Becky described children as having a “front-row seat” to our lives, noticing how we handle stress, interruptions, and conflict; what specific “invisible curriculum” do your children currently receive from you on a normal homeschool day, and where might that curriculum contradict what you claim to value?

**Direct Answer** Based on the speaker’s teaching, the “invisible curriculum” is the everyday pattern of what your children watch you do—especially under pressure—and it may contradict your stated values if you say you value Jesus and peace but model panic, harsh words, or impatience. **Support from Transcript:** • Becky says children have a “front-row seat to our lives” and learn from “how we handle stress, how we respond to interruptions, how we speak to our spouse, how we react when things don’t go our way.” • She highlights spiritual modeling in ordinary moments: “turn to prayer instead of panic,” “speak with kindness, even though we’re exhausted,” and “worshipping while we’re doing the dishes.” • She frames discipleship as ongoing formation: “these moments are forming something deep inside of them.” • Andrea adds that children also learn when we “practice asking forgiveness when we fail,” implying our failures teach too. • Mary Esther notes the temptation to live in “behavioral management,” which can reveal what we truly prioritize when we’re stressed. **Discussion Follow-ups** What do your children most regularly observe in your tone of voice and pace? Where would asking fo

Becky framed Deuteronomy 6 as faith “woven throughout our day” rather than “a separate class or a checklist”; how would an early Christian household (with less formal schooling and more shared labor) have naturally practiced this, and what modern homeschool rhythms might actually work against that “talk of them…when you rise” discipleship?

**Direct Answer** The transcript suggests Deuteronomy 6 discipleship happens through shared life—talking, praying, and praising God in ordinary routines—so a household with constant shared labor would naturally have many “woven-in” moments, while modern rhythms can unintentionally isolate faith into a formal “lesson” and squeeze out relational time. **Support from Transcript:** • Becky quotes Deut. 6: “Talk of them when you sit…walk…lie down…rise,” and interprets it as “faith woven throughout our day.” • She explicitly rejects a compartmentalized approach: “It’s not a separate class or a checklist. It’s a way of life.” • She defines discipleship as “life shared…car rides…bedtime prayers…hugs after meltdowns.” • Faith emphasizes homeschooling gives “access to our children…day in, day out,” which enables continual interaction rather than limited windows. • Faith describes flexible family rhythms—everyone going on errands, leaving early to travel, hiking/camping—showing how shared time creates space for conversation. **Discussion Follow-ups** Which of your current routines (tight schedules, screen time, constant rushing) most pushes faith into a “devotions-only” box? What would it l

Becky said, “God doesn’t have grandchildren,” and that children don’t come to faith just because their parents have faith; how should this sober reality change the way you talk about “successful homeschooling,” “good kids,” or assurance, especially when your family culture looks strong from the outside?

**Direct Answer** Based on Becky’s point, “successful homeschooling” cannot mean producing outwardly well-behaved kids; it should be spoken of more humbly, recognizing that real faith is God’s work in each child, not proof of parental methods or a strong family culture. **Support from Transcript:** • Becky states plainly: “God doesn’t have grandchildren,” and “Our children don’t come to faith just because we have faith.” • She says children “have to be transformed and filled with the Holy Spirit,” placing regeneration outside parental control. • She balances responsibility and dependence: “We disciple…we plant those seeds, but ultimately, it’s God who brings that heart to life.” • Faith warns against appearances by stressing identity at home: “Who you are is the person you are at home,” implying outward “niceness” can mislead. • Becky also urges moms to let children see real repentance and growth: “how you forgive…how you begin again when your day falls apart.” **Discussion Follow-ups** How might your language about “good kids” need to shift toward prayerful dependence? What signs of grace would you look for besides compliance, achievement, or family image?

Faith argued that homeschooling gives parents access to “strike while the iron’s hot” in teachable moments; what are concrete examples of moments you would likely miss if your children were away all day, and how have you either used—or wasted—those moments when they appeared?

**Direct Answer** The transcript indicates teachable moments often arise spontaneously in daily life—conflicts, decisions, interests, emotions—and homeschooling uniquely places parents there to shape character and maturity in real time; these moments can be used through timely coaching and conversation or wasted by ignoring them and just “getting through the day.” **Support from Transcript:** • Faith says homeschooling lets you be “in the moment” because “there’s so many teachable moments…throughout the day.” • She quotes the principle: “You strike while the iron’s hot,” meaning the moment is most meaningful when it’s immediate. • She gives concrete categories: shaping “character…emotional maturity,” and helping children learn “what it means to be an adult.” • She notes decision-making and time management develop through freedom: children learn “budgeting their time,” taking “responsibility for their education.” • Becky highlights real-life moments children witness: stress, interruptions, conflict, and responding with prayer instead of panic. • Mary Esther admits the drift toward mere survival: feeling like she’s doing “behavioral management instead of intentional character traini

Faith said, “Who you are is the person you are at home…If you can’t get along with your own siblings, then you’re a divisive person”; what does that claim reveal about God’s priorities for holiness, and how does it confront the modern tendency to measure spirituality by public ministry, church involvement, or “niceness” outside the home?

**Direct Answer** Faith’s claim suggests God’s priority is genuine character and peace in the closest relationships, not merely public religious performance; it confronts the tendency to appear spiritual in public while tolerating conflict and sin patterns at home. **Support from Transcript:** • Faith says, “Who you are is the person you are at home. You can’t be a kind person to your friends… and your relationships at home are less than stellar.” • She applies it to siblings: “If you can’t get along with your own siblings, then you’re a divisive person.” • She also notes a common temptation: “We often put our best foot forward when we’re in public, but our children know us.” • Becky similarly grounds discipleship in everyday realities children observe—stress, interruptions, conflict—implying holiness must show up there. • Faith points to the witness of a peaceful household: people notice “a family that lives together, that gets along together” more than secondary distinctives. **Discussion Follow-ups** What “public self” do you maintain that your family would challenge? How might focusing on home relationships reshape what you celebrate as spiritual maturity in yourself and your

Mary Esther contrasted “behavioral management” with “intentional character training,” calling herself “a builder” with “a vision”; where are you currently defaulting to short-term control tactics, and what specific “builder’s vision” (one trait, one habit, one practice) would reshape your home if you pursued it for 30 days?

**Direct Answer** The transcript suggests short-term control happens when you’re just “making it through the day,” but Mary Esther urges stepping back to a builder’s mindset: choose one clear habit or trait and pursue it intentionally as a family for a season. **Support from Transcript:** • Mary Esther describes intense days where she feels stuck in “behavioral management instead of intentional character training.” • She reframes her role: “I’m a builder. I have a vision…we’re working towards something…not just about making it through this day.” • She gives a specific example of a 30-day style focus: practicing a “positive response”—when mom asks something, children say, “Yes, Mama,” tracking it with “charts…smiley faces.” • She emphasizes working “as a family and being a team,” which helps character formation feel constructive rather than constant correction. • She notes habit training “doesn’t transform sinners to saints” but “develops habits” that support character. **Discussion Follow-ups** Which single habit would most reduce daily friction in your home (tone, prompt obedience, cheerful greeting, finishing work)? What simple tracking method could keep it positive rather than

Mary Esther described training habits through family “team” projects (charts, smiley faces, practicing greetings, practicing “Yes, Mama”), insisting it “doesn’t transform sinners to saints” but does form character; how would early Christians have thought about habit-formation alongside repentance and the Holy Spirit, and what modern Christian fears (“legalism,” “works”) keep parents from intentional habit-training?

**Direct Answer** The transcript doesn’t directly describe “early Christians’” view, but it does present a balanced approach: habit training is a practical tool for forming patterns of life, while true heart change still requires God and the Holy Spirit—so parents need not fear that habits replace repentance, yet they also shouldn’t treat habits as salvation. **Support from Transcript:** • Mary Esther clearly limits what habits can do: it “doesn’t transform sinners to saints,” but it “develops habits that can help build good character.” • She describes intentional practice—greetings, cheerful responses—done as a “team,” using charts and positive reinforcement. • Becky adds the spiritual boundary: children need to be “transformed and filled with the Holy Spirit,” and “we plant those seeds, but ultimately, it’s God who brings that heart to life.” • Becky also emphasizes discipleship is “life shared,” implying repeated daily practices matter. • Andrea notes obedience training connects to Christian life: doing right “out of obedience” even when we don’t feel like it. **Discussion Follow-ups** Where do you swing toward fear of “works” so you avoid practical training? How can you speak

Andrea said her cup is filled by grasping “the reality of Jesus’ love…even when I’m at my lowest,” and by practices like early quiet time, listening to Scripture while cooking, worship music, rest, finding a mentor, and yearly retreat; which of these exposes a gap in your current life that you keep excusing as “season of life,” and what would repentance look like in that gap?

**Direct Answer** Based on Andrea’s list, the common “season of life” gaps are neglect of time with the Lord, lack of rest, or isolation; repentance would look like admitting the need, making intentional space (even small), and reaching out for help rather than continuing to excuse spiritual depletion. **Support from Transcript:** • Andrea says the core is grasping “the reality of Jesus’ love…even when I’m at my lowest,” implying many moms live as if His love changes with performance. • She names practical supports: “getting up before my children” for Word and prayer, and quieting her heart before “busyness and noise.” • She mentions Scripture and worship in routine work: listening to Scripture “making supper,” and “worship music…while I’m working.” • She stresses physical limits: the need “to rest…when we need it,” noting body and soul are “intertwined.” • She describes loneliness and the remedy: “reach out and find a mentor…life-giving…pray with someone.” • She practices a “yearly retreat” to “pray and journal and hear from Him.” **Discussion Follow-ups** Which gap is most true for you right now—Word/prayer, rest, or isolation? What one concrete change this week would move you

S2S Sisters: "Discipling Our Children Through Homeschooling" by four sisters

2,579 views • Jun 14, 2025

Description

June 7, 2025

Strength to Strength Sisters welcomed four homeschooling moms to share about their experience in their children’s formal education.

Can we effectively disciple our children through homeschooling? Join four experienced homeschooling moms for an interactive discussion on topics like academics, sustainability, structure and resources. There will be a time for you to share your questions. Come prepared to be inspired while gaining practical insights and encouragement for your journey.

An interactive question-and-answer period follows.

https://strengthtostrength.org/discipling-our-children-through-homeschooling/

🎧 Audio Player with Transcript

🎧 S2S Sisters: "Discipling Our Children Through Homeschooling" by four sisters

Our prayer is that you will be filled with the knowledge of His will, strengthened with all might according to His glorious power.

Welcome to Strength to Strength Sisters. We're so glad to have you all join us today. Thank you for being here. We're excited to have a little bit different format today with our panel, and we're thinking about how we can disciple our children through homeschooling. And we have four moms joining us from literally around the world: Southeast Asia, Uganda, Calgary, Alberta, and Pennsylvania. And so we're really thankful to have each one of them here.

And we're looking forward to hearing from each of them, things that they've learned along their homeschooling journey and things that they've gleaned and wisdom that they can share with us. So a couple announcements before we do that: this call will be recorded, but you will not be recorded if you do not speak up, so you don't have to worry about that. We will have a Q&A after we are finished with some of our questions. And at that time, if you want to ask a question, you can turn your video on and unmute yourself, or you can also submit it through the chat, and one of the admin team will give that to the speakers as well.

So thank you again so much for joining us. And let's have prayer before we get started. And I'm going to ask Christina to pray for us as we begin. All right, let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, I thank You for this day, Father, and I thank You for the gathering of these sisters here and these mothers. I thank You, Father, that You have blessed us with children and that these women are on the call today to share about their homeschooling journey. I pray, Heavenly Father, that You encourage them and help them to remember the things that they have done in discipling their children through homeschooling. Father, I pray that You would bless them for their time here today, and I pray that it would give us other mothers and homeschooling women inspiration and ideas and encouragement as well.

It's such a big task to do, and we want to do all our things or everything that we do, Father, we want to do it for Your glory, especially when it comes to raising our children or children that have been put in our care. Father, we give this day to You, we give this talk to You, and we pray these things in the wonderful name of Jesus. Amen.

Amen.

Okay, thank you so much for that, Christina. All right, let's jump into some of our questions. And we're going to start out with just introductions. Tell us a little bit about yourself, where you live, how many children you have, a little bit about your family. Tell us a little bit about what's your why for homeschooling, what are your values, what's your homeschool philosophies. I know that's a big piece, so.

Yeah, let's start with Andrea, and then we'll go to Faith, then Mary Esther, and then Becky. Go ahead. Hello everyone. I am Andrea Knisely, and like Linelle mentioned, I live in Southeast Asia where it is currently 3 a.m. in the morning. So if I'm a little bit groggy or a little bit my thoughts slow in coming, that is probably why.

I'm married to Matthew. We've been married for 13 years, and we have four wonderful children. We have lived here in Southeast Asia for the past six years. The last two years, two and a half years of those, we've been back in a little village where my husband is working on learning a local language and working on a project here.

And it's been really a blessing for our family. We've really enjoyed living here, and I feel like our children have really thrived living here.

So that's been an encouragement, a blessing to me to see how God is providing for us, even when it can feel like some of the resources and opportunities that I would idealize haven't always been available. So my experience with homeschooling, most of that has been living here in Southeast Asia.

I did start preschool or kindergarten with my oldest before we moved, but I knew even before, well, before we had children, even before I was married, that homeschooling was something I was really interested in. I was homeschooled for high school when my family served in El Salvador, and that kind of sparked my love for learning, for literature. Then I also taught first and second grade in Kansas, which is where I met Matthew.

And I just love teaching, teaching little ones to read and start seeing those connections go off and getting to use, especially use literature to teach, to teach virtue and to teach history, all kinds of things. So I knew kind of all along that homeschooling was something I was very interested in. So then after, soon after we got married, when we started the process of training and preparing to move overseas, it was pretty clear that homeschooling would be part of that.

So a little bit about my why.

I'm going to read a quote from the book Teaching from Rest because I feel like it expresses it so well. Just to summarize, I guess first, I want to give my children a strong foundation to have them love, give them a love of truth, goodness, and beauty, to seek God's kingdom above all.

I have really grown to appreciate some of the philosophy of Charlotte Mason and classical education. So to sum that up, I'm going to read a quote. It says, "The true aim of education is to order a child's affections, to teach him to love what he ought and hate what he ought. Our greatest task then is to put living ideas in front of our children like a feast. We've been charged to cultivate the souls of our children, to nourish them in truth, goodness, and beauty, to raise them up in wisdom and eloquence. It is to those ends we labor."

As I was thinking about my why, my homeschooling philosophy, I realized that I can sum it up in one word, and that is story. I love to tell stories, to read stories, and I love to think of the story that God is writing, starting with the Bible as an overarching story and how He is continuing to write that story through the church, through our history, through our lives. And so I want to give my children a to capture their hearts through story and for them to see how everything points back to God and how everything ties together. So I don't know if I always manage to do this well, but my ideal, my goal is for them to have to not have education be these bits and pieces, but where it's all tied together into one overarching story.

So along with that, one of my passions is literature and books. And so I have really enjoyed pulling together different resources, different book lists and stories to use that to teach my children. So living here in Southeast Asia, we don't have access to a library or homeschool co-ops or homeschool community, but we still have access to a lot of online libraries. So that's been a blessing as well.

So since, yeah, like I said, since we can't do some of the opportunities and experiences that I would idealize, I still feel like we've been able to have a literature-rich homeschool, and that's been a huge joy for me. We have four children. Yeah, our oldest is 12, and then I have a 12-year-old son, another son is 10, and then our daughter is 8, and then we have a 4-year-old son. So I feel like right now we are really in a sweet spot with homeschooling where the three oldest can do a lot of their work independently. I'm still involved some, and my 4-year-old is doing a little bit of preschool kind of as he has interest.

We're actually considering putting him in the local kindergarten for a year or two. It's just down the road, and the teacher is a member of the local church here just to help him learn the language better.

But I remember the year or two where I had a baby and a toddler and a kindergartner, a first grader, and a third grader, and I was still very much involved in all those daily lessons. Those were really intense years. So I am really enjoying getting to put getting to help them develop more independence.

Thank you for that. Okay, go ahead, Faith. Yeah, hello everybody. So I'm Faith. I've been married to my husband, Jeremy Horning, for 20 years now. So we have been homeschooling for 11 years now. We would have started when we lived in the US. We lived in Boston, and so we started homeschooling there. Then four years ago, we moved to Uganda. And so the last four years, we've been homeschooling here. I have been very grateful for those years in Boston, homeschooling, learning homeschooling in the US before moving abroad. I feel like that has helped us a lot.

I've met a lot of other expats who have started homeschooling after they moved, and I'm like, that would definitely be more challenging. So yeah, I'm really grateful for those years in the US that we've had, and I'm also really enjoying homeschooling now. So we have four children. Our oldest just turned 19 this week.

So she would have graduated high school in the spring. We had a graduation for her at our local co-op. So that was really fun. It was very meaningful. When you're in the beginning of homeschooling and the day-to-day, the grind, it feels like you will never get done.

But I'm here to say that you actually do get done with the not education, not schooling as a general principle, but the 12 grades do pass eventually, and it's been good for us. And so then we also have a daughter who is 16. She is starting her last year this year as well. And then we have a 15-year-old son. And since we've moved to Uganda, we have adopted a 6-year-old. He's now 6. We have had him since he was almost 3. So just when I thought I was about done homeschooling, we're starting way back over in the beginning. And that has been so fun because you learn a lot. There's not a lot of things in life you get a second chance at.

And I feel like starting over in kindergarten, first grade with a new little one has just been really fun. And especially too with older children, they're able to help out. And I feel like I can enjoy this stage of life almost more than I could when all the older children were so tiny.

It's just a lot more intense stage of parenting. And so yeah, I'm really enjoying homeschooling this last little one.

As far as our why, I feel like there's so many reasons why someone would choose to homeschool. And it's like, oh, which ones should we talk about? I think primarily it is for all parents. It's the responsibility of the parent to train, to nurture, to guide our children. And if we do choose homeschooling, it gives us a lot more access to our children. We're with them day in, day out. We know what they're facing. We know what their needs are. We know what they're interested in. We know what they're learning about. We know who their friends are.

We know a lot more of what their friends, how their friends are influencing them. And so I think fundamentally, homeschooling just gives us access to our children. Another reason, a strong reason for our family to homeschool is just the years of parenting are so short.

I'm just shocked. My daughter turned 19 this week, and I'm like, we have less than a year, and our children start entering their 20s. Where did time go? And I'm just so grateful that homeschooling has given us that opportunity to spend their childhood with them. We would have missed so much. And I think tying into that point is the whole idea of relationship. I think that is our big philosophy maybe of homeschooling is just that we can have relationships, opportunity for memories and interactions in ways that would have been more challenging had our children been away from us for the greater part of the day, the greater part of their childhood. And so I'm just really grateful that we could spend these years with our children because we will not get them back.

Another reason, a strong why for us is we wanted our children to be able to learn at their own pace. We have a quite broad range of interests and abilities and skills in our children. And homeschooling can help you to really hone in on what each individual child needs. You have time to pursue their interests.

You don't have to be at the beck and call of the school system. Homeschooling has given us so much time to be together as a family. And my husband also has his work. He's worked at home a lot over these years. And so yeah, we're just able to have more opportunities to develop a strong family culture that I'm grateful for. So as far as our homeschooling style, we're very eclectic.

I tend to be, I guess you'd call it a curriculum junkie. So if I haven't, if I'm not changing something every year, I get a little frustrated like, oh, we should tweak something here. So there's been a few curriculums that have stood the test of time throughout the years, but most things, I really enjoy shopping for curriculum, trying to find what looks fun to teach, what's going to just really land well with my children. And so as far as our learning style, it is pretty eclectic.

Thank you for that. Okay, next.

Hi, everybody. So I'm Mariesta Rubaker, and I'm the one from Central Pennsylvania.

We've lived here for about four years now. Very much enjoy the little community here.

We have five children. The oldest is now 11 years old, and the youngest is about 20 months. So we're at that intense stage that Faith was talking about. And I vacillate between feeling overwhelmed and just feeling determined that nothing is going to rob me of my turn and the joy of these years. My turn was the joy of these years and these little ones. And I just want to hang on and enjoy every minute.

I don't enjoy every minute, but I do enjoy my little ones. And I don't know. It's a little hard to tell when you're homeschooling. I don't know how long we've been homeschooling. If our oldest is 11, so it's maybe been 10 years. I'm not sure.

So yeah, homeschooling is just a way of life. And it's been a little bit varied for us. We did spend four years, four-plus years in Tanzania, and that was where some of my formal homeschooling began.

And we thoroughly enjoyed that too. We've attended a co-op where there was a teacher there and did all the basic subjects every morning, and I just filled in at home in the afternoons. So yeah, a range of experience. This past year, we've done mostly at home and partially with the co-op, and we've really, really enjoyed that mix.

Yeah. I'm not sure.

I'm not sure about the why of homeschooling. Yeah, there's so many good reasons to homeschool. I think that for us, it wasn't very much of a question simply because, well, my husband was homeschooled, and he had a good experience.

I was part of a small church school, and I had a good experience, but I also was a teacher for quite a few years. And I just love it.

Yeah, I appreciate the chance to build relationships, to have a strong family culture, and to get to influence and guide and nurture. But also, if it wasn't, I just would have a hard time letting somebody else have my children all the time when I would like to enjoy them and get to be with them. And yeah.

And it's where we live. It's an option. I realize it's not that way for everybody around the world. We do have that option. And yeah, even if we feel there's good benefits and a good school, we're very thankful for this opportunity and this option.

As far as homeschool philosophies, I think I'm probably like most of us, very eclectic.

I value hands-on, organic, alive learning and just thrilling to the joy and the wonder of discovering new things and trying them out and seeing what happens. And I'm very much, like Andrea said, I appreciate the Charlotte Mason style, but I'm not very brave as far as coming up with everything on my own and feeling like I'm not going to miss something. So while we go heavy on literature, and I love using living books and living ideas, I also appreciate having a curriculum that's geared to that style, but I have a curriculum to guide me. And I don't have to feel like I'm missing something important or feel like, yeah, I love researching. I love putting things together, but there's only so many hours in a day and so many days in a week.

So it's good for me to have something that's already been put together.

Yeah, that's all for now.

Thank you. Okay, Becky. Hi. So I am Becky Bair. I'm married to my best friend, Cliff, for almost 19 years now. We live in the city of Calgary, Alberta, where the weather can't make up its mind. And thankfully, I have seven children to keep everything else unpredictable as well.

We have four boys first, and then we have three girls. Our boys are 15, 13, 12, and 8. Then we have a 7-year-old girl and 3-year-old twins that keep us on our toes at all times. So yeah, each one is just such a gift from God and a source of laundry and noise and joy in equal measure.

I've been homeschooling formally for, I think we just finished our seventh year. I've learned a lot, but I still feel like I learn so much every year. Learn what works, what doesn't, how to keep your coffee hot long enough so that you can actually drink it, warm it several times in the microwave.

I'm not here with all the answers for sure, but I'm just a fellow traveler on this journey of homeschooling. And I look forward to hearing what some of these experienced ladies, some of the tips and hacks that they have. Let's see my why. Why do I homeschool?

Like the other lady said, there's so many good reasons to homeschool. If I have to narrow it down, though, my number one reason would be time. Time with my children. I'm going to throw a quick stat at you. The average family spends about 35 minutes of quality time together each day. But homeschooling families spend up to 6 hours of meaningful time together every single day. That adds up to like 14,000 extra hours with your child.

And that's 14,000 hours to shape their character, to point them to Jesus, to really know them and make an eternal impact. And so that's really, really important. I love hearing about relationships, how to build these relationships deep and meaningful.

My second big why would be that I want to spark something deeper than just completing assignments. I want to inspire curiosity and a genuine love of learning that doesn't stop when the school years are over and certainly isn't limited to a desk. And so it's exciting to me to hear my children just take interest in a topic and want to go study it out in one way or the other, whether it's to experience it or to go to the library and get books on it or watch a documentary on it and just discuss it. I love this kind of stuff.

I was listening to Faith. Yeah, I'm the homeschool curriculum junkie as well. I'm always researching new curriculum, seeing what ways we can tweak our homeschool year to make it even better. I feel like we've enjoyed all of our homeschool years, but it's certainly been helpful to tweak it along the way to really, really get full enjoyment and that full learning experience for each child.

Yeah, so my homeschool style will definitely also be eclectic. It just depends on the subject, depends on the year.

Yeah, I think that's all I have.

Thank you for that. Okay, let's jump into some of the other questions. And this first one is going to go to you, Becky, and then the rest of you, if you want to fill in on it, you may as well. So all of us care about bringing our children up to love and serve Jesus. And what does that look like for you practically? How do you intentionally school and train the children holistically?

I think that's a great question. I mean, that's the number one thing that we're concerned about, right? Well, moms, whether we realize it or not, we are discipling our children every single day. A disciple is simply a student, like someone learning from someone else. And our children, they're learning from us. They have this front-row seat to our lives, just like the disciples of Jesus did.

And they watch how we handle stress, how we respond to interruptions, how we speak to our spouse, how we react when things don't go our way. And they see it all, and they're learning from it. When they see us turn to prayer instead of panic, when they hear us speak with kindness, even though we're exhausted, or when they catch us worshipping while we're doing the dishes, these moments are forming something deep inside of them. So just like Jesus's disciples learned by walking closely with him, our children are learning by walking closely with us. It's not always clean. It's not quiet, but it's powerful and it's holy.

One of my favorite passages about discipleship with our children is Deuteronomy 6. These words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children. Talk of them when you sit at home, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, when you rise.

Isn't that powerful? It gets this picture of faith woven throughout our day. It's not a separate class or a checklist. It's a way of life. Discipleship isn't a program. It's life shared. It's car rides. It's bedtime prayers. It's hugs after meltdowns. It's showing them over and over again what it looks like to follow Jesus. So what does that look like practically? Here's a few things that have made an impact in our home.

Number one, let Christ transform every part of your life, not just on Sundays or during morning devotions, or just let your children see the Holy Spirit shaping you in real time, how you handle conflict, how you forgive, how you begin again when your day falls apart.

Number two, we pray about everything. Pray about hard math, sibling conflict, heartaches, big dreams, everything. Pray about it. Some of our most meaningful moments with our children have happened late at night, especially as they get older. When our oldest children were still quite little, Cliff made this habit. He began praying with them one-on-one at bedtime. I'm sure a lot of families do this. But over the years, those moments have just become these sacred spaces, just filled with honesty and confessions and laughter and prayer. And they learned that they can take everything to Jesus.

So that's been really amazing to watch. I know the one night, I don't remember what the oldest two boys and Cliff were talking about in the living room. And afterward, they were standing there with their arms around each other and praying together. And I had to take a picture because I was like, I want that stamped in my mind, what that was like. It's so special to watch.

Third tip would be praise God out loud as mothers. Don't just feel worship in your heart. Say it out loud. When you see a flower or a mountain or a thunderstorm, speak praise. My mother-in-law did this so beautifully.

During a thunderstorm, she would gather the children out on the front porch and not to hide from the noise, but to marvel at God's power in it. And the children weren't afraid. They were amazed. She just brought everything she felt, all that praise, all that worship. She pointed to God in everything. And that's something that can take a lot of intentionality because we're caught up in our own minds to just praise and say the things that we see God in, point out God in everything that we see.

To wrap that up, I feel like if I think of how it was for the disciples, they walked with Jesus. They saw him in all these difficult situations. They learned. But until they were filled with the Holy Spirit, they didn't fully understand. God doesn't have grandchildren. Our children don't come to faith just because we have faith. They have to be transformed and filled with the Holy Spirit. We disciple, yes, we plant those seeds, but ultimately, it's God who brings that heart to life. We just want to be faithful in doing our part.

Thank you for that. So Faith, this next question is going to be geared towards you. And we're looking at the theme of these questions is on discipling. So how does homeschooling shape your children and your family, and how does this impact them for the rest of their lives?

Yeah. So I think as we homeschool our children, we want them to develop skills. We want them to learn what it means to be an adult. You're growing your children not only in height, but you're also growing them in character. You're growing them in emotional maturity. And homeschooling gives you this opportunity to be in the moment. There's so many teachable moments that happen throughout the day. And if you're not with your children, it's really hard to address those in ways that are meaningful or memorable.

There's the saying, "You strike while the iron's hot." And I feel like homeschooling gives you that opportunity to shape your children. And I feel like I've seen this. Homeschooling is an experiment. What would our children be like if they went to school? I don't know.

We make the decisions on how we think is best for our family. And I think comparing my children to how I was at their age, even though I grew up in a very good home, I went to a very good school, I feel like my children, because they're homeschooled, they have more experience in making personal decisions. They're not just being run through a form. And so I feel like the children have developed that skill younger than I did.

They're also, I feel like, further ahead in ways like budgeting their time. They know what needs to be done. They have the freedom to make the decision of how they're going to execute their life. How can they get done the things they want to get done? I feel like just not having to be at a certain place at a certain time, no matter if you're done with your school or not, you still have to sit there until that final bell rings, that has given them more experience in time management. They're also more responsible for their education. They come to us with things that they want to learn and how they're going to learn these things.

And they want to learn because they have a hunger for it. It's not something they have to do because that's what the school requires. Obviously, as parents, we're going to direct that a lot, but there's still a lot of ways for children to take responsibility for their education. And so I feel like as they enter adulthood, some of those skills are really being helpful for them. They have time to pursue interests.

Yeah, they can prioritize the things that are important to them.

And to us as a family, I think that's been a huge one for us, is just the ability to make memories together, to spend time together. Okay, my children are teenagers now. And to me, it's such a gift that they still want to be with us. We have this joke in our family that it takes six people to go to the ATM for cash because if Jeremy needs to go to the bank, well, there's no way we're going to stay home. We jump in the car, and nobody wants to miss this ride to the ATM or wherever we're going.

And I don't take that for granted. I know to be able for our children to enjoy being with their parents, to enjoy being with their siblings and taking every opportunity they can is really a gift that we shouldn't take for granted.

And because my husband has done a lot of work online, work from home, that has given us a lot of flexibility. Often, if we need to travel for a wedding or a family gathering or something, we will almost always leave at least a few hours early, if not a day or two, to just go hiking somewhere new, to explore, go camping, go geocaching, whatever.

And it's such a gift to be able to have this strong family culture, to have opportunities to just share life together. And I feel like that gift will live on in our children throughout their lives.

I think as I've lived internationally, I realize how much those family bonds are so important.

Friends come, they go. Your churches change. Your congregation changes. You move. Some relationships are good while they last, but you lose contact with people. And however, the most enduring relationships in my life have been family. And to be able to give our children the gift of a very strong family, I think, is one of the biggest impacts we can have on them going into their future. And also living here in East Africa, the nuclear family, the dad, the mom that are married, that live with their children from childhood to adulthood, are very few and far between. And the longer I'm even living in America, you realize how rare the nuclear family is.

And so I think that's an impact not only for our children, but also for the world around us. There's so many times people have commented not on your doctrine of non-resistance or whatever it is that we hold dear.

What stands out is a family that lives together, that gets along together. And so many times I have to tell myself and the children, "Who you are is the person you are at home. You can't be a kind person to your friends, your neighbors, and your relationships at home are less than stellar. Who you are at home is who you are.

And if you can't get along with your own siblings, then you're a divisive person." And it's a good reminder for us as parents too. We often put our we put our best foot forward when we're in public, but our children know us, and that's who we really are.

Thank you for that. Okay. The next question goes to Mary Esther. How do you intentionally build character in your children?

Yeah, that's a good one. I remind myself about that one a lot, especially in intense moments and days when I feel like I'm stuck in the moment and making it through the sun or through the day. And I feel like I'm doing behavioral management instead of intentional character training. And just to step back and remember, I'm a builder. I have a vision.

Yeah, we're working towards something. We have a plan here. It's not just about making it through this day and managing behaviors. This is about training and being intentional. And I know we all know that, but sometimes it takes a little bit of a step back from intense times.

Yeah, just very practically, I appreciate what you were saying, Faith, about strong family culture. And I found that to be very helpful in character learning traits and habits and doing it as a family. Working on finding something that we're maybe not all equally weak in, but something we'd like to work on as a family and being a team. We're still little, so we can still have charts and put smiley faces on it. And I remember one time we worked at, oh, just a positive response. Mama asks something. You say, "Yes, Mama." And we put a smile on our chart, and we see how many we get on this day. And we see if we can get even more tomorrow.

And it just was fun. Instead of working from the negative, work from the positive side. And you're developing character and hopefully habits. And I think that's a good one we can give our children, is give them the gift of habit.

When we work on something until it is a habit, and that's just automatic.

It doesn't transform sinners to saints, but it develops habits that can help build good character. I remember one time we worked on just greeting people. Somebody comes to the door, you greet people differently when you meet them on the street, whatever, depending on their relationship to you. And sometimes you need to be careful how you approach people, how much you look them in the eye, even, whatever. But all people deserve to have a smile and a cheerful word.

Anyway, and I would ask people, "Can you stop by? We're practicing this." And just choose something and be intentional about it and work on it as a family. That was something that has been a blessing to our family and helps me be intentional rather than just feeling like I'm a step behind and doing behavioral management.

And obviously, they see how we do things, and that's going to be the strongest teacher.

Some of us, depending on which culture we're living in, have that more than others of people stopping by during our homeschool day. And that can be a challenge. So how do we handle all these interruptions? But again, our children need to see that people are important. And I've enjoyed letting them stop and just come and talk and whatever, but also be able to, "Well, we can't just go play for an hour because somebody's here. Now it's time for you to go back to your books and we'll talk to, yeah, I'll talk to this person."

Yeah. So I think being intentional, working together on it as a family, and working from the positive of building rather than the negative of behavioral management, something that has helped us.

Although I think the behavioral management does play into the bigger picture. Sometimes we wish that the teaching part would fix it all, right? But it takes both working together. Okay. Thank you for that. Andrea. So we can't give from an empty cup. So how do you keep your cup full and running over with Jesus?

That's a great question. And it's one that I feel like I am still very much in the process of learning. So for me, the biggest thing for me has been to really grasp the reality of Jesus' love for me, that even when I'm at my lowest, when I am not doing well, His love for me does not change.

That has been really transformational for me. But on the practical side, some things that have been helpful for me is just the discipline of getting up before my children and spending time in the Word, having some quiet time to pray, maybe go on a walk.

And I have not always been consistent with that. But that has just been really helpful for me. I have time to quiet my heart before the busyness and the noise of the day begins. But even on days when that doesn't happen, we still have time to pray as a family. And I feel like that can be a way to receive and to have my cup full as well. The other things that I have done is listen to scripture while I'm working, like making supper, or just turning on worship music and worshiping while I'm working.

Then on the, I don't know, maybe more the physical side, I also think it's really important for us to rest, to learn to rest when we need it. So when I'm not getting enough sleep or not being active, I'm not quite sure how it all ties together, but I feel like that does impact the—well, we're a whole person. The physical, spiritual, emotional sides are all intertwined. And so we need to learn to nourish ourselves. As we nourish ourselves physically, we also nourish ourselves spiritually. And there's been seasons where I've had some really lonely seasons living here. So I have needed to reach out and find a mentor. That's been really life-giving in a way for me to also hear from someone else, be able to process some of the difficulties and challenges in life, and just be able to pray with someone else through that.

So I think that can be really helpful. And another practice that I have done, not every year, but for the last couple of years, I tried to do a yearly retreat where I just take a day or two, try to have some time alone, and really spend time with the Lord and pray and journal and hear from Him.

So I think as moms, it can be really hard to make time for that. But it can also really help us, yeah, to just have that intentional time with the Lord. And like some of the rest of you have said, I think, Becky, you were the one who talked about just having our children see us turning to the Lord and practicing asking forgiveness when we fail. And

that is all part of it. Danny, the rest of you have things that you found helpful?

Yeah, I agree with the things you said there, Andrea, about feeding yourself spiritually and also in other ways. I have found that for myself, if I can have a little portion each day, and it doesn't always happen, where I can not be with my children, I can love them so much better when I'm with them.

Usually during nap times and the other older ones that aren't napping have a quiet time, I can either go spend time with God. I can catch up with my laundry. For me, it might be going outside and taking a walk or just a little bit of brain space has been—it's very helpful. Yeah.

Thank you for that. Okay. That brings us to the end of the session on discipling. Okay. Let's go on to the next section. The next section that we have is on inspiring our children. And Mary Esther, this one is for you. How do you inspire and fuel the love of learning in your children? You touched on this a little bit, but give us some more practical details on it.

Yeah, sure. So I think we all know the simple answer of be inspired and love learning yourself.

It's just contagious.

I don't find that hard to be myself. I can have six new ideas before breakfast, and there are probably not very many of them very practical or feasible. But anyway, I think that the way we are is going to be contagious.

And in just, yeah, like the mother who takes her children out on the porch to watch the thunderstorm and praise God in it, or to notice the insects or say, "Hey, come here. Do you see this?" Or just be excited about things. I have yet to learn how to say, "Look, fractions are amazing. See how this works?"

And my fifth grader gets so excited. So yeah, sometimes things need to be done. They don't need to be fun. They just need to be done. But our approach definitely affects them.

Or bringing it up at the table when the whole family is together. And guess what Tommy learned today? You want to tell us about it? Or I've found that when they're around, oh, I don't know, about five, their world is just opening up and they're thinking more logically rather than just being happy and go play. But how does this work?

And just to fuel that in them and say, "What do you think would happen if?" Whatever. You want to take this and go try something out and see what happens? Then tell me about it. And then I've had to remind myself that when they do pick up on this and they say, "Mama, come see this."

My life may not be too busy to always say, "No, I can't do that right now. I need to go see the ants or the rainbows or the flowers," whatever. One thing that I've had to remind myself, though, is not to push my excitement or interest on them that might not be a child's interest.

And it is a drudgery to them. It doesn't work too well to—well, I can get all enthused about all the wonderful ideas and curriculums out there, but I might overwhelm my children with them. And it's good to remember to keep things simple, be excited about things, but also remember what they're excited about and fuel their love of learning and their avenues.

Just to add to that a little bit, I love what you said, Mary Esther. And there's so much tied up in tone of voice. If we use an uplifting, positive, happy tone of voice, we all know how it is when somebody read a Bible passage in a monotone voice. Or else if you read it like a story, the children are actually invested and involved. Tone of voice does so much to inspire.

Yeah, that's really good. And then faith, what are some specific ways you've encouraged your children to pursue their interests? Yeah. So I think Mary Esther, she brought this out as to be interested yourself. As parents, we have a lot to do to model interest. I know when I started knitting and crocheting, I picked up some of those things. Well, it was very quick that my daughters wanted to too. And they have far surpassed me in their ability to make intricate things. And so yeah, to be interested, I think it's good as parents that they see us interested, excited about learning, sharing what we're learning, then that can inspire them as well. And I think we can encourage them in their interest.

We provide materials for them. Sometimes their interests aren't always convenient. They're not always cheap. If we can do what we can to provide them with resources, maybe it's an online course or supplies to do what we can. I also think we should give them freedom to explore. As adults, sometimes we are interested about things for a little bit, and then you get to a difficult or it's not working well for your life at the moment, and you let them go. And I think we need to give our children that same freedom.

Not everything they initially are interested in will go somewhere. You might buy them a chemistry set, and they use it once or twice, and then it sits on a shelf or paint supplies or whatever. And I don't think we should guilt-trip our children into an interest dying. And if they feel at a freedom to explore, I found that often they will end up picking up some of those things later. There are things I thought were complete guns.

They got thrown into a closet only to, in a later time, in a later season, maybe they're more mature, they'll pick them up again. And sometimes it's a funny reason. One of my children thought they just didn't like art. And until recently, I got her a sketchbook that is really tiny.

And so I think the size of the paper made it less overwhelming. And she's like, "I love this." And she is just going, going, going through filling page after page of artwork. And what was the difference? It was the size of the sketchbook. And so some of those things are a little bit unpredictable. And so as a parent, you have to be curious too in what you're going to give your children to do.

Can I just insert there? Faith, I appreciate the reminder of giving them freedom to explore, but not putting a guilt trip on them. That's good. I've realized recently that I have a child who has, well, if I have six ideas before breakfast, he might have 12. But he was struggling with something I realized, and he says, "Nothing works out."

And I started thinking through his eyes and through his projects and realizing that it's kind of true that a lot of things are not working out. And I need to be able to help him taste success. And so no, not pushing them through on a project and making them feel guilty, but maybe we need to come alongside and help and just keep working on it, and you'll get it, and help them taste success.

Yeah, I like that. And Faith, I think I would add to that too. What you said is that let your children teach you too. Our oldest just recently did a whole bunch of research on A380s. That's not my interest at all. But if I let him teach me, it cements it in his head just a little bit more.

So I'm asking him questions like, "Why do you have this in there?" And he's writing this research paper. And anyway, the more that he does it, the more he's learning, the more it's sticking. So yeah, I thought about that while you were talking.

Okay. Let's move on to the academics. And how important are they? Is there some parts of it that's more important than others? Becky, we'll look to you first for this one. Yeah. Well, academics absolutely matter. You don't want to downplay that. But I also want to say this: character comes first. Sometimes it's just worth slowing things down to deal with a heart issue. Because when we do deal with our children's hearts being shaped, when there's peace and teachability, self-control, then the academics can fall into place. So sometimes we get into this situation where we're just fighting things, fighting things. So if we just back off on the academics, work on character first, those things can go a lot more smoothly.

But if it's asking which subjects we should focus on more, especially in the early years, focus on learning to read well. If the child can read fluently and confidently, they're just set up to be lifelong learners. Of course, math is key as well.

And once they've learned that very, very solid foundation of how to read, I mean, they can go anywhere with their interests. When it comes to things like science and histories, I feel like those early years are just a wonderful time to spark that curiosity. It doesn't have to come from a formal curriculum. We can use them if we want to. But it might be that your child chooses a time period or a science topic that he's interested in. And we can just go to the library, find books at their level, whether that's picture books or whether it's books that I wouldn't be interested in reading because they're too in-depth. But some of my children love reading things like the history of Great Britain.

Don't ask me why. They just do.

It might mean you watch a documentary about it and have a family discussion about it and bring your worldview into it. You can read aloud or explore maps, all those things. You're just sparking curiosity. That more structured, in-depth study can come in late middle school, high school. And then as for importance of subjects, I mean, there's the subject that rises above the rest, and that's the Bible. I mean, there isn't any greater gift that we can give our children than to give them a very deeply familiar feeling with God's word. And that might be a Bible curriculum, but it doesn't have to be. Some of the richest times we've had studying the Bible as a family have been when Cliff would assign a Bible passage in the morning, and we would all read it on our own time.

Sometimes he would include questions that we were to answer. Sometimes we would just write down our inspirations, look at maps. Sometimes we'd dig into historical context, just different things. And then in the evening, during our family worship time, we'd share it. And that is a beautiful way to do Bible in your home. We don't have to do a curriculum, but sometimes a curriculum is very helpful. So always feel free to just explore that, find out what works for your family, and embrace it. There isn't just one way to do it.

Thank you. And then Andrea, how do you teach children the discipline of learning things that they may not be enthused about this? Mary Esther touched on this a little bit, but what do you have to say on that?

Yeah. Well, there's a lot of nuance with it. So the first question I would ask is, is this an attitude issue, or is it actually a developmental thing? Because there are some personalities and ages where they're just not as interested. So for example, my oldest son absolutely loves history. He's always coming and telling me details that he has read that I did not know. My second son will sit and listen to me read, but he's interested somewhat. Well, my eight-year-old daughter just about cannot sit still during history reading. She just is restless and bored. Now, if it's a picture book, she likes listening to that. So I have simply not required her to listen to as much as I do her older brothers, simply because I feel like that's a developmental and partly personality.

So sometimes she'll color while I read, or I'll let her go play halfway through. So I feel like using some discernment is really wise too, and not pushing a child to go beyond, really, I guess, their capacity. But then there are some things that we just do need to teach our children the discipline of doing it because it is the right thing to do and learn to do. Sometimes it is hard, but we're actually giving them a gift if we teach them to persevere when it's hard.

One thing that we have done that has been really helpful is just setting an alarm. And at 8:30, they go ahead and start with their work or whatever time works for your family. I usually am still finishing up things around the house, but they know they have their independent work that they can do. And that has been so good that they just know they need to do that, whether or not they really feel like doing it. And that is such a good skill for adulthood, I feel, as well. Even just in the Christian life, we don't always feel like doing things, but we do it out of obedience. And so I think teaching them to be faithful in those little things.

Another thing is to try to find to balance maybe hard subjects with things that they do enjoy. So maybe that looks like having shorter lessons. Maybe if it's—I know sometimes when there's been writing assignments in different curriculum, and they just aren't excited about whatever topic it is, I let them pick a different topic.

So just I think we can use creativity and be discerning. Pray about it. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you what is the issue at play. And along with that, yeah, modeling diligence and teaching diligence.

Thank you for that. And that's a springboard for the next question, which I would like to ask Faith and Becky. And that is, what about children with special learning needs, and how have you adapted to meet these? And it doesn't matter. Whichever one of you wants to go first.

Yeah. Thank you, Andrea, for what you shared about that. I think one thing I would love to add to that is children aren't really different from adults. If we don't know the why of why we're doing something, it's really hard to be enthused about it. And so sometimes our children just need help to articulate why this is useful. And even though it's difficult, that can really help with difficult subjects, with things that they maybe wouldn't be enthused about on their own, as they probably need you to help them give a bigger picture.

So yeah, special learning needs. So a little bit of our story is my 15-year-old son, he was born about four months premature. And so our educational journey with him has been one of the more challenging ones for our children. He didn't talk very soon.

Learning to read was extremely difficult for him. He would have been diagnosed—has a few diagnoses.

And so yeah, I think I would say it took till he was probably—see, he's 15 now. I'm going to say he was 13, 14 before I could say, "Okay, you really have reading down." And even now, it's not probably his first love. You told me the other day, he said, "I'm really grateful that you made me learn to read," even though it was years of brutal hard work and frustration for both of us.

So that was encouraging to hear. Even though it was really hard, he does value that skill. So I think what I would say to children or to parents that have children with special needs, learning challenges, is you have to let go of the outcome. There was a time where I was obsessed with the idea that he needed to catch up, whatever catch up means. I'm not even sure what I thought that meant at the time.

And it was a lot of frustration and tears on both of us. And then I just came to the realization that I needed to be faithful in teaching and being consistent and doing the best I could. And I have no control over results.

And so once I let go of the expectation of outcome, there was just a lot more peace in our relationship. And it did change things. And once the pressure was off, I felt like he actually did learn a little faster. So the joke was on me for that. Another thing I would tell parents is to explore, to research your curriculum options. And just because there's a program that is touted to be really good for children with dyslexia, which is our experience, even if it's Orton-Gillingham and there's all these rave reviews, your child is still an individual. And we tried; some things worked not at all. Some things worked for a time, and they were very beneficial for a season.

But then we, for whatever reason, would get to a point where we just couldn't get them to work anymore. And so don't feel guilty to ditch curriculum and try something else if it's just not working. And along with that, I would say that there is no program that is going to be the magic bullet for a child, and you're going to have to adapt to any child, especially ones with special learning.

Another thing I would say is you need to compensate for your child's weak areas. So I'm experienced with learning difficulties, so I would spend a lot of time. I probably spent several hours a day reading out loud because I was determined that just because he couldn't read, he is a brilliant boy. And it's not fair to him to have his other school subjects suffer just because of his inability to read. And so I read. I read history. I read science. I read everything to him.

He listened to a ton of audio.

And so for him, that really helped even when he was learning to read, as he had this rich vocabulary in his mind that really paved the way for that. Another thing I would tell parents is you might need to get professional help. I think that's one of the things I regret not getting diagnoses sooner.

Anyway, so I'm really grateful for the therapy we were able to do. As a counterbalance to that, I would also say the most important thing is to not crush their spirit. You can be so focused on this problem area that you can neglect their strengths.

I think one person said, "If your child struggles in math but excels in sports, get them a sports tutor, not a math tutor." And there's a certain amount of truth in that. We need to give our children the tools they need, whether that's therapy, specialized curriculum.

But at the same time, we need to be very careful we don't crush their spirits, that we give them encouragement for the things they're good at, and that we give them plenty of time to do the things they're good at. They need it for their psyche, their well-being. There's so much more to our children than just this specific learning area. And if you have a confident child, you can teach them a lot. But if you have a child with low self-esteem, it's going to be really, really hard. And so I think that's something to consider as we deal with learning difficulties in our home school.

Yeah. To add to that, that was very, very good, Faith. Thank you for all of that. I have two sons that struggled with reading. They don't have an official diagnosis at all, but they have some dyslexic tendencies. And here are two little tips that have helped for us. The one did not enjoy reading until he was in fifth grade.

What finally helped is I gave him books that were below his reading level but were packed with high-interest content. So it was like a fun, fast-paced series about 10 books in all. And by the end of that series, something amazing happened. His mindset shifted from reading as hard to reading as easy. And once that switch flipped, he started picking up more advanced books, but always ones that were really, really fast-paced, really exciting for him. He still doesn't just love, love to read, but something did switch there. So there's something in getting them reading material that's actually a little below their level, but it helps them get that mindset switch. With my other son, we did first grade for two years.

We did one curriculum the first year. The second year, we didn't say we're doing first grade over. We just said we're continuing first grade. And we did a different curriculum. And so that wasn't discouraging for him then. And by the end of it, all of a sudden, he just transitioned into grade two without any struggle. So I don't know. In our mom hearts, sometimes these things can be hard. We're like, "Ah, they're behind." But you have to remember they're not behind. They're right where they need to be as long as they're still learning and growing.

Grade levels are just numbers. They do not define our children. They don't measure their worth or their potential. To nurture that level of learning is much, much more important than pushing them too hard, too fast. We risk teaching them that learning is frustrating and defeating. So give them that space to learn and grow at their own pace.

Thank you for that. Yeah. That's really good for me to hear. We have one that struggles as well. And yeah, you just feel like, "Ah, he's behind. What can I do?" And instead, just to relax and let him learn at his pace and, yeah, but yet still be intentional about it.

So thank you for that.

The next question we had is one on favorite curriculums, but I'm going to bundle that into the last question that we have. We have one more section to go through, and our time is running away faster than what we want it to. So maybe just abbreviate your answers a little bit, but I do want to touch on these questions. So this section has to do with how do you do it all? And Andrea, how do you homeschool from a spirit of rest? Do we have to do it all? And how do you balance being mom and a teacher? And is it more important to have the mindset that you're one over the other?

So homeschooling from a spirit of rest. I think maybe Faith, you mentioned about surrendering the outcome. And I think that is a key part, just recognizing that just like we can't give faith to our children, that's the Holy Spirit's job. We can't control the outcome of our homeschool. All we can do is be faithful, keep every day, keep showing up, keep teaching, but surrender to God, surrender our children to God.

And I think prayer is foundational in teaching from rest. Just pray about the curriculum decisions, pray about learning struggles, pray about sibling conflict. Just bring that all to Jesus. And another aspect of it is learning to see the interruptions, the things that keep us from getting our to-do list done or sticking with our schedule. Seeing that is actually from God. Those are chances to love our children, chances to model to them that people are more important than productivity.

There's a book titled Teaching from Rest, and I was just reading over recently. And oh, there's so many quotes that I would love to share, but when I'll say we need to keep it short. So I guess just to summarize, balancing being a mom and a teacher, well, the calling to motherhood comes first. I think we all agree with that. So our relationship with our children, I think, needs to take priority over academics.

And as far as just doing it all, just recognizing we can. Homeschooling, it is a full-time job. So if you can get help, I think if that's a possibility, I think it's wise to maybe get help with cleaning or teach your children to help with the housework and just other more practical things with trying to juggle homemaking with homeschooling. You can simplify meals. You can maybe have a simple meal rotation or have ingredients that your children can make their own lunches or breakfasts, just ways to simplify the work. And simplify your curriculum. You don't have to do every subject all the time. You can cycle the subjects. You can maybe focus on science one year and history another year.

And you can put children at different ages together, do family-style learning, and don't try to replicate school at home. It's homeschool. So much learning happens organically.

Yeah. There's more I can say, but I'll stop there. Thank you for that. And Becky, right along with that is, what is it that you have or can outsource to others? Yeah. I mean, Andrea already mentioned cleaning. I've been so thankful when I've had somebody come in and clean. That's one season of my life. In other seasons, we've handled as a family to really create teamwork. We'll pitch in, set a timer, and say, "Let's see if we can clean this whole house in an hour and a half." And it becomes kind of fun.

One thing I thought about is sometimes we choose a curriculum that may not be our ideal, but it's convenient. So that for us is teaching textbooks. It's not necessarily the best math curriculum I have ever used, but we continue to use it because of its convenience. It's the one thing off my plate. That's a big win for a full day.

Another thing that we've done is combined grades in curriculum. That works so well for history, science, Bible. You teach one topic, and you let each child engage at their level. Some might draw pictures. Somebody else is writing a report, but you're still just teaching one lesson. And that meets everyone where they're at. So there's some ways that we can just combine things so that we're not trying to teach every subject to every child to kind of make things a little more condensed and doable for us.

We can't do it all. We don't have to do it all, but just keep showing up with grace and a heart that focuses on the things that matter the very most.

Yeah. That's very true. Okay. And then, Mary Esther, what are some tips you have for homeschooling with preschoolers? How do you include them and keep them busy?

Yeah. That's a very big one. And a really fun one too. I think along with not having school at home, structure matters. It helps. It helps the day flow. And I've especially noticed that for my little ones, for my preschoolers. If I have older ones doing things kind of on a schedule where they know what's expected of them when, and they can work on their own now, and I'm doing something with the little ones, and they develop a pattern to their day. We do a little bit of school together.

There's a snack in there somewhere. That's a very important part of school.

And then often when I'm doing something with the older ones, maybe it's what we call mat time. And we spread a mat out on the floor. And I give the child something to do. It might be something special we save for mat time. Often I would decide. Sometimes I would tell them, "You can pick what you want for mat time this time, but then this is their time on the mat. They know they are not to get off, and they are not to talk."

And little ones don't last just very long, but there's whatever, however many minutes you decide, if it's 10 or 20 or 30, whatever, it's peaceful, and you can focus on somebody else, but they feel engaged and included, and they feel like their day has a rhythm, and they know what's coming next. That might be, yeah, you can teach your one-year-old to have mat time. I need to do that yet.

But sometimes when they were really little, there would be time in their bed to play or a pack of play, something they can't get out of. And they were just quiet, and that was the way it worked. Obviously, they need to be taught that.

Or including the one-year-old with your four and five-year-olds as you're doing their preschool together. And the one-year-old sits in his high chair, and we always had the same thing. It was right there in the school cabinet. It's this spice shaker and toothpicks and pieces of Play-Doh. And he knew every time it's time for school, he knew that's what it meant. It's the shakers and the toothpicks and the Play-Doh.

Or maybe it was a snack on his tray. And of course, things get messy or noisy or crying or whatever. But I felt like rhythms and expectations were very helpful in having them included rather than, "We want to do school now. You're just supposed to go play happily."

Didn't work very well for us.

Of course, there was a time we would send them out to play, especially if it's nice outside and there are several. There's the time where they go play together. And that was part of it too. But if they had some structure and some integration, that was helpful.

Yeah. Thank you for that. Okay. One more question for all of you. And we're going to put a couple together here. So what are some of your favorite curriculums and resources that you found that you really like, that you would recommend to others? What books would you recommend about homeschooling in general? And then also, where does someone start? What are the most important things that you think they should think through before beginning and that you wish someone would have told you before you began? So maybe do about three minutes, two minutes each. We're running our clock to the end, and we do want to have just a little bit of Q&A. But if you could touch on that, that'd be great.

Let's go in the same order as we did at the beginning. So start with Andrea, then Faith, Mary Esther, and Becky. And you can just jump in right after each other. So go ahead, Andrea. Okay. Favorite curriculum. I have really liked Math with Confidence for math for the lower grades. That has worked really well for us.

For language arts, we've done a lot of Good and Beautiful because I can print out that myself here. I've just had to find a lot of things that I can download and print out. But I've also used IEW for writing instruction. That's Institute for Excellence in Writing, and I've really, really liked that. For books that I recommend, I think my top recommendation is Teaching from Rest by Sarah McKenzie. And I also really enjoyed Awaking Wonder by Sally Clarkson.

As far as where does someone start and what to think through, I think it's really helpful to read some books about homeschooling and learn about the different educational philosophies and find what resonates with you. But also just write down what are the things that are important to you? What are your values? And as a couple, discuss that. What I wish someone had told me. I wish someone had told me that developing good habits, rhythms, traditions as a family, a family culture is actually more important than what curriculum you choose.

Yeah, Andrea, it sounds like we homeschool very similarly. Math with Confidence, it's a fairly new curriculum. They haven't developed it completely through. It's all the way through. I think they just came out with level five, but yeah, totally love it. Yes. My fifth grader is just going into it, so it works out just right for him. Oh, yeah. So for my older children, they have used a lot of Math UC.

We have also done Good and Beautiful a lot. The other thing we've done a lot of is Sunlight, or we've done a lot of Bookshark too, which is the secular version of Sunlight. It's a little bit cheaper, and I always like to have my own Bible. And so that's a good option for us. We like Explode the Code. For history, we've done Story of the World when the children were young.

Now that they're hitting high school, we have really enjoyed BiblioPlan. It follows the same classical schedule, but at a much deeper level for high school, which has been really fun. We've also utilized a lot of online things, especially with our child with dyslexia. So Curiosity Stream is a really good service for children that are a little younger. Once they get older, they've done a lot of Great Courses Plus, or it used to be called Wondragram. I think it's Great Courses Plus right now.

So that's been a really good fit for our family. There's also Bible Project they've liked. There are some colleges, courses that offer more college-level courses for our high schoolers that have been good. There's a few things that are more specific to special needs that have been really helpful for us.

There's Life of Fred in math that's good if you have an out-of-the-box learner. There's also a DVD called Time's Tales that is so good for teaching multiplication facts. One of the programs we've used for learning to read has been Diane Craft. She has quite an extensive program with picture cards with readers.

She also does some parental supports and guidance. If you go with her, she'll do video calls with you and really give you a lot of support if you need help and nutritional guidance for children that struggle. So that's been a good fit for us. Another math that we've liked for our son has been CTC Math. And everything is audio or audiovisual, which is really nice. They also have all the questions as an audio button, at least until you get to the upper levels, which is nice because some online programs do have the lesson taught as an audio or a video lesson, but then the questions aren't read to you. So that's an option if your child can't read or can't read well.

Another thing that's been really, really good for us is a program called Toe by Toe. I recommend that. That's probably my favorite, number one. I wish I would have found it sooner. If you do go on Amazon to buy that one, just be careful. The one sold on Amazon is the British version. And so the groupings, the phonetics are a little bit different. So make sure you find there's a private company. I can't think of what it's called right, but I think she's in South Carolina or somewhere like that where she sells the American version. So make sure you are buying the American version unless you speak with a British accent.

Another thing we've used a lot, especially in our school in general, is just game schooling. There are some days where a child's really struggling. And one thing with a struggling learner is that you have a cold, and it can make a reading lesson just so much harder. And so instead of just throwing in the towel, "We can't do school today," game schooling is such a good way.

There's so many great games out there. It's a way to gently keep the skills brushed up. And so we've done a lot of that. One series that we've really liked is called Professor Noggins. It's just a trivia deck, and it's just a lot of fun. Our family has really enjoyed those. As far as just in general, book recommendations, love Sarah McKenzie's work, The Read-Aloud Family, Teaching from Rest. Also really liked the book Brave Learner by Julie Bogart.

And then also another really good read is The Self-Propelled Advantage by Joanne Calderwood. So yeah, those are probably some of my top picks.

Yeah, that was a lot of good information there. As far as things that we have enjoyed and used, we're also very much Good and Beautiful appreciators. So we've used that a lot. We have found that to work well for our family. Math UC is what we've done for math.

That's worked well for us. One thing I would say about the Good and Beautiful, I have one who is not a good speller, and that was not working for us. So I would cross off the spelling in there, and I tried Spelling UC this last year.

If you know of Math UC, this is Spelling UC, and it really, really improved the spelling. It took time because it required more writing. And so my speller was not appreciating the fact that he's learning spelling well because he was spending so much time on it. He was not enjoying spending the time on it. So we're up for something different this year.

We'll see what that is. I don't know. Yeah, we're looking at maybe Beyond the Page as Learning Gates as a spelling you can do online, and it quizzes you. And I haven't tried it yet, but I think that will probably help our speller.

As far as other, yeah, we just use a lot of living books. And we also, as far as books I read, which doesn't happen very often, but I've enjoyed recently a book called Teacher's Secrets and Motherhood Savvy by Renee Ellison.

Very practical, easy read that just has lots of good tips.

I've enjoyed the magazine called Homeschooling Today. You can get an email version, or you can order it to your mailbox. And that just has good inspiration, encouragement.

Yeah.

As far as things I wish I would have known before we started, I can think more of things that people did tell me and I didn't follow. I get excited and have lots of good ideas. And people have told me, "Keep it simple."

And I wish sometimes I would have followed that advice more. Keep it basic. Keep it simple. Enjoy. Don't push in those early elementary years.

Focus more on, like Andrea said, good habits, good rhythms, good family culture.

Yeah. So for some book recommendations for me, first of all, curriculum, they've already been mentioned, but I'll say it again. IEW, that's the Institute of Excellence in Writing, is an excellent way to teach your child to write if they are not natural writers. So I would really recommend that. I love Story of the World for the younger grades as well. For history, I love teaching history from a place of story. I feel like they really connect with it. They start to play it.

It's a good way to teach history. Those are my two recommendations there for curriculum. One book I read for myself was called Homegrown Disciple by David Sund. It's a worthwhile read. Of course, I always trust that you can eat the meat and spit out the bones. I don't know that 100% of everything that I read in there coincides with my worldview, but it was a very, very helpful book.

Yeah. As for things I wish people would have told me, I'm going to challenge you with a mindset that I feel like I had at the beginning and a lot of people do have without even realizing it. Don't try to recreate the school system at home. If you've grown up thinking that the conventional classroom is the ideal way to learn, I want to poke a few holes of doubt into that thinking.

The school system was created with good intentions. It's a way to educate large numbers of children efficiently, a kind of mass production model. But just because it's efficient doesn't mean that it's the most effective way for your child to learn.

So what if true learning happens best in a God-centered home, not just academic knowledge, but life skill, character, wisdom? Maybe, just maybe, the ideal learning environment is not a row of desk and standardized testing. Maybe it's an atmosphere where a child is deeply known and understood, genuinely loved, and taught in a way that fits their unique design. So what if that's not a compromise, but actually the best way? So it's something that you can really think about as you head into homeschooling.

My favorite piece of advice that I've heard about homeschooling is think about the little boy that brought the basket to the picnic where he was listening to Jesus speak. He gave his everything, but it was Jesus that multiplied it. And that's something I think about in my homeschool. I want to give my everything to teach my children, but it's God who's going to multiply it and make it flourish. And so that's something I like to bear in mind when I think of homeschooling, especially on the hard days.

I think I forgot to answer that part of the question. Yeah, I appreciate all that very foundational attitude toward getting started. I think one thing I would say in the very practical is, first of all, you should talk to other families and see how they're doing it, and especially the ones in your local area.

Check with HSLDA for the legal requirements for your state or your area. The legal requirements can vary widely from state to state and from town to town. And so you want to make sure that you're doing the best you can to follow the legal requirements for homeschooling. And yeah, some of the local families can really be helpful in what that would look like. And another thing I would say too is just start slow.

For the first couple of years, we were homeschooling. The first day of school, I would kind of hit my children over the head with the whole load of curriculum. And by lunch, everybody is crying, including me. And I learned to we don't have to do this all at once. We can enjoy a big special breakfast and start some of these fun traditions. I always took first-day-of-school pictures and gave each child a little goody bag of just snacks and treats for the first day of school. And we maybe would do one subject. And if that went really well, when that was going well, then we threw in the next one and worked ourselves up. And it went so much better than just trying to jump in with both feet.

And everybody's frustrated on the first day and start your school year with kind of a bad taste.

I wanted to add a favorite resource that I have used a lot are different morning time plans. So morning time, sometimes it's called, I don't know, morning meeting. Different families call it different things, but it's kind of bringing in, I guess Charlotte Mason calls them beauty subjects, but Bible, music, poetry, literature.

It's called Brighter Day Press has different morning time plans that I really enjoy using. And then also Gentle Classical. She has different ones themed around virtues, reader logs, and Bible memory. And that has just been really helpful for me.

I don't follow it 100%, but as a springboard. And it's just brought a lot of beauty to our homeschool days. So I really recommend those. Yeah, you cut out just a little bit there. Which one do you recommend?

There's two, Brighter Day Press and Gentle Classical. Both have different resources for morning time plans that I've really enjoyed.

Yeah, that's something that we added about a month or so before we ended school this year. And at first, our children felt like, "Well, I can't get my schoolwork done because we're doing this for too long." We actually started doing it at the breakfast table. And just one of the things we're doing is World Watch. I don't know if any of you are familiar with that. It's a 10-minute video.

Children love it. They beg to watch it. And it just goes across five to seven different news stories out of a Christian worldview. And our children have really enjoyed that. And then we also did some campfire curriculums. That's something that you can do on the you can have it on the computer and just go across it. And we're going across the geography of the US and is very interesting. And they love it. And I feel like it helps to give our school day this positive boost. We also do our Bible time in there as well. So yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that. Okay. So let's transition a little bit to our Q&A. We don't have much time for this because we're at 4:45.

And thank you all for hanging in here with us. I've had so much fun. It doesn't feel like we're at an hour and 45 minutes, but we are. So there's a couple of messages in the chat here. I'll start with that, but you can be thinking about a question. If you have a question, you can turn your video on and ask your question, or you can also do it through the chat, like we said. So the first one here is just that it's another book recommendation, Large Family Logistics by Kim Brenneman is an excellent book for those not able to arrange outside help for chores. So whenever you're doing it more on your own. So she's recommending that book.

And then another question that we have has to do with, and Faith, you touched on this a little bit, like every place is a little bit different as far as what they require, what the homeschool laws look like. And so she has a question on that, and I'll just read it here. As homeschooling parents going into our third year with an 8, 7, 4, and 2-year-old, we value the time spent with our children and feel homeschooling is a good fit for us. But at the moment, we're living in Germany where homeschooling is forbidden.

Do you have any words of wisdom in the line of sending our children to Christian schools? As parents, we realize we cannot totally protect our children from the world, but at the same time, struggle with the thought of sending them out before they are truly soldiers of Christ. And so I don't know if any of you have ideas or recommendations for that. And Avian, I thought maybe you could also maybe give a little bit of insight in this because I know where you are in the Netherlands, it's not very homeschool-friendly either.

So yeah, go ahead. Which one of you would like to reply to that? I don't know that I have any recommendations, but the thing that I would say is make the hours that you have with your children count. If you are unable to homeschool because of the local laws, I know people have suffered for this to try to make their country homeschool-friendly. I don't know what to recommend there, but I do know that the hours that you do have with your children, make them count. Make those memories, disciple them, have that time. Don't be busy when you do have that opportunity to spend time with them.

Thank you for that. And yeah, I agree with that. There are ways that you can do it, even if it's not the way that is your ideal way of looking at things. Actually, that's all homeschooling is, is you never can do your ideal. Like we talked about, you can't do it all. You can't do everything. So you have to pick the things that are most important to you and focus on that. And so I think that can apply here in this situation too, and pray about it, and also see if you can connect with people that are in your local area because they have a better feel for it. I know that, yeah, even though it might feel totally restricted, there might be some little loopholes that you can do this or do that to make it be legal to, yeah, especially I'm thinking of following your convictions.

And if you don't have a good Christian school option, I know we would not feel comfortable with public school. And so yeah, just pray about it and seek out people around you that are in the same jurisdiction that you are.

Okay. Any other? Oh, go ahead, Avian. In the Netherlands, it's a little bit different. You can homeschool, but I know in Germany you can. But I was also thinking about a family in Germany who wasn't able to send their children to school, wasn't able to homeschool, but they still have very good discipled children. So I think it's not a rule like you have to homeschool and then you have disciples as children. So I just thought maybe I can encourage this person with that. And I know that they have, like Becky said, good quality time with their children. And they also visit like-minded people very often. So they have more interactions with those people.

That is more in their minds and in their memories than other things they don't prefer to have for their children. So just say something encouraging because they can still be disciples.

Yeah. Thank you for that. And another suggestion that came in through the chat for that is that you can reach out to HSLDA as well, the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, and they have a German associate or colleagues who can help with the issues of homeschooling in Germany. So that might be a good resource for you as well.

Okay. Other questions?

I have a question here in the chat, and I think it's a good one because I think it's something that my mom was concerned with actually when I first started homeschooling our children. And it's about social skills or socializing them. So the question is, I have heard that homeschooling doesn't give children as many chances to learn social skills, and it can be more difficult for them when they step out of the home with jobs and our youth group activities. Is this a valid concern? And are there intentional ways to overcome this?

I think it's probably a valid concern. Our children won't get the experience they would in relating with other children or groups of people. But I do think there's things we can do by spending time with other families. And if it's possible for your family, we have found that being part of a co-op, even one day a week, can provide some of that experience exposure.

I think I would say that socialization is extremely important, not only for your children, but also for you. And so because we take our children with us as homeschoolers, we're not locking them in a closet. If we are honest about our own social needs and our interactions in our church and our communities, and we're healthy as parents in that respect, I think that'll go a long way in making sure our children are well-rounded socially.

Yeah. I think it can take intentionality to just teach them some of those social skills, teach them. I think, Mary Esther, you mentioned teaching them how to greet people when they come to your house or just how to talk with a variety of people. But I think maybe just a little bit of a, I don't know, pushback. Yeah, our children might not be like their peers who go to school, but that's not always a bad thing.

They have time to pursue their interests. And I feel like I have seen in my children just the freedom to be themselves and not be pressured, not have a lot of peer pressure, and not have to try to fit in with all what their friends their ages are doing. I mean, I see the contrast of what my experience was in going to school.

And so to some people, that may look like maybe they're a little bit unsocialized, but that's not always a bad thing.

The other thing to consider is that at no other time in their life are they actually going to be in a group of peers that are all their own age, have the same interests, have the same ways of thinking about things. And as much as I agree, it takes intentionality to teach them these things. And yet, for our children to learn through all those formative years to relate to those younger and more vulnerable than us, to be compassionate with those, to be respectful to older people, to relate to the older siblings in a healthy way, kind of that back-and-forth interaction may actually be a better representation of what they're going to experience in life in general when they go from our homes.

But it does take intentionality to do teach those things and not just be holed up in our own little homes, but interact freely with our neighbors, within our church, within so many different social circumstances so that they do learn to interact in a good way because school-trained children don't necessarily interact ideally, but they do interact in a different way than homeschooled children do. That is true. And I want to just a word of encouragement that I've heard from people that didn't homeschool but were impressed by certain aspects of it. And they said, "What we notice in homeschooled children is that they will look an adult in the face. They will look at their eyes and answer questions in a way that they found school children not to do because they weren't as used to continuous interaction with adults."

So it's a word of encouragement, but then it is still a valid concern. We do need to think intentionally teaching our children social skills.

Thank you for that.

Okay. Another question here has to do with the history in the context of scripture. And I think, Becky, this was you that had talked about that a little bit, if I remember right. And is there a certain curriculum that you use for that? And does it include the history and social dynamics of the Bible?

I've found different resources for some history. Are you asking like curriculum that would be like a history of the Bible, history of the Christian church?

Yeah. I found some curriculum along that line, especially for high school. CLE does have some church history by Keith Crider, I noticed. We have not worked through that, so I don't know whether or not to recommend it. We did do a generations curriculum that does have a book and a workbook called How Jesus Built His Church. One thing to remember that that would have a certain amount of Protestant theology in it. We don't mind using curriculums like that. We have a lot of open discussions about things that can help incorporate our worldview.

Those are the two that come to mind right away. I think the question is how secular history and biblical history intersect. And so I know that Story of the World was mentioned. And I'll just say this is that there's a number of, well, also Faith, you mentioned BiblioPlan. Story of the World, BiblioPlan, and Mystery of History all use the four-unit approach to history. And so we've done some Story of the World, but for that first period, Story of the World is secular. And I would opt to use Mystery of History or BiblioPlan that ties in the biblical story, especially in that first 2,000 years period of study. So I would use Story of the World for the later ones because I like how it's set up like a story, but I would use Mystery of History for that first unit.

And so I don't know if that helps to answer that question a little bit too of how you can incorporate Bible study into the secular history as well. And I actually love that. I've actually used those two together, Mystery of History and Story of the World. I've used them together some because I feel like it's so important for our children not to separate Bible history from history itself, that it's all entwined. And it's fascinating to realize how Daniel and Homer may have been alive close to the same years or something like that. I forget the exact details, but it's good for them to understand that this is not just Bible, something that's separate from history.

It's a part of history, a very large part of history. Yeah, that's really good. Thank you. Okay. I think that we will wrap it up with that. I would love to let the Q&A open for a little bit more, but we are at one of our longest calls. So thank you for bearing with us. All right. Let's talk about our next talk, which is July 5th. And this is going to be by Carol Knisely on personal Bible study. And I'll just read her intro here. I find there is no shortage of opinions on most any topic under the sun, and many of them leave me anxious. With Simon Peter, I say, "Lord, you have the words of life."

While the amount of time spent in personal quiet Bible study varies within the season of a woman's life, I believe it is always possible to meditate on and to internalize its truths. What are some keys to regular, nourishing, and satisfying Bible study? What keeps us from studying? What tools have others found to be helpful? And is there a difference between having devotions and being devoted? So join us July 5th for that call by Carol, and we're going to be praying for her as she prepares for her talk as well. So thank you all for joining us today. I really appreciated this talk. It went very fast for me. And I'm just going to ask Faith if you would just close us in prayer as we end this meeting.

All right. Thank you, ladies, for being on this today. Let's pray. Dear God, we thank you for this opportunity we have to be sisters in Christ, to encourage each other in our homeschooling journey as mothers that care about the spiritual development of our children, the character development, the academic development of our children. And we pray that you would take our humble endeavors and that you would grow it into something far more than we can imagine. We pray that you would protect our children spiritually, that they would grow up to make the right choices in life, to ultimately surrender their lives to you, to be willing to follow you in whatever path you have for them.

Help us to lay the foundation for them and know when to press them harder and when to be gentle and let them mature and all the things that we face each day that take so much wisdom. I pray that you would just grant us your wisdom. I pray that you would do a work in our hearts. I pray that you would give us abundance of your Holy Spirit that we could, first of all, show by our lives to our children what it means to be a disciple for you, what it means to have patience, what it means to walk in humility and in honesty before you. And I pray that you would guide each one of us into greater relationship with you.

Help us to use the opportunities we have to grow. And we know that homeschooling is a very powerful tool in your hands, not only for our children, but for ourselves, most of all, that you have used our children to shape us into better mothers and that we have learned to rely on you in ways that we might not otherwise. And we just thank you that you've led us in this way. And we pray that we would be faithful with this responsibility and that our children would go out into the world and be a blessing to their communities and to wherever you have for them. In Jesus' name, I pray.

Amen. Thank you so much. And God bless you all, especially those of you that it's dark out and you're sacrificing sleep to be on the call. So go rest. So we'll see you next time. God bless you.

Walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him, being fruitful in every good work.

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