This Golden Hour

109. Rowan Atkinson and Avoiding Homeschool Burnout, Freak Out, and Zone Out

• Timothy Eaton

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In today’s episode, we get to spend time with Rowan Atkinson from Ontario, Canada. Rowan is a second-generation homeschooler, author, and experienced homeschooling mom of four. Rowan shares how she got into homeschooling, beginning with her own mother’s pioneering decision in the early 1980s and continuing through her experiences as a parent, educator, and curriculum creator. Rowan discusses the evolution of homeschooling from its early days—when resources were scarce and families had to prove the academic validity of their choices—to today’s landscape of abundant options and growing mainstream acceptance. She reflects on the challenges and rewards of homeschooling, including the importance of prioritizing family values, maintaining flexibility, and finding a balance between structure and freedom. Listeners will find inspiration in Rowan’s honesty, humor, and wealth of experience, as well as actionable tips for avoiding burnout and fostering a positive homeschooling environment. The episode concludes with Rowan’s encouragement to parents considering homeschooling: trust yourself, take it one step at a time, and remember that the time invested in your children is never wasted.


Connect with Rowan

Headphone History

Canada Homeschools

Canadian-A Education Resources


Rowan's Book

Enough Already!: Real help for Homeschool Burnout. Freak Out and Zone Out

This Golden Hour

Rowan Atkinson:

I invited my husband to a homeschool conference just to check it out for himself with an open mind and he went to similar to what you do, which I really appreciate what you do for dads. Thank you. Thank you. He went to a homeschool workshop for dads, and I don't know what they said in there, but he came out. We need to homeschool. Everyone needs to homeschool. And that was that. And so I had his full support ever since that conference.

Timmy Eaton:

Hi. I am 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. New 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 Rowan Atkinson from Ontario, Canada. Rowan is a second generation homeschooler author and experienced homeschooling mom of four. Rowan shares how she got into homeschooling, beginning with her own mother's pioneering decision in the early 1980s, and continuing through her experiences as a parent educator and curriculum creator. Rowan discusses the evolution of homeschooling from its early days when resources were scarce and families had to prove the academic validity of their choices to today's landscape of abundant options and growing mainstream acceptance. She reflects on the challenges and rewards of homeschooling, including the importance of prioritizing family values, maintaining flexibility, and finding a balance between structure and freedom. Listeners will find inspiration in Rowan's honesty, humor, and wealth of experience, as well as actionable tips for avoiding burnout and fostering a positive homeschooling environment. The episode concludes with Rowan's encouragement to parents considering homeschooling. Trust yourself, take it one step at a time, and remember that the time invested in your children is never. Are wasted. Welcome back to this Golden Hour podcast today. We are quite excited to have with us Rowan Atkinson. And where are you coming from today, by the way, Rowan?

Rowan Atkinson:

I'm coming from Southern Georgian Bay, Ontario, Canada.

Timmy Eaton:

It's

Rowan Atkinson:

beautiful country here. We're close to the world's longest freshwater sandy beach, so that helps.

Timmy Eaton:

Let me give a brief biography of Rowan and then we will get started. Rowan is a second generation homeschooler, a homeschool mother of four, and the author of Headphone History. And the book that we're gonna talk more about today is Enough already Real Help for Homeschool Burnout, freak Out and Zone Out, and that's the book I read in preparation for this interview. So thank you for being with us.

Rowan Atkinson:

Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Timmy Eaton:

No, we're excited to have you. And do you wanna add anything to the bio that you were talking about gardens and cats before, so whatever you wanna say. Yes.

Rowan Atkinson:

I do love to garden, so I have flower gardens and I have vegetable gardens and I do have a cat named Piper. The famous piper. I'm surprised he's not on the keyboard as we're speaking right now. I love soccer. I'm just learning how to play pickleball this summer. And I'm a graduated homeschooling mom of four, so I am an empty nester now, my husband and I and our cat. That's it. And some chickens. And some sheep.

Timmy Eaton:

Oh, that's excellent. How many chickens? How many sheep?

Rowan Atkinson:

I have 19 laying hens. I'm not sure how many sheep my husband has, and my eldest also has sheep, and they are pedigreed. So they have different breeds and they show them at fairs like the Royal Winter Fair and Cool. I believe my husband has shown sheep at the Calgary Stampede before. So yeah, so it's it's a hobby really. But yeah. No, that's great. It also, it's nice to have. Some homegrown food and where it came from and, what wasn't sprayed on it and all that sort of thing.

Timmy Eaton:

We enjoy a similar garden for those reasons, so I appreciate that. What is the age range of your kids?

Rowan Atkinson:

So they are now ranging from 29 down to 22.

Timmy Eaton:

Okay.

Rowan Atkinson:

And and our first grandchild is coming in December, so I'm very excited about that. My son Timothy has the same name as you. Yeah, he is. His wife is expecting and they live next door, and I couldn't be happier.

Timmy Eaton:

Congrats. That's a lot to look forward to. Why don't we get into this? I wanted to know first off, just like the common question that I start with is how did you get into it? What did you first hear of it? As far as. Your family? Like when did your parents, how did they get into it? And then maybe morph that into you and your husband in deciding to do that.

Rowan Atkinson:

So I first learned about homeschooling when a week before school was to start when I was in grade eight. My mom said, you're not going to school. So that's how I first learned about homeschooling and I love school. The first day of school to me was better than Christmas. I loved having the first day of school outfit, the fresh notebooks with no writing in them, all the new school supplies. And you can still have that when you homeschool, but

Timmy Eaton:

Absolutely.

Rowan Atkinson:

Yeah, I'm an extrovert. So that was. A little bit shocking. I think my mom didn't really tell us why. Like I knew my brothers had some bad experiences in school, but one of the things that she said that always stuck with me is that the government does not own our children. And that always stuck with me and I agree with that. And that's how I like to live as well today. So obviously it did have an impact on me. So even though it was a little bit shocking, I ended up enjoying it because I love learning. And so unlike my children, I would always just do whatever work my mom assigned me. And then I would work extra on my history projects because I love that so much. So that's how I first heard about homeschooling. And then I ended up going back to public high school after that grade. But my younger siblings were homeschooled for years and years, so I grew up with a kitchen with science experiments like beside the sink and planets hanging from the ceiling and. Kids everywhere doing homeschooling. My mom would also homeschool other people's kids.

Timmy Eaton:

Wow. And then

Rowan Atkinson:

for us, I actually didn't really plan to homeschool. I planned to be a teacher. I think it was because I didn't have a huge philosophy around homeschooling. I did have a philosophy around motherhood, but I never thought that I wouldn't have to earn a living. So for me, teaching was one of the best jobs. If you have to go out and earn a living, you can at least be with your children. Once they hit like a certain age, you can be with them more than any other job. Yeah. And I did plan to stay home with them in their first few years though you know what I'm saying? But I had never planned to homeschool, but then. Before my first born was born, I was helping my friend homeschool her kids. Like I just, I was going to homeschool conferences because I had a tutoring business and I needed to get some curriculum Yeah. To help them with their work. And then once we were expecting our first, I just felt no, I need to make a disciple of this little character. I can't be delegating this to anyone else. And I didn't wanna delegate it to anyone else. And my husband was not. A hundred percent excited about that at first because he grew up in a family that they really liked to do what everyone else did, and they didn't like to stand out for being different or outside of the norm.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah.

Rowan Atkinson:

And and it was a small town and everyone knows everyone and they knew one socially backward homeschool family, so that made them not want their. Grandchildren or kids to be homeschooled. I personally like that family. But anyway I invited my husband to a homeschool conference just to check it out for himself with an open mind and he went to similar to what you do, which I really appreciate what you do for dads. Thank you. Thank you. He went to a homeschool workshop for dads, and I don't know what they said in there, but he came out. We need to homeschool. Everyone needs to homeschool. And that was that. And so I had his full support ever since that conference. So quick conversion. Yeah. He was definitely all in on the biblical discipleship, so that wasn't a big stretch to go one step further. Yep. Then, we like to say we homeschool from birth. So we were already doing it. So

Timmy Eaton:

We say that as well. We say we just kept doing it from birth to university. Yeah, that's right.

Rowan Atkinson:

Yeah. I went to great end of grade 11 for most of mine, but yeah. Pretty close. Pretty close. I just,

Timmy Eaton:

I have that part here in the book.'cause I remember marking that.'cause of course I'm focused on, on dads and so I'm drawn to that when I see it. But you said I had to convince my husband, his family had a stigma about home education. It was a combination of not wanting to do things differently or stand out from the rest of their small community. So you just explained that. And then you said at the convention there was a seminar which was for homeschool dads, he went to it. And to this day, I don't know exactly what was said, but he came out of there convicted. And not only we should homeschool, but everyone should. And

Rowan Atkinson:

And I don't know that we believe everyone should then that becomes a cult of education forms, right? Yeah. But I think that it is a very good way to make disciples and if you're trying to follow Deuteronomy that says to speak to them of the things of the Lord, like at every moment of the day, it's a really good. Good one, but I know people who have their kids in Christian school and they're discipling their kids very well in partnership with the Christian schools, and there are single parents who can't homeschool. So I would never say that everyone should homeschool, but I sure like homeschooling and I do recommend it.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. And I guess what I have said many times, and I'm developing this more and more is the idea that. Homeschool doesn't even match what we do anyway, the word homeschool. And so I feel like maybe the shift we always use the term deschooling about, really transitioning from the institutional way of thinking, the conventional way. And I feel like it's less about everybody should homeschool, but I do believe everybody should employ the principles that homeschool espouses because I think it is a better way you know, that's why we do it personally. That's why we are into it. Although I do see that there are practical things that get in the way of that. But I was actually curious when you said that your mom's homeschooled other kids, how did that go down?

Rowan Atkinson:

Her best friend, also homeschooled and her best friend was great at teaching English and French. And my mom was great at teaching like science and math. So they would actually spend half a day at my mom's house and then Oh, cool. They would walk over to her friend's house and then my little sister had other. Kids also to be with. And then there was a young lad in our church that was having difficulties in school and behavioral and so on. So they sent him to my mom. And I think they did help compensate her for her time. So she was homeschooling him as well, plus my brother and my sister. And then she had a daycare as well, so she always had lots of kids. Holy cow kids around in the house. Yeah.

Timmy Eaton:

That's a lot of capacity. Do you remember when did your parents start homeschooling?

Rowan Atkinson:

1983.

Timmy Eaton:

Wow. So they were in quite close to the beginning of the resurgence of homeschooling.

Rowan Atkinson:

Exactly. They, we didn't even have curriculum. Like we just used old textbooks that the public school didn't want anymore. Like we didn't have the internet. It was now the older book textbooks were actually better than the ones they were using. And then we had some friends who were in public school and we would borrow their notebooks and just check it out, see if we were covering everything. And yeah, it was very, was that

Timmy Eaton:

in Ontario?

Rowan Atkinson:

Yeah, it was very pioneering. And then we had to go and write the exams. At the end. So I had to write all my grade eight exams. Having never gone to any classes in the school, I was a little nervous. I'd been in that school before, we had to write the exams we aced them, so it was fine. We aced the next year too, at high school because, we had a bit more rigorous. Of an education. And yeah, so it was very different back then. And then when I started homeschooling my kids, there still wasn't that much curriculum because my eldest was born in 1996 I always joke that our kids could either be American or Mennonites. Those were the two basic. Curriculum choices that we had. And since I'm pretty Canadian and I didn't necessarily want to use an American curriculum, so our kids they had a lot of Mennonite curriculum growing up and we lived on a farm. The little kids in braids with their farm animals seemed to be a better fit than American Eagles on every other page. But now I feel like. We talk about overwhelm and now there are so many choices out there.

Timmy Eaton:

I know

Rowan Atkinson:

that, I think that's gotta be harder than having less choices.

Timmy Eaton:

I think it is there can be paralysis. Especially when they're starting. I find that when they're. In the third, fourth, fifth years, more seasoned, they just know, homeschool families know to take from here and there and kind of form Yes, that's right. Their own homeschool. And which I like when families figure that out and one thing I always talk about is it. Do your best not to replicate what goes on in school, but I do understand why that's the safe way to go. But man, if I could empower families just to go, no, like you just being home with your kids, reading, enjoying nature and doing some simple stuff is actually sufficient. So

Rowan Atkinson:

see you're in this. Generation of unschooling and all of that. But I was in the generation as a homeschooler of, we had to prove something. We had to prove that what we were doing was academically as good or better than the schools. Yes. And we didn't have any options of unschooling or we'd never heard of it. We hadn't heard of Charlotte Mason, this or that. We just did replicate and then we had to learn the hard way. That's why I have my book on not being burnt out because Yeah. The curriculum is not the boss of you, right? But when you start out, you try to throw eight subjects into a day and all different grade levels and and it is a recipe for burnout. It's really nice now that parents have the option to relax a bit. Although my generation sometimes wonders if they relax too much. If their kids aren't learning to read by what till they're 13. Yeah. Some people are okay with that, but I guess I'm super not that okay with it. Yeah. So there's gotta be a balance somewhere, right? Yeah. Unless they have special learning needs and then it's a victory when they learn to read when they're 13, but Totally.

Timmy Eaton:

Exactly. And it is, there's a

Rowan Atkinson:

balance.

Timmy Eaton:

There is a balance and just to comment on what you said there, like I, I'm so thankful for your parents and people that did lay the groundwork they have to be looking at it going, what? Homeschooling is trendy. They might not even like that'cause you're like, no we were like warriors man, and today we just sit back and go. Oh yeah. People think we're actually cool'cause we homeschool and that's not how it was. But but I do like that. I guess what a lot of homeschool philosophy tells you that each family is going to just customize it, how they will and that there's not a set framework of checkpoints that people have to accomplish. But just as a citizen, yeah. You want your kids to start reading quick and they can learn more as if they do that. I love what you said here. This is on page 41. In your book, you go you're talking about curriculum for several pages. Then you say, I just want you to understand that the curriculum is for you and not you for the curriculum. When I read that, I thought about. I believe in Jesus and he talks about the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. And I had that feeling when you said that, so

Rowan Atkinson:

I may have had that in the back of my mind when I said that too. Yeah.

Timmy Eaton:

I thought you might have. Yeah. But I agree with that. That's so good. And I feel like more and more families are. Again, more seasoned homeschool parents are just like we'll use this as a tool, and once it's fulfilled its purpose we don't have this nagging feeling that we have to finish the curriculum or we have to stick with it next year or whatever.

Rowan Atkinson:

Yeah, I think math and English are pretty important and you, I like to be a little more structured with those because they build on it on themselves and Yeah. You can't skip a whole bunch of important math concepts and then expect them to understand how to do their next level math. But but all the other subjects I think you can really be flexible with and have some fun with them. Yeah. And and then you can. Put more than one kid doing the same thing. Our oldest two were only a year apart, and our second oldest was very academically bright, and so except for math, I did them everything together and that saved a lot. Yeah.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah, no, we've enjoyed that too. Our kids are. Basically six children within nine years. You have four children within seven years. Four and six

Rowan Atkinson:

years. Yep. Yeah.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. So maybe talk about that a little bit. If you could paint the picture of a typical day in when you were in the throes of homeschool, if you can remember back to those times. Like what would it look like? What would a day look like in the Atkinson home?

Rowan Atkinson:

Yeah, so it would depend because I also had to earn a living while I was homeschooling, so my days could look. Somewhat different depending on what season I was in. Yeah. But I'll go back when I was more focused on homeschooling and not having to work as much outside the home, but we would start, I did make my kids get up at a certain time. They had to get dressed, they had to make their bed. I figured that in life they were gonna have deadlines and they were gonna have. A schedule and they were gonna have to show up at work on time. On Sundays they didn't have to make their bed and we could have pajama days, but it had to be scheduled. Like they had to get up and be. Responsible citizens, yeah. So then they would have breakfast and we'd all have breakfast. We had a big, country kitchen and all around the island having breakfast. And then they'd brush their teeth and then they'd come down and we'd meet in the more formal living room and have our devotional time. So we would. We would sing, we would read the Bible, we would go over devotional. If we didn't do it, then we would do it. When we first got to the kitchen table, you started back then with your homeschool room, with your little desks, and then you end up around the kitchen table everywhere. Mm-hmm. And everywhere. Yeah, so we'd start with the devotions and then we would work on math and English usually in the morning because those math, English, and Bible were our most important non-negotiable subjects. And then if the other subjects, if things came up or didn't get done as well, it wasn't. Those weren't the highest priority, so that kind of helped to make that priority. And so I would get the older two started on their lessons and'cause they could work a bit more independently. And then I'd focus on the younger ones. And I have one with a DD, so sometimes she would sit on an exercise ball while she was doing her work or I'd send her out to jump on the trampoline for 10 minutes and come back in and good set. Set timers and that kind of thing, whatever she needed. And then there were days when we weren't just around the table'cause we had piano lessons or on Fridays my husband would take the kids skating for their phys ed and I would take my littlest to moms and ts, which I led at our church. It just depended on the day, but Wow. Yeah, just mostly gathered around the kitchen table and then, they were taking piano lessons so they'd have to go practice their piano and we focused most of our sports in the summer. We did a lot of soccer and, that was good for organization so that we were actually home sometimes, and my husband's really good about, the family dinner table as a priority. And so there were many nights when he could have stayed at work or he had an evening meeting, but he made sure he came home for the family dinner and then went back to work wow. Yeah. I dunno how to more describe what that day was. No, that was excellent. Just a homeschool day.

Timmy Eaton:

That was excellent. I I'm interested in what you just said about your husband he'd actually come home for that and then he would go back to work sometimes. Yeah. You give the idea, which I love you, you said your common response when people say, so what do you do? And you go, I'm in investing. And I love that answer.'cause I and you can build on that in a second, but here. You talk about, I'm trying to find the page, but basically you say that it is crucial for people to prioritize, and especially homeschool families, and I love the word prioritize. You, I guess the statement you have here is you say, another way to avoid unrealistic expectations is to prioritize, and you had just talked about expectations, the must dos, the should dos, that kind of stuff. But I love that you said that, and it sounds if it wasn't a priority, your husband's not gonna come home just to have dinner in some people's minds but that's obviously something that he deemed or that you as a family deemed a priority. And so a lot of times. People talk about balance. There has to be balance and I appreciate what they mean, but I've come to believe myself that I like the word priority better than balance. Because if I'm balancing things, I give equal attention. If I prioritize, I give highest attention to that, which matters most. But anyway, speak to any of that. Yes. I love that. Sure.

Rowan Atkinson:

I love that. And it's so fun when you're. Quoting me. To me that's, yeah. Yeah. It's very fun to me. Oh, good. I think if you think of balance, like a mobile. A mobile, um. sometimes one side is down, sometimes one side is up, it's not static. And if so, if you wanna use the word balance, that's a helpful way to do it. But I guess I'm one of those people who always bites off more than I can chew. And my ideas and my ambitions are far greater than my physical energy or the number of hours in the day. So I'm constantly having to reign it in and decide what is important and what isn't important. And if you're a self-motivated, self-started person and then you throw these little sinful humans into the picture and you're a sinful human. You can get overwhelmed when you try to do everything perfectly or you try to do too many things. And so one tip I learned and I think I might have a DD, but I'm Gen X, so I didn't really find out or do anything about it. I just learned how to cope with myself. But I found that I am not really good at teaching, like both history. Social studies and science and in the same day or even the same week. And so over time I learned to block off, like for these two months we're doing science and we're doing science very well. And then. For these two months, we're gonna focus in on our social studies. So over time, you're still spending the same amount of time on it. You're still covering everything, but you're more focused instead of just doing them all poorly because you're not organized and you don't have all your materials and you're scattered and you're onto the next subject. So yeah, that's a little tip for someone who. I was trying to do too many subjects at one time. You still cover it, but you're just doing it differently because we're so programmed with what a schedule has to look like.

Timmy Eaton:

Thank you very much. And

Rowan Atkinson:

Even the word schedule can throw you off because kids aren't gonna get their math done in X amount of minutes that you wrote on your day planner. And then it's gonna cause problems. But if they know, okay, I do my math and then I do my English, that's a routine as opposed to those, 15 minute intervals or whatever that, people used to homeschool with and maybe some still do, but something you said. Back a little while ago just s. Stuck with me about having like rules and guidelines and things like that. There are some people though that really do need some kind of guideline. Like they like them.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah, they

Rowan Atkinson:

like the guidelines because that makes them feel secure. It's like having a fence, right? That you know, okay, these are my parameters, this is where I am at. I'm checking the boxes, and there are people that need that. It's not wrong to have to follow something. So I just wanted to say that. I'm can be all over the place, but but some people really do feel more secure when they have that and if that's what they need. It is, it's okay. We're not saying it's, that's not okay.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah, no, I think my wife and I both are systematic, naturally and have routines and stuff like that and not all of our kids are. Into that as much. And so that's where it becomes, can be challenging for homeschool parents because they might be a certain way, or the mom could be a certain way, but not all the kids have the same traits and desires. And so to adjust to that homeschool moms are pretty magical.'cause they have a hard thing to do. And I say homeschool moms. I know there's several homeschool dads that are the principal parent, but not even close to the amount of. Of homeschool moms. It's true.

Rowan Atkinson:

So my mom and I were, are very different. And so I had to learn to be okay with that. So she was, she's very steady and conscientious and she works as an administrator now. And so she makes a routine and then she follows the routine and she follows up and she marks everything and she's. Such a good little girl, and I don't always get around to marking things. I can set up a beautiful plan and then never follow it. I can organize something and then not follow the organizational system that I made I could beat myself up quite a bit about not being as good as my mom at those things. But once I learned that, you know what, this is me and it's okay. And some of my kids are more like me that way too, then you know it's okay. Like we're all different. And I noticed that with my kids too. So my first born, I could just carter around to five Bible studies in a week and she would just fall asleep wherever we were. She was totally fine. But my second child, she needed routine. Like you couldn't mess with nap time. She needed predictability, she needed routine. So I had to change my whole my whole life.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah.

Rowan Atkinson:

To accommodate her. Otherwise she'd be anxious and stressed out. And she is very great routine, even to this day. And she's 28. So yeah, we're all different.

Timmy Eaton:

I wanted to ask you about the title,'cause I feel like it's pretty clear, it says enough already. Real help for homeschool burnout, freak out and zone out. And so creative title what but it's a reality too, and that's why you have it in there. So why that title and obviously you're targeting an audience with saying that because if not checked, if there isn't some I call if there's not time for filling your bucket and some grace. And getting self care there is the real actual reality of burnout and getting anxious about it. So tell us about why you targeted those topics in that audience.

Rowan Atkinson:

Yeah. Obviously I've been through all of those things. Yeah. And I love being real and I love giving permission to talk about how we're really doing and how we're really feeling and not putting on an image and pretending that, everything's peachy keen, but then we're screaming at our kids on the way home. So the burnout is pretty obvious. It's burnout. And so I talk about a lot of reasons why we get burnt out and how to avoid those. And I've gotten burnt out many times in my life just because I do take on too much or life makes me take on too much. And I do have a large capacity, but there are a lot of reasons to get burnt out that you don't have to. So there's that. And then freak out is anger. A lot of parents struggle with anger. Like I didn't know I had anger issues until I was a parent. Maybe other people knew and could have told me, but I didn't know until I was a parent, right? Because there's just so much to parenting and then throw homeschooling into it. Although they're one in the same in many ways. Yes. Homeschooling is just parenting on steroids basically.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. I call it in intentional parenting.

Rowan Atkinson:

But you're there, like you're with them 24 7 too, right? So you can lose your temper and you don't always give space for figuring out why you're yelling at your kids or why you're so mad. And so I unpack some of those things in the book as well to help people just to figure out what it is that is causing them to lose their cool and. Maybe to prevent some of that in the future. It's usually because you're just stressed out. Yeah. That's really the biggest reason. And then and then, and thats the question, perfectionism, why do you

Timmy Eaton:

have, and that's begs the question, what's causing the stress? And I find a lot of times it's it's

Rowan Atkinson:

expectations. Yeah,

Timmy Eaton:

exactly what you said. Expectations. And there's like an incongruency with. Or ill-defined purposes as a family, and you're trying to hold up some standard that you don't even care about, and so it's like that, it's so helpful for families to say, here's what we're really about and what we really care about. And you're gonna be stressed either way, but at least you're being stressed by the things that you definitely care about,

Rowan Atkinson:

and the other thing too, like for my generation, gen X even women who didn't homeschool usually work full time and they were still carrying 80% of the parenting and the household management. Yes. So men weren't helping enough and that can be a cause of stress. I think the millennials do that better actually than the Gen X guys. Sorry guys, but it's not fair. So if your wife is homeschooling, that's a full-time job and then you have a full-time job. She shouldn't be also doing 80% of everything else as well, because there's a big mental load that you're carrying as a homeschooler and you're carrying it as a woman in the home too, it's my husband helps out with cooking sometimes and he'll say, didn't I make a good meal? I'm like, yes, you did. Thank you. But also I. Did the grocery shopping made you sure the food was there. I planned what was gonna be made and then I made sure the meat got t thought out in the morning and then all you did was cook it. So there's a lot of mental work that went on before you even fired the oven up, and and he got it and now he's if I say, thanks, that was a great meal. He's you did half of it by doing all those things. So yeah. Yeah, he's a learning robot. It's great. But yeah, you can be frustrated by that and you can get burnt out one of the talks I do is advice for new homeschooling, working parents. So if you need to work outside the home or inside the home with the home business and you're starting to homeschool, one of the things I advise is to sit down with your partner and be very intentional about the workload. Because you're not just adding another full-time job onto your job and then, it's not fair if one person's doing three jobs and one person's only doing one. So you have to lay out those expectations and make a plan for that, and that will save. And then the zone out is sometimes you're just not mentally there. The kids need to get educated, but maybe you have something else going on in your life. Like we had some things going on in our life that took a lot of our mental capacity. And so you find yourself just going through the motions. And then especially the moms, they feel very guilty about it. I wasn't super present in my homeschool for this period of time. Or maybe you have a health issue. And you're dealing with that and you can't be just all that you want to be for your kids. And they're homeschooling and I just wanted to encourage moms like, it's okay because we went through some times where I could say that there were months that I was checked out and going through the motions because of things that we were going through, but. Our kids were fine. They still aced all their academics later in life.'Cause you bring things on your own shoulders and you say well, I'm, I'm ruining my kids' education. But they're not. You're not. They're learning to learn and and a lot of stuff gets reviewed the following year and if they don't, didn't learn it. A lot of things, it didn't actually matter. It was just someone's idea of what should be in the curriculum for that year. I just wanna encourage people that's okay.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. I echo that. Okay. I echo that. And I think it's important to realize that there's a lot of education that happens in that time that isn't confined within our stereotypical, books and curriculum, but there's education of real life that is perhaps more beneficial to their future and their character development. Whereas. We're all probably concerned about academics. I haven't found many homeschool families that academics is top priority. It, it's a wonderful byproduct when the emphasis is on things of higher priority to those families, which is character and closeness as a family. And I dunno. Agree. So I agree with what you're saying. Yeah, I agree with

Rowan Atkinson:

that. I agree with that and that's why we didn't homeschool for academic reasons, but that just was a great byproduct. But I would say that the statistics are changing. A lot of people are homeschooling for academic reasons now. So yeah, when I was homeschooling, I think it was 89% homeschooled for faith-based reasons. But I would say that's. That number has changed.

Timmy Eaton:

Oh, yeah. With the influx of homeschool families, the range of motivations is yeah. It used to be called it was ideologues and pedagogues, and now it's like all over the spectrum, and yeah. Excellent. That was a really helpful explanation. That was really good. How did you get into writing books and like where did you get the idea, where did you find the time? Like obviously you just expressed that you grew to be comfortable with, there are different seasons and there are different times when you dedicate time to other things and that's pro probably healthy for our children. But tell us about headphone history in this book. Like how did you get into that?

Rowan Atkinson:

Sure. So I actually started making curriculum when I was nine. My baby brother was born and I made him a book out of an old, like 1970s photo album with, his shapes and colors and different fruits and different objects that he would be learning about. And then the following year I played school with my other brother, and I made a full curriculum for the cat and the hat came. Because I had two copies. One was the teacher copy for me and then it was so frustrating for my brother'cause he had to wait two hours to be able to play school because I was making the curriculum first. So that's always been in there. And I used to write stories and my dream was to have a photocopier someday so that I could publish my books or whatever. So it's always been there and it's super fun right now that I get to have that as my full-time job is to. Write books and publish books for people. Headphone history specifically came about, I was in the car listening to the story of the world, which is excellent and uh, love it too. I don't even think the kids were in the car, to be honest. I just like it. And I do have a degree in history, so I like history. I had written that as do I. Oh good. Yeah, I had written a historical fiction novel like through high school, based on my grade eight history project actually from when I was homeschooled, but I'm not publishing that novel. It was just like, I wrote it when I was a kid. But so I guess I've always wanted to be a writer, but headphone history, so I thought, you know what, we need a Canadian one of these story of the worlds. Someone should do that. And then it hit me. Wait, you study history, you could do that.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah.

Rowan Atkinson:

And that was the light bulb moment. And so I started working on it and it took a long time because I was still, I was running another business and I was homeschooling still and. Pastor's wife and leading bible studies and doing all the things. Yes. But eventually, yep, I got it done. And then volume two and now the textbooks, and now I am just polishing off the end of a high school course for Canadian history too. Wow. And I have a geography high school curriculum too.

Timmy Eaton:

And when do you work on that? How do you block the time? Like how do you organize that? If there's somebody wondering and they're going, man, I think I'd like to delve into that. How do you organize yourself to do that?

Rowan Atkinson:

It was a side hustle, so I, I was teaching the kids and working, so it's just whenever I had a chance. You know what I mean? Like just in the evenings or whenever I had a chance. Yeah. But most of my writing though, I've done since I have not been homeschooling since I graduated, but I still had businesses i'm still very busy. It's only in the last couple months that I have sold my sort of full-time business and now I can focus on this. So i'm just in time for grandbaby to arrive and for me to have a flexible schedule. Cool. So I just feel God's grace for me to. For that timing but if you have an idea or a dream, do it. It's okay if it takes a year or two to come to fruition. And then I started a podcast as well. At the time when I started headphone history, I went all in and I wrote enough already. It didn't take me long to write. It came out really fast and it. It's a funny book, which I wasn't expecting, like I didn't set out to make it funny, but I guess my kids' antics are a little funny in hindsight. Yes. Not funny at the time. And so then I started the podcast and now I've had lots of seasons where I've not been recording episodes because the pandemic made me have to lay off all my staff at my business and work every single day myself. And yeah, so I couldn't get any episodes out, but I'm just starting to get back into that once, especially once I get this course. So I promise the course would be ready for September 1st, and so I made a deadline. Yes, I do better with external deadlines. Yeah. Wow. But I encourage anyone, and feel free to email me if you have any specific questions about, how to get started and some ideas or whatever. I'm happy.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah, can you tell everybody how to connect with you and then we will definitely put that in the notes.

Rowan Atkinson:

Sure, no problem. So the email inbox that I'm in the most is info@headphonehistory.com. And so our websites are headphone history.com. We also have Canada homeschools.com, which is the podcast website. And then we have like a big banner website called canadian a.com, which has like children's picture books our publishing that we do for others and. Links to all the other websites.

Timmy Eaton:

Thank you. And I know that you go to Canadian conventions, do you go to other conventions as well? Do you go to the US conventions and

Rowan Atkinson:

I haven't been to any American conventions. My brand is very much about being Canadian. And that was before the recent tariff stuff. It's so fun writing this history course right now because we've been having these tariff issues with the United States for over a hundred years. It is nothing new. So it's neat how when you learn your history gets things into perspective, so I don't feel that my products are that much interest to Americans. If they invited me to come and speak, I would go, But I'm trying to provide resources for Canadian homeschoolers because there was real lack in that department, and I'm trying to fill the holes. The best I can of things that Canadians need that are hard to find because a lot of Canadians use American curriculum, but they don't have the Canadian history and geography to go with it. So my brand is really more about being Canadian, although as a speaker I do speak about a lot of things that could be relevant down there. So yeah, if they asked me to speak, I would come.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah.

Rowan Atkinson:

So if anyone's listening and they're trying to organize a conference, but mostly I am do Canadian, so I do a lot in Ontario. That's where I live. And then I was so excited to come to Alberta, so that's where I met your wife at the table and we got the idea for chatting, which we're doing today. Yeah. And so that was awesome. I just love the Alberta people. And then we went to New Brunswick as well. And then coming up in November, I'm actually gonna be attending a Christian school conference for the Association of Christian Schools International. So I was invited to bring my history stuff there, so I was

Timmy Eaton:

gonna ask you if it lends itself to any educational setting.

Rowan Atkinson:

Yeah, I did design it for teachers and homeschoolers it's mostly for homeschoolers, but I think it's very useful as unit studies because it's a reproducible workbook and, now that I have the textbooks too, they can use my materials for unit studies. So I'm just, actually, I just got my illustrator who was a homeschooled teen by the way, now she's a homeschooled 20 something. Cool. I just got her to colorize all of the line drawings that she had made for headphone history this summer.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah.

Rowan Atkinson:

And now I'm gonna work on making some more color PowerPoint slides for teachers and, I don't know, maybe some timelines and some other more unit study kind of versions. Like I've done the research, I've done the writing, but it needs to be repackaged a little bit for different settings. So that's my project for when I get this course done at the end of the summer. So I have a list. I have a long list.

Timmy Eaton:

It's so fun to hear people get into those interests when they're at a different stage,

Rowan Atkinson:

I didn't have time to write all this curriculum when I was homeschooling them. I don't, there are those who do, and I don't know how they do, but. But then again, my style of homeschooling was probably pretty hardcore compared to how people do it these days. Yeah. It makes me sound old, but I am gonna be a nana, so I guess I can sound old. It's okay.

Timmy Eaton:

And how do you feel, is there what's the sentiment conveyed to your children about the educational path they choose with their children? Like what, how do those conversations go in your guys' home? Is it like you better or It depends on the kid.

Rowan Atkinson:

It depends on the kid because there's something that needs to be said. We think if we put all the right inputs into them and we're diligent and we raise them up in the way of the Lord, they'll all follow the Lord. But that's actually out of our control. If you read Galatians, you can't save someone else and you can't save yourself. No. And you can't save your kids. Either. That's been a journey. So not all of my 20 somethings right now. If you'd to see my kids in high school, they were all serving in the church model. Citizens. We were known as such good parents, everything is great and now they're in their twenties and it's up to them and they're not all making the choices. I would like. Them to make right now. So the conversations can be very different. I remember one of my daughters said to me,'cause she had come with me, she's very business-minded and she had come to help me at a conference it was the RDO conference near Ottawa, I think. And she went to hear the speaker'cause she was a bit bored at the table and she came out and she was like. I'm pretty much gonna have to homeschool'cause I don't like getting up early and getting them all ready for the bus and whatnot. I'm like, Hey, if that's your reason, then good for you. But that's legitimate. So my, yeah, so my son and his wife, they are following Christ closely and and they actually met. A Christian high school. So when my son was going into grade nine and then my third daughter was in grade 12, she wanted to get her official diploma for college and. And it's almost two for one at a Christian high school. There's a great Christian high school near here, and I was on the board while he was there as well. Anyway, so he met his bride there and so they both had a Christian education their whole life, whether it be homeschool or Christian school. And so they, for them, it's no question that they're gonna. Give their kids a Christian education. It's more a question of probably budget for them. But they did say probably they're gonna homeschool. And I'm like I live next door and I know a bit about that, so I could help and I could help.

Timmy Eaton:

Tap into the resource.

Rowan Atkinson:

Yeah.

Timmy Eaton:

And I appreciate what you said, like it really is, it's gonna be each couple, deciding together and what they feel is best for their children. And it, I just hope that those principles are instilled and that that there are options. I just, if there's anything I would want people to know is that there are options. And a lot of people don't know that still and, but more and more people do. And that's such a positive, especially since COVID. And so there's been a, there's been quite an influx.

Rowan Atkinson:

And what I love about your podcast is part of its purpose, as you stated at the beginning, is that, you're, you wanna be there for those who wanna check it out and to Yeah. And to be encouraged that you can do this.'cause I think a lot, I, so many people have said, oh, I could never homeschool, I think all have said that

Timmy Eaton:

you can. Yeah. Yeah.

Rowan Atkinson:

No, there are some of us that are like, oh, I could homeschool Then that's, then you end up freaking out and burning out. Yeah. And out and stuff. And then the Lord humbles you and then you need to lean on his grace. There's more than one type of person in the world.

Timmy Eaton:

Yes, indeed. Yeah. This has been a very enjoyable conversation. I've loved what we've talked about. And hopefully we can make, maybe do this again. I'd love it. I'll give you, I'll give you the last word and anything you wanna say in in in closing here.

Rowan Atkinson:

Yeah. It's hard to wrap everything that's important into a nutshell, isn't it?

Timmy Eaton:

Yes.

Rowan Atkinson:

But I would say that you won't regret, like if you're thinking about homeschooling, your homeschool doesn't have to look like someone else's homeschool, and you can learn as you go, right? You can do it and you'll never regret spending time with your kids, but you might regret not spending time with your kids. I encourage you to do it and there's so much help out there I didn't have too much help, but there's so much getting in a homeschool support group, like a local group, or find a friend who's already doing it, or go online, listen to this podcast. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of support, but also it's overwhelming out there. There's so much support. Just pick a couple of things, right? Get a math, get an English, and then go to the library. Don't overcomplicate it. Don't put too much pressure on yourself. Just your time with your kids reading books, as Timmy said earlier, it's beautiful. So I encourage you, go for it. If you're even thinking about it, probably you should go for it.'cause there are a lot of people not even thinking about it.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah, I agree. Just that they have to. Give it a try. And if you're thinking about it, do it. That's gonna, it's gonna be good. So thank you very much. I appreciate you taking time today and being with me. And and again, it's been a blast. Let's do

Rowan Atkinson:

it again in a while. Yeah.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. I would love to. I would love to. Thanks for taking time. I.

Rowan Atkinson:

Thank you.

Timmy Eaton:

So this was Rowan Atkinson. Everybody, Everybody go check out her newest book. Enough already, real Help for homeschool burnout, freak Out and Zone Out. And then and we'll put all the being able to connect with Rowan in the show notes that you can look her up. So thank you very much.

Rowan Atkinson:

Thank you. I'm here for you.

Timmy Eaton:

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 on Apple Podcast 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.