Creating an Unhurried Homeschooler Attitude in the Midst of a Frenetic Homeschool World [Show]

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Gretchen Roe: 00:00:05.034
Hello, everyone. My name is Gretchen Roe and it is my very great pleasure to welcome Durenda Wilson with me today. I have looked forward to this conversation for a whole year. And we’re both laughing. We’re a minute late getting started because we’re laughing about the fact that whenever you want to do something to illustrate a wonderful point, doesn’t the opposition come right along beside you and make it pretty much impossible to do that. So that’s what we’re about today and we’re going to have a conversation. By way of introduction, my name is Gretchen Roe. I’m the homeschooling mom of 6. Now retired and I’m delighted to welcome Durenda today and I will let her introduce herself.

Durenda Wilson: 00:00:52.813
Well, thank you, Gretchen. It’s really great to be here. I’m Durenda Wilson and I’m married to Darryl. We’ve been married for 33 years and we have 8 kids, ages 18 to 32, 5 boys and 3 girls. We homeschooled all of them from the beginning. So we have 7 graduated so far. I think we’re somewhere around 28 years of homeschooling. And yeah, we have our 10th grandbaby on the way and I’ve written a few books and have a podcast and love encouraging moms. So I’m happy to be here today.

Gretchen Roe: 00:01:25.766
Well, I have to tell you, I really thoroughly enjoyed the hour I got to spend with Durenda last week planning this conversation. And I know that there are so many of you who are delighted to hear this because we live in a society that just drives us toward frenetic all the time. A fact that I remember well is we get more information in a day than our grandparents got in their entire lifetime. And it’s hard to sort the information. It’s hard to keep it straight. And today, on the Demme Learning Show, Durenda and I are going to talk about how do you cultivate that unhurried mindset. So, Durenda, I would like to begin with you telling a little bit of your story of how you got to the idea that being unhurried was a better way to do that. And let me also say, as an aside, Durenda and I were here having this conversation today because you all wanted us to have this conversation.

Durenda Wilson: 00:02:26.602
Okay. Well, I think it really started back when I started having kids and we decided to homeschool and realized even then that childhood was being stripped away from our children. And I had a good childhood, even though I was public-schooled. But we had more of a culture and parents who sort of understood that, that kids needed to be kids, they needed certain processes and things like that. And that was just sort of an understood thing. And I saw that dying very quickly and realized I did not want to put my kids in a situation where they weren’t going to have that because childhood its preparation. It’s preparation for higher learning, it’s preparation– just in and of itself, just even playtime and all those things that happened during childhood are so essential for just becoming a productive, healthy, well-adjusted adult. And so we decided that we were going to homeschool. And then I also decided that I was going to take a more simple, unhurried approach with our kids. And this was based on a book that I had read when I was a teenager before I even had kids. It was called Better Late Than Early. You can pick up copies of it here and there. It’s hard to find now, but it’s–

Gretchen Roe: 00:03:49.080
You read this book as a teenager?

Durenda Wilson: 00:03:51.527
As a teenager. I don’t even know why, but I think I’ve always been interested in kids and child development and things like that because I did take some child development classes and I knew I wanted to be a mom someday. About the same time, I also had met my first homeschooling family. And I loved them. Their kids were a hoot. They were so much fun and just they seemed so smart and just quick and quick-witted and all these different things. So I thought well, this is really putting a good taste in my mouth for homeschooling. The desire was just there. So based on kind of what I knew, based on some child development classes I had taken and what I learned from this book that just seemed to resonate with my mom heart for kids I didn’t even have yet. But I had worked with kids enough to see that what he was saying made so much sense. So I proceeded to move forward with just sort of taking our time. I didn’t hit the books at five years old. We were still doing things like Play-Doh and baking together. My main thing was keeping them alongside of me. And I think what happens is they end up seeing what good character looks like. And this is the character formation time, is in these early years. When that foundation is laid well, the rest of homeschooling goes so much smoother. Unfortunately, a lot of parents think they have to– oh, we need to learn to read now, you’re four or you’re five. And so I didn’t take that approach. I said, whenever they show me that they’re interested in learning to read, we’ll start to learn to read. And so that’s kind of what we did. And I made mistakes along the way, sometimes pushing when I shouldn’t, but I backed off because I was committed to that purpose of taking a slower approach. And so as I did that, of course, I as a mom have to take my time and slow down as well, right? And so that sort of started seeping into other areas of my life. As the kids start to grow and you have these different concerns and different things, you need time to think them through. I want a time– I need a time to watch my kids, to be a student of my kids. So that I knew where they were. I had a pulse on them every day, where were they physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually? I knew my kids inside and out. And then it helped guide what direction we would take educationally, or what our days would take and all of that. So that’s kind of how the whole unhurried thing started and God just has continued to bring me back. Now, fast forward, I’m a nana of 10. Our family is growing exponentially. I feel inadequate on a regular basis, just like we all do at every season of life. And realizing that slowing down, again, and just for me praying through things, talking through things with my husband, with my kids and things like that, is key to just keeping a real sense of peace in our household and in our family. Just a little side note, we live on 21 acres and several of our kids live here too. So there’s a sort of a commune. I don’t know what you want to call it, I don’t know if that denotes negative things in people’s mind, but it’s like a compound. I don’t know what you want to call it. It’s not a cult, I can tell you that. But it’s basically just there’s more communication that needs to happen. There’s a lot more interactions than if my husband and I just lived in a little condo and all our kids just went and did their thing, you know? So it’s challenging in those ways too. And all of this always coming back to slowing down. Slowing my heart down, my mind down, my body down, because everything out here is just frenetic all the time. And we, without even realizing, let all these things influence our thinking instead of honing in on, for us, what does God have for us? What does God have for our family? What seems like a good fit for us? Even in this stage of the game. So that’s kind of where it all came from–

Gretchen Roe: 00:07:59.860
Tell me me how you made the decision to homeschool even before Darryl was a part of the picture, so to speak. So how did you bring Darryl along on that journey? Because we have a lot of moms who join us, they’re not pulling in the same direction. Their hearts are convicted, and their husband’s hearts are not yet convicted. And sometimes it’s the other way around because I have those conversations at conferences too, where dad has decided, and mom isn’t sure whether she wants to get on board. So how did you all make that happen?

Durenda Wilson: 00:08:35.847
Okay. Well, I had it really easy because my husband’s brother was a little bit ahead of him, had, I want to say, a six or five-year-old and a three-year-old. And they were homeschooling. So he saw it. It made sense to him. Now, when it came to the simple, unhurried approach, he wasn’t fully on board to start with. He was kind of– and I kind of explained some of the reasons why. But he stepped back, and he said, “I’m just going to trust your heart for our kids and move forward.” Now we go to conferences. He will not stop talking about how important it is to take a simple unhurried approach. But I understand the dilemma that some moms are in. And so, as a believing mom, my approach would be– and this happened to us in the area of having kids. He said he only wanted 2. I, in my head, not out loud, said I wanted 10. So we joked that we compromised at 8. But it was an ongoing discussion. And what it was, was me, first of all, praying for him that if this is what the Lord wanted, that he would change his heart. And then also just listening to their concerns. What are they concerned about? And we don’t have to have an answer for everything. But I think listening to what they’re concerned about is saying, “I care what you think. And I see you for the role that you have in this family. It’s an important one. And I really want to be on the same page with you.” So I have a little digital devotional that I want to share just because it fits into this really well. It goes with the Unhurried Homes or with The Four-Hour School Day. And so I offer it for free. Anyone who just subscribes to my email, that hardly ever goes out. [laughter] Yeah, so anyway, all that to say, what I did in there was really try to bring parents back to, “Okay, what are our concerns? What are our fears? What are we worried is going to happen? What do we want for our kids?” So a whole bunch of questions to ask your husband or husband to ask the wife for them to go through together and just be honest with one another, take the time to really process the questions, and process what they’re really feeling inside. And it helps direct them. So that they can be on the same page. And I think key is that our purpose is the same. That’s the big part of it. And so the other part of the devotional is something you do with your kids. It’s questions you ask them. You’re kind of ferreting out how to get direction on what they might be interested in, and depending on where you are in the phase of homeschooling. So that’s what I would suggest.

Gretchen Roe: 00:11:35.371
And I think one of the things that is hard when you begin a homeschooling journey is it’s the longest period of time you have sowing seed before you see fruition of seed. And that’s hard for dads. It’s hard for them to not– because our husbands are acculturated to want to be problem-solvers and solution-finders, and–

Durenda Wilson: 00:12:05.257
They want results.

Gretchen Roe: 00:12:06.417
–sometimes that isn’t always happy. They want those results, and they don’t get to see those immediately. So then they start to second-guess, and that’s where we have to be resolute in being encouraging.

Durenda Wilson: 00:12:19.157
Yeah. And also, if you can help just sort of paint a picture for them, it’s like a farmer. When a farmer plants his seeds, he has no guarantee of what the crop is going to be like. All he can do is be faithful to nurture the seeds, to be watchful, to be mindful, to be giving it what those plants need along the way as best he can. And the weather is going to come and go, and things are going to happen. But at the end of the day, I know for us, it’s a faith walk. It’s a, “I’m going to do what I believe God is calling us to do. And I’m going to be faithful, and I’m going to trust that he’s going to make it, that He’s going to make– He’s going to make it a great harvest.” And we saw that happen. I think I shared this with you last week. Kind of early on, we had found a kind of a rhythm. I think we had all eight kids at the time, actually. So all of them were in school except for the little, little ones. And so there was a lot of homeschooling and all that going on, kind of in the– really, very much in the thick of it. And I remember thinking, first, “Oh my gosh, this rhythm actually feels peaceful.” And then my next thought was, “If there were a camera in my house and people actually saw what I was doing, they would say that I was not doing enough, that these kids were going to be a failure, I was going to ruin my children, all these different things.” Because there’s so many different opinions out there on education. And everybody seems to have a plethora of opinions. But at the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter what they think. It matters what is God calling you to? What is your heart for your children? And so it was at that moment that I just prayed. Because I was like, “Lord, I can’t let this bring me down. But I don’t know how– I don’t know what to do with this.” And He reminded me of the loaves and the fishes and how Jesus told the disciples these are thousands of people, and He’s like, “Feed them.” He asked them to do something that was physically clearly impossible for them to do. And I know that homeschooling eight children well and having them turn out to be productive, healthy adults was not something I could do on my own. It was an impossible task. And so then, to go on with the story, and Jesus looked at the disciples, and He basically said, “Bring me what you have. What do you have?” Because they were like, “We can’t do this.” And He was like, “Okay, bring me what you have. Not what you don’t have, what you do have.” And then it reminded me that He was able to multiply what I was offering and make it more than enough. And so that was kind of just what I’ve gone back to over and over again. And I still go back to now. Because at the end of the day, oh my gosh, like I said, the opinions are ridiculous. You can’t do it all. You cannot do it all. You’ve got to slow down and listen to that mom that God has given you. And just keep doing that and trust that at the end of the day, it’s going to be enough.

Gretchen Roe: 00:15:23.400
I think, in our conversation last week, one of the things that I said is I was very grateful that I homeschooled before the age of social media, before my phone drove so much of my attention. And I think today one of the things I would love to hear you say is how can we encourage moms to follow their own hearts more than they follow what they see posted on a network?

Durenda Wilson: 00:15:54.563
I would say be very, very careful what and how much information you take in. Do you have time every day to process your day? Because I know what we tend to do is just like, “Oh, I’m exhausted. I’m going to look at my phone and just get–” We feel like we’re getting our mind off of things, but what we’re doing is we’re adding to what’s already there. And so being quiet for a while at some point in the day. I know that can be difficult with little ones, but eventually, they do all go to sleep. [laughter] This is why we had regular bedtimes. “I don’t care if you’re not sleeping yet. Just don’t get off that bed. Stay there.” And this is where we need to be careful that we are slowing down enough that we’re building margin in our days so that we have time for that. Be careful who you’re listening to. This is one thing that I have noticed, and I’m not sure how to reconcile it, maybe some of you all can help me. I’ve noticed that a lot of the younger moms do not go to older moms for their advice, for their mentoring. And this is something that the Scripture really says clearly, that older women are to mentor the younger women. And I realize that sometimes it’s very difficult to find someone that you respect. And, thankfully, yes, we can sometimes find someone online, and I have a lot of moms tell me like, “You’re that person for me.” But my encouragement would be, “That’s great. Please find a person in real life because I could be lying to you, sitting here, telling you all this stuff. You’ve never seen my home. You’ve never seen my family. You’ve never met my kids or my husband.” Boy, it could be a whole different ball game. It’s not. I’m transparent. It’s out there.

Gretchen Roe: 00:17:44.171
I was going to say, “Well, now I’m going to stop you there because I’ve met your kids.” I don’t think that’s the truth at all, but– [laughter]

Durenda Wilson: 00:17:51.104
Well, thank you. But I’m just saying that is a potential huge possibility with any influencer out there, whether they’re old or young or whatever. But there’s something about– there’s a reason that God says to go to the older women. Now, they might not be able to speak to every single thing, and it’s not going to be a perfect relationship and all of that. But what I would encourage you to do is look for– just keep your eyes peeled. And I would pray, “Lord, show me a mom who has done a good job raising her kids, has a good marriage and is homeschooling.” Someone who’s further down the road and their kids seem to be doing great, go ask them questions. Don’t be afraid. You will learn so much. Just ask questions. And doing that in real life is so much better. These things that are online, they should always just be supplemental to your local church, to your local community, to your real-life relationships. And this is a great tool. I mean, I’m not going to pretend that this doesn’t have some value. But we have to be super, super careful. I like to go back to when I was first homeschooling for the first– what? Probably, oh gosh, 10, 15 years, where I just had a phone, like pick up the phone and call somebody, right? I didn’t have a cell phone. So I like to go back to that a lot of times, and I’ll just take all the apps off my phone. I actually keep apps off my phone pretty regularly. And then I just turn the ringer on. And I’ll even turn off the messaging so I’m not getting texts. And to people who are close to me, like my grown kids, I’ll say, “Hey, this is what I’m doing. If you really need to get a hold of me, call me.” And then all I have to do is listen for a ring. If it rings, great; if it doesn’t, great. And that can be so, so helpful. Pretend you have a phone on the wall. Do you remember that, Gretchen? [laughter] [crosstalk].

Gretchen Roe: 00:19:54.671
When you said, “Pretend you have a phone on the wall,” I vividly remember garreting one or more of my children because I had the phone stretched to its length. And somebody would come around the corner and get clotheslined by the phone. Yeah, invariably.

Durenda Wilson: 00:20:10.574
Exactly.

Gretchen Roe: 00:20:11.713
But moms in this day and age have no idea what we’re talking about. [laughter]

Durenda Wilson: 00:20:15.837
Right. And then when you got to– by the time you’re on the phone, you’re doing as much as you can within 15, 20 feet of your phone. But then you’re like, “You know what? I got to go.” [laughter] So it made us limit. And I think we need to put healthy boundaries on ourselves, and yeah, just be really mindful of that. So I’m glad you brought that up. That’s really good.

Gretchen Roe: 00:20:39.408
Right. And so I’ve read your books. I think they’re wonderful. But for our viewers and our listeners who might not have read your books, tell me what a four-hour homeschool day looks like in your world because I’d love for us to be able to unpack that a little bit for moms who feel like they’ve got to do it all.

Durenda Wilson: 00:21:05.424
Sure. I’ll tell you exactly what our schedule was and actually what it is now still, even with one at home. But I want to preface it by saying when I say four hours, that was the max that was for high school. If they were in kindergarten, we’re talking zero to 30 minutes. I don’t know if moms know this, but back in the day, kindergarten was just playtime. They were playing in the dirt. Even when they went to school, kindergarten was mostly play. People saw the value in that. And that’s just been completely annihilated. But anyway, so that’s just to explain– and incrementally more the older they get. But I maxed out at around four hours because I wanted our kids to have time in the afternoon for something that they’d always had time for and that was their interests and their hobbies and things like that. So the beginning of the day, there were chores first: get out of bed, make your bed, get dressed, tidy your room. Don’t come out of your room until that’s done. And then we have breakfast. And then there were usually a couple more chores like the dishes and taking out garbages and everybody kind of had their things that they did. Then I did inspections because you can’t expect what you aren’t willing to inspect, right? They won’t do a good job. They won’t learn how to do a good job if we aren’t teaching them.

Gretchen Roe: 00:22:26.416
I love what you just said. “You can’t expect what you don’t inspect.”

Durenda Wilson: 00:22:30.954
And yes, and when you do have to inspect and say something critical, do the little sandwich thing where you’ve got a praise, a criticism, or a correction, and then a praise. So you got twice as much praise as you have. Because it’s a process for them to learn what it looks like to have a job well done. Another thing that I would do when we checked the room is I started to say to them when something was clearly out of place, “Do you see anything in here that needs to be put away?” Instead of just going in there and telling them what to do, I wanted to train their eyes to see, “Oh, that’s out of place.” And then they have to own it as well. So that’s a little tip– well, little life hack for you. [laughter] So then we started schoolwork around 9:00 o’clock. And everybody was done, except for the high schoolers by noon unless they dilly-dallied. And if they were really dilly-dallying, we would still put the school books away until that free time that they loved so much would come in the afternoon. They would have to go back to their schoolwork. I can count on one hand how many times that had to happen because they valued that time so much and they knew they were going to get it every day. They were willing to get that directed learning accomplished in the morning. And when they were done with their schoolwork, they always had to come to me and say, “I’m done.” And I would go over it with them every single day because if I didn’t, they might not get a concept, and I might not figure it out for two weeks. So this helped me keep a pulse on exactly what they were doing. I had them participate the correction and all of that because, again, that helps them own it. And they want to get out of there, man. They want to move on to greener pastures. So they had motivation. So we ate lunch, took a little rest time, and then they had that open-ended time in the afternoon, usually a couple of hours. Now, periodically, maybe 10% of the time, that was dental appointments, doctor’s appointments. Sorry, guys, you’re not going to get that time today. But they knew that the rule was that they would get that time. And initially, of course, if your kids haven’t had that before, they’re going to be bored. I did not allow my kids to use that word. So I would say, “Oh, you’re bored.” And I have a jar, and I have little pieces of paper, some were fun things, and others were chores. And so they’d have to reach down in the jar, and they were taking a chance what they were going to get, right?

Gretchen Roe: 00:24:47.191
I have a card file. It was the same thing.

Durenda Wilson: 00:24:50.282
And so then they didn’t want to take the risk. Or I would just– and so they wouldn’t– we’d either do that or I’d just say, “Hey, you need to figure it out, or you’re going to pick something from the jar.” And they would figure something out. So needed to be somewhat creative, productive. I mean, if it meant building a bike ramp, laying in the grass and watching the clouds, that all counted. It just needed to be whatever they kind of felt, whatever sort of came out. And I think that’s important for our kids to be in tune with that. Because then when they become adults and life becomes busy, they have this happy place that they can go back to. And they know the things that they enjoy. They know the things that help them wind down and relax. The other thing they learn from that is how they learn. So when they’re out there, and it’s self-directed, they’re teaching themselves a lot of different things that we don’t even know anything about. And just because they’re going through these processes as they’re creating things or building things or building forts or playing house or whatever it is they’re doing during that time, painting, writing, whatever, that was not screen time. That was typically not screen time. They got a half hour of screen time after their creative time, and that was it. That was it. And then we moved on to a few more chores and showers and dinner and family time. So that’s how [our day went?].

Gretchen Roe: 00:26:14.687
I have a great question here from someone that had– actually, she read my mind. So this is pretty interesting. And it says, “Do you have a recommendation for the kids that can’t start their day well? I have a morning person and a non-morning person, and by the time they’re ready, I’m done. I have such a hard time by then. How do you get or stay energized?” And I think that’s a really interesting question. I know that half of us like me who hit the floor running in the morning, and I’ve had 100 thoughts and I want you to have 99 of them. And I married a guy who doesn’t want to talk to you until he’s had two cups of coffee. So how does that work? How did you work that? Were all your kids morning kids?

Durenda Wilson: 00:26:58.353
They were not all morning people. And I’m not requiring them to be cheerful. I’m just requiring them to do what they’re supposed to do in a timely way. And actually, I just did a podcast on teaching timeliness because it’s a very important skill. Whether we feel like it or not, now is the time to make your bed. Feelings are great. I mean, they can be helpful. But they need to always be aligned with the right thing, what is right. And at that moment, when the kids first get up, cranky or not, you need to make your bed. And you don’t have to talk to anybody. You don’t have to be happy about it. You can’t be throwing things or being angry or venting. That’s not okay. But you just need to stay focused and do what’s in front of you to do in a timely way. So I would be tempted if it was an ongoing problem– I’m saying this has been going on for a while. You’ve tried different things, timers, different things, and nothing’s working. I would get to breakfast and I would say, “I’m sorry, you can’t eat breakfast until your room is taken care of.” And if they drag that out, they skip breakfast. And I know that sounds mean, but I will tell you something that probably will only happen once. And it’s being willing to do things like that without having all the guilt from here, telling you you’re a horrible mother for doing those things. Our children need us. They need our help. They need us to teach them what is right and how in this whole thing of timeliness, it’s a matter of being faithful. It’s a matter of– it’s a skill that they’re going to have they’re going to use the rest of their lives, this whole follow-through thing. Now, Gretchen, I think you probably can relate to this. What I’ve seen over the last 20 years is this big shift from when someone used to tell me, “I’m going to do this” – they’re making a commitment to me – I could count on it probably 80 to 90 percent in case there was some major– unless there was some major disaster. The opposite is true now. When someone tells me they’re going to do something, I assume they’re not going to do it because there’s been this shift in just morals and also character in kids who are now adults. And there’s really an amazing thing that happens when you grow a reputation as someone who keeps your word and who follows through. And you will have a job anywhere, seriously. They’ll teach you whatever you need to know. But if you’ll show up and be faithful and diligent in your work, you’ll have a job and your kids will too. So we don’t need to worry so much about, “Oh my gosh, I don’t know about algebra II and calculus.” You know what? Teach them to be good workers. And do things in a timely way and all of that. They will thrive. They’ll have whatever job they want.

Gretchen Roe: 00:30:06.074
Now, was that educational philosophy then driven sort of by unit study? Or was it driven by curriculum? Or was it driven by Dorinda likes this? Or did you have your children particularly your middle schoolers and above say, “I want to do this”? I mean, I have 6 children. I look at you and I’m amazed. But I spread my 6 children out over a much larger number of years than you did.

Durenda Wilson: 00:30:40.258
Yeah. I think for a lot of families doing what you can together does work well. When I had a lot of little kids, there still wasn’t a ton of stuff out there. So I just reverted to workbooks from curriculum companies that were a good fit for my kids so that they could be independent as soon as possible. That was my thing. It was like I didn’t want to sit there and do hours of schoolwork with him. I didn’t think it was necessary. I know that kids are really good at teaching themselves. I was always available, always available. But what I ended up happening is my kids ended up being so independent that sometimes I would watch them from across the room, and they’re just so frustrated. And I was like, “Hey, do you need some help?” They’re like, “Nope, I’m going to figure this out myself.” And you know what? They are amazing problem solvers as adults. And so I look at that and I go, “That was the kind of mom I was.” That was a good fit for me. I knew I was not a person to sit down and talk and teach and do all. And some moms love that. I think you should do that. It’s clearly your gifting. I tried to just do how am I gifted? Well, I’m organized. I’m consistent with a schedule, with a routine and but I thought life, I guess I looked at life like the greatest teacher. And so we would– of course, I want my kids to learn to add, subtract, multiply, divide, be able to write sentences. But so much happened through conversation for us, and when it came to language skills and writing skills, it started with just lots of good conversations, lots of vocabulary, just because I love words. And my husband has a really big vocabulary too. So just in talking, we’ll use a word and they would be like, “What does that even mean?” And we could tell them. You know what I mean? It was very natural that way. So we just tried to do it in a way that was organic for our family. Another family, it might look completely different. And man, they love the unit studies, and everybody’s fully on board and jumping in. And I just did workbooks, and I did some reading out loud. I’m not going to say I was the greatest read-aloud mom on the planet because I wasn’t. I tried. I really tried. I did. [laughter] But I mean. Again, if someone were looking in, they’d be like, “Really? That’s all the more you read to your kids.” It was kind of sporadic. And we made it through a few books and maybe more than I think. I don’t know. My kids would fall asleep. It drove me nuts. And I thought, this is the pits. Here I am being the mom I’m supposed to be. This takes a lot for me to sit down and start reading to everybody, and they’re all falling asleep. And I would just get so irritated. Well, fast forward to about a couple of years ago, and moms tell me all the time on the podcast, your voice is so calming, and it just makes me relax, and I’m like, “Oh, that’s really cool.” And my kids were like, “Yeah, Mom, that’s why we always fell asleep while you were reading to us.” And I’m like, “You could have told me that because I just was irritated because I thought you guys didn’t want to listen to me.” [laughter]

Gretchen Roe: 00:33:56.190
That was pretty funny. Much of what we do when we homeschool. I think one of the things that’s a lesson that any parent can take away is you try things, and some things work marvelously and you’re like, “Oh, this is awesome.” And then the next kid comes along and that same thing doesn’t work for that kid. So you always have to play Semper Gumby.

Durenda Wilson: 00:34:16.093
Yeah. I feel like every year was like an experiment. I’m pretty sure I know where every kid is. And then you talked about bringing them in to choose curriculum. I did try to do that. Especially if they were doing well with what they had, we would just keep doing that until I started noticing there were problems. If they were getting frustrated, they were hating a certain topic. I would just be like, “Okay, let’s talk about this. So what is it you like about this, or what do you not like? Tell me that first. Get that off your chest. Now, tell me what you do like about it.” So then if I can take that curriculum, and I can adjust it to that kid, I’ll do that. I’m not going to go out and buy something brand new. But maybe they’ve gone into a different season, different developmental phase, or whatever, and it’s just not a good fit for them anymore. Well, then I can– it’s my job to be resourceful, to hunt a few things down. And if they were old enough or I felt it was appropriate, I would say, “Here are three options. This is how this–” I especially did this with my high schoolers because I really wanted them to own their education on every subject. You’re going to get to that diploma because you earned it. So here’s the goal. Here are the steps to get there. How are we going to do this? And let them input as much as possible. But here’s three curriculum. This is a video thing, and you’d have to do this, this, and this. This is an audio thing, and you’d have to do– and just kind of explain how each one works. And then they would choose. And then if in a month down the road, they hated it. I’m like, “Well, this was your choice, and so we’re just going to keep plowing along.” Or I would say, “We can get something new, but you have to start from the beginning again. So all the work you just did that wouldn’t count for anything. You’d have to–” They don’t want to do that.

Gretchen Roe: 00:36:01.456
You know what? One of my children in sixth grade, we plugged along from August to April, and he hated what he was doing. And he said, “I want to go back to the materials we were using before.” We just finally had one of those conversations, one of those real intense conversations, and he said, “I want to go back to what we were using before.” And I said, “Well, great. But I paid for what’s laying in front of you. So how are we going to do that?” He said, “I’ll pay for it myself.” That kid raked leaves, mowed lawns, hauled trash bags for people. It was an expensive experience for him, but you know what, it was at that point that he started to own his own academics. He was a child who for everything except math, he could be independent by the time he had high school. He was also the child that I literally had to be that parent you said you didn’t want to be and sit there with him for–

Durenda Wilson: 00:37:02.901
There are those kids.

Gretchen Roe: 00:37:03.459
–[crosstalk] math problem until he was 17.

Durenda Wilson: 00:37:07.048
Yeah. I want to just clarify that that does happen with some kids. Does he have any learning issues?

Gretchen Roe: 00:37:15.205
No. He was twice exceptional. He was the kid who said at the age of four, “It’s time for you to teach me to read.” I said, “How about you learn to play cooperatively first?” And he said, “Well, if you don’t teach me, I’ll teach myself.” Okay. I got it. And he did. But he’s not motivated by math and just really didn’t want to do that. Now, interestingly enough, by the time he became a young adult, he started his own business. He paid his own way through college. He did it in three years because he figured out financially, that would be better. I tell parents this because you don’t know what the future holds for your child.

Durenda Wilson: 00:37:52.183
No. None of us does. I remember having that same thought kind of around the same time that I was thinking about the cameras in the house. I was thinking to myself because we have our two girls and then Jake, and I specifically was thinking about him because typically, the men are going to engage in a career for the long haul. Women might have the career for a while and then they might do part time and be at home and– so. But I was just thinking about him just being a breadwinner, that kind of thing, and kind of thinking through how do I prepare him for it? And I was like, “I have no idea.” No idea what it is that God has for him. And I really didn’t because back then, a software engineer was not really a thing. The internet wasn’t even around yet. I mean, I’m sure it was. There were software engineers out there, but they weren’t in high demand. It wasn’t a career you would probably go after unless you were just– it would be very unusual. But the need for it now, today, fast forward is just incredible. But I know that that’s what he was going to be and there would be no way for me to prepare him for that. So the best thing I could do is just be faithful in helping to build his character in terms of work ethic and just all the character things, [inaudible]–

Gretchen Roe: 00:39:18.443
You said something really important about five minutes ago. You taught him how to learn, and that’s the important thing.

Durenda Wilson: 00:39:28.361
Yeah. And I think I would actually say that kids have a natural intuition to learn. They want to learn. They come to us wanting to learn. Our job is just not to burn them out. So that’s kind of was my perspective. It’s like, okay, it’s there. I just need to feed it, and I think that’s what you’re trying to communicate. We feed it. We’re building a fire. If you’ve ever built a fire, you start with newspaper and then kindling, and then the wood, but it’s got to be laid in a certain way so that oxygen can flow through it. And sometimes it looks like it’s starting to die and you got to blow on it a little bit but not too much or you’ll blow it out. That’s what I kind of looked at our daily life, when it came to learning, looked like. Okay, I’m going to encourage this a little bit. I’m going to test the ground, and ask a few questions, and offer something, and see how it’s received. Say they’ve got an idea–

Gretchen Roe: 00:40:18.489
Robin has asked a great question here that follows right along beside that. So she says, “How did you handle extracurricular activities? Did your children participate in them?” She said, “You mentioned that your afternoons and evenings were open. So I’m assuming they weren’t all involved in other activities. Wanting to hear your thoughts on them not consuming our lives. Even if one child does one activity a week, our whole week would be taken up.”

Durenda Wilson: 00:40:45.163
Yes. And that is a very legitimate thing. We purposely did not get overly involved in anything. And that was very intentional, because we had certain goals for our family in terms of wanting to make sure that family was first. That was the most important thing, that pretty much every night we ate dinner together around the table because a lot of conversations happen there. Countless, over the course of these couple of decades of kids around the table. Everything from politics, to economics, to spiritual life, to Bible, to you name it. We’ve had all of them. So it’s like, family life lends itself to a wonderful robust education. There is value in the outside activities. So I’m not diminishing that. But there is way too much. For us, if that frayed our family life, it was an absolute no. Out of the question, not going to happen. So our kids went to a co-op type of situation once a week, starting when our oldest was 12. So for all of those years, we were home, and we were doing the routine. We met friends at the park. We’d get together with other families. So we were being social, but we did it as families. We continued to do that over the years. But in terms of our kids and activities, they plugged into this one co-op, got to do lots of fun things in the course of that one day a week, things they wouldn’t get to do at home. Eventually, as they got into high school, there was a great drama program at that co-op. There were opportunities for just lots of other different things. In high school, I love that margin in the afternoon to give our kids time to job shadow, and just have experiences to help them sort of hone in on gifts, and maybe where they might be going in terms of down the road kind of thing. So activities were definitely very much secondary. And a lot of people would be critical of that. But I will stand my ground till the day I die, that family time is absolutely crucial. Our kids learn in their relationships with each other. These are the first really committed relationships they have, is with their siblings. And I talk about this on the podcast. I’ve got several episodes on nurturing sibling relationships. It’s the conflict, and the taking the time to go through that with them so that they understand that family is important. Family is worth fighting for, and relationships are worth fighting for. Because that lays the groundwork for their marriage, for their parenting. You want to leave a legacy of a strong family unit. And that requires a commitment to stay the course. To remain purposeful, rather than being concerned about performance. Because that’s our tendency, is we tend to lean towards performance instead of purpose. And we need to change our measuring stick.

Gretchen Roe: 00:43:51.602
So I have a good question for you here. How did you find job shadow opportunities for your kids?

Durenda Wilson: 00:43:57.024
Picked up the phone and I called.

Gretchen Roe: 00:43:58.829
You did?

Durenda Wilson: 00:44:00.003
If a kid was interested in something– and you could have them do it too. But I felt like it was me supporting them by being the one to make the phone call. They were willing to do it. They were willing to go. But one was interested in physical therapy. He made it clear. He was like, “I really think this might be my career.” And I was like, “Okay.” And he was clearly showing an interest in biology and just how the body works and he wanted to work with kids. Loves kids. So I picked up the phone, I called a local physical therapy office and I said, “I’ve got a high schooler. He’s interested in becoming a physical therapist. Would you be open to letting him come and job shadow for however long? Even if it’s just a day.” Just throwing it out there. They were so happy to do that. And the worst thing they’re going to do is say, “No. We don’t do that.” Okay. Fine. Call the next person. So just pick up the phone, call them. And so he went and he did that. And after the course of a couple of weeks, I was kind of getting excited for him because he went in there and was able to experience all of this. And I was like, “So what do you think?” He goes, “I don’t want to do that.” And I’m like, “Okay. Can you tell me why?” He said, “Mom, I thought I would be working with patients 80% of the time. 80% of it is paperwork, and I didn’t know that.” So if he had gone straight from college or from high school to college thinking this is what he wanted to do, spent seven years, spent all the money, and started a job he hated, look, we avoided all of that. [laughter] Just by having him job shadow, so.

Gretchen Roe: 00:45:32.285
Yep. I had a similar experience, I told you, with my youngest son. He had said from the time he was about seven, he was going to be an attorney. “I’m going to be a lawyer. I’m going to be a lawyer.” Until he got to spend three weeks shadowing a successful lawyer and he said, “Nope. Not for me.” And you know what? That is still a perfect outcome. We are such a results driven society that we think if it’s not an affirmative outcome, it’s not a good outcome. That’s wrong. We’ve to reframe that because it is a good outcome. Because now he knows what he doesn’t want to do as much as what he does.

Durenda Wilson: 00:46:09.511
Absolutely. And that is absolutely the case. That can be the case with choosing curriculum. You’re going to go through a few where you’re like, “That’s not it. That’s not it. That’s not it. That’s not it. Oh, wait. This is it.” The problem is we don’t realize that in order to know what is going to be a good fit, we have to see what isn’t, right? And so I think the same thing. It’s not a failure. It is just you learned something from it. So nothing is a failure that you learn something from.

Gretchen Roe: 00:46:37.974
So, Durenda, I have a question here that one of our moms asked. And several of these moms ask this and some guys in some way. And that is, “How do I hurry less and still get everything done?” And I think I know what your answer is going to be here, but I want your answer to be heard. Her comment was, “I want less frustration and more time enjoying my children.” Which I think is something we all aspire to.

Durenda Wilson: 00:47:04.297
Yeah. And I think that for me, personally, when I’m not enjoying my children, it’s usually two reasons. That one, I’m trying to do way too much. I am not building margin into my day for the important things like inspections, child training, spending time just talking to my kid if he wants to talk to me. If I got to go to the next thing, I’m not going to make time for that, okay? And the other thing is when my kids are not– when I’ve let the boundaries go out and I’m not keeping the discipline in the house that I need to, I stop enjoying my kids. And I would have to ask myself that. Once I found myself going, “Ugh. I don’t want to be around these kids,” I was like, “Oh. That’s not good.” Okay. Stop. Pause. And I would just kind of watch and think and pray and just kind of see what was going on. And so much of the time, they were doing stuff they weren’t supposed to be doing. Maybe they were speaking disrespectfully to me on a regular basis or just not following through on what I told them to do, and I wasn’t doing anything about it. So your day has got to be set up according to your priorities, “What is your purpose for each little block of day?” I kind of broke my day down into blocks, “What is the purpose here? What’s the purpose during this time?” So that you stay focused on the purpose. When we’re doing chores, it’s not just to get the chores done. I’m teaching my kids diligence. I’m teaching them timeliness. I’m teaching them how to treat each other. I’m teaching them how to be respectful to me, how to follow through. Those are a lot of purposes for just one half-hour stint of tour time. So again, you have to prioritize. You have to say, “What is important to me?” and be willing to let the rest go and be okay with it.

Gretchen Roe: 00:48:59.954
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think we have a myth that we, as women, can do it all. And that’s a myth. You and I talked a little bit about the myth of multitasking. And I loved what you said when we talked last week. So I had asked you the question, “What is enough?” And you said there’s no way to prep for the possibilities. So can you talk a little bit more about that? Because I think it’s a great attitude for moms to take away from our conversation today.

Durenda Wilson: 00:49:32.049
Yeah, “What is enough?” There’s absolutely no way to know, I mean, if you’re just talking about the practical aspect of homeschooling and working with your kids and all of that, if it’s “enough,” quote-unquote. So again, that’s more of a performance mentality and less of a purpose mentality. And so I think that, again, going back to prioritizing, when my head hits the pillow at the end of the day, I don’t know about you, but certain things go through my head about what happened during the day. Maybe I had a poor response to something or I realized, “Wait a minute. This doesn’t seem to be going well,” or, “There was so much peace during that part of the day.” And I don’t know, I do that. I want to be able to hit the pillow at night and know that I have fulfilled the purpose of raising these kids, not just gone through a checklist. And I mean, checklists have their place. I love checklists. But when the checklist becomes more important than the relationship, when the checklist becomes more important than purpose, I think that that becomes a problem. Yeah.

Gretchen Roe: 00:50:52.471
The other thing that you said when we talked was instilling fortitude and determination. And I think sometimes when it gets hard, it’s easy for us to doubt ourselves and realize that there’s fruit to be had in hard. I mean, just getting on air today was an adventure for both of us, so. [laughter] So can we talk a little bit about cultivating that in our own hearts so that we can instill that in our children?

Durenda Wilson: 00:51:21.197
Well, yeah. Our kids are not going to pick up any kind of perseverance just from us talking about it. We have to example it ourselves. We have to model it. Now, if you think about women who have gone before us, these women have gotten on boats, not nice boats, to go – this wasn’t a cruise – across the ocean, to a new land, putting their own lives on the line, even their families’ lives on the line, for something that they thought would be better, ultimately, for their children and their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren. So there’s this idea that we have lost in our culture and it’s this multi-generational view. Moms, when you’re homeschooling and parenting your children, you are homeschooling and parenting your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren and your great-great-grandchildren. Think beyond the here and now. I encourage you because I’m there. I am now watching my kids homeschool their kids and parent their kids and it’s such a delight to see them doing– I don’t expect them to do everything the same. But so many things that I think were important to us are important to them. And they are carrying those on into the next. And you realize this is so much bigger than just about my frustrations today. We’re investing in our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren and our great-great-grandchildren. So to have that fortitude that all of these women had before us, there’s something really, really satisfying in that. So I would encourage you even to read some biographies of women who have just done these things for the sake of their families, just having that inspiration because we don’t see a lot of– we see a lot of whining and complaining online. And, “Oh, motherhood’s so hard.” And it’s like, “You know what? It is.” I love what Abbie Halberstadt says, M Is for Mama. She says, “Hard doesn’t mean bad.” They’re not equal. They’re not the same. Hard can be so, so good. And as we lay down our lives for our kids in so many different ways every day, I guarantee you, you will reap the fruit down the road, but it hurts now. It feels like death sometimes. [laughter] But it is so worth it when you see your children thriving and then getting married and then thriving in their lives with their kids. And it is just something you can’t go back and redo. So think about those women and their courage and take courage.

Gretchen Roe: 00:54:11.778
And I think that the voice of the spirit inside us should be louder than the voice of the things around us. But it’s easy in this day and age when so much is coming at us at lightning speed to forget whose voice we’re listening to.

Durenda Wilson: 00:54:34.356
Exactly. Exactly. That is a still small voice and you are not going to hear it if you don’t quiet everything else down and just take the time. And you can take the time and you will benefit from it. It won’t just be– What I’ve seen is just multiple benefits, not just one, but multiple from slowing down and just listening.

Gretchen Roe: 00:54:59.112
Melinda, I can’t believe we’re almost at the top of the hour. This has been such a blessing to me to get to spend the time with you and hear how you’ve approached your life. And I would really encourage moms to go read The Four Hour School Day and Unhurried Grace for a Mom’s Heart and The Unhurried Homeschooler. All three of those books have been a blessing to me in my journey and I had the privilege to get to read them again this past year while I was waiting anxiously for this conversation to happen. So we’re going to include your website in the show notes. I think your podcast is amazing. I would love for moms to discover it if they have not, or continue to be blessed by it if they have. But in the last couple minutes, what are the closing thoughts you would have for our moms today?

Durenda Wilson: 00:55:52.693
I think it’s just sort of what we’ve been saying all along is it is worth taking the time to slow down. It, at first when we first try to slow down. It’s kind of like suffering because we get used to the high of the constant activity. It stimulates us day in and day out. And we know this from science and from what we’re learning about health that it is not healthy to be like that for us mentally. Overall, the mental health in our country is horrible. And we are responsible to care for ourselves. And part of caring for ourselves, I think, a big part of it is slowing down and just keeping a good pulse on your own heart, and then with your marriage and your family because if you, if we tend to that well, nothing else matters, really. It doesn’t at the end of the day, this is what we’ve been given. God has given us this. And I remember thinking to myself, it’s so easy to compare, but I remember God just sort of giving me this picture of like, “Okay, you could waste your time over there at the fence looking at the neighbor’s yard. Why don’t you just tend to what I have given you?” There’s a certain amount of gratitude that I am expressing towards God when I say, “I’m going to focus on this that you have given me,” because it’s worth my time, my energy, and all of that. So I encourage you just to tend your own backyard and just be faithful there and do so in a way that brings life to you, life to your family, life to your marriage, and just a spirit of peace in your home.

Gretchen Roe: 00:57:36.848
Absolutely. Durenda, I want to thank you so much for everyone who attended live today and everyone who will hear this recording. This is Gretchen Roe for the Demme Learning Show. Thank you all for joining us. You can access the show notes and watch a recording at DemmeLearning.com/Show or on our YouTube channel. Be sure to rate, review, follow, or subscribe wherever you’re hearing this. And review us if you really liked it. Thanks so much, [inaudible], for your time today. I can’t even begin to say what a tremendous blessing this has been. And I will look forward to having the opportunity to share with you sometime again in the future.

Durenda Wilson: 00:58:14.026
Thank you so much for having me. It was great.

Gretchen Roe: 00:58:16.426
Take care. Bye-bye.

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