HS #290 The Art of Unschooling

HS #290 The Art of Unschooling

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HS EP 293

Wendy –

Hello and welcome back to another installment of the Homeschool Solutions Show. My name is Wendy Speake, and I am one of the many hosts we have here on the podcast. Each week you'll hear from one of us inviting one of our friends to join for a conversation about this busy, blessed season as we educate our children at home.

Now, the title of the show is Homeschool Solutions. While we don't have the answer to every question, we know that all the solutions to every stress and every struggle can be found in the Person and presence of Jesus Christ and His living and active and applicable Word. We are so glad that you're here to join us for today's conversation. But before we start the show, I'd like to thank our sponsor.

Medi-Share. An affordable and Biblical healthcare alternative. Find out more at mychristiancare.org for their ongoing support of homeschooling families just like yours. And now, on to today's show.

Well, hey everyone, this is Wendy and I'm welcoming you back to another episode of the Homeschool Solutions Show, and my goodness I could talk for like ten minutes before we even get started with our guest today. I just want to share how we came about as friends. Now, Karla Marie Williams was actually following me on, I don't know, Instagram or Facebook. And about a year ago I posted just an off-the-cuff question to those who came across my social media thread and said I have a lot of great people speaking into my life. But it's not very colorful. Do you know any women of color that I could follow just to diversify and broaden that, that voice speaking into my life?

And so, I had a lot of suggestions from people and this sweet woman, she responded, here are some people I love to follow, but might I suggest that you follow me? I mean, I just, I feel like I need to pause there. I love that love and boldness and availability to others, and I would say that from what I've learned from Karla Marie, what really sums up her place online is love and availability. And she's just a beautiful example of a mom, finding the way that God has created her children, and instead of saying okay, I have a plan for your life and I'm going to ask God to bless it. Instead of doing that, she says God you have a plan for my kid's life, and I want to join You there.

And so, I'm so excited about this conversation. I've loved following her online and you can link in the show notes and find all the direct links so that you can follow her as well.

But Karla Marie Williams is the president of Be Bold Publishing. She's an author. She's an international speaker. She's a child advocate. Karla has impacted families all over the globe. Her messages and her life example are full of hope and inspiration in the areas of homeschooling, foster care, adoption, parenting, and Christian living. She's a wife of 23 years and a mother of six sensational kids. Her popular unschooling book, which is going to be the topic of our conversations to strap yourselves in, her popular unschooling book is called Homeschooling Gone Wild, imagined learning through living.

Now many look at unschooling as a viable option, maybe for the younger children. But what about high school? Can we unschool the teen years and prepare young adults for their future?

Well, Karla answers that question with an emphatic “absolutely”. In her sequel to Homeschooling Gone Wild, Karla shares how she continued unschooling through high school with magnificent results. Like I said, as the mom of six teens and some of them are still preteens, her desire is to unleash and ignite the dreams and interests that lead to their passionate pursuits. Karla walks us through their journey and how to approach deep, meaningful learning. She will help you forge your very own path with your teens as they reach for their dreams, not necessarily your dreams for them.

If you feel that there has to be another way that your team has unrealized potential. I mean, who's raising their hands? I've got both hands up because I have three teens right now. You want them to forge their own path, but you're not quite sure how. Well, this conversation is going to be for you. So welcome to the Homeschool Solutions Show, Karla.

Karla -

Thank you, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to share today.

W -

Yeah, well, it's almost like what do you have left to say? I just said it all. That was a long introduction. That was definitely my longest, but why don't we let you introduce yourself? Maybe start by sharing a bit about your family story, cause you have a real interesting one.

K -

Yes, actually, my husband and I have been married for almost 24 years now and we have six amazing children, all of which we adopted through foster care here in the state of Michigan. In 2006, we brought home two toddlers and a newborn, all at once, and then in 2013 we brought home another sibling group of three which makes six, and we've been homeschooling now for twelve years. The last nine of those twelve years have been unschooling.

W -

Wow.

K -

???

W -

Who's listening right now and said wow about three times in a row? I mean, we brought home a sibling group of two toddlers and a baby. Wow! And then a few years later we did it again. Wow! And then we decided to homeschool. Wow! And then we decided to unschool. Wow! So. Why don't you maybe transition into, what was that decision to homeschool maybe based on? And then how it transitioned from traditional homeschooling to your more personalized, unique style of unschooling.

K -

Okay, well you know originally, before we even adopted our first three children, I always thought homeschooling was an amazing idea. And mainly because I was just so afraid to send my kids to school. It's like I waited so long to be a mom that I wanted to spend as much time with them as I could. And then the first day or the I think it was the second day, that my daughter was supposed to be in kindergarten, I caved. And we were right across the street at that time from the best, one of the best elementary schools in our city that we lived in at that time. And I caved and I sent her to school. And in the next year, I sent my next child to school. He was fourteen months younger.

And it was the beginning for us with my oldest daughter of a three-year battle of trying to find the right learning environment that fit her. She just did not fit the mold for a public-school structure. And you know, at first, you think it's the school, then you think it is the teacher then you realize it's the system. Not that the system can't work for anyone, but it wasn't working for her. And by the third school, after having some amazing teachers, some okay teachers, we realized really, she just needed something different. And we, out of necessity and out of emergency, really to do what we consider saving our child, we decided to homeschool.

So, we pulled her out spring break of her second grade here. So that was the original purpose behind it. I still had my other son who was in the Spanish emergent kindergarten, and we allowed him to stay in his program because really this was for her originally and I had a baby at home as well, and a toddler. And he began to act up in school and his teacher asked him what was wrong, and he said, why does my mom not love me as much as my sister? And the teacher was like no, I know your mom. Your mom's crazy about you and he said, well, why do they get to learn at home, and I have to come to school?

So, he finished out the end of his kindergarten year and I brought him home. And we have been homeschooling ever since. And so, when we adopted the second sibling group in 2013, it was already what we did as a family. So, what started as an emergency became a lifestyle and something that I can't imagine living without.

W -

Wow. You know, I remember talking with you before and when you were telling me a bit about your eldest, your first daughter, I was reminded of the book Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson. Did you read that by any chance?

K -

My daughter read it.

W -

Okay, well it doesn't surprise me that she did because it reminded, she reminds me a bit of your daughter who had some challenges in learning, but it wasn't that she had challenges. It was that she was uniquely made to learn in a unique way and really for a unique purpose. And actually, this main character, it's an autobiographical poetic story. So, it's right in line with who your daughter is as a communicator. And really what she grew up to love doing as well. So why don't you tell us kind of how she transitioned you into, these are my words more than yours, but how did she lead you into this idea of unschooling? I mean, am I right to even say that?

K -

Well, you know it was actually, I'll tell you. You know we trudged along with homeschooling for three, almost three and a half years and I hated it. They hated it. My husband was tired of hearing about it at the end of the day about how lackluster our days were. We didn't like it, but the only other alternative was to send them back to school and I was not doing that. And so, we just made our way through it. They read workbooks and I corrected the answers, and then lather, rinse, repeat. There was nothing enjoyable about our learning experience.

And so, when we were about to adopt the second sibling group, I was like if I hate it with three, I am going to despise this six. And I said I'm going to end up in the corner rocking back and forth at the end of every school day. And so that's kind of how we determined that we needed to do something different. What that difference was, I wasn't sure. I started doing some reading and watching some videos and I heard of this thing called unschooling, and the UN at the beginning of that word was really a turn-off ???

And so, we began to really investigate it a little further. I thought these people were crazy.

W -

Yes.

K -

And that you had to be really irresponsible to pursue something in such an alternative way until when we bought our second group of kids home. We actually stopped everything.

And we decided that we wanted to, you know, mesh as a family of eight and not force-feed information down their throats. So, we just needed to become, you know, to to to bond together. And so, we just kind of paused all homeschooling at that time. And what we began to see was amazing. We began to see our children teach themselves things we would have never thought to teach them or that was not in a curriculum. We saw them teach each other things and learn from each other because they were so close in age, they began to really emulate each other's knowledge. And it was just a beautiful thing to watch, and it was so natural. And it was so enjoyable that you know I wouldn't dare tell them, oh, you're learning right now because learning seemed to be, you know, a four-letter word back then.

W -

Right, well and I remember you once said that you never enjoyed learning, so you didn't know that learning could be fun. So, in a way, they opened your eyes to that.

K -

Yes, I expected them to complain and hate it because I hated school the way that it was structured. And so, you know I didn't expect them to enjoy it or want to do it. And when I started seeing these things, they emulated a lot of what I had been reading and hearing about when it came to my research on unschooling and interest-led learning. And so that's kind of how we transitioned. We kind of did a deschooling unintentional deschooling process ??? that it just kind of made a good transition into a completely different way of approaching it. And during that time, you know I really worked on changing my mindset as far as how learning happens, how natural it is, how our children are. Well, our children are people in general, are designed to learn. That we are always learning that learning doesn't have times of day or seasons, or, you know our brains don't start at eight and cut off at three PM. You know?

And so, it was just a time for me to observe and to see them, and you know what you would call their natural habits? I watched them and how they naturally gravitate toward information which was different for each of them. Things that kind of made them tick. I had never paid attention to those things before because I was focused on a checklist. I was focused on the arbitrary checklist from Google Docs that said what my children were supposed to learn at what time, including what grade and what age. But I didn't have time to say, who is this child? Who did God create this child to be? But it's different than what He created my other children to be. And you know, if my children are unique, then their education, their learning experience, should be just as unique as they are. And that's the premise that we came from.

W -

Well, before you can teach your children, you have to learn your children. Before you teach your children, you have to learn your children and because they are unique, again, this is saying, God, how did You make them? And I want to join you there rather than what's my agenda. And oh, by the way, would you bless it because I think. That's more often than not just homeschooling, just parenting in general.

I remember this seems like it doesn't have much to do with education, but it was a good picture for me. I was in church watching, not watching, experiencing the worship. You know we were worshipping the Lord through song. And my eldest son, who is seventeen now, he was probably fifteen at the time, he was leading worship in his youth group.

And I was always trying to encourage them, I'm using air quotes right now, encourage, teach him, how to be a worship leader. And I was watching these two men that were up front and there was the real worship leader. You know the one in the front who made great eye contact and having his you know beautiful smile with all his matching teeth and he kind of looked like he could have been put into new kids on the block. ??? Right? That you think they should be?

And then there was this guy in the back. Not in a pool of light, but his head was down, and he was just filling out the music. I mean, he was just filling it out with all the beautiful riffs, and I looked at him and thought that's Caleb. I'm trying to make Caleb the front man. Not in the pool of light, but in the back just creating sounds to fill out this worshipful experience. And that was really a game-changer for me in their education too because I had to say, what am I trying to create them to be? That I think they should be. And what are they actually created by God to be?

And so that was really good. Before you can teach your children, you have to learn your children and.

K -

Absolutely.

W -

That's really helped me. Okay, would you circle back to some of the things that your oldest daughter enjoyed that you discovered she enjoyed during that season when she had her new siblings? And then if she could, as you continued to, well actually, why don't you tell us, how did you then form, after you de-schooled, how did you kind of transition into a more formal approach that became your approach to teaching your children? Or should I say, letting your children learn?

K -

Absolutely. So, when it came to my oldest two because the other four were all under the age of six at that time. And so, my focus in the very beginning, when I began, we kind of moved out of deschooling and more into unschooling and intentionality, you know, I was focused on what they were the most passionate about. And with my oldest daughter, before, when we were traditionally homeschooling, we were trying to hammer math down her throat. I mean, it seemed like such a struggle that we were focused in on what she was struggling on.

And I had an epiphany. Really was God speaking to me. I won't even say epiphany.

My husband and I started talking. We say why don't we just drop it? And it sounds so brave and so ridiculous that you would say let's drop math, right? Know that some people listening to this are like she's out of her mind. ??? I'm going somewhere with this, so stay tuned.

So, we decided to do that and what ended up happening is that she just started filling notebooks with stories. And one day she brought a story to me, a book, in a notebook and I thought, you know that's cute. And then I read it. And I said, I turned to my husband one day and I said this is a book. This is not just a story. This is not just, you know, her imagination running wild. This is a book. And so I suggested to my husband, why don't we make all of her learning about writing, editing, formatting. Just the creative process of publishing and speaking about her products and just making everything about this skill?

And see how she responds to that? And we asked her about it as she was on fire excited.

W -

I imagine.

K -

It doesn't make every part of the process as enjoyable. Like she hated the part where we edited.

W -

Right.

K -

She's like I don't want to make any changes. It's perfect. Well, you have to get used to your work being judged by others, right? And so, but, by the age of thirteen, she had published her first book. And then by the age of sixteen, she had published four. And that just led to a passion for words and reading. I mean she would consume thousand-page books and classics in a couple days. So, we just knew we were on to something. That doesn't mean that we were negating the fact that she needed basic math skills, but we did know that this was a child who did not need calculus. We were aware that all of her gifts and talents, all of where we saw God pointing her, had nothing to do with, you know, extremely high levels of math and science. And so, we wanted to pay attention to that so that we didn't kill her drive or desire for learning by pushing all of these arbitrary checklists on her, when really we needed to kind of guide her in the direction she was going naturally with those gifts and talents.

And so, you know today she's eighteen. She's making her way in the world. And considering film school, continuing authorship and things of that nature and so I believe that she's going to be able to really, you know, do some things that she's always dreamed of because we were able to redirect our focus based on her natural gifts and talents and call that God placed on her life versus what we thought or what society thinks she should have been learning and when.

W -

Yes, yes, and so how does a parent know if their child is actually learning and not just having fun? I know you've been asked that question a lot because everyone so skeptical, right?

K -

Right, well, you know it's really interesting because if you're talking to your children and that's something you know, I always tell people one of the number one tools in our household when it comes to learning is conversation. We talk about everything. And what my children are learning, what they're experiencing. It comes out of their mouths. If you're having regular conversations, you're going to know that your children are learning. Also, I developed a way of recording my children's daily learning through taking pictures and posting them in the app called Evernote. But other people write in journals. Just whatever works for you. But Evernote was a way for me to track just what they're learning and what they're doing, what they're pursuing, and their progress in different areas. And so anytime I questioned whether or not my children were learning all I had to do was have a conversation with them and look at my Evernote files and, you know there was no question that there was meaningful, deep, and purposeful learning happening all the time.

W -

That's wonderful and I love your emphasis on conversations. My, let's see, he's fifteen, and he was doing a biology curriculum through Apologia and not all of it was interesting. And so, I started really going through the different topics. And I chose the, about six units in, out of fourteen, that were most interesting to him. And then one of the topics I looked through some books with him and said would you like to read a book on this topic instead of doing just a formal curriculum? And then because it's in my father's, his grandfather's wheelhouse of topics that he enjoys and really fit in his, what his career was, would you like to spend four or five weeks reading through this book with your Grandpa? Now they don't live near each other, but at the end of every week you can have a conversation with him. And it ended up going so well that later on, he said that he wanted to read CS Lewis's The Great Divorce. And then followed it up with Screw Tape Letters.

Now these were because he had heard about them, and so I said, well, let's fit that as part of your learning this year. Who would you like to have a conversation with about those? And he suggested grandma. So, it was neat to, now I know some of the moms listening are like, yes, delegate some of that stuff. But I left it because it did, it delegated some of it off of my load. But also, it became more fun and they were accountable in a different way, but it was based more on the conversation.

Anyway, so that was, that's a neat thing that I thought about when I when I've had these conversations with you and really understanding not the end of the unit exam. In conversation, because that's where we, see, not did you memorize facts? But did you become a thinker? And can you communicate what you think about what you've encountered? Not just what you've learned, but what you've encountered in a meaningful way that'll stick with you and...

K -

Can you apply this to life? How does this apply to your life? You know, I find it so interesting. My second oldest son, he's seventeen now, and during that same period of time that we were trying to figure out what worked best for my daughter, my oldest daughter, who's eighteen, we were doing the same with him.

W -

Yes, I like that story a lot too. ??? Cause they're all great kids with lots of unique interests and you were there learning them before you started teaching them. So, give us the story.

K -

So, he actually, way back, I think he was about ten years old. We just randomly planned. And this is where exposure comes in. I always tell people exposure is your job as a parent to the right things, obviously, but exposure to careers and industries and people and cultures. And you know, ideas and concepts. Just as many as wide as you can. Expose them to different things, because that's how they're going to know what's not for them, and that's how they're going to know what is for them.

W -

Yes, I love that. I'm jotting down notes exposure is your job, Wendy.

K -

Yes, and so you have a lot of parents to say, well this won't work for me because my kids don't have any interest. Impossible. God created everyone with a purpose. Everyone was a very specific plan and intricate details and a journey. And that means that there are interests there. The problem is, is that they have not seen it, touched it, or experienced it yet. And so, our job as parents, and as you know, I guess you can say facilitators of learning, is to just throw out a very wide net of experiences to help them find what it is that works for them and what it is that doesn't, and that is the best, your job until they find that thing. And you will know, and your child will know when that thing has revealed itself.

But with my son he was about ten and we just randomly planned, I wanted to do something different for his birthday and instead of planning the average party that we normally did, I did, we took him to an air zoo, which is in, uh, in Kalamazoo, MI, not far from where we live, and it's basically historic, kind of like our simulators and rides all indoors and just everything about the history of airplanes and flight and just an amazing array of opportunities to learn new things in that industry. And he was hooked. And this was random, you know. And so, from there I was like, oh my God. But he's ten. Like how can I expose him to something this young? If he's only ten years old. And so, I got every book I could possibly get on aviation. Got every you know, we watched movies and videos and all kinds of things that I could expose him to. But it got to the point where it was just kind of growing stale even though I knew the passion, the fire was still there. So, when he was about twelve, I started asking around and I thought it was a long shot, but I tried anyway. You know, is there anything that would allow him to get behind, you know, the cockpit of an airplane? And low and behold, speaking to people, you can't be afraid to speak on behalf of your children to other people, because there are people that would love to mentor your kids or at the very least explain what they do for a living.

W -

That's a great takeaway. Thank you, Karla. Yes.

K -

Yes. So, you have to be bold enough to make those phone calls and ask people at church or in the homeschool group or in your neighborhood or in your family, or complete strangers that have an actual passion for what they do. Will you have a conversation with my child? Can my child volunteer, you know, some of their time, you know, once a month or whatever, the case is just to be in the environment to see if this is what they really want to do.

And so, we ended up having a conversation with the lady at our church, and she had a son that was grown. He was an adult, but he had been in an aviation program when he was in high school, and her husband started talking to my husband about it and the bells just started going off. And so, we got the information that we needed to see if the program still existed and it did and he started when he was twelve. He started flying planes at the age of twelve, and now at seventeen, he is a couple months away from being licensed as a private pilot. He started two years ago in a, at a tech school a couple hours in the morning here in our area in aviation maintenance and avionics, which is aviation electronics. So that's both working on the computers and on the body of the plane. Two separate programs. And he does that every day, Monday through Friday at the airport.

W -

Incredible. And you said he's seventeen right now and he started that about a year and a half ago, didn't he?

K -

For avionics, yes, and then a year ago for aviation maintenance. And to date he has gotten four certifications to be licensed to work on electronics and the body of the plane. And so, he actually has those licenses. A card-carrying FAA, you know license for these to be able to work in these industries. And so, it's just an amazing, it was just an amazing unfolding of seeking and finding. Things are in your area. You could say I live in a small town. There's no opportunities. Hogwash. There's someone in your town and in your region that does what your child wants to do. And even if there isn't, you can, I mean, there's Skype, there's zoom. There are people across the world that want to share their expertise with another generation, and so don't always think that you're your only, your kids only teacher. There's somebody out there that can help.

W -

See back to the whole delegation. Delegate. ??? It is a privilege to be our kid's teacher. But it is a joy to find others to inspire and to educate our kids with us. Okay, now this last question. I want you to tell us a bit about your two books on this theme, and really, who they'd be for, cause I just have the sense even as we're talking, and maybe it's just because you're always such an inspiration to me as I raise these teens. I'm just assuming we have people listening, going okay, I want some more on this conversation. So, tell us a bit about Homeschooling Gone Wild and then your more recent.

K -

Okay, so Homeschool Gone Wild, I published in 2018, and at that time all of my, I think my two oldest were preteens, and all the rest were younger, and it covers our path from public school to homeschool to unschooling. It covers the mindset shift that we had to go through in order to be able to pursue something different when we chose to pursue unschooling, what that transition was like, how I had to pay close attention and learn to view learning differently and see it in places I had never seen before, and categorize it in ways that made sense to the outside world, if they were saying well, what are they learning when they learn this kind of thing when they're doing these activities or these games and that kind of thing? And in this book, I share a little bit about the teen years when my older two were preteens. I share about my favorite resources, how we keep records. Like I said before, keeping records for me, we don't have to do that for our state. But we do. I do it because I know my personality. I'm very visual and so keeping pictures and records of what my children learn helps me stay encouraged and helps me see other areas that we could possibly, you know, strengthen and work on. It also, this book also shares a day in our life at that time that was more, that was different.

So, Homeschool Gone Wild is kind of, I would say most parents, you would want to read this book first because it's more of a mindset shifting book to get you to thinking and looking at learning in a completely new way before transitioning to my next book. Well, I've written several books in between, but the the sequel to Homeschool Gone Wild, just launched two weeks ago, and it's called Teens Unleashed. Unschooling young adults as they reach for their dreams. And this book is a sequel to the first one. And it's there to help you see how you can transition even into high school, the high school years, with unschooling or what some call interest-led learning. Because many people think that it's really cute. And you know when you have younger children, just this picture of frolicking about in the field of movies with your kids and enjoying life. Then they turn teenagers, and we panic. And we're like, oh my God. And then we revert back to all of those checklists and all the things that we said we would never do. And so, Teens at least shows you how to continue that inspired learning atmosphere into the teen years and help launch your kids into young adulthood, doing the things that they love and accomplishing the things that they dream of.

W -

Wow. Well, I know that many of us are going to be reaching out for those resources and maybe even sharing this podcast conversation with our spouse and some of our friends as we try to get our heads out of maybe what's making this not fun for ourselves and for them too. So that we can try something fresh and hopefully something that will unleash them into the future that God has planned for them, rather than trudging through the present that we think they need to get to the future that we have planned for them. So, this is always a helpful conversation for me even in the areas where I'm doing a more traditional approach, where I can do sort of what I did for biology and said. But where in this topic are you more interested and how might you engage in a way that's more in line with how you communicate? If you enjoy writing, if you enjoy creating PowerPoint presentations. How can I just follow the lead of your interests? And sometimes that's how I even apply the methods and the ideology behind your books and your encouragement to families.

K -

You know, I, yes, absolutely. And I always tell people, even if you're not interested in diving, headfirst into full-on unschooling or interest-led learning, you don't have to 100% subscribe to everything regarding one type of learning, okay? I let people know that unschooling is more of a lifestyle than it is a learning style. Because when you begin to let go in certain areas regarding learning, you begin to realize that some of the other ways of parenting don't make sense anymore. And so, it will affect the way that you parent, and we don't consider ourselves radical unschoolers. But we, but unschooling is the greatest description of how we pursue learning.

And the interesting thing is that my older two are just walking in and learning how to pursue their goals and dreams as young adults now. And I still have four children here at home and they are on the same track in their own individual fields. And what's interesting is that all four of them have always been unschooled, so there was never a structure or a point where they understood learning to happen in only one way.

W -

Right, but you have one, I remember seeing pictures. You have one, I think son who really loves a workbook. Like you brought a workbook and you said this is, you know, while you're doing this, if you want to choose to do this, and like he set a goal for himself. He's like no, I like this.

K -

Yes.

W -

I love that I love that story.

K -

Yep, he loves workbooks. He is now headfirst into theater. And so, he just acted in his second play last week. I have another son that is into film and in gaming and animation. I have a daughter that has their own business doing, creating accessories and handbags for an online retailer. I have another son that is just getting his feet wet in robotics. My youngest. And so, they all have very unique, you know desires and interests and my job is to basically expose them to as many things as many you know opportunities to be able to get their hands in those areas. And you know to know really, is this what I want to do? And then support them in that and celebrate their progress, no matter how small or large that is. And, you know, just really doing what we did with our older two, walking them along those journeys and helping them see where it is that they want to go and where they believe God has called them to.

W -

Wow, yeah, you had mentioned earlier about, okay moms and dads, even if you have a kid that you're pretty sure doesn't have a wide range of interests. And I think that, I think there are a lot of, I'm going to generalize here, teenage boys in this culture right now, where that parents are really struggling to pull them out of, you know, only their couple of things, and I've heard other parents say this, and I know that there are a couple books on that topic.

And my husband and I have one child where we keep saying, to be well rounded, to be physically fit, emotionally fit, able to engage with a lot more people. All of these things. You need more interests. And so, you may choose them, or we can choose them for you and you can give it a try and see if you enjoy it. And it's not always well received. And one of the things that I'm trying to do these days is look at the couple of interests he has and diversify within the interest so. So, it could be, okay, you're enjoying this intro digital art. Where could we go from there? Okay, you really like shoes, you know hype clothing and stuff like that. To me, I just want to squash that honestly, between you and me and everybody who's listening. I'm like, how could that be good for you? Hype clothes, overpriced clothes. But and this is a teenage boy, well, are there classes for design? You know, clothing design? And you know, because you know they did this in that, there are. And he said to me, after I started talking about this, could you see if there's a class I can take for shoe design? Or maybe a summer for teens that are into shoes. And I, again, I wanted to ??? and be like, what? That's not learning. That's not a future. And then I stopped and said no, this is what I'm looking for, where his interests and where can we go with it? And so, I got the book Shoe Dog, about the history of Nike and we're going for it.

So as I...

K -

I have a connection for you for that.

W -

Thank you, Karla Marie Williams. I'm not so sure if I would have been a less mom without your example and the way that you have spoken into my life through, you know, social media, at first and then these books, so, and now this conversation.

So here is how I would love to wrap things up.

C -

Okay.

W -

Just pray a blessing over those listening. And wait. You know what I should do first? And then we can pray our way out, is the best way to find you. Her name is Karla Marie Williams. And you can find these books on, Amazon is the easiest place to get them. Remember it's Homeschool Gone Wild, and then the second book, the follow-up to that is Teens Unleashed. And then on social media, you can find her at….

C -

You can find us at Karla and the Sensational Six, and that's Karla with a K, and the Sensational Six on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.

W -

Yes, and then over to the landing page for this episode and there will be direct links everywhere.

K -

Or, and they can see, you know, all of my work. I do a lot of work outside of what we've talked about today. But if they can, if they wanted to look at all the books that I've written, they can see it on my website and that's KarlaMarieWilliams.com.

W -

Okay. All right. Well, that's wonderful and I know that we'll have a bunch of moms doing just that. All right, would you pray for us, Karla?

K -

Yes, absolutely. Lord, I just thank You for all of the parents that are listening. I thank You Lord God, for those that want something different for their children, whether their children are traditionally schooled or homeschooled, or unschooled. Father, I thank You right now in Jesus' Name that You have brought inspiration and curiosity in their hearts, Father, and that you would give them the direction that they need to go for their household, for their children, to create the learning environment in their home that is inspired, that is exciting that is enjoyable for all involved. God, I just thank You right now in Jesus' Name that You will begin to light a fire on the inside of them and on the inside of their children for who their children were created to be. God, that You have a very unique, very special purpose, for each and every child that is represented, Lord. And I just thank you, Father God, that as their parents live their own dreams that they will be sparked to live their dreams as well. And I thank You, Lord, for guiding the parents, giving them direction and wisdom to help their kids succeed and be all that You've called them to be. In Jesus, Amen.

W -

Amen. Oh, what a powerful prayer. And I love that at the end, how the Holy Spirit inspired you to just acknowledge that as we see our children being uniquely them, pursuing their passions and pleasures, and learning, and growing as people, that we would be inspired to do the same. Thank you, Karla. Man, what a gift you are.

K -

Well, thank you so much for having me. I enjoyed it.

Wendy -

Thank you for joining us this week on the Homeschool Solutions Show. As always, you can find show notes and links to all the resources mentioned at homeschooling.mom. I hope you'll take a moment to subscribe to the podcast, and if it was especially meaningful to you, share it with your friends via email or social media. This is just another way we can all encourage and love and support one another.

Speaking of love and support, we are so grateful for the support of our sponsors. Have you joined us at one of the Great Homeschool Conventions? The Great Homeschool Conventions are the homeschooling events of the year, offering outstanding speakers, hundreds of workshops covering today's top parenting and homeschooling topics, and the largest homeschool curriculum exhibit halls in US. Find out more at greathomeschoolconventions.com. I hope to see you there. But in the meantime, let's gather together again here on the podcast next week.

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