Episode 306 | Start Your Homeschool Day Out Right

Episode 306 | Start Your Homeschool Day Out Right

Show Notes:

Episode summary

The success of your homeschool day largely depends on how you begin the day. If your mornings are a mad scramble and the rest of your day is anything but peaceful, let this episode serve as a call to gather your children together first thing in the morning to pay your devotions to your Father in heaven. You’d be amazed at how even five minutes in the morning — every morning — can influence your homeschool for the better.

Host biography

Sean Allen is the founder of The Well Ordered Homeschool, husband to his beautiful bride Caroline and a proud father of eight. He has a bachelor of fine arts in graphic design and is passionate about creating materials to assist parents in the incredibly challenging, yet surpassingly beautiful, work of schooling and training their children at home.

Resources mentioned

The Character of the Holidays Devotional Series

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Show Transcript:

Sean Allen [00:00:05] Hello and welcome to another installment of the Homeschool Solutions Show. My name is Sean Allen, and I am one of the many hosts that we have on the podcast. Each week you'll hear from one of us as we talk about this busy and blessed season of educating our children at home. And while the title of the podcast is Homeschool Solutions, it should come as no surprise to you that we do not have the answer to every question related to homeschooling. However, it is our hope that each episode will encourage you to look upward and seek the counsel and direction of our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, as we endeavor to train our children in the way they should go. We're so glad that you decided to join us today. Let's dive into today's episode.

[00:00:48] Well hello, everyone. How are you doing today? I hope you're doing well. I hope life is treating you well. I hope this time of year is enjoyable for you. I hope it's not too overwhelming with the holidays— Thanksgiving just behind us. Christmas just ahead of us. And my, it can get hectic, can't it? It's kind of a paradox. It should be one of the more enjoyable times of year. And yet there's so much to do and so many opportunities that you can't possibly take advantage of every single one of them, and it gets stressful and overwhelming, so I hope that's not the case with you. I hope that you're taking time to step back and to breathe a little bit and to be choosy with the way in which you take advantage of the season. And I hope that your children can enjoy this right alongside you.

[00:01:42] But if you aren't, maybe this is just a little brief reminder here at the beginning of this podcast today, maybe it's time to cut some things out. Maybe it's time to say no to a few things. And you don't have to do it all. Be choosy and pick those two or three things that are going to be really beneficial for you and your family this season so that you can look back on January 1 or 2, maybe, and say, "You know what? We did that right." And the reason why I'm spending a little bit of time here at the head of the podcast today to mention this is because this also applies to our day-to-day homeschool experiences. And if you really want to look at the holidays in this sense, as you are leading up to it, the best way to tackle that time is to plan ahead, to look ahead and to see all that's before you and say, "Well, we've got all of these things that we could do. What should we do?" And you be very deliberate about those decisions that you're making. And you do that at the outset. You do that before the holidays hit because once they hit, all bets are off, and it's off to the races.

[00:02:53] So that is also very applicable to what we're going to be talking about today in the podcast is just looking at your individual day and, in particular, looking at the beginning of that day. And I really want to make a case for doing what I'm going to encourage you to do at the start of the day. And of course, you probably already know what we're talking about: we're talking about devotions. We're talking about morning time. We're talking about starting the day off correctly. Again, very deliberately and with a plan and looking ahead to the day and saying, "All right, first things first. We have to sit down as a family or as a homeschool, if you will— mother and students, or father and students, or mother and father and the children all together. And we're going to start this day off right now.".

[00:03:47] Let me just say, as a little disclaimer here, our family is far from perfect in this area. I felt it was important to talk about this today because I know it's important. And when we fail to do this in our home, we suffer on account of it. And there's just no way around it. If you don't do this, your home is suffering to whatever degree. And ours is to a great degree when we don't do this on a consistent basis.

[00:04:13] Now, we've gone through seasons where we do this consistently in the morning, we do it consistently in the evenings, we do it very inconsistently— that's another season. And in those seasons when we're inconsistent, it always shows. And it's really strange because we know this in our heads that this is so important— that morning devotion time is so very important. And then you go through a season where it's like one month, two months, three months—sometimes longer—when you're not consistently doing this and you're wondering why is everybody at each other's throats? And why is this such a slog to get through this day? And why are we having so much difficulty in this area, that area, the other area? And then you think, oh, maybe we ought to try getting our feet underneath us before we start to walk or to run or to do whatever we're going to do over the course of the day.

[00:05:04] So this is a call or a charge, rather, for you to reengage, or if you're already doing this, it's just a word of encouragement to continue doing what you're doing, maybe to give you a few ideas on how to make this simpler or more effective. But it's no different with our individual lives. You know, you should have had morning time when you got up, even if it's just a prayer, just a time of prayer. Or maybe you've added some scripture study to that, or maybe you're reading a book that's very encouraging to you in some form or fashion.

[00:05:37] But there's got to be that moment at the start of the day where you acknowledge your Heavenly Father and you say, "Thank you, God, for letting me get up off this bed this morning. Thank you, God, for my family. Thank you, God, for this day. Thank you, God, for the opportunities that lay before me, and help me to make the most of them. Help me to be patient today. Help me to be kind. Help me to be understanding. Help me to be compassionate and so on and so forth. Help me.".

[00:06:01] And you say that at the beginning of the day, because if you— again, you get into the day, much like we were talking about with the holidays, like you get into the holiday and all bets are off. You're already hitting the ground and you weren't prepared to hit the ground. As the saying goes, you hit the ground running. Well, you weren't running when you hit the ground. You just hit the ground, and you went tumbling head over heels, just rolling. And it's a train wreck, isn't it?

[00:06:26] And so now that at the start of the day, that's when you need to prepare for the day that is to come. And what better way to prepare than to acknowledge God's role in your life for all of the goodness and the blessings that exist in your life, and also the necessity of his presence in your life in order that you can just get along with each other? In order that the math and the science and the history that you're going to do that day or whatever— the language arts that you're going to do that day, that it goes smoothly. Prayers concerning just that your son or your daughter can comprehend the subject matter. Maybe they're struggling in a particular subject. Lay that before God. Do that at the start of the day. Do that at the start of the day. You do that yourself and then you gather your family together and you have this time.

[00:07:13] And I'm not talking about an hour. You could you could make it an hour. Maybe you're a seasoned veteran at this. You've been doing it for so long, and you've seen the fruit, the rich fruit, the choice fruit that comes from this time. And it went from 15 minutes to 20 minutes to 30 minutes to 45 minutes to an hour now. You're doing this every morning, and you find it so necessary. It's like air. You need it. It's like food. You need it. And we cannot continue on in this day without first taking this time.

[00:07:47] And it is difficult because—and this goes back to the previous— the last podcast, I guess I should say that I did, in talking about atmosphere and environment and discipline and whatnot and how that affects your homeschool. And so if you're undisciplined, and you're going to bed late, and you're getting up late, and then the day is starting late, and you feel like "Oh, we don't have time for this." And it's so backwards.

[00:08:13] When we really sit down and we're honest with ourselves, of course, we acknowledge, "Well, the most important thing that we could do today is to show forth our devotion to our God." And that's not usually what happens, is it? Usually what happens is that well, "At the very least, we've got to get math done." Or "At the very least, we've got to do science," or whatever it is. Like they're so behind in this one particular subject, we're going to scrap the prayers, and we're going to scrap the devotion, and we're going to scrap the scripture reading, and we're going to get straight in to language arts today because you are so behind on this.

[00:08:48] And what you find is that it's very easy to cut a groove into the ground and to create a rut. And over time, you're just perpetuating the same problems. And it really comes back to, well, you didn't do the most important and needful thing first. And even if it is to the exclusion of all of these other things, you should do that. But it's hard. It's hard to talk ourselves out of that, isn't it? Because we get up and it's late. It's like, "Oh, my goodness, we're so behind. We've got to— all right, all right. We're not have morning time. Just sit down at the table and do your school." Or "Just find your textbook," and you can't find the textbooks and it's just a mess.

[00:09:26] And it's because you haven't centered yourself. You are not centered. Your home is not centered. And certainly your children—as an extension of that home—are not centered. And they don't feel centered. And they are a reflection of that lack of sensation in your life. Moms not feeling it or dads not feeling it. And they're not feeling it either. And they don't even understand it. But you do. If you stopped and thought about it, you'd realize, "Well, this is why we're so out of sorts." And again, they're just an extension or a reflection of that quality or the lack of that quality in your life. And so we know this. You know this in your heart of hearts, and yet it is so attractive just to jump into the day. And again, you're not hitting the ground running; you're stumbling through the day when you start like this. And you're groggy, and you're tired, and you're unprepared for your feet to hit the ground.

[00:10:25] And so this is— again, this is an encouragement for you to start the day out right. I don't care if you got up at 10 a.m. Right? You couldn't sleep that night for whatever reason. Maybe the baby kept you up. Maybe you just had a restless night. Maybe there was a sick child. And maybe you just— you slept in till 10:00, 10:30. All right? It's late in the day. And you get up. You still need to start the day off right. You've got to get your feet squared up so that when you hit the ground, you'll actually make some progress. You'll make some forward progress, if you will. All right?

[00:11:05] Because you don't want to cut this groove in the ground. And it is so easy. Right? It is so easy to form bad habits. So hard to form good habits. and you don't want to lose that forward motion that you've got going. So maybe you got up at 10:30. We don't have time for anything else. Just five minutes. Take five minutes. Gather everybody together in the living room. Hold hands, bow your heads, and say a prayer together. And pray over every one of your children. Pray over the coming day that God will give you grace. Acknowledge your shortcomings if there are shortcomings to be acknowledged. Confess that you'll try to do better tomorrow or whatever, whatever needs to take place there. And just take it five minutes. And then say, "Well, tomorrow we're going to do better. I'm going to make it 10 minutes." All right?

[00:11:56] And so that morning time— well, what can it consist of? Well, certainly prayer. We all need that. And the corporate public prayer does things to you and to your family that really are not easily explained if we're able to explain them at all. Right? So God works in mysterious ways. And when you are vocally, publicly, audibly uttering that prayer before your children, it does something to them. Now, I'm sure you've had many prayers where the children are foolish or they're being squirrely or they just can't get themselves calmed down. Well, that's probably because you're not terribly consistent with that morning time or that time of prayer.

[00:12:43] So it may have been a while since you've had that family prayer. And so you think to yourself, "All right, we're going to do this. We're going to have this time of prayer," and you gather everybody up, and you hold hands. And one of them just they keep breaking from the ranks or they're giggling about something. And you're just like, "My children are so naughty, and it's all their fault. And this is what—" No, no, no, no, no. It's all right. Just finish your prayer, and then do it again tomorrow. You know what? Actually do it during lunch, and do it at night as well. And you've had three family prayers there. And then do it again the next day, and the next day, and the next day.

[00:13:26] And I can almost guarantee you that eventually your children will come around, and they will gain a sense of reverence for that time. Because if you're earnestly and honestly praying to God during that time, it's going to do something to their hearts, and it's going to quiet them down, not only during that particular period of time, but also going forward. And you may find that the more consistent that you are with this— and that's why I'm talking about this today is that your days grow calmer and more orderly, if you will. This is not a— this isn't the silver bullet for everything, folks. But we need everything that we can possibly get. And maybe in some instances, it is the silver bullet for you and I.

[00:14:15] Again, if we're earnestly engaged in this work and we really mean it— right? It's not just a check off of our to-do list. It is something that we feel in our heart of hearts that we owe our Heavenly Father. And we owe so much more than this. We could never give enough, could we? But at the very least, this is what we owe him. We owe him this time. And then what we find is that when we do this correctly and God is in the details of our morning time, that he pervades our entire day, that he goes with us into the next activity. Maybe it's breakfast, maybe it's chore time, maybe it is— we're going to jump right into a particular subject. But he goes with us into that activity. And his calming and pervasive presence is there with us during our language arts or there while we're preparing lunch or whatever it may be.

[00:15:14] This isn't going to happen immediately in most cases. I feel like I'm safe in saying that. It's not going to happen overnight. But the more consistent that you are with this, I think the further that presence extends into the day. And oh, my goodness, what would it be like if you—from morning till evening—you had that pervasive presence in your home? That calming presence of peace from the Prince of Peace in your home from morning to evening. What would that be like?

[00:15:47] And friends, this isn't something that— I don't know that you could say that you cultivate this presence. God is. He is. "I am that I am." And it's more a matter of humbly approaching his throne and beseeching his presence in your home. And he either will or will not, but the promise is that if we're earnestly seeking him, and we lay ourselves at his feet, he cannot turn us away, and he will not turn us away. He is all too anxious to be with us from the morning till the evening and in every moment in between. He wants to be there with us.

[00:16:35] And so it's a little tricky to talk about this because I know I've extended to you the hope that your homeschool day will run more smoothly, but that's— I can't say that that will be the result of this activity, if that's the only reason why you're doing it. Right? If you're just— all right, we got to have morning time so our school days will run more smoothly. Well, that's missing the point. That's a byproduct of this kind of activity. You do this because you love your God and because you're so— it's born out of an expression of gratitude from your heart like, "Thank you, God. Thank you, God, for all that you've given me and all that that entails. And there's not time enough in the day to to to list off all of those blessings, but I'm so thankful. I'm going to take this moment and I'm going to gather my little children around me at my feet, and we're going to cultivate this attitude of gratitude. And we're going to express together our thanksgiving to our God for all that He has given us. And we'll thank him for the opportunity to have a school in our house." Which is remarkably just a wonderful blessing. A wonderful blessing.

[00:17:52] And so when your morning time takes on the attitude of gratitude— and I'm not meaning that to rhyme. I don't know exactly where that came from, but it does rhyme. But nevertheless, when it takes on that kind of quality, it cannot help but infect the rest of your day. And infect has some negative connotations, does it? Particularly in this day and age. So I beg your forgiveness with that. But I think you know what I'm saying is that it reaches into every single solitary second of your day and it's just there. And it's not an "it"; it's a "he". It's the presence of the Holy Spirit. I can't stress this enough.

[00:18:37] And I'm really having difficulty now because I'm being convicted just talking about this and how often we fail at this. And it makes no sense, does it? Disobedience doesn't make any sense other than the fact that we're just— that's just who we are. We're disobedient children. And let him who has ears to hear, let him hear. Because if you're doing this and you've been successful at this for so long, then God bless you, and keep— don't ever let that— don't lose it. Don't let it go away. Don't let anything stand in the way between you and this act of devotion on a daily basis. But my suspicion is that most of you who are listening to this probably struggle with this or certainly have struggled with this at one time or another. So what can you do?

[00:19:30] Now again, when you listen to this, you may be like, "Oh, well, that's hard. I don't know if I can get all the squirrels barked up one tree." You know what I mean? "It's just my children aren't going to be— they're not going to like this. And it's not exactly enthralling for them to sit around and listen to Scripture or to sing a hymn or to read a book with spiritual qualities to it." And so, again, that's going to take time. That's going to take time. Hopefully, you—at the very least—appreciate your own personal time in that regards. You know what that can do for your life, and so you want that same benefit for them. You just need to do a better job of exposing them to it.

[00:20:19] And so you don't have to shoot for the moon here. You can start out very simply, and it's the consistency that you really want to lock in on at the first. So we're not going to have a big altar call, and we're not going to read two hours of scripture here, and we're not going to sing 15 hymns. We're just going to start out by being consistent. And so do yourself a favor and do the things that will assist you in becoming consistent. So set a time, if at all possible. And again, I want to advocate for the morning. It's fine to do this in the evening. It's perfectly fine. You can do this twice a day, by the way. So that's fine. I've read of families that do this three times a day, and that's a remarkable thing. They had three instances of devotion time every single day. Now, we've never been like that.

[00:21:18] But at the very least, you want to start your day out right, and so do it in the morning. And if at all possible, set a time. And if you all are early birds, set an early time. If you're not quite so early, again, don't set yourself up to fail. Like, "Well, we're going to do this. We've never done it before. All right. At 7 a.m. every morning, we're going to—" Well, do you all normally get up at 7 a.m. or are you up at 6:30 or something or do you normally get up at 8:30? Don't do that. All right? Because you're just bound to fail and you're going to get discouraged with it. "Oh, we didn't make 7 a.m.," and you're going to fall off the horse, and that's not what you want to do. So if you get up at 8:00 consistently or thereabouts, make it 9 a.m., make it 8:30.

[00:22:01] I also do want to— just a word of warning: if you allow too many activities in between the time that you get up and the time that you're going to have your family devotion time, you're running the risk of of bumping it off altogether because activity breeds more activity, and one thing leads to another. And before you know it, you find, "You know what? We just can't do this today." And so, again, if I were the one who was advising you in this matter—and I am at this particular time—I would tell you that you should do it first thing as early as possible. So gather everybody around.

[00:22:46] And so here's the other side of it where you can set yourself up for failure: you don't want to do something like, "All right, from day one, this is going to take an hour." Well, if you're not accustomed to doing this and certainly your children aren't accustomed to doing this, that's probably not going to fly. So make it five minutes. Make it 10 minutes. And just give it some thought ahead of time. Like, "What are we going to do during this time? How are we going to fill these five minutes or this 10 minutes? We're going to do two things." And I would encourage you to read Scripture. If you're going to read a Scripture, read the Proverbs for the day. A lot of people do that. That's very easy. It's a good place to start because there's just enough proverbs to fit into the month. Right? And so if it's the 12th of May, we're going to read Proverbs chapter 12 today. And then after that, we're going to have a prayer, and then we're going to move on with our day.

[00:23:38] Now, again, invariably, the more consistent that you are with this, the easier it becomes. And what you'll find, oftentimes, is that your children are enjoying it more and more. And so you might read Proverbs chapter 12, and they're like, "Well, could we read another?" And maybe you're going to read the Psalms for the day. Maybe you're going to start a chapter from the Old Testament, and you're going to read through one chapter a day. Maybe you're going to add some things to this because you finding that there's such a rich blessing that comes from this time. And so you don't have to do that all at once. It can be just a scripture and a prayer. And then you could add a scripture and a prayer and a poem, or you could add two chapters of Scripture or whatever. It's just you don't have to do that from the beginning, I guess, is what I'm saying.

[00:24:22] And a good devotional book is also very helpful to where you're not having to reinvent the wheel. And there's a lot of good ones out there. And you can you can read a D.L. Moody devotional book or a Charles Spurgeon or something of that sort. There's too many to name, but you just find one of those books and you read just the brief daily devotional. And that's an excellent way to start out your day. And again, every day, you're acknowledging God's role in helping not just your homeschool, but your life to run more smoothly. And when I say more smoothly, I mean more in the direction of his will for your life. And that's when we find that our lives are actually running smoothly.

[00:25:10] And so this is going to be a little bit of a shameless plug. And certainly now during the holidays, we've actually produced a series of books called— it's a "Character of" series, we call it. And we currently have three holidays that we write about. And the holidays are an excellent period of time in which to gather your family around every single day and to talk about that particular holiday. And Christmas is excellent for this. Thanksgiving is also very good. Easter. And those, incidentally, are the three holidays that we have, and we're going to be working on the 4th of July. But to read about the characters, the individuals, the stories, the scriptures, and all of these different things. There's so much material surrounding these events on the calendar. And you can just gather as much as your hearts desire to draw from and to read to your children in the morning. It's an excellent thing to do.

[00:26:08] And so, again, I would encourage you not just to draw upon storybooks, but just maybe to look to a character study of some sort. And a lot of the things that we sell are things that we—on our website, TheWellOrderedHomeschool.com—a lot of the things that we sell, we made for ourselves first. Like we recognized the need for this in our lives, and then wouldn't it be nice if we had something like this? And so the "Character of" study or devotional series was born out of that need.

[00:26:38] And so one of the ones that we offer is the character of Christmas. And I'm just going to read for you now one of the devotionals that we have. It's a it's a 12 person devotional. So each study centers on the life of one individual in connection to the Christmas story. And this one is about the wise men. And so all you— this is so easy. All you do is you get up in the morning and you say, "Everybody gather around." And this is nice because it actually has the scripture provided for you that you can read for that day. There's a devotional for you to read. There are questions to ask after the devotional. You can read a poem. As I mentioned, there's also the scripture reading. There's a family sing-along. We provide a hymn for you to sing. There's a family activity. Normally, it's some kind of a craft related to the lesson. Sometimes we recommend other books, like storybooks that you could read during this. There's so much. There's art appreciation, and so on.

[00:27:37] So you could make a day of this. And it's really— or you could just read the devotional. It's entirely up to you. But we've tried to provide as much material as possible so you could take advantage of that. So I'm just going to read for you the devotional from the wise men. Just envision yourself reading this to your children and not just filling the time, but hopefully that they're going to draw a lesson from this reading.

[00:28:05] It reads: "So it does seem a tad obvious to select wisdom as the quality that the wise men exhibited. But it's one thing to be called wise and another to actually be wise. However, based on the actions of this fascinating group of men in the second chapter of Matthew, we should have no difficulty with them forever being remembered as 'the wise men'. Their wisdom was displayed in so many ways. For one, they could discern the signs of the times. A remarkable new star had appeared in the sky. The wise men, or Magi, called it 'his star'. They knew what it signified, and it drew them to Jerusalem in search of the King of the Jews. Their coming and the nature of their search, however, troubled another king who felt that designation belonged only to him: Herod. Accordingly, Herod drew from all the historical, scriptural, and astrological knowledge at his disposal in order to ascertain where the supposed child king would be born. And once it was told him, he summoned the wise men and sent them on a personal errand: 'Go and search diligently for the young child. And when you have found him, bring me word again that I may come and worship him also.' A little wisdom would be required to discern that Herod's request hid ulterior motives. The wise men probably would have traveled to Bethlehem with or without Herod's directive. Miraculously, they were guided by the very star which led them to Jerusalem in the first place, and on this night, it rested directly over Joseph and Mary's home. Seeing this caused them to rejoice with exceeding great joy. They entered the home, and who can tell the feelings of their hearts the moment they beheld the Christ child near to—perhaps in the arms of—his mother? All we know is that what they experienced in that small room caused them to fall down and worship a child no more than two years old. They were no strangers to royalty. They knew what it was to bow and scrape. But did Herod's presence ever compel them to such unfeigned veneration? What they did next is the reason why it has been traditionally believed that there were three wise men. We have no way of knowing how many there were. Some ancient traditions hold that there were 12. They laid before Jesus three gifts of spectacular worth: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Upon her visit to his kingdom, the Queen of Sheba's gifts to King Solomon far surpassed even these. But no one was ever so worthy of such treasures as the son of Joseph and Mary. We do not know how long the wise men tarried, but they were warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod. This was probably not as easy as it sounds. Herod was powerful and almost certainly had spies throughout his realm. More than this, he was desperate to locate the Christ child. Not returning with the information Herod desired was a terrible risk. But they feared God more than him and heeded the counsel contained in the dream. They quietly slipped out of Bethlehem and made their way back to their home country another way. The manner of their departure enraged Herod, for he knew they had outsmarted him. Not one to be denied, he determined to force his will upon all Bethlehem and the surrounding area by ordering the death of all boys aged two and younger. But this cannot be laid at the feet of the wise men. They had followed the star, and it led them to the feet of Jesus. They had obeyed the dream, and it led them away from Herod. In all these things, they hearkened to the voice of their master. It's the wisest thing they or anyone, for that matter, could ever do."

[00:31:55] So there you go. There's just an example of how you could fill that morning time. That probably took about three or four minutes, and you can have a prayer and be on with your day. So I don't— I'm just using that as an example. But I want to close just by encouraging you once again. This is the most important part of your day because it is the one part that can positively influence the entirety of your day. Now, on the flip side, you could do nothing at all. You could just fool yourself into thinking that you're "hitting the ground running". You get up in the morning and just move on to the next thing, and you allow necessity or the tyranny of the moment to dictate what you're going to do next.

[00:32:43] But that's the one thing that you could do that would negatively affect the rest of your day, because you'll find that you're just— it's like walking through molasses from that point forward. And everything's a challenge, and everything's a struggle, and everybody's at each other's throats, and nobody wants that. And certainly it's not benefiting your homeschool in the least degree. And so you can keep going on like that, but eventually it's going to beat you down and you're going to start to have thoughts about, "Can I even continue on like this anymore?" And the answer is probably no.

[00:33:18] So take the time. I don't care if you get up at 7:00 or 8:00 or 9:00 or 10:00 or 12:00. Take the time, take five minutes, take 10 minutes, take whatever you possibly can. Gather your children around. We're going to do this no matter what. And you make a promise to yourself that you're going to do this no matter what, because you know it's the most important thing that you do that day— or one of the most important things that you could possibly do that day. And certainly in the morning, it is the most important thing that you can do.

[00:33:50] Do it for yourself. Do it for your children. Do it for the sake of the sanity of your homeschool. And I think that you'll find that, by and by, things will just move along much more smoothly. You will be more calm, your children will be more calm, and you'll wonder how you ever lived without this time. So with that, I'm going to bid you farewell. I wish you all a very happy holiday season, no matter where we are at the particular time that this episode airs. And I hope that every one of you is doing well. And I wish you the very best. Goodbye for now.

Sean Allen [00:34:37] Thank you for joining us this week on the Homeschool Solutions podcast. If you're looking for show notes and links to all of the resources mentioned in the episode, you can find them at Homeschooling.mom. If this episode resonated with you, we invite you to subscribe to the podcast and share on social media. Please use the tag @Homeschoolingdotmom on Instagram. Also, we would be so grateful if you left us a positive review on iTunes. This helps our show to grow and it also helps other homeschooling parents like you find this great resource. And lastly, have you joined us at one of the Great Homeschool Conventions? The Great Homeschool Conventions are the homeschooling events of the year, offering inspirational talks from outstanding speakers to hundreds of workshops covering today's top parenting and homeschooling topics and the largest homeschool curriculum exhibit halls in the U.S. Find out more at GreatHomeschoolConventions.com. We would love to see you there, but until then, you can find us every week right here on the Homeschool Solutions podcast. Goodbye for now.

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