This Golden Hour

3. Crystal the Parenting Coach

• Timothy Eaton

Share episode

In today’s episode, we get to spend time with Crystal and JD Haitsma from Alberta, Canada. In this conversation, we explore several benefits of the homeschool environment, including fostering relationship-building, self-directed learning, thinking outside the box, and helping children with their emotional development. We discuss how screens and electronics impede learning and that boredom is good for kids so that they tap into their creativity and innovation. The Haitsma’s teach us about neurodivergence and how homeschooling provides a more ideal setting to help neurodivergent children. They observe that teachers in the schools are not equipped with the resources and time they would need to attend to all the needs of the students in their classrooms in the way that homeschool parents are able to do at home with their children. Crystal shares her thoughts about attachment-based research and its implications in the homeschool setting. She explains how mothers and parents have intuition to customize the learning for each child, and that parents can work with their kids to determine curriculum and learning.

Connect with Crystal and JD
https://www.coachcrystal.ca/
https://www.thecoachsupport.com/jd

Books
Hold On to Your Kids
The Call of the Wild and Free: Reclaiming the Wonder in Your Child's Education, A New Way to Homeschool
Glow Kids: How Screen Addiction is Hijacking Our Kids, and How to Break the Trance
Jules Verne Collection

 Homeschool Philosophy and Curriculum
Thomas Jefferson Education

This Golden Hour
Free eBook Course
thisgoldenhour.org

Timothy Eaton:

Hi, I'm Timmy Eaton, homeschool father of six and doctor of education. We've been homeschooling for more than 15 years and have watched our children go from birth to university successfully and completely without the school system. Homeschooling has grown tremendously in recent years and tons of parents are becoming interested in trying it out. But people have questions and concerns and misconceptions and lack the confidence to get started. New and seasoned homeschoolers are looking for more knowledge and peace and assurance to continue homeschooling. The guests and discussions on this podcast will empower anyone thinking of homeschooling to bring their kids home and start homeschooling. And homeschoolers at all stages of the journey will get what they need and want from these conversations. Thank you for joining us today and enjoy this episode of this Golden Hour Podcast as you exercise, drive, clean, or just chill. You're listening to this Golden Hour Podcast. In today's episode, we get to spend time with Crystal and J. D. Heitzma from Alberta, Canada. In this conversation, we explore several benefits of the homeschool environment, including fostering relationship building, self directed learning, thinking outside the box, and helping children with their emotional development. We talk about how parents are inspired by the passionate learning of their children, and that we can tie learning to the natural flow of the home economy. Like writing a shopping list. We discuss how screens and electronics impede learning and that boredom is good for kids so that they tap into their creativity and innovation. The Heights must teach us about neurodivergence and how homeschooling provides a more ideal setting to help neurodivergent children. They observed that teachers in the schools are not equipped with the resources and time they would need to attend to all the needs of the students in their classrooms in the way that homeschool parents are able to do at home with their children. We discussed how important it is for parents to model learning for their kids, even by modeling how to start a business. And that older siblings often model learning that fuels the interest of younger siblings. Crystal shares her thoughts about attachment based research and its implications in the homeschool setting. She explains how mothers and parents have intuition to customize the learning for each child, and that parents can work with their kids to determine curriculum and learning. We talked about navigating the challenging role as parent and teacher. Finally, we learn about homeschooling and how it compels parents to be proactive about education and family lifestyle, and that homeschool parents learn to deconstruct the status quo. Okay, welcome to the podcast we have with us today, Crystal and JD Haitsma, both from Lacombe, Alberta. Am I allowed to say that? Yeah. Say that. they just got back from a visit from Lacombe and just barely pulled into their home. So I'm really grateful that they're taking time. Thank you. Honestly, that's really cool of you to do. Yeah, no problem. Glad to be here. Excellent. So I just wanna get right to the questions and then we'll just let this flow. The first thing I really wanna know from anybody really is how did you get started? The way that I've asked that is how did homeschooling come into your life? How was it introduced to you? How were you introduced to it? What was the initiation here?

Crystal Haitsma:

Yeah, that's a good question because we actually both come from public schooling backgrounds. I think all of our friends and family public school, I can't even think of anybody that I actually was ever close with that was homeschooled. My dad was a public school teacher. So we went right to university, like we're just very public school, everything. And we sent our son to kindergarten and kindergarten was fine. It wasn't awesome, but it went okay for him. I was pregnant, I think it was maybe my third or something during his kindergarten year. And that was rough. It was a little bit of a rough pregnancy. And at that time I was really into attachment based parenting. I'd read a book called Hold Onto Your Kids by Dr. Gordon Neufeld. And I knew that I wanted to spend more time with them and develop a better relationship with my kids than I felt like I had, especially with my oldest. And so I was reading this book and he was talking about how, zero to seven, there's this relationship system that's built and whatever. And I just thought if I can help improve that, then why don't we do this? And so I just decided to pull him home in grade one. He was really interested in doing it also, and I said, you know what? Let's just do this for a couple of years and in grade three we'll go back to public school, but at least we can spend a little bit more time together. And the biggest thing that hit me was realizing how much time when they go to grade one they spend with their teacher versus their parents. And besides the summer, They're with their teacher way more than they're with their family.

Timothy Eaton:

Yeah. Sarra always says that she always, wondered that with our first kids. Same thing.

Crystal Haitsma:

Yeah. I was just like, this feels weird. And also, why would we have kids not to spend time with them? So initially it was just like, temporarily they're young. It feels a little bit too pushed and rushed for how much time we're spending together. That's how it came to be.

JD Haitsma:

Just to add a little bit to that, Tim, from my perspective I was actually homeschooled in grade one. Then in grade seven, I did school at home. It was a bit strange. But anyways when it came time to send Asher to school he's our first, I was just really shocked with how much work it was to send people to school. And I was like, he's only grade one. You know what, kindergarten? Kindergarten. Yeah. But he started homeschooling in grade one, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so every day making a lunch, and this is, good for the schools and wanting to be really involved and communicate a lot and whatnot, right? But the emails and just everything, I was like, wow, like this is a lot. He's grade one. As far as I'm concerned. He doesn't even need to be in grade one. Like grade one doesn't matter. And surely it's cool to keep him home. And so Crystal was more Leading that desire I guess. But for me, I was totally fine for him just to stay home and learn how to color and count to 10 and yeah, about school

Timothy Eaton:

I was just talking to a grade two teacher from town probably three days ago, and he was saying what they cover in grade two, and I was going, okay, I'm not that worried about this but I love the point you just made JD because I don't think people talk about that aspect of it enough, just the idea that it's not like this easy thing to send your kids to school. And so there is a benefit to that and that's really cool. Like you said, making lunches, dealing with the emails, getting out to a bus on time, that kind of thing. Or anything else that you guys encountered that was refreshing about just you stay home, you just skipped that stuff.

JD Haitsma:

I just found all of it refreshing

Crystal Haitsma:

for me, it was definitely making the lunches getting out of the house so he was working full-time by now and I had these three little kids and inevitably somebody would be napping and I would be like, okay, so do I wake the baby up to go pick this kid up from school? Cuz I didn't feel like I was much in control about when babies and toddlers were sleeping. It would just happen when they got tired, of course. So it just felt unnatural, it was always out of the way and frustrating. And the other thing that I, remember now, From back then, because our youngest daughter right now is currently in grade one, she's decided to do public school this year. And she's constantly sick. Like she goes there and I don't know if it's just kindergarten grade ones that are touching everything, but like every other week she's homesick with a cold or the stomach flu or whatever. people are always like, how do you homeschool? And I'm like, how do you public school? This is driving me bonkers. Like I just wanna keep her home so that we don't have to continuously worry about this. There is definitely things that I enjoyed about public school, but for the most part I definitely felt homeschooling at that time in our life just made so much more sense for me. I knew I was gonna be having my third C-section and I was like, there's no way that I'm gonna be able to be driving back and forth and doing this all on my hands. And so for all of those reasons, it just really seemed like the best fit for that time. But in no way, shape, or form did I ever think I would do it longer than that. Even to grade three, I was like, maybe not grade three, maybe grade two. super short term. I was not a homeschooler. I was like, no, I'm just doing this temporarily. that is not my identity.

Timothy Eaton:

So your reasons were pretty practical. At the start what was it, do you remember specifically reading Hold Onto Your Kids by Gordon Neufeld. Which I love. I love the resources that come up in these interviews but was it, something specific? Because you weren't approaching it philosophically like a homeschool philosophy.

Crystal Haitsma:

No, it was relationship. It was like attachment styles and stuff, and your attachment is typically created in about the first zero to seven years-ish. And so having that primary attachment formed with your parent is really important. And you can obviously do it still while you're in public school, but I just felt if I have time to build this, then I might as well. And I felt like I had the capability, like JD said it seemed so easy. I was like, I can do this. I don't even really have to, learn much. Just seemed like for all of those reasons, it would just be so much more smooth for our family.

Timothy Eaton:

So that's awesome. The thing that I've been thinking, as you've said it, you've been homeschooling for how many years now, you guys, or at least off and on, 11. So for 11 years, have you seen the motivations change or have you seen things pop up that you're like, no, that's another reason we like this? Or are you vice versa?

Crystal Haitsma:

Oh, it's like a complete 180. Like we do not homeschool for any of the reasons we started homeschooling 11 years ago.

Timothy Eaton:

Yeah. Talk about that for sure. Sure.

Crystal Haitsma:

I call myself a homeschool mom now. It wasn't until about six years in then I was like, I guess we're a homeschooling family.

JD Haitsma:

Yeah. When I look at what goes on now in the house and with our kids regarding their learning, I am just so grateful that we ended up this way as their education path. Because it wasn't something that I had in my mind either at the start, and really, I think Crystal said this, but in the beginning it was really in my mind, grade one isn't really important, and it just seemed strange to have our six year old son just be out of the house for

Timothy Eaton:

some with somebody else all day.

JD Haitsma:

Yeah. And so it was really like, you know what, we can deal with the, decision about education later, but right now, let's just keep him home because I don't want him to be sent away. But now it's evolved into just an amazing form of education and self-learning and. Just personal development that in my mind, is so different from the experience in the public schools. I'm really grateful that, we ended up on this path, but I see a lot of really awesome fruits from this path in my children's lives as to just opportunities they've had and what they've been able to accomplish in their education that I imagine, would be quite different if it was a traditional schooling for them.

Crystal Haitsma:

Yeah, and I could answer this question for about three hours. This is so different. That's why I wanted to go first. Cause it's such a good question, but I'll just point out just a few things. At some point over those years, maybe grade three, maybe grade four, I don't remember, we just took it year by year. I just said, this year we'll just see. Do I feel like I can handle it? Do I feel like it's good for this kid? I don't remember much about grade one and grade two. I think they're a blur. They must have gone okay, but by grade three. I remember feeling okay, now I really gotta do it. I gotta teach him. This is a real thing. I'm getting these books out. I'm setting it up PhysEd for one hour, math for one hour, science for one hour, a 15 minute break. Like literally.

Timothy Eaton:

And you were just doing this on your own?

Crystal Haitsma:

I was just doing it on my own. And I'll do math like this. So I just set it up, I felt like his school classroom had been set up. And I couldn't figure out why he wasn't on board with that. I was like, it's been an hour and we transition to this and no, we're learning about numbers today. And he's like, no, I don't want, and I'm like, we are. I'm your teacher dude. So it was interesting because I think one of the main reasons that I'd started was to build this relationship and it actually felt like it was destroying relationship Tension. Yeah. There was so much tension. And I remember we had this amazing facilitator. So in Alberta where we are, we have a facilitator that would come over a couple times throughout the year. And she said to me, how are things going with this? And I just said, math is terrible. He just does not wanna learn. I've tried all this, and this. And she was like why don't you just stop doing math for a little while? And I was like, what? You can do that? And I was like, but I have to do math every day. She was like, there's other ways you can homeschool it for an hour. She started talking about just different ways of homeschooling that I had never even considered, I hadn't thought about that, learned about it, anything. So as I'm realizing that this isn't working, I saw somebody post a couple of books online for homeschool moms and I thought, you know what? This something's not working. So I'm gonna read about some other philosophies. And that's when I was introduced to leadership education. So at that time I read, I know there's a lot of different people that speak about leadership education, but I was learning about it from the Dem Mills Oliver and Rachel Demill. So I read a few of their books. Fast forward to now, I'll mention. The main reasons why I love homeschooling now is it really is relationship building. Once we went through a lot of years working on a relationship and we have great relationships with our kids now, that's definitely one of the things is that we get to spend so much time with them. Like JD mentioned, self-directed learning. That's a huge part of it. Being able to help them find their mission and their purpose and enjoy learning in a way that is literally unseen. When I tell people what my sons. Pretty rigorous schedule is like, they're like, what? And who forces him to do that? And I'm like, no, he is interested. Like he wants Yeah, he does it himself. Yeah, he does it himself, how old is he? Is that 16. so he's in grade 11 yeah, so that's been another big, huge thing. Being able to have more flexibility in our schedule. Cuz now we both work online so we're able to travel. We just came back from a month in Hawaii and it's so fun to be able to just have so much freedom. Yeah. That's appealing. So that's another really big one. But one of the really big ones that I don't talk a lot about is that I have a few of my kids are neurodivergent, which means they have some diagnoses that make it difficult for them and in their behaviors. And one of them specifically, We were struggling with for a lot of years and things are going really well now, but in those years of it being a struggle, I remember thinking there is no way this kid could be in school. Like he would've been expelled or something. Something would have

Timothy Eaton:

is neuro divergent an attention thing?

Crystal Haitsma:

Neuro divergent is just like a terminology to describe kids that think a little bit differently. So maybe a kid that has high functioning autism or A D H D those kinds of diagnoses. Neurodivergent is just like an umbrella term for that. And so we deal with several of those diagnoses in a few of our kids. But now that we have gone through this, I'm like, wow, there's no way, public school would've not been aligned with kids that, especially my son, who, every once in a while would be really loud or noisy or not be able to do things in the way that they quote unquote should be done. So that's another big change

Timothy Eaton:

Sorry to interrupt you. It's interesting because sometimes you hear people say that when they have concerns or challenges like that with their children, sometimes, they want to outsource that because it's too close to home. And then you have other people that feel like, no, I love my kid uniquely. And somebody else is not gonna love them in the same way. And so, you guys have found it's just way preferable to have him home.

Crystal Haitsma:

It got to rock bottom. When it was really hard, we reached out and we got some help and support and things really started to change. And that's another three hour conversation cuz now I'm a parenting coach and I help people with the kids just like mine. But essentially I feel like it would have been really unaligned. A good example is we were just at a market today. My kids each run their own little small businesses, so we're at this market, they're each selling their stuff. Every single person that stopped at this kid's booth was like, this is amazing. How did you do? This is crazy. You're so talented.

Timothy Eaton:

Are those the drawings that I've seen?

Crystal Haitsma:

Yeah. So, this one specifically makes like fantasy maps. He draws fantasy maps and he's really talented. And every single person after person is like, where did this come from? How did you figure this out? How did you teach and. I believe that he's just so intelligent and he has this amazing creative ability, and that is how we view diagnoses. We don't talk a lot about them. We don't stigmatize them at all around here. We believe everybody's brains works differently. No matter if your neurotypical or neurodivergent. It's like a contrast, right? Everyone's brain? Can do some things well and do other things not well. I love that my kids don't have that stigma at all. That they believe that they're amazing and creative and intelligent and all of that. And I don't think that kids that are neurodivergent get that feedback from school. I think that even if they're consciously be giving that feedback subconsciously, they're being given the opposite. That it's wrong, that they're loud or that they're noisy or that they can't sit, or that they need to fidget and they need to do things in a more structured and scheduled way. And that's like the better way to do it. Even if schools aren't trying to teach that, which I know a lot of them aren't, there's just so much of that culture entrenched that it's hard to go through school with even just A D H D and not feel like you are just dumb. Right by the end of it.

Timothy Eaton:

That makes me think of schools and how many kids are going through that in schools cuz the teacher's hands are tied. They have so many kids they have to give attention to and to individualize that to somebody who has higher needs or just unique needs. I don't know how they do it. And I don't think that you can do it. And I do wanna ask a follow-up question with that after jd, cuz think it's more common that there's either more knowledge about it, diagnoses today or hyper or something. I don't know what it is, but, I do wanna follow up with a question, but go ahead, JD

JD Haitsma:

As Crystal was, sharing her views on that, I just wanted to share a few different things that are just really awesome points about Homeschooling. But to that point, and one of the things I wanted to bring up was teachers, they just really don't have the resources to focus on the unique needs of the children. And when you've got a group of, 30, even more than 15 and we all know class sizes aren't that small, but like 20 to 30 kids there's gonna be a lot of different needs and learning styles and moods and everything in that classroom. And from a teacher's perspective, it's really an impossible task to try and present a material in a way that's gonna meet all of those different people's needs those students' needs so that they can actually learn from that presentation. And so one of the greatest strengths to homeschooling that I've noticed and that I believe in is that. Really, it is just giving that child so much more attention to their learning and that individuality that they get out of it is something that is really impractical in a kind of mass education. System. And it's, you can't fault any school for that. It's just not the way that system has been designed to be able to cater. And that's something that I think is a real benefit that homeschool children get.

Timothy Eaton:

So that's kinda what I wanted ask about cause those are great points. I've taught for 20 years and I teach in a fairly public setting. And I've seen that and I've struggled and I've been actually really surprised with the lack of I would say involvement or attention that parents, I can't even give you an example where a parent came in and said to me, Hey, my son has this level of autism or something. And to give me some kind of tips cuz I'm not trained in those areas. So how would you respond to somebody who asked you. What's your plan then they've gotten all this customized attention and this comes up in the literature. I wrote a dissertation on home education finished it about four years ago. And so this came up in the literature all the time. So how are you accounting for when they are on their own and they don't have all this customized, attention are they gonna survive? Are they gonna know how to communicate with people? That's a really common question that comes up in the literature. When you talk to people who haven't studied home education and only have just, thought about it perhaps, what would you say?

Crystal Haitsma:

Yeah, I think the best answer is that we used to believe that tough love was the best way to teach our kids behaviors. All the things at school, we were just like, the tougher you are and the, faster you get them academics and the more you push them into it and the more you make them do things on their own and be independent, the better off they'll be. That is exactly the opposite of what research is saying now. So if you read any developmental based, attachment based parenting or relationship things going around now, it is not that, in fact it is that the more support, love, guidance, security openness and inclusion that you can give them for as long as possible, the better off they're gonna be. It's exactly the opposite of tough love. The way that they do, quote unquote turn out is by giving them what they actually need, which is so much support when they're younger, and that is how they'll be more suited for the quote unquote, the real world. So our son, one thing I didn't mention that I love about homeschooling is that we've been able to work on emotional behaviors alongside school always. And I've always had this intuitive. In my mind, I've known this since he was a baby. It's a weird thought that's always come to me and has come to me all the time with him, is that I'm gonna need to focus more on emotional development with him, more on emotional regulation than with academics. That academics are gonna come easily to him. And that's always been the back of my mind. I was like holding him on my arms and he was an infant. I was like, that's weird. I just knew his like, Demeanor already. You felt it. That's cool. So then he grew up and that has been true. And every year when I'm trying to focus back on academics, in my mind I'm always like, Nope, that's not what's most important. And as far as what he deals with as far as like a diagnosis that the world gives out to people, he is farther ahead than anybody that I've met with his same diagnoses. And it's not because of him and his brain, it's because for the last several years we've been able to focus so much on emotional tools and skills and relationship building. Then we wouldn't have been able to if he was in the public school. So I think he's way farther ahead than he would be. And I think he'll continued to so that he will be so much better suited to be out on the real world, on his own with just such a sturdy foundation.

Timothy Eaton:

And have you had to come to those tools, on your own because that's something I've always wondered. It would be so overwhelming to go, man I'm not equipped to know how to deal with this, but it might be a personality thing I just don't research well or something like that. But did you guys come upon the resources to help your children on your own or did you get tips or how did you come across that?

JD Haitsma:

I was just gonna say I have been a tremendous benefactor of Crystal doing all of that. She really has, taught me everything about homeschooling and she's really taken the I'm gonna call it a burden, but the burden on herself to figure out education. And I think it's been some crossover with her passion about attachment based parenting. But also she really has read a lot about different education models and learning and things like that. And it sounded like she was about to say no, but I'm gonna say that yes, she is definitely.

Timothy Eaton:

Actually before you comment crystal, it seems like you guys have. Pretty much blazed, I think everybody does. That's something I have noticed, people ask, so what kind of homeschooling do you do? It is so family to family. I know that for sure. You can mention TJ Ed, you can mention Charlotte Mason, you can mention John Taylor Gatto, all these pioneers and influences. But the reality is every family adapts it because every family's different and the kids are different. But you guys really seem like you weren't, correct me if I'm wrong, it didn't sound like you were deliberately trying to go, this is what we're gonna do for home education. In fact, you said you were planning on getting out of it, but you saw the benefits.

Crystal Haitsma:

Yeah, definitely. It was definitely a pioneering let's figure this out approach. And I think to your question about how did we find those tools and resources, yes. I think a lot of it was like hit and miss. Like we would try something and be like, this isn't working, this isn't working, this isn't working. It honestly, for me, I feel like it wasn't until I hit rock bottom where I was at this point where I was like, this is not working our relationship. I can't imagine it being worse and things are terrible and now what do I do? And that's when I first started looking up, okay, how do I find support? Who do I look for? And that's when I really started digging into that and learning more. And I'll say, nine years of learning in one short sentence would be that the changes that needed to happen were a lot more about me than I thought that they were. And a lot less about him. And when I started implementing those changes is when I started noticing big shifts in him.

Timothy Eaton:

That sounds like that's coming from your own research and study and what you do. Yes. Yeah. That's awesome. That's cool. We need more of that.

JD Haitsma:

Yeah, for sure. And again, I wanna say just, I'm the benefactor of all of that work that she did, but I wanna go back to that question that you asked about, to the point where I said that, as a homeschool child, they get a lot more tailored attention and just right focused than what someone in a mass education system gets. And you asked, once they grow old enough to get out of the house and on their own and whatnot, how do they adapt to that And, I just wanted to share some of the things that I've seen. Again, just pointing out what I find as like the real gems of what home education can be and do. Yeah. And so we have four kids. Our oldest is 16 and our youngest is seven. And there's been a number of times when one of the two older kids are doing something and, they're on their own and they're going through exercises, reading books, doing, whatever it is. Hands-on type, activity type things. We do a lot of that. And the younger kids will just go and start to, do it also. Or even if they're not like getting in the way of the older ones doing it, they'll find something that's remarkably similar at they'll at their scale and just start doing it themselves and they're like looking and whatnot. And really what I've seen is that as children are able to grow up and develop A human is supposed to learn and have desires like development is learning. So that's just naturally something that they're gonna be drawn to do as they grow up and as they do that and are allowed to do it in a way that they're able to manage and govern. They find things that they're really passionate about and are interested in. And when they pursue those interests and passions, it becomes really inspiring to everyone around, around them. And Even myself, I've noticed I've been inspired a lot of times just by the, passionate learning that has gone on, with my children, and I think everyone can relate to being inspired by seeing somebody who's passionately pursuing something. And so many times just, trying to get back to my point, I've seen that our younger children have been inspired to actually learn on their own because of things that they've seen, the older children do. Wow. And so that to me is just like an amazing thing to just watch and not have anything to do with. I feel like if children are able to, go through the phases of development following that type of a path, then. Once they are old enough and out in the world on their own, they'll have been able to really develop the confidences, through following their passions that will help them to deal with whatever situations life gives them.

Timothy Eaton:

Okay. I just had 25 things come in my brain so Crystal, you go ahead and maybe I'll ask this first and don't forget what you're gonna say, but maybe I will ask cuz you said that you didn't feel like you really had a role in that. But I would think that we as parents do like what happened that the older siblings felt comfortable pursuing their interests in a way that they could go deep, to me that happens because. You mentioned leadership education, it talks about the conveyor belt and the idea sounds like Crystal, you were trying to transfer the conveyor belt home at the beginning and go through courses, but there had to have been something facilitated that your older children felt comfortable going, no, I can take four hours on this or whatever it is. And then younger kids just naturally observe that and then they wanna do that. So there is a role as the homeschool parent, or whoever the homeschool main person is to facilitate that because they're allowed to, some would say no, it's time to move on to the next thing.

Crystal Haitsma:

And I did do that. So that's actually, exactly what I was gonna talk about Cool. Was that I did that is interrupted. So my, in my, like pushing them into the public school type framework at home, really what we were doing was public school at home. And then seeing that not work. And not work. That's when I started reading all these books. So I'm reading these books as he's in grade four and grade five. And I'm really loving it and I'm loving this idea of having it be more, some people call it like an unschooling approach, but definitely more a self-directed learning approach. Versus having it look anything like the public school system. So I'm like logically on board, but in the back of my mind I'm always like, but what if he needs to go back to school? Because at that time I wasn't a homeschooler. So I'm like, how is he gonna fit in the public school system? And also, how do I know I've not done enough?

Timothy Eaton:

That's the thing that question always comes up to parents. But, the thing that I've always wondered is what indicates to somebody, they're supposed to be at this level. And it's so arbitrary.

Crystal Haitsma:

I honestly think. Our brains give us the, it's never enough in every area of our life. So at that point, I didn't know any of this, cuz this is a long time ago, but at that point I didn't realize that was always just gonna be popping up. It's not gonna be enough, it's not gonna be enough. Whereas if he was in public school and things weren't going well, like I'm sure I would've have the same thoughts. I would be like, wait, this isn't working. how's the future gonna be like? So there was a few poignant times when he was younger where I was just like, man, this kid is so awesome. I remember in grade four putting him in a science fair and he had to describe a project that he wanted to do and he explained it was explaining the project you wanted to do. You don't actually build it. And he said he wanted to do it on the Aurora Borealis. So I'm like, oh great. Talk about the Northern Lights. No. He wanted to describe how to create a synthetic Aurora Borealis in a lab. So I'm like typing it up as he's you need a big power source and you need a magnet and you need it to be high this, and you need it to be vacuum chambered. And he explained it. How old was he then? This is in grade four. Wow. So he's I don't know, nine or 10. And I'm typing this up. And I'm like, what? This is bizarre. So I give it to his facilitator and she's this is awesome. He did such a good job. I'm like, yeah, he did. So I'm googling it later that night. I'm like, can you make an Aurora Borealis? Has anybody done this? It takes me forever. Finally find this YouTube video professor who did one vacuum chamber power source magnet. Like he had all of the things in there. And I was like, what? That's amazing. Amazing. It was amazing. And I remember just seeing those little bits of genius and thinking, and by genius I believe that everybody has an inner genius, not just this one child. But it was just interesting to see that. Opening, but I will mention something that really kept us from going all in on a different way of schooling and a different way of thinking. And that is the way that the homeschool system is set up and structured in Alberta, whereas they give you more funding and more money if you do it more aligned to the public school system. And so I constantly felt that pull back and forth to be like, I get more funding and it's like easier to do it this way or whatever.

Timothy Eaton:

Accountability funding is always tied to accountability and more hands-on from the system.

Crystal Haitsma:

Yeah. And I always felt that pull and anyways, grade six comes, JD decides, it was longer than this, but basically we decide to move across the entire country over to Quebec so that JD can do his masters and completely career shift cuz he's not enjoying it and all of that stuff. And it was finally a point where I could be like, okay, we're not gonna have any oversight. We're not gonna have any funding. We can do exactly what we want. I'm gonna give it two years. That way if I like ruin him, I'll still be young enough that I can fix it. But I essentially told myself, we're gonna move here and I'm going to do homeschooling exactly the way that I wanna do it.

Timothy Eaton:

And those are legitimate fears, aren't they? If I could disarm and just help anybody starting or in the midst of it, like it's good. Now that I've seen kids go through the whole thing, it's just amazing. It's reassuring me.

Crystal Haitsma:

It's more amazing than you could ever imagine.

Timothy Eaton:

But those were real concerns you had when you moved. You were going. Am I gonna ruin this?

Crystal Haitsma:

I literally was like, I am only giving myself two years, but I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna go all in. And like you said you can mention all these different philosophies and stuff, but you make it your own. Mine is entirely my own. I read the book and that was the end. I was just like, okay, cool. Got this. And there was just a few principles that stuck out to me and I was like, I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna run with it. And so for the next two years, that's what we did. And that is really what changed the face of our homeschooling was like just going all in on that. And the couple of years before leading up to that where I was reading and questioning and really deconstructing the public school system in my mind and why is it this way and is it the most effective way? And what other ways can there be? And I really think that journey. That we went on for those couple of years before we moved to Quebec is what spurred us to actually move there because I was reading these books and talking to JD and we were having these deep conversations about finding your passion and finding your purpose and finding something that really fuels you and that you're uniquely, can do on the earth kind of a thing. Yeah. And I'm like, isn't this amazing? And I love these ideas. And I was like, this is so great. And I think it really got him thinking about do I like my job? Do I like what I'm doing? Wait a second. So Anyways, I think that's what really started to shift things for us and really moved us there.

Timothy Eaton:

That's awesome. At some point because you keep mentioning books that you've read, and so I don't know if we can do it after or whatever, but I do wanna find out like what are some of these things that we could just included in show notes or something like that. But maybe we'll shift a little bit unless you did you guys have any other comments on that stuff?

Crystal Haitsma:

I think the only other big thing as far as leadership education goes, and I usually describe it to people as self-directed learning. It's just how different things are now with homeschooling, with just how far we've come and how it's just completely different from 11 years ago for, not only the reasons, but also just like the results and the changes that have happened in our family.

Timothy Eaton:

You guys have both said self-directed learning and actually I wrote a dissertation on this four years ago, and that was one of the major findings. And I want to ask you this in a minute about the difference between homeschooling and facilitating learning in the primary years compared to the youth years. But it was the self-directed learning I found in reading and writing about it. I would say from grade nine, grade eight on it becomes 90 to 95% self-directed learning. And so the homeschool parent becomes more of a facilitator, putting things in front of them surrounding them with the materials that they're interested in. And then they just do it. It's amazing. And I've seen that in my own home as well. Go ahead jD.

JD Haitsma:

I was just gonna say one last point that I just think is really awesome about being at home. There for the education of my children and I work from home now, which I think is amazing because I love being around my kids, but children, just want to spend time with their parents. They're drawn to do that. And, if I want to teach them something, if I feel like they need to learn something, if I just start doing it myself, they'll just come Wow. And then they'll like, do it with me. And so it's you can just use that. And as an example I'm learning the violin right now and so many times when I would, go and play it, our 10 year old would just come down. And play an instrument also. And he would never just go downstairs and play an instrument, but if I was down there then he would come and do that. It's just a really easy way to, to guide, going along with the leadership based learning and if you have things that you want your children to do that they're not doing, if I just go and do it, then they'll come and do it also.

Timothy Eaton:

Yeah, I think they use the term modeling, model it for them.

Crystal Haitsma:

Yeah. And I think the difference between the primary years when it comes to leadership education and now is that when they were younger, it's a lot of unschooling, what people call unschooling and unschooling as in whenever I use that term. Creating the environment for learning. And having it be a conducive environment for learning. So making sure that our, relationships are going well and whatnot. But then also just doing fun things like going on field trips and spending time outdoors and answering their questions when they come and reading them books and singing songs and listening to music and, taking them places. And all of those things are fun and just adventurous and easy. And then as they start to develop things start to shift. But one of the interesting findings was I was simultaneously trying to heal my relationship with my kids. This is all happening. And so I'm reading all these books on parenting relationships, attachment connection, while I'm reading these books on leadership education and changing the face of education. And developmentally, they were both talking about the same thing, on the same timeline, same principles and then zero to eight this happens. And then eight to 11 this happens. And I'm like, wait, did they don't even know that they're talking about this. But really emotional and academic learning are pretty simultaneous when it comes to this. I found that really fascinating and they get to a point where they start being more interested in things. And so we, enroll them in a little bit more, classes, do a little bit more structure, but still not tons until they get to the point when it's really coming from them where they feel like, oh, this is something that I really am interested in. And they dig more into it. And I, one thing that I have to say that I just love the most is that my teenagers, although by age they are teenagers, are not teenagers at all. They are not cranky and mean and ornery and rebellious and only wanting to spend time with, their friends, and only caring about friends and only caring about, texting and all of the things. They're completely opposite of that. And people often will just complain about their teens and just be like, oh, you guys get it right? And we like nod. But, in my mind like, no, like that is not our reality.

Timothy Eaton:

Talk about why that is cuz that's like a huge thing. For any parent, including many homeschoolers. So why is that? Because I don't know how much of it is nurture and nature and that kind of stuff. So what has happened?

Crystal Haitsma:

100% is not nature for my oldest, which is so funny cuz people are like, he's just the most amazing child. People tell us this, everywhere we go, everywhere. It's crazy. And they're just like, oh, you just got a special one. And I'm like, no, you should have seen this child in the years that we were like constantly fighting, no, there's two veins to it. One is the emotional development aspect. Me healing my relationship with him, which had to do with me and my own journey and my own self-healing. And me being able to recognize and take emotional responsibility for my role in that relationship, which I wasn't doing for a lot of years. I was doing a lot of he's just annoying or he's just, not even just him, all of them, I'm not getting enough sleep and these are all the reasons why it's hard. Versus what can I actually do to change this? That is a huge part of it.

Timothy Eaton:

So you said emotional responsibility, is that what you said? Yeah. And so can you give a, concrete example? I think that's interesting. I know that's probably difficult and there's probably many, but what's a concrete example of what you would do to improve that relationship or heal it, like you said

Crystal Haitsma:

for instance, my son, when he would have meltdowns, which are way more intense than just a tantrum, and usually they're older when they're having meltdowns if they're neuro divergent things would get really crazy and I would just blame it all on him. I'd be like, he is just losing it. This is ridiculous. But I wasn't considering in that situation how I was responding to him. The energy which I was responding. My words, my tone, my yelling or not yelling, my actions everything was all about him and his inability to handle whatever he should be handling that he wasn't. And none of it was viewing how I was emotionally responsible for what was going on too. Sure, yes, there was something going on with him, but I was blaming it all on him versus wait a second, how do I respond when he does act this way? Because I was definitely mirroring his emotions, mirroring how he responds in attachment based parenting, we call it peer oriented relationships versus parent child oriented relationships. Yes. And when things start to break down, it's often going into this peer oriented style that wasn't necessarily happening with my kids, but we definitely didn't have a great attachment anyways. But I think that's the one vein of it is attachment, connection, relationship. And that all has to do with the parent and how they respond and how healthy emotionally and mentally they are. And so that's what I mean about emotional responsibility.

Timothy Eaton:

So it's probably impossible to assume something or propose something, when it's not what happened. But would you assume that had you not taken those steps for more emotional responsibility, that he would've had tendencies just like any youth towards more peer oriented he would've turned to peers? Is it hard to say or you're pretty confident That's probably what would happen.

Crystal Haitsma:

Definitely confident that's what would happen to a typical child. He wasn't a typical child and my brother when I was growing up had the same diagnosis as my son. He moved out of the house because he was so violent in his meltdowns, and my parents didn't know how to handle it. It wasn't a safe space for anybody. And his life has been immensely difficult because of that decision and several other decisions since then. And so, that is what I foresee happening for him. Way more than just him being peer oriented. We would've not lived together. For sure.

Timothy Eaton:

That really could be like a full episode. I would assume that there's many parents that maybe don't have the exact same, but something similar to that, that they would wanna learn. And then, like JD saying in the context of homeschooling how that can. Benefit situations like that and be helpful.

Crystal Haitsma:

Yeah. And I've had friends with similar kids with similar diagnoses that call the ambulance, call the police. Their kids are in outpatient regularly in intense therapies, intense medication. So I'm not, just exaggerating what it would be like. I know what it would be like. If there wasn't a huge shift at that time.

Timothy Eaton:

How much of that do you attribute to the homeschooling context and how much do you attribute to that your relationship and the healing that's gone on with you've studied and deliberately done as a mother with your son. Do you get what I'm saying? Because it seems like they work in tandem.

Crystal Haitsma:

They do work in tandem. And I was gonna say like the two veins are emotional, but then also this homeschooling piece. And both of those need to be happening. And I think both of those are what make things so amazing now. But to hear JD say I just love spending time with my kids. It just hit me cuz I'm like, we hated it. We didn't enjoy, every once in a while maybe, but it was not an enjoyable time for us. It was so difficult. So I think, I'm gonna say 99 to a hundred percent was relationship. Homeschool definitely had a role, but I think that role was later on. Gotcha. I think that role was like once things were going better emotionally. Gotcha.

JD Haitsma:

I think that everything that Crystal's been talking about recently is really revolving around a child that's has some neuro divergence and really that's specific. Yeah. And that's specific and unique and depending on what, that child needs they need it in the relationships of their life. And so by taking that child out of school, you are giving yourself the ability to give them that emotional support. And so bringing it into homeschooling, it allowed us and our family to really create that environment. Whereas if we forced, him to school, then he wouldn't have been able to get that type of relationship emotional support at school. And that would've just made it so much more difficult to give it at home because, and I don't know how he would've fared at school, but probably poorly. And so it would've just been every time he came home. He would've been just at his limit, if he was able to suppress himself for the whole day at school so that he didn't have a complete outburst and, embarrass himself or hurts him or something bad, he would bring all of that baggage home and it would've just been like, impossible for us to deal with. And so in that case, homeschooling really made it possible, I think, for him to get the emotional space that he needed in order to be able to develop.

Timothy Eaton:

Yeah, like you're saying these situations are really specific. But I do appreciate the idea that there are principles that could apply to anybody. If you didn't have the time with your child, Like you do when they're with you. Obviously that's just so obvious, right? Like you have the time to build that relationship. And a lot of people use the term reprogramming when a kid goes to school, learns like you said, peer oriented. And then they come home. There's a ton of reprogramming that has to happen. Which is the reality of our world. And a lot of people will say yeah, what are you gonna do hide under a rock? And it's ignorant if I'm just being direct. Because the idea that the reprogramming is so much work, and that doesn't mean that you don't equip your kid to survive and thrive in the world we live in. But that normal interactions aren't happening in the schools I'm not saying, not always, but if I were to go to the junior high here in town where I live, I'm pretty sure that most of the encounters I see are not necessarily normal interactions, but anyway, so there's a lot of reprogramming that has to take place and you just don't have the time, you don't have the time to really create that relationship and strengthen it.

Crystal Haitsma:

Yeah. And I think it, sounds specific to talk about kids with neurodivergence, but like you said, I think it is a lot more common, especially if we're talking about A D H D and kids with a D H ADHD are highly dysregulated. They get dysregulated really quickly. So when we talk about meltdowns and things like this, even kiddos with A D H D can, handle or can deal with this. And I think especially with the parents' emotional responsibility role. Even if your kid is completely neurotypical. Attachment and connection and what is my role in this and how am I handling parenting and stuff is so applicable to everyone. And the interesting thing is that the more that I learned about leadership, education, and self-directed learning, the more I was like, this is exactly true in parenting. One of the principles is us before them. And that's exactly what we were doing here, is that instead of it being his responsibility, like how can we change him because we need to get him to stop having these crazy meltdowns that we can't handle. It was like, wait a second, why can't we handle this? Why is this so hard for us? Why is this so triggering for me? Us being the change within that relationship first before we see a change in them. Pretty much every single principle that I have ever learned in leadership education is the same principle within parenting and relationships and behaviors.

Timothy Eaton:

Thank you. Wow. I have a few questions left. Are we cool to keep asking a couple more? Yeah. Yeah. And this is gonna be a little switch here, but, how did you guys determine what you were gonna put in front of your kids to learn? I'm saying in the way of books, in the way of activities. You mentioned music, JD like how did you decide, and how does that evolve as they get older? Do you know what I'm saying? where did you get curriculum? If it was curriculum or what books did you determine? How much of that was driven by their interests? And then did you just, let that go to the extent it would go? talk about that a little bit. Like if you go to school, you learn social and LA and you go from year to year, and you could choose a few options.

Crystal Haitsma:

That's a good question. I think that's more what I probably do than what JD does, cuz I take the bulk of homeschooling. For the kids. But for me, when I would try a curriculum, no matter how open or adventurous or exciting it was supposed to be, and this will be finally the curriculum that will make your kids love it kind of a thing. It never did. It never did. Anytime we would do the same thing every single day that had to get done, that was always the thing that they didn't wanna do. So curriculum was easily found to just not be for us. So I knew once I switched to, zero. Cool. Zero curriculum. So when I moved to Quebec and I was like, for these two years I'm gonna, go all in on what I wanna do. That was part of it, we entirely ditched everything and we had already been slowly ditching things for a while. So we was just leaving the last few things that we were holding onto. At that point we just decided to do it our own way. So the two things that I would put in front of my kids, so to speak, would be one things that they were super passionate about. So if my kid wants to do astronomy, we're like, we're all in on astronomy, we're gonna, the library, we're getting every single book out they have in astronomy. We're gonna find documentaries on astronomy. I like literally have called universities before to see if there's professors that will have conversations with my kids about the subject that they're interested in.

Timothy Eaton:

That's awesome. How would that come up though? For example, astronomy? Cuz obviously that would come up in some natural way. How does that come up where you go? My kid's interested in chickens. I'm gonna go nuts on chickens,

JD Haitsma:

So this is what I see happening, and again, crystal does all of this. I very rarely have any input in this, but I see Crystal having conversations with the kids and asking them, what do you want? And I don't know if she recognizes that as she's doing it, but she really just puts the position in and the power into their hands and say, what do you want to do? And they'll talk and she'll say, okay, what about, writing? And, sometimes it's heck no. And and then, she'll discuss other things and maybe down the road in that conversation it comes out, oh I want to like, build a project about motors and electronics. And then I'll see, and I don't know if the child's aware of it at this point, but Crystal will be like, okay, Some of the things that they have to do is they have to write out a bunch of stuff. If we're gonna go to the store to buy those things, she makes sure that they write like the list. And so they get awesome. Some writing done, even if it's not like on the game plan, we're gonna practice our writing. And sometimes the kid will be, yeah, I do need to work on my writing a little bit. And so they'll have a conversation just as, you would have with a peer at work about how are we gonna do that? And through the conversations of really helping the child and the student understand that, they're the one in control of what they're learning and guiding that conversation so that they try and get a broad array of text. Is what I notice happening.

Timothy Eaton:

And I love that you say you can incorporate like other, as they gain interest, they wanna write the list, they wanna. Engage.

Crystal Haitsma:

And, I think what he said was really on point with that they take the lead in their education. I think it really is like putting them in the driver's seat instead of us just being like, these are the things you have to learn. I think a lot of it is natural, just like them asking questions or seeing something in me like, oh, that's so cool. And we dig into it. But I do definitely sit down with them and I say, okay, in these areas we still do the main, like social science, English, math in these areas. What are things you might be interested in? What are things you know that pique your interest? What are you interested in learning? And sometimes it's nothing. And sometimes there's lots. But other times it just happens, it just shows up. And we just really try to follow those little rabbit trails we're like, yeah, this thing's awesome, let's go all in on do this. And it's pretty easy to teach all the things you need to teach based on what it is that they're passionate about. So I would say number one, following their passions, and number two, noticing the gaps. And so noticing, okay, there's definitely a huge gap here. And then having a conversation with them about it. Hey, I've been noticing this, and if you want to become this when you grow up, or achieve this goal that you said that you have, what do you think you're going to need to do? And having them be the ones that figure that out. And so we have a son right now who's, Dream goal in life is he hasn't yet taken the responsibility on to learn the things he's gonna need to learn to get there. But my oldest son totally has and has, surpassed those gaps in ways that I never thought that he would. Just because he, it's coming from him. It's more of like self-directed and I wanna do this and I'm in invested and so I'm gonna learn this thing. So people do, I think, probably find it really radical that I don't ever use curriculum. And that the only way that we learn math is through playing board games and card games and just math happening in our normal life. That's right. And I do something I call mom school and so in the mornings when I'm not working, cause I work a couple days a week online, but the three mornings that I'm home for about an hour or two, I do mom school. And so that's where, if I notice there might be a gap that I'm interested in teaching them, I'll get a book out. But I always teach it in a fun way. So I'm gonna do it by either a game, a conversation, something like Awesome. Some fun field trip, or it's gonna be like a book, but like a storybook,

Timothy Eaton:

And mom school is your term, right?

Crystal Haitsma:

Yes. Okay, good. Yeah. That's just what I call it. Yeah. So it's just my time to teach them.

Timothy Eaton:

That's really good there's a couple things that came from that man. We're gonna have to do another one too, you guys at some point, because this is like hours and hours and maybe just cuz we're all interested in the same stuff, but first of all, I love what you guys said. You probably don't realize it. Crystal both of you, you said they're learning what they're learning and you had them thinking of what they might be doing in the future. And I love the phrase, begin with the end in mind and work your way back. That's something I've learned in my own research. And then just with our experience with our kids, cuz now, our oldest is 19 and our youngest is nine. We have six children. And our oldest has gone all the way through and so we know it works. And she's done university and anyway, so begin with the end in mind and then work your way back. It doesn't mean you're tied to that, but that you're helping them see that there's purpose to what they're learning and that they're working towards something. But how do you respond to somebody, cuz this is really common. How do you respond to somebody and I don't know, some people can be cynical or otherwise, but if somebody that's just genuinely asking, they go that's awesome that you haven't pursued their interests and you said you're actually addressing gaps, but are, are you worried about whether or not, the people will, their minds will go to the a c t entrance exams to university careers, and I've gone through a lot of that study, so I have my own thoughts on that for sure. How would you respond to people that say that they go, aren't you worried about your kid if they don't do all the stuff you're supposed to do?

Crystal Haitsma:

I believe that learning is developmental, so I think that it'll happen. On their own accord at the time when their brain and their body and everything is like fit together. Make that happen. And so when I talk about focusing on the gaps, I do very little of the gap and so much more of their interests. And just in those little conversations, especially as they get older. So with my younger kids, I might not chat a lot about that, but my oldest who's getting up there in years, we're gonna definitely be talking about these things, but I'm not gonna be focusing on those gaps because I don't want him to be focusing on the lack and the things that he should have learned.

Timothy Eaton:

And don't the gaps tend to fill in? I think the gaps tend to fill in.

Crystal Haitsma:

There's no, you should have learned it by this point. Let's just figure it out. So at one time he was in grade nine. And he said, you know what I think might be fun this year? I think it might be fun to get a math textbook from the school and figure out what grade niners are supposed to know in math and just see. And I was like, okay, let's do that. So I get this book out that's something about the gap. And it's basically like teaching you everything you missed from grade four to grade nine if you're like a homeschool mom that isn't very good at teaching math. So in my mind I'm like, okay, we should do this first before we do grade nine. He looks through it and he's no, I'm not doing that book. He's just gimme the grade nine math textbook. So I called up a math teacher and was like, can you tutor this kid? cause I am not sure that I'm great at grade nine math anymore. And he came over and they worked on it, and he got through the textbook between September and December of that year. Wow. And I was just like, What we've never done math the last time that we had sat down to do what people would normally call math would've been grade four and he was in grade nine. And I just thought it was fascinating that, when it came from him and he was interested and it was, self-directed that it came at that time. And I think that always happens. And if that means that there is always gonna be a gap, maybe there will be. Cuz my one son that I was talking about this neurodivergent, we have a few, but he's also dyslexic and I do not think that there is a point that he will catch up to where his penmanship as far as his writing being really fluid and looking lovely will ever happen. And at first was like, oh no, this will happen. But the more I'm like, no. That's not gonna happen. And that's okay. There's other ways of doing it, right? There's talk to text, there's typing, there's lots of different ways that he can communicate what it is he is trying to communicate. And it's okay for there to be this thing that maybe he doesn't ever master.

Timothy Eaton:

It makes me think of common thing that comes up when somebody is talking to people who homeschool people have lots of questions and it's not like everybody's got this negative feeling, but sometimes, they'll be like, oh you're homeschooling, so does your wife have a degree? A teaching degree. And I'm just like, yeah, no. And if you knew the little period, you would know how. Unsmart. That question is.

Crystal Haitsma:

Or they'll say, or they'll be like, oh, you have a degree. Cuz sometimes people know I have a psychology degree and they're like, oh, that's why you're good at it. Yeah. That's why you can do it. No, that degree did not help me homeschool my kids.

Timothy Eaton:

especially me, like I have a doctorate of education and I don't know anything compared to my wife. and I'm not just saying that it's not even close because of the experiential learning, but one thing that they'll say is regarding the, what were you just talking about? I gotta refresh.

Crystal Haitsma:

I was just talking about how they Now I forget

Timothy Eaton:

The math. Oh, that's what it was like, right? Yeah. People will talk about a subject. That is typically taught in the schools, which is awesome. It's fine. But they'll say, oh, what do they know about this? And there's this idea of behind or ahead and all this kind of stuff. And I'm going that's just so irrelevant if my kid has studied Spanish for five years and I asked your public school kid that never took Spanish. And I go, what? What? What? You don't know all this stuff about Spanish? What's the deal? Yeah. And they go you don't know about the Canadian government. And you're like, no, cause I don't really care about that. And so it's just that, Scales have to fall from people's eyes. And, I'm saying education in general and then you start to think about what questions are we asking and think for ourselves. You have to break away from culture and the way things have been to be open to alternative ideas. And then you see, and again, I'm not trying to be critical, but you see how archaic some of the learning is. Especially with all of evolving. World,

Crystal Haitsma:

I don't think it's just homeschoolers that feel this way. I think a lot of people in the public school system too were like totally, there needs to be a change and it's easy for people to see how successful, my oldest son is now, and be like, oh, that's just him. Feel like I did a really good job with him or something bizarre happened to make this so successful. But I believe that his path, I've had people tell me, oh, it's because your child's a genius. And I'm like, no, he's not a genius. Not more than any other child is a genius, which I do believe is true. But as far as like giftedness, he does not have giftedness. And people will claim that it's something like that and that's why he's so successful. And it's not.

Timothy Eaton:

Yeah. That your story about math in particular and and I'm sure that your children are bright. But, as I have had experience in the last 15 years, homeschooling that's not an isolated incident, like the math in particular. I've heard several that have put it off, they weren't interested. And then in literally months they catch up in all the primary and even junior high years into the high school years in months. Or less.

Crystal Haitsma:

Cause I think his learning is developmental, right? His brain, his body, his everything was ready for it and he was interested and he asked for it. And I'll just speak for just a minute to where we're at now in our homeschooling. He got into college. He's doing college courses right now online. He has a hundred in his classes right now, so they're going well. Yeah. He wakes up in the morning at about 6:00 AM Does his own studies, has his own rigorous schedule, gets everything done. Works. Did he come up with his schedule? He comes up with his schedule, yeah. 100%. And he probably works for six to eight hours, maybe even more, maybe more 10 every day, depending on the day. And he works for my husband. He does his own hobbies. He sells jewelry. He makes beautiful jewelry. He's so multi-talented too. Like he's amazing at bouldering, he's amazing at jewelry. He's has all these interests in like reading and art and drawing and he's so fabulous. Drawer. He started his own YouTube channel before, he's just an extraordinary kid. And I don't think it's because he's different than other kids or built differently than other kids. I really think it's all to do with just the environment of learning. There's a few essential ingredients within the environment of learning. And, one of them we didn't really talk about was like us taking the lead in our own learning in our own education. Yeah, so we can model that to them.

Timothy Eaton:

JD going to do his master's degree in Quebec would be an example of that.

Crystal Haitsma:

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so there has been just a lot of those kind of little experiences and I really think it is. We're not molders of them, we don't get to decide how they're gonna turn out, but we can create an optimal environment and, a huge part of that is relationship and emotions. Probably the biggest part so that they can actually be taking on, those ideas from us. But it's amazing. And even with my kids that are not neurotypical and have a harder time with what typical kids might are still doing amazing and, they have their own amazing, unique abilities. One wants to be a quantum physicist, the other one wants to be a video game developer, which is very 10 year old of him. And they spend so much time doing art. They sell things at markets. They have just this amazing creative. Brain and all these amazing ideas. That's awesome. And our youngest is in grade one right now cuz that's what she wanted to do. She wanted to go to school for the year and we were like, sure. But she'll definitely follow suit and homeschool with them too. I'm sure half of her. Time is probably spent at home right now anyways, but Right. It's been just beautiful to see, or in Hawaii or in Lacombe or in Hawaii or in Lacombe and even JD and I's Jobs right now are really, because we started to pursue our own passions and our own interests and be like, if we're supposed to be modeling this for them, we're not being very good models right now cuz we're not like doing lot.

Timothy Eaton:

Yeah. It just sounds rich and fun for everyone. I, and I know that sounds idealistic, but I really think it can be more that way if people were able to break away from convention a little bit. And it's liberating.

Crystal Haitsma:

Yeah. And finding my passion has changed my entire life and it's just the thing that I love doing more than anything else. It's just my purpose in life. And I think that the way that we live our lives now where we both work online and we're able to travel and do all of this is purely because we started this homeschooling journey accidentally 11 years ago.

Timothy Eaton:

That's really cool. I only have two questions left. Do we, can we do'em? Yeah, sure. Go ahead. So one thing I think that something this podcast will serve is for people who are in a few camps, but like people who are considering it just beginning and then people who are on the journey. But it's a reality. It's a struggle, right? It's not easy. And the biggest thing that comes up for people is confidence about the future and how their kids are gonna turn out what you said about going to Quebec, right? Oh, am I gonna ruin my kid? And how does it turn out? Like how does it look at the end? The first question is what would you tell somebody, or what would you want to tell somebody who was thinking of homeschooling or transitioning? And what would you tell somebody who's already on the journey who is looking for some kind of mentoring or just some kind of comfort or confidence.

Crystal Haitsma:

I think starting out on the journey would be to take some time deconstructing what their beliefs are around learning and education and what that looks like and what they think it should look like. And really all that means is asking yourself a lot of questions, a lot of really deep questions and being like, wait a second. Why do I think this is learning? Or what is learning or what do I think is important, or what were my favorite teachers, or how did I best learn? And really deconstructing those things in a deep way for a long time and focusing less on what you teach your kid that year and more on what you unlearn and then relearn and decide to take on yourself.

Timothy Eaton:

Even just thinking for yourself that's something, like, if it were up to me, we would've never gotten into this. Cause I would've never asked the questions that was totally Sarra and I wouldn't have done it. And and if somebody said, why are you sending your kid to school? I go, what do you mean? Because that's what you do. And I would never have questioned it. I'm so grateful, honestly, that she did and you guys both seem like you, did that. so anyway, just, the idea, just think for yourself and ask the questions. And then, I love the word deconstruction.

Crystal Haitsma:

Yeah. Ask yourself, right? Deconstructing just means yeah. Taking apart. So I'm just gonna ask myself each of these questions and then I'm gonna rebuild. What I want my beliefs around learning and education to be. But first of all, I'm gonna just take the them apart and be like, wait a second, what's really happening here? And I think my best book for that would be Call of the Wild and Free by Ainsley Armand. And she doesn't specifically talk about that, but she talks about so many different ways of homeschooling and her journey was definitely like mine. I read her book and was like, I no longer have to tell my homeschooling journey. It's already been told by this lady who had exactly the same journey as me. Awesome. That's great. It was wild. But I love hearing these resources, but then as far as somebody that's struggling, I think that the struggle that we have is always fear. And that's fear of the unknown. Fear of what's gonna happen in the future. Fear of, am I doing enough? And I just wanna mention that is a belief that we all have, that all humans have, that we're gonna have. And even if we don't have it within homeschooling, we'll have it in some other area of our life. And that just because we have that. Thought doesn't mean it's actually true, doesn't mean we're actually not doing enough. And so when I think about that, I go back to what am I responsible for? I am not responsible to shove learning down this kid's throat. That doesn't happen anyways. Even in the public school system. You have to inspire a kid to learn. They have to take it on themselves. That's right. So to separate what your role is from everything else. So my role is creating a healthy educational environment. How am I going to do that? And then when I feel like I'm not doing enough, I go back to those. Am I doing that? So for me, it's only one hour, three times a week. Mom school mentoring my kids, finding the mentors, putting them in fun environments, things like that. That's what I, yeah. Facilitation. I'm decided. Mine is, and everybody's might be different, but it's like, what is my role? And then just keep checking back into that. Am I doing my role? Okay then my brain is gonna keep telling me this, but it doesn't mean it's true. It's just gonna be constantly this fear thing. And Yeah. And just hold on for the ride.

Timothy Eaton:

Any comment on that jd, as far as what you would tell somebody or just your own thought?

JD Haitsma:

Yeah. I would probably just tell someone to talk to my wife. No. But my thoughts on it, and we haven't, talked about screens or kind of electronics at all in this episode, and that's another thing. But yes, I think that what if you look at the ideal environment to learn in and not talking about any specific age, the ideal environment is an environment that inspires you and provides all of the resources that you need to be able to pursue what you're inspired to do. And obviously that's good, it's it's very difficult to create an ideal environment in your home. And especially. Just with how, different everybody's homes are and whatnot, but the environment that, my children are in, I think has a really strong impact in their learning. And there are things that going back to something I said earlier that I really believe is that as human beings, we're just made to learn and to grow and develop and to have passions and to want to pursue them. And sometimes that's difficult. Like sometimes it means you have to buckle down and learn some math or learn how to read or right. Things that stretch you. And that's hard. And there are things that can really get in the way of doing that. And just as an example, like if we had. A Nintendo or an Xbox or whatever, and it was just there, like always for them to do, then that would be a real sour spot in the environment because if they were ever wondering, what should I do? Oh, we'll just play video games. Easy.

Timothy Eaton:

I'm interested in that.

JD Haitsma:

Yeah. I love this. It's great. I'm learning stuff too, I have to problem solve all the things. Awesome. But, that can really suck the creativity out of a child and it can suck their drive and their passion away. And so it's difficult to create an environment that really. Makes the child draw on their creativity and develop that. But there are things that can really hinder that. And so if you can do something to, improve the environment that they're in, and to make it easier for them to, be drawn towards a path of like inspiration and following passion and creativity as and not drawn towards. Some of the things that are just so common in, in that world that just give instant gratification and really are designed to trap you into just that. Then that's what I would talk about.

Timothy Eaton:

That's I love that. That's so good. And it needs to be heard by all of us and practiced and it is, and there's a ton of literature and you're right, we do need to do another episode on just screens and screen time and addictions really and yeah. So there is, there's good literature on that. I guess the final question I would ask, and I really appreciate everything. This conversation's been awesome in the way that This last question is gonna be delivered here, but we've talked a lot about different aspects of homeschooling and what you guys have done and you've mentioned a few things that I would say I would assume are essentials for you in your homeschooling, but I want to even just like almost point form if you could do it, say, yeah, if you had to choose a few essentials, like I'm saying get rid of the, I don't know, anything extra. What are the few essentials for a. Vibrant, like you said, creative a really solid educational environment. Like what is, what are the essentials? Yeah. For homeschooling you guys.

Crystal Haitsma:

I thought about guys this a few times because I do think there is some pretty potent essentials. And as he was just saying that, I was like, oh yeah, I didn't mention that. And that has been huge for us and for sure we could do, and for us episodes and episodes about this and our experience with it. But having something that's so easy to go to all the time that's like interactive and sucking you in, is gonna really dampen your child's creativity and their ability to sit with boredom. Innovation comes from sitting with boredom. So if you are not able to handle sitting with boredom, then innovation's not gonna come. New ideas, new creation. Number one would definitely be rethinking your relationship with screens. And determining how you're going to handle that as a family. And everybody's probably gonna be different, but noticing specifically for your kids, how they handle it, what they handle, how much they handle, how different things affect them and in the ways of specifically thinking about creativity and boredom. So screens for sure would be number one. Number two, I'm gonna say, letting them take the lead. In their education. So like following their lead and like what are they interested in? Another one would be you before them. So us before them making sure that if we want them to love learning, which is our ultimate goal is for them to just love learning and wanna be continuous, lifelong learners. Then we have to model that first. And I didn't have that until I started my own journey through their homeschooling journey. Even though I had gotten, a 3.9 or something in my university degree, I did not love learning yet. I had not learned that in the 16 years that I went to school. So figuring out how to model that for your kids. And then I think the last one that I'm gonna say would be relationship. You can't teach a child when a relationship's not there. Gordon Neufeld, one of his quotes that I love is your kids learn best from a teacher that they think likes them. And he was specifically talking about the public school system, but I'm like, yeah, if I'm teaching them at home, yeah. Even if I'm not a homeschool mom, I'm still teaching them at home. Yeah. It applies to every parent. They learn best when they like their teacher and they think their teacher likes them. I think that's what the quote was. So I think spending a good amount of your time determining. How good is my relationship with my kids? Do I think it's going really well? Do I think it's not? And if it's not looking inwards instead of outwards I see so many clients cuz I'm a parenting coach now that are so willing to send their kids to therapy, medicate their kids, diagnose their kids, figure out what's wrong with their kids

Timothy Eaton:

and not deal with themselves and the relationship.

Crystal Haitsma:

Yeah. Not spend the time to look inwards and be like, wait, what's my role in this? Just what's my role in homeschooling? What's my role in this relationship and how can I change that?

Timothy Eaton:

Wow, that's really good.

JD Haitsma:

Yeah. I think those three points are awesome and like 0.1, two and three as well. And if you can master those things and nothing was said there about what you actually do. Yeah, that's interesting. What you do in the education. Okay, sure. But like I was supposed to get, listen to this episode and then know

Timothy Eaton:

do to teach my kids something. Totally. Yeah. There are gonna be people frustrated with those answers.

JD Haitsma:

Those are the three things, and if you do those, then you will just know what to do. You'll just do things with your kids and they will learn and it'll snowball into everything. But if you want to know what like my number four would be, which is actually something to do, then I would say, and this is the first thing that I would think is important is just to take as much time as you can to read to your kids.

Timothy Eaton:

Brother that was exactly on my mind.

JD Haitsma:

Yeah. And just there are so many just amazing books and simply by reading those to your kids, they'll just learn so many

Timothy Eaton:

more and even learn to read. That's what's been amazing. They even learn to read oh brother yeah. Amen.

Crystal Haitsma:

Hey, and the craziest thing is that my oldest son. Is so good at words like just crazy words. Like sometimes he'll quiz me and be like, what does this word mean? And I'm like, that's not a word. I'm really good at words. I've always been like, I always win boggle. I always win Scrabble, balderdash, anything to Word games are like my jam. So the other day he mentioned a word and I'm like, that's not a word. I've never heard that one before. And he's yeah, it is. And he like guessed what he thought, the what he thought it was. And then he looked it up in a dictionary and he was right. We were reading Jules, Vern, and the same thing. I would read Jules, Vern, and I would pause at every word, which sometimes was four in a paragraph that we didn't know that we'd never heard of before. Wow. And then I'd ask them to guess what they thought it was. And then we'd look at a dictionary and he was always right. And I was like, what? These are not words that people use in the world. And really, it's totally from reading. He reads voraciously all of our kids, all four of them read voraciously. And one bonus thing that I'm gonna say, because it's like a very life coaching answer, but also it's awesome. Oh yeah. Fire away is is intuition. We all have like our own inner gut instinct, spirit intuition, whatever you wanna call it. And following that like for your whole journey, cuz I've talked to a few people who are like, I wanna, bring my kids home and homeschool them cuz we have this really bad relationship and I wanna better, and I'm just like, do you feel like that's the first step or is the first step maybe to start working on your relationship and bring your kids home later? Because that might have been more helpful for me when I was in the throes of that. But I think just following, that guidance from your own inner instincts through the whole thing.

Timothy Eaton:

Wow. Thank you very much you guys. Oh, it's been long. It's felt so short and then I looked down and I'm like, what the heck? But, thank you so much. I really appreciate. This has been amazing. And when I figure out more about doing podcasts, this is gonna be more and more polished, but we're gonna meet again, I hope, in the future. So thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. That wraps up another edition of this golden hour podcast. If you haven't done so already, I would totally appreciate it. If you would take a minute and give us a review in Apple podcasts or Spotify, it helps out a lot. And if you've done that already, thank you much. Please consider sharing this show with friends and family members that you think would get something out of it. And thank you for listening and for your support. I'm your host, Tim Eaton. Until next time, remember to cherish this golden hour with your children and family.