HOMESCHOOL YOUR WAY: EUROPEAN EDITION

EPISODE 164| 

Homeschooling has challenges, finding support shouldn't to be one of them. Support can help us when the homeschool day proves particularly tough. If you find yourself in an environment where you don’t have support, create your own!  Join Janna as she chats with Laura, a mother who homeschools in Europe.  Listen in Laura discusses the challenges and joys of homeschooling and how she now shares her knowledge through the her blog, Monkeyandmom.com.

ABOUT OUR GUEST | Laura is a homeschooling mom from Europe and the creator of the blog Monkey And Mom. Laura has been homeschooling her son, Marc, for 7 years, delving deep into the world of STEM for gifted learners.Her journey has been one of discovery and dedication, blending nurturing, patience, and a flexible, creative approach to education. Through her blog, Laura shares an eclectic mix of homeschooling tips, resources, and fun printables, all born from her hands-on experience.Whether you’re a parent to an only child, a homeschooler looking for fresh ideas, or just beginning your homeschooling journey, Laura's insights are sure to inspire and guide. She's here to share her wealth of knowledge and experiences, providing valuable resources and encouragement for fellow homeschoolers.

Janna  0:04   Welcome to Homeschool your way I'm your host Janna Koch and BookSharks Community Manager. Today I am joined by Laura from MonkeyandMom. She is a homeschool mom from Europe who is the creator of the blog, monkeyandmom, Laura has been homeschooling her son Mark for seven years delving deep into the world of STEM for gifted learners. This episode is going to open your eyes to the idea of schooling outside of your comfort zone. Laura is going to tell us her story. And I'm so excited for her to share. Let's bring her in. Laura, thanks so much for being here.

Laura  1:10   Thank you for having me.

Janna  1:13   I am so excited for you to share your story. I know that BookShark is used internationally, I would say my exposure to the families who use BookShark are either in the US or US families who live overseas, you are neither of those things. You are a family that lives overseas that was born and raised. And so you are choosing to use an American curriculum like BookShark, and then creating this blog and these amazing videos on your YouTube channel, which we will make sure to link in the notes for those who are listening. But let's start from the beginning. Why don't you just introduce yourself and then we'll get going into why you chose to homeschool in the country that you live. 

Laura  2:00   Hi, I'm Laura and I'm a blogger at monkey and mom. I homeschool an only child, currently seventh grade and we are a eclectic home schooler. So we choose and pick whatever works for us. But we like balancing academics and child led learning. My son is gifted in STEM and he is my opposite in every way. So that made for an adventure in homeschooling like we never have a dull moment.

Janna  2:30   So why don't you tell us what country you have your country of origin, maybe other countries that you lived in, and then we'll kind of get into the history of homeschooling in the country that you're currently in.

Laura  2:44   Sure, we are homeschooling in Romania. And we've been living in Romania and India for several years. So homeschooling here doesn't really have any regulation. We don't have any rules to tell us what to do and how to do it. It's not legalized, I hate using that word. But that's the truth. So we homeschool under the law that says that parents here can choose their school. So parents can choose the school outside Romania. So that's why we had to choose an umbrella or distance school to homeschool because in Romania distance schools are illegal. So we had two options when we chose, we could go the UK route or the US Route. So we chose us because I feel that US provides us with more options, there are more options. When it comes to curriculum, there are more publishers who cater to homeschoolers like BookShark. And I also feel that the exams are easier, because we will go the AP route and SAP route and I feel that with the AP, you can choose whatever passion to have and just go to those exams, you aren't forced to go through standardized tests, like if I can call it that. So homeschooling here isn't popular. And I think it's mainly because it's, you have to do it in English, you have to do it in the language of the school that you chose. So lots of parents fear that and it's a real fear, it's hard. And also, there's no real community. Like you can't really find a lot of information on how to do it correctly. The authorities and people in general have a lot of misconceptions around it. And you can really feel shunned, you know, like you are going against the grain you're doing something that hasn't been done and everyone looks weird. Like why did you choose that? And also, I feel people don't choose it because there's not a smooth say Dealing between homeschooling and public school. Like I know in us, you can easily go between them switch and whatever suits you. But for us when we do it, it's like a long term commitment. You cannot really go one year homeschooling one year public school and the back again, because a lot of schools here because of misconceptions and everything they can make you see through exams, for every single subject every single year, you haven't been enrolled in a public school here. So that's a lot. And you really have to ponder and like take this decision, this decision is not taken lightly, you know, here, so I feel like we have a small community, but it's growing and becoming more confident, and I hope it will be fine in the years to come.

Janna  5:47   Your decision to choose a US based on brella school, you said was kind of based on the not only the academics, but also availability, but the language. So would you say there is a high percentage of Romanians that speak English? Or is that a language that isn't necessarily spoken a lot in your country?

Laura  6:07   Well, we don't have English as an official language. So no, it's not that prevalent. It's one of the languages spoken here by some people, but not a large percentage of them. But if you want to homeschool don't really have a lot of options. Because even if you look at other languages in Europe, homeschooling is pretty much illegal. Like in Germany, you can get in jail into jail, if you homeschool your kids. There are other countries who have strict regulations like France, where you need to see through their national exams, like every two years, and they are becoming increasingly stricter. So even UK started changing and modifying their laws. So there's not many options you have when it comes to choosing an umbrella school. Most of them are English. So English is a must learn language. But I also feel like at the same time, it was something I wanted from the beginning, you know, because I thought if my son will learn, like, we'll finish all his school in English, and we'll have this plus to his portfolio that he knows how to speak English. And he's currently beneath and he finished, he has diplomas in English, then he will have doors opening for him, like he'll have access to all the international universities and he won't have to go to the stress of learning English, you know, as a second language, and getting ready for both the exams here. I mean, in the in the LSAT or whatever entrance exams he had to take, if you wanted to go outside to a university. So there are more benefits to English. And I keep telling people here also that it's not only this, you also have a lot of resources in English that aren't there in other languages. So I keep encouraging people even if don't go the homeschooling route, you can opt to teach your kids English when they are later. So when they start school, you can just grab anything like they want to learn chemistry at seventh like minded. There's a curriculum for that, you know, but it's in English.

Janna  8:25   Yeah. So did you learn English as a child? Or was that something that you made a decision as an adult to learn?

Laura  8:31   No, I actually learned English during high school. English is my third language. So during high school, we had like two hours of English per week. And that's where they started learning English. But most of it I learned when I took when I had my son, I took the decision to read in English and teach him as much English as I knew. Because that you know, I don't know if you're familiar with the one parent, one language and all those, like, you know more languages in their family, one parent can speak one language, the other parent can speak the other language and the kid was picked both. But I was like, Why aren't all the languages because I've been both Romanian and English with him. And now he's better than me, obviously. But while I was teaching him when he was little, I just looked to better myself. And I did through listening to audiobooks through reading all in English. I just switched everything to English. And it was so difficult at first, but then you start seeing it pay off. And I'm telling the parents that come to me also, Romanian parents that just try to create an environment where English is present everywhere, even for your kids and that really helped them. You don't even realize when it's happening. Just start speaking with them like when you play or when you prepare food or like make them Listen to it and use it in your family. And you will see it's not that difficult.

Janna  10:06   I think one of the major advantages for you as a parent who is choosing to homeschool is that you have a love of learning. And I know that we as parents, when we model that for our children, it is the best type of learning, right? When we're, we're demonstrating that it matters to us. We're passionate about it. It's contagious. And I think whether it's romanian families learning English, or it's English speaking families, learning Romanian, like, we have these amazing capabilities, if we're willing to put aside our own fears, and, and just kind of jump into the deep end, knowing that there's no way we can drown, you know, like metaphorically, because we're not even in water. So sometimes we just, we just have to try. Now, you weren't going to homeschool your son, from the beginning, you decided to try your local school district. And I would love for you to share that story. Because I think it's really impactful to your journey.

Laura  11:08   Oh, yeah, he actually just tried school for a few days. And I immediately knew it wasn't for us, like the environment. And also, I'm sorry to say this, but like the level we live in a small area. So maybe that's why but I felt like the overall level of his peers didn't match his and here, we don't have that differentiation you have in us, I think you have classes for gifted kids or accelerated learning. We don't have that here. Like everyone, the same age is put together and they all have to kind of be at the same level. I even spoke with his teacher and she said, Well, you taught him too much. And when I heard that, you know, like, that's not normal. How can you teach someone to? You're always learning, you know, and that you said that I was an example for him with learning goals. And I think that's essential for all parents to show their kids, that learning never stops, you always learn you can learn as an adult, and maybe you don't know everything, they also have to see that that adults aren't always right. They don't always know everything. I think those are the things I really wanted to instill in him and also encourage that natural curiosity that kids have. I didn't feel that the schools here would help with that. In fact, I felt that that was the first thing they would crash. Because if you go to a child that's curious and asking the question, and you tell him, Oh, you're too little. Now you can learn it in a few years. You know, it's not the right moment. Or we don't do that today. We'll do it another time. That's like a surefire way to just drown the curiosity and belittle their curiosity because you say it's not important enough for us to do it now. And that's what I felt the school did here. And I didn't realize it at the time. I just went home crying, because I felt something wasn't right, you know. And then I'm so glad I just went ahead and listen to my instincts. Because eight years later, I can say it worked. But back then it was so scary. Like I didn't know anything about homeschooling back then it wasn't even in my mind. And then I discovered this homeschooler one local home schooler who was posted in English on her blog. It was called my English homeschool. And I contacted her and I asked her how to do all this and she started telling me about homeschooling and how to do it in Romania. And like that really opened my eyes and opened the gates floodgates, because after that, I started researching a lot. And I created my own communities on Facebook, and I just wanted to be an example for everyone that came behind. Like I wanted them to find the information I couldn't find when I was looking for it. So yeah, the reason we homeschool basically was we wanted something better for our son. 

Janna  15:21   I am really encouraged by your statement that you just felt like something wasn't right. Like it. Typically, as humans, we go with the flow. We don't like to go against the grain. It's uncomfortable. And we're we're pioneers and something that we didn't necessarily want to be a pioneer in. But there's just that gut feeling that we can choose a different way. And I think that a lot of homeschool parents feel that way. Like, I may not know what I'm doing. But I know that I'm supposed to be doing something different than what's being offered to me. And I don't want to say the easy way because public school, private school charter schooling, each has their own place and challenges, right parenting is a gigantic challenge in and of itself. But I think listening to that sixth sense that we have as parents that we do know what's best for our kids. And when we go to what we think are the authorities on it, and they they're dismissive of us that's like, we could go okay, well, maybe it's just in my mind, maybe I'm just overreacting, you know, I should just like you could have just said, Well, I'll just send them and see what happens. It's like we have to be advocates for our children. And I think that it's it's a lot easier said than done. Because when you're challenging the establishment, it does feel like David and Goliath, right? Like, I can't do this.

Janna  20:39   And really, I mean, it's like the proof is in the growth, right? It's one of these things that it's like, I can't prove to you that this is a good choice. But I can only demonstrate, and the only way I can do that is by trying it. So let's, let's give it a go. And there are parents, especially during the pandemic, who started homeschooling, who saw the benefits, sometimes not immediately, and you know, we all have our ups and downs, right? We have good days and bad days, and both us and our children. But then, for whatever circumstances, they couldn't continue, you know, things open back up, and it just wasn't a possibility. And then there was other families who thought for sure, they would go right back into the brick and mortar schools. But after they had been out and been doing homeschool, they were like, This is amazing. Why didn't we try this earlier? And so it's one of those things that like, you just don't know what you don't know. And the only way to know is to do and there's there's like, again, there's fear in that right, like, but there's also comfort in the fact that like I no amount of me talking is going to prove to you what I'm trying to prove like, you just have to trust me. And that was the thing to like, we tell a lot of people just try set aside a year, and then see and then reevaluate. And if it's not, if it's not for you, it's not working, you know, and in the US, because we can, in most states seamlessly go from one to another, with very little friction. It's like you could even do semester, just try for a semester and half the year and see how it goes. So yeah, it really, but all the things that you're saying that you feel and have experienced? I think those are global, I don't think that is, you know, isolated to homeschooling out of the United States, I think that is just homeschooling in general, because we're constantly really crossing our fingers that we made the right decision for our children. 

Laura  22:36  Yeah, it's true. Like even now, as he approaches the high school years, you know, the Fears are growing. Am I doing enough? is doing enough? Like, you know, that the homeschool schedule is less than the hours they spend in public school? So should we do more hours? Should we do extra action with them? You know, those are doubts, and they will always creeping, but I think they are a sign that you're doing the right thing. I think when you start questioning what you are doing, you're really thinking about it and assessing it and I tell the parents who reach to me that, like it's okay to doubt yourself. It's okay to keep asking yourself if this is okay, if it works fine, because you should constantly see if you need to change anything. And there is no way to do that. If you don't care. If you say no, it's fine, it will turn out okay. No matter what I do, I think that's where the danger lies when you stop thinking or you never think from the beginning that you should really give your best, you know, homeschooling is not easy. And I tell that to everyone. It's not an easy decision. And it's not an easy thing to do. Because you're sacrificing so much as a parent. Also, it's way easier to ship them to school, especially in some cases. And also it's not for everyone. I know that people say, Oh, just homeschool because it's so easy. But the truth is, some kids do better in public school. And some parents cannot take the role of a teacher or facilitator I can say because you don't always have to be the teacher. You can choose materials and people from outside, but you still need to be involved invested in it. And some parents just cannot do it and it's fine. Their kids will be happier in other settings. I think the main thing here is to just do what's best for your family, for your kids and for yourself.

Janna  24:38   Now talking about one of the biggest decision makers after you've decided to homeschool is finding a good fit of curriculum and where you're going to go. And so, your story you kind of reverse engineered the fact that you were looking at the end goal that you knew you wanted some kind of college Just degree for your son. And you you obviously saw right away that that was something he could accomplish. And you know, he was gifted in that. So you had the end in mind. So you kind of worked backwards and kind of tell us that process like how you narrowed it down and came to your decision and what you choose to use.

Laura  25:21   So I wanted him to like be achieving academically, but I also wanted him to preserve that curiosity and love for learning. Like I wanted him to be a lifelong learner. My end goal is not really that diploma and goal is for him to always learn, always be curious, like, I think that's real happiness when you can find happiness in what you do, because you love it, and you're curious about it. So, because of that, I, I ended up being eclectic, I didn't start with the eclectic homeschooling because I thought it's so difficult to just go. And there are so many curricula, and how do I choose the perfect lead up doing it anyway, and it was great. I think balancing that is the secret sauce here. For example, we do teach art and math, those are non negotiables. And I think it's universally available, because no matter where you go, and what you do, these are the two things you should know you. But for the rest of them, I kind of let Him lead. I saw he has a passion for sciences and stem in general and early on. So that was our third choice. So we have language arts, math, and then his passion, which is science. So it's pretty easy to go from there and choose curriculum. And we always prioritize them that way. So my resources and my effort efforts go more into choosing these three for him. And then there is come at the back.

Janna  26:54   I think that is unique, because I think most parents don't look at it that necessarily that way, I think we're so ingrained to think that it has to be, you know, these core subjects and it has to be in this order. And but you know, we really can, the point of a child led learning is to focus on what your kids are really interested in. And there's, like you said, always non negotiables, but, but really help that process and encourage them to help you make that decision once they become capable. As they get older, because they're going to they're going to be the ones doing it, they probably should enjoy it too. Right. And you shouldn't be you just hope.

Laura  27:41   Sorry. That I feel that he will continuously discovered things he's interested in. And sometimes he'll discover them because I am the one planning resources and exposing him to things. So as we go through a planned curriculum, we'll stop at I don't know we did from bookshop this year, about the Romans, you know, and then we ended up with Roman numerals. But how do you say 1 million in Roman numerals and all those things he likes going down these rabbit holes. And I think homeschooling the way we do it. Flexible and eclectic just allows us. Okay, we have pause, everything we were doing for today. Let's go and find out more about Roman numerals. And he ended up printing pages from the internet with all the Roman numerals. And then he he actually learned them so well that he started writing his own novel. And he hates writing. But he chose to put the pages in Roman numerals. So now he can read Roman numerals from monuments everything. It wasn't something I planned to do. But this is how child led learning works, especially if you balance it because many times parents think that if you choose one style or one way you have to do it 100% You know if I want to go Child learning, I just have to do whatever the child wants every single day. And it's not that I think eclectic homeschooling showed us that you can just blend and mix and do whatever percentage you want to just make it work and to see your child grow and grow and love to learn.

Janna  29:25   So would you say that your passion behind homeschool are the one of the reasons you love it is because you do see your son just blossoming. In all of these areas. The fact that you literally just said he doesn't like to write but he's writing a novel like that's a huge win.

Laura  29:44   Yeah, it is. And we had a lot of adventures, especially when I was like a new home schooler. I had no idea what I was doing. We went with a box curriculum for the first two years and they did everything to a tee from me I realized it's so much like public school, and we kind of both of us hated it. We went through it, but it was great. And then I really sat down. And I looked at it. I said, Okay, what is it with this curriculum, that doesn't work? Because I knew there were parts that work. And I realized there were two main things. One was that some of the subjects or, like, busy work, they were repetitive, and he didn't need that, because that's the way he learned. And some of them weren't sufficiently developed, you know, for writing, in particular, I felt that his tempering didn't work doing Mindeed. And even I wasn't capable to explain writing, like composition, writing, you know, creative writing to him. So I said, I didn't even know what to look for. I didn't know what I needed, what he needed. So I sat down, I thought it through logically like what kind of curriculum would fit a logical brain. And I said, he needs something step by step, he needs something broken down, he needs like a list of things that he has to do for every single composition. So he knows what. And I found the curriculum. Finally, it was so amazing, I didn't see immediate results like we are in the second year using it. And I finally see him take initiative in writing. And that has been amazing. Like, I cannot believe it. That also helped me because being a writer, and I love writing, and I love it so much that I sometimes go overboard with my blog posts, I write too. But I have this defect. Like, I feel like correcting his work from my point of view. And I go, like, writing is super personal. And you can't, you cannot go there and say, Oh, I don't agree with your idea. And I know that that's a very touchy subject with a lot of homeschool moms, and maybe even teachers, I don't know, all the rubrics, I just cannot correct it. So I decided to Okay, writing will be outsourced. I won't do it. He's doing it with videos. And I just have a checklist. And if he follows the form, I'm not looking at the ideas or the way he presented them, if he follows all the requirements, like a form of the essay, or whatever he's writing, he gets full points. And that has been amazing for us. Like it encouraged him. And now he's even writing his own novel. I don't know how many hundreds of pages. It's some sci fi thing. Hopefully, he likes.

Janna  32:50   Oh, that's really exciting. We do have a podcast with a English tutoring company that has a publishing site. So I will definitely get you the link to that. So it might be something that he could actually publish and let other children his age read in the United States is kind of an interesting concept.

Laura  33:12   Interesting. 

Janna  33:14  Yeah, I agree. I never wanted, I never graded my girls writing. I just read through it. Because I'm the same way. I'm an English major, I have an editing brain. I want to fix what's not right, I want to change the word around so it's more clear. And it was hurtful to them. I found that very early on, it was like, Why are you picking that apart? Why? Because it is so personal. And so I stopped grading and I thought, well, when you go on to higher learning somebody, you're gonna have to accept criticism from somebody, but it's just not going to be me because I didn't want to break that part of our relationship. And both of my older two daughters, they were able to take college classes as freshmen, sophomore in high school. And all they needed was some of that guidance in like the mechanics of it, but they had no problem with the writing. And they love to write and I had a daughter who wrote a novel, too. And I was like, Oh, my gosh, I'm just blown away. I could never imagine writing, having a consistent storyline for that many pages. So. So yeah, it's beautiful when we see those things happening, and I love that you just trusted the process. You know, it took two years. And part of that could have been the curriculum. Part of it could have been his brain development proud part of it could have just been he finally found something he wanted to write about. I mean, there's so many different factors that I think homeschool parents get caught up in the product when really we need to just trust the process. And that again, is one of those hard asks because you're saying well, keep going it might take a couple years you'll get there and we are so we were immediate results driven. So it's harder, I think for us to be like okay, it's gonna be okay, it's gonna work and and fingers crossed that it does. Laura in closing Do you have a homeschool hack you can share with our listeners.

Laura  35:04   In fact, I have more like, more like three. So far one of them. And the first one one that helped us a lot since the beginning. And I'm so happy and discovered it is the growth mindset. I don't think it's spoken of so much in the homeschooling community. But it's so important to because you also mentioned that your daughters didn't like to be criticized and such. So I feel the growth mindset really helps with that, and it helped my son because he's accepting criticism in stride. Now, it helps you think differently about mistakes, it helps them see that through mistakes, you are actually learning and growing. And it's not something that you know, you have to read a lot about, there are a few links on the internet and a few YouTube videos, you can watch, and you'll get an idea of what you need to do. And one of our favorite quotes, which is growth mindset is all things are difficult before they are easy. And that's what we have on our desk. And it helped him when he started reading also, because we use a curriculum that was not a good fit. And I didn't know at the time, and he was actually crying to every lesson. And it took me a while to say okay, like, yeah, you trust the process. But up to some point, you know, like, I saw that it was working, and I kept pushing through, and then he ended up crying. So I said, Okay, this is not fine. We almost finished it. And then I just switched completely. But he remained with that reluctance in reading, you know, and the growth mindset really helped him there. And I told him, okay, just take it step by step, you know, let's look behind you when you started speaking, because he was later I didn't have any other example. It was very difficult for you, you know, but now you do it, you don't even think about it. And this is what will happen with treadling. Also, you kept at you keep at it, you know, every day, a little by little, and in a few years, you won't even think about it. And I was right, because now he's an avid reader. He just loves reading. And that's why book shark is so perfect for us. And the second hack is only compare yourself to yourself. I see this happen a lot, all over social media in all the Facebook groups, and we all fall into it sometimes. But you should remember that you shouldn't compare your child to anyone else or your situation to anyone else. If you see growth, like six months ago, or one year ago, or two years ago, my key is on an upslope, then what you're doing is perfect, keep doing it. If you don't see that, then you should reassess and change things. And the third one is we already discussed about it. I think balancing academics and Child led is like the perfect way to, you know, grow curious individuals and individuals want to learn for life. And this happens only because homeschooling is so flexible.

Janna  38:14   Well, thank you those three, and they blend beautifully together. So I think I think that's a full hack with a part A, B, and C. So thank you so much, Laura, I want to thank you for what you have contributed to the homeschool community, not only in your country, in your passion to help others kind of explore this alternative education, but also what you're doing to encourage those of us on this side of the globe, because your blogs and you're sharing your journey with you and your son has been an encouragement I know to our community as well. So thank you so much. And thank you for being here today.

Laura  38:53   Thank you for having me. It's been so fun.

Janna  38:55   Thank you guys. Until next time, bye.