In this episode, we dive into the world of Homeschooling and why we chose to homeschool our 3 children. We answer the top questions and concerns people have when it comes to deciding whether or not to homeschool their kids. Questions like… How do homeschool kids get socialization and not become anti-social, how can a homeschooled teen get into a good college, how can I teach my kid if I wasn’t that good in school myself, and what are the different types of homeschooling? This episode will open your eyes to the wide world of homeschooling and help you to see just how powerful and liberating it can be for you and your child.
Resources Mentioned In This Episode:
Ep #0: Welcome To The RockStar In Life Podcast – Get To Know Us
Homeschooler's Guide To Getting Into College
Education.com (Resources For Homeschooling)
Udemy (Online Courses: Learn Almost Anything! Not Just For Homeschoolers)
Mean Girls Movie Clip – Homeschoolers Are Freaks
Transcript: (Read Time: 45 Minutes)
Siri Shakti: Welcome to the RockStar In Life podcast where you learn the secrets to unleashing your inner RockStar so you can make the world your stage. What's up RockStars In Life? It's Siri Shakti and with me, I have my co-host.
Dr. Dan: Dr. Dan is in the house.
Siri Shakti: Well, today we have a great episode planned for you guys. I'm really looking forward to this one because this is a subject that is so dear to our hearts. This is something that has become such a big part of our life and our children's lives. Today's show is going to be called Why Homeschooling?
Dr. Dan: Yup, why homeschooling and you've probably heard, I mean if you have, I'm assuming that you've heard some of our other episodes and I know in the very first one, episode zero, welcome to the RockStar In Life podcast, get to know us a little more and that when we actually talked a little bit about our own personal stories, we mentioned home schooling a little bit and also I believe there's an episode five, we talked about why motivation sucks.
We also went a little deeper into the story, but I don't know if you want to share what led us into homeschooling, I guess probably be better to start with why … It's important to know for those of you that haven't listened to those other episodes of why we are so … We just jumped right into homeschooling.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: I know for me and I'll let Siri Shakti just brush over it real quick as well, but for me I was always getting in trouble in school. When it came to taking tests, I would just scribble in the boxes, the ABCD and I would just scribble like an A then a C, then a B, then a D and I would just go through the whole little Scantron thing or whatever those were called, but I think it was called Scantron and with the number two pencil, remember those?
Siri Shakti: I remember, still use them. [crosstalk 00:01:57]
Dr. Dan: Yeah, I would just do that because when I would read things, my brain just would not process the questions. If somebody was to ask me a lot of those questions, I probably could have answered them like I would have been probably gotten B's, maybe C's, but somewhere around there and especially if I could ask them a question, “Oh, so what do you mean by that question? Oh okay, can you ask in a different way? Oh, here's the answer.”
But no, you're throwing a time limit, you're making me read it and for me it was just really tough so I was labeled a problem child and because of that I was always being sent to the principal's office, I was always getting detention. I don't think there was any year I didn't do summer school.
Just a big waste. I remember and I mentioned this that when I was in I think it was fourth or I think it was fourth grade, I think I mentioned it was either fourth or fifth grade. My teacher was a Science teacher had said to me or had said to the class we're going to have a pop quiz today and it's going to be graded on a scale all the way from a 100% down to Dan's score.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, that's not cool.
Dr. Dan: Actually Daniel because I went by the name Daniel so to be proper to tell, to tell the full truth makes a Daniel. That really sucked. Yeah, it really sucked. Lots of bullying in school, lots of things like that. I did not enjoy school one bit to this day and we'll get into this a little bit later, but to this day, the only positives that I can look back and be grateful for in school was making me so … I don't know if I want to use the word, I guess committed I guess. It hardened my skin like we've talked about. I don't think in these episodes, but in the past, me and you, we've talked about like toughing your skin with rejection when it comes to sales or living your truth even.
Siri Shakti: Right.
Dr. Dan: It's being so tough that no matter what somebody says to you, it just bounces off you, whatever. I've had worst bringing on and that's exactly … That's the only thing that I find a value that I got from school and I'll tell you what, our kids can learn that without having to spend that many years of that much torment, right?
Siri Shakti: Yeah, I can remember so clearly when I first met you when we got into conversations about like our past in school. Right off the bat, you were like, “I hated school.” You were so clear how much you hated school and …
Dr. Dan: I hated reading too.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Because I considered reading and learning all part of school still and because of that, I didn't want to learn anything else. I wanted to be a personal trainer. I wanted to be a body builder and even then they forced us to go to take certifications and courses.
Siri Shakti: Right.
Dr. Dan: We had to take a test and I know you were worried about taking that test too because you had to learn the body and all that stuff and the biomechanics and the anatomy and all that stuff. For me, even I went to the National Academy Sports Medicine, I had to go to San Francisco, spend some time there and go through that training and that was even harder and I can't believe I actually passed. I don't know how I did because I remember to this day I was sitting in the class, unfortunately did I or did I not? No, I think after that point, I realized.
In that class, I had the hardest time taking the test because they had those tables because it was at a hotel, we had to take the test and they had the tables with the cloth the hotel set up for you. Somebody's leg kept hitting one of them. They're shaking their leg and I came in and it was like. It was so subtle, it was like the tinniest sound you could hear, but trust me, when I came to me reading any questions, I cannot focus whatsoever.
Siri Shakti: Oh God.
Dr. Dan: This day, I don't take tests anymore, but when I had to last for real estate, I actually brought ear plugs.
Siri Shakti: Right.
Dr. Dan: I would pop in ear plugs and that's pleasant hearing yourself breath when you're … Because you can hear yourself breathing and yawning and making noises.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, yeah, yeah and we've talked so much about this in our past. For myself, to be honest, I didn't hate school. I was one of those kids that loved school like in elementary school and part of junior high school, but I was not the typical book smart kid. For the most part, I got very average grades when I was younger. I remember in elementary school they had a meeting which I thought it was so silly. They had a meeting with my parents and me in there as well and they were basically just talking over me saying, “Your daughter is struggling. She needs extra help.” My dad was so upset that they were having that meeting in front of me because I remember very clearly feeling like when I was hearing this by my teachers who I respected, I felt like I was stupid and that was … I think that was probably the first seed that got planted that I thought like I was dumb.
As far as grades, I was very average, but I was such an artist. Whenever I would do like a book report or something, my art would always stand out and my stories were so great, but my punctuation and my spelling just sucked. I would always get these reports back with red ink all over the place saying I needed to work on my punctuation, my spelling, my grammar, but I would always have a little note saying, “But overall, the story was beautiful and your art was exceptional.”
Dr. Dan: I remember all those red marks and …
Siri Shakti: Oh God.
Dr. Dan: Man, my punctuation, grammar, verbs, nouns, adjectives, for some people, they look at them, they go, “Oh, that stuff's easy.”
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Well, not for me.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Not for you as well. We do Mad Libs and it says like, “Oh, use a verb, use an adjective, use a noun.”
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: I always have to read those little cheat sheets because I can't commit that to memory. It's not as important to me because when do you use that besides using it for Mad Libs? You got spell check, you got grammarly plugins and add-ons and stuff, your browser, you got all these different things now. What's crazy, even before we had that stuff. When I wrote my books back in 2006, I suck at punctuation and a lot of grammar and spelling words, but how did I write two books in just a few weeks?
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: How did I do that? Well, I hired somebody. I paid them 10, 15 bucks an hour that was an expert at that stuff and they did it for me and they were happy to take that money.
Siri Shakti: Well, I love that you're saying that because everyone has different opinions on this, but I know you and I Dan have this common feeling that everyone's good at different things and editors are editors for a reason because they're good at what they do and they wouldn't have a job if all these were good at all of that.
It's so funny because even in the homeschooling community, I've brought up this point before and some people agree with me and some people just say that's pure laziness. I'm like, “Whatever, it's not laziness.”
Dr. Dan: Well, it makes me laugh though and I didn't realize this at the time was I had hired, I'd actually hired one person to do the editing and to check everything and go through it and proofread the entire thing. She had a masters or something or she was … She graduated with all that stuff. She knew how to do all that stuff.
Siri Shakti: Right.
Dr. Dan: She gave me her colleges and all that stuff, then I also had a friend that I met through Tony Robbins and she also offered, I think she offered either after I'd already hired the girl or before, she suddenly say, “Hey, I'll take a look at it.” I was like, “Yeah, sure. Go for it.” I think I offer or she offered from other book that I had gotten the other person to do yet and then the other person had reached out and said, “Hey, I'd like to do your other book too.” I said, “Okay, fine.”
I let them both do it. I figured what's the big deal, I'll just … I'll credit them both on the books. I went and I was looking at the books … I was looking at the notes and everything and there was so many conflicting things between the two and both them have masters and were experts in this stuff.
It was just insane and then I think I started … I think I might have asked or I Googled it or something or back then it might not have been Google, I don't know, what was 2006? Was that Google?
Siri Shakti: That was Google. Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Okay, I thought it was Ask Jeeves or something.
Siri Shakti: No, it's Google.
Dr. Dan: I don't know if you remember, did you remember that one Ask Jeeves?
Siri Shakti: No, but I know [crosstalk 00:10:46]
Dr. Dan: It was like a little butler and you were supposed to ask him questions and he would come up with an answer and there was also …
Siri Shakti: Really?
Dr. Dan: Yeah, and there was also … Yeah, there was also a web crawler or whatever and there were some older ones but …
Siri Shakti: Was I born then? Because I know you're so old compared to me.
Dr. Dan: Yeah, I think you were a pollywog. No, there was a Lycos, I think was another one and there was a bunch of them … But anyways, AltaVista, I'm just thinking about all those fun ones, but anyways, I looked it up or I had researched it and the answer was that there is no … They're both right. How crazy is that where you're like, “Oh, well, it could both ways.” He was like, “Seriously?”
Siri Shakti: Right.
Dr. Dan: That makes it even more confusing.
Siri Shakti: That's where all the confusion lies.
Dr. Dan: Exactly.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. I think they would be really valuable to just touch on why we chose homeschooling. I know we've discussed this before, but for those of you that haven't heard those other episodes, I want to get into this so you understand where we're coming from. When our daughter, our oldest daughter who's now 16, her name is [Cailyn 00:11:56], when she was … Well, it really started when she was about three.
People on our family were noticing that she wasn't really talking as much as other kids her age and there was already some concern growing, not so much in us, but just certain family members that …
Dr. Dan: It made you concerned.
Siri Shakti: Well yeah, they put that little concern in there, started to grow that there was something going on and that we needed to do testing and things like that. At one point, we eventually ended up doing the full testing and at that time, really the only diagnosis was that she needed speech therapy which I already knew there was an issue with speech at the time.
That most likely she was somewhere on the spectrum, but at that time, there really wasn't as much talk about autism and Asperger's and things like that as there is nowadays. With that said, we took that information and the whole time they were doing the testing, it was not sitting well with me. Just the whole process felt so, just my intuition was saying, “This is not what you want for your daughter.”
I didn't like the constant talk about labels and “Your daughter is this, your daughter is that. This is her struggle. This is her strength.” I'm like, “She's like four years old right now.” Anyways, we just kept going down that path because …
Dr. Dan: I remember, I'd asked them and I remember I lost faith to them when I asked. I said, “Now, that you guys are labeling her this, then what does that allow us to do?” And they was just like, “Oh, well then we just know.”
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: I'm like, “Okay.”
Siri Shakti: Well, then we just know …
Dr. Dan: What if you didn't know? Are you telling me you wouldn't be able to teach her the things that you were going to go through because you didn't know?
Siri Shakti: Right.
Dr. Dan: It's like, seriously.
Siri Shakti: Well, what we did get with that was the IEP. When we ended up putting her in mainstream public school for kindergarten and she had an IEP and that just lasted a few months because I can remember …
Dr. Dan: Did you explain what IEP is?
Siri Shakti: Well, it's Independent Educational Plan. It's a whole plan of attack of what special resources your child's going to receive. Each kid has a kind of individual. Here we put her into the public school and the one thing that really struck me was the class felt very unnatural to me.
Here were these children that in my eyes, yes they seemed like they had differences, but to me, they just looked like gifts. They just looked like they were just different than other kids, but it wasn't a bad thing and they were all put together in this one small space and it was … I felt like they were being pigeonholed like you're this and you're that, here's your title that we've given you.
There was a constant conversation on a daily, on a weekly basis about what your child is and it just did not sit well with me. I didn't want her to grow up having this label attached to her because you and I had both had experiences being labeled like you with ADHD, me, they said, “Oh probably dyslexia, she has challenges reading.” And things like that.
Those titles stuck with both of us and I can't speak for everyone in the world. I'm sure there's people out there that didn't have that same experience like we did, but I knew for us and for our daughter that that was not the right path. We ended up discussing it and we took her out of school.
To be honest, we had no real plan of attack of what we were going to do. At the time, we knew nothing about homeschooling, I remember we started looking into private schools like I was really interested in Montessori, Waldorf schools which are amazing schools, but at the time, we were not that well financially.
To put that amount of money into a school wasn't going to be feasible for us. We just couldn't make that work. What were we left with? Well, I don't remember exactly how it all came about, but it just happened organically. While I was trying to figure out our next step, I decided, “Well, she's not going to be in school so I better start doing some stuff at home with her.”
Little by little, I started just working with her here and there. It was really just this whole world of information that I opened myself up to and at the beginning it was just real simple. I'd read to her. I worked with her on her ABC's. It was learning her numbers, things like that which all these milestones came much later for her compared to other kids her age.
Dr. Dan: Yeah, but the difference is we didn't like … Yeah, we didn't label and we went stress about it. Yeah, of course we stressed, but we didn't let her see the stress. We didn't have the family meetings and the constant like oh, you're doing wrong or you're so far behind everybody else or anything like that.
It just really boils down to … We talked about commitment in the past episode and with commitment, that's what we did is we said, how did we start homeschooling, we said, “You know what? We're committed to not putting our kid, well, kids now, our kid's lives and education and lives. It boils down to their lives, not just their educational lives in a stranger's hand.
Somebody that in their hands that they're getting paid a paycheck and we're like relying on them to shape our children and not even then because you have … They have so many kids in their classroom. At the time, I think we had like 30 kids in our classroom and I've heard now it's like how many you said like in some places?
Siri Shakti: Oh, I've heard up to 50 kid in a classroom.
Dr. Dan: That's insane.
Siri Shakti: Now, we are …
Dr. Dan: That's not even … We're not even talking about just in the classroom.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Then they've got PE or not just PE, but they've got, what is it called? A recess.
Siri Shakti: Recess.
Dr. Dan: You got recess and you got lunch. Who's teaching our kids then, right?
Siri Shakti: Right.
Dr. Dan: Who? [crosstalk 00:18:49] It's other kids. It's Lord of the Flies. If you guys have seen that movie. It's Lord of the Flies where they're just out there like in a pecking order. It's insane and we didn't want to do that.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, and one of the things that I remember her, I forgot who told me this, but I just loved it. They said to me the best person who is better to teach your child than the person that gave birth to them which really resonated with me because you think about it, you know your child better than anyone, you know what makes them tick, what doesn't work, what does work and what better person to educate them.
That's the one thing I love about homeschooling is there is not just one way to do this. There is countless ways to homeschool your child and you can get super creative with it. Over the years, I have found ways to adjust what I'm doing with the kids depending on their interests and also, what child I'm working with like just I'm not to go too deep into this right now, but just to touch on it, one of my kids is online homeschooling and she's really independent.
Okay, my other does a lot more work one-on-one with me and so on with my other son too or with my son. He does a lot more with me as well. Each child has their own form of education and in school, all the children are being taught the same way. Yes, I've heard some parents say, “Well, the parents or the teacher sometimes, takes the child to the side and works them independently.” But there's only so much of that that one teacher can do with that many kids.
Dr. Dan: Yeah, and it's not every teacher.
Siri Shakti: Yes, and it's not every day.
Dr. Dan: I know for you as well because we've talked about this, but there's … Everybody can remember one, maybe two teachers that were special, usually it's just one in their life where they're like, “Oh, I remember that one teacher.” They really cared, but that's just one out of how many. They should all be like that.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Again, one of the things that sucks is that their paycheck is horrible and they spend the most time with their kids. They're the one that's responsible for shaping our children's futures. They should be getting paid like doctors too.
Siri Shakti: Oh my gosh, yes.
Dr. Dan: Then you could bring in the best of the teachers.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: People that actually want to do it for a living because they care about the kids, but we are where we are so you got to do what you got to do to take care of your kids.
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: But I mean so … Or you want to talk about like I was going to mention like before we get into the different types of homeschooling …
Siri Shakti: Okay.
Dr. Dan: You want to let's first talk about some of the common questions we get.
Siri Shakti: Sure. Yeah. I'd say the top one that I hear all the time and it makes me laugh now and I'll tell you why it makes me laugh because when I was growing up, if someone would have told me about homeschooling, I would have been like, “Oh, those kids? They have no friends, how will they learn how to socialize?” Really my idea of what a home …
Dr. Dan: Yeah, because they're going to be stuck in the house all day.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: They're just going to see you. You'll be their only friend.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, because we chain them to the bed. They just sit there all day.
Dr. Dan: They're not allowed outside. Yup.
Siri Shakti: No, no, no. This is something I hear all the time and it is a very common misconception. Let me enlighten you here. One thing you have to understand is that homeschoolers, first of all, homeschooling has grown so much over the years. Homeschooling nowadays compared to 20, 30 years ago is a whole different entity.
You have homeschool groups, you have programs, you have countless support groups, things like that and another thing too. The homeschooling children, they normally go out into the world with their parents. When the mother or the father, they go grocery shopping, they run errands, they have to go do things in their day to day life.
Kids go with their parents. What ends up happening is they learn how to socialize and how to be around people of all ages because they're out in the natural real world around people of all ages of all types. My kids go grocery shopping with me all the time and they always have and I take them wherever I go.
They learn how to interact with young people, with people their own age and with adults very easily. For them, they're not scared of talking to adults because they do it all the time. Now, let me clarify here. I'm not trying to say that kids in public schools are scared to … of talking to adults. That's not my point, but let's look at the difference here.
Kids that are in public schools spend about seven to eight hours a day at school which means they are in a classroom or at recess with a group of let's say around 30 or more kids all their same age. That is actually more unnatural than a child that's out in the world talking to people of all ages.
Dr. Dan: Because they're learning from each other.
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: They all don't know anything.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, because they're all the same age.
Dr. Dan: Yeah, I remember some of those conversations as a kid and they were pretty bad. Looking back, I'm like, “Seriously?”
Siri Shakti: Right.
Dr. Dan: I think at one point I thought … Yeah, yeah I think at one point … Nevermind, I won't even go into that.
Siri Shakti: Okay, okay.
Dr. Dan: That's pretty bad, but …
Siri Shakti: Let's not talk [crosstalk 00:24:44].
Dr. Dan: Yeah, we had some crazy talk.
Siri Shakti: Okay, let's just leave it at that.
Dr. Dan: Okay.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, this idea of socialization, I understand where it comes from and maybe it used to be that way a long time ago when I think most homeschoolers has came from more rural type areas but nowadays, no, no, no, this is homeschooling of the future guys.
Dr. Dan: Well, it also depends on the parents.
Siri Shakti: Right.
Dr. Dan: Typically, when I see … When somebody says, “Oh, I know somebody that homeschooled and their kid was all withdrawn and wouldn't talk to anybody.” Or something like that.
Siri Shakti: Okay.
Dr. Dan: A lot of the times, it's … Their parents are like that.
Siri Shakti: Oh right.
Dr. Dan: Their parents don't talk to anybody either so they didn't learn it from homeschooling. They learned it because that's how their parents are.
Siri Shakti: From their parents. Right.
Dr. Dan: There's nothing wrong with it. It is what it is, but it's not the blame of homeschooling.
Siri Shakti: Yes, yes.
Dr. Dan: As far as that goes.
Siri Shakti: Not to say, I'm not trying to say we all have to be extroverts, but the other thing too is as far as making friends, now I will say there has been times in our homeschooling where I felt … I think this happen more with [Bodie 00:25:54] because our son Bodie we tried countless times putting him into different sports and group activities. Our son Bodie, we have finally come to realize how he really likes more independent type activities.
Dr. Dan: Which is how I was too.
Siri Shakti: Right, right, yeah. He really enjoyed like swim team because … That still a team, but it's still more independent than like soccer or football or something like that. He just also started rock climbing which is definitely a very solo type sport, but within that, he's going to be be meeting people.
There has been times when I was searching for what he liked then I felt like, “Oh, he needs to have more time with kids and have more playtime.” The one thing I started doing was seeking out homeschool groups and thankfully there's great homeschool groups. All you have to do is just get online, do a little bit of searching and you'll find once in your area and where we live in Southern California, there is this wonderful one that we go to and there's a few boys that are around … Our son's eight right now. They're around seven to nine years old.
We go there once a week and they just play and have fun and he gets to be all rowdy and do what boys do and stuff. He is getting that time with kids that are around his own age. It's not like he never gets that.
Dr. Dan: Exactly.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: I was actually doing some research myself too when we were talking about this and there was like an article in … actually a few articles I was reading and they were saying like research suggests that homeschool children are actually getting closer ties to the community, relating to people outside of their grade level because homeschoolers learn to be active participants in their neighborhoods and soak up the etiquette of their adult life in the process. It's so true.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Because like you said, we're constantly taking our kids. When kids are in school, we'll take them to Trader Joe's or we'll go to Fashion Island, an outdoor shopping mall over here or we'll just go to the beach.
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: They'll talk to other adults and sometimes, we'll see kids as well or we'll go to Disneyland in the day or Knott's Berry Farm. They're definitely not as busy. They're like 80% not as busy as it is like on the weekends or the summer.
Siri Shakti: Right, which we love.
Dr. Dan: But there are still kids there because kids are out of school somewhere or they're homeschooled as well. They do get to meet other children and play with them and that's … How cool is that? Because in school, you are seeing the same kids constantly. If you're new at a school within a year, you're going to either have seen every kid in there or you're going to meet within just a couple of weeks probably.
Siri Shakti: Right.
Dr. Dan: It's not like you're going to be like, “Oh, here's somebody new to talk to.” But where is in every day life, they see new people. They get to communicate with new people. They might just be like, “Oh hey, are you online or do you know where the closest restroom is or I'd like to order this.” Or whatever it is and that's how real life is.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: As adults, are we surrounded the same couple hundred people constantly?
Siri Shakti: Right.
Dr. Dan: No, we're not. That's definitely one of the advantages right there and then obviously, then it's like not Lord of the Flies and we're not … Kids aren't worried about … We're not worried about our kids getting bullied or anything or even horrific things like school shootings or some craziness like that, but these are just all many reasons that reinforce it for us and people that we know.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think …
Dr. Dan: What are some of the other ones? I know for me, one thing I looked up too is because I've heard … This doesn't come up common, but I think it's important is is homeschooling even legal?
Siri Shakti: Oh right, right.
Dr. Dan: Your kid could get picked up and forced into school or whatever. In California, that's not the case. I have no idea in other states but …
Siri Shakti: Okay, I do. I can't tell you that homeschool is legal in all states, but with that said, there is a variation from state to state of what requirements they have you meet. There is a website that I'm going to be posting the link to and that has such a … It not only does it have all the information on each state, but it has this great diagram that shows you like by colors, like what each state does as far as what they require for homeschooling. California is one of the most lenient ones which works for me.
Dr. Dan: I like that.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. I'll definitely be posting that for you guys.
Dr. Dan: That's why we pay extra to live in California right?
Siri Shakti: Right.
Dr. Dan: Check your state and your in-laws in your country as well because, if you're listening internationally, we have no idea what your country laws are, but you know what? For us, I'll tell you if it was us and we're in another country or another state that made it really difficult for us to homeschool or made it like they tried to make it as impossible as possible, right?
Siri Shakti: Right.
Dr. Dan: I would either complete everything that was necessary to do it or I would leave, I would go somewhere else. I am not going to … There's no if, and's or buts on that.
Siri Shakti: Yes. Same here. I would do that as well. Yeah, homeschooling is definitely legal though in all states, but you just want to be aware of what those laws are like for instance in California, I used to be a part of charter schools which is still publicly funded so everything is just taking care within the charter school and is legal and everything.
Once I stepped away from that and I decided to go off on our own and be a more independent type of homeschooler which we'll get into the different homeschoolings … Ways of homeschooling in just a few minutes, but there's something that you have to fill out which is called a homeschool affidavit and it's really easy to fill out.
In fact, I'll also send the link to that as well and what that does is that makes you a private school, it makes you a legal private school out of your own home. That frees yourself up for being able to teach your kids and create your own curriculum, but knowing that you're doing it legally.
Dr. Dan: When you do that, you can also get some really cool discounts on all kinds of things. I haven't looked into everything, but I know for software like things like Adobe, stuff that can cause like anywhere from $20 a month to $100 every year, you can get some astronomical discount. It's worth it to get it. It's really worth it.
Siri Shakti: That's awesome.
Dr. Dan: Other software and tools as well you can get discounts on to for your kids as a grow and as they learn or if it's something that you need to teach or show them or use to party your teaching. I'm not saying you need any of those tools, but just saying that there's advantages to doing that as well.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Is there anything else you wanted to cover on that? Because I had my next one …
Siri Shakti: Oh no, go ahead, you're good.
Dr. Dan: All right, I had some people ask like and I know you have it on your notes too is like, “Well, how do I start to homeschool and how do I teach? What do I do?”
Siri Shakti: Right.
Dr. Dan: I don't know. Do I just go from 9:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. or whatever the kids are doing today?
Siri Shakti: Oh God, yes, yes.
Dr. Dan: Just sit them in a classroom. I've even heard people say like, “Well, I have problem with that because I don't have a dedicated room to make a classroom in like put a chalkboard in and the ABC's in the wall and give graham crackers and have play things in there.”
Siri Shakti: Don't you remember all those … I think it lasted years of me trying to be like a public school at home?
Dr. Dan: Yeah, I remember that.
Siri Shakti: That was fun, huh?
Dr. Dan: Yeah. I just let you do whatever you do. I was like, “Yeah, you'll figure it out.”
Siri Shakti: I went through this phase at the beginning which obviously makes sense because you're so used to traditional schooling where I felt like I had to have it set up like a classroom, I had to work the traditional hours and there's something that people called deschooling which I'm not going to get totally into right now because I want to have a whole podcast about that, whole episode on it, but deschooling is actually for the parent, not for the kids so much where it's your breaking away from the beliefs and the ties you have with traditional education of having to do things exactly how a public school does.
Dr. Dan: Giving your brain a good washing, right?
Siri Shakti: Yes, yes, like you don't need a little desk at school and everything. At the beginning, I put so much pressure on myself to do that and it was just not working. It was like hitting my head against the wall trying to get that to work. When you're first getting started, I want you to try to set aside the expectations that you need to homeschool just like as if you were teaching a class to a group of students in school, okay?
Dr. Dan: You don't need a dedicated room for this, okay?
Siri Shakti: No.
Dr. Dan: It'd be great if you had one, but you don't need it. We've got room here, but you do homeschooling over the name house. You're like, “Can we do it here?” Go to the … That works best. You were always struggling when you're trying to do it in this one room or this one area and then you can just let go and said, “Okay, fine. You do it in your room, you do it on the bed in our bedroom, you do it in the living room and you just do it wherever. You go to Fashion Island, that outdoor mall and at the tables at the food court.” It's like …
Siri Shakti: When I was little, not so much now but when I was little, I would take a blanket and go to the park and lay it out and they would all do the work like [crostalk 00:36:30]
Dr. Dan: Did you say when you were little?
Siri Shakti: No.
Dr. Dan: It sounded like you said when you were little.
Siri Shakti: Did I?
Dr. Dan: I don't know. We'll have to go back to that. You guys be the judge. [crosstalk 00:36:37]
Siri Shakti: Rewind. Rewind.
Dr. Dan: When I was little, when I was a wee bit of girl, I used to homeschool other kids …
Siri Shakti: When our kids were little …
Dr. Dan: Yeah.
Siri Shakti: Okay. I used to take him to the park and we would sit either at the benches or we would sit on a blanket under a tree and do their reading or their Math or whatever and that was so nice, I cherish those moments, but now with our full schedules with other activities, we don't do that as much.
Dr. Dan: We still do sometimes you do certain things like that but …
Siri Shakti: Sometimes.
Dr. Dan: Or you go to the bookstore and bring your work and stuff or park or whatever and you can do that. It's completely up to you.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Dan: It's nice to get out of the house sometimes.
Siri Shakti: It is. Yes, yes, now do you want me to go into because I feel like part of this as you're getting started homeschooling, part of it is how do I homeschool? What are the different ways of homeschooling that are available to me? Do you want me to cover that?
Dr. Dan: Yeah, let's hold that for one second.
Siri Shakti: Okay.
Dr. Dan: I know there are some other common questions we got because I know it's going to … We're going to go in through that, but just in case people listening or thinking as well before we get into that, how much does homeschooling cost?
Siri Shakti: Oh, yes.
Dr. Dan: It can be free minus the cost of paper, pens. Man, you get so much stuff for free online.
Siri Shakti: Oh my gosh, yes.
Dr. Dan: So many lessons, right?
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: You've bought a lot of courses. You spend like a couple $100 on a Math course, you spent money on a membership, you spent money on all kinds of things, right?
Siri Shakti: Well, with me, everyone's a little bit different with this, but I've spent a lot of money on curriculums that I ended up not even you using. I'm kind of a free spirit in that way so I like to pick and choose from all different resources.
Dr. Dan: They were all free, right?
Siri Shakti: They were all free. At some point, I ended up getting a membership to a website that I love which I'll put the link there as well.
Dr. Dan: Do you remember what it's called?
Siri Shakti: It's called education.com, but it's a very small … It's a small fee. You can either pay for yearly or you can pay monthly. Oh, I love it because they have such an array of worksheets and they even bundle them into like a bundle of worksheets that will cover one subject or one topic that you're working on and I believe it goes from preschool to eighth grade.
I could be wrong, but it's definitely around that grade. It's really nice because on the left side they have it too. You can click what grade level or what subject and it will pop up with all the different worksheets and that …
Dr. Dan: They go from preschool, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third, fourth, up to fifth I guess.
Siri Shakti: Oh, up to fifth, okay, yeah. That one I've just loved over the years. I know it's not free, but it's definitely not that … It's not the same as buying a curriculum for like 500 bucks.
Dr. Dan: You pay like a yearly price or something like that, right?
Siri Shakti: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Dan: Something like that, okay.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Oh wow. Yeah, they have a lifetime price for like $149 or $49, you don't have to pay monthly.
Siri Shakti: Also, teachers in schools use this as well because they have it like for classrooms and things like that.
Dr. Dan: Yeah, it's as little as five bucks a month. Yeah.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, that's been really valuable.
Dr. Dan: That's pretty cool. We talked about like software and stuff like that what you don't, you can get if you want it to be part of your kid's education.
Siri Shakti: Well, I've even found for typing when I was having the kids first learn typing, I didn't want to buy a program. I just didn't want to. I got online and I typed in free typing programs and I'm not certain of the name, but I will get the name of it and put it with our links. I found this awesome free program and they would just do it daily. I felt like it was better than even many of the paid programs out there.
Dr. Dan: Well, I'll tell you as well, depending on the age of your child, but if they're just a little older, I don't know, like eight, nine and 10 and they're interested in learning and above and they're still learning certain things. YouTube is an amazing resource.
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: Heck at any age actually because you can show them all kinds of videos about the world, about history and things like that. They have tons of stuff on there for free. Udemy as well, I think it's pronounced Udemy or Udemy. It's U-D-E-M-Y.com. That is a … They have some free stuff on there, but it's paid courses.
For instance, we bought photography classes, online classes on there and we were going to have our kids go to that as well.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Video stuff, graphic design, how to actually do coding. You can go to a college. I remember I I sat down with a school, I forgot what it was called, but I remember … Actually no, I did go through some classes myself and my parents paid, my buddy got a discount. It was a … I'm trying to remember the name, it was like how to do with networking and some other stuff, computer networking and other things.
I remember they were to be certified in some type of … At the time, it was some big thing and I remember that a lot of the companies would pay like $10,000 per one of these workshop type things that you go for a week or two or three weeks. I don't remember how long it was, but he got me a discount so my parents paid like five or 10 grand or something for me to go to a couple of them.
This is where people like big companies, Fortune 500 companies would send their people to learn stuff and I went through and I was so lost and I was just like oh man, kind of felt just like school again and you had a test and all those other junk. Man, I have taken courses on on Udemy and Udemy and I've went through YouTube and I've learned things and I'd even watch every video and I learned things, how to do technical things that would've taken me weeks, if not months to maybe learn in school that would've cost me thousands of dollars.
Siri Shakti: Right.
Dr. Dan: It's insane. The knowledge, the things that are out there available for us for free or for cheap, the photography course, I think I paid five bucks for.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, exactly.
Dr. Dan: That's an advanced course. It's insane. Your kids can learn how to do coding and stuff, how to create an online app that they can sell on smartphones, on iPhones and things like that. It's just amazing.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, yeah. One thing that came to mind when you were saying that is I have bought … Over the years I've bought maybe two or three spelling curriculums and each of them were over like a $100, $200 and I ended up not using any of them. My greatest resource was going online and printing out free lists of spelling words by grade level on most common words and then I would search spelling games or ways to teach kids how to spell, things like that.
You'll get all these things popping up, showing you all these great games you can play or different things you can do with your child to help them reinforce those spelling words and I found that those were more valuable than any expensive curriculum that I purchased.
Dr. Dan: Yup, and there's free forms as well like communities out there that you can reach out to and say, “Hey, don't we have ideas on how to teach this?”
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: There's so many supportive people or even better, a local group that you can find too.
Siri Shakti: Right, right. I'm not trying to say that all curriculum is bad, no. I have found some that I've loved, but it's just that if you're looking to do this and not have to spend so much money, then there … Absolutely, homeschooling does not have to cost you an arm and a leg.
Dr. Dan: Yeah, it can be free. Okay, the next thing I want to go into is a very common one. I save this one for pretty much because I know that this goes through people's head and we've heard it plenty of times and that is … Well, if my kid is homeschooled or they say to us about our kids, well what if they want to go to college someday or how are they going to get into a good college. Yeah.
Siri Shakti: Don't worry guys. Your kids can go to college.
Dr. Dan: Actually, they wouldn't be able to, it would be really difficult.
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: If you were in a time machine and you went 20 years backwards, then yes it would be, but fortunately you're not. In today's day and age, what's crazy and I actually read a couple articles on this. One of them was on Business Insider and that many colleges are now seeking out homeschoolers themself as homeschooled students tend to be excellent college students they say.
The two articles, one of them on Business Insider. It was actually titled or one of the headlines was Harvard wants homeschoolers and it said that top schools including Harvard, MIT, Duke, Yale, Stanford are all actively recruiting homeschoolers and it's freaking, it's crazy, right?
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: One of the reasons why was because or actually no, no, no, let me back up. I remember the article actually had … They talked about this 18-year-old Claire Dixon I guess it's pronounced that they were accepted into Harvard College, which has an acceptance rate of 5.3%.
Siri Shakti: Wow.
Dr. Dan: That's insane.
Siri Shakti: Wow.
Dr. Dan: When they asked her, they said, “What got you into the most famous school in the world?” That's what they said. “What got you in the most famous school in the world?” And she answered homeschooling.
Siri Shakti: Oh my gosh. That is so cool.
Dr. Dan: Yeah.
Siri Shakti: That is so cool.
Dr. Dan: Yeah.
Siri Shakti: Well, I was listening to a podcast. It was about unschooling. We'll get into this, but unschooling is a very unconventional way of homeschooling your kids. You don't use … You're not really sitting down and doing typical lessons with your child. They learn through the world and through experience.
Dr. Dan: We do that still.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Dan: We mix it a little bit too, but yeah.
Siri Shakti: We mix it, we mix it, yeah, but it was the coolest thing. It was the mom telling her daughter a story and it was just a short little blip. I don't know all the details, but she was saying that her daughter really wanted to go to Cal Berkeley here in California and her mom … At first it was like, “Oh my gosh, we're unschoolers, how is that going to work?”
She had never researched that. Her daughter was determined so she applied, she did what she needed to do to apply for the college and not only do they accept her, but they were just so impressed by what she had to say and her take on things. She really felt like the same thing that you were saying. She felt like her unschooling experience gave her an edge over the other students. I just loved hearing that awesome testimonial.
Dr. Dan: Yup. I love it too. Why don't you go through now some of the different types of homeschooling, ways of doing it?
Siri Shakti: Yes, let's do that. The one thing that comes to mind when I think about our journey of homeschooling, when we first began, I felt like I was entering this giant world that I knew nothing about and when I got online to research homeschooling talk about information overload. It was just … Yes, I love information, but there is such thing as too much information and too much of a good thing, right?
I started to feel the overwhelm striking me and I also felt a lot of confusion because people were talking about all different forms of homeschooling. All I thought homeschooling was is you go into a public school, you get your curriculum and you do the work at home. That's all I really knew about homeschooling.
Let me just open your eyes to … There's four main ways that people go about homeschooling. I'm just going to touch on these. The first one that I'd say most people think of when it comes to homeschooling is where you register with the school district, you … what you do and also you need to check with your school district because every district is going to be a little bit different in this.
Just make sure you do that. What you would do is you would register with the school district, you would get all of your curriculum from them and you would be responsible for making sure that you're doing the work with your child and then usually once a month, you turn in all of your work or I know like I said every school district is different. It could be every week, every month.
Often times, the kids will have access to classes also. I've heard some people to do this form of homeschooling say, “Yeah, my child goes in once or twice a week to the local school and they take some class or they get some help, some extra tutoring type of thing.” One thing about this is because this is through the school district, you are required to do your standardized testing so they'd have to do that in order to stay in this type of homeschooling.
You are also required to keep up on the standards. I mean, you have to be following the exact curriculum that the public schools are teaching. There's no wavering from that.
Dr. Dan: Is that the one that we did for a while and they gave you …
Siri Shakti: No, that's next thing I will be touching on, yeah. I have met people that are happy with this. This just works for them. They like it. For me personally, that that I knew that wasn't going to work so I never ended up even trying that type of homeschooling. That's going through the public school. The second one is Charter Schools and this is what you were just talking about Dan.
Charter Schools are also public, it's through public education, they're publicly funded. You are going to have to do the standardized test and everything. How this works though is there is more freedom in you having more choice over what you want to do with your child. At the beginning of the year, you're assigned somebody that … I wouldn't necessarily as a teacher because they're not teaching a child, but it's a person that's going to be responsible …
Dr. Dan: Like an advisor-consultant kind of person.
Siri Shakti: Yes. Yes. They're responsible for making sure that you're keeping on track, they're going to be collecting your work with most charter schools you meet once a month with that person, you provide a few samples of your work from each subject. The cool thing about charter schools, there's two things that I thought were cool is you not only do you have more access to different types of curriculum because they give you freedom in choosing how you want to teach each subject.
Let's say Math for instance. You can look online and choose from a wide range of curriculums that have different teaching strategies. If your child is more visual, you can pick a curriculum that's more visual.
Dr. Dan: They give you credit. They give you some money, right?
Siri Shakti: I was just going to …
Dr. Dan: [crosstalk 00:52:57] okay.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, I was just going to say that. There is I would say in Charter Schools, you have a lot more freedom in that sense just like you were saying Dan, most Charter Schools will also give you money. Now, they're not just going to hand over a check and say, “Here's some cash.” It's usually about a thousand dollars to $2,000 range.
Dr. Dan: For the year, right? Or something.
Siri Shakti: For the year.
Dr. Dan: Okay.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, per child. It's [crosstalk 00:53:23]
Dr. Dan: There's no strings attached thought?
Siri Shakti: Well, there is. Yeah.
Dr. Dan: We'll give you that, yeah.
Siri Shakti: It's put into a special account and what this money is for is this is going to pay for all of your books, your curriculum, your art supplies, your activities. You can even sign them up for approved classes or sports that are approved through the charter school that will allow you to use that cash to pay for that.
For instance, I know someone that has her daughter in gymnastics and her gymnastics for the year is paid for …
Dr. Dan: But it has to be approved to them.
Siri Shakti: Yes, yeah.
Dr. Dan: It's not like you say, “Oh, I want them to go to the special school, that's the best.”
Siri Shakti: No, no. It has to be once that are approved to them which that gymnastics studio had to connect with that charter school to …
Dr. Dan: Yeah, you can't just pick one and be like, “Well, this is the one I want to go to.”
Siri Shakti: No, yeah. What you were saying the strings attached, one thing I didn't like about it and I didn't know this …
Dr. Dan: They didn't even tell us, did they? Or just we didn't hear or something.
Siri Shakti: I didn't know. They didn't tell us.
Dr. Dan: Yeah, we didn't know.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. At the end of the year, I had to return all my books, I had to return … I remember I had this globe and I just thought it was so school. I'd return the globe. You have to return everything except for the workbooks that you write in, things like that. I just thought that was silly because we were enjoying them still and they're like, “Get them back.”
Dr. Dan: You might want to use them again. It's like, “Oh, now I got to do all that research again to find the next ones? Come on.”
Siri Shakti: Yes. I will say that the drawbacks that I didn't like about it is personally, you and I don't … We don't resonate well with state-testing. I do not and first of all, I'm not going to subject personally my child to have to sit in the room and take a test in which can never, ever give me an accurate idea of what their real capacity is.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. It was like an hour and a half or two-hour drive to go to that, to take that test too.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. Believe me, I know this is … A lot of parents have different ideas about this, I'm not trying to tell you what to do, I'm just saying for me, “I didn't want that for our kids.” I remember when we were with this one charter school, it came to the end of the year and I decided I do not want to do the testing this year.
They said, “Well that's fine, but you can never come back to our charter school again.” I said, “Whatever. Fine. I won't come back. I took them out at the end of the year.”
Dr. Dan: Well, I remember another downside was it was like you had your own … You had a boss because I remember you felt stress like, “Oh my God, I didn't get this part done for them.”
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: “They're going to come and they want me to work on this and I have to get this done.” It's like a job for you.
Siri Shakti: I have heard that from so many parents, “Oh, so many parents.” With both types of homeschooling I just talked about through the public school and also charter schools, because you are required to turn in samples from each subject and keep up on all five subjects, that puts you in this … For me, it felt like I was in a prison.
There were times I just wanted to spend two weeks on history or there was a time where my daughter was really struggling with something with language arts. I just wanted to spend the whole month on it and just dive into it to make sure that she understood it and really grasp what we were working on, but you can't do that.
Dr. Dan: Yeah, so no freedom.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. Like I said, there's some freedom, but at the end of the day, it didn't work well for me. I do know so many families that love charter schools and that's just their way. For them, that type of structure works really well and more power to them. For people like myself who need a little more flexibility and fluidity, that was not resonating.
Like I said, we were out at the end of that year. Not testing which now leads me into the third type of homeschooling which I would say is what we are and what we do. This is called eclectic homeschooling. We could also say that this is more of a relaxed form of homeschooling. Basically, eclectic homeschooling, we use a little of this, a little of that …
Dr. Dan: Is that the official term or is it just something …
Siri Shakti: It is, yeah.
Dr. Dan: Okay.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. You've just probably never heard it before.
Dr. Dan: Yeah, I've never …
Siri Shakti: You're not cool like me, you're not on the in-crowd.
Dr. Dan: [inaudible 00:57:52] I don't know that would be cool. I don't know what these kids are saying these days.
Siri Shakti: Yes. Yeah, we use a little of this, a little of that. I pick from workbooks, from printing out papers online, from going on field trips, from just coming up with random things on my own. We just go with the flow with our learning. I intuitively pick up on what it is we need to work on and I'll move in that direction.
I'm a big fan of workbooks though, I think they're super awesome and thick textbooks so, so. I think I've used those far less than I've used actual hands on workbooks and printing out papers and things like that. Sometimes at the beginning of the year for history, I've put together a unit study where I was like, “Okay, I want to learn about Egypt this year.”
I put together this whole program that I just built myself of learning about hieroglyphics and I even printed out recipes, old Egyptian recipes and I put this on a binder and we just follow it along. Sometimes we skip something or we just move on to the next thing if it wasn't working well.
Dr. Dan: I remember we also did the one where we assigned them. It wasn't that long ago, we signed them like their project of talking about Denmark which is where I was born.
Siri Shakti: Yes, yeah.
Dr. Dan: They had to make their own video. They had to … We used screen flow which is similar to Camtasia which is a screen recorder, it records your computer screen and they were to build slides and add images and do things that will help them in the real world. This is stuff I do in my business and tools that will help them later on in life.
They made their own little presentations, they were either on camera or they weren't because they don't have to be on camera, you use your webcam, it didn't have to be polished. We just let them use their webcam or just show slides or whatever. It was pretty cool.
Siri Shakti: I thought it was really cute too because they did it on their own and they had a series of questions, they had to research and they found all the answers and then they answered all the questions, made a little video and then I had them, they had to make a recipe, a Danish recipe and they each picked one, a dessert or something.
Dr. Dan: Let's do that again. This time let's done one on I would say for what's something that you love? That you want to share with the rest of the family?
Siri Shakti: Oh, yes.
Dr. Dan: Then they can teach us. Bodie can either teach like …
Siri Shakti: Roblox.
Dr. Dan: Roblox or I'm assuming they'll say Roblox, who knows? They might say Minecraft and then [Molina 01:00:37] might do, will probably do dance, then [Caily 01:00:40] will probably do desserts or something …
Siri Shakti: Or anime.
Dr. Dan: Or anime, yeah. Anime actually she'll probably do that one.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: But let them choose instead of us telling them and you can give us some ideas. Then have them do the exact same thing.
Siri Shakti: Yeah, with eclectic homeschooling, we do all five subjects, but we don't do that each subject all the time. I don't always do … I really think I do language arts all the time and math all the time. History, science, we just organically do throughout the year, I'll just have an idea and we'll do it, but I'm not following some plan per se.
For us, I just really like it because I just feel like it's more how life works. In the natural world, just when we get an inspiration, we follow it. One thing I do want to touch on though is with this type of homeschooling, what we do to cover our bases is just like I said earlier, I fill out the homeschool affidavit which means that we are illegal private school and that's how we make sure that we're doing this legally in everything.
I do know some people that do eclectic homeschooling that still will have their child do standardized test, but we just choose not to do it.
Dr. Dan: Nice.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Alright, what's the next one?
Siri Shakti: Okay, the fourth one and last one is unschooling. Unschooling for many people, I remember when I first heard about homeschooling, I thought this sounds so radical and I also had a hard time grasping how this exactly worked. I had this idea in my head that it's just kids running a muck all over the place with no discipline.
That's usually what people think of when they think of unschooling. Pretty simply or putting it simply, unschooling means that you're not sending your kids to school, you're not creating a school at home environment either. Unschoolers don't use curriculum. Educate, they look at education as not as a step-by-step linear process or a one size fits all curriculum.
They basically think that children learn whatever they're interested in. Unschoolers believe that it's the child's right to be able to follow what passions they have and what interest they have. Often times you'll hear unschooling is being child-led education. Sometimes people think child-led, there's this idea that the child has no parental supervision or direction.
I would say it's quite the opposite. In my opinion, unschoolers, parents are totally connected with them, they're highly supportive because they're not using a typical curriculum or workbooks, their parents are always seeking out ways to not only inspire, but to help the child …
Dr. Dan: To grow.
Siri Shakti: To grow and challenge them.
Dr. Dan: In the way they need it and they want to. That's huge. It's like for me, I keep talking about … I go to YouTube or I go to … I buy an online course on something I want to learn.
Siri Shakti: Yes.
Dr. Dan: It's not somebody forcing me to learn something. It's not somebody saying, “Hey, you must learn this today.” Instead, it's like, “I'm doing stuff that I want to learn that will help me in my life.”
Siri Shakti: Exactly, like you said they're really picking up on what their children's desire is to learn and finding ways to support them in that. I would say that eclectic homeschoolers often do a little bit of like … It's a mixture. I'd say eclectic is a mixture of unschooling and eclectic because often times, eclectic homeschoolers will do more of an unschooling type of thing with certain subjects with I'd say we do.
Dr. Dan: Yeah.
Siri Shakti: When it for instance, my son loving Roblox or Minecraft, we have found ways to really inspire him and not only that, but get on his level and learn about what he loves.
Dr. Dan: Yup. When it comes to math and boring subjects for us like that, we do a lot of the courses and stuff like that, but we also do a combination of the unschooling. They're constantly asking us like, “Oh, how much is this? How much is that?” If added this much to this, which one is more money? We just have fun with it.
We'll put like Bodie will be asking about, “Oh, so is a McLaren more Tesla more expensive? Is this one or which one is faster? What does that mean?” 3.2 seconds or this or that or 0 to 60. It's like you get to learn about numbers the way that they are interested in learning instead of saying 60 seconds means this. You're explaining something that interests them.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. That's it exactly. One thing I love about unschooling is that they talk about that all human beings are different and to say that we all learn the same way or are interested in the same thing like public school teaches us is really going against the natural way that the world works.
Unschoolers have a bigger respect of really supporting the individual in who they are and finding ways to tap into that.
Dr. Dan: Yup. I'm unschooling myself every day.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Still today I am no joke. I joke it all.
Siri Shakti: I do want to just say one thing that before we wrap this up that I have tremendous respect for all the mothers and the fathers out there, no matter where you are on this journey, whether your child goes to public school, to private school or let's say you're homeschooling in any for of these types of homeschoolings, okay?
Everything that we're sharing here today is our own personal experience of what we have discovered over the years and what we have learned and it's not a judgment on anyone. It's just that we want to share with you our love for homeschooling because we have seen firsthand just how wonderful it can be.
We all know that as parents, we're doing the best that we can and parenting is not always easy, right?
Dr. Dan: Nope.
Siri Shakti: These kids don't come with instruction manuals.
Dr. Dan: Yeah. Well, what's that saying? Kids or parents don't raise responsible children. Children raise responsible adults.
Siri Shakti: Amen.
Dr. Dan: It's so true.
Siri Shakti: Yes, yes.
Dr. Dan: People say like, “Oh, how did you get to be successful?” I said, “Well, every time we had a kid on the way, it did force me to be more successful. You want the secret? Have more kids.
Siri Shakti: Does that mean we're having more kids?
Dr. Dan: Yeah, definitely. We got to get to a billion, 10 kids equal a billion.
Siri Shakti: Oh God.
Dr. Dan: Let's do it.
Siri Shakti: Okay.
Dr. Dan: Let's get busy.
Siri Shakti: All right.
Dr. Dan: Before we get to the RockStar mission for today, we're going to remind you to go to rockstarinlife.com to get links to the resources mentioned, this episode's transcript, download my free books, training, yoga, meditation, homeschooling advice like you got today and much more being added every single week, go to rockstarinlife.com and join the RockStar In Life revolution today. All right, RockStar mission for today, it's going to be a really difficult one, okay?
Siri Shakti: Yes, very difficult.
Dr. Dan: No, actually this one is going to be very easy. We're going to unschool this one for you guys. Bottom line is this, if you're not already homeschooling your child, but you've been considering it or you are not sure still, just take a nice deep look and reflect. Listen to this a couple of times.
Decide, “Is this something I'm ready to do?” Actually, don't even ask yourself if you're ready to do it. If you're thinking about doing it, then there's really … You'll never be ready. It's either you'll do it or you won't.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: If it's us, we jumped in. We said, “Hey, we're committed to this. There's no other way.”
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: Take a look at this and decide if this is right for you. If you're already homeschooling your child and you're just looking for other ways, then that is awesome. Hopefully we gave you some new ideas or just reminded you of some things that you could be doing or you might want to try again and if you have friends or family that are considering homeschooling their kids, share this episode with them.
Siri Shakti: Yeah. Maybe you know someone whose kid is really struggling in school, this would be definitely be something to share with them.
Dr. Dan: That's the perfect time.
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: I've heard that before where somebody said, “Well, how would I know if homeschooling is right for my child?” Well first off, we believe every kid should be homeschooled, right?
Siri Shakti: Yeah.
Dr. Dan: It doesn't matter. Actually, I think we didn't even mention this, but it doesn't matter how much you know. You don't need to know anything, you learn as you go.
Siri Shakti: Big time.
Dr. Dan: Both me and Siri Shakti like we were going through some of the stuff we didn't remember and we were learning as we went through. There's plenty of resources out there and you're not alone. You can do it. Just do it and yeah, that's all I got to say on that.
Siri Shakti: Beautiful. All right guys, well thank you so much for joining us today and don't forget to be a RockStar in your life.
Dr. Dan: Make the world your stage.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to RockStar In Life, your source for unleashing your inner RockStar. For more tips, training and free stuff, be sure to go to rockstarinlife.com and join the RockStar In Life revolution today. Thanks again and don't forget to make the world your stage.
Be a RockStar In Your Life.
& Make The World Your Stage!
If you love what you hear…
Please “Subscribe” to the Podcast
and leave some comment love on iTunes by using the “Rate and Review”
