops, or we'll hit up
(13:51):
the skate park and they can taketheir scooters and their
skateboards and things likethat, and we'll get out for a
little bit.
We'll invite friends over.
And a lot of times, honestly,they're really just content to
have some free time.
You know, they've spent allmorning doing their chores and
their schoolwork, and they havethings they want to do.
And so if it's one of thoseafternoons where they're all
(14:11):
just content to I think my girlsspent like three hours coloring
today.
They'd been given some coloringbooks for Christmas that they
hadn't touched yet, and theyjust color, color, color, color.
And my boys had some ping ponggame going on.
They were um throwing ping pongballs across the kitchen table
and trying to get them to landin cups that were on the floor.
We're pretty simple over here,you know?
(14:32):
It's just I think just lettingthem be is mostly what our
afternoon looks like.
SPEAKER_01 (14:38):
Quick pause to share something that's been a great
fit for our homeschool.
My son, he's seven, and we buttheads if I am teaching him
directly.
So his reading and math are donemostly independently, and I'm
just there to support andcorrect when needed.
I really wanted him to learnmusic too, especially knowing
how closely music and readingare connected in the brain.
That's why we started usingSimply Piano.
(14:58):
He's learning to read music andplay piano on his own using
songs he already knows andloves, and it feels more like a
game than a lesson.
It's been amazing to watch hisconfidence and skills grow.
If you want to check it out,grab the link in the show
description.
SPEAKER_00 (15:13):
And if they need my help to facilitate that, like if
they need to go somewhere orneed my help with something,
I'll step in.
Otherwise, I just let them be,and honestly, I just get on my
computer and bust out work, youknow?
SPEAKER_01 (15:27):
Yeah, and that's hard too, because then you're
like, all right, so is this anokay time that I'm on my
computer?
Like, am I supposed to be likeplaying a board game with them
or reading a book to them?
Like that just that guilt willnever go away, right?
Never no matter what you'redoing, there's always more you
could be doing.
So you have to let that go andknow, like, hey, I'm doing this
(15:48):
for me, I'm doing this for thefamily in the long run.
I'm doing it to afford thatvacation we can take once a year
or whatever it is.
But you know, and I love how yousaid it too.
Like, first of all, what you'resaying is we need to bang it out
in the morning because otherthings take hold, and uh I need
to start doing that because likeit I even wrote a schedule for
myself and it's on myrefrigerator and I haven't paid
attention to it once and I wroteit down.
(16:09):
But it's like, yes, it has toget done early because my son,
who he's seven, but he findsthat there are things that he
wants to do, even if we don'tleave the house.
He actually doesn't even want toleave the house.
I'm like, yeah, hey, we can gomeet these people at a hike at
the park today.
He's like, mm-mm, I really hadsome other things I wanted to do
at home.
He wants to ride hisfour-wheeler, he wants to ride
his dirt bike when it's niceout.
(16:31):
Today, okay, so he had a remotecontrolled vehicle that like we
got him, I don't know, howeverlong ago, and he's broken every
part in it.
And we recently started saying,like, you're taking over buying
the new parts.
And so he pays for it out of it.
I mean, I pay him to do thevideos for the podcast, so he
does have money there, and I getit from Christmas and birthdays
and stuff, so he bought like ahundred dollars worth of parts.
(16:53):
Now the whole dead thing isprobably worth it,$150, right?
Like, we paid for it four times,but he's learning the value of a
dollar, and he's learning totake care of his stuff, and he's
learning how to take apart theseremote control vehicles and put
them back together.
So that's cool.
So to me, it's worth the money.
But it's funny, he spent thelast three days outside in the
snow making tracks for it, likeuh obstacle courses for him in
(17:17):
the snow.
And like testing, oh, how farcould I jump?
What can I go over?
How high can it go over?
Can I go over this climb?
And I'm like, that's so cool.
Like, how many kids get thatopportunity today because
they're coming home and they'relike, okay, I was at school all
day, before care, after care,regular school.
Now I have soccer practice andthen homework, shower, and go to
(17:40):
bed and get up and do it againthe next day.
Like they just it didn't makesense to me before I
homeschooled, right?
I'm like, what do you people doall day?
And that's because nobody everlet me have time.
SPEAKER_00 (17:50):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (17:51):
So it's interesting having your own time and then
letting your kids have their owntime.
SPEAKER_00 (17:56):
Yeah.
And they I think it helps themunderstand who they are quicker.
They learn what they love andwhere they would like to put
their time.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (18:05):
Yeah.
Some of that might disappointyou.
Like my three-year-old daughterwho will no longer go into her
dance class anymore.
It's been a very sad two weeksfor me coming to this
realization that she's not gonnafollow in my footsteps and be a
dancer right now, but that'sokay.
SPEAKER_00 (18:21):
Oh my goodness.
Were you a dancer?
SPEAKER_01 (18:23):
Yeah, I mean, I always grew up dancing and did
some like I don't I use the wordsemi-pro football dance teams
loosely because I don't know howsemi-pro they were.
But uh you were there.
I've taught Zumba the lastdecade or so.
Yeah, and I was just so excited,and she did fantastic for the
(18:44):
first four months, right in thatroom.
She followed everything theinstructor did, but then I was
like, you know what?
This is only 45 minutes a week.
Let's do gymnastics too.
And I never did gymnastics, butI brought her into gymnastics
class, and it's for the age twoand three-year-olds, so the
parents are actually involved.
And after she learned thatparents can be involved, she's
like, I ain't going into thisdance class anymore while you
(19:06):
sit in the waiting room.
You're gonna you're eithercoming in with me, Ma, or we
ain't going in at all.
SPEAKER_00 (19:11):
Yeah.
I was like, I bet she'll comeback around to it though.
SPEAKER_01 (19:16):
I hope so.
She's so little.
I don't think it'll be thisyear.
But no, that's the worst.
It's funny to get to be there tolike see that stuff.
With my son, I know for a longtime he would kind of like
separate himself from the otherkids, and I'm like, why is he
doing that?
And I, you know, we went backand forth on reasons why and
talked about it and stuff likethat.
(19:36):
And I would get so frustrated,like, you're gonna fall into
that weird kid homeschool thingbecause you're not interacting
with other kids, and I'm drivingit 45 minutes this playdate.
But then you learn about them,like that's just their
personality at that time intheir life, right?
Like, have you had thoseexperiences and have you been
happy to be around for thesetypes of things?
SPEAKER_00 (19:55):
Yeah, I mean, I think we all have those moments
where we kind of hold our breathas a parent.
Like, how is our child gonnareact, right?
And mine is I have a couplekiddos, one in particular who I
wouldn't say he's introverted,but he's just not very social,
if that makes sense.
He's like one really goodfriend.
He likes his little his sportsbuddies that he plays with, but
(20:16):
he's played with them for years.
But if somebody's talking to himand asking him questions, he
just doesn't offer up a lot ofinformation.
So I'm always like, talk, talk.
I know you know how to talk.
Talk to these people, answerthem, you know?
But like you said, it's hasnothing to do with
homeschooling.
It has everything to do with whohe is.
That's just him.
He just doesn't have a ton tosay.
(20:37):
And I think it's because he's avery particular kid and he is an
observer.
So I think he spends more timekind of analyzing what's going
on around him than thinkingabout himself, honestly.
SPEAKER_01 (20:49):
Well, hey, the world needs more of that.
Talk to me about curriculum.
How did you decide on what youwanted to teach, what curriculum
to choose, and how you know whenit's not working in time to
switch.
SPEAKER_00 (21:01):
Yes, we've definitely been down this road.
So when I started homeschooling,I had a friend who was using the
Good and the Beautifulcurriculum.
And I didn't I didn't knowanything else, and so I was
like, well, if I like my friend,she likes this, let's give it a
shot.
So I started using it, and I doreally like it for language
arts.
My kids love it for languagearts.
I used it for I use it for math,but as my kids got older, I
(21:25):
don't know if you're familiarwith their curriculum, but their
math is like a spiral method.
And I'll tell you, you know, asa homeschooling mom, your first
kid is kind of like your guineapig, right?
I didn't even know what spiralmethod math was until my kids
were frustrated with it.
And I took a step back, I'mthinking, okay, what is what is
(21:45):
this?
We like it, we like it tillabout fourth grade, and then
that curriculum, what spiralmath is, is where each lesson
has a little bit of all thedifferent.
Math subjects you're learning.
It might have a little bit ofaddition, a little bit of
subtraction, a little bit ofrounding, a little, you know, a
little this, a little that.
(22:06):
It was becoming the lessons, thelesson reviews were getting
really lengthy.
What I didn't know when Istarted homeschooling our
children was that my oldestactually has dyslexia.
I didn't know because I didn'tknow what to look for, and it
took me a few years to evenfigure out what's going on.
I was not trying to brag, but Iwas a good reader.
(22:27):
Reading was never a struggle forme.
And so she really started tostruggle with these lengthy math
lessons.
She started struggling with thecurriculum in general for
language arts because it wasoutpacing her reading level.
And we got to this placeprobably in third grade with
her, and I thought, I don't evenknow what to do.
You know, I I don't know if Ican do this for her.
(22:50):
Like, am I enough for her?
And so we switched, we keptgoing with that math curriculum
for a little bit longer, but Iwould lessen the lessons.
We would do less.
Okay, I wouldn't make her finishevery single lesson.
And then we actually steppedaway from the language arts
curriculum for probably a solidyear.
(23:11):
We didn't do any language artsbecause she needed time to just
read.
We just needed to focus onreading.
And so for a whole year wedidn't do that curriculum.
And then once her reading levelimproved a little bit, her skill
in reading, we jumped back intoit.
If you were to put my oldest twoin school, I would get told that
(23:31):
they're both behind in languagearts, and I really don't care.
unknown (23:35):
Love that.
SPEAKER_00 (23:36):
And I did, I used to care.
I've cried about this because Icare about my kids.
I care about how they're doing.
I want them to be well educated.
I want them to be good readers,but I had her going through her
struggles with dyslexia, andthen the second oldest doesn't
care if he reads.
He just doesn't care.
I'm like, buddy, you gotta caresometime, you know.
But he's still only 11.
So they do the same languagearts curriculum, same lessons.
(23:59):
We do their lessons together.
We've been doing that for yearsand it works really well.
And I realized in that journeythat when you're showing up to
homeschooling and your kids areshowing up and everybody's
frustrated, that's that's a hugered flag.
Like we need to stop and we needto do something different
because it really shouldn't bethat way.
We shouldn't all be crying bythe time we get done with math.
SPEAKER_01 (24:21):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (24:22):
And we kind of had gotten to that point, and I
think too, my personality haschanged as a homeschooling mom.
I was very type A, especially incollege.
Oh, type A mom, you know, type Astudent.
Wanted straight A's, and Icarried that personality into
parenting, and then you havefive kids, and you realize they
(24:44):
don't care if you're type A.
So I had to learn to adapt too,and to like just just chill.
Like we have till they're 18plus to get them to be good at
something.
Like, they don't have to knowthis all by the time they're
six.
It was really hard for mebecause I had kids or had
friends who were saying, my kidcan read a chapter book and
(25:07):
they're seven.
Great.
I am so like I am genuinelyhappy for that child.
I'm not gonna put thatexpectation on my kid if it's
not going to work for them.
And it took me a long time toalmost it's like it's like a
quiet courage that a homeschoolmom has to have that they are
enough for their child, that wedon't have to live by the
(25:30):
timelines and test scores, andthat we have time to teach them
these things.
And once I realized that, likethe best gift I can give to my
child child as their teacher isthe love of learning.
SPEAKER_01 (25:43):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (25:43):
And if they can love to learn, they will learn
anything that they need to.
SPEAKER_01 (25:48):
Absolutely.
And I, you know, I think moreparents need to be vocal about
that.
Like, yeah, my kid's seven, he'snot reading chapter books, he's
just starting to read on hisown.
And it was a very like astruggle because it was like,
come on, I'm supposed to knowthe best curriculums.
I have interviewed all thesehomeschooling parents.
We've tried this, we've triedthat.
(26:10):
We went back and forth on a fewdifferent I've talked on the
podcast before about how we didstart out with um, I think I
started out with like actualkindergarten curriculum, like
from the schools.
Yeah.
And and the good and thebeautiful or something.
Oh, all about reading.
And I was like doing them bothand just hounding this poor
five-year-old with twocurriculums on it.
(26:31):
And um, and then we went toteach your child to read in 100
easy lessons, but they were onlyeasy until they were only easy
until lesson 50.
And then they were used that onetoo.
So we took like months, like yousaid, we took months off and
then went back maybe six monthslater and started at lesson one.
And I was like, all right, we'regonna reinforce everything, and
(26:53):
then it'll be perfect, right?
No, we got to 50 again.
It was like climbing MountEverest.
So, you know, and I tried thisone and that one and this one,
that one, and um, I think a lotof it is sometimes it just takes
whatever age their body needsfor it to like click, and
whether it's seven or eleven orfifteen.
(27:14):
But you're right, the more youpush them because other kids
their age are at that level orhigher, the more they're gonna
hate it.
Think about if someone wastrying to make you like swim in
the Olympics, you'd be like, Idon't I don't really like
swimming that much.
I liked it when it was just hotout and an enjoyable activity,
but now that you're forcing meto do laps in an Olympic-sized
(27:37):
pool, it's just not fun.
And and it it's the same thingfor them.
SPEAKER_00 (27:40):
Yeah, absolutely.
When I was struggling with mydaughter trying to figure out
why she couldn't learn how toread, you know, back when she's
five years old, because everyonesays our kids should be reading.
I was talking to my husband andhe goes, I hated school.
I said, Well, why?
Why did you hate school?
I know you hated it, but why?
And he goes, Because I waspulled out of every fun thing to
go practice my reading.
(28:01):
Was he dyslexic?
Yes.
But we didn't know.
He goes, I don't we didn'trealize he was until I figured
out that my daughter was.
So he's an adult just figuringout, yeah, the system didn't
catch it.
SPEAKER_01 (28:15):
He just went Did he read things backwards or how
does that work?
SPEAKER_00 (28:19):
He's n okay, so he just really remembers
struggling.
He's like it just never madesense to me.
And to the day, to this day, hehas never read a chapter book.
SPEAKER_01 (28:29):
My husband probably hasn't either.
SPEAKER_00 (28:31):
You know?
Yeah.
But my so I don't know as a kidwhat he exactly struggled with.
Now he knows how to read becausehe's memorized the words, right?
But if he had to break it downand explain, which this is part
of the reason why he doesn'thelp with homeschooling very
often, is he gets frustrated.
He's like, This is the dumbestlanguage ever.
Where?
Who made these rules?
I'm like, I don't know, butthat's just the rules, okay?
(28:53):
You know, but he's like, hecan't, you know, to break down
the English language is a lot.
But my daughter, she what shehas struggled with is when she
was reading, and she even doesthis now.
If it's a longer word, will takea longer word takes too long to
sound it out, and then she can'tremember what she said.
(29:13):
So to then put it togetherdoesn't work for her.
A lot of times she'll takewhat's on the end and flip it
and say that first.
Okay.
And so these are some of thethings we were seeing.
Comprehension.
If she reads something, shecan't tell you what she read.
She spent so much brain power ontrying to decode and sound out
and put everything together thatshe's just like, I don't know
(29:35):
what I read.
And so we've done a lot of like,you read it, now I'll read it so
you can get the comprehension.
SPEAKER_01 (29:41):
After three years of interviewing homeschooling
families, I realized howoverwhelming it can be to piece
everything together.
So I took the best advice, tips,questions, and resources that
I've learned along the way andput them into one practical
ebook.
If you're looking for a clearstarting point, you'll find the
link in this show's description.
SPEAKER_00 (30:02):
She's very smart.
Like, you know, if I read it,she can comprehend it because
she's not spending all thisbrain power trying to decode and
decipher and and put the wordstogether.
Anyway, she's come a long way,and she definitely can read now.
But yeah, as a child, that wasthat was really, really hard.
And I felt um, I felt like afailure.
(30:23):
I felt like I was responsible.
And, you know, in a way I I was.
I was choosing to homeschoolher, so I needed to figure this
out, and it just took a longtime.
And I wish I'd given myself moregrace because I can look at her
now and see how far she's come.
And so, like to the parent whohas that kid who's just
struggling, whether it's withmath, a math concept, or with
(30:45):
reading or something that thisjust seems really, really hard,
just give it time.
Like you have that luxury oftime as a homeschool parent, and
it they will do it, they willlearn it.
They just need a little moretime.
SPEAKER_01 (30:58):
How did you get her through learning how to read
with the dyslexia?
Is there like a method orprogram?
SPEAKER_00 (31:06):
So there's a lot of different ways people will
approach it.
Originally I looked intotutoring, and it's so expensive.
The only tutoring in our areawas it was like$3,000 for 12
sessions or something like that.
And I had a friend put theirkiddo through it and I said, How
was it?
And she says, Well, we'regetting done with the tutoring,
(31:28):
and now they're going on like a504 plan.
Like, so they didn't reallylearn what they needed to to
know.
Well, I'm not dropping threegrand on that.
We just took it slow.
We just every day put in alittle bit of practice, put in
the reps, right?
You just keep practicing.
And it's like with anythingelse.
You wanna be good at shootinghoops, you wanna be good at
(31:50):
swimming, you wanna be good atthis, that.
You just keep practicing.
So we just keep practicing keptpracticing.
I did take a, I found like anonline parents course that was
four weeks, taught by a mom whohad six kids with dyslexia, and
she homeschooled them all.
So that was really helpful andreally beneficial.
It was very validating for methat I hadn't screwed up my kid,
(32:11):
you know, that I wasn't the onlymom out there who was struggling
with this.
And we did have a few tools thatwe could use, did really well
with like covering up the page,uh, so you could only see the
line that you were reading,covering up the pictures so they
weren't distracting, using thosecolored little plastic sleeves.
She really liked yellow.
That was a good color for her toread through that.
(32:33):
It helped.
And then I think it was twoyears ago.
I'd taken them for their annualeye exam every single year, but
two years ago, the eye doctorwas like, Oh yeah, she needs
reading glasses.
And I'm like, What?
She's 11.
She needs reading glasses.
So that helped having glassesjust in a year's time when we'd
lost some vision.
And so one of the opportunitiesthat's come through my
(32:54):
homeschooling podcast is I met atutor who does reading tutoring
specifically for kids withdyslexia.
And my daughter, a couple monthsago, she came home from pod
school and she says, for thefirst time, I really feel like
I'm behind in my reading and Iwant to change it.
And so she's starting tutoringin April to help fill these
(33:14):
gaps.
She's an amazing reader for howfar she's come.
But I also think there is valuein waiting till your child is
ready.
She is ready to put in the work.
Like she can read, but she'sready to be a good reader.
And so when this opportunitystarts in April, you better
believe she's gonna put in thosereps to advance and become more
skilled in reading.
SPEAKER_01 (33:35):
And yeah, and it's gonna mean so much more to her
because she has the drive behindit.
That's so huge.
SPEAKER_00 (33:42):
And I think she's old enough too now to understand
the reward, like what the rewardis going to be.
When she was six or seven, thatwas the other thing too.
I kind of gauged was like, canshe read enough to go out to
other activities and still beincluded and not feel left
behind?
And the answer was always yes.
Like you can read an open signon the library, or you can read,
(34:05):
you know, little things.
And now she is starting to feelthat like a little bit left
behind in her peer group.
And we're ready to do somethingabout it.
She's gonna get some greattutoring starting in April.
And so that was always a gaugetoo.
It's like, okay, well, yes, shemight be behind if I were to put
her in public school, but is shebehind in her peer groups in her
activities?
No, it wasn't impacting her inany other area of her life.
SPEAKER_01 (34:28):
Well, and then you have to look at the statistics
of what's going on in the schoolsystem too, and say how many
kids are actually literatebeyond a third grade level when
they graduate, because I'mpretty sure that it's a very low
percentage.
Yet they're spending more timein school, they're pushing
reading earlier on, but kids arejust not coming out with that
reading left.
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (34:48):
And as guilty as I felt for a long time, feeling
like I was failing her.
On the flip side of that, Irecognize I think she would have
come out of school like myhusband, hating it.
Yes.
It would have crushed her.
It would have crushed her.
And so I'm really glad that wewent this route.
SPEAKER_01 (35:07):
And how about your other kids?
Like, how do you manage theirstuff?
Like, how do you just juggle itall in your morning?
Are they all doing things at thesame time or are they scream
like a crazy woman?
SPEAKER_00 (35:16):
No.
Yeah, so we do.
That's a good question because Ithink a lot of people wonder how
does this work?
Every day is a little bitdifferent, but we actually have
figured out a pretty goodrhythm.
My older three do IXL learningfor math, which is online and
it's like they have to get 90points before it will tell them
(35:38):
that they've learned enough tomove on, which I like that it's
more of like this, it's not justmemorization.
They have to understand theconcept.
They really like that it'sindependent.
And so I really just help themwhen they have questions, but
it's really a self-drivenprogram, which is really
helpful.
For a long time, I was soagainst computer programs
(35:58):
because I felt like I wasn'tdoing enough.
But then I looked around at mycapacity and it's like, okay, if
we want to maintain thisstandard where we're kind of
done with schoolwork bylunchtime, so we have the rest
of our day, I gotta have somehelp.
And so this computer program hasbeen really great for them.
My seven-year-old, which is theyoungest homeschooler at the
moment, he still does the goodand the beautiful math.
(36:20):
So usually what happens is theolder three get started on their
math, and I sit down with him,and we do his good and the
beautiful math and languagearts, and he he's quick.
He's like he loves math.
We speed through that.
Like we're talking maybe 15minutes of math to get a lesson
done because he just soaks thatright up.
And then we'll do his languagearts.
(36:41):
So sitting down one-on-one withhim is probably like a half an
hour and he's seven.
Uh, that seems really quick topeople, but he's doing his work,
it's getting done.
And then he does his handwritinguh and he practices his piano.
I'm very fortunate my sister's apiano teacher and she comes to
the house once a week to do alltheir lessons.
So that is really nice.
(37:03):
And then on and then once I'mdone with him, I grab my
nine-year-old and we get herlanguage arts and reading done.
And then I sit the older twodown and we do their language
arts and reading and spelling.
And then we this year havestarted pod school, which is a
new option in our area.
The older two go on, go onemorning and they take three
(37:25):
classes.
Right now they're doingleatherworking, sound class,
where they're learning aboutsound waves and different music
pitch and things like that.
And then they're doing ancienthistory civilization like Egypt,
Roman Empire, those types ofthings.
And so that is their electives.
I teach at that pod school oneday a week, also, and I take all
(37:47):
my kiddos, and I'm teachingspace science this semester, and
then the younger two stay andthey do musical theater and an
art class.
And so that's how we fit in ourelectives, and then they have
their piano teacher that comesto the house once a week and
they practice on their own theother days, they do their
handwriting.
Um, trying to think if I'mmissing anything.
(38:08):
I take my toddler to story timeonce a week, so she kind of gets
that one-on-one with mom.
And a lot of times she's justsitting on my lap, like doing a
puzzle, coloring, painting whileI'm doing bookwork with the
other kids.
She's just content to sit on mylap and kind of do her
schoolwork, she calls it.
And so she's in the mix, orshe'll go off and play with one
(38:29):
of the kids who's done.
And then while they're notworking on schoolwork, if
they're waiting for me to doone-on-one time with them,
that's when I have them do theirhousework, their chores.
They've the older ones have todo their own laundry, empty
dishwasher, feed the dog, pickup the poop out of the yard,
those types of things.
We just have the slow rotation.
They get a zone for the week,and like that's their zone.
(38:52):
If your kitchen is your zone forthe week, you need to make sure
the dishwasher's unloaded, takethe trash out, sweep the floor,
you know, like a few easychores.
Bathrooms are a zone.
Okay, is there toilet paper?
Are there, is there soap?
Uh, there any dirty clothes onthe floor?
You know, if someone were towalk in and need to use our
restroom, does it look nice?
Is the trash overflowing?
And I really feel like thosehousehold chores are really
(39:17):
integral part of our school day,too, if you want to call it.
Because these kids need to learnlife skills.
I'm like, I have friends who arelike, I didn't know how to bake
a potato or do my laundry andwhen I got to college.
Right.
What so many?
What?
So yeah, they're doing their ownlaundry.
It's not to say I don't dolaundry, but I'd that's all I'd
be doing if they didn't do theirown laundry.
SPEAKER_01 (39:37):
So I love that.
I mean, and and you do a lot.
You do a lot of schoolwork.
But then you have the kids inthe older grades too.
I mean, my kids are seven andthree, so yeah, my
seven-year-old, it's it'sdefinitely the the language,
well, like a reading program,which is online now.
We've kind of settled for thatbecause he likes learning not
funny, a little bit moreindependent.
(39:58):
And um, and then the math andhandwriting.
And you know, I'm I'm likereally trying to get better at
sitting with them and reading,but it's funny because he's
never been one that wants tolike sit and let me read.
Like he's always been bouncingaround the room.
And even today, I my daughter,she will sit with me and read or
open books, and he's like, he'sfolding his laundry, putting
(40:20):
that away.
So he's only hearing every otherparagraph, and then he was out
and I went outside for the restof the book.
And I'm like, oh, all right, Iguess he's just not.
But like, what do you do, right?
Do you force them to sit in?
I was reading a book about itwas a children's book about the
history of Manhattan, howManhattan in New York City like
got there.
It was super interesting, butyeah, that's cool.
(40:42):
Only for me.
But it maybe I should let letthem kind of choose a little bit
more of what they want to do.
But yeah, he takes ukulele andhe's he's practicing piano on
this um with this Simply Pianoapp that we've been using.
But like I'm like, yeah, I don'treally do any science or world
exploration, even history.
(41:03):
Do we Tuttle twins, but it's notan everyday, like every night
thing.
So yeah, it's funny, kind oflike thinking, like, what do we
have to do?
Yeah.
And in New York, we're prettystrict on our reporting here,
but then it's like, okay, well,if he's building a little
obstacle course outside, likethat's kind of science, right?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (41:23):
So I agree.
SPEAKER_01 (41:25):
Liberties that you can take.
SPEAKER_00 (41:26):
Yeah.
I mean, there's so much to belearned that doesn't come from
sitting in a book, you know.
My kids are doing theseextracurriculars because we're
involved in pod school, butthere's been years that we
don't.
We just do the math and languagearts and let the day be what it
is, you know, whatever, whateverthey want to do.
I tried once, you know, I kindof started off feeling like my
(41:48):
homeschool needed to look likepublic school.
And I was trying to get subjectafter subject in, and then I was
finding like I had when I washaving our fifth, I was just
like, yeah, we're done with allof this.
There's no time for thisanymore.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (42:02):
You know, and we went back to like very basic.
Again, I go back to thatquestion of like, what did I
actually take away from school?
Because I might have been innine classes throughout the day,
but what did I actually learn?
I feel like I didn't learnanything about real life.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (42:17):
Well, and it's like, I'm not convinced that taking
nine subjects a day is a greatway for the kids to be learning.
Like, I feel like, like, I don'tlearn good that way.
We're in nine differentswitching your brain from one
thing to the next.
And so that was when I reallylike scaled back what we were
doing and just focused on, youknow, one thing.
Language, the language arts, andthe math, and there may be like
(42:39):
one more thing for a few weeks,and then we'd throw in something
else and do these kind of likemini units of something, or just
let it be.
You know, I remember I feel likethey get more excited about
learning when it when they'reinterested, right?
For example, my seven-year-old,he loves money.
Loves money, and he loves savingmoney.
So he saved all his money untilhe had enough for a$100 bill.
(43:01):
And then he had his littleziploc bag of cash and he said,
Mom, I'm ready to go to thebank.
I have a hundred dollars here.
Let's go get my$100 bill.
So we walked down to the bank,and I, you know, so then it this
is where homeschooling isbeautiful because this can be
the lesson, right?
Okay, son, now what are we gonnasay?
I'm not gonna do the talking foryou.
(43:21):
What do you need to ask for?
This is, you know, they'recalled a bank teller.
You need to talk to the tellerand you need to ask for
something.
What's it gonna be?
So, you know, we practice thislittle, what am I asking for
when I get there?
And so he's ready and he talksto me, gets his hundred dollar
bill, and he gets to pick, is ita new one or an old one?
And then we walk home and he'swalking home, he's looking at
this hundred dollar bill, and hesays, What is money made out of?
(43:43):
And I said, I don't know, but itsurvives the washing machine, so
it can't just be paper, youknow.
So then we go home and we watchfind some YouTube videos on what
money's made of.
And I said, kids, sit down,we're learning about how money's
made.
And we sit down, we learn thatit's made from cotton and you
know, just all these really coolthings.
And that was Lesson.
Like, great.
Got a lesson in for the day.
SPEAKER_01 (44:03):
I love it.
And you know, that happens sooften.
If you actually pay attention tothe questions, and I had one mom
say at one point, she said, Iwould keep a little jar, or
whether you keep it on yourphone in the notes tab or a
little pad of paper in thedrawer, like every question they
ask, just write it down quick.
And then like one day a week oronce a month, you go through and
you like, yeah, let's go find avideo on that.
SPEAKER_00 (44:25):
And yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (44:26):
That's happened so many times.
It might even be my question,but they see I'm excited about
it.
Like, where will you know howdoes that crystallis get formed
and what do they do in there?
Let's find a video.
And it's just so cool to havethat time to look at it.
SPEAKER_00 (44:39):
It is, it is.
SPEAKER_01 (44:41):
Stephanie, where can people find you if they want to
check out more of your insightsand what you have to say and
even your jewelry?
SPEAKER_00 (44:48):
Yeah, yeah, I'm a few places because I uh dabble
in a few different things.
So I have my Steph Rios blog,and then that's where I put, you
know, clips for my podcast andmore homeschooling content.
And then my jewelry is calledIviana and Co.
And both are on Instagram orFacebook, whatever platform you
(45:09):
like.
And yeah, come check out some ofthe jewelry as well.
SPEAKER_01 (45:12):
All right, we'll throw those links up in the
show's description.
So check those out.
And thank you so much for beinghere today.
This has been awesome.
Thanks for having me, Cheryl.
I appreciate it.
Thank you for listening to theHomeschool How To podcast.
If today's episode helped you,please be sure to follow the
show and leave a review.
It's the best way to support thepodcast.
And if you're just gettingstarted or need a reset, head to
(45:32):
thehomeschoolhowtu.com and grabmy free 30-day homeschool quick
start guide.
Until next time, keep learning,keep questioning, and thank you
for your love of the nextgeneration.
I didn't plan to homeschool.
I started asking hard questions,realized how little control
parents actually have, and madethe hard decision to leave a
government job to homeschool mykids.
Now I interview otherhomeschooling parents to learn
how this all works.
I'm Cheryl, and this is theHomeschool How to Podcast.
Let's learn this together.
(00:23):
Welcome, and with us today Ihave Stephanie Rios, mom of five
and homeschooling mom.
Stephanie, thank you for beinghere.
Yeah, thanks for having me,Cheryl.
SPEAKER_00 (00:32):
It's good to be here.
So what are the ages of yourkiddos?
You look so young.
Thank you.
I'll be able to take that as acompliment for as long as I can.
My oldest is 13, and then wehave we kind of do it every
every other year, baby, for awhile.
We have a 13-year-old, an11-year-old, a nine-year-old,
and a seven-year-old.
And then we had a littlecaboose.
She's three.
SPEAKER_01 (00:52):
Yeah.
That's awesome.
Okay, so what made you decide tohomeschool in the first place?
SPEAKER_00 (00:56):
Yeah, so it, you know, there's a few, a few
different reasons, but we kindof everything culminated and
then it was just like, this iswhat we're doing.
When I was getting starting tothink about sending our oldest
to school, first of all, I wasjust like, no, that was too
fast.
I am not ready for her to begone.
Five days a week, every day, youknow, seven years ago or so when
(01:19):
she was ready to go intokindergarten.
We didn't have the schoolchoices in our area like we do
now.
We live in a small rural town inIdaho.
And at the time, my option forkindergarten was five days a
week, all day, you know, eightto three.
I was just like, I don't thinkthis is gonna work for her
personality.
She just, so sweet, a little bitquiet, really tenderhearted.
(01:43):
We'd never been away from eachother.
And I was like, I just don'tthink either one of us want
this.
And so I started bringing it upto my husband, and he says,
uh-uh, no, we're not gonna havethose weird homeschool kids that
don't know how to talk topeople.
I was like, I really think I cando this.
Like, I wasn't homeschooled, hewasn't homeschooled, we didn't
(02:04):
know anybody who washomeschooled really, but I said,
I think I can raise her as ahomeschooled kid, and she won't
be weird, I promise.
And he's just like, I don't knowabout this.
And so a little bit more timegoes on, and I had some friends
who had kiddo, kiddos who werelike a year older.
And so they were going topreschool, and there was just
(02:26):
some really unfortunatecircumstances happening on the
preschool bus that waschaperoned.
And I'm telling my husband aboutthis, and I said, These kids
can't even be protected by thethe chaperone for whatever
reason, there's things going ona bus.
Like it's a closed environment,it should be pretty well
contained.
It's one preschool class, andthere are devastating things
(02:48):
happening on this bus.
And it was just kind of a few ofthose things were going on, and
I just said, I can't do it.
I can't send this sweet littleinstant baby off into this world
at five years old.
SPEAKER_01 (03:00):
Some of the things, if you don't mind saying, just
for us who haven't sent our kidson a bus.
SPEAKER_00 (03:04):
Yeah, so yeah, I don't think there's any harm
with me saying it was years ago,and but there was some there was
a child who was inappropriatewith body parts that they wanted
to touch and body parts thatthey wanted to show.
Yeah.
So it's like one of your worstnightmares as a mom.
And I'm thinking, a chaperonedpreschool bus.
(03:25):
No, I can't do it.
I can't do it.
And so it was like this first, Ihave this poll to keep her home,
anyways.
I'm not ready to let her go.
And then that happens, and I'mthinking, absolutely not,
absolutely not.
We're not going anywhere.
So that your husband agreed.
So then he agreed, and it was awild time.
I had my fourth baby this in thespring of 2018, and that was her
(03:51):
kindergarten year in the fall.
And so we started kindergartenwith a newborn, and in that same
year, my husband sold hisbusiness and joined me full-time
in my jewelry business, and westarted to run the jewelry
business as our full-timeincome.
All of it happened in the sameyear.
Wow.
What kind of business did hehave?
He had a cell phone repairbusiness.
(04:12):
I he would and the jewelry wasmore lucrative.
No, it wasn't at the time.
At the time, it was a littleside hobby, and I was getting
ready to shut it down because Iwas tired.
And he was just really burnt outfrom his business.
A lot of a lot of things hadchanged in the industry, and it
wasn't as profitable as it hadbeen for us.
(04:33):
And he kind of just said, like,I'm done.
So he found a buyer, sold it.
I had a baby, but I still hadorders coming in.
He's like, We're not shuttingthis down.
I'll help you scale it.
And so he did.
Wow.
I love this story.
SPEAKER_01 (04:47):
Okay.
While we homeschooled.
Okay.
So you know why I love thisstory?
One, both of you are like, we'redoing our own businesses, like
kind of F the government.
I am working for the man.
All right.
I'm gonna be my own man.
So you make your own hours, yourown rules.
You, you know, you do what youcan um to get by and you're home
(05:08):
with your kids, but you're alsoliving this life where like this
is your livelihood.
Like you have to work, you haveto raise four kids and make sure
that they're like not dying.
Like they need food every day,they need clothes washed, they
need supervision.
Uh and then you're homeschoolingtoo, and you're like, we gotta
educate them a little bit.
Yeah, this is so cool because somany parents are like, oh, I'd
(05:31):
love to homeschool, but I can'tbecause I work.
And it's like, no, no, no, thisis possible.
You don't understand.
So, yeah, lead us into that.
How did your day-to-day workback then?
SPEAKER_00 (05:40):
So when we first, well, from the get-go, my
husband really hasn't beeninvolved in homeschooling.
There's been like a spurt or,you know, like a little time
frame here or there where he'lljump in and get involved.
But it's 99% me.
Just because I think I he neverliked school to begin with.
And now that we've homeschooled,he's settled right into it.
(06:00):
But that's always been my mainrole.
So my main main role is alwaysmore of that traditional
homemaker role.
I'm the one doing most of thecooking, the grocery shopping,
most of the laundry.
And now you're saying, like,wait, when do you run a
business?
And I'm thinking exactly thesame thing, right?
So he jumped in and he handledorder fulfillment, customer
(06:21):
service.
Um, we hired makers to make thejewelry.
So I do the designing and theycome in and make um and do the
shipping.
And so all the time-sensitivethings were getting taken care
of by him for our the businessaspect when we work together in
my jewelry business.
He's doing back doing his ownthing now, and I still have the
(06:41):
jewelry business.
But, anyways, so back then whenwe started, it was very much I'm
still taking care of the kiddosmost of the time, I'm still
taking care of the householdmost of the time.
So I am a homeschool in themorning type of mom because I
can't trust myself to do it if Iput it off.
If we if we start doing things,we'll find other things to do
(07:01):
and we'll never circle backaround.
So we get up and we havebreakfast.
But because we are both workfrom home and um my jewelry
studio is in the basement,that's where I'm filming from
today.
But we get to have breakfasttogether, which is so great
because I know a lot of familiesdon't in the hustle and bustle
of let's get out the door by7:30 in the morning.
Uh, we have breakfast aroundlike 9-ish, 8 30, 9-ish, and
(07:26):
then I jump right into school,and I've always done that.
You know, I really miss thoselittle kindergarten years where
school's done in 20 minutes.
That was so nice.
So yeah, I do this.
SPEAKER_01 (07:37):
Yeah, and do you spend on it now that you have a
13-year-old and 11-year-old?
SPEAKER_00 (07:42):
Yeah, I we're still done by noon.
Just like you know, there's someaspects of it that they're doing
on their own now, and so theycan get going.
A lot of times we're done bynoon-ish lunchtime.
It just works best for us to getit kind of out of the way, so to
speak.
And then we have lunch, and thenthe afternoon, that's when I use
(08:03):
I use that time to catch up onchores, or if it's nice, we'll
get outside, uh, do some of mywork.
Not every season has been likethis when I have the new babies,
but right now I get up a couplehours before the kiddos, and
that's when I get my work in.
But back then, when the kiddoswere younger and I wasn't
getting all sleep every night,it was just kind of I'd squeeze
(08:26):
it in when I could type ofthing.
But one thing that was superbeneficial was my mother-in-law,
probably about six years ago,started taking my kids one
afternoon a week.
And so that gave me a solid,okay, I've got four hours of
uninterrupted time where I canget some work done, I could
count on it, and that was superhelpful in building a business
(08:48):
while homeschooling.
SPEAKER_01 (08:49):
And, you know, just to put this into perspective, so
you built a business where youcould actually pay people to do
certain aspects of it, even withhaving the four kids and the
homeschooling and like justsqueezing it in or having four
hours a week to work on it.
You've got to have some sort ofknowledge on like this is the
most efficient way, this is thebest platform to sell on.
(09:12):
Because a lot of that I wouldimagine is research too.
What are designs that peoplelike?
How what's the best way tomarket it?
SPEAKER_00 (09:18):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (09:19):
Um, how many posts do I have to do a week on it?
You know, do I need an Instagrampage?
That's a lot of it too, right?
SPEAKER_00 (09:25):
Yeah.
Our business has an interestingstory because there was a
third-party platform that wasreally lucrative for us.
It's where we made 99% of oursales for five years.
So from like 2018 till the endof 2023, we did enough in sales
(09:46):
on this platform to sustain ourbusiness.
So we were very fortunate.
However, I never really learnedhow to market on my own.
And then that platform the weekbefore Thanksgiving, so like
leading right up into holidays,we'd stock for holidays and
everything, they went bankrupt.
And we basically didn't have abusiness anymore because I
(10:08):
hadn't learned all of that.
So it made it possible to scale.
It also was like, it was almostlike cheating in a way, because
we had this platform doing ourmarketing, right?
They took a commission off thesales.
What was it?
What was the platform?
It was Jane.com.
They were based out of Utah andit was an online marketplace,
and it wasn't as saturated asEtsy, and they ran it
(10:32):
differently where they did likethree-day auctions or not
auctions, three-day deals.
So we would have a style ofearrings, say we put this hoop
on for three days, and we couldsell, you know, two or three
hundred pairs of earrings in acouple of days.
Yeah.
Whatever they were doing, theywere doing well until they
weren't.
And then our business wentunder.
SPEAKER_01 (10:52):
They're just why we have to take money for
ourselves, man.
Somebody did whatever they weredoing, yeah.
Maybe it made more sense forthem to like disband and switch
under a different company, andyou just yeah, I don't know.
I don't know.
Well, that's too bad.
SPEAKER_00 (11:06):
So at that point, that must have been devastating.
Devastating because we, youknow, it's one of those live and
learn type of things, but we'dbeen so busy with it we didn't
make a backup plan.
It was so good.
We thought, how would this evergo under?
They don't hold inventory, theydon't have assets, they don't
have a big overhead, and thenthey did, you know.
You have some C-suite executivesthat want a bigger paycheck, and
(11:26):
money dries up.
SPEAKER_01 (11:27):
Yeah.
I mean, geez, if Instagramknocked me off tomorrow, I'd be
like, I have no audience.
SPEAKER_00 (11:34):
Right?
SPEAKER_01 (11:34):
Yeah, and so to think about that stuff.
SPEAKER_00 (11:37):
The interesting thing was a month before that
platform went under, I hired abusiness coach because I started
to recognize I'm like, I reallythink I want to learn and build
out my own customer base.
And if I hadn't had that supportin place when the business went
under, I don't think I wouldhave continued.
I think it would have been toohard trying to raise the kids,
(11:57):
trying to homeschool, trying tofit it all in, wanting to know
where I should put my time, whatare the strategies.
And so having a business coachwas really instrumental in
helping me rebuild my businessand get it to back to a place
where I have hired a couple morepeople again to work with me and
I am paying them so that I havetime to homeschool the kids
still.
SPEAKER_01 (12:18):
And I love that too, because it's like, well, how
much more money could you makeif the kids were in school and
you were spending 40 hours aweek doing this?
But when you look at life,what's important and you know,
you're never gonna get this timeback with your kids.
So why don't you talk a littlebit?
I love that you were giving usthe breakdown of the day.
What about after lunch?
What does that look like?
Or what did that look like foryou then, and what does it look
(12:39):
like now?
SPEAKER_00 (12:40):
Yeah, so I you know, back when I was having having
the babies, had l had littleones around, there's always like
that nap time, quiet time, thehouse is clean, everything's put
together, and there's you know,some solace for an hour.
Now it's just like afree-for-all, right?
SPEAKER_01 (12:57):
But then that hour hits and you're like, you
literally stand there frozen inthe middle of the room, like,
what do I do?
What do I do?
You're like all day long I'mthinking of a million things to
do, and right now I can't thinkof one.
SPEAKER_00 (13:07):
One, nothing, nothing, yeah.
And so things look a lotdifferent now that the kids are
older.
Sometimes they want to have aplay date.
Sometimes they um want me totake them somewhere.
And so it's I try to get up andget most of my work done that
has to be done in a day beforethe kids are up.
So that way when the afternoonhits, I can kind of like ebb and
(13:28):
flow based off what they're kindof wanting to do.
Not to say they rule the roost,but they kind of do, you know.
But for example, I have a sonwho loves to bake.
He loves to bake.
Really, he just loves to eatsugar.
So every day it's like, Mom, wegotta make our cookies.
So a lot of times we'll makecookies.
I've got a boy who loves to beout and about and play sports,
so we'll go to the park so hecan shoot hoops, or we'll hit up
(13:51):
the skate park and they can taketheir scooters and their
skateboards and things likethat, and we'll get out for a
little bit.
We'll invite friends over.
And a lot of times, honestly,they're really just content to
have some free time.
You know, they've spent allmorning doing their chores and
their schoolwork, and they havethings they want to do.
And so if it's one of thoseafternoons where they're all
(14:11):
just content to I think my girlsspent like three hours coloring
today.
They'd been given some coloringbooks for Christmas that they
hadn't touched yet, and theyjust color, color, color, color.
And my boys had some ping ponggame going on.
They were um throwing ping pongballs across the kitchen table
and trying to get them to landin cups that were on the floor.
We're pretty simple over here,you know?
(14:32):
It's just I think just lettingthem be is mostly what our
afternoon looks like.
SPEAKER_01 (14:38):
Quick pause to share something that's been a great
fit for our homeschool.
My son, he's seven, and we buttheads if I am teaching him
directly.
So his reading and math are donemostly independently, and I'm
just there to support andcorrect when needed.
I really wanted him to learnmusic too, especially knowing
how closely music and readingare connected in the brain.
That's why we started usingSimply Piano.
(14:58):
He's learning to read music andplay piano on his own using
songs he already knows andloves, and it feels more like a
game than a lesson.
It's been amazing to watch hisconfidence and skills grow.
If you want to check it out,grab the link in the show
description.
SPEAKER_00 (15:13):
And if they need my help to facilitate that, like if
they need to go somewhere orneed my help with something,
I'll step in.
Otherwise, I just let them be,and honestly, I just get on my
computer and bust out work, youknow?
SPEAKER_01 (15:27):
Yeah, and that's hard too, because then you're
like, all right, so is this anokay time that I'm on my
computer?
Like, am I supposed to be likeplaying a board game with them
or reading a book to them?
Like that just that guilt willnever go away, right?
Never no matter what you'redoing, there's always more you
could be doing.
So you have to let that go andknow, like, hey, I'm doing this
(15:48):
for me, I'm doing this for thefamily in the long run.
I'm doing it to afford thatvacation we can take once a year
or whatever it is.
But you know, and I love how yousaid it too.
Like, first of all, what you'resaying is we need to bang it out
in the morning because otherthings take hold, and uh I need
to start doing that because likeit I even wrote a schedule for
myself and it's on myrefrigerator and I haven't paid
attention to it once and I wroteit down.
(16:09):
But it's like, yes, it has toget done early because my son,
who he's seven, but he findsthat there are things that he
wants to do, even if we don'tleave the house.
He actually doesn't even want toleave the house.
I'm like, yeah, hey, we can gomeet these people at a hike at
the park today.
He's like, mm-mm, I really hadsome other things I wanted to do
at home.
He wants to ride hisfour-wheeler, he wants to ride
his dirt bike when it's niceout.
(16:31):
Today, okay, so he had a remotecontrolled vehicle that like we
got him, I don't know, howeverlong ago, and he's broken every
part in it.
And we recently started saying,like, you're taking over buying
the new parts.
And so he pays for it out of it.
I mean, I pay him to do thevideos for the podcast, so he
does have money there, and I getit from Christmas and birthdays
and stuff, so he bought like ahundred dollars worth of parts.
(16:53):
Now the whole dead thing isprobably worth it,$150, right?
Like, we paid for it four times,but he's learning the value of a
dollar, and he's learning totake care of his stuff, and he's
learning how to take apart theseremote control vehicles and put
them back together.
So that's cool.
So to me, it's worth the money.
But it's funny, he spent thelast three days outside in the
snow making tracks for it, likeuh obstacle courses for him in
(17:17):
the snow.
And like testing, oh, how farcould I jump?
What can I go over?
How high can it go over?
Can I go over this climb?
And I'm like, that's so cool.
Like, how many kids get thatopportunity today because
they're coming home and they'relike, okay, I was at school all
day, before care, after care,regular school.
Now I have soccer practice andthen homework, shower, and go to
(17:40):
bed and get up and do it againthe next day.
Like they just it didn't makesense to me before I
homeschooled, right?
I'm like, what do you people doall day?
And that's because nobody everlet me have time.
SPEAKER_00 (17:50):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (17:51):
So it's interesting having your own time and then
letting your kids have their owntime.
SPEAKER_00 (17:56):
Yeah.
And they I think it helps themunderstand who they are quicker.
They learn what they love andwhere they would like to put
their time.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (18:05):
Yeah.
Some of that might disappointyou.
Like my three-year-old daughterwho will no longer go into her
dance class anymore.
It's been a very sad two weeksfor me coming to this
realization that she's not gonnafollow in my footsteps and be a
dancer right now, but that'sokay.
SPEAKER_00 (18:21):
Oh my goodness.
Were you a dancer?
SPEAKER_01 (18:23):
Yeah, I mean, I always grew up dancing and did
some like I don't I use the wordsemi-pro football dance teams
loosely because I don't know howsemi-pro they were.
But uh you were there.
I've taught Zumba the lastdecade or so.
Yeah, and I was just so excited,and she did fantastic for the
(18:44):
first four months, right in thatroom.
She followed everything theinstructor did, but then I was
like, you know what?
This is only 45 minutes a week.
Let's do gymnastics too.
And I never did gymnastics, butI brought her into gymnastics
class, and it's for the age twoand three-year-olds, so the
parents are actually involved.
And after she learned thatparents can be involved, she's
like, I ain't going into thisdance class anymore while you
(19:06):
sit in the waiting room.
You're gonna you're eithercoming in with me, Ma, or we
ain't going in at all.
SPEAKER_00 (19:11):
Yeah.
I was like, I bet she'll comeback around to it though.
SPEAKER_01 (19:16):
I hope so.
She's so little.
I don't think it'll be thisyear.
But no, that's the worst.
It's funny to get to be there tolike see that stuff.
With my son, I know for a longtime he would kind of like
separate himself from the otherkids, and I'm like, why is he
doing that?
And I, you know, we went backand forth on reasons why and
talked about it and stuff likethat.
(19:36):
And I would get so frustrated,like, you're gonna fall into
that weird kid homeschool thingbecause you're not interacting
with other kids, and I'm drivingit 45 minutes this playdate.
But then you learn about them,like that's just their
personality at that time intheir life, right?
Like, have you had thoseexperiences and have you been
happy to be around for thesetypes of things?
SPEAKER_00 (19:55):
Yeah, I mean, I think we all have those moments
where we kind of hold our breathas a parent.
Like, how is our child gonnareact, right?
And mine is I have a couplekiddos, one in particular who I
wouldn't say he's introverted,but he's just not very social,
if that makes sense.
He's like one really goodfriend.
He likes his little his sportsbuddies that he plays with, but
(20:16):
he's played with them for years.
But if somebody's talking to himand asking him questions, he
just doesn't offer up a lot ofinformation.
So I'm always like, talk, talk.
I know you know how to talk.
Talk to these people, answerthem, you know?
But like you said, it's hasnothing to do with
homeschooling.
It has everything to do with whohe is.
That's just him.
He just doesn't have a ton tosay.
(20:37):
And I think it's because he's avery particular kid and he is an
observer.
So I think he spends more timekind of analyzing what's going
on around him than thinkingabout himself, honestly.
SPEAKER_01 (20:49):
Well, hey, the world needs more of that.
Talk to me about curriculum.
How did you decide on what youwanted to teach, what curriculum
to choose, and how you know whenit's not working in time to
switch.
SPEAKER_00 (21:01):
Yes, we've definitely been down this road.
So when I started homeschooling,I had a friend who was using the
Good and the Beautifulcurriculum.
And I didn't I didn't knowanything else, and so I was
like, well, if I like my friend,she likes this, let's give it a
shot.
So I started using it, and I doreally like it for language
arts.
My kids love it for languagearts.
I used it for I use it for math,but as my kids got older, I
(21:25):
don't know if you're familiarwith their curriculum, but their
math is like a spiral method.
And I'll tell you, you know, asa homeschooling mom, your first
kid is kind of like your guineapig, right?
I didn't even know what spiralmethod math was until my kids
were frustrated with it.
And I took a step back, I'mthinking, okay, what is what is
(21:45):
this?
We like it, we like it tillabout fourth grade, and then
that curriculum, what spiralmath is, is where each lesson
has a little bit of all thedifferent.
Math subjects you're learning.
It might have a little bit ofaddition, a little bit of
subtraction, a little bit ofrounding, a little, you know, a
little this, a little that.
(22:06):
It was becoming the lessons, thelesson reviews were getting
really lengthy.
What I didn't know when Istarted homeschooling our
children was that my oldestactually has dyslexia.
I didn't know because I didn'tknow what to look for, and it
took me a few years to evenfigure out what's going on.
I was not trying to brag, but Iwas a good reader.
(22:27):
Reading was never a struggle forme.
And so she really started tostruggle with these lengthy math
lessons.
She started struggling with thecurriculum in general for
language arts because it wasoutpacing her reading level.
And we got to this placeprobably in third grade with
her, and I thought, I don't evenknow what to do.
You know, I I don't know if Ican do this for her.
(22:50):
Like, am I enough for her?
And so we switched, we keptgoing with that math curriculum
for a little bit longer, but Iwould lessen the lessons.
We would do less.
Okay, I wouldn't make her finishevery single lesson.
And then we actually steppedaway from the language arts
curriculum for probably a solidyear.
(23:11):
We didn't do any language artsbecause she needed time to just
read.
We just needed to focus onreading.
And so for a whole year wedidn't do that curriculum.
And then once her reading levelimproved a little bit, her skill
in reading, we jumped back intoit.
If you were to put my oldest twoin school, I would get told that
(23:31):
they're both behind in languagearts, and I really don't care.
unknown (23:35):
Love that.
SPEAKER_00 (23:36):
And I did, I used to care.
I've cried about this because Icare about my kids.
I care about how they're doing.
I want them to be well educated.
I want them to be good readers,but I had her going through her
struggles with dyslexia, andthen the second oldest doesn't
care if he reads.
He just doesn't care.
I'm like, buddy, you gotta caresometime, you know.
But he's still only 11.
So they do the same languagearts curriculum, same lessons.
(23:59):
We do their lessons together.
We've been doing that for yearsand it works really well.
And I realized in that journeythat when you're showing up to
homeschooling and your kids areshowing up and everybody's
frustrated, that's that's a hugered flag.
Like we need to stop and we needto do something different
because it really shouldn't bethat way.
We shouldn't all be crying bythe time we get done with math.
SPEAKER_01 (24:21):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (24:22):
And we kind of had gotten to that point, and I
think too, my personality haschanged as a homeschooling mom.
I was very type A, especially incollege.
Oh, type A mom, you know, type Astudent.
Wanted straight A's, and Icarried that personality into
parenting, and then you havefive kids, and you realize they
(24:44):
don't care if you're type A.
So I had to learn to adapt too,and to like just just chill.
Like we have till they're 18plus to get them to be good at
something.
Like, they don't have to knowthis all by the time they're
six.
It was really hard for mebecause I had kids or had
friends who were saying, my kidcan read a chapter book and
(25:07):
they're seven.
Great.
I am so like I am genuinelyhappy for that child.
I'm not gonna put thatexpectation on my kid if it's
not going to work for them.
And it took me a long time toalmost it's like it's like a
quiet courage that a homeschoolmom has to have that they are
enough for their child, that wedon't have to live by the
(25:30):
timelines and test scores, andthat we have time to teach them
these things.
And once I realized that, likethe best gift I can give to my
child child as their teacher isthe love of learning.
SPEAKER_01 (25:43):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (25:43):
And if they can love to learn, they will learn
anything that they need to.
SPEAKER_01 (25:48):
Absolutely.
And I, you know, I think moreparents need to be vocal about
that.
Like, yeah, my kid's seven, he'snot reading chapter books, he's
just starting to read on hisown.
And it was a very like astruggle because it was like,
come on, I'm supposed to knowthe best curriculums.
I have interviewed all thesehomeschooling parents.
We've tried this, we've triedthat.
(26:10):
We went back and forth on a fewdifferent I've talked on the
podcast before about how we didstart out with um, I think I
started out with like actualkindergarten curriculum, like
from the schools.
Yeah.
And and the good and thebeautiful or something.
Oh, all about reading.
And I was like doing them bothand just hounding this poor
five-year-old with twocurriculums on it.
(26:31):
And um, and then we went toteach your child to read in 100
easy lessons, but they were onlyeasy until they were only easy
until lesson 50.
And then they were used that onetoo.
So we took like months, like yousaid, we took months off and
then went back maybe six monthslater and started at lesson one.
And I was like, all right, we'regonna reinforce everything, and
(26:53):
then it'll be perfect, right?
No, we got to 50 again.
It was like climbing MountEverest.
So, you know, and I tried thisone and that one and this one,
that one, and um, I think a lotof it is sometimes it just takes
whatever age their body needsfor it to like click, and
whether it's seven or eleven orfifteen.
(27:14):
But you're right, the more youpush them because other kids
their age are at that level orhigher, the more they're gonna
hate it.
Think about if someone wastrying to make you like swim in
the Olympics, you'd be like, Idon't I don't really like
swimming that much.
I liked it when it was just hotout and an enjoyable activity,
but now that you're forcing meto do laps in an Olympic-sized
(27:37):
pool, it's just not fun.
And and it it's the same thingfor them.
SPEAKER_00 (27:40):
Yeah, absolutely.
When I was struggling with mydaughter trying to figure out
why she couldn't learn how toread, you know, back when she's
five years old, because everyonesays our kids should be reading.
I was talking to my husband andhe goes, I hated school.
I said, Well, why?
Why did you hate school?
I know you hated it, but why?
And he goes, Because I waspulled out of every fun thing to
go practice my reading.
(28:01):
Was he dyslexic?
Yes.
But we didn't know.
He goes, I don't we didn'trealize he was until I figured
out that my daughter was.
So he's an adult just figuringout, yeah, the system didn't
catch it.
SPEAKER_01 (28:15):
He just went Did he read things backwards or how
does that work?
SPEAKER_00 (28:19):
He's n okay, so he just really remembers
struggling.
He's like it just never madesense to me.
And to the day, to this day, hehas never read a chapter book.
SPEAKER_01 (28:29):
My husband probably hasn't either.
SPEAKER_00 (28:31):
You know?
Yeah.
But my so I don't know as a kidwhat he exactly struggled with.
Now he knows how to read becausehe's memorized the words, right?
But if he had to break it downand explain, which this is part
of the reason why he doesn'thelp with homeschooling very
often, is he gets frustrated.
He's like, This is the dumbestlanguage ever.
Where?
Who made these rules?
I'm like, I don't know, butthat's just the rules, okay?
(28:53):
You know, but he's like, hecan't, you know, to break down
the English language is a lot.
But my daughter, she what shehas struggled with is when she
was reading, and she even doesthis now.
If it's a longer word, will takea longer word takes too long to
sound it out, and then she can'tremember what she said.
(29:13):
So to then put it togetherdoesn't work for her.
A lot of times she'll takewhat's on the end and flip it
and say that first.
Okay.
And so these are some of thethings we were seeing.
Comprehension.
If she reads something, shecan't tell you what she read.
She spent so much brain power ontrying to decode and sound out
and put everything together thatshe's just like, I don't know
(29:35):
what I read.
And so we've done a lot of like,you read it, now I'll read it so
you can get the comprehension.
SPEAKER_01 (29:41):
After three years of interviewing homeschooling
families, I realized howoverwhelming it can be to piece
everything together.
So I took the best advice, tips,questions, and resources that
I've learned along the way andput them into one practical
ebook.
If you're looking for a clearstarting point, you'll find the
link in this show's description.
SPEAKER_00 (30:02):
She's very smart.
Like, you know, if I read it,she can comprehend it because
she's not spending all thisbrain power trying to decode and
decipher and and put the wordstogether.
Anyway, she's come a long way,and she definitely can read now.
But yeah, as a child, that wasthat was really, really hard.
And I felt um, I felt like afailure.
(30:23):
I felt like I was responsible.
And, you know, in a way I I was.
I was choosing to homeschoolher, so I needed to figure this
out, and it just took a longtime.
And I wish I'd given myself moregrace because I can look at her
now and see how far she's come.
And so, like to the parent whohas that kid who's just
struggling, whether it's withmath, a math concept, or with
(30:45):
reading or something that thisjust seems really, really hard,
just give it time.
Like you have that luxury oftime as a homeschool parent, and
it they will do it, they willlearn it.
They just need a little moretime.
SPEAKER_01 (30:58):
How did you get her through learning how to read
with the dyslexia?
Is there like a method orprogram?
SPEAKER_00 (31:06):
So there's a lot of different ways people will
approach it.
Originally I looked intotutoring, and it's so expensive.
The only tutoring in our areawas it was like$3,000 for 12
sessions or something like that.
And I had a friend put theirkiddo through it and I said, How
was it?
And she says, Well, we'regetting done with the tutoring,
(31:28):
and now they're going on like a504 plan.
Like, so they didn't reallylearn what they needed to to
know.
Well, I'm not dropping threegrand on that.
We just took it slow.
We just every day put in alittle bit of practice, put in
the reps, right?
You just keep practicing.
And it's like with anythingelse.
You wanna be good at shootinghoops, you wanna be good at
(31:50):
swimming, you wanna be good atthis, that.
You just keep practicing.
So we just keep practicing keptpracticing.
I did take a, I found like anonline parents course that was
four weeks, taught by a mom whohad six kids with dyslexia, and
she homeschooled them all.
So that was really helpful andreally beneficial.
It was very validating for methat I hadn't screwed up my kid,
(32:11):
you know, that I wasn't the onlymom out there who was struggling
with this.
And we did have a few tools thatwe could use, did really well
with like covering up the page,uh, so you could only see the
line that you were reading,covering up the pictures so they
weren't distracting, using thosecolored little plastic sleeves.
She really liked yellow.
That was a good color for her toread through that.
(32:33):
It helped.
And then I think it was twoyears ago.
I'd taken them for their annualeye exam every single year, but
two years ago, the eye doctorwas like, Oh yeah, she needs
reading glasses.
And I'm like, What?
She's 11.
She needs reading glasses.
So that helped having glassesjust in a year's time when we'd
lost some vision.
And so one of the opportunitiesthat's come through my
(32:54):
homeschooling podcast is I met atutor who does reading tutoring
specifically for kids withdyslexia.
And my daughter, a couple monthsago, she came home from pod
school and she says, for thefirst time, I really feel like
I'm behind in my reading and Iwant to change it.
And so she's starting tutoringin April to help fill these
(33:14):
gaps.
She's an amazing reader for howfar she's come.
But I also think there is valuein waiting till your child is
ready.
She is ready to put in the work.
Like she can read, but she'sready to be a good reader.
And so when this opportunitystarts in April, you better
believe she's gonna put in thosereps to advance and become more
skilled in reading.
SPEAKER_01 (33:35):
And yeah, and it's gonna mean so much more to her
because she has the drive behindit.
That's so huge.
SPEAKER_00 (33:42):
And I think she's old enough too now to understand
the reward, like what the rewardis going to be.
When she was six or seven, thatwas the other thing too.
I kind of gauged was like, canshe read enough to go out to
other activities and still beincluded and not feel left
behind?
And the answer was always yes.
Like you can read an open signon the library, or you can read,
(34:05):
you know, little things.
And now she is starting to feelthat like a little bit left
behind in her peer group.
And we're ready to do somethingabout it.
She's gonna get some greattutoring starting in April.
And so that was always a gaugetoo.
It's like, okay, well, yes, shemight be behind if I were to put
her in public school, but is shebehind in her peer groups in her
activities?
No, it wasn't impacting her inany other area of her life.
SPEAKER_01 (34:28):
Well, and then you have to look at the statistics
of what's going on in the schoolsystem too, and say how many
kids are actually literatebeyond a third grade level when
they graduate, because I'mpretty sure that it's a very low
percentage.
Yet they're spending more timein school, they're pushing
reading earlier on, but kids arejust not coming out with that
reading left.
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (34:48):
And as guilty as I felt for a long time, feeling
like I was failing her.
On the flip side of that, Irecognize I think she would have
come out of school like myhusband, hating it.
Yes.
It would have crushed her.
It would have crushed her.
And so I'm really glad that wewent this route.
SPEAKER_01 (35:07):
And how about your other kids?
Like, how do you manage theirstuff?
Like, how do you just juggle itall in your morning?
Are they all doing things at thesame time or are they scream
like a crazy woman?
SPEAKER_00 (35:16):
No.
Yeah, so we do.
That's a good question because Ithink a lot of people wonder how
does this work?
Every day is a little bitdifferent, but we actually have
figured out a pretty goodrhythm.
My older three do IXL learningfor math, which is online and
it's like they have to get 90points before it will tell them
(35:38):
that they've learned enough tomove on, which I like that it's
more of like this, it's not justmemorization.
They have to understand theconcept.
They really like that it'sindependent.
And so I really just help themwhen they have questions, but
it's really a self-drivenprogram, which is really
helpful.
For a long time, I was soagainst computer programs
(35:58):
because I felt like I wasn'tdoing enough.
But then I looked around at mycapacity and it's like, okay, if
we want to maintain thisstandard where we're kind of
done with schoolwork bylunchtime, so we have the rest
of our day, I gotta have somehelp.
And so this computer program hasbeen really great for them.
My seven-year-old, which is theyoungest homeschooler at the
moment, he still does the goodand the beautiful math.
(36:20):
So usually what happens is theolder three get started on their
math, and I sit down with him,and we do his good and the
beautiful math and languagearts, and he he's quick.
He's like he loves math.
We speed through that.
Like we're talking maybe 15minutes of math to get a lesson
done because he just soaks thatright up.
And then we'll do his languagearts.
(36:41):
So sitting down one-on-one withhim is probably like a half an
hour and he's seven.
Uh, that seems really quick topeople, but he's doing his work,
it's getting done.
And then he does his handwritinguh and he practices his piano.
I'm very fortunate my sister's apiano teacher and she comes to
the house once a week to do alltheir lessons.
So that is really nice.
(37:03):
And then on and then once I'mdone with him, I grab my
nine-year-old and we get herlanguage arts and reading done.
And then I sit the older twodown and we do their language
arts and reading and spelling.
And then we this year havestarted pod school, which is a
new option in our area.
The older two go on, go onemorning and they take three
(37:25):
classes.
Right now they're doingleatherworking, sound class,
where they're learning aboutsound waves and different music
pitch and things like that.
And then they're doing ancienthistory civilization like Egypt,
Roman Empire, those types ofthings.
And so that is their electives.
I teach at that pod school oneday a week, also, and I take all
(37:47):
my kiddos, and I'm teachingspace science this semester, and
then the younger two stay andthey do musical theater and an
art class.
And so that's how we fit in ourelectives, and then they have
their piano teacher that comesto the house once a week and
they practice on their own theother days, they do their
handwriting.
Um, trying to think if I'mmissing anything.
(38:08):
I take my toddler to story timeonce a week, so she kind of gets
that one-on-one with mom.
And a lot of times she's justsitting on my lap, like doing a
puzzle, coloring, painting whileI'm doing bookwork with the
other kids.
She's just content to sit on mylap and kind of do her
schoolwork, she calls it.
And so she's in the mix, orshe'll go off and play with one
(38:29):
of the kids who's done.
And then while they're notworking on schoolwork, if
they're waiting for me to doone-on-one time with them,
that's when I have them do theirhousework, their chores.
They've the older ones have todo their own laundry, empty
dishwasher, feed the dog, pickup the poop out of the yard,
those types of things.
We just have the slow rotation.
They get a zone for the week,and like that's their zone.
(38:52):
If your kitchen is your zone forthe week, you need to make sure
the dishwasher's unloaded, takethe trash out, sweep the floor,
you know, like a few easychores.
Bathrooms are a zone.
Okay, is there toilet paper?
Are there, is there soap?
Uh, there any dirty clothes onthe floor?
You know, if someone were towalk in and need to use our
restroom, does it look nice?
Is the trash overflowing?
And I really feel like thosehousehold chores are really
(39:17):
integral part of our school day,too, if you want to call it.
Because these kids need to learnlife skills.
I'm like, I have friends who arelike, I didn't know how to bake
a potato or do my laundry andwhen I got to college.
Right.
What so many?
What?
So yeah, they're doing their ownlaundry.
It's not to say I don't dolaundry, but I'd that's all I'd
be doing if they didn't do theirown laundry.
SPEAKER_01 (39:37):
So I love that.
I mean, and and you do a lot.
You do a lot of schoolwork.
But then you have the kids inthe older grades too.
I mean, my kids are seven andthree, so yeah, my
seven-year-old, it's it'sdefinitely the the language,
well, like a reading program,which is online now.
We've kind of settled for thatbecause he likes learning not
funny, a little bit moreindependent.
(39:58):
And um, and then the math andhandwriting.
And you know, I'm I'm likereally trying to get better at
sitting with them and reading,but it's funny because he's
never been one that wants tolike sit and let me read.
Like he's always been bouncingaround the room.
And even today, I my daughter,she will sit with me and read or
open books, and he's like, he'sfolding his laundry, putting
(40:20):
that away.
So he's only hearing every otherparagraph, and then he was out
and I went outside for the restof the book.
And I'm like, oh, all right, Iguess he's just not.
But like, what do you do, right?
Do you force them to sit in?
I was reading a book about itwas a children's book about the
history of Manhattan, howManhattan in New York City like
got there.
It was super interesting, butyeah, that's cool.
(40:42):
Only for me.
But it maybe I should let letthem kind of choose a little bit
more of what they want to do.
But yeah, he takes ukulele andhe's he's practicing piano on
this um with this Simply Pianoapp that we've been using.
But like I'm like, yeah, I don'treally do any science or world
exploration, even history.
(41:03):
Do we Tuttle twins, but it's notan everyday, like every night
thing.
So yeah, it's funny, kind oflike thinking, like, what do we
have to do?
Yeah.
And in New York, we're prettystrict on our reporting here,
but then it's like, okay, well,if he's building a little
obstacle course outside, likethat's kind of science, right?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (41:23):
So I agree.
SPEAKER_01 (41:25):
Liberties that you can take.
SPEAKER_00 (41:26):
Yeah.
I mean, there's so much to belearned that doesn't come from
sitting in a book, you know.
My kids are doing theseextracurriculars because we're
involved in pod school, butthere's been years that we
don't.
We just do the math and languagearts and let the day be what it
is, you know, whatever, whateverthey want to do.
I tried once, you know, I kindof started off feeling like my
(41:48):
homeschool needed to look likepublic school.
And I was trying to get subjectafter subject in, and then I was
finding like I had when I washaving our fifth, I was just
like, yeah, we're done with allof this.
There's no time for thisanymore.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (42:02):
You know, and we went back to like very basic.
Again, I go back to thatquestion of like, what did I
actually take away from school?
Because I might have been innine classes throughout the day,
but what did I actually learn?
I feel like I didn't learnanything about real life.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (42:17):
Well, and it's like, I'm not convinced that taking
nine subjects a day is a greatway for the kids to be learning.
Like, I feel like, like, I don'tlearn good that way.
We're in nine differentswitching your brain from one
thing to the next.
And so that was when I reallylike scaled back what we were
doing and just focused on, youknow, one thing.
Language, the language arts, andthe math, and there may be like
(42:39):
one more thing for a few weeks,and then we'd throw in something
else and do these kind of likemini units of something, or just
let it be.
You know, I remember I feel likethey get more excited about
learning when it when they'reinterested, right?
For example, my seven-year-old,he loves money.
Loves money, and he loves savingmoney.
So he saved all his money untilhe had enough for a$100 bill.
(43:01):
And then he had his littleziploc bag of cash and he said,
Mom, I'm ready to go to thebank.
I have a hundred dollars here.
Let's go get my$100 bill.
So we walked down to the bank,and I, you know, so then it this
is where homeschooling isbeautiful because this can be
the lesson, right?
Okay, son, now what are we gonnasay?
I'm not gonna do the talking foryou.
(43:21):
What do you need to ask for?
This is, you know, they'recalled a bank teller.
You need to talk to the tellerand you need to ask for
something.
What's it gonna be?
So, you know, we practice thislittle, what am I asking for
when I get there?
And so he's ready and he talksto me, gets his hundred dollar
bill, and he gets to pick, is ita new one or an old one?
And then we walk home and he'swalking home, he's looking at
this hundred dollar bill, and hesays, What is money made out of?
(43:43):
And I said, I don't know, but itsurvives the washing machine, so
it can't just be paper, youknow.
So then we go home and we watchfind some YouTube videos on what
money's made of.
And I said, kids, sit down,we're learning about how money's
made.
And we sit down, we learn thatit's made from cotton and you
know, just all these really coolthings.
And that was Lesson.
Like, great.
Got a lesson in for the day.
SPEAKER_01 (44:03):
I love it.
And you know, that happens sooften.
If you actually pay attention tothe questions, and I had one mom
say at one point, she said, Iwould keep a little jar, or
whether you keep it on yourphone in the notes tab or a
little pad of paper in thedrawer, like every question they
ask, just write it down quick.
And then like one day a week oronce a month, you go through and
you like, yeah, let's go find avideo on that.
SPEAKER_00 (44:25):
And yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (44:26):
That's happened so many times.
It might even be my question,but they see I'm excited about
it.
Like, where will you know howdoes that crystallis get formed
and what do they do in there?
Let's find a video.
And it's just so cool to havethat time to look at it.
SPEAKER_00 (44:39):
It is, it is.
SPEAKER_01 (44:41):
Stephanie, where can people find you if they want to
check out more of your insightsand what you have to say and
even your jewelry?
SPEAKER_00 (44:48):
Yeah, yeah, I'm a few places because I uh dabble
in a few different things.
So I have my Steph Rios blog,and then that's where I put, you
know, clips for my podcast andmore homeschooling content.
And then my jewelry is calledIviana and Co.
And both are on Instagram orFacebook, whatever platform you
(45:09):
like.
And yeah, come check out some ofthe jewelry as well.
SPEAKER_01 (45:12):
All right, we'll throw those links up in the
show's description.
So check those out.
And thank you so much for beinghere today.
This has been awesome.
Thanks for having me, Cheryl.
I appreciate it.
Thank you for listening to theHomeschool How To podcast.
If today's episode helped you,please be sure to follow the
show and leave a review.
It's the best way to support thepodcast.
And if you're just gettingstarted or need a reset, head to
(45:32):
thehomeschoolhowtu.com and grabmy free 30-day homeschool quick
start guide.
Until next time, keep learning,keep questioning, and thank you
for your love of the nextgeneration.
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