Homeschooling Teens: Why “Do Nothing” Deschooling Backfires and How Eclectic Unschoolers Use Guardrails Instead | Janae Daniels

About This Episode

Many parents are told to “just deschool and do nothing” after pulling their kids out of traditional school—but with middle school and high schoolers, that advice often backfires.

In this conversation with former middle school teacher turned homeschooling mom Janae Daniels, host of the School to Homeschool podcast, we talk about why older kids struggle most with doing “nothing” and why their brains crave structure after years in the system. Janae shares how her family—and the families she coaches—use simple academic guardrails in reading, writing, and math as a bridge into homeschooling.

You’ll hear why teens often say “I don’t want to do anything… but I need to do something,” and how moving toward an eclectic unschooler approach can honor both their need for routine and their growing independence. We explore what eclectic unschooling looks like in real life: mixing a few structured subjects with child-led learning, embracing boredom as a spark for curiosity, and using tools like strewing and a rich home environment as “teachers.”

If you’re pulling an older child out of school—or considering it—this episode will help you decide which subjects need guardrails, what can truly wait, and how to transition toward a more eclectic, interest-driven homeschool without losing your teen in the process.

If this episode of The Brainy Moms Podcast with Dr. Amy Moore and Sandy Zamalis helps, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s considering homeschooling a teen, and leave a quick review so more parents can find us. What’s the biggest fear or hope you have about homeschooling a teen?

About Janae Daniels

Janae is a wife, a mother of six, and a former middle school teacher turned homeschooling mom. She’s the host of the podcast School to Homeschool, where she gives listeners insights into the whys behind their homeschooling decision. She helps parents understand the what’s that make homeschooling a unique and empowering choice, and she gives valuable tips on the hows of how to get started. She’s joining us today to talk about making that transition from traditional schooling to homeschooling, particularly for middle school and high school kids.

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NOTE: This transcript was auto-generated by an AI assistant that thinks it’s smarter than we are. It’s not, but it has more free time than we do, so we gave it a low-stakes job. It probably spelled a few things wrong, but we’re okay with that. We’d rather spend our time interviewing cool guests!

Welcome And Newsletter Signup

Dr. Amy Moore 0:00

Hi, Smart Moms and Dads. Welcome to another episode of the Brady Moms Podcast brought to you today by Learning Arts Brain Training Centers. I’m Dr. Amy here with Sandy. And before Sandy and I introduce our guests today, we want to remind you we have a free monthly newsletter. It’s full of lots of cool resources on parenting, child development, homeschooling, any of the topics related to what we’re talking about each month. So just go to the BradyMoms.com and sign up for free. Don’t miss out. And now our episode today is with Janae Daniels. Let me tell you a little bit about her in case you don’t know who she is yet. Janae is a wife, a mother of six, and a former middle school teacher turned homeschooling mom. She’s the host of the podcast School to Homeschool, where she gives listeners insights into the whys behind their homeschooling decision. She helps parents understand the what’s that make homeschooling a unique and empowering choice, and she gives valuable tips on the hows of how to get started. She’s joining us today to talk about making that transition from traditional schooling to homeschooling, particularly for middle school and high school kids. So please help us welcome Janae Daniels. Hello again.

Sandy Zamalis 1:10

Hi. I’m always enamored with everyone’s backgrounds when they pop in, and you have cool wallpaper. I love cool wallpaper. So it’s actually not wallpaper. It’s painted. Yeah.

Janae Daniels 1:25

So my daughter and I uh decided when my husband was out of town to turn this into a podcast studio and painted and then did the painted all over it.

Sandy Zamalis 1:34

So it’s like a closet we didn’t know what to do with, or uh yeah, it was a closet that was just full of stuff.

Janae Daniels 1:41

And my husband and I were sharing an office. We have a quite a large home office, but it trying to record podcasts while my husband’s trying to work is not optimal. And so one day he went out of town and I’m like, we’re gonna clean out the closet in the basement under the stairs and turn it into a podcast studio. So everyone’s like, yay! And my husband’s like, what? This is so fun. So it’s very Harry Potter. It is.

Dr. Amy Moore 2:06

So we actually call that closet the Harry Potter closet. Like, hey, does anybody know where blah, blah, blah is? I’m like, yeah, it’s in the Harry Potter closet.

Janae Daniels 2:14

Yeah. And this is that’s also what my kids have called this closet. And my kids were like, we could have turned this into like a reading nook or something. I’m like, well, too bad. You didn’t.

Dr. Amy Moore 2:24

Well, we are super excited that you’re here today. I have been on your show and it was a really fun, natural conversation. And so I feel like we’re just continuing the same conversation. Listeners, for those of you who don’t know, Janae and I live like two blocks away from each other. And we just found out. And we just found out we did not know each other before we scheduled this. And so that was kind of cool to know that we were neighbors. But yes, it was. I told my husband, he’s like, What?

Janae Daniels 2:51

Are you serious? I’m like, yeah, just right there. So it’s kind of fun.

Meet Janae And The Homeschool Pivot

Dr. Amy Moore 2:56

Yeah, my husband thought that was really cool too. So your area of expertise is helping parents make that transition from traditional schooling to homeschooling, particularly for older kids who are making that transition in middle school or homeschool. And not just for older kids that are making that transition, but the parents who are making that transition. Talk to us a little bit about that and why that stage of schooling and childhood is different, why that transition feels different.

Janae Daniels 3:30

So, so a little bit of background. I was not a longtime homeschooler. As a matter of fact, I never anticipated ever homeschooling. And I had been a middle school teacher. Um, I’m secondary, I’m actually K through 12 licensed in Colorado, and I was uh sixth through licensed in Texas, but I let that expire. And um so secondary ed is really though, that’s those are my people as far as education goes. And though when we transitioned during COVID into homeschooling, uh people kept saying, well, you’ve gotta, after we had a terrible, terrible, terrible start, uh, and I had bought all this curriculum and I was like, we’re gonna, it’s gonna be awesome, we’re gonna do this and uh and it was terrible. It was an awful, awful, awful start. I almost sent them back the next day. And um what I discovered is that people would say, longtime homeschoolers, well intending, would say, Oh, well, you need to de school and and just don’t do anything as far as curriculum goes. But what I very quickly discovered is that my my older kids, my younger kids, not a problem, right? They were fine. My third grader, not a not a problem, not doing curriculum. But my seventh and eighth graders were like, Well, what are we supposed to do? And I’m like, Well, we’re gonna nothing. We’re not, I I don’t, I don’t know what we’re gonna do since we’re not doing the curriculum. And very quickly my son said, Well, we have to do something. We can’t just do nothing. And so I said, Okay, what if we just did the bare, we’re just gonna do the bare minimum uh reading, writing, and math. So what I found is that the older kids had already been so ingrained in the system that just like taking that advice of doing nothing didn’t work for them. And and especially for my high achieving, well, he’s kind of a lazy high achiever. He school comes very easy to him. My daughter is a high achiever, but school did not come easy to her. So they’re a year apart. Um, and they’re now 19 and 18 years old. But at the time they were 12 and 13. And so I very quickly discovered that not only could I not do just do nothing, uh, except for like watch documentaries and things like that, but my kids, my older kids, their brains couldn’t handle that. And and as I’ve worked with other parents, with teenagers and kids in high school, as you know, and juniors and seniors in high school that are like, we’re gonna pull them, those kids, it’s it’s always been the same, the same pattern. I can’t just do nothing, but I’m going to do, I’m gonna choose a couple of subjects to focus on, and then I’ll let everything, you know, I’ll do something else. So that’s what I discovered, is their brains can’t handle it because they it’s so ingrained in them that they have to have some sort of a curriculum at some point. So that’s what it is. I discovered the hard way.

Dr. Amy Moore 6:27

And and as you’ve worked with other families, do you find that to be the pattern?

Janae Daniels 6:33

Every single time without fail. If the younger kids, again, uh before middle school, you can you can just play and do all sorts of fun things and and that’s enough. But once once you hit, once they’re about 12 years old and older, and the older they get, especially the high schoolers, they especially are like, No, I have to do something. But giving them the freedom to set up their own schedule and go, okay, so let’s talk about we’re we are gonna de school, but we’re gonna really um simplify which curriculum you’re gonna choose. We’re only gonna do one or two, and then let’s let’s come up with some other alternatives. I find every single time the high schoolers are like, I cannot just do nothing. Even the ones who struggled in school, who hated school, who were failing everything, their brains just went haywire. And so there was this constant like, I don’t want to do anything, but yeah, no, I need to do something, but I don’t want to do anything, but I need to do something. And so just by by giving them some parameters to work within, they do much better. And so, like for one family that I worked with, he was their son was a junior when they pulled him, and and he’s like, I know I’m not supposed, you know, you you talk to us about not doing anything, but I I I I’ve chosen, and I said, well, choose a couple curricula type things that you want to do. And he goes, I really want structure in math, uh, because I I need that structure in my pre-calculus class. I don’t, I don’t want to wing that and I and I actually really enjoy, you know, this and that and the other. And so we chose a curricula for uh for language arts for or for English, you know, because by this time he’s in he’s a junior. And we chose uh something that that his parents would agree on for pre-calculus. And through and then everything else, he’s he structured his own schedule with his parents and got his work done quickly. And then he was like, Oh, I think I want to read these business books and I want to do this. And so the rest of the time, he was an he was able to choose other things that he wanted to do, but for his brain, he had to have like these two subjects. I need guide, I I need a guide guide rails. And and then ultimately he ended up telling his parents, he’s like, I realized about this about myself that I really prefer to be in a class, in a classroom setting. So, and I really do love math, so I’d like to continue mathematics in a classroom, but the other subjects I don’t, I I don’t want to do in a classroom. And so it’s it’s it’s different because again, there is a perpetual battle going on. I don’t want to do this, but I do want to do this. And then there’s been times too that I’ve seen families that are like the children will struggle with it’s always mathematics, oh like almost every single time that the child is struggling. And so the parents will they’ll say, Oh no, I have to do mathematics. And the kids will feel that, you know, they’ll they might be in eighth grade and say, I I need to do mathematics, and then they’ll start homeschooling and going through the de-schooling process, and they’re like, Okay, I’m gonna do, and it’s again, usually writing and mathematics are the two subjects that people are like, no, I want some some guardrails. Um, but inevitably sometimes those kids will draw back and go, actually, I’m gonna take a break from the mathematics for a minute. And they, but they have to decide that themselves. Um, and as parents, because again, we’re feeling that. Um, I don’t know, Dr. Amy, if you felt that way, like, oh no, they gotta be doing something. Um, but I certainly felt that way. Oh, you didn’t feel that I didn’t.

Why Teens Need Structure To Start

Dr. Amy Moore 10:09

No. Um at all. I well, and I think, well, I have two comments to make. One, what you’re saying makes sense from a brain science perspective, right? When we look at how ingrained those patterns are and those routines are, even if the experience at school was negative, that is still a pattern. This is when I get up, this is what I do all day, this is what it looks like. And so to try to do something different, we experience cognitive dissonance, right? We’re experiencing this. Hey, it’s 1030 in the morning. And at 10 30 in the morning is when I’ve been doing mathematics for the last eight years. So to do something different feels odd. It feels awkward. And so we have to create new patterns, and that takes a while to make that happen, right? So everything you’re saying from that perspective makes sense. I did not feel like I needed to be doing something because um we were focused on emotional health and restoring emotional health when we made those transitions for our oldest and youngest. And so um I so I didn’t feel a rush and the kids didn’t feel a rush. They needed some exhale time. Um, and I think because that was a stronger pull than um the patterns, the daily patterns, that worked for us. Um, but that, you know, that might be a unique situation too, because no one felt the need to rush into something.

Sandy Zamalis 11:47

Oh, that’s I find when I talk to families that um that’s why when when because I homeschooled from the beginning. So my my from kindergarten until my son was about in tenth grade, and then we went the other way. But um I find now when I counsel families, especially ones that pull kids out uh for whatever reason, um, but they’ve already been through the system, that they tend to rely on online curriculums first. I think because to your point, it provides that structure.

Janae Daniels 12:18

I I would agree. And I find that a lot of times like the families will ultimately move away from the a lot of times they’ll move away from the curriculum, but they just they just want the training wheels at the very, very beginning. Yeah. Um, but again, it’s always the older kids that most need the the training wheels, not not the younger ones. You know, the younger ones are like, we don’t care, we’ll play all day, you know, happily. Um but again, and I also see that they don’t um and and this was our case too, they didn’t want curriculum for everything. They just wanted it we just wanted it for uh just a couple things. And then beyond that, that’s when we started that’s really where we started the D the de schooling was everything else. Um and then ultimately we became eclectic unschoolers by the end of the first year. So um, but I but I found the pattern to be similar with all of the families that I’ve worked with and all of the the messages that I get from families that it’s we need guardrails for at least just one or two subjects and everything else we’ll de-school. So yeah.

Eclectic Unschooling And Child-Led Learning

Dr. Amy Moore 13:21

Talk to us about that term, eclectic and schoolers, because I of course related to that as well for our our youngest. But what is it, what does that look like for you and for your coaches?

Janae Daniels 13:33

So for for us, okay, so when I first started homeschooling, I read all of the books on all the philosophies. You know, I was I was reading The Well-Trained Mind and everything about Maria Montessori and Charlotte Mason. And uh and a lot of the philosophies felt really, really strict for me. And I I was trying to it felt overwhelming because I was like, how am I gonna teach my children grammar, rhetoric, and logic? And how am I I’m gonna how how am I gonna do all of this? And at the same time, we were trying to de-school with the guardrails that we had in place. Um and we started, I I I read the book Unschooled by Carrie McDonald towards the end of our first year of homeschooling. It resonated with me. Um, and the the unschooling, and I’ll get to the eclectic part here in a minute, but the unschooling is, I feel like a terrible term for the philosophy. It’s it’s really child-led learning. Like what is the child interested in? And then you provide the resources for the child to learn the thing. You know, whether that’s my son wanted to learn the guitar, he had bought his brother’s guitar, the resource he used was YouTube. And then ultimately he said, Mom, I’d really like to get to get lessons. And so, you know, I provided the lessons for him to become better at the guitar. Um, so by by the end of the year, I really let the kids hone in on the things that they were most interested in. We’d spend very little time on the core academics. Uh we did a little bit of reading, a little bit of writing, and a little bit of mathematics every day. And then beyond that, they would they would take time uh focusing on their interests. But I wasn’t an unschooling purist because as I talk to unschooling purists, they’re like, oh, you can’t use curricula and you know, like true unschoolers let their children do whatever they want. And, you know, and they’re and I’m like, well, I’m not quite that way because I want my kids to be able to read, to be able to write, to be able to do arithmetic to a certain point. And so the eclectic part, and I I think most homeschoolers end up eclectic, where the eclectic part is pulling whatever resources that you need to teach the things that you most seem are necessary and important. So I use eclectic because there are certain subjects that I’m like, yeah, kids, we’re gonna, we’re gonna work on history and we’re gonna talk about how our country was set up and we’re gonna talk about civics. I may or may not use a curricula for it, but these are important things for me as a parent that I feel like you should learn. So that is very eclectic. That’s very not unschooling. Um, and so we’ll spend uh the first part of the morning doing certain things, and then the rest of the day they’ll they’ll explore their their needs. But I also don’t do academics every single day. We do academics twice a week, and then they’ve got enrichment programs that they go to. And so again, that eclectic is we’re gonna pull from the resources that we that are best, we’re gonna do the things that we feel best as parents, that the things that you need to learn, the the values that we need to instill, we’re gonna work on all of those things. And then the rest of the day, you can work on your interests and your hobbies and focus on the things that are really important to you as well. So that’s where we got I got that term, eclectic unschooler, because we’re I’m not a purist in either. We’re somewhere in the middle.

Sandy Zamalis 17:11

Do you relate to that at all, Sandy? Uh, I do. I’m of course my brain is sitting here thinking, um, I because I was more of an eclectic homeschooler on the front end, and then I got more guardrails and structure as I went towards the end. Um, and maybe this is like the difference between when you pull your kids out later or when you start earlier, but um, I probably had more of the fear by the time my kids were like middle school age that I was missing something and I wasn’t setting them up for success for college and beyond. And so I felt like I needed more of those structures and tools. Um, I know my husband was, you know, panicking about calculus and like, you know, like there’s do we have all the sciences covered? Like there’s just so many things that um we were thinking through at the time. And um, it’s interesting to me to have because both of you kind of have a different perspective on that uh finishing out high school side, because you went the total other way where you kind of allowed your children to lead that um and utilized resources like community college or online school or tutors or something to kind of fill in those holes. Um so how do you help parents navigate that?

High School Credits And College Options

Sandy Zamalis 18:24

Because it is two head spaces that you’re kind of thinking through of like how how am I gonna get them a diploma? So I don’t look like anything. And a diploma that gets them into college, too. Right. So that I’m not closing any doors for them. That then none of my decisions are, you know, gonna mess up their trajectory.

Janae Daniels 18:44

Well, I think I think that’s a a fair and a valid question to ask. And that that’s something that I started asking myself as my kids were going into high school is is like, well, I d I don’t want to close doors for them. Uh what I learned very, very, very quickly is that there are many, many, many, many doors. And I guess a shift happened in my my mind. Um as I looked, as I started learning, like 19% of high school graduates can’t read of at a functional letter uh level. There are people getting into college that cannot read. And I was like, when I started learning the statistics, and and I get this from Nation’s Report Card, um, which is put out um every year, I I was like, okay, so if these kids are getting into college not being literate, what does that mean for my kids? Um, so I started, I I looked into concurrent enrollment through my my school district. And at first, again, when I first started homeschooling, I’m like, oh, they’re gonna need to take all these English classes, and then if I want them to get into college, then you know, what are we gonna do? And I started realizing, wait a minute, uh, are we repeating classes in high school and then they’re taking them again in college? And could we kill two birds with one stone? And what are the universities actually looking for? Uh, maybe I need to figure out like what’s the end goal. And so, you know, Stephen Covey s said in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, you always begin with the end in mind. And so I said, okay, so let’s look at what the universities that they might want to go to are looking for, and then we’ll tailor it to to the needs of that, to of that university. Um within a couple years, my my son at least, uh, who’s now 19, he said, I don’t, I don’t think I want to go, I don’t I don’t think I want to go to college. They and you have to understand that we started concurrent enrollment with he and his sister at age 14 and 15. And I was I was concerned doing concurrent enrollment that young that they wouldn’t fit in class. I was also worried, like, what if they’re offered drugs? Um, like things like that, which yeah, I learned very quickly in community college and state college. Uh people have are working two and three jobs, and the last thing that they’re thinking about is your 14-year-old who’s sitting in class with them, who they have to do a project with, but then they’re also going to go to their job. Um, and they’ve got non-traditional students like Charles, who’s 45, who’s to sit, you know, like not a concern. Um but but my for example, my son, they they took, we did general education requirements that they would have taken in high school anyway. Um, and so we’re checking the high school boxes. At the same time, they’re receiving college credit. And my son, after the first year, made the president’s list and and he came to me and he sat down and he said, Mom, I I don’t think I want to continue. And I said, But but uh what if you don’t get a job? And he goes, Well, what I’ve discovered is Um, number one, I I don’t like jumping through all of the hoops that the professors ask me to jump through. And I realized in order to get a good grade, that’s what I have to do. And my my daughter came to the same realization. She said, I realize as long as I do exactly what the professor tells me, it doesn’t matter if I learn anything, I’ll get a good grade. Am I here to get a good grade or am I here to learn something? And and so they’re making these realizations very, very young. So my son says, I don’t, I do not want to go to college, and I realized I don’t want to work for somebody else long term. Um and he started working a couple different jobs and um meeting with entrepreneurs and uh experimenting with um internships and and doing different things that he was interested in. Um the thing is, if we look at the university system, universities are corporations, right? They are they’re meant to make money. They want people’s money. And there’s more ways to get into college than getting just a diploma, which we were in the state of Colorado. I was able to issue him a diploma once he fulfilled the requirements that we, uh my fat my husband and I had for him. Um, and so I think sometimes we are so one-tracked mind that we think if they don’t get the diploma this way, and in some states it might be required that you get a diploma or a GED, and that’s fine, just gear them that way. But most universities want people’s money, and many universities will take anybody. So I I even discovered that with Ivy Leagues, um, I interviewed somebody on my podcast who went to Harvard, and and she um she was a homeschooler, and they were they told her in admissions that they were more interested in the fact that she had zoned in on certain things that she loved, like science fiction. Um, and that’s what they were looking for, were kids that were into things and they um they would spend their time doing that than they were some of the academic pieces, which really surprised me. So, so for parents, I think we have to stop thinking with this one-track mind, like they they have to go this way or else, when the reality is you could go back to school at 25 and do concur and do a community college. Most state colleges will take anybody. Uh, if you want to go to an IV league, what you’re gonna do is you’re talk to the admissions and say what do they need, and then gear them towards that. But allow the kids to have input because by the time they’re 14, 15, 16, 17, they they they have some idea of what they want to do. Um, and I’m talking a lot, and I apologize that I’m talking so much. Um I last night, so my daughter was just in a homeschool production musical, and there was like 60 kids in the cast, which is why if I sound a little tired, that’s why. Um, and one of the moms came up to me, and her son is uh sophomore in high school, and she said, um, my my degree was in costume design. That was my emphasis. And so I did the costumes for this show, and the kids helped me, and other parents helped me. Um, and so this mom came up to me and she said, you know, I’ve been talking to my son that you’ve been working with, and he knows what he he wants to do. And I said, Okay, what does he want to do? And she said, He wants he’s brilliant at sewing. And I said, Yes, I’m fully aware because I I’ve been working with him. And she said, He he wants to sell uh do custom cosplay um costumes and charge for them. Uh would his best course of action be to go into costume design uh at a university, or is there a better way to do it? And and I said to her, you know, I I went through four years of university, actually went through five years of university, and a friend of mine finished her master’s degree in costume design, moved to LA, uh, went into a costume house, and they said, It’s nice that you have a degree in that, you’re gonna start at the bottom. And she was, she was like, I spent thousands of dollars on this. So I told this mom that that story, and I said, if if I were you, uh, he wants to do this, he needs to start doing it. Uh, but he’s gonna need to know how to pattern draft. So he’s gonna need to take a class in pattern drafting, he’s gonna need to know how to drape, uh, which is a form of patterning. Uh, this is these are the things that he’s gonna need to know. And and so if that’s what he wants to do, then you need to tailor what he learns and find the classes that will help him get to the end result and have him start doing it now. Have him start making costumes for cosplay for other people, charging a little bit and charging more. It might be better if he gets a degree in business than costume design. And she’s like, that’s what my husband said too. So anyway, I don’t know if I answered the question, but but I feel like there’s I feel like we’ve limited ourselves so much to like, this is the only way to get into university, which is not true at all.

Sandy Zamalis 27:27

Or the only way to get a job, right? Like the only way to get work or um a career is to go this path.

Janae Daniels 27:33

Right. And that’s not true. And we’re seeing more and more college graduates graduating without being able to secure a job.

Entrepreneurship And The College Myth

Dr. Amy Moore 27:40

So and the research is showing that homeschoolers, there’s a larger percentage of homeschoolers in entrepreneurship than not. And so it you have we have to stop and think why, right? What is it about the homeschooling experience that is producing that type of independent thinking, that type of creative thinking, um, that type of autonomous thinking, right, that we’re not seeing coming out of traditional schooling? It’s kind of fascinating.

Janae Daniels 28:17

It is fascinating. And I’ve I feel like we’re in the middle of a little bit in the middle, middle of a counter-revolution. Uh prior to the progressive educators taking over in the late 1890s through through the 20th century, um, high school didn’t exist. I mean, it existed, but very few people went to secondary education. Um by the time in, you know, up until the late 1900s, uh, the late sorry, 1800s, most kids, once they hit 14, they were expected to apprentice. They were expected to, those that were from elite families would go to university, but they usually start university at age 16. And um they that we didn’t have this teenage culture. That’s a recent phenomenon, which actually coincides with when we start seeing um the majority going to high school in by the 1940s. And so I think what’s happening now is people are are are are looking and going, particularly homeschoolers, they go, Oh, I can do all these other things. I don’t have to do a traditional route. And since they’re already um bucking the system, it takes people who buck the system to become entrepreneurs. You know what I mean? Like it’s it’s a very non-traditional mindset to go into entrepreneurship because there aren’t, you’re not given set regulations. You know what I mean? It’s not like a job where you’re like, welcome to working at this company. Here’s your handbook, here’s this, here’s that. Most people go, okay, I’m gonna do this. Now, now I have to I have to figure it out, which which takes a mindset that is already bucking everything else. If that anyway, that’s my opinion, anyway.

Sandy Zamalis 30:08

I’m gonna be a little bit of a devil’s advocate here because um it’s I love I love this trend. I feel like this is definitely where homeschooling is heading. And you know, I homeschooled, you know, about 20 years ago. So um we were still in that like I think high our high school college mindset. I think really the predominant conversation was do community college versus a four-year college because that’s a better use of your finances, those kinds of things. And now I feel like that it’s really trending to what you’re talking about, where people are just like, forget college altogether, uh, figure out what your child loves. There’s there are pathways. Why would you go to college? Most of those jobs are obsolete anymore. Um, things are changing so fast. Um, but I think where parents get stuck, and this is where I wonder if you could help, um, it’s that overwhelming piece that you seem to do intrinsically and naturally. Like you uh see the big vision and you break it down and you try to figure out, well, what do I need for that? How does a parent do that? Um, how do you help them walk through that process? Because it’s not intrinsically obvious if it’s overwhelming to them about how, for example, the parent that came to you clearly didn’t know where to start. How do I help him with this thing? Because I don’t know anybody but you who does a costuming. Um, and it sometimes it boils down to I know a guy or I know a person that can kind of help you in that scenario. But breaking it down is the hard part, figuring out what pieces that you need so that you can then strategically build those skills and get them going in the right direction.

Janae Daniels 31:46

Well, I think part of it is we have to figure out what our kids like. And a lot of times they don’t, they don’t know yet.

unknown 31:54

Yeah.

Janae Daniels 31:54

You know, especially if they’re coming out of public school and they’re a sophomore in high school. They they just don’t know. They’re, they’re still they’re still tired. And so as a parent, then we go, okay, so let’s let’s use the guardrails for a little bit. Um, let’s do concurrent enrollment until they figure out. Again, I my goal with my now 19-year-old was he will go to a uh ultimately go to a four-year four-year institution. We’re gonna have him at least work on an associate’s degree in general studies. Like that’s where I started. Um and it and it was him that started to figure out wait a minute, I don’t think I he had to figure out what he wanted more. My daughter is still doing concurrent enrollment and she she’ll finish next year. Well, she’ll finish her senior year of high school this year, and then next year she will c finish her associate’s degree. Um, because she did take a year and a half off. But I think to s to start as parents, maybe we look at like, okay, I’d like them to go to a four-year university. Why don’t we start with them with concurrent enrollment and just have them take a couple classes while they are figuring out what they want and while we as parents are figuring out what we’re doing. That’s usually the course that a lot of parents will go is like, okay, I feel like my child’s mature enough to to do this. Let’s start them with just one or two concurrent enrollment classes as we’re figuring out what’s next. Um and there are some kids that are like, no, I want to be a doctor. And in that case, yeah, okay, you know exactly what you need to do. Like, right? There are, there is a very specific path, right? I cannot become a doctor without university. Period, the end. Um but those kids are, I feel like, the exception and not the rule. Most kids are floundering, just going, I don’t, I don’t know what I like except for what my friends like. And now I’ve got to figure that out. And so then we go, okay, we’re gonna put you in general studies and at least knock out the prerequisites for college. So if you do decide to go to college, you don’t have to take speech and debate or speech or, you know, English composition one and two, right? We’re gonna knock those out in high school. So that’s where I would start is all right, start with general studies, concurrent enrollment. We’ll start there.

Dr. Amy Moore 34:12

And that was very successful for us with our youngest. Um, and and you said, you know, you were a little concerned starting at age 14, but that’s exactly what we did, right? When he took that community college placement exam at the end of eighth grade, he placed into English 101. And so we said, well, why would we do high school English one when you just placed into college English 101? I’ll give you credit for your high school English, but right, go take it. And he got an A. And then he went and did English 102 and got an A. And so we wouldn’t have known had we not given him that opportunity um, you know, to do that.

Janae Daniels 35:00

Yeah.

Dr. Amy Moore 35:01

Um, and I, you know, I was super excited because he graduated from home school with 45 college credits. Yeah. Oh my goodness, that’s almost half a degree paid for. How much money does that save me? And then he decided to be a music performance major um at Colorado State University. And you have to stay all four years as a music performance major. I’m like, what about those 45 credits you started with? So it’s enabled him to be a double major, right? Because he didn’t he didn’t have to take any of those basics. So it because he’s there, he’s gonna get two degrees in the same timeframe.

Janae Daniels 35:38

So it worked. That works out great. Well, and I even look at my my daughter who who has struggled, she’s very artistically inclined. And she the the last few years, she’s like, I just don’t know what I’m interested in, but I’d like to take an art class. And then I’d like to take another art class. And I’m like, I think we’re finding what you’re interested in. You know, like you keep leaning to the arts. Um and so I think sometimes, you know, yeah, so here he is double majoring. So the the credits aren’t for not, right? He’s able to use or both. With my daughter, she finally has figured out. She’s like, I think I want to go into art and I potentially illustration, but there’s some other fields that I might want to might want to look at. Um I think the beautiful thing is though, when they’re they’re younger, I I do think that they appreciate there becomes some appreciation for learning for learning’s sake. That that was one thing that struck me with my kids is um they became keenly aware, like, okay, my my daughter brought this up. She goes, so let me get this straight. She was 15 at the time. She goes, I have to take college classes that I pay for, or somebody has to pay for, that are not gonna help me in my major, that I’m not interested in. That just seems like the university just wants to make money. And I was like, You’re right. That’s true. But if you want a degree, then then you need to do it. She goes, but what if what if I just want to do the thing to do the thing like art? Could I just take the art classes and and not get a degree and still work in art? And I said, I mean, you could. That’s an option, you know. But if if the state’s paying for it while you’re in high school, you may as well get the degree. So she’s like, okay, that’s fair. That’s fair. So that’s that’s where we’ve landed.

Dr. Amy Moore 37:38

So what I’ve heard is that we really need to lean into that collaborative process. Yes. Where it isn’t just about looking at, hey, these are the high school graduation requirements, therefore, let’s plug this all in. It’s okay, these are the high school graduation requirements, but we have a lot of wiggle room in how we meet them. And we need to look at what are your career goals, or what do you think they might be as we work towards meeting these graduation requirements at the same time. And so it’s iterative and collaborative and um not, I mean, there’s flexibility and freedom in there, right?

Janae Daniels 38:24

Right. There’s a lot of flexibility and free freedom in there. And um and there’s time. I think that’s the other thing is we think that like, oh, they have to do all of this all right now. They have to figure everything out right now, but um but but there’s t there’s time. There’s there will be time. And it might be that they change their mind as they get older and want to do something else. I mean, how do we prepare kids for jobs that don’t currently exist? We we can’t really. So we we do the best we can as parents and we guide them in direction to to know how to solve problems on their own and figure things out on their own. Um, I think that’s the best thing that we can give our kids is like how uh uh aside from moral instruction, right? And um, so for for me, I’m like, no, I want my kids to know Jesus first and foremost. Then aside from that, what tools do my kids need to be successful in whatever they end up choosing or later choosing? Will they know how to find the answers? Will they know how to seek out the jobs, and will they have the courage to to do the steps that they need to do to get where they need to get to go? Does that make sense? Absolutely. That’s that’s more concerning that’s my bigger

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Janae Daniels 39:45

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Sandy Zamalis 39:45

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AI, Trades, And Future-Proof Skills

Dr. Amy Moore 40:48

So as AI comes onto the scene and is projected to take over, you know, a many of the jobs that humans currently do. How is that changing these conversations? How is that changing the way that you are coaching parents? And should it change? Um, I think so this is a tough one.

Janae Daniels 41:13

And this is something that I’ve I’ve wrestled with. I my my almost 14-year-old son informed me. He said, I know that AI is gonna take over most jobs. And I said, yes. And he’s like, but I still don’t need to know how to think. And I said, Yes, yes, you do need to know how to think. And he said, and I’ve been thinking that AI can’t take over plumbing anytime soon. So I’m going to be a plumber. And I said, okay, okay. And he’s like, and I work well with my hands, so that kind of goes hand in hand because I like solving problems and puzzles, and that that goes that goes well. Um the the problem is I think there are jobs that AI can’t take over, but we don’t know. Well, this I don’t know how to describe this. My my father, who passed away this year, um, this past year, uh, when computers became a thing, he told his parents, I really I want to work for this company called IBM. And it’s a computer company. And his father was really concerned because he said, no, computers are gonna take over the world. And he said, but somebody needs to run the computers. And I want to figure out that. And computer science wasn’t a thing when he was in college in the early 60s, late 50s, early 60s, um, as far as I know. So he he got his degree in mathematics and psychology and ended up working for IBM for many, many, many years. I feel like we’re in the same, like it’s the pattern is repeating itself. That it was very unknown with computers the same. It’s very unknown with AI. We don’t, we know it, it can be a tool, but we don’t know what it’s gonna, none of us know what it’s gonna look like. None of us know exactly which jobs it’s gonna take over. Um and so again, if we can instill in our kids, like, okay, how do we make shifts and pivot when we need to? How do we solve problems? There are going to be problems that we don’t know about yet that are gonna need solving, and you can be the one to solve that problem. Like, that’s I feel like that’s where we have to focus is like, can they can they legitimately critically think, which is not being taught in public school right now? Like they’re being taught what to think as opposed to how to think. So if we can instill this like problem solving on our own with our kids, which happens somewhat naturally in homeschooling as as we’re as we’re working through that with our with our kids, I think that we’ll be fine as the problems come up with AI. But none of us know what to expect. Like we don’t know what we don’t know yet because it’s not happened yet. And so again, can they think On their own, can they pivot when they need to pivot? Can they do they have the courage to pivot when they need to pivot and and not get stuck? It reminds me of the book Who Moved My Cheese? I don’t know if you’ve ever read that book. But like the mice that got stuck always going after the same cheese. Well, we’ve got to teach our kids when things need to pivot, it’s time for you to pivot. And you’ve got to figure out what’s next and have the courage to move forward with confidence and faith and guidance with God that you’re gonna be okay. So I don’t know if that answered the question, but I I feel like I I don’t want to be afraid. I I don’t like to live my life in fear. And my kids are not afraid of AI. Uh my again, my my now almost 14-year-old son who wants to be a plumber, he came to me one day. He’s like, I want to show you what I made. And he had gone on and made a uh a video game. He’s like, I want to figure out how to monetize this video game. His older 24-year-old brother who went through public school, uh, and he had been working on it together. And and I said, How did you, how did you know how to code this game? This would have taken weeks, and you just spent the last two days working on it. And he was like, I used AI. I’m like, how? And he’s like, Well, I I wasn’t exactly sure how AI worked, so I wanted to see how far I could push the limits with AI. So I said, I need you to code this game. This is what I want it to do. And and I’ve been using artificial intelligence to code the game, and now I’m using it to help me figure out how to monetize the game. And and so he naturally, because he’s a curious kid, figured out how to use it to do what he wanted, as opposed to going, oh my gosh, I can’t code and AI is gonna take over coding. Well, he went, Oh, great. AI took over coding, so I don’t have to learn how to code now, so I’m gonna use the tool the way that I need the tool to be used. And I went, Oh, well, that’s great. I’m still using AI for like, how do I do this? Right. And my son is way past me on that. So we learn from babes.

How Boredom Sparks Real Interests

Sandy Zamalis 46:09

When did you start having these conversations with your kids, Chinae? I know if I’m thinking of a parent who’s bringing their child home from school, and you know, again, you’re stuck in that lane of how we’re thinking about um how we achieve education and a career. And so having those conversations is a kind of a different um nuanced thing. Like we always ask kids, like, what do you want to be when you grow up? But to your point earlier, sometimes they don’t know. They haven’t tried enough things. So, how do we kind of start that conversation, help them by maybe thinking outside the box of how we try things, how we get to incorporate new things into our daily schedule and kind of rethink the whole scope and sequence of all the things we’re supposed to accomplish during our school years.

Janae Daniels 47:01

I think we need to allow our kids to get bored and and we have we’ve lost, we are so um, I was this mom where my especially with my older two sons, like they had to be in every sport, they had to be always occupied, they had to be always going. And and it wasn’t until we stepped back and started homeschooling that I realized that I was overbooking not only my kids but myself. And there wasn’t enough time for our brains to just relax and be and wonder and be curious. Um, I did as, and I still do as a homeschooling mom, put screen time limits on my kids, and my kids don’t get smartphones when they, you know, when they’re little. They they can get one when they’re 18, but they don’t get them before. Um what I found is that when kids get really, really, really, really bored, they start to get curious and start to wonder. And we’ve taken boredom away in our society. But that’s where the genius comes. That’s where the brilliance comes, is when they’re so bored that they’re like, I can I, mom, can I look up this thing? Would it be okay? And this is one of the things that legitimately happened. My son said, Mom, I I want to learn how to play this one song on the piano. Can I look up how to play it on YouTube? And I said, Yeah, sure you can. And he ends you know, and now he’s can play all these different songs. But but it took him being bored and laying on the dog’s bed with the dog for a long time, where I’m like, Are you gonna do something? He’s like, I just don’t know what to do. I’m like, Well, I guess you’ll figure it out, but you’re not playing video games. So, you know, you’re not watching TV. Um, and he had finished his academics. But I found for my kids, that’s when the questions started to come was when they got bored enough that they needed something to do. And I think that’s a little counterintuitive. Sometimes we’re like, no, you’ve got to be, we’ve got to be going. But but for at least for our family, they had to get bored. I mean, really bored. Like really, really, really, really bored for a long period of time. And then the beauty started. That’s when my daughter started reading and reading and reading. And that’s when my son picked up the guitar, and that’s when Jacob realized that he thinks he wants to be a plumber because he likes to work with his hands and he got bored, so he started working, you know, doing a puzzle. He thought, what jobs? And and he on his own terms thought, what jobs could I do that require me to work with my hands and do, you know, so the boredom is the key, but we’ve robbed our kids of that because we overbooked them, overscheduled them. Because if they’re, heaven forbid, if they’re not in competitive sports all the time, every season, they’re not going to turn out. But but they need boredom and they need play and they they need that. So that’s that’s my two cents for what it’s worth.

Dr. Amy Moore 50:04

So my mom used to say to me when I was a child, my mom was a child development specialist also and so expert. And so when I would say, Mom, I’m bored, she would always say, Creative children, don’t get bored. And of course, it drove me nuts. Like, but like clockwork, mom, I’m bored, creative children don’t get bored. So that was a challenge, right? That challenged me, okay. Well, if I’m a creative child, then what am I going to create now? Um, I think, I think the caveat to that is that we have to allow our children the space to create, to come up with ideas, not in a neglectful way. Right, right. Right. Like, like we like I want parents to hear that, that they still have materials and resources and these amazing invitations to dig into the world, to discover the world. This isn’t about um, hey, you’re gonna go to your room while I leave the house for the next 18 hours and figure it out, right? Like we we still have the responsibility to create those invitations by having the resources available to them and by having these open conversations about that um as well, and then write the world as their oyster.

Strewing And The Environment As Teacher

Janae Daniels 51:30

Well, I I remember one day, because they had been bored for a couple days, and and and I’m not like I’m home, right? But we do, we have all these wonderful resources for them. But in in unschooling, there’s this term called strewing where you leave things around the house that might inspire curiosity. And so one day I pulled out a microscope that I bought our first year of homeschooling that never came out of the box. And and this is I want to say this is back in like October, just so just recently. And I put it on the kitchen table with some slides, and I just left it. I didn’t say anything to the kids, nothing. I just left it there, and they you know, my now almost 14-year-old was came and looked at the table. He’s like, Why is there micros microscope on the table? I’m like, Well, because I wanted to look into it, and he’s like, Huh, can I look into it? I’m like, if you want to. And so I think sometimes just leaving things around for curiosity is beautiful, leaving books out. And uh, we have like our kitchen is open to the kids, and so they’ve all become pretty accomplished at at cooking and baking because they have we are in my kids have informed us that we are an ingredient house and not a snack house. And so if they want to eat something, they have to physically make it, which is not they don’t say that out of love. They’re like, we’re an ingredient house. Everyone else has like a snack house and we have to make our stuff. And I’m like, well, that it is, it is what it is.

Dr. Amy Moore 53:06

But science, people, that’s science.

Janae Daniels 53:09

But I think you’re right, though we have to have the resources. If I mean, if there’s nothing for them at all, like they they’ve gotta have paper and they’ve gotta have pens at the very least. But but if we can at least inspire a little bit of curiosity by putting some things out every now and again, I’m not saying go out and buy a microscope because really we’ve only used it that one day. And it’s back in the box. So um, but but we have to have the I agree with you, we absolutely have to have the resources and inspire some curiosity.

Dr. Amy Moore 53:39

Yeah, so you mentioned Montessori at the uh top of the show. If you know anything about the Reggio Emilia um philosophy of learning, and that’s you know, Loris Maliguzzi was this educator in this tiny little town in Italy, um, which I visited for two weeks um early on in my career to really dig into what is happening with this philosophy of learning. And it is emergent curriculum. It is using the child’s interest to explore the world. And so his thought process was that the environment is a teacher. So we create invitations to learn, to explore the world based on the intentionality that we use in creating our environments. And so those environments create those invitations. And so we have to stock them with things and new things. And I mean, this could be the spider web outside of your window. That’s part of the learning environment, right? I wonder what’s happening there. Um, but it can also be the microscope that you pull out of the basement or, you know, the books that we have, the art materials that we have, um, the opportunity to use the internet with limits, right? If we have something specific that we want to learn. So I’m glad that we talked about that aspect um of boredom because wow, um how much kids can do when given the the opportunity.

Find Janae And Closing Thoughts

unknown 55:12

Yes.

Dr. Amy Moore 55:12

All right. Well, this has been a really fun conversation. Janae, how can our listeners find more from you?

Janae Daniels 55:20

Uh you can find me at schooltohomeschool.com or on Instagram or YouTube. It’s school to homeschool. On Instagram, it’s the School to Homeschool Podcast, but on YouTube it’s school to homeschool. And if you want to reach out to me, you can connect via my website, schooltohomeschool.com. Awesome.

Dr. Amy Moore 55:37

Well, thank you so much for being with us today. This has been a fun conversation. And uh like I feel like we’ve spent two whole days together. I know if I was on your show yesterday. Well, now I’m gonna come over and have a sleepover tomorrow. So and and we’re gonna play Mahjong when Sandy’s in town.

unknown 55:54

Yeah.

Dr. Amy Moore 55:56

I do too. All right, listeners, thank you so much for being with us today. If you want more from us, you can find us at the Brainy Moms where you can sign up for our free monthly newsletter. You can find us on social media at the Brainy Moms. Um, you can go over to TikTok and see Sandy at the Brain Trainer Lady. Look, that is all the smart stuff that we have for you today. We hope that you feel a little bit smarter after spending this hour with us. We will catch you next time.