S7 E7 | The Importance of Free Time (Jeannie Fulbright with Joshua Parker)

S7 E7 | The Importance of Free Time (Jeannie Fulbright with Joshua Parker)

Show Notes:

Charlotte Mason tells us, "From one to two hours...are given in the afternoons to handicrafts, field-work, drawing, etc.; and the evenings are absolutely free, so that the children have leisure for hobbies, family reading, and the like."

Charlotte Mason stressed the importance of allowing children free time to pursue their own interests. Many homeschoolers schedule too long for lessons that spill right over into the afternoon. This is why short lessons in the morning with afternoon free for other important work and skills is such a valuable part of the Charlotte Mason education.

In this podcast, in addition to hearing how Jeannie's children utilized their free time to grow in their personal interests, we will hear from a homeschooled senior, Joshua Parker, who will share how important it was to have free time in his homeschool days, and how he put those hours to good use, growing proficient and confident in a variety of useful and interesting pursuits. He will share how his parents helped to foster his hobbies, and ways we, as homeschoolers, can support our own children's unique pursuits.

ABOUT JOSHUA

Joshua Parker is a 19 year old cartographer of fantasy worlds, inventor of wooden weapons, designer of board games, and storyteller of adventures. He loves to talk about serious things and is always ready to dive into a faraway land through the pages of a book. His goal in life is to serve Christ and to further his kingdom on a worldwide scale.

ABOUT JEANNIE

Jeannie Fulbright, a 24-year veteran homeschooler, is the author of the #1 best-selling, multi award-winning Apologia Young Explorer science series: Exploring Creation with Astronomy, Chemistry and Physics, Botany, Zoology, and Anatomy & Physiology. She is also the author of the action-packed historical time travel book series Rumble Tumbles Through Time, as well as preschool science books and activity kits, the Charlotte Mason Heirloom Planner, and many high-quality Charlotte Mason based products. Jeannie and her husband Jeff became empty nesters in 2019. All four of their children all went to the University of Georgia on scholarship (homeschooling works!). For more than 20 years Jeannie has traveled around the country speaking to homeschoolers at conventions, covering a plethora of topics from Charlotte Mason to marriage and prayer.

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Show Transcript:

Jeannie Fulbright:

Welcome to The Charlotte Mason Show, a podcast that is all things Charlotte Mason and her tried and true philosophy of education designed to help you homeschool with more confidence, joy, and success. It is our hope that you'll find golden nuggets that will transform the way you think and the way you homeschool. I'm your host, author of the bestselling Charlotte Mason science curriculum, Jeannie Fulbright, and I am so glad you joined me today.

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We are going to see what happens when you apply a very important Charlotte Mason principle called free time or leisure. Charlotte Mason tells us, she writes, "Leisure for themselves and a sense of leisure in those about them is necessary to children's wellbeing." So leisure is necessary, and I think so much of the time we forget how important it is to give our children space. Leisure is necessary. Math is necessary, but leisure is also necessary. So we need to be sure that we are applying this principal, because by applying this principal in my own life that the afternoon times should be protected for the child to pursue their personal interests even if their schoolwork isn't finished, I noticed really early in my homeschool journey how different my children were growing up to be than their neighborhood friends, the kids we had grown up, they'd been with all through their preschool years and their young years. I just started noticing a really big difference between my children and the neighborhood children who were wonderful kids, but I just noticed that my children had more special, unique interests. They had more skills that they had developed and honed. And they had more of a love for learning, a desire for knowledge to understand and know more things where these children that were coming home from school every day were exhausted. The last thing they wanted to have to do is to learn something else. They just wanted to sit down and play video games. They really were too exhausted from being at school all day and also from being so over scheduled that their lives were, they needed, they didn't have enough free time, they didn't have enough leisure to develop who they were.

By the time my daughter was nine years old, she had been creating summer camps for younger children for two years. She started creating these camps with her best friend and they were little history camps, and they would teach about the culture of different time periods and they would dress in that time period culture and they would do crafts and games. And these became the most popular summer camps in my area for homeschool children. By the time she was 13, she had started her own ballet magazine and sold subscriptions and ran contests for it. And by the time she was 17, she'd been offered a job to dance professionally with Orlando Ballet.

And my other children had similar development of passions and skills. My son became an astonishing expert at the natural life, the naturalist. He knew every insect, every bird, every plant, every treat. He could name anything just off the top of his head. My other son, he built a Minecraft world and charged money. By the time he was ninth grade, he was charging money for people to come into his Minecraft world that he built. But I won't complain right now about how the server nightmare that was and keeping the server up all night long. So that wasn't great, but it was developing his skill and he has now graduated with a degree in computer science and is pursuing a career in computer science. So we're going to forgive him for the server nightmare that we experienced. And then my youngest daughter, she became a champion gymnast and created a fashion magazine when she was a young child.

So it's just really neat that they had the free time, they had the free time to develop their interests, to pursue them, to become experts in areas where most children don't have the opportunity to do. Because if we over-schedule our children, it robs them of the independence necessary for self-development, the independence they need to become self-motivated and have personal initiative. Because initiative is what it takes to develop knowledge and skills that not only build confidence, but give kids experience in creating something of value.

After you listen today, I hope you'll see how making room in your child's schedule, how keeping those afternoons protected for leisure opens up a world of possibility. I've invited a special guest on the show today. His name's Joshua Parker. He's a senior in high school, homeschooler, and he has made use of his time really, he has used his time well to develop and hone and perfect several unique areas of interest. Welcome, Joshua.

Joshua Parker:

Hello.

Jeannie Fulbright:

I'm so glad you came on today. So we met at the Arizona Convention and the AFI Convention, and I just want to ask you just tell the audience what you were doing there.

Joshua Parker:

Well, basically I was just trying to sell my interests, I guess you could call it. I had been, had multiple different interests such as woodworking and board game design and also map making that I just thought would be a very great opportunity to sell those at the homeschool convention, especially since AFI provided such a great opportunity with the Young Entrepreneurs section.

Jeannie Fulbright:

Oh, that's great. So tell me what all your interests are, because I know you have even more than that. And then tell me what ignited each of those interests. I think that's an interesting, it's interesting how people develop these passions or they come about them.

Joshua Parker:

Yeah, for sure. So I would say I have four main interests, which is sort of crazy. Most people just have one. But I got into fantasy map making, woodworking, board game design and storytelling. And so for the fantasy map making, I've read fantasy books since I was a little kid and I loved them and I just thought it was such an amazing concept to be able to create your own world. And so I went on YouTube and looked up some videos by WASD20 and he had tutorials. And when I started out I wasn't that good, but the more I did it, the more fun it became and it was just so much fun to create my own world.

And so that's how I got interested in and for woodworking. I'm sure a lot of you have heard of the Renaissance Festival, and so I'm a huge fan of medieval warfare and really anything related to that. So the Renaissance Festival is one of my favorite places and one of the first times I went, I got to buy a wooden weapon. And so I got an unpainted one and I went home and I got my push sander and I sanded the sides down and painted it and had my very own first weapon. And I was like, this is a lot of fun.

Jeannie Fulbright:

That's-

Joshua Parker:

Why not do this on my own.

Jeannie Fulbright:

What's so funny is when we were at the AFI convention, I did not see a little boy walk by that was not carrying one of your wooden swords.

Joshua Parker:

I'm glad they were so popular.

Jeannie Fulbright:

And then there was another interest that you mentioned?

Joshua Parker:

Yeah, so boarding design, that is actually my most longstanding interest out of all of them. I love board games as well. I love the strategy that comes with it, the different aspects of a board game that you don't really get in a lot of other areas of life, the connection that you make, the experience that you have with the other people you're playing with, whether it be your family or your friends. And I really just wanted to cause an experience like that.

And so I started out with creating my own board game with just some pieces of paper and some markers and crayons and it didn't really work out in the end, but it was a really great learning and fun experience. And then started reading more books on how to create board games, listened to some podcasts, just looked up all the websites I could. And now I have created three different fully finished board games and one of them I've self-published.

Jeannie Fulbright:

That's amazing. That is awesome. Do you have a manufacturer for it or do you build, create it yourself?

Joshua Parker:

Well, I use for the first two and for the prototype version of the last one, I have done it myself just buying my own supplies from Home Depot and Hobby Lobby and put it together. And then for the one I did self-publish, I used a company called The Game Crafter, and you can just buy one game from them. You can buy anywhere from one to 1,000 and get them shipped right to your house and it's professional quality, which is pretty amazing.

Jeannie Fulbright:

Wow, how fun. That must have been the most exciting thing to get that game back when you opened up the box and there it was your creation.

Joshua Parker:

Oh, absolutely. I mean, when I opened it up, there's actually, I've done three editions now, and when I got the box with 50 in there for the AFI convention, it was just incredible to see.

Jeannie Fulbright:

That's so fun. What an incredible experience for someone who is still in school, in high school, to have that confidence that you get from having something that you've created. And I think that's super valuable. So you have another interest you mentioned to me, which is also one of my interests. So I love, tell us about that.

Joshua Parker:

So yeah, I love storytelling. As I told you guys before, I have read fantasy books since I'm a child. I'm a hardcore fantasy nerd, super into dragons and knights and magic and all that fun stuff. And I realized that the impact it had on me is, I can't even say the impact that having that literature on me, I know it's given me a better grammatical handling in how I speak and how I write, but it also influenced how I think in the sense that I now am able to analyze different situations better and have a better understanding of also what other people write and how I can persuade or influence people more through my own writing and how I speak even.

And so I wanted to do that. And so currently I'm writing a novel right now and one of my main goals is that when I was reading fantasy, I noticed that these characters go through horrible stuff and that's what makes a book a book. There's people that go through stuff you can't go through. And the one thing they never had was God, and they didn't have the hope that only God can bring. And so in my novel, what I'm trying to do is to be able to show that without God, there is no hope. You're just going to be crushed by the world because the world is hard and the circumstances you go through are too hard to deal with on your own. But I'm also going to show the redemption and the hope that does come from God helping us.

Jeannie Fulbright:

That is amazing. So can you give us a little sneak peek about what the story's about and who's involved in it?

Joshua Parker:

Yeah, absolutely. It's in a fantasy world named Duralin, and it's about a prince who is trying to save his father from a traitor. And he doesn't know who the traitor is, but he knows that the traitor can use magic to change matter. And so he is trying to find out who it is before his father dies.

Jeannie Fulbright:

Wow, how exciting. I bet that's going to be action adventure non-stop.

Joshua Parker:

Yep.

Jeannie Fulbright:

Well, that is so great. And so I want to ask you, Joshua, for the benefit of my listeners, what did your parents do to support you and help you as you developed and pursued these different interests?

Joshua Parker:

Yeah, so one of the main things they did, honestly, a lot of it is your own work because when you're pursuing your interests, it's most likely not going to line up with your parents. And so the one thing that really impacted me the most was that they had interest in my interests. And they took the time to look at the maps I had drawn, play the board games as I was developing and play testing them and read the story I'm writing and tell me how awesome what I'm making out of wood is. And it's just so impactful on being able to get that feedback from your parents.

Jeannie Fulbright:

And I know your dad helped you with making those swords and some of the, just the woodworking that was involved in that. Did you have to buy equipment or did you already own the equipment when you were making those swords?

Joshua Parker:

So when I was just starting out, all I had was a jigsaw and which is a handheld blade that goes up and down and then a sander, just a small little sander that you've... Handheld little sander. But over time, my dad and myself have both invested in more and more tools to sort of upgrade what I can do. And that has really helped just with him helping me figure out how they work and then also providing the finances for half of them.

Jeannie Fulbright:

I know I love that. I think that it's so important that we as parents invest as much as we are capable of in our children's passions and interests. And I did like what you said, that your interests are not necessarily your parents' interests. And I found that I would sometimes think I knew what my child should be interested in and I would try to, and if I tried to push them in that direction, they would dig their heels in, even if it was something that if they had discovered it on their own, they might have pursued it.

But I feel like there's an important part of being a parent when your children develop a talent or skill or an interest is to not become too involved in it, to hold back a little bit. And Charlotte Mason calls this masterly inactivity and I do have a podcast on how important this is and how masterly inactivity, which means not being hovering over your children, not being involved in every single thing they're doing or just filling their time with words and giving them instruction and giving them direction. That actually discourages a child from an interest or a passion.

And so we need to, as parents pull back and allow our child to figure it out on their own to figure out how to learn more about each thing on their own and how to become better at it, skilled at it, to understand it better. We can't be the ones that are pushing it and so pulling back. But when their interests are there, it's so important that we are willing to invest in that interest. And if we don't have the money, God is always going to be able to provide. I had a friend whose daughter was, who was also a gymnast, but she did not have the money to pay for all the fees for being in gymnastics. And what she did is she prayed and then the Lord gave the gym, the coach there, just this really strong idea about since she was homeschooled, if she would help with the preschool class. And if she would help with the preschool class in the morning, then she could get all those fees paid for.

And so God does provide, and I've heard many, many stories about how God provides when the finances are tight to help our children pursue their passions and interests. And I love that your dad invested in that equipment to help you just make that dream a reality.

Joshua Parker:

Yeah, I mean also it helped me research more on my own and learn how to research better, if that makes sense. Having my own individual interest that it was my job to pursue helped me find the resources that I needed and actually putting the time necessary to learn what I wanted to learn.

Jeannie Fulbright:

That is exactly right because if we do the work for them then they have not learned self-motivation. They have not learned the confidence that you get, the personal initiative you get from pursuing something on your own, figuring it out and becoming better at something without somebody else's help. I love that.

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So what advice would you give to students when it comes to filling that free time that the afternoon brings?

Joshua Parker:

Well, I would say the first thing is don't be afraid. Whatever your interest is, pursue it. Obviously it's not godly interest, don't do that. But if it is something that's just an interest you have and just pursue it without feeling like even if it's an oddball interest that it's wrong 'cause I mean making board games, who does that, right? It's so out there that it's just, nobody does that and there's not really a reference point. No one around me I've ever met has made board games. And so don't be afraid by a lack of normalcy with your interests.

And don't be afraid to reach out to others. For example, when I was trying to become a writer, and I mean I still am, it's a process. I had an author that I really appreciated. He's small, his name's Michael Wisehart and he was my favorite author and I actually sent him an email and he responded within a day, which is incredible for authors, it really meant a lot to me and I wanted to get on his beta reader team. And for those of you that don't know what being a beta reader means, that means that you get to read the book when it's in its first draft and then give feedback on story points, plot points, structure, characters, everything. It's pretty awesome, honestly, in my opinion.

Jeannie Fulbright:

I have beta readers for my books as well and my curriculum, so I know it's so important, it's so valuable when people give you their feedback because sometimes you didn't even think of the things that they noticed. And I love that. Beta readers are essential for any kind of thing you're writing. I agree.

Joshua Parker:

Yeah, absolutely. But he had actually closed off the openings for beta readers and I was like, "Hey, is there anything I can do to help?" And I sent him a couple different emails, he responded to each one and on about the third one, he was like, "Well, I guess I could put you on my beta reader team." And so through that perseverance, I was able to get onto the beta reader team, and now I'm actually in, my name is in one of his books in the acknowledgements, which is pretty incredible.

Jeannie Fulbright:

I love that. That's incredible.

Joshua Parker:

And so I just want to encourage you all to not really worry about what the consequences are in the sense of your self-worth, if that makes sense. Don't think that if you put yourself out there, even if you get rejected, you're going to learn something from it. And if you do get accepted into whatever you're trying to reach, whatever goal you're trying to accomplish, it's just going to push you farther and whatever your interest is. And so don't take a step back when you're faced with opportunities, just push into it. Just take a hold of it.

Jeannie Fulbright:

Yeah, I love that. Pursue it with perseverance. That is, yeah, that's great. Well, that's good advice. So now I would like to ask you, what advice would you give to parents just in the whole process of homeschooling them and helping them with pursuing interests that are outside of the academics?

Joshua Parker:

Yeah, I got mostly probably two specific things that can be done. And the first one is a mix between the parents and the students. Try to monetize your products, sell it. So whatever your interest is, get to a point or even before you're at a point, try and sell it to people because I think that the process of getting to a point and knowing that you're going to have to sell it to people makes you better at your interests. And so with the parents, the parents' role in that is to help a lot with financial knowledge because I know I knew nothing about taxes when I started. And for AFI, that's a requirement.

And then also just business plan, figuring out how much to charge for your product. And so my recommendation is that with your interests, try and get to a point where you find situations where maybe you can offer your interest to somebody for a certain amount. Maybe it's just your neighbor, start with someone like that where you just go over and you're like, "Hey, would you interested in buying this?" Or maybe it's your church or something. I heard that you had, it seems like every single one of your children sold their interest, right?

Jeannie Fulbright:

They did.

Joshua Parker:

And I think that's a crucial part. And the second thing that I think is very important is to make sure that your kid finishes what they start. There's some things that are just dead off from the beginning and they're not really going to work out. And that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about they set off and they're like, "Okay, I'm going to finish this project." And then halfway through they're like, "I'm getting bored. I'm sort of in the sagging middle where it's not that much fun."

I would encourage you as the parent to really help them through that sagging middle part of their journey in their project. Because when you finish something, it's incredible. It's the sense of accomplishment and just awesomeness because I think, this is my personal opinion with all of this, but I think it reflects God. Now he's a creator when we create something ourselves. And so that would be my second encouragement to parents and a piece of advice.

Jeannie Fulbright:

That is so true and of the I'm mindset that what the interest and questions that our children or ourselves develop, those are actually given to us by God, of course, as you said, unless they're ungodly. But God gives us an interest in certain aspects of life, and those are from Him. And pursuing them is really is a reflection of the creative, the reflection of us being in the image of God. While we create, we are mimicking our creator. We are expressing that image of God, creativity that only we have, that we are the only being alive, not even the angels are creative. So we are the creators because we're in His image.

And so I love that. That is so good. And I'm just think you're doing such a great job on everything. I love that your novel is going to be something that gives children hope, that gives people knowledge of the redemptive work of the Lord. And I think everything you're doing sounds like you are having a lot of fun doing it.

Joshua Parker:

Yeah. I have one more thing if that's okay just for students.

Jeannie Fulbright:

Yeah.

Joshua Parker:

So I think something that's really important also is in your, even outside of your interests, step outside your comfort zone a little just with what you pursue. Start with stuff inside of your interest. So for example, one thing that I did is that with my writing interest, I have started a writing group. And so basically I was a part of a big writing group with 250 authors, but it was really just talking to each other. Piece of advice, you are there. And me and a couple other people wanted to really get some critique, some good critique from each other and have started up a good critique group with five or so people. And so I put out some interest, we started to gauge the interest with people and over 50 people wanted to do it.

And so it sort of fell into my lap to be a head organizer of the whole thing. Now, I could have said I didn't have to take that role. I wasn't obligated to do that, but I did choose to. And it was at least 15 hours of work to get it all set up and still dealing with problems with people. But now I'm in that situation, I'm with my writing group and it's going fantastic. And through the process I learned a couple things like one, I don't like to work with people, but for that project I had to delegate. I had to give responsibility to people because it would've taken me double the amount of time and I don't have that time. And so through that, that's just a key lesson that I think every leader needs to learn at some point. And I think being a leader is so important.

Jeannie Fulbright:

Absolutely. It sounds like you really are developing leadership skills and all of these interests, there's components of a leadership skills that you're going to take into life. These first years of your life, these first 19 years are really, they're very short, but then you're out in the world and there's another, let's say 60 years probably that you have.

And so the development of the skills that you develop in these early years, they are skills that are foundational for the person that you are going to be. And if we over-schedule our children, if we are too involved in everything they're doing, and we make them do things that really aren't their passion and we fill up their afternoons with more schoolwork than that, it needs to be done. We don't give them free time, then what we're doing is we're robbing them of the opportunity to develop foundational skills which will take them into the future that God has for them.

God has a plan for their lives. And I felt like as a writer, I felt like I didn't figure out what I was going to do with my life until I was in my thirties because I knew I wanted to be a writer someday, but I was just too busy and I didn't pursue it in college. And later on when I figured out that I wanted to be a writer, I went back and got my master's in creative writing, which was helpful. And we work-shopped. It was like having that critique group. We did a lot of workshop, work-shopping, each other's work, and it was really great.

But I felt like, I feel like homeschooling puts kids on fast track to their future. I thought of this one day when I was going to a convention and I was in, there was this really long line to check into the hotel, but then there were the people who had had the fast track. They were members, and that fast track line got them to the front, got them to the check-in desk really fast. And I felt like that's what homeschooling is. It gets kids to the place they need to be or God has for them faster through.

If you homeschool through high school, you will find that your children develop this. God will ensure that they develop the leadership skills, that they develop all the skills and the interests that all the things they need to pursue the future that we don't know what it is, but that God knows what it is and he will intervene and ensure that everything they experience during these years is what they need to experience to be the man or woman that God has for them to do or to be.

And so I just feel like that is one of the most beautiful things about homeschooling is that if you give your children space and you don't hover too much and get too involved and get too, and start trying to take over their interests, then they will grow in a profound way. And I can see Joshua, you are actually developing such amazing skills that you're going to take into life. And those skills, a lot of these kids who weren't homeschooled through high school, they got bogged down in schoolwork, bogged down in work that is really irrelevant to their future and spending all afternoon, they would spend all afternoon at school and then all day at school and then all afternoon doing homework or whatever, maybe sports they were doing, but they never really developed personal interests, there was no self-development for them.

And you have spent your high school years developing yourself. And that is what I think is really powerful. I think you are, you're just going to do amazing things and I don't know what God has planned for you, but you have accomplished so much that you have a sense of accomplishment and you know that whatever you put your heart into that you will be able to accomplish because you've done it on your own. And I love that.

So what are your plans for the future? I know you mentioned, I know you're writing a book, so hopefully you'll be a famous Christian author, but what other, you also mentioned maybe teaching map making classes. What are some other things that you want to talk about that?

Joshua Parker:

Yeah, sure. Let's start with that. So basically, I am very interested in sort of, this is the final step, I think is teaching and sharing your interests with others. And so if any of you guys out there, any of you parents have kids that are interested in learning how to draw maps, whether they be fantasy or real, and also to learn how to make board games, like two separate things obviously. You could do both or just one. I am looking to teach them how to do that. It's a passion of mine. I love doing that, and I want to have other people find the same experiences that I've found through doing those things. And so if you're interested, I believe, Jeannie, you're going to put my email in the description, right?

Jeannie Fulbright:

Yes. Yeah, I'll have all of your contact information in the show notes. So yes, people can contact you. And I think that's great that you want to not only have you developed these great skills, but you went to a lot of different sources to find out how to accomplish what you have accomplished. And so you can take all that knowledge that you have and people can go to one place to get the knowledge and that's so fantastic. I think that would be a great idea for you to do that. And I know there's going to be a lot of people who are interested in having their children developing the skills that you've developed. So I love that.

Joshua Parker:

Well, I just think it's just a wonderful thing to be able to teach others. And like I said, I think that's the final step is being able to share your knowledge with others.

Jeannie Fulbright:

Yeah, that's great. Well, Joshua, I thank you for coming on the show. And listeners, I hope that this show has given you just a desire to ensure that you implement the Charlotte Mason principle of leisure, that you give your children time for themselves and a sense of leisure in all of the people around them. So because Charlotte Mason says that is necessary for your children's wellbeing, and I believe it's necessary for your children to develop who they are under the protection of your home and with your principles and your values, apart of everything that they are doing. So Joshua, thank you so much for coming on.

Joshua Parker:

Yeah, I had a fantastic time with you.

Jeannie Fulbright:

Thank you.

Joshua Parker:

Thanks you for inviting me.

Jeannie Fulbright:

Absolutely. And I look forward to hearing all the stuff you're going to be doing in the future.

Joshua Parker:

Well, thank you. And thank you all for listening.

Jeannie Fulbright:

All right. Thank you again for coming and listening to the Charlotte Mason Show, and I would love to connect with you. Remember, you can go to my website, jeanniefulbright.com and contact me at any time. I would love to hear from you. Thanks so much, everyone. Bye.

Hey, a couple more things. Do you wish you had a Charlotte Mason mentor? Someone to keep you focused on the things that matter, the Lord and His word, and prayer and habit training and living books, nature study, and of course, the most neglected thing of all self-care? Well, I have the perfect mentor for you, the Charlotte Mason Heirloom Planner. It is much more than a planner. It's a guide and a mentor and a place to chronicle your treasured moments and memories, all the things you want to remember and keep sacred and special from this homeschool journey.

Check it out on my website at [email protected] and learn about that. And so many of the other Charlotte Mason curriculum and tools that I've created to make your homeschool journey the richest and most fulfilling experience of your life. Thanks again for listening to the Charlotte Mason Show.

If you haven't already, please subscribe to the podcast. And while you're there, leave us a review. Tell us what you love about this show. This will help other homeschooling parents like you get connected to our community. And finally, tag us on [email protected], that's homeschooling.dotmom. And let us know what you thought of today's episode. And don't forget to check out my friends at Medi-Share because you deserve healthcare you can trust. To learn more about Medi-Share and why over 400,000 Christians have made the switch. Go to great homeschool conventions.com/medishare.

Have you joined us at one of the great homeschool conventions? I would love for you to come on my website. I have a special coupon code that you can use when you register. The great homeschool conventions are the homeschooling events of the year with amazing speakers, hundreds of workshops to help you homeschool well and the largest curriculum exhibit halls in the United States. People travel from all over the United States to Missouri, South Carolina, Ohio, California, and Texas to find encouragement, friendship, and curriculum, be sure to go to my website, jeanniefulbright.com for your coupon code. And when you're at the convention, please come by my booth and say hello, because I love meeting homeschoolers in real life. It's always fun to have new homeschool friends.

So thank you so much for listening, and I do hope to see you at the convention. Have a blessed rest of the week.

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