Kelly Rigg (00:02.264)
Hello everybody. Welcome to the big home ed conversations. So we thought we'd actually start this episode by introducing ourselves properly for a change because we've been obviously doing this for a while now and I'd let it slip a little bit. So I want to make sure you guys know who we actually are. So my name is Kelly and I am a home education sort of mentor, coach, consultant, whatever you really need me to be to be perfectly honest. I'm a mum of two. Been home educating now for about four years, I think it is roughly.
And I am joined by my co-host Ashley. So I'll let her introduce herself properly too.
Ashley Vanerio (00:36.693)
Hi, I'm Ashley, yeah, homeschooling mom of three. And this is our fifth year home educating. I can't believe how fast it's flown by.
Kelly Rigg (00:45.39)
Flown by, I'm sure. Sure it's flown by. Sometimes, I mean... We have our moments, right? my goodness. So we thought we'd come and chat to you guys today about... Well, we actually found ourselves in a conversation with some friends this morning and they were talking about kind of the concept of routine and how some of us love it, some of us hate it, some of us feel like it's foisted upon us.
Ashley Vanerio (00:49.433)
dragged at some point. Mostly though. Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (01:14.306)
Some of us need to do it for our kids sake. Some of us need to do it for our sakes. And we just thought it made a really good conversation and we wanted to kind of expand upon it from our own experiences. And it's quite interesting as well, because obviously I can throw a little bit of the neurodivergence card into this as well. And we can start obviously thinking about how tricky this can be, especially when you have got a neurodivergent household and you've got a bunch of very different people all
having very different needs under one roof and especially when they're different ages, you're trying to kind of drag them through their education one way or another. And yeah, I mean, think I'll hand it over to Ashley to start us off really, because the conversation she was having was really interesting this morning and we wanted to obviously kind of emulate that to start off with. So I'll let her get us going.
Ashley Vanerio (02:02.873)
Yeah. Yeah. So this morning I stepped into a conversation halfway through. So to be fair, I missed the front end of how this all got started and brought up. But essentially what happened is I walked into a couple of moms chatting about routines and if they have one in their home educating day or if they don't and
and why or why not. And one of the moms was saying that she does have a very reliable routine that they follow every day because her children do have additional needs. And when they don't have that strict routine that they can follow, she's sort of found through child and error that they become very dysregulated. There's troubles with dinner, bedtime. It just impacts.
the flow of their entire day and becomes very difficult. And so her comment was, I didn't ever make a choice to have a routine. I have to have it. If I don't have it, it's a problem for our family and for the life that we want to lead. And so she was saying to another mom who doesn't have a home or doesn't have like a daily routine. And by routine, I should back up and say, you know, we wake up.
Breakfast is at this time, and then we spend two hours doing schoolwork and that looks like this. It's always reading a book and doing handwriting and practicing a foreign language and then doing some, you know, math and language arts in a textbook. Or maybe it's not, but, you know, from a textbook, but it's that sort of a flow. And then we go to the park for an hour and then we have lunch. And then on Tuesdays we do this activity. And on Wednesdays it's swimming, for example, but like a very
kind of mapped out day that is something you're going to do reliably. And so this other mom is saying, well, we don't really do that. We sort of flow, but I wish I had a routine. And, you know, mom number one said, well, you don't need one maybe because your child has different needs or you aren't doing it. And so it's kind of nice to have that freedom. And I think that this all sort of struck a chord with me because I was thinking,
Ashley Vanerio (04:26.379)
This is something that I personally ebb and flow and struggle with all the time because we feel, especially if you came from a traditional schooling background yourself, that a schedule is super important. That routine of this is what I do Mondays, Tuesdays Wednesdays, et cetera, is very important. And I think that there are aspects of that that come into play regardless because
your kids are going to do certain things on certain days because they have activities or you personally have activities or your husband does or partner, all of that will eventually create like a loose schedule. But if you have the desire for or the need for a more strict schedule, what does that look like and can it be done consistently or does that not flow with your family?
And how does that fit in with your children? So for example, I have one child who would love, or I guess respond well to a schedule. That's something that she would find lovely and, and enjoy. She likes to know what's happening when I have another child who does not care, couldn't care less about what we're doing and when we're doing it and probably would hate if I said in five minutes we're starting this because that's what we do every day. Like that would not be okay for her.
And then I have a third child that could probably go either way and would just be fine doing whatever. And so I personally don't like to be restricted into a schedule that I have to follow and do a certain thing at a certain time. I also hate feeling rushed and late to things. So it's easier for me to not have a time assigned to something and just sort of have a goal.
versus like saying, you we have to check off all these things. And then I constantly feel stressed and anxious about meeting all those requirements. So I personally don't enjoy that. But it's hard, right? Because you want to kind of understand what works best for your family and what works best for your kids. And that can sort of be a hard thing to mesh together successfully without someone having to compromise somewhere along the way, which maybe is okay, but.
Kelly Rigg (06:19.981)
Hmm.
Ashley Vanerio (06:40.433)
That was how we started off the conversation today and just got me really thinking about schedules and routines and are they important? Are they beneficial? To what extent and who has them? So, yeah.
Kelly Rigg (06:56.334)
Hmm. It's really interesting, isn't it? Because I think we touched on, obviously, before we started recording, about the kind of concept that when you have been in traditional schooling, you experience a childhood that was very much dictated for you. It was over controlled. had quite often parents at home expecting certain behaviors from you, there's obviously a certain amount of rushing involved in your day that, I mean, I didn't grow up with a huge amount of extracurriculars. We didn't have
an awful lot of money, so I didn't have an awful lot of extra things after school. So I did have quite a nice, relaxed kind of evening typically, but you still obviously had to get your reading done, your homework done. You still had dinner and obviously bath, bedtime, et cetera. So there's still quite a lot of routine and structure in that. And I think that we would have experienced a reasonably, not always over controlled, like not to criticize it, but it's just the way it has to be when you're in a strict time schedule where...
Ashley Vanerio (07:41.657)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (07:53.292)
You've got kids that need to be at school by 8.30. You've got to be at work by nine. You've got XYZ to achieve before you've got to do pick up at three. Like there's a certain amount of structure and routine that has to go into that where you have to make sure that you are watching that clock and you know what's happening next. And you've got like uniform washed and you've got packed lunches made, all of those things. And I think that I find it really, I actually was talking to a parent about this once saying that.
If you think about the reason why so much of our self care and like even just making sure we've had lunch or we've had a shower or we've done all the things that we should do in our day, the reason why our routine disappears so much is that you spent most of your childhood having it dictated to you. And actually as an adult, especially if you've chosen a lifestyle like home education, which is so much more free flow, you are now in charge of deciding when those things happen and you're still waiting for someone to give you permission.
And they're not going to do that. That's not coming. So you almost have to reach a point where you say to yourself, no, do you know what? Okay. I am not eating lunch. I have to make sure I eat lunch. This is insane. I'm, I'm going to feel ill. I literally feel awful every afternoon. I'm tired and thirsty. I'm hungry, like grouchy and not able to get through the evening routine because I'm so maxed out because I haven't sat, I haven't rested. I haven't had anything for lunch. I haven't gotten some fresh air, whatever it might be.
Ashley Vanerio (08:52.515)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (09:20.11)
And so we do have to be really mindful that without some sort of loose routine, even if, as you say, it's like a really baggy, like I shower on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays or like whatever, like when you look at your diary and say, those are my easier mornings, those are the mornings when I'll shower. having some vague structure to your week is actually more likely to become beneficial to you in time. Like we all know, right? We all get told this, that having some general routine is good.
Ashley Vanerio (09:20.345)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (09:30.689)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (09:47.788)
And obviously you see all these like millionaires waking up at five in the morning, only ever wearing the same suit, having the same breakfast, doing the same meditation, like that they take all those decisions out of it and they just like go through the motions of their day. And it sounds wonderful, right? But I think that as, I don't know, like as a person with ADHD as well, it makes me physically stressed. I can feel my chest tightening at the thought of.
Ashley Vanerio (09:51.619)
Yes. Right.
Ashley Vanerio (09:58.927)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (10:13.57)
having to be so strict with myself every single day, even though the decision paralysis of having to decide, like, what subjects should we do today? What activities should I do to kind of actually cover those subjects? What are they going to enjoy? What do they want to do today? Are they going to resist this? Is it too city downy? Like, my goodness. The decisions that come with every meal time, what I'm gonna wear, where we're gonna go, who we're gonna see.
what time it's gonna happen, what time do we need to leave, do we need a packed lunch? Like, my goodness, I can't handle it sometimes. And so I probably could do with having somebody who is literally dictating my life for me and just saying to me, it's Monday, you need to be up, and dressed by eight and you need to have made packed lunches by 8.30 and then you're gonna do one hour of literacy because otherwise you're not gonna find time this week. And you know what I mean? Like maybe I could do with having someone actually do that for me.
And there are some brilliant AI tools out there actually like Motion and loads of other different ones that you can potentially just chuck all of your weekly routine stuff into and it will help you to actually rework your time so you don't even have to think about it. But then I resist those too. I don't particularly like having them like notify me on my phone, like you're supposed to be doing this now. It's just like, right. But I don't want to. So it really doesn't help me, but maybe it would if I could stop being
Ashley Vanerio (11:08.111)
There are, yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (11:20.857)
I know.
Ashley Vanerio (11:28.215)
So great.
Kelly Rigg (11:34.41)
so demand avoidant about it. yes, so this is the interesting kind of side to it that if you have got neurodivergence in the house, then you're potentially dealing with demand avoidance. You're dealing with ADHD means that you've got to want to do it. It's got to matter to you. You've got to have to be in your bonnet about it. Like it really has to matter. And so actually, if I tried to force a structure or routine onto my family, I suspect that it
could in a lot of ways have quite negative consequences. I could actually experience a lot more frustration and dysregulation out of it. But on the flip side, actually, there have been moments when a structure has really helped us all to get over a particularly difficult period where actually it is all kind of feeling like it's falling by the wayside and we are actually feeling a little bit stressed and it just helps to put everybody's mind at rest that we are actually hitting a few metrics and we can just like...
Ashley Vanerio (12:24.739)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (12:31.29)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (12:31.434)
most things stay pretty relaxed, but then we know that we have definitely done a bit of reading, a bit of writing, a bit of maths, a bit of science. And we have actually followed some sort of loose topic and it's made us all just feel a bit better that they are doing some structured things. But yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? How depending on the family, you might feel like actually you are, you are actually pretty relaxed in that lovely free flow thing and you actually don't
you feel like you are covering things and your brain can remember that you've covered them and actually you don't really need to worry about it. And they can see the progressing gray and actually the ideas come to you easily. Like that might be who you are. And so that might feel really easy to be in a free float environment. But for some of us, it, takes a lot of energy and thought. And so actually having some planning and organizing ahead genuinely might really help your mental health and help you to actually feel like you're on top of it and you're
Ashley Vanerio (13:23.161)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (13:24.652)
Yeah, that you can trust your process and you can trust your kids more and you can trust daily life if something comes up and something means that everything gets thrown out. You don't suddenly feel like it's derailed everything. You can just be like, that's okay. I can see that I have a bit of time on Thursdays so I can, can slot that in then instead. And you'll know that it will happen later. But if that's, it really will depend on how you work.
Ashley Vanerio (13:38.137)
Right.
Ashley Vanerio (13:48.151)
Yeah. And I think that's, that's the thing where I feel like this is like the double edged sword with home ed is the lovely part of it is that you have this flexibility that you can take advantage of situations. Like there is not a lot of sunny days here right now. So if it's sunny, I want to scrap everything and spend the whole day at the park. And we did that the other day, the girls spent hours. I think it was like, my gosh, out, was hours, like three or four hours at the park.
Kelly Rigg (14:15.619)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (14:18.015)
And something like that, especially as we come into winter and it's getting colder and darker and cloudier, you, I love that we can do that, right? It doesn't matter. They're not missing. You know, it's not like they're in school, so they can't be out of school. Right. So that part is lovely, but the flip side to that is then if I take that designated learning time and make it now play time.
It is very hard for my kids to come back to learning later in the day. Like it's easy to say, okay, it's starting to get darker on like four o'clock now. So go outside and play. They want to ride bikes. They want to do that. Okay. And that's great. And then we'll come back in around four, four 15, and we can still do like 45 minutes of work. before we're kind of at the end of the day, it just doesn't happen. They can't, they can't transition back into that. My oldest one can, and I do her and I were doing math at like seven o'clock the other night, but
Kelly Rigg (14:49.582)
Mm-hmm.
Kelly Rigg (15:06.765)
No.
Ashley Vanerio (15:13.777)
my other two had not, and arguably it's less important for them, so that's okay. this, this is the thing where I feel like sometimes if I deviate from a schedule that I've loosely put together on maybe a Sunday night, that time can almost be lost. And so in fact, I was saying to my oldest because we didn't get to what I thought we would get to today.
Kelly Rigg (15:36.163)
Mm-hmm.
Ashley Vanerio (15:43.813)
I guess we had like a turn in my daughter's passport. We ended up driving almost to London to do that. Right. And so it kind of took our afternoon away. I was like, okay, we are going to have to do some work on Sunday. So it's just going to have to happen. And the other side of this is children do homework all the time on the weekends. So for me, I'm like, gosh, we have to do school on a Sunday, but like,
Most kids probably are doing school on Sunday. It just doesn't look like what we call school, right? They're just doing all their homework. So I think it's almost like the perspective that I have to shift to look at it, but I am feeling, and maybe this is another side to it too, as the children get older and maybe they're taking on a little bit more coursework and working on some more complex topics, maybe they do need more of a...
of a routine than we had in the early years, because it is harder to do everything we want to do in a week because there's just more of it or it requires more time, more reading. And yeah, I don't know. I'm like you, I struggle though. I don't want to be held down by the schedule, but I'm almost tempted to give it a try for a couple of weeks and just to see.
Kelly Rigg (16:41.976)
Mm-hmm.
Ashley Vanerio (17:08.117)
if it would be something that would, like you were saying, taking away the, decision fatigue and just waking up in the morning and knowing, okay, we're having breakfast and then we're going upstairs and we're going to do some coursework and that's, that's what we're going to do. And then after that we have all day to play. Maybe, maybe forcing that is something we'll have to do. And then I do think the other thing is, and we kind of talked about this a little bit this morning too, which I hadn't told you about earlier is that there are now so many opportunities for home ed.
to be involved in different groups, different organizations, different home ed days at museums and et cetera, all different places. And you can almost sign yourself up for a full week of activities and then you're almost over scheduled, right? And so easy to see that. And so I'm almost saying to myself like, no, you know what, I need to back off. I love doing those things. I want to take advantage of them.
Kelly Rigg (17:53.006)
Mm.
Ashley Vanerio (18:07.545)
but I almost need to peel back a little bit and say like, whoa, we are losing our home time. Like we're just doing too many things. So.
Kelly Rigg (18:07.694)
Mm-hmm.
Kelly Rigg (18:14.742)
Yes.
Yeah, I was gonna say I have to really heavily guard the home days. Typically, my home days are Tuesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, and we home-ed seven days a week, 365 days a year. whereas like, sort of talk about weekends, my husband works shifts. So there are no such thing as weekends in this family. Like we don't do a Sunday roast. don't, there is no like Monday morning feeling. Like the weeks just roll into one. Like they just keep on going. And sometimes that
Ashley Vanerio (18:21.667)
Mm-hmm.
Ashley Vanerio (18:35.641)
Right.
Ashley Vanerio (18:40.633)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (18:44.837)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (18:46.454)
is exhausting and it feels really, hard. And so we will take breaks, obviously, through the year, like I'm not crazy, but we are very much subscribers of the like life is learning, learning is life. And so when we are having a tough week, I will do a lot of observation instead of maybe dictating subjects or doing specific things. I will just notice where the kids have been using numbers or where they have been using certain science skills or where they've been curious about something, where they've been creative, where they've maybe done some mark making like my husband, my,
Ashley Vanerio (18:58.383)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (19:16.322)
my husband, my son left me a note the other morning, a beautifully written note, I was so proud of him, because he doesn't write very often, not out of choice, but he didn't want to wake me up, so he left me a note asking whether or not we could play a game called Age of Empires together, he likes playing with me at some point that day. And it just really made me smile, like it's really, really cute.
Ashley Vanerio (19:25.999)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (19:38.309)
So consider it.
Kelly Rigg (19:41.55)
And yes, you just kind of, just tend to observe, I just try and notice where they have actively done those things themselves. And I haven't necessarily dictated it or asked them to do it. and that does help with difficult weeks, but ultimately because we are doing bits all the time. And I think I mentioned this in the last episode, so we're going to in too much detail, but essentially we've got our list of subjects that we try to cover every week, sort of 15, 20 minutes, at least twice on all subjects basically. And that amounts to obviously.
plenty of hours over the course of the week of things that have been actively chosen to be done and Obviously, we'll often go above and beyond it as well But it's just that just helps me to feel more relaxed but that like we will sometimes get to Sunday and I'll be like I am really sorry guys But we've still got like four things to check off on this list. Like we haven't we haven't done it all and We have been trying as a family to work towards a full completed chart for each week so that we can as a family earn
Ashley Vanerio (20:13.039)
Mm-hmm.
Ashley Vanerio (20:28.686)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (20:39.948)
a little kind of fun day out or something. Like we just kind of said like, it's for me too. It's a bit of motivation for me too. It's like if we, if we manage to complete like most of the weeks entirely, then we'll obviously be able to go and do this extra fun day out. And the more stars we manage to get done, the more fun we get to do. Like how the bigger, the bigger the day out gets to be. So my own version of a sticker chart for myself is hilarious.
Ashley Vanerio (20:43.375)
I like that. Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (21:03.85)
I like that group effort.
Kelly Rigg (21:05.364)
But it's definitely like a full collaborative effort. Like it's not an individual thing. And anyway, so it's just, we are kind of experimenting with all kinds of different motivations, but as someone with ADHD, again, I do respond well to some extrinsic motivation, like a reward, some chocolate, a nice coffee, the promise of getting to go and watch an hour's TV if I've managed to finish this, that and the other. Like as much as I don't want to fill my kid's heads with the idea of having to work and then play.
Ashley Vanerio (21:23.118)
Hmm.
Kelly Rigg (21:34.946)
That's absolutely not how we work all the time. Like I definitely, I can see how a little bit of gentle motivation with these things does inspire them to want to work a bit harder at something and to take some responsibility for it too. And so actually we have to hack ADHD a little bit. You've to try and encourage your brain to jump over that 10 foot wall that stands between you and every single task that you're supposed to achieve in life. So I try and always keep it relevant and make sure they're interested in what we're learning about. But I will kind of say to them, come on guys, like.
Ashley Vanerio (21:58.69)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (22:05.236)
let's go do some reading. just they can read whatever they want. Like I couldn't care less what they read as long as we do some reading. So just go grab something, couldn't care less. So anyway, I think what's really important for me is recognizing that they might need some gentle structure. And I mean, we don't do screens now, for example, until about one o'clock. That isn't a hard and fast rule, but it does allow us to have that wake up,
Ashley Vanerio (22:10.789)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (22:35.252)
stay awake, like screens just switch us all off and I'm me included like if I go straight on the TV and just watch a bit of telly first thing in the morning it's going to take me hours to get going after that. So we we tend to avoid screens until about one unless it's we do sometimes do kind of educational screens we might do some apps or whatever but it's very much like together doing things constructively not just watching YouTube or whatever.
Ashley Vanerio (22:46.799)
Right.
Kelly Rigg (23:04.728)
But yeah, so we do, yeah, that's how our new routine and we've been doing that now for a few months. And actually I have seen a massive uptick in participation and enthusiasm and we're getting a lot more done. And actually I feel like I can, I can cover a lot with them really in the space of a couple of hours. And a lot of it is still free play. Like it's not, let me say that there are only like five and seven. So they're not very old yet. So I've still got some time before it needs to be a lot more structured really, but.
Ashley Vanerio (23:28.825)
Yeah, so quite young.
Kelly Rigg (23:33.964)
Yeah, I think this is the thing about routine as well. Like you were saying before that it, as they get older, you do feel like an internalized pressure. I suppose it's external pressure that's been internalized to up the difficulty to make it a bit stricter, to have more topics or subjects or go deeper on things. And that does take more time. That does take more concentration. It does take more willingness and participation from them. And I think this is where
Ashley Vanerio (23:42.98)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (23:55.833)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (24:04.238)
Again, I guess, yes, structure routine, et cetera, is one thing, but also that child led following what they're interested in and helping them to utilize that to expand on concepts is super important because you do need to get them to have that buy-in and to want to do it and to be enjoying it. Otherwise you may well set a routine and you will, you want them to all follow it. But if everyone's just giving you jib all the time.
Ashley Vanerio (24:21.455)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (24:30.414)
There's no way you're going to stick to it. Like it's just going to make you want to throw it out of the bag and just be like, just go watch the telly then, and whilst you go and cry into a cup of coffee. Like nobody loves spending a whole Sunday planning for a week and having everybody just grumble at it and want to go off and play games. Like that's, that's super hard on us. And so you have got to be really intuitive about this and notice if is this actually right for your family? Like don't think, no, well I'm listening to these guys and I've got to go and make some hard and fast routine. No, please.
Ashley Vanerio (24:38.831)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (24:59.874)
Do not do that, like be conscious of your life because if it's not gonna work, it's not gonna work. So don't force things that aren't necessary. But do definitely be just be mindful, I guess, of your own experience, I guess, is what I'm kind of getting at really there. Like, is this gonna help or not? Like, what would you actually feel good doing?
Ashley Vanerio (25:16.825)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (25:20.993)
Yeah, I think encouraging, you know, permission, I guess, to to try.
Kelly Rigg (25:29.358)
Mm-hmm.
Ashley Vanerio (25:30.277)
some form of it, right? Like whether it's a, you know, looking at where you are now, and if everything is working out and that's great, don't, don't worry about it. You're doing great. But if there is some desire to have a little more structure to your day, then I think the underlying question of why is that is really important, right? Because for me, I think the reason that I am curious about this at this moment is because
Kelly Rigg (25:39.726)
Mm.
Ashley Vanerio (26:00.235)
my 10 year old is embarking on more difficult concepts and more time consuming, I guess, not so difficult, but it's just starting to take more time, right? She's not writing a couple of sentences anymore. Now it's paragraphs and papers and different kinds of reading comprehension. And we're, we're, doing it in various ways that are fun and, kind of off the page, but
Kelly Rigg (26:20.11)
Hmm.
Ashley Vanerio (26:29.81)
There's still a lot of.
It's just a lot of time that we have to spend doing it. And so I think that is just something where I'm wondering, okay, how do we now fit all these little boxes together to make our day? And so I might dabble with a bit of a structure on maybe our home days to say, okay, we are going to spend a little bit more time doing language arts than we were before and see how that goes. I don't know. Well, I'll have to report back.
But I think that there's no right or wrong way. I think it's just gonna depend on you and your family and your children and how they receive it. But I'm gonna have to give it a try and we'll see how it goes.
Kelly Rigg (27:14.766)
Mm.
Kelly Rigg (27:20.0)
Yeah. And I think this is a thing, like when you're trying to be a very mutually respective parent and to kind of really being a conscious parent and whatever kind of version of that you want to call it, basically, there is very much an importance around collaboration with this. as you say, figuring out the reasons why you're feeling like, my goodness, I need to get this sorted out because it's okay, it's chaos. Is it that you're feeling insecure about
Ashley Vanerio (27:27.16)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (27:50.518)
your capabilities to teach them? Is it that you're worried that you're failing them? Is it that you're worried about the outcomes? Is it that they're coming up to an exam period of their life and you want them to do them and they're not really bothered and you're worried about their future? Like, is it that you're actually just exhausted and you just feel like you're constantly trying to push a ball up a hill and stuff just keeps getting in the way and you just never feel like you're actually getting anywhere? Is it that you're getting a lot of resistance? Like having a good look at it. And as I say, I work with families
Ashley Vanerio (28:00.229)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (28:15.674)
Right.
Kelly Rigg (28:19.68)
on this all the time and I'm forever in various forums like answering people when they're saying this exact problem like, I don't know what's going on. And it's like, it's very, very important to recognise the reason behind it, to have a lot of self compassion. And this is where our inner own internal work comes in, because then we have to really think to ourselves, okay, so I'm worried about how successful they'll be if I don't make sure that they understand 3D shapes at the age of seven. And it's like, this is the example from me this week, guys. So this is where I'm getting this from.
Ashley Vanerio (28:23.32)
you
Ashley Vanerio (28:30.906)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (28:46.266)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (28:49.55)
So I was having a little internal conversation about like, I haven't done much about 3D shapes. Do I even know what most of these 3D shapes are called? No. And I was just like, my goodness, I need to learn this because I need to be able to teach them because they need to know this and they need to be able to do this. then, my goodness, hilarious. And I was just like, okay, but you don't know it and you're a very successful 35 year old woman. So.
Ashley Vanerio (28:50.181)
you
Kelly Rigg (29:14.956)
Why is it actually important that they know this? And why are you suddenly so panicky that they don't? And what is it that you really need to cover? Like, what is it that they need to do with it? Like, are we talking practical things here? Are we talking like that they need to understand the volume of these shapes? Like, what is it that's going through your head right now? Like, what is so bad about this? Why are you panicking about it? And all it was was that I had skimmed through the year three curriculum, is what my son Dierd would be, just to get some ideas on stuff that maybe we hadn't covered.
Ashley Vanerio (29:20.228)
Right.
Ashley Vanerio (29:32.463)
Right?
Ashley Vanerio (29:43.813)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (29:44.766)
or like stuff we could touch on. And I had noticed that I hadn't done much on 3D shapes. Like we have done some obviously, but not a lot. And so my brain instantly kind of kicked in, my goodness, kids his age are doing this. And so we have got to watch out for these intrusive thought moments when suddenly we have got this weird external pressure that didn't matter a jot to us five minutes ago and is now breathing down our necks that if somebody asked me,
Ashley Vanerio (29:47.621)
And you're like.
Ashley Vanerio (30:02.873)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (30:10.766)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (30:13.762)
does he know what a dectahedron is? And I'd be like, what the heck is a dectahedron? Like, actually, I wouldn't care about that, truthfully, unless he can see a practical reason for knowing that. And I mean, I have thought of some since, things like obviously architecture, making the best use of a space, maybe kind of designing certain vehicles, like certain shapes will work for certain things. And obviously, you these incredible, like, if you look at how, like, for example,
Ashley Vanerio (30:18.51)
What?
It's okay.
Ashley Vanerio (30:32.069)
Sure.
Kelly Rigg (30:42.946)
the cogs, et cetera, that create the turn on the back wheels that power a vehicle that make it go forward. It's actually a really complex combination of shapes and patterns that they figured out that it helped to turn out the pistons. It was really cool. I was watching a really great video about it the other day, really random videos. But yeah, you can see how these things do matter and they can obviously have really impactful inspirational qualities.
Ashley Vanerio (30:54.293)
Interesting.
Ashley Vanerio (30:59.629)
Nice.
Kelly Rigg (31:11.308)
which is why they're important. Concepts are important because the more they're exposed to, the more opportunities open up for them in their future. But the point is that my initial panic about it, like, I need to buy this, I need to do this, I need to cover this, actually wasn't true. There was no fire. And our brain does have this like panic mode that it just shifts into when it suddenly thinks that we're not good enough, that we're not covering enough, that we're not doing it right.
Ashley Vanerio (31:11.716)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (31:19.055)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (31:28.869)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (31:32.633)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (31:38.03)
that they're not going to be successful, that they must be falling behind. And we don't even agree with most of these feelings most of the time. But the little, like sometimes the first word to devil on our shoulder is going to be sitting there whispering these things into your ear. And the work is in recognizing those thoughts and actually having that conscious critical thought in being able to say, okay, I hear you, but actually there is no fire. Let's calm down.
Ashley Vanerio (31:57.359)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (32:05.25)
We can absolutely cover this a little bit more over the next however long. I'll think of some creative ways to make this a part of our play. Like I'll get some stuff that they can play with or I'll do some more junk modeling with them. Or we'll go and have a look at 3D shapes when we're our walks or whatever. And we'll find some fun ways to integrate this into our day. But we don't have to suddenly change our entire routine to ensure that we've got a proper structured maths lesson every week because I feel like I'm missing bits.
Ashley Vanerio (32:22.19)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (32:34.562)
we just have to take a breath. And I think sometimes that can be like the panic is actually coming because something else is going wrong in our life right now. Like actually we are feeling out of control with our health or with our work or with our house management or whatever. And so we've actually then found ourselves putting pressure on the kids and to put them into a more structured routine because actually we feel out of control with something else. And so doing that work, actually sitting with the feeling for a minute and saying, okay, you want to change everything right now.
Ashley Vanerio (33:04.59)
Right, right.
Kelly Rigg (33:04.622)
You are literally wanting to overhaul the whole life what is going on and trying to get not even necessarily to the bottom of it, but scrape a couple of layers away at least, have a little look at what might be just beneath the surface of what is bothering you right now, and then see if there's anything you can do about those core issues. Like it isn't always about the kids, it isn't always about home ed. Most of the time it probably isn't actually, but when it does come up to the surface and we are feeling worried about it for some reason.
Ashley Vanerio (33:26.522)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (33:33.258)
It could have been a million different things that have made you think that, but chances are you're actually doing great and your kids are doing a really great job of absorbing concepts and are actually exposed to thousands every single day without you doing a single bit of work. And that maybe all it could take is to get a new toy or to get a new resource or to watch a different documentary. Like my kids today talking about weather. just, we did a bit of structured stuff and then I was like, right.
Ashley Vanerio (33:39.471)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (33:56.43)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (34:01.708)
I need to get something done. So can you guys just go watch a weather documentary? Just put it on the little voice thing. You just say weather and see what it gives you. And so they watched something about a hurricane and they love it. And they basically watched the thing about hurricanes. And my son has been fired up all day being like, it's a series, mommy. Do want to come and watch the next one with me? And, that was so interesting. And they were measuring this and they were doing that. And it's like, my goodness. And so I know now that I have got buy-in. I have got a kid who's ready to learn.
Ashley Vanerio (34:09.071)
See what comes up.
Ashley Vanerio (34:24.771)
Nice.
Kelly Rigg (34:29.806)
thanks to me telling them to go away and watch something. So actually we don't need to be over controlling this stuff, right? Like we don't necessarily need for it to be successful all the time. Like we might, your kids might need it. They might need you to literally egg them along every single second of the day. That might be true, but definitely look at whether or not you are over controlling and you are kind of feeling like you have to or else everything will fall apart. Maybe there are some actual ways that you could be.
Ashley Vanerio (34:30.148)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (34:37.933)
No. Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (34:42.756)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (34:46.298)
to do it.
Kelly Rigg (34:59.488)
easing up on yourself a little bit and giving yourself a bit of a break too, that there might be something there that could actually be like, you know, actually, maybe I could leave them to go do that element by themselves now. Like as your eldest gets older, that coursework that's taking you a lot of time to sit through, soon enough, she'll be able to do it by herself. You'll be able to set the task, let her get on with it for a couple of hours and then come back and check on her whilst you're doing other stuff with the other two. So like, it will change and it changes constantly, right?
Ashley Vanerio (35:18.788)
Yeah
Ashley Vanerio (35:22.149)
Come back.
Yeah, and we're getting there. Yeah. Yeah, that's so true. because we're getting to that point where there's a lot she does on her own, which is great. But then I think there's just also just the general struggle of like, you sometimes being the oldest, it's annoying to watch your sisters play, even though you know that when they're your age, they're going to do the same thing. It's like in that moment, in that moment, they do not care about that. So there's also just
Kelly Rigg (35:48.718)
Hmm.
Kelly Rigg (35:52.629)
No.
Ashley Vanerio (35:54.361)
the motivational aspect, but that just comes down to so much of the stuff. Like you were saying, read a book. I don't care what book, you know, we're still in our horse era. So if I can find something related to horses, I can usually make it happen. so yeah, so we're, I try a lot of that, but it, it, the more motivation, like I just need this perfect combination of like motivation and interest and time.
Kelly Rigg (36:23.15)
you
Ashley Vanerio (36:25.056)
So we'll get there.
Kelly Rigg (36:26.382)
We're looking for the Holy Grail here, Ashley, I've got to be honest.
Ashley Vanerio (36:29.003)
I mean, it is the trifecta. It is the trifecta. I don't see why it's unachievable. Should be just fine. Should be just fine.
Kelly Rigg (36:34.766)
I think we need to find ourselves a magician. Honestly, find me a witch or a wizard somewhere. can just make this just happen. Every day would be great. But yeah, I think it's such a great conversation because I think so many of us out there spend our time constantly ebbing and flowing between freaking out about this and being like, everything seems to be okay or I'm seeing good progress. So yeah, yet another episode where we remind you to cut yourself a little bit of slack.
Ashley Vanerio (36:56.919)
Yeah. Okay.
Kelly Rigg (37:04.59)
And also, yeah, just to kind of find the joy in this as well, right? Because I mean, there's not a lot of people out there who get to actually dictate their own schedule for the week. So just a little kind of reminder there as well about how like a little bit of gratitude, I guess, in the fact that actually, there's a lot of people out there who will be well, may well be listening to this wanting to punch us, I suppose, for the fact that they actually really feel like they haven't got any
Ashley Vanerio (37:10.265)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (37:20.505)
So true. Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (37:29.829)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (37:32.206)
flexibility in the routine they've got. And they actually just have to do it that way because otherwise it really does never get done. And that's really tough. so just kudos to anyone who is like trying to hold down a full-time job in home educating or whatever it is you're trying to do. Because yeah, sometimes you have just got to squid it in where it goes and they have not got a choice and it's got to get done. And that's just that. But yeah, I think we are very, very lucky. And I do see the privilege in my week of being able to say,
Ashley Vanerio (37:32.217)
Yes.
Ashley Vanerio (37:38.905)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (37:47.577)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (37:53.635)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (38:01.58)
Okay, actually, yeah, we'll go do drama club on a Monday morning, and then we'll go do this on a Thursday. like, we'll do our maths on a Tuesday and like, actually getting to make those choices about when we do those things and how we do them and what they look like. And, yeah, if it gets thrown by the wayside, then well, nevermind, we'll just do a little bit extra next week. Like, not a lot of kids are being given the opportunity to create their own education that way to have that collaboration to
Ashley Vanerio (38:06.873)
Yeah.
Totally.
Ashley Vanerio (38:15.555)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (38:31.33)
choose subjects to have their own independent thoughts and ideas about what they want to learn about and to like the potential for their future ability to roll with the punches, to flip between roles, to be able to be multi-skilled, to be able to deal with stress and problem solving and the critical thinking that comes with having an ever-changing like landscape as adults where you've constantly got challenges being chucked at you left, right and center, like their ability to just
Ashley Vanerio (38:56.514)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (38:59.768)
roll with the punches to pick up a new thing to be like, okay, we're shifting to this now. Like, it will just be unfounded. And I think what's, yeah, I just think that's really wonderful knowing the type of skill set that these kids are going to have. Having had the opportunity to meet their own needs, to move, to eat, to drink, to play, to explore, to be curious, to pick up their work when they can do work, to have parents who cared this much.
Ashley Vanerio (39:05.604)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (39:28.911)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (39:29.002)
about helping them to foster those independent skills in their learning. Yeah, I can't imagine how much more gold than that can get really. So yeah, well done everybody. All right guys, well that's us for today. So we, I think I've got, I think maybe two more episodes after this until we're gonna break for Christmas. I think that's right anyway, need to double check the maths later.
Ashley Vanerio (39:33.796)
Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (39:37.643)
Yeah, yeah, it's all it's all going to be good. Yeah.
Ashley Vanerio (39:49.816)
Yeah.
Kelly Rigg (39:55.786)
So yeah, I hope that you guys have been enjoying this season. Please do reach out to us. We've had a few ideas the last couple of episodes, but as always, we want your thoughts. We want to know what you want us to talk about as well. Is there anything that's bothering you right now? So please do reach out, whether it's on social media, drop me an email, whatever you want to do. And of course, we will see you again next week. So speak to you all soon. Take care.
Ashley Vanerio (40:19.983)
Bye.
