Episode 294: Balance in Transitions
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Welcome to A Delectable Education, the podcast that spreads the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method. I'm Emily Kaiser, and I'm here with Nicole Williams and Liz Cattrall. When we were planning out our podcast season, we were really excited to talk about balance, and we realized that's just not one single episode. It needs to be the entire season. And as we kept talking about, yeah, what about this aspect? What about this aspect? You know, certain categories emerged. And today's episode, I think, is kind of the smorgasbord category.

Corey, we're calling it balance in transitions because there's so many points of transition. Life moves. Yes, like transition with our children, going from stage to stage to stage, but also practical transitions in the school morning or during the term or the years or things like that. So we're going to be talking about all of those today. Because we live with these growing persons and they are not just fixed. They're constantly, even if it's slowly, changing.

they're transforming steadily and we do as parents get so busy we kind of forget and we either regard them as just fixed in one spot or we don't adapt like we have our approach to school down pat and never shall we veer from that kind of thing right or we constantly change everything

to try to keep up with their ever developing person. So how do we provide stability while remaining sensitive to their

ever new needs. You know, growth is slow, but it is relentless and it is happening whether we like it or not. And one day these infants are out in the world accomplishing great things that we couldn't have even imagined. So it's easy not to see the changes day to day and also to kind of turn around and be astounded when we look back at what

what has happened even just in the past year. We feel a little breathless at times in trying to keep up with our kids and we do have to fight sometimes wanting to slow them down, you know, push down on their head so they stop growing. I mean, I have grandchildren who are taller than me now. It's very real to me. And this is the beauty of the Charlotte Mason method. Her curriculum fits all that slow and relentless change.

And I think of her phrase runs through my mind all the time. And I probably say it several times a day in doing consultations with moms, slow and steady progress. And honestly, we have to fight a battle.

This is a point of balance because we either want our kids to move on faster or we want them to slow down. Nothing about our especially American viewpoint is ever in harmony with slow and steady. We don't do anything that way. Right. So we either think we have all the time in the world.

and end up holding our students back and not giving them the experiences and skills that are needed to move on. That's one side of the imbalance picture. Or we are so eager for them to be where we think they ought to be or above or beyond where they should be that we introduce subjects prematurely before the foundational skills are actually established.

and have been acquired. So which of these two imbalances have you guys found you've fallen into? Either not been ready and not wanting to move on or pushing your kids ahead too much? Well, probably both. But I will say that I've often said here that probably my biggest homeschooling regret was trying to

trying to push children who weren't ready too fast and not meeting them where they were at. Specifically my children who have dyslexia and that is a huge guilt I carry. But at the time I was just thinking you got, you're getting behind, you have to stay up. And so, you know,

if I'm speaking to people who are where you are now, you're not on that hindsight yet. And so I think you really need to keep in mind that this child who is right in front of you, you need to challenge them. Of course,

but they can't do any more than they can do right now. And that's, I think, what needs to be pulled out of that is specific skills. It does not apply to much of the curriculum that they can't move on until they have. You know, I think we think because they're behind in reading that we have to keep holding them back

and I use behind and air quotes, guys, that we have to hold them back into Form 1. They can't do all of the Form 2 subjects because they're reading. Well, there may be some adjustments we need to make in the language arts department.

department, but they can absolutely take in the ideas from British history and ancient history and citizenship that they need because their mind is hungry for those things. Yeah. And I think there's just sometimes our perspective as parents, especially if we're raising a lot of littles, but all of a sudden our oldest child's 13 and we haven't really thought about it. You know, we think we have all the time in the world. And yet while we're busy changing diapers, we're

They've all the others have been growing older and older. And so we're not offering them the you know, we're wondering why are they grumpy and fighting me in school? Well, we're maybe not giving them the kind of stuff they're starting to crave, you know. But on the other hand, you know, a child who's just learned to form his letters two months ago, you're not going to sit them down and have them writing a page, you know. Yeah. And so there's a lot of that push to to, you know, like.

okay, great, you've got this down, let's move on. And just allowing them slow and steady means wait till they're steady in this skill. But don't wait so long because you're unsteady about what's next. Does that make sense? It does. I was going to say, kind of tacking on to what both of you said, that some things are a little more of a cycle. And I think math is one of those areas where...

You may not be steady, like feet planted, but there's something else you can do. And

And then you come back to that. And so you review and you're hitting it multiple times. Like you don't have to have your math facts memorized to go on to the next concept. Sometimes the next concept actually helps you memorize the math facts because you realize, I need to know this. And mathematicians agree, no one needs to memorize their math facts. It only helps with speed, right? And if we're not concerned with that, the important thing that would show us their study is they actually understand what the process is.

Right. Or function is doing, right? But in the same way you said like, okay, that you think they're behind in reading, so you're going to maybe alter some of the stuff that is reading related. They can still take in the ideas over here. It's even that same way within subjects. And I guess math is the example I'm using that they may be really struggling with those math facts or maybe they're really struggling with...

A concept out of... Fractions. Fractions, yeah. But that's not the only concept in math. Right. We don't have to camp there. We don't have to stop all math until they get those. Until they get it. Sometimes a break is what Charlotte Mason says. The change is as good as a break, and they need a change of topic. Yeah. You mentioned holding students back because we think we have all the time in the world. We often do that because we are overwhelmed as homeschooling moms, and we're trying to combine...

as much as possible. And we need to be balanced about where we combine. We need to make sure we're not shortchanging kids on either end when we combine and that we're truly combining where it is natural to do so and not just to make our life easier. But another reason I think we hold kids back or think we and think we have more time is say we're, um,

We've just figured out, I get this a lot with geography. We've just figured out Charlotte Mason's scope and sequence for geography. We think it's so beautiful. This makes such perfect sense. Okay, so my Form 2 student didn't really do that at all in Form 1. They just read maybe little topical books and they don't have this framework or structure. And so they want to put their child back to do all the things they'd missed, right? And Charlotte Mason tells us,

No, what's gone is gone, right? They don't need, there's not foundational skill in that knowledge. They're going to encounter all of those foundational things again and again and again. And we should put our children in where they should be and not worry about what they've lost. Or even, I think a lot of times it's us moms going, well, I wanted to read that. That looks so fun, you know, and truly recognizing what is appropriate for them mentally, developmentally right now.

One of the things that helps us keep our balance here is if we just move in the orderly pattern. She had progressively laid out the direction for the subjects and moving through the curriculum in that pattern and placing our children there and going forward. She made allowance for the slow and steady progress that she thought was so important. And she is so in tune to what?

Each developmental stage needed and feeding that to the full. This is the beauty of the purpose of that broad feast. It does help us keep in balance and keep children moving slowly and steadily along. But we sometimes think the feast is so big that

So broad, we can't possibly do it. So one extreme is just fearing that variety or thinking that we have to have our minds completely wrapped around every little thing in order to offer it to our kids. And so what happens then is our kids just aren't exposed to certain things. Or we go the other way and we pack so much in beyond what she had planned.

at that level or in the curriculum for kids that age or at that stage.

A lot of times I think that happens because our child is inclined to love a certain thing or be enthusiastic or, you know, they want to read these kind of books. And so we slide those into and before we know it, we're just out of control because we're trying to control a big, you know, semi truck rolling down this, you know, school road. And the hidden misperception there is that we think.

by catering to their interests. We're actually respecting our child as a person. And it may sound counterintuitive to a Charlotte Mason student that we actually don't trust our children to know what they want to know even or what they need to know and that we do have a certain understanding

huge feast. It's very wide and broad and should touch on pretty much anything, but that is developmentally appropriate to them. So, you know, we often hear of a kid who maybe is a second grader who just wants to do full science. And Charlotte Mason was wise to say, no, they actually need this foundational knowledge

with the world through nature study before they start doing full experimental science. And so it may seem like we're disrespecting our children as persons if we say, no, honey, you got to wait two more years before we can do that. But really, we do trust that our children are not the experts on themselves. I mean, my goodness, they would eat whatever

and pizza and go to bed at 11 o'clock at night, you know, if we gave it into all their other druthers. But we think for some reason when they are actually interested in a school subject or a particular area of a school subject that they have all wisdom. So in some ways we're teaching them how to live a more balanced life by not always letting them careen after their particular fad of the moment, you know, and and

learning to slow down and savor life and the things, the broad feast helps them to stay balanced, I guess is what I'm saying. And lest you think we're just so mean, go back and listen to our episode from last month on balancing our time in the school morning because we do realize that we have ample time for individual pursuits. So to avoid either extreme, the balance here is to allow children to sample from the whole feast and

So that they'll flourish naturally as they mature. They may discover a little taste of this becomes a huge taste that they want later on. We have to provide the food and they're going to eat it and grow. Yeah. That has been proven that children will actually nourish themselves with the exact nutrients that they need when presented with a wide variety of... There's been studies, I think... I've read some...

nutrition books that reference studies that have been done that have shown just this thing. And I think it's true. I can speak to my own life. You know, I went to a liberal arts college and would never have taken certain subjects that are still abiding interests in my life 20 plus years later because I had to take a class in a different subject area than I would have chosen for myself. And I've seen this happen with my children. My one's

Child hates math, so they say. But when they were presented with practical geometry, that's their favorite day of the week because they get to do practical geometry that day, which is math, you know, so to not even...

I'm listening, I'm paying attention, but I'm not saying, well, you don't like math very well, so I'm going to make it easy for you and not give you all of the streams of math that Charlotte Mason laid out. Instead, I am. And oh, lo and behold, here's a way in for him to have interest in that subject. And sometimes if children express eager interest, you know, you can get them some fun young children stories.

they can do on a winter afternoon that is an experiment and it's just not part of their schoolwork, right? You have a six-year-old that insists they want to write in cursive. Well, you know what? That's a great idea for something you can do this afternoon to keep yourself busy, but they're not gonna do it for school. - Yeah, there's one other thing that I think we've gotta take into consideration when it comes to adding too much is that sometimes we don't understand how things are covered

in Charlotte Mason's curriculum. This feast, it feels like all these disparate parts. And so we don't understand how they fit together or what she is accomplishing through them. And so like for one thing, there's never one faculty involved. It's always multiple. But I knew somebody who

always brought logic in. She always, every day, had a time for logic in the curriculum, like out of a workbook. And now looking back, at the time, I didn't know any better, but now looking back, I realize where Charlotte Mason incorporates logic. We see some of these big

big picture things that come through all of the subjects. You don't have to have a specific subject. Right. You don't have to have that. And, you know, we see visualization and attention and the narration, all of these things. Yeah. Putting things into an order and analyzing what is the important thing. Grammar and math are very logic oriented. Right. Composition is something people think they need to bring in because they don't see where is that?

Right. But really it is in multiple places throughout their whole education. Starting in first grade. Right. And it's just us being modern.

Well, maybe just not understanding. Yeah. But I think we're conditioned that way because of how our education was parceled out into very disparate units. You know, now it's time for language arts. Get out that textbook. Now it's time for social studies. Get out that textbook. Right. She actually covered all this stuff in the curriculum. And that's what I'm saying about the broad curriculum. It actually covers all these bases. You're just maybe not doing it in...

the recognizable pattern that you were accustomed to. And I'm just having a thought here. If anyone doesn't trust the method enough to think that what we're saying is true, I would encourage them to go take a look at our very, um, or our free transcript planner on our teacher helps page. And you can look at how any state requirement that you have for graduation can be easily fulfilled in Charlotte Mason's general scope and sequence. Right.

So there's another thing that happens that's a big transition in most homes, unless you only have one child, but it's bringing in other students along the way, too. You know, you may have just gotten comfortable with this one child, and they've finished their second year, and you've actually survived, and then all of a sudden you panic because...

how in the world am I going to do two kids? My kids panic. They're like, how are you going to teach three children? I would be a rich woman if I had a dollar for every mom that writes me absolutely freaking out about the difficulty of doing two kids.

I think it's, you know, because we remember when they were born and probably for most of us, that was a huge, huge, it's a huge transition to have your first child, but then to add a second one in the midst, especially if that oldest one is not very old yet. Something that happens here is, I think this is just, this was just like a light bulb moment for me recently, is that we are mom, homemaker, wife,

taker carer of little babies, you know, that is our whole role. And when we begin adding a couple hours of school with one child, it's,

that feels like the outlier. That's the different thing that we're doing. Right. That we, we, we've now for years been doing this job that is our life, our job. We've gotten good at it. And that's the odd part out. And then, like you say, adding another one. And so we always talk about this priority of, you know, school has to be a priority. This is your job, but

I've been thinking about that aspect that that's why I think the transition is so hard. And when you think about it more as like we've been promoted, there is a new role. And we still got to do the old role. I guess I would say, do you remember that feeling? Like, how could I possibly love a second child more than,

this one that I absolutely adore. And you know, by the time you get to child number four, you're just not the least bit worried because you realize that your heart expands a hundred times every single time a new person comes into the family. So, but when it comes to schoolwork,

I think there's a couple danger, you know, two sides of the road that we can fall off on. One is, okay, I have a lot of kids. And some of you, of course, you know, bring older students in who maybe were in a private school or maybe they join your family at 7 or 11 years old. You know, I talk to moms all the time with all different kinds of family dynamics and

But one of the ways we think we can cope with having a bunch of students is to just treat them all as one class. Or look for curriculum that we can do all together where we do something that has somehow become synonymous with Charlotte Mason that she never talked about and never did. Morning time? Yeah. You know, or like where we group all our lessons together to do something or lots of things with all of our students all at once. So there's a danger in over combining things.

Yeah, which we mentioned a little bit earlier. Which we said earlier. But even what you're saying right now, one of the dangers there is that

That is most, if everyone's going to enjoy it, you're going to select out the pieces of the curriculum that everybody can do together and enjoy. And then that means the older students have a very long, hard morning ahead. And it's not balanced, right? If you do that morning time and you clump five or six things together for every single person in the family. Yeah. And some people don't do that. They just don't give the work away.

Mm-hmm.

I did this in some areas like Bible. I don't think I really understood Charlotte Mason's approach and her rhythm through the years. And so we just kept moving through and we would add things as it became the appropriate level, but I wasn't letting them be more independent with it that I think they needed to be. My younger kids, I did. I got it by then and they did, but that was one area. And then early on,

I did incorporate the morning time, like, okay, we're all here. We're all, we're going to do these group things. And what I learned was it's so much better to do a thing and then separate and do something again together. Cause you don't lose track of what,

they're doing. Yeah. Like your independent students. It keeps the flow and it brings us, it keeps everybody on schedule without it being forced like time to change. And checking in. Yeah. And one way you can, you know, accomplish some balance here is just to let the older children

begin school a little before the younger ones join in instead of the older, the younger ones are done. And then you go on for another half hour at the next level and you go on for another, you know, it can work the other way too. So then you could do Bible with them and enjoy that time with them.

and it still could be everybody's first thing. Yeah, because I think that would accommodate another thing that moms, especially in Bible, they don't want to miss out on those conversations of the supremely important topic. But to do it before everybody else starts school would be a one-way. And I think this is another reason that moms keep everybody together. And we've heard it

countless times. But I want to read all these good books. And again, we have to read. Well, you can, but not during school. Exactly. You know, we do forget because I often say, I'm at fifth grade. I've mastered fifth grade math now because I've taught through fifth

your fifth grade math working on sixth grade for the first time it seems but it's actually because I have understanding and it is exciting to realize I'm finally getting an education worth you know it's all but but that's not for me it's still for my children right and the thing we have to bear in mind all the time is that

Her curriculum was balanced and the whole morning provides that joy that a morning time can have. They get it interspersed and it helps carry the load. But then there's the other extreme when we have a lot of children and we just think we have to

work one-on-one with each one separately, which might mean I actually knew someone who taught school from seven till five every day with six children so that each one could get through all their lessons with her.

So that's a huge extreme that I hope I've never hear of anyone else doing such a crazy thing. But I mean, she just couldn't think how else she could do it because they were all on different tracks. They all had different things going on. Yeah. And they're in, quote unquote, different years or grades. And I think that's another product of our conditioning is we, you know, not only do we have disparate subjects.

We have disparate grades and this is third grade work and this is fifth grade work and how could they work together on anything? - Yeah, yeah. And then maybe if the mom's not doing all that with them,

Even just having everybody separate like that and working 100% independently, I feel like you miss a whole lot about the community aspect of school and home if you are doing that. Because this is one thing we have to guard against, I think, in the home school is that we don't have anybody who's

rubbing up against us, making us mad, doing things faster than we're doing it, you know, not, you know, talk, annoying us in a lesson. I don't know. Our kids need to be annoyed sometimes. And obviously they are. Like that is a very self-centered attitude.

way of educating, right? We're not having to take any, like the child who has to wait for his sibling to finish their lesson with mom before they can narrate is learning an important life lesson as well as actually strengthening their memory to hold onto that information after they narrate.

Or the children who are all reading that same thing in history and mom's there, but we're taking turns reading and the one's not as good, but everybody has to listen and wait. And, you know, these are very valuable times. Yeah. And then they can go play later and have those same ideas that they are playing and kind of acting out and things like that. So there's a lot of value.

in having some overlap and not having everybody be 100% independent. Yeah, and even if it's not in the same book like we've talked about a lot of times with history. There should be different...

in each stage book. They're serving a purpose, you know, and this is what it just takes trusting the method until you've experienced it to find those big ideas or why this book and not this book. But they're in the same time period. And so, you know, your art, your music, your literature ties into that. You can go on field trips and have those conversations as a family even if everybody is not writing the exact same book. So you are still together. Yeah.

And I think togetherness is great, but our children also need the confidence of learning individual mastery of things. And, you know, most sports teams, different players have their strengths and they play well.

you know, with the whole team. And I think that we can see that a little bit in a homeschooling morning. You know, the child who's a stronger reader can read to the younger child. The younger child is learning to wait for a moment and actually understand

Listening to an older sibling narrate is probably getting a little bit of an interesting perspective on something that they're not studying yet. I mean, they don't have to be homogenous and all bundled together for everything or everybody treated as a exclusive for it to be a wonderful family experience, everybody together. It sounds...

Almost like we're contradicting ourselves. But really what it is, is it's neither city of balance. Yes. And it's not one or this. Right. It's a mingling of both. Exactly. All of the time. Right. And they do it in all other areas of your family life. I mean, you know, your 16 year old may be able to drive a car. I'm sure you don't let your eight year old go out and do that. You know, we hope. But it doesn't mean that his day isn't coming.

So I think another thing that we need to think about is transitioning from form to form appropriately. Therefore, I mean, this kind of follows from what we've just been saying, right? So one extreme is that we would skip steps or even whole years, you know, like,

especially I find that when you have kids that are like sixth grade and seventh grade, well, my sixth grader is really smart and they can do all these things. The seventh grader is doing. So let's just move her up too soon. You know? And we, we fail to see that they actually need what they need at that moment. Right. Or my seventh grader. I,

I actually haven't done really any science with them. So should we go back to form two? Or my child is very gifted in math or writing or whatever. So I need to let them do the high school level of stuff. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. You said it earlier. Charlotte Mason really had wisdom about what was appropriate for the child at that level, that age range. And she does acknowledge that there are times where you do. Yeah. Your child's actually getting the math and you're moving at a quicker pace. You're not going to stop and not give them the next level, but they have worked through it.

and have that foundation. Or my son, who I still needed to do reading lessons at an older age, so that had to be incorporated. So she does talk about being in two forms at once, the child who's in two forms at once. Yes. So that can happen. In a skill area a lot of times. Right. But I think that inherent to her method, because it is...

Not testing what a child doesn't know, but giving an opportunity to share what he does know really does accommodate both of those ends of the spectrum. Right. So think about the skill area, like you said. These are things that build on one another. Language arts and math, or she called it grammar. Exactly. But it meant even language arts and math. Foreign language, yeah. So think about a subject like science. You're dabbling in it in form two your first time at it.

then form three, four, or yeah, form three, four, you are kind of doing it over again. But this time you're getting more, you're independent. You haven't missed anything. There wasn't a foundation that you missed that you can't go forward now. So that maybe just that clarification that when we say skill,

It really means I cannot. Like you don't have to do form two science before you can jump into form three. Exactly. But I cannot learn, you know, this math skill without knowing this other basic math skill. So it really is two different things. So the balance comes then when we move children along according to.

their age, their maturity, their mental strength, while including all the rudimentary skills that they lack. Is that what you're saying, Nicole? And I think in all of these, much wisdom is required. No kidding, because I just remember, you know, my boys with some learning troubles, they just had such a hard time with language skills.

And I worried all the time about overwhelming them with too much pencil in their hand and writing. And when I look back over it, I wish I had required a little bit more of them. I think they would have stepped up to the plate. So I remember being shocked when one of those who has pretty severe challenges was

could narrate Plutarch better than I could. And I was like, oh, that's what happened in this. But he sure couldn't spell that word, Plutarch. No, no. But that really brings us to our next subject. Yes. Adjusting our expectations. Yeah. When introducing a new subject or skill that's

I mean, there were times, like you said, they could narrate Plutarch better than me or narrate, I don't even know, but there was many times my kids were- Or read Shakespeare, even though they were dyslexic. Yeah. Because all the rest of the family had trouble reading it too. I mean, so really don't underestimate your kids. So I think as our children grow and develop, we can, again, fall off.

fence one side or the other. We're so relieved when they finally can read and

That we just abruptly, you know, it's like putting a car in first gear and then fourth gear. You're like, you know, we're going to get some kickback from that. You know, so you meant to say abruptly have them just start reading all of their work. Yeah. Just we still have to follow some steps. Right. And just because they can read some of their books doesn't mean they can read all of their books. Like maybe they can read their books.

history biography, but they can't read Pilgrim's Progress yet, you know? Yeah. Right. So just because a child can't form his letters, you know, and isn't able to do copy work doesn't mean we don't require them to keep working at that every day. And just because a child can't read doesn't mean we give them picture books. But at the same time, once they can, we have to still not skip a whole lot of steps. You don't just hand them their whole pile of schoolwork and say, well, I'm

Last week you successfully read through this little story, so now you're going to read your history, your geography, and everything by yourself. Hopefully. Well, I mean, I know a lot of us with younger children coming up that need one-on-one time, that is a temptation. Like, why is my fourth grader who can read Little House on the Prairie not able to read all their stuff on their own? And I think a crucial transition step in there is having...

not them read silently to themselves, but actually take part in reading the lesson aloud while you're present, while maybe another student's listening. Maybe not. Maybe just reading aloud to you. You know, moms think, I'm available at this time for your lesson. And they can read it, but we still do it because that's been our role. And we forget, oh, we actually can be helping them transition to more independence as they, if they would just read it aloud. Because they need a lot of practice reading aloud. Right.

Right. So again, it's moving through the curriculum in the order that she laid out that is going to strengthen the weak student. And you know, it is true that part of growing up is learning how to do hard things.

So we don't also at the same time need to mollycoddle the weaker student. A little sweat and effort will be rewarded. And, you know, we don't want to push them, but we also don't want to say this is so hard for them. I just can't ask them to do it. So we have to watch the coddling thing. The other aspect of that, I think, is patience.

You know, I'm thinking of your dyslexic students. I think it's a big temptation. And actually, the prevailing wisdom of the day, that if they struggle with reading, they need to spend hours a day working on their reading. And that also is...

Yeah. To their detriment, right? It is. It fatigues them. It's discouraging. And it reinforces the idea that I can't do this and I must be dumb, you know, because we are putting too much emphasis on something that is not the whole feast. Yeah. I have to tell you guys a funny news story that I have.

With my dyslexic son, who is turning 25 in two days from this recording, when we're recording this. His girlfriend, who just graduated as a computer engineer and an electrical engineer at the same time, and is currently getting her master's in the electrical engineering aspect.

has been going through an app that teaches her a new word every day. And I said, oh, that's interesting. She said, yeah. Mitchell got on in my case. He says, I just don't know enough words. That's great. I thought it was so cute. And it just made me, I just thought. He came in at me being able to read them, but he knows them. He knows them. Yeah. And I thought, oh, praise God that we've homeschooled this way because he does have so much to work with. You know, and then

We probably should transition to talking about just in a school morning, making smooth, smooth transitions through the subject. Yes. You know, we either allow lessons to last all day just so we can feel that accomplishment that we finished it, even if we do have a splitting headache.

Also, you know, I think moms, a lot of times when your child's enthusiastic, you don't want to squelch them. You want to let them, oh, the timer went off and this lesson should be done. But they're just now really getting interested in it. You know, we can fall off there.

Or cramming too much into a lesson so that we don't have time for a transition. Right. We need to read 25 pages in 20 minutes. Yeah. Because otherwise we won't get done by the end of the term. Well, maybe we. This is a big underlined thing in my notes, actually. One thing, one idea per lesson. Yeah. Yeah. We do try to pack too much into a lesson and that makes it.

You know, or we just insist on finishing everything that we had on our agenda and we don't follow the clock and just allow the flow of time to move us along. You know, there is another day. We can still come back to this. There's also a much more practical, not even philosophical practice. People wonder why.

But I have to get out the next book. And they think they need time between each lesson on the timetable. I mean, that's like a whole other thing. And we just read recently that the change of lessons should be instantaneous, the PR article writer said. Right. Marked by a spring bell. No gaps.

And the lesson changes. We don't do that in our house. We have timers going off a lot of the time. But that means our materials for the one lesson needed to be put away within that lesson time. And the new lesson materials get out in the new lessons time. That happens very naturally. But that also goes to what you're saying. We can't overload too many things. We need to allow time for narration, discussion, them to recap.

the previous lesson at the beginning of each time. Clear up confusion. And then to put away the stuff in our short lessons. Which means we have to be prepared with a stack of books. Yes, and I do have those in order. So I don't have to as much. There's no scrambling. Where's my blah, blah, blah? That is found before the day starts. So the other extreme is that people feel driven by the timetable and it's just this relentless and they feel this pressure and panic. No, no, no, no. Don't do that.

keep an eye on that clock. I might feel like that as a teacher, but your child shouldn't. Right. And even you can learn to pace yourself a little bit. Like, be aware that the last few minutes are coming up, so we're going to stop reading now. Or whoever's narrating at the moment, you glance up and you've only got four or five minutes left.

Okay, so you guys, let's talk about this lesson a little bit. You know, it seems like you're a little bit confused about who did what when. Let's just work this out together, shall we? You know, that kind of thing. Charlotte Mason said there is to be no rushing and no feeling behind. Right. And so in order to do that, we've got to organize those lessons in a way that allows time for what you're talking about. Right.

That elaboration at the end is just so important. And the thing that's great about it is it's automatically a cue to your children. It helps them know gracefully we're going to be moving on soon. You know, as soon as they see you shut that book, they know the lesson's over and we just have our little conversation and you're pulling out the next book. And when it goes ding, you can say, OK, so for math today. Yeah. And there you go.

Does that sound way too easy? Then there's the question of what about interruptions?

And I think, Mom, you always give people advice and consults. And this is the thing I hear the most of. Of course you're going to have interruptions. That was so helpful. And it never occurred to me is what to do when you have those interruptions. Do we just pick up where we left off? Well, children need to stay in their seat and keep working. If you have to leave and there's a problem like that, then when you come back, you just look at the clock and you look at your schedule and you say, all right, guys, I guess our math time is gone. Let's move into our geography. And you know in your own mind that it's

started six minutes late so it's not going to be a full geography lesson today or if the interruption involves the child sitting at the table i don't know they fall backwards off their chair and are bleeding or something yeah there are times when everything stops and when you come back you look at the clock and say oh we should be doing dictation now that's what time it is and

And we don't worry about what we left over. None of us can get time that's behind us back and grab it and redo it. But don't steal from the future either. Absolutely. And this is how you stay in that.

Start time and end time. You're just always moving it. I guess I would just say overall we need just an awareness of the whole 12 years So get to know what's done in the different forms. We've got it laid out We have podcast episodes about it our subjects by form page is under the podcast tab at a delectable education.com Yeah, and don't allow the teen years to

pounce upon you. I mean, they've been coming ever since that child took his first breath, you know, as well as you don't want a child to be acting like a teenager when they're 10. Right. And you always say that we have less time than we think we do when they get to those age because they have especially homeschooled students have

about what they want to be doing with their time. And a lot of them are very productive and they have a clear vision for what they need to be doing. And if we have dawdled and they're still in second grade math...

we can't let them neglect the rest of their math education. - Right, I love the way you put this, Liz, that we've gotta look at this whole kind of 12-year scope because it happens so fast. - It does. - We think it's not going to 'cause again, kind of what I was talking about before, we're in those baby years and we just think, oh, this can wait a little while. And there are people out there who tell us it can wait a while.

And if we're looking for that answer, we're going to grab onto that. But the reality is this time is short. Right. And each phase has its own things, its own disciplines, its own learning. Yeah.

Yeah. Atmosphere. We just need to see the child the way they are right now, but also what's coming next. And that will help us transition from stage to stage. Yeah. It's not like, OK, yesterday they were in this stage. Today they're in a whole different stage.

Occasionally that happens, but most of the time it sneaks up on you. And Charlotte Mason's advice about the timetable, teaching us and teaching our children that one time is not as good as another, that time once spent is gone. We can't get back those missed years. If we dawdled, if we overcombined, if we kept our high schooler and elementary school work because it was easier for our family to combine all of those things or easier on us,

We can't make up for it by, well, you need to work twice as long. You're going to do five years of math this summer or whatever. I hope it sounds extreme, guys, because it is. I know. We do hear this kind of thing, like we're going to continue math over the summer and

No, that's not how it's supposed to be. So yeah, think ahead, look ahead. And if we're frightening any of you moms that are sitting there nursing your baby, thinking, oh no, you know, you know, it's like they're changing shoe sizes. I always say they're going to fit into the next size when it's time and you'll know this is a long walk. Um,

But it's not stopping. It is relentless and it's going to go on and on and the end is around the corner. But we want them to be well-rounded all the way along.

And that's, I think, what we've been trying to convey here today. They're continually improving and moving forward. And they're going to be eager for each new thing that comes along. I have so many moms that are worried about fourth grade. Then when they tell me what their third grader is doing, I'm like, well, they are so ready. And they're going to love next year, even though they're getting a lot of new things, because they're ready for it. Yeah, it's a harder thing for us, because we've never done fourth grade. Yeah, right. Yeah.

If you are wanting a further, deeper conversation on this, helping children gain independence and moving them steadily along and not pushing that too soon or holding them back, we have a whole episode, episode number 274, I would encourage you to go back and listen to. And I guess I'll just say in closing that the key is you can't prevent them from moving into new stages and onward.

But you also can't skip any of those stages. I think that would be how I would sum it up.

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