Did someone say fun quiz recorded at 8am? No-one? :)

Join us as we dive into our personal home education journeys. From fun anecdotes to heartfelt insights, discover how we each navigate the ups and downs of home educating. It's fun, it's candid, it's even sizably controversial ... Enjoy this podcast which gets behind the unique personalities behind the podcast!

while hot spotting off my phone at the moment.

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So Christ knows what this is going to be like.

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But apparently, according to Riverside, my internet and your internet and Charlotte's

internet is irrelevant because it does it on everyone's individual internet.

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Did you hear that?

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So it doesn't matter what your hosting internet is like, because it records it locally,

apparently.

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That's one of the things they market themselves on.

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All right, here we go.

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I mean, that's quite good.

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It is good, I know it's true.

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I do find Riverside a bit funky.

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It took me like five minutes to load up because it's really internet heavy, Riverside.

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Like when I try to make the reels and stuff, it's sometimes I just cannot do it at all.

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I just can't do it because it won't load up.

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You're really blurry.

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I don't know if you...

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Yeah.

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no idea why.

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It's not my webcam.

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My webcam is good because I use it for all my clients.

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I have no idea why I'm blurry.

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It might be the light.

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Is it the light?

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I don't know.

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But it doesn't matter because we're not doing the video anyway, so it makes no difference.

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I should just kind of wave.

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So this is Introduce the Hosts, it?

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Or is it another one?

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Yeah, Introduce it.

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That's right.

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All right, shall I go?

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Yep, go.

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episode...

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Have I got a massive time lag because this is gonna be a bloody laugh if I have.

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Okay, I'm gonna go for it.

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I have.

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OK.

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Hello and welcome to another episode of Home Education Matters.

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And today I am joined by Emily and Charlotte and they are my fabulous new team here at

Home Education Matters.

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And we thought we could do a podcast where, called Meet the Hosts, where you get to find

out a little bit about us and our home education journey, because I don't think I've done

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one.

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In fact, I think I did an introductory podcast right at the very start years ago, but I

don't know how much.

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I think I mainly just talked about what the podcast.

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going to be like.

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So it would be a nice opportunity to get to know us as your hosts on the podcast.

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So I haven't actually told Emily and Charlotte this, but I thought I would do it as a kind

of quiz, kind of quiz.

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I appreciate that it is really early in the morning that we're recording this.

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But I have got some fun questions, fun in that kind of way that parents say to children

when they want them to engage with their maths.

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Let's do fun maths today.

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So we got to...

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fun quiz today.

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Okay, so my first question that we're each going to answer is as a person, so not as a

home educator, as a person, tell our listeners about you as a person in three words.

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I'll go first just to like help out and give you a chance to think.

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My three words are.

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it's lucky get to the pauses this podcast.

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Uh, my three words are chilled.

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Happy.

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slightly weird.

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That's two words, but you know what I mean.

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They come as like a bracket.

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Okay, so cured, happy and slightly weird.

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I'm going for as a person, right?

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Okay, Charlotte, it's your turn.

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Oh God, um I am loud.

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I'm very loud.

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I'm very loud.

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Loud.

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um

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probably quite analytic.

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Like I do analyze everything.

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I know it's my job, but I do, I do, am an analyzer.

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um and

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What's the word when you're like, I'm not chilled because I'm like a puppy, like a bit

blase, like nothing bothers me.

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I don't know what the word is, but like nothing really, I'm not bothered by much.

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It takes quite a lot to.

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Bond.

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You're like super kind of like, you're like um shaken not stirred.

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Yeah, yeah, I just, nothing really irritates me and it's quite funny.

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I probably laugh at people more than I should, but yeah, it's, yeah.

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Is it nonchalant?

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Is that the word?

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No, I don't think it is.

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I don't know what word I'm thinking of.

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I think, and actually that was kind of the vibe I was going for with children.

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So maybe that's a prerequisite to be a home educator is that like you're a bit resilient

to life's like, yeah.

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Okay, Emily, resilient.

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Okay, Emily, your go.

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Tell us about you as a person in three words.

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So the first word that came to me is calm but I just want to caveat that with it's kind of

like a swan calm because my legs are going like that I'm saying like this no one can see

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that but you know my legs are going like the clappers underneath but my exterior is always

calm and collected.

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So calm, quirky and alternative because

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I seem to always be taking the trough less trodden for sure.

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Yeah, I think we're probably all like that.

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think this is the thing.

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I think to work here, that's what you have to be.

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You have to be alternative and you have to be a swan.

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And you have to be a bit weird.

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Yeah.

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all of those words you said, apart from maybe loud, I'm not a very loud person, but apart

from that, like literally all of those words would count for me as well.

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And then I kept thinking you're all just summing up my words much better than me, like

quirky and nonchalant is much better than my words, but mean the same thing, right?

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And actually really like on the top.

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I am loud, like as a person, but if you catch me on a day where I don't really want to

talk in the world, I do not speak at all.

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It's like from one extreme to the other, there's no in between.

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I'm either really loud or just don't engage with anything ever.

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I had the same thing.

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We're in Portugal and we've got a family friend, a friend of my daughter's is here

visiting and he wants to go and see his aunt and uncle who are Portuguese.

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And I said, yes, that'd be lovely.

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We'll take you tomorrow and we'll drop you off and you can spend some time with them.

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And he said, no, they're very nice and they speak English.

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And I said, yes, but I don't really speak human.

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And so I don't really want to be hanging out with people.

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Sometimes I'm just like, yeah.

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I'm all good.

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Like I'm an alien from out from an outer planet.

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Please don't speak to me.

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And actually talking about the swan thing, I applied for a job with House of Fraser, like

years and years and years and years, decades ago.

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And at the interview, they they said, like, tell us about yourself.

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Well, no, tell us why you want to work for House of Fraser.

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And I said it's because I swear this is why I got the job.

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This answer.

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It's because I feel like everybody works here is like a swan where they like

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They look super calm and effortless on the outside, but underneath they're probably

frantically paddling.

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And I swear that's why I got the job.

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There you are.

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It's a good one.

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Okay, my next question.

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Sum up your homemade journey in three sentences.

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I wish everyone could see Emily and Charlotte's faces as I ask these questions.

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It's eight o'clock in the morning and everyone's like, my God.

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Okay, I'll go first again then just to help you all out.

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And I haven't prepared for these.

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I just want to say I thought of the questions but I couldn't bother thinking of the

answers.

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Okay, my homemade journey in three senses.

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It seems a bit harder for me because I'm like pretty much at the end of it.

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I would say it has been really up and down.

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with a lot more, a lot more ups than downs.

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But it's also been quite, there's been, it's involved a lot of sacrifices.

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And I really liked what Hannah said in her podcast a couple of weeks ago about how you

have to sacrifice something when you home educate and she sacrificed her health.

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And I remember thinking, I definitely sacrificed friendships because I moved around a lot

and I didn't get a community.

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And so like personally, that was my sacrifice.

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And so I think it's been very up and down.

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more ups and downs and I think I've sacrificed a lot but I think that the gifts that I got

have made it worth it.

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I feel like that's about three sentences.

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Okay Emily we'll go to you this time.

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Okay, so mine has definitely been so similar, the ups and downs, but I would liken it to a

roller coaster.

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And it definitely feels like that.

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Like sometimes you're, well this is way longer than three sentences, but sometimes you're

going up, up, up, ever so slowly sort of crawling along, limping through, should I say.

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And then other times it's like, whoosh,

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you know, it's exhilaration and everything's happening at once and there's so many amazing

things going on.

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It's definitely a roller coaster and I agree on the sacrifice things as well.

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think it's been uh a journey of choices and I think that's sometimes one of the hardest

parts because there aren't enough people.

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to talk to about those choices without people just saying, put them in school.

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so it can be a lonely journey because you have to often navigate the challenging aspects

alone because you don't want the crappy points of view from other people.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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And actually, I find that that's actually true with other home educators as well, because

I found that a lot of other home educators were quite new to home educating.

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And the last thing I wanted to do was be all kind of negative about home education because

they were just starting.

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So I would end up like.

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curating what I said for them, curating what I said to non-home educators because like you

say, the first thing they're going to be like is like, well, why are you doing it then?

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Put them straight back in school.

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It's really frustrating.

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It's like if you do homeopathy or something, it's like immediately if you say anything,

they're just going to be like, well, why don't you just take aspirin or something?

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So it's, you end up not saying stuff, which is a shame, isn't

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Yeah, think it's, I always liken it to when you breastfeed and you go, my God, and they

go, well, just give them a bottle.

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I just want you to understand that this is hard.

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I don't want you to give me some solution that isn't what I wanna do.

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so again, we talk a lot and there's a lot of stuff out there about how isolating it can be

as a new mother because if you, again, you feel like you can't share.

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you're going through without people just saying well why don't you do this and it's the

same with with home educating for sure and exactly that as well like you don't want to put

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people off it either you don't be like my god it's horrific but um it i think is a

particularly in the uk where we are um you know the the british way of well let's just

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come up with a solution and let's brush over your feelings and not

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sort of honour what you're going through, let's say, stiff up a lip, let's smile through

it, makes it really hard because sometimes you just want to share and say, this is really

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hard and someone just go, yeah, I bet it is, or yeah, I can completely relate.

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No solutions, no need for anything but just that space to go, ugh.

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until you get through it and go, yeah.

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Because it is, it is good.

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And like you said, the ups have definitely outweighed the downs.

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And I wouldn't say that any of my friends' family who have done things traditionally in

the school way have had any fewer downs than I've had in a home education journey.

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causing because I've got internet issues.

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Absolutely.

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I think that that kind of sense of isolation can hit you at times.

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And then it's difficult, like you say, when if you share it with somebody, their instinct

is to kind of inadvertently solve problem by saying, put them back in school.

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OK, Charlotte, sum up your home education journey in three sentences for us.

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Either either I have been very lucky so far or I haven't hit my peak yet that used to a

talking about I'm sitting here listening thinking oh god why haven't I had any of these

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low bits what's happening?

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However you you two both home educated from the start right?

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Yeah whereas I didn't my kids were in school so I think my my sacrifice was obviously

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giving up my free time and taking them out of school, fine.

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Not that I ever really had much free time because I've always worked and had a baby or

whatever.

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But I struggled when they were in school.

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I really, I hated it and I couldn't cope.

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And the same concept of what you're talking about of like, you know, everyone just goes,

well, why don't you blah, blah.

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I couldn't cope with the fact that I was talking about these problems that I was having

with them being at school and everyone was going to me, well yeah, you know, that's just

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them being at school.

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And I used be like, I don't want them at school, I want them at home, I don't like this,

like this is not, I don't like it, it's not okay, like I don't get it, I don't understand

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why I can't see my child for six hours and that's just supposed to be normal.

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And I'm supposed to just, you know, they come out with these problems and I'm supposed to

just go, yeah, well, you know.

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Because I don't know what's happened.

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I'm not there.

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I can't see it.

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I can't navigate it.

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I can't help because I'm blindsided.

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don't have a clue what's going on.

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So I think for me, pulling them out and my life since I've pulled them out, yes, I'm not

by any means saying it's been a smooth sailing ride of easiness.

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It's been busy and hectic and I've been jam packed and I don't stop and I'm doing 12, 13

days.

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But I seem to have...

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It's quite funny.

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Everyone sort of makes a joke around here, like where we are, because I've gone from being

the one that didn't have any children home ed.

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All of my kids were at school, albeit my third one was only in school for six weeks.

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So that was sort of when it started.

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since then, I'm now like the local home ed guru and everyone tags me on Facebook.

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Like if any questions get asked, it's just my name that gets tagged.

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And I'm like,

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Why?

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Why am I this person?

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uh But obviously because I'm the groups and I'm doing this and I'm, you know, I have all

these different outlets of things that I'm doing because I do trips and groups and clubs

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and blah, blah, blah.

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And yeah, now I've sort of become become the local home-ed crazy woman and I don't really

know how I've fallen into it, but I'm rolling with it and I love it.

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It's great.

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But yeah, mine has been an, it's been a bit like the Big Bang.

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I suppose.

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Like all of a sudden it was just bang, whole life changed.

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This is now your new life.

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And em yeah, now we're doing this.

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And it's been okay.

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It's been a lot better.

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I think me personally, I struggled more with them at school than I do now, which is good

for me because it means that I've done the right thing, right?

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Yeah, absolutely.

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It's interesting you say that about the difference between taking them out of school and

just sort of like organically home educating from the start, because I can see that it

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would feel much more like a big bang.

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Whereas I think for Emily and I, it was probably more of a kind of slow drip, drip kind of

change.

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OK, so next question.

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This is a nice short one.

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If your philosophy of education, so your approach to home education, your philosophy of

education, whatever, was a book title.

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what would the book title be?

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I appreciate this is a crazy question and I genuinely don't know how I'm going to answer

it but I'm going to attempt again to go first to give you both time to think.

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So if your philosophy of education was a book title what would it be?

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I think mine would be I think mine would be quite like a kind of textbook-y thing so

nothing too catchy.

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It would be

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Finding autonomy within structure.

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That would be my philosophy of education book title.

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Finding autonomy within structure.

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OK, Charlotte, tell me your book title if you were writing a book about your philosophy of

education.

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If I swear, can you beat me out?

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uh Mine literally would be fuck around and find out.

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That would be, that would be, I have nothing else.

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That's it.

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That's all I have.

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have that.

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That's it.

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F around and find out.

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Because I, yeah, that's,

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kind of book you get on Amazon shelves, like a Waterston shelves at Christmas.

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And then I used to have to try to hide it from the children when they start being able to

read.

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OK, I would hide your book, Charlotte, from the children.

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OK, Emily, tell us your book title.

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Well, the first thing that came to my mind was just winging it.

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Yeah, yeah.

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uh

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I think if I think about it a little bit deeper, em I feel like that's what I'm doing most

of the time.

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I would probably...

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follow my lead um because...

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I feel, one of my philosophies for home educating is to lead by example with my girls and

I think that a lot of my home education journey has been my own journey and my own finding

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of myself and within that creating, can you hear them in the background?

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Yeah, it's cute though.

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It's fine.

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Yeah.

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Alright.

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Being that example and realising how much, when I take the time to sit down and read, how

much my children also then take the time to sit down and read.

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And if I'm listening to podcasts, they're then listening to those as well and then

discovering things through me and stuff.

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So follow my lead, I think would be.

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after winging it, which is essentially what I am doing really.

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So it would be like winging it and then subtitle, follow my lead.

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I like that.

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It's very nice.

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My next question is, what is your, this is a nice easy one, what is your favourite thing

about home educating?

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So I actually don't even think I need to give either of you a run up, so I'll go last on

this one and Emily can go first.

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So what is your favourite thing Emily about home educating?

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I'm gonna say the freedom.

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think just knowing that I can and my girls can be and do anything.

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I just love that.

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I love the freedom of it.

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I love not being constrained by anything.

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I mean I create my own constraints within it often and feel sometimes like, I can't.

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do anything but I think it's the freedom and the freedom of being able to choose what to

learn and when and particularly when you're neurodivergent I think that freedom to absorb

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everything all in one go when you want to and then absorb nothing when you're feeling

overstimulated is amazing not having to fit into rhythms that are

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bestowed on us by various institutions.

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Yeah, freedom.

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I like that.

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Is it just me or is Emily's video paused?

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Is that just me, Charlotte?

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Emily's paused and Eleanor is fuzzy.

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See now you're not fuzzy to me now, but that might be my internet which has been dipping

in and out recently.

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That's all right, that's no worries.

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I can hear you fine as well.

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And if it helps you pause, you haven't paused on a terrible photo.

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It's not like you're like, I don't know, drooling and like head off to the side or

something.

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So you're good.

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Okay, Charlotte, tell us, Charlotte, tell us about your favorite thing about home

education.

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I will try and say this without crying.

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It's been very emotional this week and I've had a few tears.

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My son who I...

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No, look, I'm going already.

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My son who I've not long pulled out of school, he's 14.

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He...

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Oh, no, don't cry.

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That's silly.

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He is autistic and he struggled so much throughout school.

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And how he was as a kid at home, me watching him just deteriorate and just be, you know,

like half of the person that he was in the holidays was a real struggle.

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And it was obviously people were listening to this and thinking, well, why did you have

him in school for so long then?

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He wanted to be in school and it was, you know, he struggled with the not having the

routine and all of that.

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because of him being autistic.

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he always wanted to stay in school.

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If I knew what I knew now, I probably never would have sent him to school, obviously, but

I was 16 when I had him and I didn't know any different by the time I was 20.

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So, you know, it was what it was.

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But he's been out now since September and he is like, he's like a different kid.

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He's amazing and his personality has come through and he's...

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He's just really kind and like, he never spoke to anyone.

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Like he couldn't speak in He wouldn't speak to adults or he'd hide behind me or he'd like,

you know, he'd go quiet or he wouldn't want to come.

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And we went to forest school on Wednesday and he come with me and he was talking to this

lady that he's never met before.

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And I just sat watching him like, my God, you're speaking.

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And it was just, it was so nice.

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I've got two neurodivergent kids and I think.

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The best bit for me is watching them not be, you know, indoctrinated and penalised by a

system that wasn't made for them and just watching them come out of their shell and be

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better people.

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That's my favourite bit, sorry.

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I'll stop crying now.

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You don't have to stop crying.

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You can keep crying, it's all good.

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eh That is very beautiful.

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How about I lighten the load a little bit then and say that my favourite thing about home

educating is being able to go away on holiday without having to pay loads and loads of

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money.

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That is like super superficial.

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one?

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and go to places when they're not busy.

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I've been to zoos and things and had them to ourselves.

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Yeah.

336

that's true.

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I've been to museums and places around the world like the Uffizi and things and like you

just walk around, there's nobody there.

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It's so nice.

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Okay, so in actual fact, realistically, if I was going to say my favourite thing about

home educating, rather than the fact that it's a beautiful lifestyle choice, would be the

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relationship that you get with your child, which I think is just, there's something unique

about that, because you spent all your time and you wear so many different roles with

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them.

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And you see so many different

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you're there for so many different elements of their life.

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think that is beautiful.

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And their relationship with each other as siblings actually is as well, it's super special

for me.

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Okay, so now we're going to go for obviously, what is your least favorite thing about home

educating or your like biggest bugbear or the thing you find most challenging or whatever?

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What is your least favorite thing?

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I'll let Charlotte recover for a little bit.

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So I'll go and I will say my least favorite thing about home educating.

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this is super controversial.

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is other home educators.

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This is so bad.

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But I think it's not just like generally, but you know when you're trying to arrange

something, home educators are a bit like cats, like herding cats.

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It is so difficult to arrange things or to like have meetups and then you try to arrange

it and everybody says they're coming and then like nobody turns up or they all cancel last

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minute or...

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they turn up with like 50 more children than you think they're turning up with.

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So I think for me, I, I, home educators are, cause I'm a very, I like things done just the

right way.

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And I like everything to be super organized and I like everything that planned out in

advance.

359

And home educators generally are not like that.

360

And I find that quite challenging.

361

to interact with these people who are super free and easy and I'm like, no, I said 11

o'clock and all these people and now there's nobody here and it's 11.15 and I don't know

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what to do.

363

So that is my least favourite thing about home education.

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Okay, Charlotte, go for it.

365

Yeah, the same, the same, but not the same.

366

I think as a, obviously for a live in, do therapy, psychology, coaching type job and the

parenting of some home educators, I can't, I do, I watch and I'm like, ah, and my whole

367

body like cringes because I can't, I struggle with.

368

I understand what we're all doing and I understand that we're all being, you know, we have

the freedom and we have the autonomy and that's why we're choosing this journey.

369

But it's really hard for me as a professional head looking at these situations with

parenting and this is so controversial, I'm gonna get hate everywhere for this.

370

At this point, I don't actually mind, it's fine.

371

I'll say it and be the bad one, it's fine.

372

I'll be the Home Education Matters podcast baddie.

373

It's fine by me.

374

Yeah.

375

probably, I think we're both cancelled.

376

We're cancelled, that's it.

377

It's the really fluffy, know, over the top parenting where we're just letting these kids

just do whatever they want.

378

And I've multiple groups and I've been on, you know, run multiple trips and I've seen it a

lot.

379

I do see it in work sometimes as well, but it's just this idea of just letting your kids

do whatever it is that they want to do.

380

and not really be in any real punishments or consequences, not punishments, because I

don't do punishments, but know, consequences or boundaries or anything.

381

And you just have these kids that are just unruly and they're just wild.

382

And then the parents are just going, oh, yes, they chose to do it.

383

And I'm like, ah, okay.

384

I'm like, yeah, that's fine.

385

oh Yeah, that's quite, it's the different types of parenting, because it seems my area, I

don't know about about your two, but my area, we either have.

386

parents that are still quite strict and like, you know, they're very structured and, and,

know, in line and blah, blah.

387

And then you have these very, very fluffy boundaryless parents and there's sort of like,

you get half and half and it's almost like Clash of the Titans in the groups of just the

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kids that have got that parent into the kids that have got that.

389

it's, yeah, it's a, it's definitely a struggle, but I've, I've found my tribe now and

we're all, we're all pretty, pretty head.

390

But it's, and with that style of pair, feel like, I feel like the world, maybe society, I

feel like the world has the view that all of us home educators parent like that.

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And I feel like we kind of get judged when you tell someone that isn't home ed, that

you're home ed.

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I feel like they instantly think that you're this, you know, super fluff boundaryless

parent and your kids are just, you know, allowed to wander the forest for three hours in

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the.

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night time by themselves because that's what they want to do.

395

eh But yeah, it's the judgment of the parenting I think is probably the bit that I

struggle with the most.

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my daughter, she went on a bit of a rant yesterday for some reason about she watches, I

don't know, I didn't even know she watched homeschooling stuff, but she watches kind of

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American kind of homeschooling stuff.

398

And she went on this huge rant about how people think that home education is unschooling

and how unschooling is actually just a form of home education and it's not all home

399

educators and it's just like a version of it.

400

And she went on this huge rant.

401

I was like, this is very cool.

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ideological rant about home education.

403

Okay, Emily, hear you, by the way, hear, I 100 % hear you Charlotte, 100%.

404

Okay, Emily, you're go, tell us your least favorite thing or the most challenging thing or

your kind of bugbear about home education.

405

So mine is the over stimulation and I think there's two aspects of that.

406

There's the aspect of that at home where, you know, the intensity of being with your

children 24 seven and the noise that comes with that at times.

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and they look up to you and just lick your arm or something.

408

You're like, why?

409

Why?

410

Yeah, from 5am.

411

minute that you are trying to get them to do something, they've got a million and one

things that are really important to them that they want to do on their own.

412

And when you want them to get on with something, they immediately can't do anything and

need you to.

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do everything for them.

414

So that aspect of the over stimulation where you know what I really need is a soundproof

room to go lock myself in sometimes.

415

But also just following on from what Charlotte said, the over stimulation when you're out

at groups and things where I really relate to what you're saying and the aspect of people

416

seeming to want to, parents wanting to get together.

417

to socialise themselves and ignore their children.

418

that also I see these people, I'm really sorry about the noise in the background, my

kittens are going absolutely wild.

419

It's that time in the morning.

420

So that aspect of people set up hundreds of things and join everything, but you go to

these groups and they say, you're

421

we're gonna be doing this and we're gonna be doing that and then there's a few worksheets

spread over some tables and a load of kids going wild and parents sitting drinking coffee

422

that really yeah and I just come away completely overstimulated by the noise my girls are

completely overstimulated and we've not had any you know done anything so yeah

423

overstimulation in general across the board my least favorite

424

part of home educating.

425

Yeah, I think you've both touched on a really similar experience as well, where you go to

meetups and it's like, and it echoes something that Hannah said in the podcast I did with

426

her, where it's like people are justifying bad parenting by claiming that it's a kind of

like uh an approach.

427

So they're like, oh no, but I want to allow her to have full autonomy.

428

And also that conveniently allows me not to bother having to do anything and to be able to

have my cup of coffee and not intervene in any way.

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And it's like, well, isn't that very convenient?

430

Because I'm now having to intervene on your behalf.

431

OK, so my next one is, what is your funniest moment or your biggest fail so far in your

home education journey?

432

Okay, I'm going to go for you, Charlotte.

433

Come on.

434

What is your funniest moment or your biggest fail so far?

435

em I think em my children have sort of adapted to this, probably obviously all my fault, m

being around me who is very unfiltered, shall we say.

436

They have developed this, just they say whatever it is that they think and...

437

We have had a lot of, you know, public conversations where it's like, Oh, should you not

be at school or that, that one, whatever.

438

And my six year old literally goes, nah, cause school's rubbish and I hate it.

439

And I'm like, Oh no.

440

Um, so yeah, I think my, my parenting fair was probably being a little bit too nonchalant

in the, front of the kids and saying a little bit too much maybe.

441

And they have no, they now in, in

442

light of that have no filter themselves which is fine actually because I don't really want

them to be filtered otherwise I'd send them to school but it yeah it's it's one of those

443

ones where you want the ground to swallow you because they've said something that is um a

little bit it's a bit too early for that hun let's um let's not say that shall we let's uh

444

save that for another day yeah that the the unfiltered children

445

like that.

446

Okay Emily tell us your funniest moment or your biggest failure so far.

447

Funniest moment of a kiss failure.

448

um

449

So.

450

My biggest failure, I think, is...

451

trying to push.

452

reading and writing.

453

So my eldest just...

454

kicked up a book and read it, like, from really, really young she could read and I never

had to do anything, she just did it.

455

Slightly more reluctant with writing, but she just could do it.

456

And then with my second, I was like, my god, I've got to actually do some kind of teaching

reading and because she wasn't reading at the age, my eldest was, I was like, my god, I'm

457

really behind and I really pushed and we had these awful battles.

458

And when I suddenly went, hold on a minute, what am I doing?

459

don't need, no one's telling me that she needs to be reading.

460

I've got no precious here other than myself.

461

And I completely backed off.

462

She did it at her own pace and she just went from one day really struggling with it to

just reading full sentences when she was ready.

463

And that was both my biggest fail.

464

And probably one of my biggest learning opportunities, the best thing I've learned is

that, and it happens every time, every time I take my foot off the pedal with things, they

465

take huge leaps forward.

466

And yeah, so I think...

467

Yeah, just kind of putting too much pressure on myself and getting into those battles

because I'm trying to replicate.

468

learning and I'm comparing you know my nieces and nephews being able to write in beautiful

cursive writing at a young age or spell things that my girls can't spell.

469

Yeah that comparisonitis that's my my biggest failure I get sucked into that over and over

again and all it creates is stress for all of us when actually

470

they're ahead in inverted commas, ahead in some things and in inverted commas behind in

others.

471

They are them and they are where they are and they're learning all the time and I need to

chill out.

472

Yeah.

473

Yes.

474

I feel like that answer glides me beautifully into my next question, but I'm aware that I

haven't given you my funniest moment slash biggest fail.

475

My biggest fail definitely was I put my son definitely in for a couple of the wrong GCSEs.

476

Not meaningfully, I didn't actually literally send him to the exam center for the wrong

ones.

477

I just chose the wrong ones and looking back, I'm like, I should not have chosen that

history syllabus, should not have chosen that English syllabus, but you live and learn,

478

right?

479

My funniest moment was my children watched The Great Escape when they were about seven and

eight.

480

And for about four years, their favorite role playing thing to do outside was to play

German Nazi officers and Jewish prisoners of war.

481

so wherever we were in public, they would go around going, come on, Jewish scum.

482

Like all this kind of outrageous stuff and like all the looks we got.

483

people all the time and I was like, please don't do this in public parks because it is

like outrageous and people think you're like anti-Semitic and I have to keep explaining

484

that you're role playing the great escape.

485

So that was my funniest period of my home education journey and most cringe worthy period

as well.

486

Okay, so my next question then, and because Charlotte has to go soon, we need to keep this

one succinct.

487

My next question is, what is your top piece of advice?

488

for our home education listeners.

489

Emily, I'm going to come to you because my guess is that in one line, my guess is that

your top piece of advice is not to compare yourself to other people's journeys.

490

But I'm just guessing it may be something else.

491

So tell us your top piece of advice for home educating listeners.

492

Yeah, stop trying and chill out.

493

Basically.

494

All right, nice and quick.

495

I love that.

496

Stop trying and chill out.

497

OK, um Charlotte, let's see if you can do it equally successfully.

498

Mine is to trust your, I want to say motherly instincts but I know that there's dads too,

but trust your instincts, your parenting instincts with your, actually no not parenting

499

because parenting has been changed, your biological instincts inside you that you have to

look after these children, you know what you're doing, like just trust yourself a little

500

bit more.

501

and stop listening to what goes on in the background of school and newspapers and Facebook

and da da.

502

And just think about what you know your children need because I guarantee you they'll be

way better off if you, not everyone maybe, but most people, you will get it right if you

503

just do what you know as their parent.

504

You know more than anyone else.

505

So trust yourself, you know more than anyone else.

506

That's my sentence.

507

nice.

508

like that.

509

My top piece of advice, kind of similar, would be that it's not a race.

510

It's not a rush.

511

your child is going to learn to read.

512

Your child is going to vaguely remember some of the times tables.

513

Your child is not going to end up, like, don't even know, like, unemployable for the rest

of their life.

514

It's OK.

515

Like, take some of the pressure off.

516

take some of the kind of frantic rush off and just enjoy the process.

517

Okay, my last question, and this is like a really slightly crazy one to end with, and the

hardest, I think.

518

What would your home Ed gravestone say?

519

Mohammed crazy

520

She tried.

521

I like that, Emily.

522

I like that.

523

She tried.

524

Okay, Charlotte, what would your homemade gravestones say?

525

I want the same as my book.

526

I want F around and find out.

527

I want that.

528

I want that written on it.

529

That's what happened.

530

I did that and this is what happened.

531

uh Yeah, I found out what happened.

532

This.

533

you

534

gonna go for...

535

it is really too early for this.

536

I'm gonna go for a line that my ex-husband used to say which always used to both amuse me

and annoy me at the same time.

537

He used to say, looks like you haven't completely ruined the children then and I would

really like that on my grey sign.

538

Looks like I didn't completely ruin the children then.

539

I would have that on my gravestone.

540

Although I kind of dislike having my ex-husband's words on my gravestone, so maybe I

should think of something else.

541

But for now, at eight o'clock in the morning, that's all I can think of.

542

So that's going to have to be it.

543

Okay.

544

Yeah, we'll reprise

545

Yeah, when I change my surname, I'll change my gravestone.

546

Okay, so Charlotte and Emily, thank you so much for joining me on this slightly crazy, um

manic induced early morning podcast where I threw fun quiz questions at you.

547

So thank you for being game and answering my questions.

548

And I hope everyone listening has found out a little bit more about us, or maybe now is

just even more confused than they were 40 minutes ago, which is a strong possibility.

549

And um let us know in the comments, what kind of podcast episodes you like, because we put

out like all sorts of different podcast episodes.

550

We put out subject deep dives all about kind of geography syllabus.

551

We put out ones where we chat about home education and myths and.

552

controversies, and we put out ones where we um interview other home educators about their

success stories.

553

We put out ones where we talk about different approaches to home education, like so many

different types.

554

And we've actually got playlists, which you can probably access when you come onto the

podcast with all these different kind of routes, like the American qualifications route

555

and things like that.

556

Let us know in the comments or getting in touch with the podcast and let us know what kind

of content you like from us, what kind of episodes you enjoy, and we will endeavor to do

557

more of those.

558

If you find this kind of podcast where we like natter around and have a laugh really

annoying, tell us.

559

Tell us so we won't do so much of it.

560

Or if you think it's like the best fun way to start your day, great.

561

That would be good too.

562

So let us know in the comments or get in touch with the podcast or you can join our

Facebook group and do follow us on Instagram.

563

We are new on Instagram and it's lonely out there in the Instagram world.

564

So, and TikTok, we're on TikTok.

565

Yeah.

566

And we're very new on TikTok.

567

And as we all know, TikTok is the wild west of social media.

568

So come and hold our hand through that.

569

So come and join us in our various social media outlets.

570

And thank you very much for coming on the podcast today, Sharla and Emily.

571

Thank you.

572

Thank you for having me!

573

Okay, I'm going to stop recording.