Hi, I'm Nicholeen Peck, I'm a veteran homeschooler.
I've homeschooled my children all the way up.
I'm also known around the world. In fact. I teach at all of the leading homeschool conferences about
self-government. It's a type of parenting and family communication. In this video,
I'm going to be talking about a common question that people ask me. They often say,
"Nicholeen, what do I need to homeschool my child?", well let's talk about that.
In this video, we're going to talk about some of the basic nuts and bolts and things you need
and then I'm going to tell you the main thing you need to homeschool. Every time somebody talks to
me about what should I focus on when I homeschool? I'm going to tell you that critical magic bullet.
You're going to love it, we're going to save that one until the end though.
Let's get started. Let's talk about some of the nuts and bolts what do you need
to homeschool. Well, you need to budget your time that's going to be important.
So, you're probably going to need some sort of a calendar and you're going to
need to have a daily schedule that's going to be important. So, decide what
time does school start. Does it start at 8? Does it start at 9? Does it start at 11:30?
You can start whenever you want just make sure that you get everything in there. You're also
going to need to get everybody on board that's important. So, does the family know why you're
homeschooling? What type of a family you want to become because of this process that you're going
through? I often tell people homeschooling was one of the best decisions I ever made and that is
a hundred percent true. Because our family became something I didn't know was possible. I never knew
that a family could be so happy. Do you realize that as a homeschooler what you are doing is
much more than academic, much more. Academics can be learned anywhere at any time. But they
are learning how to get along with other people. They're learning how to problem-solve.
They're learning deep relationships. They're learning about family, what makes a good family,
and almost every person ends up having a family of their own one day. So you are preparing them
for life in a very comprehensive and unique way. A way that nobody else can do but you. Obviously,
you're gonna need some fodder to grab from things like books, right? Books and ideas, some people
go to conferences homeschool conferences to get ideas. I'm always teaching at those
if you ever happen to be at one when I'm there be sure to come and tell me hello. Because it's
so fun to meet new people all the time and to see where you first learned about me. Anyway,
so go to places where other homeschoolers are. You might need to know other people
because it has been proven that it is very difficult to maintain homeschooling
if you don't know any other homeschoolers. So, they say that people have a hard time
maintaining a homeschool track and staying optimistic and feeling hopeful about it
if they haven't ever talked to any other homeschoolers within a four-year period.
So, make sure that you're finding ways online or in-person to connect with other homeschoolers.
That doesn't mean you have to be homeschooling the same way that they are. However,
there are many different ways to home school and you need to be choosing what is best for your
family. This brings me to my personal journey with homeschool. I want to share a story with you, So,
when I started homeschooling I really didn't know what I was doing. I just knew that my
children were needing something more and I really was focusing mostly on academics.
I was doing treatment foster care at the same time as my oldest children
were starting to enter school age. So I knew I wanted more time with them
as a family too outside of you know school time. Because I felt like my foster children
were taking up all of the hours after school so I needed to have hours with my own children
when there wasn't anybody else around. So, in order to maintain that I decided that I would
homeschool but also they were reading very early on and so I decided well this must mean that they
might be bored in school and certainly means I can teach them stuff. The problem was I didn't
necessarily know-how. So I started talking to a few people that I knew had been homeschooling.
They gave me some recommendations at different curriculums different people that they
had read about and books that they really enjoyed. So I started learning some things,
I started learning about a person named Charlotte Mason. I'm not sure if you've ever heard of her
but she is amazing. You can read her original writings or you can also read other companion
books to her writings like the Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola. I love Charlotte
Mason's techniques but I wanted to know even more. When I went to my very first homeschool
convention there was someone who was speaking about something called leadership education
and this man named Oliver DeMille was talking about the formula that a person needed to create
to actually educate a leader. He talked about the difference between conveyor belt education
and the type of education that's a competitive education. Maybe like private school education
and then he talked about leadership education and how uniquely different that was. This gave
me a vision of something completely new. Okay, are you ready for the magic bullet?
So, here is my sweet sauce to homeschooling and that is that you need to learn how people learn.
Now before I get to that please subscribe to this channel. There are videos that come out every
single day on this channel and I don't want you to miss any of them. They are about parenting and
about education things that are going to matter most to you especially as you are planning on
spending every day with your children. So, what is the secret sauce, that little magic bullet,
the thing that I tell every person that comes to talk to me at a homeschool conference?
I always say the thing that you need to learn the very most is you need to learn how people
learn. A homeschooler that is going to make the greatest difference in the life of their children
is a person who understands how to really reach their hearts and reach their minds. What process
a person goes through in development as they are learning through the stages. Do you realize there
are different learning stages? There's a first stage that happens between the ages of maybe zero
and eight years old and this learning stage is called core phase. I'm taking that from the book a
Thomas Jefferson education by Dr. Oliver DeMille. So, Oliver DeMille talked about how during core
phase a person learns what's right and wrong good and bad true and false and they learn this through
work and play. There's more details I could give you there but for the brevity of this video
I'm just going to give you that little taste. The next phase of learning is love of learning
phase. During this phase they flip from thing to thing like a bee flits from flower to flower.
They learn this skill and this skill and they want to learn this topic. They don't always finish
everything they start learning I'll tell you that. So, this is the time where they decide learning
is something they want to do forever and a wise parent helps them learn to love learning because
you can actually learn everything k through 12 in four years if you love learning. Think how
much time is wasted on education to a person that is fighting against the learning process,
it's crazy. Okay so, after love of learning comes scholar phase. Scholar face happens generally
between the ages of 12 and 18. this is the time when they really get dedicated. They put in more
hours, they set personal goals, and they really create a beautiful breadth of education. After
scholar phase comes depth phase this is usually their college journey or the time where they're
gaining a lot of work experience and they're progressing so that they can really contribute
something to the world. Then the final phase is mission phase that's the phase I'm on. The time
where you're giving back to everybody else because you recognize you've learned enough along the way
to deliver some new information to other people in a way that they can understand. So, mission phase
is the very end many people are starting on their home school journey going, "I'm not sure I'm in
mission phase", well, when I started homeschooling my children I wasn't in mission phase either. At
the very beginning of my home school journey I was probably still in love of learning phase.
I think I had my core pretty down I understood what was right and wrong good and bad true and
false. But we never stopped developing there. But I had to develop my own love of learning again.
I have to admit after all my years of matriculated education I did not
really own it for myself not until I was the teacher and needed to give it to somebody else.
This meant I had to control myself. So, another part of this secret sauce of
learning how people learn is learning how people can control themselves.
If you're going to create a good environment where a person can learn then you would be
wise to employ the methods of self-government. When a person learns self-control then they can
teach themselves anything. They give themselves instructions. They give themselves no answers.
They keep to a schedule and they will accomplish their learning goals. Did you know that you cannot
teach your children anything? That may be news to you but hopefully it decreases the pressure
you might be feeling as a potential homeschool parent. Everyone must choose to learn something.
You can present information. You can provide an environment that's engaging and inspiring
but they have to choose to learn. They have to choose to take the information in and do
something with it. It is up to them so the best thing you can do is teach them self-mastery.
That's what I'm known for teaching all over the world and I want to share more of that with you.
In fact, I have a free class that I would like to give you that class is called the expectation trap
versus the cycle for success. This is a class that I give at many homeschool conferences
and I would like you to have it so that you can be more successful. You are so brave right
now even considering that you are going to step outside of the box and be the educator
for your child. The one God already knew that you were meant to be he gave that child to you
not to somebody else. The best thing I can give you is the recipe for not getting trapped
in your own expectations. So, click the link right now to go to the expectation trap versus
the cycle for success and get additional training that will help you in your homeschooling journey.