Angela Sizer and Maren Goerss on Homeschooling & Thinking Differently About Learning

Debbie:

Hey Angela and Maren, welcome to the podcast.

Angela Sizer:

Hello, thanks for having us.

Debbie:

Yes, I’m excited to have you on the show. I haven’t done an episode about homeschooling in general in a long time and I get a ton of questions. So I’m excited to get into your book and yeah, I’m sure that many of my listeners are familiar with your homeschool and refined podcast, which has been a great resource for for so many years, including a great resource for me personally. So tell us a little bit about who you are, how you came together to be collaborating on the podcast and on your work together and now your new book.

Angela Sizer:

Okay, Maren and I have similar stories. We’ve been friends for a really long time. We met in college. So, you know, years, decades, decades. And we both decided to homeschool around the same time and we live in the same area. And so we, you know, you know, hung out together, talked about it a lot, talked about our ideas about education and homeschooling because we were both former teachers who decided to move into homeschooling, which, you know, felt really weird to us and different and rebellious. And so we had all these really, you know, important ideas about how kids learn and, you know, how kids should be educated, you know, about playing all the time. And so we would talk about that together. And then, I don’t know. Well, in 2016, we decided to start a podcast so that we could talk about those ideas with a broader community because we really wanted a community of people who we could bounce ideas off of, learn from, where we could learn from them, they could learn from us. So that was really important to us. We started this podcast in 2016 and we’ve been doing it ever since. Myron, do you have anything to add to this?

Maren Goerss:

You said it so well. I think that we, you know, one of the reasons why we started the podcast too was because we were like, well, we kind of feel like we’re doing this alone. Just the two of us were in this, it felt like a very, I don’t know, very separate thing from so many other people that we knew. And so we just thought, I know, we know there’s other, there are other people out there who are homeschooling for the same reasons as us. And it’s not necessarily a religious reason. It’s, you know, we’re just, you know, we’re really looking at the whole child and our family. And, and, we just wanted to connect so much with those people and we couldn’t find them necessarily in our neighborhood or our city, but we knew they were out there. So that’s why we started the podcast.

Debbie:

Yeah, and you guys started at the same year I started this podcast. So congratulations. I mean, we’re kind of pioneers, you know, in the podcast space. And so homeschooling, it kind of I want to even set the tone for this conversation because it is a complex topic. We all do it for different reasons. You know, a lot of listeners of this show are what I would define as reluctant homeschoolers. That’s what I certainly was. I became an honored, joyful homeschooler, homeschooling parent, but it took a while. And so, I don’t know, I just kinda wanna create an overall foundation for this conversation in terms of how do we even think about homeschooling? Because I think as soon as you mention the word, people are gonna do their own, you know, interpretation of it. So could you set, I don’t know if this question makes sense, but set a tone for us in terms of the homeschooling world that we’re gonna dive into today.

Maren Goerss:

Well, I think we both had to kind of definitely almost deconstruct the idea of education and what learning really is. And I think that’s been the work since we started homeschooling. Has been like a lot of, and these are just a lot of the components of our podcast and our book too, which is giving ourselves and our kids credit for all the learning we’re all doing all the time. Everything’s learning. And so, you know, like some of the work is letting go of the formal academic, you know, guidelines or even expectations that we put on some work on our kids and changing that to, you know, like really celebrating all the learning that they’re doing right now today.

Angela Sizer:

Yeah, that’s really good. That’s really good. And I feel like when we started, you know, when you have a child under five, that’s kind of what you’re doing. I mean, that is what you’re doing. And so then there’s this expectation when your child is going to be in kindergarten or first grade or whatever that, now the real learning happens. Now there’s a big change. They’re going to school. This is really important. And I think we both, I mean, I’ll just speak for myself. I came to the realization when my child was five that I wanted to keep doing what we were doing because I saw all the important things we were doing during the day, all the important play and all the like sibling interactions and family, you know, dynamics and things that were happening during the day was so important. And if she was going to go to school, she would miss out on that. And in fact, she did go to school for, for kindergarten half days and it was very taxing. Like it was very taxing on her and, and she only went half day and you know, and she loves school. She loves school and loved her teacher and loved her friends. And it wasn’t, so it wasn’t really about that. It was just about, I, you know, later we learned there’s some neurodivergence, with her too, but so I don’t know. It just was not the right setting for her. And I felt like trusting myself and my child had to be at the forefront. And, you know, cause I had this feeling like, you know, this little voice in the back of my head saying like, is this really right? And it was weird because I was a teacher. So it was weird to have that feeling, but I was like, I don’t know. I think, and I had been reading books and learning. And so, I just decided to trust the voice and trust my child, to know that learning can happen like Marzap all the time and that it doesn’t have to be in a formal setting.

Debbie:

So I think it’s interesting that you both have backgrounds in education and were teachers because two things that I’d love to hear your thoughts on them. One is there are people who think, well, I’m not qualified to be my child’s homeschool teacher because I’m not a teacher. So you guys are. So I just want to put that out there. And you also, for a period of time, opted out of a traditional educational system that you were both part of as teachers and then made that choice. And so I think that’s just so fascinating. And I’m curious to know a little bit more about your own personal grappling with that choice, or was there a backlash from peers, and just a little bit how you reconciled that.

Maren Goerss:

Right. I would say, being a teacher often made it actually difficult for us to homeschool, especially at first, because I know I did. I know, Angela, I know that you went through this too, where we had to really almost, we had to change our whole mind shift, you know, have a big mind shift on again about how learning actually happens and what learning looks like is a big thing. Like it’s not always the outcome, it’s not always the paper, it’s not always the, you know, the assignment. It’s always in the process too. It’s always in this process that we most of the time don’t give our kids credit for. And also I think, you know, we both came to teaching probably because of lots of our characteristics about ourselves. For example, like our empathy, you know, our, you know, like ability to connect with, with kids. Just like a lot of these, a lot of these characteristics about ourselves that, you know, we saw and we thought, well, we’d probably be good at teaching, you know, this might be a good fit for us. But, but I think, and I write, we write about this in the book that a lot of things changed when we became teachers. Like we weren’t able to always use some of our biggest strengths in teaching because we had to do a lot of paperwork and write a lot of lesson plans and go to a lot of meetings and do a lot of things that weren’t necessarily in our wheelhouse or things that we even valued the most. So I actually think it may be helpful if you’re not a teacher and you didn’t have to go through all that before homeschooling.

Angela Sizer:

Yeah, and I would just add, I think like, I think, you know, a lot of homeschoolers are insecure. I mean, we’re all insecure about what we’re doing. I don’t want to generalize, but that’s what I thought I was, you know, like, is this the right thing for my kid? Am I going to be screwing them up? You know, I’m going against the grain. Everybody I know thinks I’m weird or whatever. And so to look at somebody and be like, well, you’re a teacher. So of course you can do it, I think you know, makes them feel a certain way, but it’s short sighted because, you know, my teaching background, I have a license in science, high school, high school, middle school, middle school, high school science. And so that’s not the same as working with my five year old. It’s different. And I feel like the skills that I learned from teaching were not the same that I used in homeschooling. And like Maren said, sometimes it was a hindrance because I had to really get rid of all of my ideas about what learning should look like. And that took all the years. I mean, I’m still doing it. I’m still deconstructing or, you know, like rebuilding my thoughts and trying to think critically about how kids learn. So.

Debbie:

Yeah, yeah, that makes total sense. And, you know, I appreciate you talking about, you know, going against the grain. That’s actually something we’re talking a lot about in my Definitely Wired Club this month. That’s the whole theme of unconventional paths. And so not all families are homeschooling, but it is really hard when you are forging your own path and you’re being judged by other people. And there is a lot of trusting the process and you write about trusting the process in the book and that is not easy to do. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Like what does it mean to actually trust the process and why is it so hard and messy sometimes?

Angela Sizer:

I mean, well, I feel like all of parenting under that umbrella of process because the truth is like, we’re doing we’re all doing the best whether we homeschool send our kids to school or something in the middle or with whatever we’re doing in parenting, whatever things decisions we make for our kids or whatever. We are just trying our best with the information we have in the moment and of course, we all just love our kids so much and they’re just so special and we want the best outcome for them. But the problem is we don’t know. We don’t know the effects of our actions or our decisions. We don’t know that. And so I feel like a lot of parenting is trusting yourself and your intuition, which is really hard because we’re just so new at it. We’re all new at this. Like, you know, we’ve never had a five -year -old, never had a six -year -old, never had a seven -year -old, whatever. You know, we’re all just new at this. We’ve never had our kid. And like, it’s so daunting to be in charge of this person’s childhood. And so whether you homeschool or not, you really have to just trust your intuition, trust your child and what they are telling you and just cross your fingers that it’s all going to turn out. And you know what? It’s not all going to turn out. You’re going to make mistakes and you’re going to wish you had done things differently. But that’s life, you know, that’s life. And I think whether you homeschool or not, like there’s a lot of trust in the process because even if your child is in school, you might wish you or you might wish you’d done a different school or you might feel bad about some decisions you made or whatever, even if it’s mainstream. So I think a lot of parenting, that’s what just a lot of parenting is.

Maren Goerss:

I love, there’s a meme that says, but does the process know that I’m trusting it? Which I love because I’m like, you know, there’s a lot of pressure on the process, but actually that’s, I think it’s better to put, you know, put your trust in the process versus like trust in the outcome, which is just so there’s so many, things that could go wrong to make the pro the outcome, not what you want. You know, in so many ways. I mean, you can’t control so many of these things that could easily get in the way of this outcome that you have in mind. I mean, that’s like, you know, trying to guess the future and you don’t know that, but you can trust the process. That’s today. That’s here now.

Debbie:

That’s great. I love that meme as well. So Angela, you said we all want the best outcome for our kids, and Maren, you were just speaking about whether we can control the outcome, but how would you define a good outcome for our kids?

Maren Goerss:

Yeah, I like to think about just, just in my own coaching, I ask parents this too, like, what would you like to see, you know, what characteristics would you like to see in your kids as adults? And I think that’s a great question because those are things that you can, you know, even think about today. It’s not like they have, they would know their math facts. Okay. You know, we don’t have to worry necessarily about that or all these like very detailed things about an academic accomplishment. But if you think about it as characteristics or just the way their life is set up, like I would love for my kids to feel fulfilled, to find work that is in line with their values and their vision, and they have a balance in their life of work and hobbies and, you know, they’re healthy, they’re taking care of their mental health, all those kinds of things. They have good relationships. They’re able to, you know, maintain, you know, good relationships, those kinds of things. Those are the things that I kind of like to think about as, you know, success.

Angela Sizer:

Yeah, that’s, I was thinking similarly, but like more, are they able to be fully themselves? And that is not necessarily what I want for them, but like what they want for themselves. Are they curious about the world? Do they have things there they love to learn about? They’re excited about whether that’s work, job, family. And that’s really hard because, you know, truthfully, we do have expectations of our, you know, of our kids. Even with their like hidden or out there or whatever. And it’s hard to let go and just really trust, really want, really want for them what they want for themselves. 

Debbie:

Yeah, yeah, great answers, great answers. So I’d love to kind of start to talk about your book, which I realize I haven’t even said the name of your book yet. So let me do that. So your new book is called Think Differently About Learning, a Home School Where Children and Parents Thrive. And as I was reading your book, I was lucky enough to get an advance copy. Thank you for that. But as I was reading it, I was just, of course, like, my gosh, if I had had this, you know when I, you know, I homeschooled my child from grades three through eight and had no idea what I was doing. And first of all, it was very validating. I’m like, I did do that. I got that right too. But it’s such a, it’s so supportive, very, you know, practical, and you tackle a lot of big kinds of questions about what, what’s the goal of education and what’s happening in schools. And so I’d love it if you could kind of just talk about an overview of the book and what your goals were for putting it out there.

Angela Sizer:

Okay, well, you know, we’ve been doing this podcast for seven, eight years. And the book, and we talk about a lot of things on the podcast, but the book was a chance to really think deeply about our thoughts and ideas about education and about homeschooling and about parenting and everything in a way that we can’t really do on the podcast, because the podcast is like 30 minutes or whatever you can’t really delve deeply into your thoughts. And so it was actually really great for us to be able to do that. We were able to synthesize everything that we talk about well, we couldn’t put everything in there, the best things, our best ideas and stuff into this book. And I would say it’s really you kind of you did a good job of describing it is for homeschoolers, but it’s also for anybody because it’s about parenting and education, too. And there’s a you know, one of the sections is for homeschoolers, but really, we just think it’s applicable to everybody because we do talk about things like connection and how important that is. And we talk about neurodivergence and we talk about mental health and just some really big things that we think are applicable to everyone, no matter where your child goes to school. And then we did want to lay out, you know, if you are homeschooling or if you’re going to choose to homeschool or if you’re trying to decide what that might look like. And like you said, Debbie, we wrote the book that we would have wanted because, you know, at the beginning we made so many mistakes. Well, all throughout, we’ve made a lot of mistakes. We did a chapter on that. So we made a lot of mistakes. And so like we gave ourselves the book that we would have gave to everybody, the book we would have wanted because we didn’t have that resource. 

Maren Goerss:

Well said. Yep. That’s it. That’s great.

Debbie:

Well, I just have to point out. So the book is broken down into three parts. There are four parts, actually. The book is broken down into four parts. There’s foundations, homeschooling nuts and bolts, beyond academics and then questions and more. And in the foundations section where you really do look at school and education, the systems that most families are engaging with, which I thought was great and it was very balanced. You know, I think a lot of people feel that homeschoolers are, you know, bashing traditional educational models. And it wasn’t that. And you in fact talk about, there are a lot of benefits to having your kid in a traditional school that a homeschooler doesn’t necessarily get to take advantage of. So I appreciated that. And I loved that your chapter two is called Seeing Children as Humans. So say more about that. It was just, it’s like, yes, of course, but it seems profound in some ways.

Maren Goerss:

It seems profound. Yeah. I mean, I think that we kind of overlook that thought when we’re making decisions about education. To be honest, I think that most of the time it’s about, well, what do we need from our high school graduates? And then we work backwards and then we’re like, okay, so by kindergarten, they need to be able to read because that’s what we want from them versus like where are they, you know, developmentally ready? What are they interested in learning? Which seems so outlandish to even think about, you know, when you’re making policy about what our kids are interested in because it’s so not about, it’s so separate from policy. But interest is more important than anything you can write on a piece of paper about what kids should be able to do. It seems so frivolous, but it’s really so much like, if you want kids to do it, produce anything for you as a country or, you know, as a society, you really have to, look at the child and ask, what are you interested in doing? You know,

Angela Sizer:

Yeah. And just beyond interest, like you are a human being and you deserve trust and you deserve respect. And I think starting from, well, you know, all of childhood, they are not given, they generally are not given that we aren’t taught as parents to give them that we are taught to tell them what’s up and tell them what they’re doing. And I feel like most of their day is planned for them by an adult. You know, most of a child’s day, certainly from age five and on, is dictated by somebody else who thinks they know what’s best for them. And I just thought we thought it was important to get back to the foundation that children are human beings. And like a lot of times you can ask the question, would you say this or do this to an adult or your friend? And not that parents shouldn’t have some authority and make some important decisions. Of course, we, you know, have fully formed brains and, you know, sometimes you need to do that. But like, once you really peel back and see that they are human beings deserving of your trust and respect, kind of your vision for what they’re going to do all day changes.

Maren Goerss:

Yeah, definitely. And I think we use it as an excuse that our kids don’t have fully formed brains, that, you know, well, then now we get to decide everything. And what we’re not doing is preparing them to think on their own then, to be their own person, because eventually they will have developed brains and they can’t, you know, they need practice to be able to, you know, to, you know, make choices on their own and think critically and all those things. And so we have to be accepting of their not fully formed brain and meet them right where they’re at so that they can not feel shame for where they’re at right now. And that’s really huge.

Debbie:

Right. It’s not a deficit or a negative that they don’t have a fully formed brain. It’s developmentally appropriate that they don’t have a fully formed brain. Yeah. And I think what you’re both speaking to is exactly why your book is for everyone, right? Because this is, you know, this idea of trusting our kids, treating them with respect, you know, and you talked about planting the seeds for them to be critical thinkers. I just released an episode with Julie Bogart, who I know you guys love and appreciate. And we talked about dignity, which also is a word that isn’t often associated with childhood and how children are treated. So I think this is such an important conversation for all families. And I wanna talk about traditional models before we really get into some of the nuts and bolts that you share. You wrote a lot about high standards, that’s kind of something in a traditional school that we’re, you know, it’s like the gold standard, right? We have high standards. So, and how they influence a kid’s experience in school. Can you talk about what does that mean and why is it so important and why is it the wrong thing that we’re kind of seeking?

Maren Goerss:

Well, I think as soon as you create a high standard, then everybody’s really just focusing on that one thing and forgetting about all the other amazing learning that could happen. The potential is gone for pretty much 99 % of everything else. and then also everybody works towards that thing, but mentally it’s like, in their mind almost unattainable because it’s so high, right? So some people make it, but most people don’t quite, you know, or, you know, like maybe there’s, there is a limit to this standard really. and then, and really nobody goes over the standard, you know what I mean? So there’s a cap. There’s a cap to it. Right. And so, and then as soon as, as soon as somebody, as soon as they reach the standard, then they’re like, I’m done learning. I’m done thinking, this is great. Now I get to, you know, go do whatever I want. And so it’s very, it very much separates your life from learning. and it creates the, you know, kind of the rat race, I think, you know, it creates this, like, I have to work, work, work and like not listen to my body, not listen to myself. and just do and, and work and produce. And that’s where my value is. Cause I get celebrated for doing that.

Angela Sizer:

And I think it makes us, us teachers, administrators, policymakers, adults, politicians, whatever, feel really good to say we have high standards. I mean, you know, it’s a phrase that, who can argue? Yeah, we have high standards. We have high expectations of our children. They are going to be very successful and smart if they know if they do well in these four subjects. I just think it sounds good, but in practice, it’s really not. It’s like Marin said, it’s teaching us to think only of the outcome. When learning doesn’t happen in the outcome, it happens in the process. And it’s not teaching children and adults to enjoy and love and value the process. It’s teaching us to only value the outcome.

Debbie:

Mm -hmm. Yeah. Well said. Yes. So, okay. I want to pivot then and talk about, first of all, there’s so much we could get into in your book. So I’m going to just kind of pull out and ask kind of the bigger questions that I think my listeners would want to answer us to, and probably questions you get all the time. Okay, so in part two, you’re talking about homeschooling nuts and bolts and you start by talking about the common obstacles to homeschooling. I thought that was very exhaustive, you know, the reasons why parents feel that they can’t and, you know, as a reluctant homeschooling, homeschooler parent, I definitely had my own reasons why this wasn’t going to work. But I know that, and I hear this from parents, you know, either a single parent who has to work full time or families that don’t have that flexibility to have a parent on the ground. So just for listeners who are in that situation, who in an ideal world would homeschool, but they don’t know how to make it work, is there any kind of ideas for parents who are stuck that you’ve found over the years of maybe out of the box ways to think about homeschooling?

Angela Sizer:

Yeah, well, I think it starts with, you know, thinking differently about what you think of as school or then homeschool, because we think about school as like, Monday through Friday, nine to three, or whatever. And we do these six subjects or, you know, something similar. And so I think when you can deconstruct your way of thinking about learning and education, and you see that learning happens all the time. It’s easier to think about homeschool differently as well. And so some of the obstacles might be like, I don’t have the time to fit it all in. I can’t be with my child Monday through Friday from nine to three. And so when we think differently about things, we can think about other times of the week, fitting in short little bursts of lessons with lots of play. 

Maren Goerss:

And I think like you can think about, yes, the time of day and you know, what learning should look like can look different if you’re, if you’re thinking about it differently and you’re really giving yourself and your kids credit for all the learning that they’re doing. So, you know, it might be the swim team that’s learning, you know, your science museum pass is learning, right? You know, what are the other things in your life that you do normally anyway? What can you count as learning? And how can you maybe give yourself a little, cut yourself a little slack on the nine to three or the not getting to the math lesson? Another great thing is we’re living in the age of online everything. And so, you know, There are so many things, anything you don’t want to do, you could outsource pretty easily.

Angela Sizer:

Yeah, I was going to say the same thing. We’re living in a time where there’s so many supports. I’d love for there to be more, but there’s just so much support, like so much more than when we started. And outsourcing is a huge, you can outsource, you can outsource in lots of ways, which we have a whole chapter on that, but whether it’s online or in person or whatever, and those things count, you know, just because you’re not sitting there from nine to three with your child at the dining room table, filling out all their, doing their curriculum or their worksheets. That’s not the only way homeschool can look. There’s lots of different ways it can look.

Maren Goerss:

Which I hope you’re not doing anyway, even if you could, you probably won’t do it to be honest. Exactly. Yeah.

Debbie:

Yeah, yeah, I think, you know, you talked about de -schooling and or deconstructing for a lot of parents listening, who with neurodivergent kids, there might be some, you know, detoxing that has to happen after negative school experiences. But I think that is a really important period of time to honor and it can take a lot longer. And you talk about small and slow, like it can take so much longer than we think because there is so much unlearning that has to happen for us to really realize. Like I think when I was homeschooling, in the beginning, I was very much like, well, we have to achieve this, this, and this. And I had my planner and my curriculum and stuff. And I had to keep reminding myself, wait a minute, we can do whatever we want. And every time I would say that, it felt more and more freeing. And I believed it more and more. But it takes a while to really start to really have your eyes open to what’s truly possible.

Angela Sizer:

Yeah. And it takes a while too, because you might see changes in your child. You might see positive changes. You might see that my child is really thriving. And that takes months or a year or whatever for you to see that. And that also gives you some positive feedback. And yeah.

Maren Goerss:

Absolutely.

Debbie:

So I love the chapter that you have on guiding principles that specifically when I was reading that, I was like, I wish I had had access to that when I first started homeschooling. And I think, you know, for me personally, that biggest learning curve that got better over time was just really leaning into the fact that we are designing this school together. Like this is our school, we’re collaborating. And the more, you know, with each passing year that became more and more of the ethos of our school. So I’m wondering if there are any guiding principles that were most significant for you, like maybe you each share the one that was like the game changer for you.

Angela Sizer:

Well, I think one of the most important ones for me, and I know Maren too, so sorry to take this one, Maren, is inclusive and expansive thinking. And I feel like, I know this is both of us, but I’m just going to say to me, for me, it was really important to always, myself as the adult, to always be open to new ways of doing things and new ways of thinking. And because my children are different from me and the way that they learn is different from me. And if I impose my ideas and preferences on them, that is not going to be best for them. And some things might feel really out there to me or maybe something I’ve not heard of before, or maybe something that other people might dismiss or look down upon or whatever. But I think me staying open to including my children’s whole selves was really essential. Essential because we’re doing something different from school for a reason. Everybody has one or many reasons that they’re doing something different from school. And if I wanted them to have a uniform experience, they could go to school, you know? But we’re doing this differently for a reason. And so it behooves all of us. Life is so much better when we include all perspectives and expand our thinking. And that requires me to stay open.

Maren Goerss:

That’s so good. I would say, I mean, I love that. And I think probably, you know, my driving force in homeschool and the biggest guiding principle for me and my family is, you know, following our interests. And I will say because of all of our neurodivergence in our family, like, I don’t know how learning can happen any other way, to be honest. It’s just like, again, like what I said earlier, it sometimes seems so frivolous, like what you’re interested in or what you want to do. But honestly, with ADHD and lots of other things going on here, that is, you’re unstoppable sometimes when you’re interested in a topic. And I see that in my kids even today. And even in school now, like they’re going to school and they’re still following their interests. They’re utilizing that driving force now, still in so many ways. And it’s really exciting to see. And that’s something you have to like, experience and know how it feels to follow your interests. Be curious, you know, follow that curiosity, deep dive on something, you know, give yourself, give, you know, during homeschooling, it was like we would give ourselves lots of time and space to just to just kind of hyper focus on things sometimes. And it was just the most amazing learning ever. It was so great. And so it’s really nice to be able to actually feel that and feel celebrated by doing that, you know, because it really doesn’t get celebrated, you know, often in a traditional classroom.

Angela Sizer:

And adults, we do that as adults. Okay. Like we do that, right? We are interested in something and we dive deep and we’re excited about it. We learn more and we, however, we’re going to learn more about it. That’s how life is. And like our kids get to 18 and then we’re like, okay, what are you interested in? What are you interested in now? What do you want to do? And they haven’t had practice if they’re in a traditional system of doing that. And so it’s really, you’re right, Maren. It’s such an important skill and practice for your whole life.

Debbie:

Yeah, I imagine we’re all doing what we do today because we like to dive deep into things and explore our interests. So Maren, you just mentioned neurodivergence, which is a great pivot, because I do want to talk about that. And you wrote in your book that your kids have some learning disabilities, including ADHD, dyslexia, dysgraphia, and sensory processing differences. And you just said, I don’t know how learning can happen in any other way. And that really resonates for me. I’d love to know any other thoughts about the biggest benefits of homeschooling specifically for neurodivergent kids that you want to share.

Maren Goerss:

Yeah, so many, so many. I mean, I probably, maybe another one of the biggest ones is just not feeling less than in a learning environment. I think neurodivergence really is, I think, so much a gift. It really is. And it really is treated like a problem in schools. It really is, for the most part. And so, you know, my kids never got that message growing up that it was a problem. It was really like, it was more a chance to understand themselves better. And so they got to know their own way of learning, their own way that they like, the way their brain works best. They learned to listen to that. They learned to, you know, we, we kind of, you know, created our days around that and it felt really good. And, it doesn’t mean it was always easy necessarily. but it wasn’t ever, you know, shaming or, or like felt like I got to fix this. It was more like, how can I use this in a better way, maybe, how can we utilize this strength or how can we support this challenge versus, you know, like, it’s just amazing. Like my kids, you know, some of my kids now even have IEPs and it’s so much about like, it feels so unimportant. The goals that they set are like, they will have to, you know, I don’t even know, recognize this many words, 80% of the time. I’m like, my gosh. I mean, I cannot think of a worse way to learn than to put it in that way. Anyway, so, but I know they have to do it. They have to, I mean, it’s legal. So, but anyway, so yeah, my kids just learned that the way they learn is just fine. We all learn differently and we all have to figure out what works best for us. 

Angela Sizer:

Yeah. And we talked a little bit in the book too about how, you know, it can feel a little, when you, if you have a child who’s neurodivergent, sending them to school might feel really like, it might feel like the right decision because there are special ed teachers or, you know, therapists or whatever people who are trained to work with kids like yours. And you might feel like I don’t have any training. I don’t have any training in this. And so it feels, it might feel like the right decision. Like I can’t just pull them out and me, you know, me, untrained, uneducated me is going to do this. And to that, I would say the teachers at the school, the specialist teachers, they’re doing their best and they are doing, they’re wonderful people who do their best, but they are also working in the system, which has the standard and your child is not fitting into that standard. And so what they’re doing is a response to your child not fitting in that standard. And so they’re trying to help your child meet a little bit of that standard. And what you could do in homeschool is just completely different. It’s celebrating your child and helping them thrive in the way that they learn best, not in relation to this standard. And also I would say like, you are your child’s parent and you know them the best. And so even though you don’t have special education training or occupational therapy training or whatever, you are the best, you know them the best and that counts for much more than the people with special training. Not that you can’t get special training sometimes, you know, if that works for you, if you need that or whatever, but I don’t want parents to feel like they can’t do it because they don’t have the special training.

Debbie:

Yeah, I really appreciate you sharing that. So, okay, there’s so much that we’re just not gonna be able to get into today, but I do wanna just point out that you have a chapter on, well, you share your biggest mistakes and best tips, which I totally appreciated and also related to a lot. You have a chapter on mental health, which I so appreciated. I wasn’t expecting to come across that chapter in a book about homeschooling, but you’re talking not just about the kids’ mental health, but our mental health as the parents, which was so important. You’d also tackle screens and tech, which is another concern for all families. But before we wrap up, I guess I’d love it if you could each just say the, or you could do it combined, the question that you get the most. You know, like what is the biggest thing that people are like, yes, but how do I do X or this could never work because.

Maren Goerss:

I think most parents still ask about curriculum. So yes, but just tell me what to teach. Just tell me what’s the best thing to teach. And so I actually think that’s, I think it’s fine to ask that there’s nothing wrong with asking him that because yeah, we all need some support in some way and it’s nice to have a curriculum, you know but I, you know, we always talk about like, don’t let make the curriculum work for you or don’t. Yes. The curriculum should be working for you. You shouldn’t be working for the curriculum. So it’s there to support you. when you, when, and if you need it or want it, you know, if it’s working for you and if it’s not working for you, then it’s not for you. It’s not the right thing. It can, or maybe it works once a week for you. That’s great. Just use it when it’s the right thing for you.

Angela Sizer:

I was going to say that’s really good, Maren. The other question we get a lot is some version of, my child won’t xyz, or my child cries every time we do math, or my child won’t, you know, I don’t know, sit down at the table, or something like that. You know, like, or it’s really hard because we’re always fighting. Me and my child and I are always fighting about homeschool, and that’s all, that’s very understandable. We’ve felt those things, you know, very relatable. And I would say when that happens, it’s important to remember that it’s probably not your child’s fault or problem. it’s probably something you need to think about about what you’re doing, which is very hard to think about in here and come to terms with. But, you know, if your child cries every time you do math, you need to rethink the math that you’re doing, the way you’re working together. Maybe it’s time to, maybe you take a break from it. Maybe you take a long break. Maybe your child needs to mature. Maybe they need a different way of doing math. You know, there’s just lots of things you can think about for how that needs to change. But your child is sending you a message and you need to hear that message.

Debbie:

Yeah, so good, so good. So, okay, so I’m just gonna wrap us up here. Your book is called Think Differently About Learning, A Homeschool Where Children and Parents Thrive. And just first of all, I thought it was fantastic. If you, as a listener, if you are considering homeschooling, you are homeschooling, or you’re just a parent who wants to better understand how to support your complex learner and really parent them in a way that is, you know, prioritizing respect and trust and connection and dignity and all of those things. I highly recommend checking out Maren and Angela’s new book. So can you let listeners know where they can learn more about you and connect with you?

Angela Sizer:

Sure. We have a podcast called Homeschool Unrefined and we have episodes out now and our book comes out June 18th and you can get that wherever books are sold. So thank you for having us Debbie.

Maren Goerss:

Yeah, thank you so much.

Debbie:

Gosh, of course. I’m so happy to share this conversation and listeners, as always, I will have links to all the things in the show notes page. So definitely go check that out. So thank you again, Angela and Maren. And it was a great conversation.

Angela Sizer:

Thank you.