Celebrating the Holidays and Making It Count for School [Show]

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Gretchen Roe: 00:00:05.090
Welcome, everyone. Good afternoon. This is Gretchen Roe, and it’s my pleasure to welcome you to this episode of The Demme Learning Show. My voice is trying to leave me, but I have told it it has to be here for the next hour. So you all will just have to bear with my little froggy throat. I’m delighted to welcome my colleague, Amanda Caps today. We’re going to talk about the holidays. And Amanda and I were having a conversation just a few minutes ago. We’re like, “Well, how many holidays really are there in December?” 14. Depending on your religion, depending on what you celebrate, there are 14 opportunities for you to celebrate in the month of December. And so what happens to school? Do you kick it to the curb? I mean, I did, but Amanda doesn’t, and I didn’t totally. So we’re going to share some ideas with you today and some ways to make the holidays meaningful, being able to balance the scales of joyful celebration with academic achievement. And I’m going to let Amanda introduce herself. Amanda?

Amanda Capps: 00:01:07.505
So I’m Amanda Capps, and I’m coming to you from Northwest Arkansas. And I’m the current homeschool mom of eight. I have graduated my oldest, but she is still living in our home. And then I have a senior this year and then six more coming up behind her. So I will be homeschooling literally forever. And I’m a second-generation homeschooler, which I feel is my superpower or unfair advantage, if you want to call it that. I have been with Demme Learning for almost 14 years now and have loved my role here in customer service and supporting our customers and our families. And this is a fun time of year because we start getting a lot of calls where we’re midway into the year where folks are going, “Is this working? Is this not working? What are we doing?” Some people are pulling kids from school. So it’s just a real fun time of year and an opportunity to really connect with families.

Gretchen Roe: 00:02:07.400
I wanted to make sure that I was ready to go today. So I was looking back over our notes, Amanda, and I was surprised at the number of notes that we made. We’ve both done lots of different things over the holidays, but what we wanted to make sure that we helped you understand is the holidays are coming, whether you’re ready for them or not. So how do you keep your head above water and enjoy the process during the holidays? And Amanda, I know you said you take the week of Thanksgiving off and then two weeks at Christmas. But the advantage to that is that you school year-round. So in those three weeks of no school, is there any school happening, or how does that work?

Amanda Capps: 00:02:50.814
So my kids actually really look forward to those breaks because that’s really when the core subjects get a– it’s the only time the core subjects kind of get a break and they’re allowed to be a lot more freelanced with their reading and a lot of times we’re looking for opportunities for community outreach. So that might mean Christmas crafts, making cards for the local nursing home patrons, just some opportunities to maybe extend out into the community a bit and get out of our regular routine. We do a lot of baking, so that’s a great way to kind of get all together and all doing something that I can get all the ages excited and happy about.

Gretchen Roe: 00:03:46.332
Absolutely. And Amanda has given you a couple of good ideas. She’s talking about community outreach, but how can you make that count for school? Well, Amanda’s talking about baking. The math that’s involved in that. Amanda, I know you never make one recipe of anything. So talk a little bit for parents so that they’ll understand how you’re bringing the classroom to the cook table.

Amanda Capps: 00:04:12.099
Absolutely. So first of all, we’re picking out a recipe, right? So sometimes families have ones that they’re pulling that have been longtime traditions, and that’s fantastic. Sometimes you’re trying new ones. That can be fun as well. But when we actually recognize or realize that following a recipe and being able to follow all of the steps and the directions to have a positive outcome, because we’ve all had those times where maybe we didn’t follow something or we missed something, and it ended up in the trash or feeding animals out in the backyard, which is fine, which is fine, but it’s also a great learning opportunity. So doubling, tripling, quadrupling recipes, putting together mixes in jars as gifts. There are some really incredible ways to pull school into that, whether we’re doing the math of fractions and figuring out, okay, we’re doubling, tripling this recipe. Maybe we’re looking at we need all of these supplies to do this project, what is the cost per project once we’re done? What did we actually end up spending per item that we’ve crafted or created? Those are all incredible ways to get your kids thinking in a educational way where they’re not maybe necessarily making that connection, but I can absolutely count the time for school.

Gretchen Roe: 00:05:42.273
Absolutely. One of the things that I remember well is we took a number of years and sponsored a family at Christmas. So in that sponsorship, I would divide up the gift lists and a child would get a similar-aged child to shop for. And we would have a budget, so we would plan a budget. We would go to the store. This was back in the days when you could go to a Toys R Us. I understand that they still exist someplace. I saw them in the Macy’s parade. But the kids would have their cash budget to spend on toys. And it was an effort on my part to help them understand that the money came from somewhere and went to somewhere else. And over the last week, I’ve had the opportunity to talk to my now, all six adult children and ask them if they remembered us doing that. And one of my daughters said, “Yeah, I remember it really vividly. And what I remember was us standing in the grocery store and calculating the difference between the generic, or what you called the white box, Mom, of brownie mix and the Duncan Hines brownie mix, and figuring out if we could afford what we thought was the fancier brownie mix.” And I laughed at her and said that I’m glad that she took that lesson. I said, “Do you still buy the cheap brownie mix?” She said, “Oh, no. It’s always the good stuff.” So I thought that that was interesting. That was a lesson that she learned at about the age of 10 or 11. Amanda, we had talked about community outreach. Can you talk about volunteerism in the community during the holidays? You had some really good ideas, and I think one of them is born of the fact that you’re married to a first responder.

Amanda Capps: 00:07:34.932
Absolutely. So this is a great time to reach out and take some of those cookies or some of those baked goods and help all of the first responders in your community, of which there are many. There are EMS services, there are firefighters and fire departments, there are police and police departments. There definitely are specific organizations that do fundraisers and things at this time of year, but it also just showing up with something homemade means the world to these men and women who risk their lives for our communities on a daily basis and to just kind of stop, slow down and recognize them and tell them thank you, look them in the eye, ask if there’s anything you can pray for them specifically about. It’s an incredible opportunity.

Gretchen Roe: 00:08:24.388
So in doing that, how does that equate to accounting for school? We can give you one example in our ideas. We thought, okay, so have your child make a journal entry on the fact that they did this and what their feelings were about it. And there you have fodder for an essay. So now you’ve got, you’ve incorporated your language arts into a volunteer opportunity. Amanda, let’s talk about maybe doing a community class. This was a brilliant idea. I hadn’t thought of it. But during the holidays, maybe you can find a CPR or a babysitting class. Talk about why that would have value and why you would do it during the holidays instead of during the regular school year.

Amanda Capps: 00:09:11.827
So again, you’ve got a little more free time. A lot of communities offer these classes for free or at a very minimal cost. And they’re incredible skills for your kids to have. They look great on a transcript. They look good as they present themselves into the community for those services. A mom is going to value a child who if there is a choking incident, if there is a first aid incident, if there is a need for those particular skills that they can then use that to earn money, they might be able to charge a higher rate if they have those qualifications. I mean, there’s just a lot of ways that you can look at the positives that those things can do. Also, interacting with other people and learning about people in your community that are qualified with these types of things, it’s fantastic.

Gretchen Roe: 00:10:14.258
Absolutely. And we had talked about maybe doing a unit study on the Salvation Army or the Red Cross or the Humane Society or Habitat for Humanity. If you have a little bit more time now, now is when humane societies are overwhelmed with animals. Could you and your children go and volunteer to walk some dogs? It depends on what happens in your community. I thought this was such a terrific idea. I actually called my local animal shelter and they said they would welcome kids to come walk dogs, but they wanted them to be at least 14 years of age. So one of the things that we have to do as parents is set the expectations appropriately. I wouldn’t say, “Hey, we’re going to go to the animal shelter and volunteer,” until I knew the parameters because the last thing you want to do in the middle of the holidays is really bitterly disappoint somebody who thought they were going to get to do something really fun. So how about Christmas festivals, plays, pageants, choral opportunities? Amanda, this was one that you had brought up. So how would we be able to participate that and make it a school oriented or transcript oriented? Obviously, we don’t need a transcript for an elementary school student, but if you’ve got a high schooler, how can you translate that into transcript opportunities?

Amanda Capps: 00:11:42.185
Absolutely. Any of those things can be an elective opportunity. And I think sometimes, and I know myself personally, I’ve been guilty of this with my own kids, we get so focused on the academics. We want to make sure they’re a good student and we want to get focused on all those things that are curriculum and subject-related. And we sometimes forget that colleges specifically are looking for a student that is well-rounded. They want to see a kid that’s participated in the community, that has been involved in extracurricular activities, clubs, choirs, involved in their local church. I mean, all of those things, all of those opportunities to serve look really, really good on a transcript. So we don’t want to only focus on the academics. We want to make sure we’re getting a good blend of things going on for those transcripts.

Gretchen Roe: 00:12:48.557
Another thing that you can do is if you have kids who have a talent and can sing or who are willing to read out loud, nursing homes are desperate for visitation right now. And this would be a marvelous opportunity for you to have your children help out in that capacity. We did every year– we did what we called a Fine Arts Festival in February that was done with our homeschool group. But my kids would pick what they were going to do for the Fine Arts Festival in early November, and they would practice it. And then, we would go to nursing homes and they would get to practice it at nursing homes in December. And then, when they did that performance for the Fine Art Festival in February, they were old hands at it, and it was in something easy and fun that they could do. How about for hosting a foreign exchange student? Amanda, this was a great idea that you had. And this is something my parents did as an only child. My parents did this every single year, but I hadn’t even thought of it. So let’s talk about hosting a foreign exchange student.

Amanda Capps: 00:13:56.334
So there are people who work with the local school, and they are in charge of finding host families. And so a lot of times, this is an area where homeschoolers kind of miss out because we’re not necessarily plugged into the formal education. And so, if you can get in touch with that person and get your name in the hat, this is something that you can absolutely do. You can open your home up to a foreign exchange student. It is an incredible opportunity to not only learn about another culture, hear the language, and build relationships that really can last a lifetime. My family never actually personally hosted a foreign exchange student, but we had some really good friends that the wife was Canadian, and she spoke French fluently. And so, they would intentionally have French foreign exchange students come and stay with their family, and they were a homeschool family. And I got to meet those people through knowing them and practice my own French because that was the language I chose as a high schooler to learn. And it was it was fantastic. It was really, really fun and to get to talk to them about just the differences and the things that they liked or the things that they missed from home. And I mean, what a great learning experience.

Gretchen Roe: 00:15:26.365
Absolutely. My parents hosted, I was thinking about this this morning. My parents hosted families, students from eight different countries while I was growing up. And it was a fantastic experience. So there are short-term hosting programs. You can look into that. And that might be a really wonderful thing for you to think about. Something else I would like you to think about is what are your holiday traditions? Do you have them? Do you have a lot of them? Do you have so many of them that you’re overwhelmed? Because we want you to do is to come into January being refreshed and ready for the second semester of your homeschool adventures. And if you are so busy doing all of the traditions that you don’t have time for rest, then that’s a difficult proposition. Amanda, can you talk about some of the things that you have done personally to sort of regroup and rest in the midst of the holiday season?

Amanda Capps: 00:16:31.732
So I think sometimes that’s easier to do depending on where you live geographically because of the weather. [laughter] I mean, there are definitely certain places in the country where you might be snowed in. You might not have the opportunity to be running around like a crazy person and doing all the things. Here in the South, that is definitely more of a temptation to try to overschedule and overbook yourself through the holidays because typically, the weather is not negatively impacting those events and holidays. But on the other hand, we do a lot as a family. So this is another area we didn’t actually put it on the planning, but it did come to mind is I teach my kids a lot about their immune system and the things that we can take to boost that and the fact that we’re not getting as much vitamin D in the winter months where we’re not outside and our skin isn’t getting as exposed to the sun and things like that. I just cannot even stress enough that if you kind of just give it a little bit of thought, it really doesn’t take long or take much to think, wait a minute, I could absolutely put an educational spin on this. If you need more help or more support or more structure, there are even curriculums out there designed to help you take your child right through an herbology course or just whatever their interest lies. But I think the holidays are a really great opportunity to do some of those kind of out-of-the-box electives that maybe you wouldn’t necessarily have time for any other time of the year.

Gretchen Roe: 00:18:16.570
One of the things that we talked about was writing to service members. And so here’s the opportunity to craft a letter to engage in a compositional experience and bless somebody else in the process. And I think that’s a terrific thing to do. This may be a little bit late. I don’t know. I know that there are organizations that collect letters to send to servicemen overseas. I don’t know when those deadlines are. But these are also things that maybe if you can’t implement them this year, you can plan toward implementing them next year. And I think that’s an important thing to think about as well. Another thing I wanted you all to think about was taking time away from your academics to reflect on your academics. And Amanda, we were in a meeting earlier this morning where we were talking about asking your kids questions. So this might be a particularly fruitful time for you to step aside from the academics and sit down with your kids and say, “So how’s it going?” Amanda, you had some other points about that in our conversation this morning.

Amanda Capps: 00:19:30.689
Absolutely. So this is an incredible time to figure out what’s working and maybe where there are some hiccups or some things that aren’t really going as well as we had hoped and to take some time to get some feedback from our kids directly about what are they enjoying. Where are they feeling the most frustration? Is there a particular subject? Is it the subject itself? Is it the curriculum? Is there a gap somewhere in our skills that’s making this subject or this curriculum not feel like a good fit, like a comfortable, enjoyable experience? Those are all great questions to ask. And I feel like when we do take a break and we do slow down, there are some opportunities to cultivate some of those conversations and be really intentional if we’re kind of thinking that direction before it hits us.

Gretchen Roe: 00:20:36.025
Absolutely. And looking toward what’s going to happen for you in January when all the festivities and the fun have gone, and now you’re stepping back into academics, if you’re beginning to step away right now, now’s the time to ask the questions. Because in January, your kids aren’t going to remember. And if you want that feedback to sort of inform how the second semester goes, or maybe change avenues a little bit, now would be the time to have that conversation. Because I think that intentional conversation really means a lot to both you and your students.

Amanda Capps: 00:21:11.924
100%.

Gretchen Roe: 00:21:12.352
Amanda, we had so many great questions. And I’m not sure we’re going to get to them all, but I want to ask you a couple of them just so we can talk about this. And I know you and I had a conversation about this two weeks ago. How do you not stress yourself out while getting the right amount of academics done?

Amanda Capps: 00:21:34.450
I mean, for us and being a large family, you know that means really focusing on the core subjects: math, writing, and reading. So everything else can kind of puzzle piece. Or if you think of a jar and you think of those as being your big rocks, everything else just kind of sifts around them. The other thing that I have talked about extensively, and have just really tried to hit home, is you have the least amount of time left with your oldest student. So you need to figure out what is our end goal? What are the things that we absolutely have to complete, have on a transcript, to equal our state or our standards graduation, a graduate? And then you’ve got to work backward from that point. And so this can be where things may need to be tweaked a little bit. We may need to accelerate something. We may need to make sure we’re adding something here or there in, to kind of fill in and make sure that we’re ticking all of our boxes.

Gretchen Roe: 00:22:45.857
Absolutely. And in that process when you’re ticking the boxes, there’s a difference between ticking the boxes because you think you had to, and ticking the boxes because you know that you accomplished what you were looking for. So this is also a great time for us as parents to have a little bit of introspection and look at what you’ve accomplished in the first semester and say, “That was fun, but I didn’t really need that to accomplish the academic goals that I have set up for my children.” I have another one that I think I would like to focus on. And Amanda, you may have some suggestions here. We had a mom who asked us if there was a unit study style curriculum centered around Christmas carols. And I don’t know of one, but you know what? Building Faith Families has their hymns book, which– Building Faith Families, of course, is Steve Demme’s ministry. And you could certainly use those hymn book, the hymnbook platform, which I think– Amanda, how many hymns does he have in there? I meant to count this morning and I forgot.

Amanda Capps: 00:23:52.584
It’s a lot. There are a bunch of them.

Gretchen Roe: 00:23:54.721
There are some that are traditional Christmas-tied, but there are some that are advent related. And I I think it’s fascinating to study the history of Christmas carols. So we don’t have one that’s built for you, but that’s a great idea. You could certainly create a unit study in December around Christmas carols and that would be a wonderful thing to do. Or how about a unit study on the evolution of Christmas traditions? Christmas trees weren’t a part of the landscape until the late 1800s, early 1900s. So where did they come from? What started that? Lots of things for you to think about and questions to ask and things to keep small people busy as you are trying to do all the things you want to do as you get ready for the holidays. How about this one, Amanda? I really want you to talk about this because I think it’s really important. What about the mom who’s saying to herself, “I can’t take a break because we’ll be behind?”

Amanda Capps: 00:25:01.523
Okay. So first of all, I tell people all the time– I tell moms and dads all the time, “When you are a homeschooler, you’re never truly behind.” The beauty of the home education model is you can be so much more proactive and intentional about your time. It’s not that you can’t feel like, “Hey, maybe we need to show more progress,” or, “We need to do some things to accelerate a subject.” That does happen. I mean, it absolutely does happen. But again, I would much rather, as a mom, park on something to make sure that that foundation is really solid and that we’re taking that time and that we’re being intentional. Because I promise you, if you get to the place where you do need to accelerate a little bit or you need to change some things, that’s going to be critical. And it’s well worth your time to spend the time needed to really, really master something before thinking, “Wait a minute. We’ve just got to go. We’ve got to go. We’ve got to go.” You have all of the tools and all of the time you need. You really do. I cannot stress that enough.

Gretchen Roe: 00:26:19.810
Absolutely. And I think one of the things that is important for us to remember as parents is, you set the tone. And if you are anxious over your perception of where your child is in their academic progress, they can perceive that. But they don’t know necessarily why you would be anxious about that. And unfortunately, from a child’s perspective, they think it’s something they’ve done. So we need to keep that anxiety out of the equation as much as humanly possible so that we can continue to move forward. Last year, and I’ll have to put this in the show notes, I did a webinar with my friend Jana Cook from BookShark. And we were talking about habits you could engender to change the game up. And she gave us five S’s to think our way through how we could change the approach to academics in the holiday season. And I’m going to recommend as homework that you get a cup of tea and you sit down with it and you take a look at that webinar because she talked about taking what you have and either stretching it out or speeding it up or doing a variety of things to address your academics differently. So if you are wanting to keep academics as part of the curricula in the month of December, then here’s an opportunity for you to figure out a different way to approach it. So Jana’s webinar will be in the show notes for you. And if you guys are listening to this as a podcast, remember you can still access the show notes by going to demilearning.com/show and you can find the show notes there. How do you balance Amanda making memories with older kids, but you still have younger kids that you’ve got to sort of balance that crazy scale? A couple of parents, three or four of them, asked this question of us. So what do you have to say about that?

Amanda Capps: 00:28:36.405
So I think, whew, that’s a tough one, but it is doable. And so I think if you have specific traditions or specific crafts or things in mind, there’s always a way. That’s one of the things I love about unit studies is the fact that you can have such a broad level of where people are at. So you can make it a lot more intense for this older kid who really needs to pull this stuff out of it, but then you can make it a little gentler and then a little gentler still. And then maybe you’re literally just pulling out one specific highlight that you’re kind of focusing on with a little child. One of the ways that my mom did a lot of that was poetry and recitation. That was something that I always looked forward to in the winter months because we were obviously indoors. We lived in Wisconsin during that time of my childhood. I remember reading Little House in the Big Woods. She read that out loud to us through our first long Wisconsin winter, which we had never experienced before, she being a transplant from Florida so I can tell you how well she loved that. But I can still remember everything about that. And we would listen and a lot of times we’d be doing puzzles or doing some sort of an activity while she read aloud to us. And so there’s just such a richness in read-alouds, and this is the perfect time of year to do it.

Gretchen Roe: 00:30:18.445
Well, thank you for that, Andrea. You know, when we were talking, I was talking about a read-aloud that we had done a number of Christmases. I did have to go find it in my bookcase. It’s called the Christmas Mystery, and it’s by Jostein Gaarder, she’s Dutch. And it’s a story of a young explorer who runs backwards through time to be at the birth of Jesus. And it’s a different story every day, and you follow this character back through time. And this was something that we would read as a family together every other Christmas season. And what was interesting was, and I was talking about this with my kids on Sunday when we were decorating our tree, and they said, “Yeah, every time we read that story, I heard it differently.” And I think that is a really important takeaway. You may think, “Oh, we’ve done this every year.” But your kids, it’s something different for them. And you know what? You really only have 18 summers and you have 18 Christmases to instill the joy of life in them. Now, does that mean at the 19th Christmas, you’re not going to do that? No, but your influence as they age becomes less and less. So while you have influence, is a good time to exercise that kind of influence. Amanda, what do you think the highest priority should be for a family during this holiday season? I know we had two parents ask this question. I know what I think the answer is, but I want to hear what yours is.

Amanda Capps: 00:31:57.780
Oh, I mean, that’s easy for me. It’s it’s prioritizing time together. It’s taking the time to slow down and reconnect, having those intentional conversations, getting them involved in the traditions with you. So my oldest is turning 21 tomorrow. I cannot even believe it. And then my youngest is three. And so this is really the first Christmas for him where he’s like, he gets it. He understands what’s coming, what’s happening. And he is so excited. And it’s been precious to watch my older kids get so excited and engaged in watching his joy– and they’re feeding into it, let me tell you. I mean, they are really playing it up for his benefit. And I find that to be just precious. I’m loving it.

Gretchen Roe: 00:33:06.040
And I think one of the things that is really cool is to be able to see the holiday through a small person’s eyes because that does change the game. One of the things that we did for Christmas every year is we would pick the date on the calendar on Thanksgiving when we were doing what we called Tacky Light Night. And so my job was to pack a picnic basket. Everybody got in their pajamas and we got in a car and we drove around to look at Christmas lights. We ate dinner in the car. We had bad Christmas music. We did all sorts of things. We also have a list of Christmas movies that Christmas doesn’t come until they’re watched. Maybe that’s something that you could do in your family. There’s a lot of things. I have a friend who– she and her family celebrate Kwanzaa. And every year they look for traditional African recipes for their meal celebration. So their meal celebration is different every year. But each one of her children is required to research a recipe, figure out how to make it, tell mom what the ingredients are and then they all cook that meal together. She has seven kids. And I’ve never been invited to their celebration. But man, I would go in a heartbeat because I bet it’s really cool. Now her kids range in age. I think her youngest is 10. And her kids are up into college age. And I ask her if that tradition had sort of fallen by the wayside and she said, “Oh, no, the college kids will call from college and say, ‘Make sure you have these things for this recipe that I’m going to be cooking.'” So I think it’s wonderful when you see those traditions continue on with your families. And maybe you don’t have traditions. Maybe now’s the time to start thinking what kinds of traditions your family would like to have. Amanda, I know you have some traditions that you celebrate, three Thanksgivings in one weekend. That’s kind of wild. But what are some things that you could get suggest that might spark other parents’ ideas about a tradition they could develop?

Amanda Capps: 00:35:25.524
So one of my favorite ones that we do– and it is my kid’s favorite too. So there’s a couple of things. So interestingly enough, we think about the holidays and we think about joy and we think about the Lord’s birth and we think about all of this celebration and the gifts and the excitement and all of that. But the reality is we may be bringing some grief to a holiday. In my situation, I was widowed as a young woman with two small children. And so we have an entire family that is my first husband’s family that has stayed involved in our lives in a most precious and blessed way. But we have always traditionally spent Christmas Eve with that family. And our whole family goes. It’s not just my daughters; it’s all of us. And my mother-in-law has cultivated [laughter] through the years everybody contributes to the Christmas program. So she gets a group text going two or three weeks before Christmas Eve. And we nail down the food and we nail down the time. And then, she wants to know what everyone’s contribution is going to be. And she puts together a program that’s printed that we all get when we come through the front door and it’s precious. And it’s sometimes comical. The things that certain children of certain ages want to contribute may not be real Christmassy [laughter], but that’s never a problem. It’s always just this idea that we’re going to all be together and everybody is participating. And it is literally– it’s a riot. It’s so much fun and we look forward to it every year because of that. My favorite tradition that we do in our immediate family is on Christmas Eve when we get home from that celebration, everybody gets to open brand new pajamas to get all cozy in and they get a book. And I put a lot of time and research and intentionality into what that book is for each kid and it’s work, I’m going to tell you [laughter]. It’s work, but it’s worth it. And they look forward to going to bed with their new book or having their new book read to them if they are not a reader or they’re an emerging reader. I try to gauge that. But it’s an incredible way to build a little library that then, they can take off into their life with them when they leave our family. All of those books become their little starter library for their life once they launch and it’s precious.

Gretchen Roe: 00:38:16.071
Absolutely. And I think one of the things that as parents we need to think about is we want to create memories that allow our children to look back on their growing up years with joy and with happiness. And if that is not something for which you experienced– so if your childhood years were kind of fraught, here’s the opportunity for you to change that. And we we also want to recognize the fact that we all have different seasons. And so you may be going into a season where this feels really overwhelming. And sometimes, the best thing we can do is to sit down with our family and say, “Wow. I’m really kind of at the edge of my capacity here. How can we change what we’re going to do so we can take a deep breath and make it easier for all of us?” And remember, it’s not about the presence; it’s about your presence and that it makes all the difference in the world. Amanda, we had another idea that I wanted to ask you because it’s– this mom is looking for ideas as her children outgrow that little stage. And because you have kids in every stage at this point in time, do some of the things you do with your older children vary from the things that you do with your younger children?

Amanda Capps: 00:39:46.035
Yes, I will say that. There are definitely certain movies that we might watch after kiddos go to bed. For example, It’s a Wonderful Life is a black and white. It’s not really going to hold my toddler’s attention. He would be bouncing off the walls and distracting everybody from enjoying that experience. So there are just certain one or certain times that we watch things that the little kids might not be as interested in. Sometimes, it means all the little kids go to bed and the grown-ups get to pull out a game. The older kids and the grownups, we might pull out a board game that would not be able to hold the attention of a little person or they would be interrupting a lot. And so that’s one thing that’s nice. I mean, when you have evenings that seem to go on forever because of how early it’s getting dark now [laughter] those same in-laws were absolutely brilliant on New Year’s Eve. So they would start at dark and they would start moving the clock back unbeknownst to the little peoples. And then at 8:30, 9 o’clock, it’s midnight. Woo, we blew sound makers. We had a sip of apple cider or whatever. And then the little ones go to bed and then you’ve got a great New Year’s Eve, [laughter] just two of you or just you and your older kids. So there’s ways to get– and then you’re not also dealing with super cranky kids the next day. I mean, I was like, “You guys have this–” They had six kids. They had it figured out.

Gretchen Roe: 00:41:28.444
And I think in the figuring it out, you’re going to know what is best for your family. But I think the hardest part of the holidays is unmet expectations. And Amanda, you and I had this conversation last week back and forth, we were texting about unmet expectations. As a parent, as a mom, I want to make sure that I don’t expect things of my children, particularly during the holiday season, that they can’t deliver to me. And so if you’re that mom who sets high standards and has a great deal of expectation for your children, might be the time to take a notebook and a little bit of time away with a cup and sit down and think about how can we retool what we’re doing so those expectations don’t create hurt feelings or sad feelings during the holidays.

Amanda Capps: 00:42:27.676
Yeah. I’ve heard it said that unmet expectations are premeditated resentments. So sit with that for a minute.

Gretchen Roe: 00:42:36.295
Yeah. That’s a hard one. And it really is true as well. Because I had half of my kids with me for Thanksgiving, I was able to ask them, what are some of the things you remember that we did as Christmas traditions that you still appreciate? [laughter] And one of my kids said, oh, I loved the fact that you used to take the little golden books and wrap them up. And I did. I was insane. I must have wasted a lot of wrapping paper. But we had 25 different little golden books that were something holiday-related. And so I would wrap all of those books up and that book basket would sit by the fire. And every night somebody got to take a book out and unwrap it. And that was our storybook before the kids went to bed when they were little. And I thought it was kind of fun that a 29-year-old still remembers that fondly. So there’s an idea for you all to think about. We haven’t had any questions from our attendees today so far, but I have a question that I know that they’re probably thinking about, which is time runs rampant over you in the next 40 days. So Amanda, what do you do to balance your time? How do you keep this thing on an even keel?

Amanda Capps: 00:43:58.266
I mean, sometimes, you can’t. Sometimes, the day derails into a dumpster fire and you’re you’re doing damage control. I mean, there are definitely days where I feel like I should wake up and put on a black and white striped shirt and hang a whistle around my neck because I literally feel like I’m refereeing all the things. And if I could throw foul cards and technicals out, I would.

Gretchen Roe: 00:44:25.586
[crosstalk] a flag or two, huh?

Amanda Capps: 00:44:28.012
100%. But I think it’s a real opportunity– so here’s the deal. If you grew up in a home where maybe your love language wasn’t gifts or the people who you grew up with, the love language– so that happens to be my love language gift is– or love language is gifts. So that can put a lot of pressure on someone because I feel like, “Oh, well, I have to do– everybody has to have the perfect gift,” right? And that takes time, and it takes intentionality. And while none of those are inherently bad, you can get so focused on that and feel like you’re the one that has to make Christmas, Christmas, that it doesn’t really give you the opportunity to cultivate those skills in a child where maybe that isn’t their natural inclination. So one of the things that we have done to combat that is we intentionally take our kids shopping for their siblings. So we try to do it one-on-one. Sometimes that works out, sometimes it doesn’t, just depending on time and scheduling. But teaching a small child who walks into a toy store and they want it all, that we’re actually here to pick something out that a sibling would enjoy and then maybe guiding, steering, or having a tough conversation about why what they picked out might be something they enjoy more than the person they’re picking it out for would. And what would they think or feel if somebody gave them a gift that they would enjoy more than the person getting it? I just can’t stress enough how much incredible opportunity there is during this time of year. I mean, those are all character qualities. Those are all incredible conversations to have. They’re teaching a child about giving. No one’s a natural giver. That’s something that has to be taught and cultivated and encouraged in our children. It’s not always going to be something that’s very natural. Obviously, we would love money to be no object. I would love to just have an unlimited amount of money to be able to go and gift all the people, all the things. But we have to work within a budget. We have to rein that in. Dave Ramsey talks about not going to all this trouble to impress people that don’t care. You don’t want to do that. So again, I have really enjoyed the opportunity to be intentional and one-on-one with a kiddo in a gifting situation of picking something out for someone else, finding the things that they’re excited about, helping them wrap it, learning. You give a two year old tape and you’re going to have more tape on that present than wrapping paper. Anything. And it’s hilarious sometimes to watch siblings try to get something unwrapped. And I mean, yeah, there’s just so many things that are just a blast.

Gretchen Roe: 00:47:53.632
Absolutely. The other thing I think that’s important is to take a few minutes as a mom or a dad and sit down and maybe reflect how has your year gone? Because one of the holidays we’re talking about in here is New Year’s. And our New Year tradition for a number of years as a family was to get together and have dinner, and you had to come with the best thing that happened to you this year, the hardest thing that you overcame this year, and then something you learned from each one of your siblings. And that was tough, I’ll tell you, and it’s funny. I hadn’t thought of this until we were getting ready for this, but I remember finding one of my children sitting crosslegged on her floor, and her face was screwed up tight, and I said to her, “What are you doing?” and she said, “I’m thinking about the New Year’s Eve dinner and the things that I have to say,” and I was like, “Oh, really? So what are you thinking about?” She said, “I’m really trying to think of something nice that I learned from–” and I’m going to leave the kid’s name out of the equation, but I busted out laughing because I thought, “Oh my goodness. That’s an interesting exercise in forced altruism there. [laughter] I’m really trying to think of something nice that I learned from so-and-so.” So it’s not all about presence. It’s not all about the hustle and the bustle. It’s about the relationship, and that’s what we really want you to understand is how do you count it for school? Sit down, take a piece of notebook paper, and today we went shopping. OK, what did that entail? Did you have someone give you directions to where you’re going? Here’s a tip. Here’s a pro tip. If you have a child who’s 13 years or older, get in the driver’s seat and say to the 13-year-old, “We’re on our way to the grocery store. I’m going to do turn-by-turn directions. I will go every– I will turn every direction you tell me to turn.” All of a sudden, your 13-year-old is going to start paying attention to you for directions. What did you just learn there? Well, you learned a form of mapmaking skills, but you also learned whether your child has a memory for where they’re going because when they turn 16 and you send them to the grocery store by themselves, you want to know if they remember how to get there, correct?

Gretchen Roe: 00:50:24.780
So that’s a skill, being able to, like Amanda said, budget. She mentioned Dave Ramsey earlier. Dave Ramsey would have been very impressed with the fact that when we sponsored a kid, everybody got an envelope, and they got cash in that envelope to spend for the child that they were assigned. The funniest thing I ever remember is two of my kids arguing; one had spent all their money, the other had not. The one who’d spent all their money had one more thing they wanted to get for their person that they were shopping for, and so he was trying to bargain his sister into giving up the money she hadn’t spent. [laughter] Interesting memories and interesting ways to do that. Amanda, let’s talk a little bit about having the space academically to use that notebook to evaluate what you’re doing. I know with your high schoolers, you sort of reflect week by week as the holidays come closer. OK, what did we do? But what do you write down? What are you writing down in that notebook so that you will remember it later?

Amanda Capps: 00:51:36.341
Everything. I mean, really, document everything. You can embellish, and I mean, you can kind of fill in the blanks as you go, but I am 41 years old, and I have 10 people, including myself, in this household. If I don’t write it down, I’m not going to remember it, and I’m certainly not going to remember something that happened when we started in August and we’re ending up in May at a graduation. It’s not going to happen. There are awesome apps that can help you keep track of stuff. You can physically write it down on a piece of paper. You can voice text it. I mean, there are ways to get the information into a consolidated place that then you can work with it as you’re needing to do transcripts or whatever it is that you’re wanting to do. Another great webinar to listen to is the one that we talk about grading and how to do a lot of those things. So hopefully we can include that in the show notes because I think, especially with the older kids, we need to know exactly how we’re going to count that. And we need to kind of be keeping a running tally so that we have a grade point average or that we have something that we can give a formal institution as we’re applying for colleges and as we’re creating transcripts because those are the things that get sent out and kind of showcase, “Okay. This is what they did and this is how they did.” So the more you can document, the better because then you know you’re not missing anything, and you’re getting all of those pieces in one place, and then you’re ready to put it together for that child.

Gretchen Roe: 00:53:27.473
We did an extensive webinar just three weeks ago with Alice Reinhart talking about building a transcript and how you need to really begin that process as a seventh- or eighth-grader. That would be a wonderful webinar for you to access if you’re looking for that. But Alice did talk a great deal in the webinar about two things that I think are important and relevant when you’re looking at the holidays. We had mentioned volunteer opportunities, and Alice gave some statistics about how much more likely it was for a student to get hired if they had evidence of volunteerism on their resume and their transcript. So this might be the time where you have a reluctant 14-year-old, and you say, “Okay. You’re going to volunteer over the holidays, maybe at the Salvation Army, maybe at the Toys for Tots booth, maybe handing out hot chocolate downtown to tourists and guests.” I don’t know what that is, but here’s the opportunity for you to start thinking outside the box a little bit.

Gretchen Roe: 00:54:34.437
Now, everything that we’ve said– we’ve put a bunch of ideas out there in the universe. I want you guys to think a little bit about this. And Jenny’s asked a great question, so I’m going to read her question, Amanda. And it says, “How do I feel comfortable with these life skills like mapping directions, to write in a notebook, to track lessons? I keep rolling around in my head. Well, public school kids would still experience a trip to the store. How is it okay and not just to be just extra?” And the truth of the matter is – I’m going to answer Jenny’s question, and I want you to think about it, and then I’m going to let you answer it, Amanda – a lot of public school kids aren’t getting the kind of things that we’re talking about. Have your child put together the cost for a recipe for cookies that they’re going to take to the fire department. Have them budget that. Have them figure out how much it costs to produce those cookies. Those are things that public school kids aren’t getting. And I’ll tell you how it’s valuable. I have a daughter who is 37 years old. And when she was 18, she applied for a Small Business Administration loan and bought the coffee shop she’d worked in since she was 15 years old. So at 18, she was a business owner. And very quickly she found that the only people she could hire were homeschoolers because they were the only ones who knew how to to make change when her little mercurial cash register said, “Sorry. I know there’s an answer here, but I’m just not going to tell you.” And do your kids know how to make change? Maybe during the holidays this year as you’re purchasing gifts, maybe this is the time to teach them how to make change. Jenny’s question, though, is really relevant. How do we count that in comparison to what they might be doing in a public and private school experience? And I think the short answer there is it doesn’t matter. Your goal is to raise a well-educated student. And if taking them to the store and teaching them that three cans for 89 cents is a better deal than two cans for 99 cents, then you’re doing the right thing. Amanda, what are your thoughts there?

Amanda Capps: 00:56:56.047
Yeah. I mean, I think we chose this educational model because we wanted it to be richer. We wanted them to be more well-rounded. We wanted them to have outside-of-the-box experiences. We want them to be comfortable with kids who aren’t just in their peer group. We want them to feel as comfortable and confident going into a nursing home as going into a nursery school. I mean, if they’re helping with the littles at church in your church nursery or whatever that is, I mean, the whole point is we wanted to, we wanted to structure their educational experience. And we want them to have experiences far above and beyond what the local school is turning out. I mean, so to me, that’s an interesting question. As a second-generation homeschooler, I think about my own experience, and I look at other adults in my age group. And they’re floored that I still make time to read or that I’m researching certain things or that I’m– what my experience instilled in me was a love of lifelong learning. It didn’t stop at 12th grade. It didn’t stop because I graduated from high school. Everything about my life and the choices that I make are to enrich and be even more educated and to learn the things and the passions that interest me. I mean, that successful education. So I mean, I feel like you can count so many things. And trust me, there are plenty of teachers who are who are looking for those types of things too. And while it’s very difficult to impart those kinds of skills to 35 kids that are all the same age– and maybe they’re all the same age, but they’re not all the same developmentally, I mean, yeah, I appreciate the question. I appreciate the concern. But I really feel like we picked a different model for a reason.

Gretchen Roe: 00:59:21.476
Absolutely. I think that is very true. We’ve chosen a different model. We’ve chosen a different path. And you know what? Before we conclude today, Amanda, I think it’s important for us to call attention to the fact that homeschool parents are very, very hard on themselves. And it’s very easy to fall in the trap of, “I’m not doing enough. I’m not patient enough. I’m not–” you stick whatever you want in the, “I’m not enough.” And that is a lie. That is simply a gift from the enemy to make you think that you’re not on the right path, and we don’t want you to feel that way. We want you to feel like you have are on a pursuit that, yes, is different from others, but it’s absolutely as rich and vibrant as anything your children could have in a public, private, or parochial experience. And what we want you to remember is we know that you’re enough, and I want you to be able to say that for yourself. This is Gretchen Roe for The Demme Learning Show. Thank you so much for joining us today. You can access the show notes and watch a recording, again, as I said earlier, at the demmelearning.com/show or on our YouTube channel. Be sure to rate, review, follow, or subscribe wherever you may be hearing this. And of course, feel free to share it with someone else. We wish you the joy of the holidays. Take care, everyone. Have a wonderful afternoon.

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