A PATH TO HOMESCHOOL SUCCESS

EPISODE 167 | As parents guide their children through the enriching experience of homeschooling, they open doors to a myriad of possibilities beyond the traditional classroom setting. Nurturing a personalized and flexible educational approach, homeschooling empowers parents to support their children's unique learning styles and interests. The successes that emerge from this journey are a testament to the unwavering dedication of parents who actively engage in their children's education. The guiding influence of dedicated parents continues to be a driving force, enabling their children to thrive in higher education, pursue entrepreneurial ventures, or seamlessly integrate into the workforce. Join Janna and her guest Jennifer Willis in part two of Homeschool Success and hear how Jennifer has taken charge of guiding her children into into the educational avenue that suits them the best.

ABOUT OUR GUEST | Jennifer Willis has found enduring joy in a marriage that spans over three decades, cherishing the bond with her best friend and perfect match, John. Jennifer's greatest pride and source of fulfillment, however, lies in her role as the mother of 11 remarkable children. She has embraced the challenges and joys of parenting with grace and enthusiasm. Jennifer's legacy extends beyond her marriage and motherhood, reflecting a life dedicated to love, family, and the meaningful pursuit of raising a future generation grounded in shared values and enduring bonds.

Janna  00:00: Welcome to Homeschool Your Way. I'm your host Janna Koch and BookSharks’ Community Manager. This episode is part two of Homeschool Success. Last week we heard from Jaylee Willis. And this week we get the pleasure of hearing from her mom, Julie was insistent that we bring her mom on so that she could share her part of her journey, which helped lead Jaylee to her success. So I'm super excited to introduce Jennifer Willis. Jennifer, thanks so much for being here.

Jennifer  00:26: Thank you for having me.

Janna  00:28: I would love for you just to give a simple introduction of who you are, and how long you've been homeschooling.

Jennifer  00:36: Well, I have 11 children and six grandchildren, my oldest is 30, whom you met Jaylee, and my youngest is 10. And I guess I've been homeschooling for 30 years. I got my degree in Elementary Ed. And so that was kind of my interest. When I was going through college. I only taught for one year before I started having children at American Heritage down in Pleasant Grove. And, you know, that was a good experience, but my teaching and stuff like that that's been through children,

Janna  01:16: And so you came out of a public education mindset. Did you always have your eyes set on homeschooling? Or was that something that was around you in your community? Or was that something that you kind of pioneered in your area?

Jennifer  01:31: Well, you know, my dad, he was one that kind of challenged the paradigm. And I think homeschoolers are that lot, that they don't just go with what they always did. And he did it in the health field. And he changed his eating habits, he got rid of an incurable disease, and his was more of a health journey. But then also on my mom's side, my uncle, he was in the John Birch Society. And there was also the proper role of government and all of that, that was being my family. So my older brothers and sisters and the six out of seven children. So some of them had experimented a little bit. Homeschooling wasn't new when I started, but it was, it wasn't as accepted as it is now. Like almost, there are a lot of homeschoolers right now. And so I just have a little bit different view of homeschooling. And I don't think it is that I'm doing it at home. It's like, if it's the I'm in charge, and my husband and I are in charge, we're responsible for our children's education, any more than I would take them to church, and think a church is going to be responsible for teaching them about God. I'm responsible for that. And so I've done everything my homeschooling has included, like private schooling, homeschooling, like at-home charter schooling, I started to help start a charter school in our area, different online programs, it's included everything. And so whether my children are attending a public school or private school, or I have them at home, I call all that homeschooling, because I was the one mostly me, my husband, too, but mostly me, was the one that made those decisions for the children. And so I don't know, that's, I just thought parents should be responsible, like, that's my number one. Responsibility, and is being a mom, and making sure that those children are taught and they get everything they need. And so I just took that seriously.

Janna  03:51: What it sounds like your family made learning a lifestyle, even in your statement that you were responsible, regardless of the choice, or how you chose to educate at the time. It's a it's a way of life, it isn't compartmentalized, where you go here, and I'm just going to let you learn what they tell you. And then, you know, or I'm going to teach this particular thing at home. It was all-encompassing for you guys. And I think that is part of the homeschool journey. The education journey for all of us is making decisions that are based on learning and love to learn not just being educated with information.

Jennifer  04:30: Yes, and I'll just give a little story to illustrate that because I love stories is, oh, let's see here would be my number two son. So number six, like right in the middle. And it was a year and the kids were like, we really want to go to public school. We really want to go to public school. I'm like, Okay, you guys. I mean, it's your education. We made that decision together. And so I enrolled them in public school, and about the middle of the second trimester. He comes home. And he's like, No, I think it was like two weeks away from the end. He's like, this is the biggest waste of time. I am not going back. This is a kid who had begged me to put them in. And like, I don't know, if you guys are gonna like it, I don't know, if you're gonna do well there. I don't know if it's gonna be really for you. I wasn't pushing him to go in, but they wanted to do it. I'm like, Well if you want to have the experience, that's part of schooling. And so it comes in and says, that's just the biggest waste of time, I'm not going back as a freshman. And I'm like, Well, maybe it's like two weeks and a trimester, like, don't you think maybe you should finish? So no, I'm not going back and you got to know the kid, he's just not gonna go back. And so I'm like, Okay, I'll call the counselor. And we unenrolled him. And he never went back. Instead, he went on, he went and did an apprenticeship for foundations, work worked with the Khan Creek contractor. By the time he was 18, had a fully functional business of his own, where he was top, one of the top contractors in the area for doing foundations. And so, you know, he's not like Jaylee, where Jaylee is, you know, a professor, but yet he chose what he wanted to do. Instead of using his high school years, to maybe do all the bookwork that some of the other kids might have done, he went to trade school, and he chose it. And that's hard work, lifting forms, and putting in the concrete and all that that's hard work. But that's, I mean, I can tell stories like that, for every one of my children, they are all so different. And they've had so many different outcomes. But they're all successful in what they choose to do. 

So I just kind of helped them decide what they wanted. And more lead, which you say, guided them, found out what they were interested in and guided them rather than directed them. And they all have, you know, one's an artist, once an electrician, one's super into health and nutrition. I mean, they're just all so different, yet, fabulous. And that's been fun being a mechanic, I mean, and even the boys, I mean, I don't have one boy that's graduated from high school. I'm all of my boys. And all of them are providing very well for their families. Because they're entrepreneurs, they have their own business, like they're in the construction industry. And they do really well. And so it doesn't have to look like a certain mold. Jaylee was our oldest, and she graduated high school. Think like a 4.0 or something like that at age 20. No college 820. graduated high school, I think the 16 or so I don't know, Jamie could have, she might have told you. But they're just really different. And so I used schooling says like, Well, what do you want to do you need to be doing something. What do you want to do, and then help them do that? Well, I think that's the beauty of homeschooling. And it might include putting them in a correspondence course. Or it might include putting them in a public school, or it might include early enrollment in college, or in a trade school, or whatever it might be, but it might not, and not having an idea, like, oh, they just need to go through this mold. They get to help choose the mold that they want to be here. And so I've got 11 children with 11 outcomes, and I'm not disappointed with one of them.

Janna  08:44: That isn't, it's amazing. And I'm so glad that you brought that up about success because it doesn't have to look a certain way success doesn't mean you graduated a homeschooler. And they graduated college success is like you said you have children who are successful in the areas that they chose to excel in. And I think one of the biggest differences I've seen is that school dictates correct some school curriculums, most brick and mortar dictate a certain path, and they're getting a little bit better. They're now opening up the doors for some trades, but they're still saying you have to have this. And sometimes kids will say if I have to have that, then I'm not going to do it. But as homeschool families, we can say okay, maybe you don't have to have that maybe we can work around that. Because we see their passion. We see that we want to guide them down a path of success of their choosing. And I think it's so much more prevalent in homeschool families because of the flexibility in those choices. I know a lot of adult friends that I have. I say what did you learn in high school and they're like, I have no idea. I have no idea what I learned in high school. And my husband is a product of public schooling. And he's he that's his age. Sir, he took Spanish, he doesn't really know how to speak Spanish, he did all these things that he totally had to do, and yet, really did not love education. He didn't love learning. Whereas I'm the opposite. I was homeschooled. And then I did go into a trade school. And when I graduated from Beauty school, I decided to go to college. But I made more money if you depending on how you choose to measure success, right? I mean, I was able to support myself doing the trade school. But like, generally, I love the collegiate atmosphere. And so I really wanted to keep going. But for parents who, maybe you're listening to this, and they're just starting out on their journey, and they really are getting caught up in the I have to, or there needs to be or they're getting pressure from the outside of because it's not looking traditional. Did you have any of that as you were going through the journey with your kids?

Jennifer  10:54: Yeah, one of the questions you asked, that you sent me was like, what would you do differently with homeschooling? And I thought the one thing I would do differently is I would just relax a little bit more, I'm relaxed. Now. You know, I've been doing this for 30 years, I've seen the results. And on a daily, she was my most eclectic child, I tried everything out on her number one child, and I'm just like, Okay, I'll try this. And I'll try this not try this. And like, she's still turned out great. Even with all of my craziness. And so I think with homeschooling, sometimes you're like, we want to compare to someone that, Oh, that one's doing so great there. And that one's doing so great there. And that one's doing so great there. And it's like, Don't compare yourself, or your children to anybody else. And don't have these expectations that it needs to look a certain way. Because that is the biggest hindrance, like, follow what lights up for you, if something lights up for you, and Leisa for your children, like do that. Like there's like a million things you can learn there's not one right thing to learn. There's not one right program, there's not one right way to do it, and it's just to have fun and joy. And, like explore with your children and don't judge yourself like relax, it's going to turn out just fine. You do your best. And sometimes your best doesn't look very good to you or anybody else. But it's your best consideration. I mean, like sometimes I was I have 11 children, I got deathly ill with every single one of them. So you can imagine how many times I was laying in bed, I couldn't even lift my head up. Right. And so it's like, sometimes my best was not, not a lot. But I did my best with my circumstances. Loving my children, loving learning, and decided we were going to do this and just kept going. And you know, sometimes it's like everyone's back in school for a little while Mama's, and sometimes they're not. And it's back and forth. And some kids are and some kids aren't. And I have some kids homeschooling and some are going to the regular school like it's crazy. Never was the same thing twice. But just parents. It's okay. Like, do your best. Follow your children come from you. And they are part of you, and you'll know exactly how to help them. And it's not gonna look like everybody else. So don't use that to compare, uh, you'll just spend too much time being down and beating yourself up and your house is a mess and doesn't look like you got anything done that day. And it's just crazy. And it's like it was okay, that's just normal. Because you'll get you'll get it figured out if you just keep going. And I wish I could have had that from the beginning. So I didn't stress but it's okay, I got it eventually.

Janna  13:59: Hindsight is 2020 Right? Like I'm I was homeschooled. I am homeschooling my youngest still part-time. And still in my eighth year, I still struggle with those feelings of not doing enough. She isn't doing what she's supposed to. People might judge me for the choices I'm making of how I'm letting her dictate like she is in an arts program. So she's doing theater and music and some sometimes we don't get much academics done that week. And I think, well, it's okay. She's she's happy and she's exploring something that she loves. And that science will always be there. I just, but had I had you and I've been talking seven years ago when I first started, I would have been like, Nope, we get our work done. We're not going to be those people. You're not going to be you know, the ones that don't follow the plan that that you know, aren't going to get done every year. And I think that some of that does just come with experience. Like you said if you could tell your young herself like, just relax. But I feel like if we just keep telling parents if we just keep letting sharing our experiences and going, it's okay, I never graded my twins writing. I never wanted to discourage them from writing. I figured if they needed to go into technical writing, somebody else was going to let them know what they were doing wrong. And it would be a quick course correction. And they went into college English as freshmen in high school and, and it wasn't because they're, you know, have they're super smart, their average kids, but they love to learn. And when they found out they that they needed to do something differently. It wasn't devastating to them. They were like, Oh, I just did that wrong. Okay, so this is how do I do it? Right. And that was the end of it. And one of my girls wrote a book and self published and I tell people, like, I never scored their work, I didn't really care. Like I wanted them just to keep delving in, and getting excited about it. And, you know, that's, that's kind of crazy that you use it here and tell people like, never really worry about it. They were doing it wrong.

Jennifer  16:03: Yeah, and, and the thing is, is don't worry about that your kids do it differently. Like, I have some boys that are so gifted in, like the construction. That, you know, mechanics, those kinds of things like just amazing, like, my 20 and 22 year old, they just built a house by themselves. Not much supervision are great, like a complete house. And they just figured out how to do it. They asked their dad some questions. You know, they kind of grew up with that they went to work part of their education, they went to work a lot with dad. But here at this he like we just figured it out. And it's like, we figured out how to do this. And we figured out how to do that. And it's like, they have an amazing, like, full fledged house. And they just figured it out. Like, but then if you ask them to do like the what Jay Lee's doing? Well, all my kids are good at math, by the way. Oh, my kids, it's just

Janna  17:04: that was from your husband? Yes, well,

Jennifer  17:07: I'm good at it. And my husband's fantastic at it. And so we play math, we have all these math games, it's just kind of like, we'll put up puzzles or whatever and some of the inlaws come in, it's like, You guys are crazy. I don't know how that's entertaining. But we, so the whole family is good at math, you know, some of them are better at English than others. My two younger ones, they are amazing at reading. I mean, when they were five years old, they were reading faster than I was. They're really good at that the boys might be really good at this. You know, I have a few that were dancers and music and all of that I told you again, the artists I mean, they're all doing different things, not the same thing. But they're good at what they've chosen to do. Some of one of my boys they put into dance, and he's like He has to Leppings like, I never want to go back. And the other one could do on the cabarets, and one a BYU competition for his dancing, you know, I mean, it's just, they just are so different. And they're so unique. And I think to appreciate that not to think your kids, your kids might not be good at science, they might not be good at math, they might not be good at English, but they're good at something. And if you'll bring that out of them, they'll get everything they need for life and the stuff that they don't. Some of the stuff you learn in high school you don't even need in life. To tell you the honest truth. You don't. My husband got his master's degree, and I got my bachelor's degree. And the one thing I learned from that is a degree doesn't mean anything. Unless it you want it for something, it doesn't mean you're smarter, it doesn't mean you're brighter. It doesn't mean you're more capable, it doesn't mean you're going to be more successful. It's just something you chose to do. But if you can learn for a lifetime and be excited about it and not get out of high school and says I'm never learning again that was the most torturous thing that's ever happened to me in my life the most boring awful thing but then there's like you know, I want to learn about this and I want to learn about this and I want to learn about this and like your whole lifetime is that you're gonna be really smart time your and your life you know?

Janna  19:22: Yeah, I agree. I want to go back to something that you said was find what you in the beginning you said light which I really I liked that illustration what lights you up what gets you excited? But as a mom of 11 what specific things can you tell parents to look for to help their children figure out what makes them happy? I mean, like you you kind of said you put both of them into dance and one of them liked it and one of them didn't like it right so you have like those common things but I knew each child is different, but are there some common threads that you saw? That was like a specifically how did you recognize what they were passionate about,

Janna  23:45: I think that is a great answer. I feel like a lot of parents who are newer to homeschool, haven't spent that same amount of time with their children. So I think naturally there is this fear. I don't I don't know how my kids learn. I don't know what really excites my kids when you are in a, you know, a busy nose to the grind kind of schedule and then you you course correct and you want to be home school, and it opens up a whole new world where you do have more time and you do get to see what excites your children. But it takes time. And so I think that for a parent who might be listening to this going well that she's making it sound easy, but I don't think it's that easy. I think giving it time, just giving space, kind of get back into that. You know, it's a lifestyle.

Jennifer  24:35: Yeah, you gotta realize I've been doing this for 30 years. It's been like a whole little, bring it down to 30 years. And it's like 30 years of experience of being with your children every day and watching them and then seeing, Oh, they acted like this as a child. And now as an adult, this is what they turned out. Like I'm getting to hindsight. It's like all right I didn't know that they were really good at that.  

Janna  25:03: What I'm interested to know is as you were because you did talk about doing different things, you started it, you started a chart help started Charter School. JAYLEE talked about a co op that you were in that some of the moms took, like the different subjects. Do you feel like you had a pretty strong community from the get go? Or was that something that you had to build up around you and homeschooling, as you progressed in your years?

Jennifer  25:27: You know, I always had friends that were doing something similar. So I think I had strong support, I didn't feel like, hey, nobody understands me, I'm the only one doing this. There was also plenty of opposition. And I just didn't talk to those people. When I am going through something that I'm not quite sure about. I don't talk to the naysayers. The ones I'm confident, I don't care about, I'll talk to anybody. But when I'm not confident, I don't talk to them,

Janna  26:01: We definitely have to follow that intuition that we have, and know yourself if, if it doesn't bring you joy, don't do it, even though you know, guess we do kind of stretch for our children and kind of get them to, you know, they do things maybe that we don't enjoy, but we have to you know, make sure that they have availability to do those things. But I did have the small percentage, as a parent, I just, I feel like, if it didn't bring me joy, if I wasn't going to, you know, have a good attitude about it, I had to decide either I was gonna change my attitude about it, or we just couldn't do it, because I didn't want to ruin that for them either. So I imagine with all the different personalities that you had running around, you had to adapt and and really kind of make that work. And you know, if it was not going places that it just wasn't not going places, but doesn't seem like it affected your children negatively in any way.

Jennifer  26:54: Well, no and and really, they had they had dreamlike because we lived out in a beautiful area on 80 acres and back now we rented out like a VRBO property and people comes like this is like a dream land. You know, it's like 10 acres of landscaped out in the middle of a farm. And they just could run, they could play they could create, they could build, we always had a big garden going. And I did take Monday trips, I didn't take them along like 10 day trips, but I did take them you know, we would go on an outing, and we'll go on hikes, and we'd go do different things like that. But we had a lot of stuff going on at home and they taught each other to that's an important part with homeschooling is sometimes like you guys need to start asking each other questions you need to ask and help each other out. Like mom can't go around and doing all of that. But the kids. I mean, they're all very good workers, because that was important. Our family, like everyone knows how to work, everyone helped learn how to do this and learn how to do that. And whether it was cooking, or sewing or gardening or building or art or just and they had a lot of free time to play. Another thing that's important is we didn't have a lot of media. We had one night, a week was Movie Night, on Friday night. And that was the day I guess, like, I can relax because I like everyone's down there just like watching the movie because they don't get to watch it all week long. And we'd have pizza night and stuff like that. But that was a big thing. Also children because they get very creative when they're not in front of a screen. And so it's like a whole way of life. It's not just like what you can just take one little piece of like what we're talking about, it's a whole lifestyle. And it's like they, they're super creative kids. And they would you know, everything. I mean, they just they knew how to play. They knew how to create, they knew how to do things. And they all have an entrepreneurial spirit. Like, well, we can do a business about this. And we can do this. And we can do this. And I think JAYLEE she's got all her ideas of what she can do. But they're all like that, right. And so they had a good lifestyle. And it was good for that many children to be out in the country. Because they could run and play and explore, which was wonderful. 

Janna  29:20: So yeah, there has been a real resurgence toward letting kids play more. Being outside. I had done a podcast with the creator of 1000 hours outdoors, and she her platform is just really to get families to see that they need to get outside. They need to be letting their kids get bored in the beginning so that they that creativity can come back.

Jennifer  29:42: And another thing is when they work like this is really important. I don't require my children to learn something and specific. Something specifically learning I think is a privilege. So it's like I am not going to require you to learn something. I'm going to read requires you to do something, but not, I'm not going to force anything down your throat like even like with piano, I had to. I'm very good at playing the piano. But I had to practice when I was little. And I'm like, I didn't like that feeling. So I'm like, I'm not doing that with my child, I'm not forcing. And I'm not saying anything bad about my parents, I'm just saying, I wasn't going to do that if you're going to learn it's going to be your privilege. But working wasn't, wasn't that was not optional. Everybody has to do their chores. And I found that when children have a good work ethic, and they're part of just making things work, and like we don't eat, we don't operate, nothing happens unless somebody's working. Dad's working moms working like that's a natural law. We don't eat unless we work. And that's actually how we did it. You don't have breakfast until you get your job done. So I didn't have to work, everyone got hungry. And everyone worked. And it was just part of our natural way of going. And because they worked, they played really well. They created really well. And I just think that's interesting. Children that only get to play. It's like, oh, just go play, just go play disco play. They don't play the same way that children that work. It's like their free time to my children meant something that was kind of hindsight, figuring that out. And watching children, that they need to have responsibility, real responsibility to help the family, because then they feel good about themselves. There's there, you don't have to worry about self esteem when you know, you're helpful. We don't even need to talk about self esteem. They just know that they're valuable because they're doing something valuable.  

Janna  31:45: So let's decide. No, I think that's a great I mean, if we were gonna say like, what's your hack, I think that's, I think you just nailed it. Because there's so many times that I see parents who are working and choosing to homeschool, and keeping up with the activities, and they're drowning, because they're not seeing the value of having their children help them. And they feel like it's their responsibility, because they're the adult, they're the parent. And there's so many things that you can partner with your children to do. In in your house with, you know, with cooking with, I mean, just all of it. Like, I constantly tell my girls like you only get what you have, because of what we all do, they gave us like you said it doesn't, it's not naturally going to appear. So yeah, you need to if I cook, then you do need to clean it out. Because you partook in the work that I did. Now you have to do your work. And it does definitely, I've seen it in my own life personally. And now with my children, all three of them work outside of the home part time. And it they really do have a sense of worth. And we're proud that they are recognizing that they're producing members of society, right. They're part of a, of a system that works when we all work in the system. 

Jennifer  33:04: Listen to your own heart, you know your children. And you can follow your light, your inspiration, your guide, and probably gonna do something very different than what I did. You have different circumstances, different personalities, different children. And if you're having fun, you can't go wrong. Like you're really having joy and you're having fun. Like, I think that's the number one thing, enjoy it. Have fun with it. I mean, not to enjoy everyday, some days, you're just gonna be dead tired. But enjoy, have fun. Because homeschooling is fun. Like you get the whole world in front of you. And the way things are now like you can wasn't like that when I was there. You can have so much at your fingertips, so many things that are so easy to learn. that weren't there 30 years ago. Yeah, I mean, Google was born the same year I was married. I mean, that sounds weird. But there was no Google when I got married. And now it's like my kids like, it was no Google.

Janna  34:06: I did everything.

Jennifer  34:08: Yeah, I just like, Yeah, I'm big in 1991. Google was when I was married, Google was born. So we have a lot. We have a lot at our disposal, which makes homeschooling even easier. 

Janna  34:23: So yeah, yeah. Well, Jennifer, I just want to thank you for taking the time to come on and talk with me and just encourage our listeners that their choice is the right choice for them and their family. And really, you can do it anyway. And as and to put join it because that is really the goal is having joy being with your family and then loving learning. So thank you so much. I am thrilled that you said yes. And that JAYLEE just insisted that we get you on here. So thank you.

Jennifer  34:56: Thank you so much, and thanks for what you're doing and encouraging homeschool Learn what it really is. I think the best thing you can put your investment into is your family. Because when I look back it's like that's my treasure right? Nothing else not the size of the house, not money, not professions, not professional claim. It's there the best treasure I have. So thank you.

Janna  35:24: Well, that is beautifully said. I want to thank you guys for listening. Until next time, bye-bye.