Homeschooling a Middle Schooler: What We Learned This Year | End-of-Year Q&A

Hey everybody, welcome to the Waldock Way. I'm Jessica. I'm Kevin. And today's video is going to be a homeschool reflection. So the two of us are just going to chat with you guys, well with each other while you watch. And we're going to reflect on Emily's 2024 2025 7th grade home school year. What felt different about homeschooling a seventh grader? Let's see. Seventh grader, which is hard to say. Um, I guess her independence, it's like the older she gets, the less she needs me. And it's like everything from our science boxes that we do together, um, to Lego. Lego, uh, playing games. I don't have to coach. Half the time I'm just sitting there looking pretty. It's And you do a really good job. Thank you. Thank you. I try. But yeah, she it's like um she reads the instructions, she understands, she comprehends, she does, there might be a place where dad gets to come in and push the hard piece through. That's my job. I take it seriously. But I also feel like even though she's more independent now than she's ever been, obviously it's really easy to be like, "Oh, she doesn't need us anymore." But really, I feel like sometimes we have to remind ourselves to try twice as hard, like to to be involved because like at the end of the day, that's really what she wants from us. Even if you're not involved, she still like wants you to sit there and watch her build the Lego. She still wants your presence. Absolutely. And it would be really easy to be like, "She doesn't need me so I can go do something else." But like that's still valuable time for y'all for connection if nothing else. Yeah. And I have to be there to push the pieces. And you have to be there to push the hard pieces. Yeah. I hurt the thumb. How how do you think you've seen her grow this year? Oh, I have seen this year specifically, this home school year, um like her, I guess mental grit, if I had to like put a word to it, her mindset and her confidence. Um, I watched like at the beginning of the home school year her have a really hard time like we'll just use karate as an example where we couldn't even hardly make it through a class because she would break down in tears cuz as a perfectionist she wanted to be perfect and it wasn't. Um to by the end of the home school year whether it was tools that we had provided her with or tools that she figured out on her own she was not only overcoming those same challenges that were breaking her in the beginning but she was helping others overcome them as well. like there was a little girl who joined karate um who was crying during her testing. It was almost like a mirror image of where we started. That's where she starting and Emily stepped in and was like, "Let me help you. Let me, you know, tell you that it's really not that big of a deal." And it's not just karate. That was too say karate was just an easy example, but like archery, you know, like she would miss a shot and it would be the end of the world. And now she's like, "Man, I'll get it like next time." and like her her whole mindset when new people were show like uh where we shot and had a family with a little girl that had one arrow and a bow and had no idea and Emily just took her under her wing with no coaching or no questions asked and took her through the whole course and gave her an extra arrow to said try this and do this and do that. It Yeah, it's it's cool. Yeah. But I think it's led into other things like karate and archery are easy examples, but like her schoolwork, like her math or her writing or I mean anything like I've watched I've watched her grow in like her mindset, right? From it being something that would have broken her at the beginning of the school year to something that she's like not only succeeding at but helping others succeed now as well. Like that's been a huge she's grown in a lot of areas, but like that's the one thing that's made the biggest difference has been that like mental grit, mindset, confidence kind of thing. a little independent young lady. Yeah, exactly. She's like becoming her own little person, right? Not little anymore. I know. She's She's wearing the same size shoe as me. I know, right? Was there a point this home school year where you thought, "Hey, we're doing something right." Like, we've got this math. Oh, lord. Always math. But that was the This was the first year, you guys. We've been homeschooling what, eight years now? Nine years if you count preschool. This was the first year that I felt like we figured math out. Like man, we like found somebody else. Yeah. But like we outsourced it. We found something that worked and like we figured it out. Well, which is crazy because you're like out of all the people I've known in my life, math is your thing. You know, math inside. Teach it. Yeah. when I was going to college and I was trying to get go back and reboot and get myself up to speed and then take the new courses and keep moving on in math. Even though I knew she could give me the answer, she could not teach me anything. It was horrible. And then we did math and we've done math and homeschooling. And again, she knows. You're the first person Emily goes to now besides me. It's Mr. Dennison, Kevin, probably Google, and then mom would and I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that. But this is the first year I agree that it was like we finally got this. And not only do we've got it, like when I asked Emily, "Do you want to continue?" She was like almost excited. She was excited about continuing with and I've listened in on the courses and stuff like I always do and I'm blown away. He does a great job. He explains it so well. I understand. So that props to Mr. Dennis says math. Yeah. If you were to describe homeschooling this year in one word, what do you what would you use and why? Oh, the hard one, right? One word. Yeah. I'm not a one word kind of person. Um, okay. If I had to describe our homeschool year in one word, it would be relaxed. Okay. Relaxed. Why relaxed? I feel like after all of the years that we've homeschooled, like my confidence has built to the point where this was the most relaxed I was about everything. So, I can see that I wasn't like stressed about academics. I wasn't worried about us being behind and there was many times that we were. I mean, we started the school year off with a month-long road trip. That was our choice. It was but we started the year off behind. Like, we started off behind. Then we got like the plague and we're basically two months that we didn't do hardly anything because we were all passing around illness. So this year probably is the most behind we've ever been. But I didn't stress at all. Like I was relaxed. Our home school year was relaxed. Um everything felt more relaxed. Like we let Emily wake up when she wanted to wake up. There wasn't a schedule. She had independent work that she did at her own pace. Um, even our morning basket doesn't happen in the morning anymore because we just do it whenever. Like everything about it, like even y'all steam days, they happen, but they weren't like a lot of the times they happened in the evening like after dinner. But also like used to we had a day like y'all had like Tuesdays or Wednesdays and it was like oh because her schedule was so crazy. We've just kind of learned to go or she wanted to play with friends and stuff like that and we're trying to Yeah. Yeah. So I feel like everything was just more go with the flow, relaxed. Like we were more relaxed as people and our schedule had to be more relaxed because outside had so many expectations we couldn't also have those in home. Like we had to let go of a lot I guess of our expectations. So relaxed would be the word I would use. And I kind of hope we can keep that next year because it was nice to like not stress as much. Yeah, I hate stress but yeah I think so. What is one thing that I did like me personally this home school year that you felt like made a big difference? Let's see. I would say probably your confidence level, being able to let go a little bit. Still kind of the same thing I just said. It basically is. I mean, honestly, um being able to relax a little bit, trust in the method and the madness and embrace it a little bit. I think with her, like you said, being able to sleep in a little bit longer, not forcing her into let's eat breakfast, let's get into work, let's go do this, let's do that, and let it kind of flow a little bit easier and giving her a little more personal time. I I I think it all paid off. And the crazy thing about that is that's not something that you can just like wake up and and do as a homeschool mom. Like that's something that comes with time spent. Like that's because I've I've watched myself let go a little more like loosen up a little more every year and like before I would have been like, "Oh my gosh, it's 11:00 and she's still sleeping." Like we have so much to do today. Get up and get moving. But that would have backfired and I would have paid for it in the long run. You know what I mean? Like she would have been cranky. We would have been at each other. We would have gotten a lot less done. It's funny. The days that we've had to like for outside world events, we have to get up and we have to do it in an earlier fashion. Um, the brain juices aren't flowing. Yeah. It's like bumping into walls, not awake yet, and it's like you're not getting anything productive done. You're not even getting dressed or brushing your teeth. It's like just banging your head into a wall, walking around, stumbling around, and you don't know which direction's up. It's like, yeah, I I think it's important to get more time. It just makes sense to be more relaxed and more confident in the fact that like it's okay for us to sleep in and start at noon. I think it really it's become more confidence in knowing that like this is our home school and we can be our way and if that means it starts at noon or like you said it's going to get done even if that's 10 o'clock at night. Well, I'd say it's almost like a renewed confidence. It's like you say uh in first grade, I'm confident. I'm feeling good. Everything's flowing right. And then you find out there's new requirements as you're looking towards the growth and the the higher uh education, the higher grades that they're getting into and you're looking towards high school. And it's like, okay, well, I have all these things to get done. And then if you relax, they're they take care of themselves. Yeah, they do. That's true. I agree. What helped you stay grounded on the hard homeschool days? I mean, when they really get difficult. Well, taking a break if we needed it first and foremost because there have been times. I don't feel like that really happened so much this homeschool year, but like in the past where it just was bad, right? We didn't sleep, we're hangry, hormones are clashing, whatever, and we just need to go to separate corners or separate rooms or whatever. But if that wasn't the case, I think a lot of it is just going back to the basics, like forgetting about the curriculum or the expectations or the planner and just going back to the the three things that seem to work for us the most, which are reading books, playing games, and like learning through life. So, field trips, experiences, hands-on, documentaries, whatever. But like not making school school, and instead just I like that. You know what I mean? Like I think on the hard days you just you take a break and sometimes that means break from each other but other times it means a break from the things that feel hard, right? And reading aloud or playing a game or going on a field trip obviously never feels hard. And that's like the things I feel like we should it's always the things that it's always when we've gotten so far away from those things that the days become harder, right? like when we're when I'm pushing a to-do list or a checklist or the curriculum and I'm not reading aloud or we're not playing games or we're not taking field trips that the days get harder. So, reminding myself to go back to the basics makes it the days easier by nature like automatically. I agree. I agree. If you could add one dad's choice like you get to pick, what's one thing next year that you would add to our home school? I thought about this quite a bit. Um, so does this mean we're we're adding something new? Well, I'm hoping to. Um, grease monkey. Um, I want to do life skills. I want to do the the dad stuff like uh checking the fluids in the car. We're getting close. I'm not ready for it, but we are getting close. So, I want her to understand what a flat tire means. Where's the valve stem? Where's the window washer fluid? Um, where's the brake fluid? All the simple things that you don't think about, but you don't want to leave them stranded on the side road not knowing what to look for. Um, I wanted to change the oil in the lawn mower and the oil filter on lawn mower. It's easy. It's something she can do. I can't do half of this. Are you going to make me take this class, too? I know better. I won't. But anyway, yeah. To prepare for life, there are certain things that make you independent. There are certain things that you need a basic knowledge. You don't actually have to turn the wrench, but you want to know where to put the wrench to turn it if you had to. So, why not? So, yeah, I would like to help her play with the small motors like the lawn mower and stuff like that so that she's got a little basic understanding there. Um, and prepare for her future where I'm not standing behind her over her shoulder. So, yeah, that's a good answer. I like that. What do you think? Yeah, we Yeah, we can probably make that work. Okay, cool. What part of homeschooling were you the most proud of planning and designing of this year? The whole year. It's been a busy year. It has. And I can only pick one. What's with this whole one thing? Like the one word and one thing. I don't like these questions when it's the way I think. So, okay. The one thing if I had to pick one thing that like I was proud of planning or designing for our home school year, I think it would probably be our US government study and not just because of the way it came together. Like the conversations and the things that came out of it, like the civics lessons and the economy lessons and the elections and voting like all of that played a big part into it. And and I don't even mean like the political part of it. I just mean like like the discussions that we were able to have and I think a lot of that came well first of all I did the study because it was an election year and then also her age you know like she's at that point now well she was asking the right questions and she had opinions and then she wanted to see like informed opinions how it's going to be done for her later yeah and being able to take her to vote and everything but like our US government study that I designed was probably it was the catalyst for all of it and that I really enjoyed that. That was fun. Yeah. Share one of your favorite homeschool moments with Emily. I guess her humor. She has very she's really come into her funniness. There's eye opening moments and you think you've already taught this information and it should be like it ingrained in their brain and apparently it's not. And then suddenly out of nowhere for no particular reason it shows up like the comment uh wow wow what what's going on? I just realized something. What's that? I know why they call it a weekend. It's at the end of the week. No, my favorite one was she was waiting for you to finish mowing so she could go outside and swing. And I was like well when daddy gets to the weed eater when you hear the weed eater he's done mowing so you'll know that he's done. And then she comes back like 10 minutes later and I was trying to go back to sleep and she's like mom. What? I know why they call it a weed eater. And I was like, "Okay." And she goes, "It eats the weeds." But also like they always talk about dad jokes and I feel like they they don't talk about like nobody gives credit to like the tween jokes. Twins are hilarious. I mean they're corny funny but they're so funny. And we have a house full of dad jokes. But it it's an ongoing thing and we have fun with it. But yeah, the eye opening eyeopening humor that we're getting here lately. Um unsolicited. It's good stuff. It really is good stuff. It really is. You're right. It's funny. What is one piece of advice that you would give parents? And I know you've got a good answer for this one. Um homeschooling through a middle school years. Okay. I do actually have a really good answer on this one, but I wrote it down because I don't want to forget and I didn't want to I'm gonna try not to cry. You're still gonna cry. No, I'm not. Stop. Okay. So, honestly, my one piece of advice would be don't underestimate the heartwork. I won't look. Okay. Middle school is full of changes, especially like for the tween and for you as the parent. Like, everything is changing. They're becoming more independent. their hormones are changing their body mentally and physically. Like it's full of nothing but changes. And I'm not just talking about academically, but like emotionally, hormonally, like all the things. And some days, what your child needs most isn't another homeschool lesson. It's not more rigor or more academics, which as homeschool moms, we feel like they're getting older, they're becoming more mature. They need more, right? Like they need harder lessons. They need uh more difficult reading, more difficult writing or a challenge. like they need to be challenged. Like you need to up the ante. It needs to be more. And sometimes that's not what they need. What they need is connection. Uh it's a safe space for them to be themselves to talk things out or even just be quiet and know you're there. Kind of like we talked about with you doing steam. Like it's not even about her needing your help. It's just her wanting your presence there. Like they don't need more rigor. They just need like a safe space to express themselves. And it's easy to get caught up in keeping up with the curriculum or the comparison act, especially with social media, but what really matters is the relationship that you're building with them. You want to be that safe space that they've come to to talk to, to question, to, you know, bounce ideas off of. And that foundation of trust and support that you're building is what helps them thrive long term. So, obviously, yes, keep learning, right? Like, keep experimenting and reading and playing games and doing the curriculum. Like we're not saying don't learn. What we're saying is when in doubt, when those hard days come, when those hormones flare up, when push comes to shove, when tears are starting, maybe choose the heart over the worksheet. And like in the long run, I feel like that's like that's the stuff that really matters. Anyway, we would love it if you would reflect on your homeschool year with us. Let us know down in the comments how your year went. What was your one word, let me limit you like he did me, to describe your year. And um maybe what was something that your kids taught you? Cuz let's be honest, as homeschoolers, our kids do a lot of the teaching.