Leslie Martino on Sparking Kids’ Learning Through the Joy of Slow

Debbie:

Hey Leslie, welcome to the podcast.

Leslie Martino:

Thank you so much for having me, Debbie.

Debbie:

Yes, I’m so happy to have this conversation with you. I really enjoyed your book and we’re gonna get into that in a few minutes, but I always start my conversations by asking my guests to tell whatever they wanna share about their personal story, but really what I’m most interested in is your why and how that’s kind of connected to the work that you do in the world and kind of the lens through which you approach your work.

Leslie Martino:

Okay, well, I feel like to tell the whole story of my why starts in my childhood. Because I try to make those connections, you know, as I’m growing and developing and I’m working with children and some of the things I notice, I start noticing and remembering about myself when I was younger as well. But I’ve always loved working with children and I’ve found myself doing that in some capacity, even when I myself probably could still be described as a child, a teenager, loving younger children and working with children. But when I finally realized that I wanted to teach, which coming to that decision involved a lot of reflection about my childhood, about my brother, about my parents and education, I was very traditionally educated. My parents are from the Caribbean. They came to this country, with a very strong sense of education is very important. They instilled that in us. but at the same time, my mother was the type of learner that really invited wonder and curiosity and imagination into learning. And some of my best learning experiences were not in that traditional setting. They were at home with my mom. My dad did work a lot. So I said to my mom, she was home. She was present a lot. And of course, she was also working in the school. So our summers were just spent together. And those are my fondest memories. And when I decided that I wanted to teach, I started to work in these educational settings that were very varied at the beginning. So I saw a lot of different styles of education and things. 

But then I started to really place myself into environments that were doing things a little bit differently with children, I would say. And they were considered a little bit more nontraditional. And they were doing things like project -based learning and mixed-age classrooms and the schools themselves visually even looked different. And in my formative years as a teacher, that is where I spent the most time. And I think that had a lot of influence on me in the way that I see education, in the way that I see children. And I enjoy the opportunity to really connect with students in a very meaningful and deep way that I don’t think other teachers in other settings have an opportunity to do simply because the time isn’t there or the work that you’re doing doesn’t allow for that type of connection. But in that connection, I was able to see children grow and develop and explore their interests and I could see their strengths and we were encouraged to talk really descriptively about children and look at them through a lens that was focused on their strengths, not their deficits. And that was very exciting for me. And it was exciting for two reasons, because I saw the children in those environments thriving, but I also knew that I was thriving. And I was able to slowly explore things and come to understand things in my own time being supported by my colleagues in that space. So it was like a model of education that was happening with the children, but it was happening for the adults as well. And so I knew from really early on that I wanted that for my children before I even had children. And so when I think about my why, that is definitely part of it. 

Today, I am not in the classroom anymore. I am homeschooling my children and supporting parents and even other non -traditional schools, micro -schools and things like that who are interested in different types of education. But that definitely goes into my why. And that didn’t necessarily make things super easy when I wanted to do this with my own children. A story that is something I always share is that when I first started homeschooling my children, it made me have to really figure out if I really believed all the things I’ve always said I believed. Because all of a sudden, I was working with my own children and not everybody else’s children. The stakes suddenly seem higher for you as a parent. And so that was something difficult that I had to go through. So all of that kind of goes into my why.

Debbie:

Thank you for sharing all of that. And on that last point, I feel that so strongly, especially having a child who has just launched in some way. But for so many years, I’ve had to just say, well, this is my child’s journey. And I’ve had to really put my money where my mouth is in terms of what success looks like. It’s hard to really, when the stakes feel high, as you said, our society is really giving you this feedback constantly to really be forced to dig deep and like, is this really what I believe and to lean into that discomfort. So I really appreciate you sharing that.

Leslie Martino:

Yeah, not to mention, you know, my own children. Although I had experience working with children who are differently wired in the classroom at home, my own children, do I really value this way of education? And also in light of some challenges that we were facing. And I say challenges not because the children were challenging, you know, but it was was the challenge was for me, like I was learning how to see them, how to love them, how to mentor them and support them alongside of some of their learning differences and that was challenging for me at first as much experience as I had to, I felt like really, like you said, it was about putting your money where your mouth is. was like the ultimate experience in making sure the things that I value line up with what I’m actually doing.

Debbie:

Yeah. Yeah, and I also, before we get into your book, I just want to point out you’re the, not the, you’re not the first homeschool parent expert educator who’s come on this show who was an educator in a more traditional setting beforehand. I had Marin Goerss and Angela Sizer who wrote a book on homeschooling on earlier this year and they were both educators in the classroom. And I’m just wondering, what has that been like for you? Do you get any kind of, you know, side eyes from educators who are in the classroom still for the choices that you’ve made with your own kids?

Leslie Martino:

Hmm, that’s a good question. So my journey in education being what it was, when I I talked to a lot of former educators who are now homeschooling, they talked a lot about some of the processes that they had to unlearn, you know, coming home. Some of the things that were heavily emphasized in the school setting and having to learn how to sort of shed some of those same expectations of the children and ideas and beliefs about education. because my own journey in that setting was non -traditional. for me, it was, it looked very different. And like I said, it was about figuring out whether or not I really did believe those things. And I don’t tend to get a side eye from other educators. The work that I do to support people in education are again in those sort non-traditional environments. But one of the things I always say is that the idea of slow, the idea of slowing down in learning, slowing down in education, slowing down in our parenting, doesn’t exclude any type of learner. It doesn’t exclude any type of philosophy in education. So, you know I think there are things worth thinking about no matter what setting you’re learning in or no matter what setting you’re teaching in. So because I approach it like that, it actually surprisingly tends to just simply open up a lot of conversation for people who are in those settings or not in those settings, but thinking about learning or thinking about life or education. And that’s been a little bit surprising and a breath of fresh air, to be honest and having conversations with people about the book.

 

Debbie:

Yeah, I bet. Yeah, and as we were talking before I hit record, there is nothing in your book that doesn’t feel like it would be easily and effectively and supportively applied to any family in any type of educational setting. So that’s a great segue. So I would love it if we could just actually get into your book. So your book is called The Joy of Slow, Restoring Balance and Wonder to Homeschool Learning. It’s a sweet cover. I’m always drawn to cover design, so it was very inviting even just to receive your book and it made me want to dive in. And I found it to be a very compelling and thoughtful resource, again, for all families, whether you’re traditionally educated, homeschooling, unschooling, whatever that is. As a way to get into the book, will you tell us about the impetus for it? What made you realize I have to get this out into the world? And as part of that, tell us what it’s all about.

Leslie Martino:

Sure. So, I really felt like it was important to get this out there for, I guess, for a few reasons. One, this is the, all of the ideas in the book are things that I have been passionately talking about and sharing about for a long time. And I felt like sometimes I would find myself frustrated because I felt like I could only give a small piece of the equation here and a small piece of the equation here. And then it just dawned on me that I really need to write a book to sort of package this the way it all sits inside of my brain, you know? Because there are different elements and different pieces that I think of and that I consider when it comes to slowing down education or restoring balance and wonder to learning or joy in our parenting. But I don’t necessarily think, you know, I don’t want people, I didn’t want people to walk away from this book thinking, well, I have to implement every single thing in there in order to experience this joy, or I have to, you know, do everything to slow down. You know, that’s not what I’m saying at all. And I felt like I needed somewhere to really amplify that message that no, this is about figuring out the things that you value as a family, leaning into those things and slowing down enough to be thoughtful and intentional about the way that you mentor your children through this journey of life. And holding on to the pieces that really resonate with you, forgetting the rest, you know? But really just giving it all somewhere to sit and live so that people could reflect and read it slowly and do the work to allow themselves to figure out where they sit inside of this idea. And so that’s why I really wanted to get this book out there. And so when I think about the idea of slow, some of the elements that I talk about in the book that are part of it are about when it comes to learning and when it comes to education, it’s that idea of letting learning unfold a little bit more slowly than we’re used to, letting it unfold a little bit more naturally, because there’s value in understanding things deeply, knowing things well over just sort of shallow perusal of all of this information that we are bombarded with in this day and age. 

And then, when you’re responsible for curating a learning environment, whether that’s in this classroom or whether that’s at home, just focusing on doing fewer things better. And that could be in really big ways and that could be in small ways too. I have a child who really enjoys cooking and he really wants to be a chef is what he says. And he was asking, how do I learn to make all of these things and how do I learn to do this and even just taking that idea, okay, well let’s focus on doing just a few things really, really well. And then over time you can expand your repertoire, but that idea can be so small and it can be so big at the same time. And inside of that, so again, the idea of SLOW is about honoring a child’s interests and looking for where their passions show up and respecting the time it takes to really cultivate authentic skills. Sometimes we say we want children to do something really well or know something really well and then we give them like two weeks to do it. And it’s like that’s more like a two -year process but you know just a lot slowing down enough to realize that learning sometimes takes longer than we are giving it. You know, we sort of have this pervasive messaging that says that all of this learning has to occur from the ages of zero to 18 and then done or at least what we’re responsible for anyway. I pause because I don’t often remember my age. I’m a 47 -year -old adult who is still learning things and who is still growing and processing some of the same information I was processing as a 12 -year -old. So I just think that it’s not fair to children to tell them those kinds of things. Doing work that’s meaningful and inside of that doing work that’s meaningful is just taking the time to marvel and be amazed at something. We study some really amazing things even in school, but we don’t have enough time to react to the things that we’re learning. Naturally respond or to make connections. Those kinds of things take time and it requires tackling subjects with a bit of dynamism and flexibility. Things can’t always be placed inside of a pretty little box. Even when you’re using a curriculum, you can’t. And so part of that slow learning is also just being.

Being willing to be patient as a parent, patient with your own unfolding understanding of your children, patient with your children’s own unfolding understanding of themselves. We are all growing. We are all learning. And I think it’s supposed to feel messy and imperfect. And slowing down and sort of muddling around in the muck of it makes you realize that we’re not after perfection. just the process is more important than anything else. So is connection and developing relationships and finding joy in those things. You know, I always think that word enjoy literally means to be in joy, you know, and so living inside of that imperfect place, like joy encompasses a lot of things. It encompasses pain, encompasses challenge, it encompasses fun, it encompasses, you know, joyful is when we are living a life that’s aligned with the things that we intrinsically value and the joy comes from that, but it doesn’t mean that things are perfect. I just find that there’s so many opportunities to live a joyful life with a family and connection and love and partnership. So Sloan encompasses all of those things.

Debbie:

I love it. I already feel like this is a little therapy session for me as we’re having this conversation. Thank you. There’s so many things that you’ve just said that so deeply resonate with me and I know will resonate with the audience. I wrote down some of the words that you just said, which I love so much. Well, first of all, joy. What an incredible word. It’s one that we don’t often, again, associate with education or learning or parenting. Messy. Marvel, imperfect, connection, meaningful. So these are all such incredible words. it’s such a reminder about, to me, you were saying those words and describing this process, how learning is those things, but learning is not necessarily what’s happening in most traditional settings. What is actually happening in traditional settings because it feels very disconnected from what you just described.

Leslie Martino:

Yeah, that’s very true. I think that in traditional settings often the things that actually build in wonder and build in imagination and build in surprise and all of those wonderful, good, feel good kinds of words and curiosity, the things happening often in those traditional settings, there’s not the space. Unfortunately, there’s not that space for those things to live for those things to exist, for those things to be cultivated. And I think that it requires, you know, one of the things that I think we have to do when we say that we want to invite those things is that we have to rethink how we conventionally conceive of things like progress and things like success and time. Or even what a subject scope and sequence looks like. Sometimes we want to do things, just lockstep and make things very linear. And I get it. I get it. get it. There’s a lot of people to answer to in education. At school, you send your child to school. You send your child to this place. And the place has to ensure that they’re doing something with their time, right? Like that they have to answer to the children. They have to answer to the parents, have to answer to the powers that be. And so they think the best way to do that is just let’s do things really linear linearly and is that a word? And let’s check boxes and show these boxes are checked so your child has learned. And you can almost see how that has happened, right? 

But then unfortunately, we also say that we want to develop a lifelong learner or we want to develop a child with critical thinking skills. Or we say all of these things that don’t match what it is that we’re actually doing. Because I think that one of the things that, one of the ways that you recapture that delight and depth that are really hallmarks of meaningful learning is that you have to make space one, this is one way, you have to make space for a child’s interests. And so what does that mean in an education setting? Well, to be blunt, I think it means making space for a child’s interests and calling that school, not the extracurricular activity. So that’s a pretty bold thing to make space for and time for. a lot of people, you say that, and they’re like, well, how are you going to do everything else? And sometimes I think that, for parents who do have their kids in those traditional school settings. It’s about making space for those things at home, if that’s not happening at school. Do you know what I mean? But I think that we need to include elements like challenge and choice and risk and adventure and holding a sense of playfulness about those experiences, because learning is inherently fun, especially when we flexibly seek to experiment with the ways that we can captivate learners, whether it’s ourselves or whether it’s our children. It includes hard work. It includes success. It includes failure. It includes play and relaxed alertness and deep work and deep thinking. It includes all of it. But I think that when we say that, to say that it includes that, then we can’t use it as punishment. So if a child is failing or if a child is struggling or if a child is being challenged in traditional settings, we look at that and we say, well, they’re failing. I’m like, no, that’s just the feedback we need to keep going and adapt and move on. It’s all part of it. So that’s why I say we have to rethink how we can conventionally conceive of things like progress. And nurturing wonder and imagination is also embracing other elements like surprise and flexibility. 

And when I say surprise, when you build in surprise and wonder into learning, I always go back to, I know I quoted the book in my book, but I always think about, think it’s, Bored and Brilliant or Reclaiming Wonder maybe was the name of the book. And, you know, when you want to be surprised, you, it’s a matter of honing your attention and being primed for whatever comes next, you know, it’s like, you have to be willing to be surprised, right? So how do we encourage our children to do that, to hone their attention? That’s not something that can happen quickly. If you are going to hone your attention around something, that means you’re going to plan for pauses in the things that you’re learning. It means that you’re going to try to make connections, go out into your community, see things you’re going to read widely. You’re going to relish stories. You’re going to have real conversations with kids, not like the kinds of fake conversations where you’re drilling them and firing off questions to them and wanting them to give you the right answer. A real conversation where there’s honest exchange, where you’re not the know-it-all, where you’re learning from the child, where the child can say what they think and feel without fear of judgment, like a real conversation. Do you know what I mean? So I feel like building in surprises, all of those things. And that is like a total rethinking of what education is. And also I think it’s about nurturing flexible thinking. So, you know, that’s like, that word always comes to mind when I think about the greatest openness that there is for learning. And that flexibility in your thinking, you’re applying new ideas, you are intellectually curious. So you’re slowing down and you’re making time for curiosity. And I always think about, you know, like I think I gave an example in the book of this too when a science teacher, right, they do this like really well. Like they make, they do this experiment. You picture them in front of a group of kids and they have this experiment that they do and the kids are like, wow. And they start asking questions like, well, how did that happen and why? But that image of, you know, inviting a curious response, you know, just not being so quick to answer all of our children’s questions, living in that middle ground of not knowing. And, and, you know, and even your, that’s uncomfortable, you know, like even your not knowing. A lot of times children ask a question, adults want to answer. but what do you do? What, what do you do? What you do with what you don’t know is exciting. And that’s that middle place that mucky places are the fun place to live in. It’s where real learning really exists. 

Debbie:

You really like this work, I can tell. You’re so lit up right now. I know, I love it. I’ve taken so many notes and I could take this conversation in like 20 different directions. So really there are so many different things that I, and I’ll just tell you a little inside behind the scenes of my podcasting processes. When I do this, I scribble all these notes and I have to write these symbols for myself so I can train my brain and eyes where to go next. I don’t even have a system, so it’s really messy. But what I wanna say is that, first of all, this nonlinear approach, this interest space, this strength base, all of these things are what we talk about all the time here at TILT because it is the way that really works for neurodivergent learners who are definitely asynchronous and can dive deep into areas of interest. often need a lot of time to explore. Curiosity is such a hallmark of the way that they might navigate learning anything. so that’s why I appreciate that you said this is in, know, whatever kind of educational environment your child is in, these are things that we can do as parents of neurodivergent kids and to really support them in discovering their interests and getting curious and kind of using those or leveraging those interests to find out all kinds of things about who they are and what they care about and all that stuff. So I love all of that. I actually want to go into slow a little bit more. I mean, your book is called The Joy of Slow, but, and again, I love the word slow and shout out to my friend, Simone Davies, who is the author of The Montessori Child, The Montessori Baby, and The Montessori Toddler. But she’s all about slow and how do we kind of really make space and room for our kids to lean into wonder and to kind of navigate the world kind of on their own terms. say more about what you mean by slow and maybe as part of that share some a couple of ways that we could even today after listening to this episode incorporate some slow into the way that we show up for our kids.

Leslie Martino:

I think that’s, I know it’s something that comes up in my mind a lot when I think about slowing down. Giving kids the space and the time to explore their interests is something that’s not just when they’re older and you know that they definitely have an interest. For me, that’s something that starts from the time that children are very, very young. And it’s just this idea of there’s an educator who used this term following after. And it’s just as the adult in that situation following after your child and looking at the things that they are drawn to, their strong interests and preferences, which tend to actually abide for a really long time once children really discover what those things are. But so when they’re younger, it’s about having time in the day where it’s not about rushing to activities maybe, but just being home and saying, my child interested in playing pretend? I’m talking about really young children here. Are they interested in reading books? Are they interested in helping me in the kitchen? Are they interested in drawing and painting or playing with different materials like play doh or clay or sand or just about anything. Empty cardboard boxes, just children love to just explore and to slow down is to create the context for all of that to occur. So as a parent, it’s about setting up your own life so that you have the time to do those things and space to just breathe.

I think that we often, especially when children are younger, we try to just fill the space and create some sort of a schedule for ourselves because parenting in those early years can be very difficult and it can be challenging and we just need something to do with the kids every, every day. But inside of that, I think there has to be like, I call it like margin and just, you know, lots of space cushioned into all of those things to feel internally slow. I equate that with peace and safety, but I also feel like it’s time to not be rushed, know, to not, to have your child making a mud pie and to not have to say, all right, clean it up because I have to go to the grocery store. You know, it’s like, just uninterrupted time to do what you would like to do. So that’s an example of a young child. And as children get older, they start to develop varied interests. And also, it’s still important even for a teenager on the other end to make time and space for that kind of thing. My daughter is an artist, and she spends hours and hours. I mean, I think sometimes more time than people would think just dedicated to this passion. And there has to be some time when it’s OK for her to do that, when I’m not saying, OK, hurry up because I need to get to X, and Z with you. And so I think that that idea of slow has to incorporate time for interest.

It’s easy to say that with your mouth without really looking at whether or not your time that you’re spending at home says the same thing. And then I think when it comes to learning even other traditional subjects, it’s a willingness to not, I say this in the book, but not cover the subjects, but uncover them slowly. So when you cover something, you feel responsible for just including it in your course of study. We’re supposed to do this, so let’s do it. Let’s study it. But when you uncover something, you’re like, you can uncover it quickly, or you can uncover and be surprised, or you can uncover it slowly. You can peek under. can, you know, you can uncover it and turn it upside down and inside out. And so when I think about a topic, for example, or a field of study, when you’re uncovering it, you want to go beyond surface level understanding. You are taking an academic area and or taking an event and saying, well, OK, how would a geographer, you know, want to explore this topic. How would an artist look at this topic or a filmmaker look at this topic? Because you’re trying to pull it apart in different ways in your mind. What do we’re studying this art, but how do professionals in the art in this particular art field, what do they think it’s important to even explore this area of art? You know, it’s just that idea, it’s asking questions. Maybe that’s also a good thing to equate it with. Slowing down is just a willingness to like, I get visual images. So I have this visual image of a piece of Play-Doh. It’s like stretching it out. What are all the things inside of it when you stretch it out? You have to ask yourself a lot of questions to get there. And I like doing that. I like slowing down long enough to ask a lot of questions because it’s in the asking of the questions that you get closer to an understanding and sometimes it invites more questions and sometimes it invites more ambiguity. But it’s that turning it around and upside down and inside out and slowing down enough to do that. I don’t know if that’s, hopefully that partly answered your question.

Debbie:

Yeah. As you were answering that and talking about this, asking of questions, it made me think of Julie Bogart’s work and raising critical thinkers. And I know that you refer to Julie in here as well. And there’s so much alignment there. And I just want to mention that because if you’re listening to this episode and this is really sparking you, go to the show notes page and make sure that you go back and listen to the episode I did with Julie as well,  which was another one of my favorite conversations. This is becoming one of my favorite conversations I’ve had recently. So thank you for that. let’s, I know we’re running a little long, but I wanted to just ask you about the chapter in your book. It’s called Learning in a Different Tempo. It was so in alignment with what I know serves and supports neurodivergent students. And you talk about embracing surprise, flexibility, and spontaneity. And so could you just talk a little bit about how those elements benefit our kids? Then, you know, even how do we kind of create the room for spontaneity in our very busy lives?

Leslie Martino:

Well, want to, I’d love to start there actually with that because spontaneity is one of those things that, you know, when people think about it, they think that automatically, I’m sure there’s thoughts that come up when you think about spontaneity. My goodness, how am I supposed to be more spontaneous? I have so many things to do, you know? And I think that part of spontaneity is important, but one of the things that I’ve learned about spontaneity is that you still have to make space for it. You still have to create room in your life for it. If you’re looking for this element of spontaneity, you have to be open to it. Right. So that means that when that moment comes up, like, should I spontaneously do this or should I do this? It’s like, no, OK, I’m creating room for this to allow this. So it’s, you know, because if you’re not open to it, you’ll often just continue to shut it down. So one of the things that’s interesting about spontaneity, when I was looking through the dictionary and searching for a definition of it, one of the definitions I found was proceeding from natural feeling or native tendency. And that really struck me because one of the things I immediately asked myself is what would a natural response be in an educational environment and just parenting if you were uninhibited by worry, pressure, or other constraints. And I know for me, I say this in the book, but I would be more engaged in the moment. I would be interested in doing things quickly or slow or quick. Whatever the work warranted for, I would just be more present and engaged in the experience.

When I think about inviting that level of spontaneity into your life, it’s also about saying, how can I create room to just have a more natural response to things? I think we don’t even realize that the responses that we have to things are even rushed. I like to think about it like I believe I do tell this story in the book as well, that my, my youngest, one of my younger twins, we were reading a book, we were reading a story and we were very moved by this particular story and at the end of it, everybody was just silent. The book ended and everybody was silent. And he said, have you ever noticed how when you enjoy something like that or something moves you, you just have to take a long breath? And I was like, Yes, yes, I do understand. know, there’s a very natural, that’s a very natural response. You go through something difficult, go through something challenging, something moved you, something’s really exciting. You know, you pause for a moment, you want to do that. So sometimes I think spontaneity is also just allowing room for those kinds of things. And that can happen in different ways in different kinds of contexts, you know, not, it could be as simple as not rushing through dinner. It could be as simple as watching a movie together and then just lingering and reacting to it for a moment, you know, and sometimes for my family, that means we’re arguing about our opinions about something or just enjoying that moment of being together and it’s a natural response or before we rush to the next thing in a learning environment, you know, that’s the same.

How do we naturally just linger with material that we’ve interacted? I like journaling, and so sometimes I invite that as a process into some of the things that we do. Journal about it or just think before responding. There’s a book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, that I absolutely love talks about the kinds of creative responses that we have to all kinds of life situations that we have learned and practiced through drawing, because drawing causes you to see things differently. And so sometimes I also relate that to spontaneity and the natural responses that we have to things. Sometimes we need to allow ourselves more creative responses or a chance to look at something, look at a problem upside down or to see the white spaces in between the definite objects. I know that I’m talking so like, know, metaphorically in a way, but like you can take that and use that concretely in things that you’re learning or things that you’re doing or a problem that you’re trying to figure out. What are the things that I haven’t seen here? What are the things that I haven’t considered? What are the things that I’m missing? What do you see that maybe I don’t see? How does someone else see this that’s not the same as how I see it? There’s a lot of ways to invite that sort of gray area or white space area into things that you’re looking at. And I think it’s allowing time, slowing down and allowing time for that kind of natural response that I think is part of spontaneity, not always just like spontaneously deciding to do something or go somewhere. That’s part of it too, but that is definitely, definitely part of it. So that chapter is all about, I do give lots of examples of ways to invite surprise and flexibility and curiosity and wonder and imagination and flexibility, spontaneity, into learning. So I do hope that people definitely go and read that book, but I hope that that sparks other ways for people to imagine for themselves their own ways that they could do those things and invite those things, because it’s not that chapter specifically wasn’t just a prescriptive unfolding of how those elements can be woven into learning. It hopefully sparks your thinking about ways that, OK, OK, how can I do this in my own life or how can I do this in my own experience, learning experiences?

Debbie:

Absolutely. And I loved that story that you just shared with us about your son making that observation after finishing the book. I got chills when I read it in the book. Kids are so wise, so lovely that they remind us about the things that really matter. But I love this word, linger. That is such a powerful word when thinking about this. The word that came up for me when considering the way you describe spontaneity is also just being nimble, like being nimble to go with what’s happening and just making the space for that slowing down. as we’re talking about this too, so much of what we explore until parenting is how do we kind of fortify ourselves so that we’re resourced enough so we have the capacity to take that pause, 

you know, whether it’s dealing with a challenging situation or being present enough to linger and to take that deep breath together after finishing a book or getting into a lively debate after watching something together. So I just so appreciate so much of what we’ve talked about today and this kind of framework and way, it’s really a way of life. Again, your book, The Joy of Slow: Restoring Balance and Wonder to Homeschool Learning. It’s really so much bigger than homeschool learning. It’s really a way of navigating life as a family.

Leslie Martino:

And you saying all that made me think of something else I wanted to share. There’s an element for parents, for us as parents. I think we need to lean into the element of playfulness a little bit more in our parenting. And I think because we love our children, because we want to get things right because there’s no rule book out there that’s just telling us how to do it all. And we find that we’re constantly figuring things out. Unfortunately, we lean into things like control to get a handle on things when it doesn’t really achieve the results that we’re looking for. But when I say playfulness, I think we have to allow that element of playfulness and how we are figuring things out to also be OK. We don’t have all the answers. We’re not perfect people. We are very much walking out this imperfect process with our children. But part of the idea of play, and I do actually talk about this in one chapter, part of the idea of play for adults is doing things that have a little bit of challenge built in and being able to meet, you know meet those challenges and explore those challenges. But playfulness is something that we really do need to capture because we often work really hard and the things that we’re working at start to feel a little bit more like drudgery instead of something that’s life -giving or something joy, you know, joy -filled. And I think that we think that, you know, our idea of like that playfulness, like, let me try this, let’s see if this works or that seems really risky because it seems like that’s time wasted or it seems like that you know, somehow something, someone will suffer in that process. But I think that’s exactly what we need to be able to play with our set of circumstances and to figure things out. Like if we look at that process as, no, no, it’s a joy. It’s a joy. we get to figure this out together and to hold that with an element of playfulness. I feel like I know that that serves me greatly as a parent.

Debbie:

So good. What a great note to end this on because honestly, I feel like we could talk for hours, but I’m going to respect both of our time and we’ll wrap this up. But before we go, can you share with listeners where you would like them to engage with you, how they can learn more about your work and social media, whatever that is?

Leslie Martino:

Sure. Definitely check out my website. You can find me at leslimartino.com. When it comes to social media, I’m most active on Instagram and my handle is Leslie Martino. And I’d love it if you checked out the book, The Joy of Slow, Restoring Balance and Wonder to Homeschool Learning. Email me, join my email list, come find me. I’d love to chat.

Debbie:

Awesome. Thank you for that. And yeah, listeners, I really do recommend checking out Leslie’s book. Again, I found it so supportive. This conversation is just a little flavor of what you’ll get when you read the book. So I’ll have a link to that and all the other things that came up in this conversation as well as where to connect with Leslie in the show notes page. So thank you. Thank you so much. Congratulations on the book and thank you for everything you shared with us today.

Leslie Martino:

Thank you so much, Debbie. This conversation was really nice. Thank you.