Kelly Rigg (00:02.602)
Hello everybody, welcome to yet another episode of The Big Home Ed conversations. My name is Nelly and I'm here as always with my co -host Ashley saying hello lovely.
Ashley Vanerio (00:13.518)
Hello, so glad to be here.
Kelly Rigg (00:17.088)
We are going to be talking to you guys today about critical thinking. So I feel like the phrase is banded about an awful lot of raising critical thinkers. And actually, I really wanted to talk about how, A, difficult it is to be a critical thinker in a world that does not seem to value critical thinking at all. But also, how when we first start home educating especially, but actually throughout our journey.
We can find ourselves accidentally getting sucked into different beliefs instead of actually critically thinking whether or not they actually resonate with us. So I wanted to, we wanted to talk about that today. So we're going to be cracking on with that in a minute, but we thought as always, we'll share with you a little bit about our world, I suppose. I mean, aside from animal antics, me with my tiny patch of lawn in my living room for my tiny puppy to try and use as a wee wee station because I've actually made a bit of turf in a tub in my living room because.
Ashley Vanerio (01:02.926)
Yes.
Ashley Vanerio (01:11.309)
You
Kelly Rigg (01:12.928)
We put them outside now, but we do not wee outside. Someone's given me specific spot on my carpet that that is mostly the place, so that's something at least, but we are really sick of using our spot wash, to be honest. And you've been having your fair share of fun this week, haven't you, with your poor pusscat?
Ashley Vanerio (01:26.156)
Yes. Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (01:32.51)
Yeah, he has a given himself like a little open wound. and the bugger just keeps getting his cone off. So we are going to be going back to the vet tomorrow. We should be going back with like a healed, situation and it is not going to be because he got his cone off last night and I woke up to him. just poor thing. The whole thing is awful and disgusting and also just looks incredibly painful. So.
Kelly Rigg (02:01.708)
you
Ashley Vanerio (02:01.792)
I am, yeah, hopeful that he will keep his cone on tonight. Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (02:08.332)
about,
Ashley Vanerio (02:14.27)
Yeah, he has mastered the evil eye, I will tell you.
Kelly Rigg (02:21.238)
So yeah, so we are having some fun this week, my main funny story has got to be the electric car saga on Monday. So we have had solar panels put on our property last year, and we have had issue after issue after issue with the stuff that they installed. And the final nail in the coffin was the fact that the EV charger that we had on the side of the house at the same time, it wasn't actually earthed properly. So when it came to charging our brand new electric car, we actually couldn't charge it at all.
really delightful. So we thought what better way to christen ourselves with buying an electric car than to try and go on a long journey with it. It was just an idea like completely formed in the brain of ADHD woman who loves to challenge herself clearly and we set off with very little room for the rough. The timings that I had for my day were really, really tight to really make the most of the day basically.
because we were actually driving up one day and then driving back the next. So I really wanted to make the most of that time. And the first charger we tried wasn't working. We drove to another services. The second charger we tried was working, but it was going to take two and a half hours. We got our time all said and done. We left at eight in the morning and we got there at two thirty in the afternoon and decided in infinite wisdom to go for a nice little walk around Warwick Castle in the pouring rain in
My code is not waterproof anymore, so don't need sorting out. But it's funny because it's a saga that it really did create some fun family bonding. Education in that day, like I genuinely tick stuff off of our school list for the week based on the.
Ashley Vanerio (04:01.56)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (04:08.768)
the science and electricity and how you charge an electric car and why it takes so long instead of just filling it up with the way it's better for the environment. It created a lot of great conversations. So I'm planning on a win. And obviously the frustration and the stupid thing. she went up for this moment that actually turned into being my husband laughing quite a lot. So that's quite nice. So actually it was quite a funny day in the end.
But yeah, just an utter saga this week. So I feel like we're just having fun. This is all a bit of a nightmare. But it's what it all looks like, right? It's meant to be a little bit chaotic. Wouldn't be life otherwise. So yeah, so we're move on to we're actually here to talk about today. So essentially, we wanted to talk about what critical thinking was, and as I said earlier, the ways that it kind of shows up in our homemade journey.
Ashley Vanerio (04:38.253)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (05:05.836)
So first and foremost, I thought it'd be just a good idea to kind of actually talk about what it actually is. So I feel like the term gets said an awful lot. I don't think we always necessarily entirely know what it is, whether we do it and also how you actually encourage children to do it either. And I think this is still a skill that I'm 100 % working on in terms of how we actually teach my kids, even teach them, kind of allow them to question things.
and to form their own understanding of their reality and their lived experience and to make decisions all for themselves and to have their own opinions and things like that, which is just such a tricky thing to do in the world today. So I don't know about you, Ashley, but the concept of critical thinking, do you feel like your childhood and your lived experience up until maybe more recent years actually encouraged you to have critical thinking, actually wanted you to form your own ideas and opinions?
Ashley Vanerio (05:49.292)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (06:05.56)
I think that, well, I guess the short answer is no. And I think that when you're in the environment that we grew up in, terms of, I went to a public school in the States, it was very much, you are learning this because this is the fact, this is reality, this is what is, what is. And I...
Never. There's so much I never questioned that I just accepted as fact. And I think a great example of that is just the career path of a child. So going up through the educational system and the assumption that you absolutely will go to college and you will do that because then you will get a job. And if you don't do that, you will not get a job or you will get a bad job. Right.
Kelly Rigg (07:04.971)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (07:05.024)
And so I think that's one clear example. I think another one is that, especially in the, I just remember so much in grade school that the support of the nation, the fact that America is the best place to live, it is where you are free, it is where you want to be. And that was drilled in us so heavily that I remember vividly.
When we started studying some other countries in school, I actually thought to myself like, so all these people are not free. Like they can't do what they want. They're doing what other people are telling them to do and they can't go to the park if they wanna go to the park because they're not free. So it's so funny how you just are in this system and what they tell you is what you believe.
Kelly Rigg (07:52.876)
Hmm.
Ashley Vanerio (08:04.958)
And I don't, that's not to come off as negative to anyone and say like, well, I'm sure if I had thought about it heavily, I could have realized that I can question all these things. But it was just, we are just meant to be so sit down, follow the rules, don't cause trouble. And there are plenty of times in school when I remember asking a question and teacher being like, I'm not taking questions right now. Put your hand down.
Kelly Rigg (08:18.453)
Mm
Ashley Vanerio (08:34.446)
I'm still speaking. Maybe you can ask your question at the end of class, right? So I think that we get into this routine of absorbing information and then being allowed to ask questions at a particular time, if at all. And if you speak out of turn, you go to the principal's office. If you cause chaos in the class, if you disrupt.
Kelly Rigg (08:37.952)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (09:02.406)
certainly in the younger years, you just don't do it. And then I think there, there were examples later in school where you, might challenge the teacher a little bit on some things, but ultimately, it was a little bit later as you got a bit older. So I think that at least from my experience, I was not ever really questioning very much of what was on the day to day.
Kelly Rigg (09:30.86)
And I think also, I mean, let's face it, each teacher, although they're teaching from a curriculum, they are also going to be expressing their opinions, ideals, beliefs, et cetera. And when we maybe kind of like really look up to a teacher or to a person, a mentor, whatever, we can take on their beliefs, ideals and ideas as facts.
instead and I think this is the kind of thing that I wanted to kind of really get to is they find the fact that obviously if we really think about that most of us who go on to home educate our kids have ourselves been schooled. We have grown up in a society that has asked us to blindly follow the opinions of the people who we have held most closely in our communities so whether that is...
I might cough a couple of times, I do apologise. But it might be the teachers that you had in your school, it might be the kind of community you lived in, could be, say you're in a very rural community or you're in a not very, of, I'm trying to think of like different environments, like city locations, maybe it's in an area that has a lot of poverty, maybe you're in an area that has lots of different cultures, maybe you'll be in an area that doesn't have very many cultures, like...
that actually you're going to have your opinions, ideals and these beliefs and what we end up considering as facts, implanted in our brains by our parents and our families and the people who we spend a lot of time with. And essentially, that doesn't mean therefore that we all believe the same things, absolutely not. We'd get all these factions of people who believe different things about different things. And neuro -education is
Ashley Vanerio (11:06.723)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (11:23.136)
but another one of those situations. So what people tend to think is that actually all home educators think the same thing and that we all have the same kind of ethos and we all believe in this really, like if you want to just imagine, I think what most people kind of consider the goal to be is to have this really wholesome, holistic, expansive opportunity for these kids, lots of outdoor time, lots of free time.
the ability to not be bullied, not have any kind of indoctrination going on, that there are certain ideals and imagery that we tend to associate with home education. At least I certainly come across a lot of that. whether I'm just talking my Instagram feed to show you what I say. It's the of ideal image that I feel gets portrayed to me as a home educating parent. And especially when you're new to the environment of it, it can be all too easy.
Ashley Vanerio (12:03.671)
Mm
Kelly Rigg (12:17.856)
to go from this really strict schooled belief of what education looks like, of how it's supposed to be, and to suddenly have this brainwave and this feeling like, know, God, no, I don't believe in this anymore. I want to believe in something else. I know that there's another way. And so we go looking for it. But then what can actually happen is instead of us taking that time to really form your own unique individual lifestyle,
Ashley Vanerio (12:33.987)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (12:46.58)
We end up just adopting somebody else's ideals, somebody else's opinions as fact. And we can get really tied up and start to question, see it now. When someone's saying to me, say for example, you're going into these forums, these Facebook groups, whatever, and you're saying, I'm having a really hard time. Like all my kids want to do is just play on video games. Like I literally can't let them to do anything else. They just moan and groan at me if I ask them to do anything.
Ashley Vanerio (12:51.139)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (13:12.876)
They don't want to leave the house. They don't want to play. They don't want to talk to me. They don't want to read a book. I'm going out of my mind. And somebody else says, no, it's fine. It's completely normal. Just let them play games. They're learning so much. They can all of this stuff from it. It's fine. They'll go on to be really successful. But actually their kids, you might be saying yours were on it all day. Right. So it's not what you say. My kids are on it all day. You might literally mean from 8 a until 8 p
with a break from meals, right? Like that might be what you are experiencing with your kids and actually do nothing else. They might be saying, well, it's fine to let them play the games. But actually they leave the house every day at 9 a go off and do various different things, come have lunch together, do their reading time with two hours of screen time before dinner. And that in their head is all day. Like they've always been playing video games. They play video games every day. Like it's fine. So you're getting the full context. You're not getting...
Ashley Vanerio (14:03.736)
Right.
Kelly Rigg (14:10.41)
Also, your child might be autistic, their child might be neurotypical. Like they might have all these resources. You another one, let me get on the rank now, sorry. Another one is the idea of like, it doesn't cost anything to home it. You can do it for free. Now I think this comes from a really privileged standpoint, I've got to be honest, because you might think it's free when you already have something else stuck with it's importance.
and printer and pens and pencils and fun things to do and you can go out for your days out even just to the park. Then you might consider they meant to be free because you might not think to yourself that any of those things are any more than you would normally buy if they were in school. But actually to somebody who is on the bread line and is not able to buy paper, has not got a printer, has not got a car, they know the park is not safe, they don't have any groups nearby to them to go to.
Ashley Vanerio (14:45.08)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (15:05.504)
They don't feel particularly welcome even if they might go to something and they might not feel like they fit in or they might not following similar ethos, whatever. It doesn't look right for that person. It is a lot and it's hard. And so we have got to really think for ourselves in these moments we've really got to notice and to ask these questions because actually, unless we truly understand if someone's saying to you, it's fine, let them play video games all day, we need more information.
Like, in order for students to say, hopefully that's a belief I can get on board with, fine, okay, I'm just going to let them do it all day. That might not be at all. That's really right for your family. That might not be right. And so you've got to, this is the whole point. It's really making sure that you are thinking, hang on, do I actually agree with this?
Ashley Vanerio (15:54.242)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that the concept of context is really important for so many things because
Like you were saying with the video games and I know a lot of friends who do, who are homeschooling and they do a lot of things online. So they're doing math programs that are online. They're doing writing programs that are online. They're taking advantage of, I think it's called out school. I might have that wrong, but that resource where you can go in kind of like the $2 tuition or two pound tuition, right? That all those options that are online. it,
Kelly Rigg (16:26.329)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (16:31.052)
Mm
Ashley Vanerio (16:34.88)
it can appear like someone is playing video games when maybe in reality they're doing it from an educational standpoint. And that just applies to so many things, right? Outside of the world of education even, right? It just, your day to day, you really have to continue to ask questions in order to really feel like you have a handle on.
Kelly Rigg (16:42.668)
Mm
Ashley Vanerio (17:03.008)
on the actual situation or the actual context for that particular thing. Because otherwise you're, and we're so quick to answer, aren't we? Like we're so quick to give our opinions and to want to jump in and help out or just even be a part of the conversation. And I feel like on social media, you see this especially, and I love social media, so I'm not knocking it. But I think that that is one of the things where
Kelly Rigg (17:15.276)
Mm
Kelly Rigg (17:28.918)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (17:33.642)
We, to your point, you just got to ask more questions in order to really feel like you could give an opinion or give a recommendation. Otherwise, yeah, you might be leading someone in the wrong direction completely.
Kelly Rigg (17:42.283)
and
Kelly Rigg (17:47.328)
Yeah, I think it's a thing we don't often understand where each other are at, like what we're actually experiencing. And like, for example, I have tried to follow advice around screen time, for example, just completely not limiting it, giving them enough room to just do as much as they want. I'm not controlling what they do with it, really be as hands off as humanly possible for a really significant, like I'm talking months.
of trying to just let it play its course and see if they would naturally regulate. And I have got two very likely ADHD autistic children. And as somebody who is also ADHD and possibly autistic myself, I know that I use screens to, yes, to regulate to some degree. They do help me to numb. They help me to calm and to Zen and to take that time out, but they are also a massive time suck. And when I get addicted to a TV series or playing a game,
I will lose hours without even blinking. Like I literally won't even realise that I've watched 10 episodes on Netflix and it's now 3am. So I know that as it's not such an addiction, it's more... It's more like... It's meeting with dopamine need to some degree. Like it's basically, it's just making me happy. Like you get to the cliffhanger of each episode, I need to know what happens next. And then by the time you've kind of found out what happens next, you're now drawn into another episode. And I can't resist that.
If I find it really hard, and especially, I mean, I have to have real significant motivation to make me stop. I have to either be like, you really need to go to sleep because you're going to get three hours sleep at this point, or you really have to get this job done for a client because it's due today and it's now 7pm and you've got to just move it, like stop delaying it. I want to have things in my way to motivate myself. So I sat there having this quandary thinking, okay, how do I?
encourage my children to want to the screens down and to come and do something else. mean, I the two them do enjoy going out. So if we're going out, screens are cool. Buy screens, we're going out. They love that. So I'm really grateful for that. So I am at least privileged in a situation that I don't tend to get that refusal. But if we're at home, it is a full day battle to keep them doing something else.
Ashley Vanerio (19:58.776)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (20:09.138)
So we need to come up with a solution. I have experienced so much guilt and had to really do this critical thinking work myself to recognise that, okay, yes, some people out there advocate for completely relaxed screen time, allowing them to do whatever they want. And that might genuinely work for their family. Their kids genuinely might get bored, put it down, walk away, do other things. They might also love to craft, build, draw, do things, learn things, read books. They might genuinely choose to do other things.
My kids, once they are in, they are gone and I am not getting them back. And when I do finally get away from it, they are going to be so, so nuts. So like they're going to need to run and jump and screech and squabble. And my goodness, it was like two feral monkeys and I can't deal with that. That then massively overstimulates me and makes me want to put them back on screens because I can't live with that level of like fight. So
We've got to keep our family in a more gentle place. And that's just what works for us. And it's taken me, mean, I'm four years in now, it's genuinely taken me this long to actually figure out the level of balance that is required for our days in order for it to work and to stop caring that some people allow it and some people don't. that, like, for example, we've literally set up a pocket money.
scheme in our household now that has a general participation of life. I'm expecting a little bit of school effort, a little bit of help around the house and no screens until one o 'clock. And if they can achieve those three things, then we move them one forward on the little board game thing that earns their pocket money every month. And one of you once says, do not motivate schoolwork with pocket money. Do not like have a reward system in place or whatever. I genuinely found myself thinking, well, I would do nothing else in my day.
If I had access to Netflix and chocolate and some coffee and the kids were happy just watching screens, we could lose months to that scenario unless I had to pay the bills, clean the house, go and buy food, eat meals. I need to have something in place that motivates me to do something else. And so for me, I am trialling it. We've been doing it for a couple of months now. You never see my kids getting washed, dressed, feeding themselves, doing the dish or shirt.
Ashley Vanerio (22:02.776)
Hehehe.
Kelly Rigg (22:28.074)
sitting and doing their three books of school that I may expect them to do and then going off and playing and having some fun and yes, okay, sometimes nagging for screens and being crazy here they do. For the most part, I'm seeing like massive, we're actually now participating. And I think this is a thing that for my family, this is working and it's helpful. And I think it's just helping them to learn.
little bit of responsibility and expectation in a day and that works for us. I'm not even saying this as a like you should try this. I'm genuinely saying this is just helpful for us and it's taken a lot of critical thinking, witnessing them, observing them, noticing me, seeing how we all cope, seeing what works and what doesn't, actually making a decision that some people will go what? I'm just like yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (23:20.334)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (23:24.106)
I wouldn't do any work work unless I knew I was going to get some money at the end of it, would you? I mean, like it's, like it's just, I don't know. This is the thing. I think it's important when we're forming our home ed ethos and we're figuring out what works for our families, that we allow ourselves to take in all these different viewpoints and to distill it into our own ethos. That that individuality is a massive part of our authenticity.
that we're allowed to do it. We don't have to abide by anybody else's ethos or rules. We do not have to follow one specific path.
Ashley Vanerio (24:02.294)
Yeah, I think that even within home education, it naturally lends itself to that. If you don't fight it, if you don't resist it, even just something as simple as you might think you're going to serve your kids breakfast, go to school, and then you'll have lunch at noon. But kids eat all the time. Like we have like second breakfast and then third breakfast and then snack before lunch and then lunch and
It was me initially being like, okay, no, there's no snacks. Like, we're just gonna do this. And then realizing, actually, why can't they have a snack? Like, why am I saying that? What is the reason that I'm immediately resisting this, right? Is it that I don't want them to be eating and I think they need to wait and have a proper meal? And if you think that, that's okay, right? You're teaching them patience, you're teaching them.
you know, some control, you're teaching them to have a full meal when it's offered to them. And then I said, or is it that I don't want them to have too much junk? So maybe then I want to make sure I'm offering some fruit or vegetables at that time. Or is it something else completely, right? Why am I thinking this? And I'm like, no, okay, they can have a snack, like finish this. And then before we move to the next topic, we'll have a snack. And
To your point, that can be incredibly motivating as well. But it just sort of is like, I don't use it that way. I use it more of like, once you finish this, then you can have that. Yeah, yeah.
Kelly Rigg (25:39.466)
Natural breaks, yeah, natural kind of pause, wiggle break and yeah, meet your needs, yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (25:43.67)
Yeah, exactly. And then that was sort of just kind of naturally happened, right? Because your kids, especially in a comfortable environment, they're gonna tell you what they need, right? Or what they want, maybe. And you get to then decide, is this gonna work for us or not? But it was so funny, because my initial reaction is just no. And I'm like, wait, why is it no? Why am I saying no? Why am I not like, yeah, sure, what do you want a snack on?
So I'm trying and I think that, we've been at this for five years now too. And so I think that you will just naturally start to then question things and say, well, I don't need to do science five days a week. I don't need to do every subject every day. can, especially because the time is never equal, right? You might get really.
into something that you're learning and spend two hours doing it versus, you in your school environment, that period of classes is what it is and you don't have flexibility in it. I think that there's also that and just saying like, why am I thinking it's this way? Can it be another way? But I think that especially with home education, you just find that you're naturally questioning things because you have these little people buzzing around.
Kelly Rigg (26:45.398)
Mm
Ashley Vanerio (27:11.864)
who have in many cases never been in school. So they don't understand at all why we're putting limits around things and why we're doing things the way we are. Because they have no context for that. They just don't understand it. So I do think that the further down the home education path you get, and this is probably true for a number of career paths or jobs that you might hold, that
Kelly Rigg (27:19.041)
No.
Ashley Vanerio (27:41.422)
you do naturally start to become a little more open to going outside the lines a little bit and questioning why things are in a certain way. And is that critical to the end results? Because if it is, then maybe that's the reason that is what it is. Or is it just something that was put in place to control a classroom of 30 kids? And I get that. I understand that without those guardrails in a classroom, you would have absolute chaos.
Kelly Rigg (27:48.428)
Absolutely.
Ashley Vanerio (28:11.604)
know, teachers are just making the best of what they have. And that is such a hard job. It is just so hard. So I think that we benefit from the ability to be super flexible. And that just tends to lend itself to more of that critical thinking, as you're saying, being able to really examine how we feel and the value we place on certain things.
Kelly Rigg (28:38.145)
Yeah. And I think this is a thing that leads, what you're saying there kind of really leads nicely onto this idea that, as you say, the kids don't necessarily understand why certain rules are a certain way. And I think in generations gone by, a child questioning their parents' was just considered a hard no. Like, you just don't do that. It's disrespectful. Like, the parent has set a rule, you follow it, end of discussion. And
Ashley Vanerio (29:00.621)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (29:07.89)
whether or not the parents then were even thinking like why do I have that rule like that's how I was raised but actually like why? Like this I saw a post the other day that's it's boiled my blood a little bit it's just sort of a somebody kind of saying about how their granddaughter has like bright yellow hair and piercings and tattoos and like why are we letting kids just express themselves these days like where's the respect for your body like where like all this my god it just boiled my blood but anyway
one of those things where I found myself thinking okay it's really interesting how the whole kind of generational trauma thing right this is a kind of a recognizing where you were raised a certain way you've got certain rules and expectations put on you it's very easy to accidentally carry them out with your kids actually we get these moments when our kids push back and I feel like what's really lovely about my relationship with my children and
I'm not always perfect, so please don't think that at all, because I definitely get this wrong sometimes. Sometimes it is just like, do you know what, I just said no, can we just move on? The last part, question me? And the question actually allows me a chance to pause and think and go, wait, hang on. Okay, hang on. Yeah, okay, fair enough. Like, you're right. Let's think about this, like what kind of compromise could we find here? And initially, like,
I was doing this I kind of found myself thinking he'd get told as parents like if you said no don't go back on it then they know how to manipulate you and how to get it next time or whatever. And I think what's really sad about that idea is that it's saying that you can't ever stop, actually have a critical thought about, on wait okay so they're saying actually, I'll give you quick example, my daughter will never wear weather appropriate shoes.
battle that I've now decided that it's no longer going to be a battle and she can just decide. So whenever she wants to wear her sandals and it's checking it down with rain, I just say, just let me know it's raining. And she'll go, Hey, and they say still wear sandals and she goes, and you go like, Hey, and that's that end discussion. Not going to keep arguing about it because actually she needs to have the opportunity to do the critical thinking herself.
Kelly Rigg (31:36.17)
she needs to decide for herself whether or not wearing sandals when it's chuffing it down with rain actually means that you end up with cold wet feet and blisters and that therefore that's not a great solution and actually maybe it would have been a good idea to wear wellies and then I would have had nice dry warm feet and I wouldn't have had blisters. know, like, not allowing herself to obviously really hurt herself, but it...
really helps her to have that moment of like, do you know what, I'm pushing okay, because actually I feel more comfortable wearing my sandals today. I want to really do that. That's what's right for me and my body in this moment. And I might not agree with that. And I might find it really hard to just be like, okay, fine, do what you want. And sometimes it is frustrating because we think to ourselves, I know what's going to come. I know what's going to happen off the back of this. Like you're to be cold, you're to moan, blah, blah, blah. And do you know what? She didn't moan.
She was happy in her sandals. She liked splashing in the puddles. She liked that her feet got wet. She enjoyed that experience. It wasn't cold, cold. It was just wet. So she was fine and she enjoyed it. And actually for her, it was the right decision. And actually, this is kind of when we kind try to figure out how we raise critical thinkers and how we allow them to come up with their own ideas and opinions. Sometimes they're really jarring. Sometimes they really go against what we believe.
And I think what's really important is when we're trying to distill these different ideals and beliefs and feelings and opinions from all these different people, and we're trying to come up with an ethos in our own home, the goal isn't then to indoctrinate them with a new belief system that you and your family have now decided that is what we do. So if you just have values, okay to kind of encourage them to, I don't know, be kind and to be compassionate.
Ashley Vanerio (32:58.787)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (33:26.848)
be generous or whatever, like you can encourage them to have great values. But it's our job as parents to allow them to take our opinions and ideals and to encourage them to see other people's too and to decide if they actually believe in ours, if they want to have another one of their own. And it is really hard sometimes because we can really firmly believe something. We can be really staunchly like, I really believe this.
And I want my kids to believe this, but actually it's just an opinion or it's just a belief. It's not a fact. And we have to give them an opportunity to come up with different truths for themselves. Like what is their experience? What have they come up against? You see it massively between generations, don't you? Where just the experience of life would have just been so different. And I think we just have to respect that they're going to have a very different outlook to us. And they're going to have a very different idea of
sometimes even what right and wrong looks like. And it's actually an amazing thing to watch if we can give it that room to grow and blossom.
Ashley Vanerio (34:38.062)
It's good time too, right? We both have younger children and my oldest is 10. And as they start to push back on things like shoes or a wardrobe, these are easy things. These are easy things for them to make mistakes about. And I'd much rather them do that and get comfortable and confident in their own decisions and make corrections, change their mind.
Kelly Rigg (34:53.526)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (34:57.366)
Mm
Ashley Vanerio (35:06.19)
have that thought process to say, well, maybe I don't want to do that again. Or maybe I do. Maybe that worked for me and this is how I'm finding out who I am. Because as they get older, right, then these decisions get a lot more important and they have a lot bigger impact on themselves and their future. And so I think that giving them the room to make mistakes so that they really can think through things.
Kelly Rigg (35:20.811)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (35:34.466)
will absolutely benefit down the road because I also don't want my children blindly following me or anyone because I want them to be confident pushing back on things where they're not comfortable when these become real concerns, real issues, big decisions, right? As they become teenagers and older, I don't want their voice to be squashed. I don't want them to question.
Kelly Rigg (35:50.07)
Mm -hmm.
Kelly Rigg (35:55.788)
Mm
Ashley Vanerio (36:04.052)
their thoughts and opinions and the way that they feel just because someone once told them to stop and be quiet and just do what I'm telling you to do. But to your point, there is a fine line with that because at the end of the day, I just need you to go to bed or to stop. I just need you to do it. Like no more, no more in me at the beginning of this. Yeah. It's like what we were talking about earlier when we were, before we started recording.
Kelly Rigg (36:09.185)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (36:13.974)
Hmm.
Ashley Vanerio (36:34.124)
My kids get so curious right before bed and they have sometimes some really great questions and they, I don't want to say, I'm not talking, like, I don't want to be like, no, I'm not answering that. Like I, not going to do that because I want to foster that creativity and just for some reason it's always right before bed. They're like, let me just think about the most excellent question.
that is really thoughtful and that way I'm sure they're thinking I will stay up later because mom will talk to me. But at the same time, it's just like, no, I'm not doing this right now. We will carry this on in the morning. I will write down your question on the notes in my phone and we will look at it tomorrow over breakfast because you just have to go to bed. So it is hard, it is hard, but ultimately I'm hoping that they feel.
Like they are getting to think through things and they are getting to question what is being told to them so they can form their own thoughts.
Kelly Rigg (37:34.464)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (37:39.372)
I think that's a really good point. think that, but, I think that the truth of the matter is we're allowed to set boundaries and we're allowed to have limits. And I think ultimately the goal is just as much as possible to allow them the autonomy to learn how they feel about things. And I think that ultimately that doesn't get stopped if from time to time we go, okay, I hear you and I know you really want to do what you want to do and all the rest of it. But right now I don't have the time.
or whatever else to explain to you all of the reasons why I know that this is not what we're going to do right now and we're just going to move on because I need you to just get on board with it for a minute and we will talk about it and you can talk about it later and you can explain later and you can do whatever you need to do. But I think also another thought that I had as I was listening to you is about, as you say, these issues get much bigger and they get much more important.
Self -trust, this is one of the problems that we can have with critical thinking, is that actually the reason why we're not doing it is because we don't actually trust our internal voice. We have been taught not to trust it. We have been taught that, for example, diet culture teaches us not to trust our hunger. Our restlessness and our need to move, we get told, you shouldn't fidget, that's annoying, or it's inconvenient and you should do it later when it's okay to do it.
You know, like that we must work between these hours. There's all these different rules that get put in place for us that we just not to trust our body's natural instincts. Like, for example, I know that you're giving birth in on our backs in hospitals with medication. Like we're literally being there's so many different examples of this where we are taught to just follow blindly. Sometimes the opinions of other people and the requests of other people.
Ashley Vanerio (39:16.248)
Hmm.
Kelly Rigg (39:32.682)
And we're often even told we are wrong for feeling how we feel a lot in our day to day life, in our society, the way we were raised and the way we experience people. And so what can then happen when we are faced with these really important decisions, like for example, choosing to home educate your kids, is so many people in that transition of choosing to do that will experience such a huge amount of pushback. Maybe it's from family, friends, society at large.
their own internal voice, that they actually can't trust themselves enough to simply make the decision based on their own beliefs and ideas, that they're literally waiting for permission from somebody else. And this makes me so sad and I get so frustrated, not of the people asking it, but of the society we have created where people are sitting there going, my kid is crying, clinging, desperate, does not want to go to school and I don't feel like I can just choose to home educate them. I feel like I need.
They literally necessarily say it this way, but they're like, need somebody to tell me that it's going to be okay, that I'm allowed to, this is fine, that I can do it, that I'm capable enough, that I'm going to be able to be enough. And we don't trust ourselves. We don't trust ourselves to stand up for ourselves. We don't trust ourselves to make a clean decision. And we end up seeking these other ideas and opinions. And as I say, this is where we can accidentally flip simply from believing in, from having this like really
dictated to kind of mentality to then saying, you know what, no, sort of, I'm going to go completely to the other end of the spectrum here and radically on -school my kids and go completely like the other way. And I, for a time, it's exactly what I did. I went from one to the other in a flash and thoroughly immersed myself in believing everything that I was reading and in all these forums and the advice that people were giving. Almost without question, but I was like, yes, they're right.
this is the kind of ethos I want to have, this is exactly the kind of way I want to go. And it has taken me a long time to build the confidence and conviction in myself and the trust in my own inner voice to say, actually, that doesn't feel right, it doesn't look right for us, or it doesn't work for us. And I think this is when we sometimes wish that we could have like a flick and a switch and it would just all work and it'd be fine. But that's not really how this works.
Kelly Rigg (42:00.362)
And I think we just have to accept that in a way that when we have been raised to not trust our internal voice, to not trust that compass that's telling you to go a certain way and to behave and eat and act a certain way, you have got some work to do. There is some work to do to allow those thoughts and opinions and stuff to be back at centre stage and to give them the respect that they deserve. That does take effort and it does take time.
It's why I love doing what I do and helping parents, like coaching them through these moments because it's so blooming hard. And I think constantly you can do it with books, you can do it by talking to your friends, you can do it by reaching out into your communities. Like do the work because it's super important to take that time, to really build that trust back up in yourself, to make some decisions and start small. mean, one of the great tips I always give people is to start small.
Like make a decision about something without getting anybody else's opinions. Just make a decision. So it's super tiny and watch it play out and actually see that it went well. See that you did great. See that actually it was a great choice for your family or that you really enjoyed it or see that you didn't. actually go, well, that's interesting. Like I thought we'd really love that, but it didn't work out. Why not? Then get curious about it and just notice.
And you might find over time as you build up some trust in yourself and you start making some more decisions without seeking other people's approval that you're able to start making some more independent thoughts and decisions about your home ed journey. And it's totally okay. If you find a belief that totally works for you, you can unfollow it. It's not saying you can't. If you want to say, actually, do you know what I really believe in that entire ethos? That is exactly the way I want it to be. And it genuinely works for you guys and you don't have any qualms about it whatsoever, then great.
Do the thinking, do the research, think about your options, look at the other ways of doing things. Talk to some experts, talk to some people who are in your actual personal situation. Like if you have got neurodiverse kids, then talk to other families with neurodiverse kids. Like make sure you are getting advice and support and ideas from like for like. Don't try and form your whole ethos on something that's not at all.
Kelly Rigg (44:20.04)
your whole life, like, be really conscious of that and really just try and think it through. And I guess if that's all I can really kind of impart from this is that it's okay to deviate from the advice you're given. It's okay for you to make up your own mind and it's okay for you to disagree with stuff. Just live your life.
Ashley Vanerio (44:38.679)
Yeah.
Yeah. And especially if you're new to home education, all the things you just talked about can be really hard because you're just automatically going against like the common status quo, right? You're pulling your kids out of that educational system. That is what we're just, the expectation is that you do that, right? And so the first thing, just that initial action of not doing that can feel really uncomfortable, even if it's something you really support and believe in.
And then depending on the folks around you, whether it's family or friends, they might be like, you're going to do that. And it can create some doubt. And then you're comparing yourself to social media and these people that are putting up these beautiful stories and photos of their homeschool day. And you're just like, wow, my day was not like that at all. it's 1 PM. We're still in pajamas.
The kitchen is a mess and we've only done math. you know, those days can happen in, especially in the beginning. And so you just have to kind of shut out the noise a little bit. And I think that the other thing to remember is it won't always be like that. The further down the path you get, the more you'll figure out your own groove and routine and process.
Kelly Rigg (46:00.534)
No.
Kelly Rigg (46:07.82)
Mm
Ashley Vanerio (46:08.32)
the more you will feel confident in those choices. So you won't have that initial hesitation. And the other thing I would say too is you can always change your mind. These decisions are not one and done. So even the decision to homeschool or home educate, it's not a forever decision. You can do it.
Kelly Rigg (46:20.726)
minutes.
Kelly Rigg (46:24.469)
none.
Kelly Rigg (46:30.539)
No.
Ashley Vanerio (46:33.004)
decide after a few years that it's not what you want to do or decide after one year that it's not what you want to do or you started in COVID by chance and found that it really worked for your family to be home. And so you made a way to make it work long -term and then you never look back. know, there are so many different ways that we find ourselves home educating initially and the reasons that you home educate will change over time or maybe they won't. And
Kelly Rigg (46:36.822)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (47:01.74)
new.
Ashley Vanerio (47:02.306)
the way that you home educate will change over time or maybe it won't. And so just to be really open to that and know that none of this is a permanent decision and it can really, I think that can ease a lot of it to say, you know, just like you might change curriculum, like you can just change these things as you get more information from your kids, from research you might do and.
Kelly Rigg (47:06.924)
Mm
Kelly Rigg (47:29.504)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (47:31.096)
from other people. I just think that continually being open to all of that will be helpful as well as you carry on over the years.
Kelly Rigg (47:42.836)
I agree. think that really kind of importance of being open and willing to reassess is a huge part of critical thinking. It's a huge part of it. It's, if you're always staying open to new facts, new ideas, new things, then you are always going to be actually critically thinking because that is the main point of it. You stay open, you're questioning stuff, you're paying attention, you're observing, you're noticing, then actively you will make choices.
Ashley Vanerio (47:49.976)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (48:11.724)
for your family that makes sense and actually allow you to live a truly authentic life. And I think that it's, it is just such an important skill that honestly takes some exercising and it takes some confidence over time to actually allow yourself to utilize it. And I think that if you can work on doing that for yourself, then you will naturally raise critical thinkers because as they question you, you will allow them to question your reality and you will actually open yourself up to.
showing them that it's okay to question it in the first place. So I think this is helpful. I think this has been a really great conversation. I I've certainly really enjoyed it. And I really hope that you guys agree. If you did, please, please, please do drop us that five star rating. I think anything wins us, wins a prize, I'm joking, but it's just really, so good because it obviously does mean small people find us. Sarah, obviously come and follow us, everyone's social media.
Ashley Vanerio (48:57.176)
Yes.
Kelly Rigg (49:08.626)
and we'll see, make sure that the details are in the description. So go and find us. but also just another little reminder for anyone who runs a business, especially online businesses, but if you make resources, anything that like send out science boxes, whatever you do, basically, we want to hear from you. If you're a home educating parent, family member, whatever, and you make something that you want to be able to showcase, we're putting together an amazing kind of affiliate shops of like buy home educators for home educators.
so please reach out to us. We want to get you on there. We want to make sure that as we launch it, that it's got dozens of really great businesses and people out there who are doing really cool stuff so that we can obviously showcase you and make sure that your business is getting a little bit of free advertising. So reach out to us and let us know if you want to be included on that. and yeah, just, just keep on listening. We love, we love seeing the ratings every week and seeing the number of you who are tuning in.
We've got a really lovely, solid amount of you that are starting to listen every week, which is really, really touching. So we love you for it. So thank you very, very much. And we will see you again next week.
Ashley Vanerio (50:16.492)
Yeah, have a great week.
Kelly Rigg (50:19.391)
Guys
