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Are you the grandparent of a homeschooler? Perhaps you have been tasked with homeschooling your grandchild. Or maybe the grandparents in your life want to know how to bring encouragement in a world of home education that is a bit foreign to them.
Education is discipleship and a lifestyle. If we teach children HOW to learn, how to LOVE learning, and how to follow GOD’s direction in their lives, they will experience what true success really is.
Rich and Barb Heki, founders and directors of Grandparents of Homeschoolers, will inspire and equip grandparents to lovingly support, actively engage in, and fully delight in the home-education adventure of their grandchildren – whether they live locally or long-distance.
Automated Transcript (Spelling and grammar errors are guaranteed!)
Yvette Hampton: Hello, welcome Barb and Rich. How are you guys doing?
Barb and Rich Heki: Great. Well, thank you.
Yvette Hampton: Good. It’s so good to have you with us today. I know that there are several who are actually really excited about this session and they are watching specifically because they want to glean some information and encouragement from you grandparents of homeschoolers. This is a really important topic in the world of homeschooling because many people don’t have grandparents who are supportive of homeschooling. Garritt and I are so blessed. We have parents who are incredibly supportive of our decision to homeschool. As a matter of fact, I remember when we very first started homeschooling, we had gone to this homeschool convention and we came back from this convention and we were like, we’re going to homeschool. And, and none of us really at that time understood what we were even saying.
Yvette Hampton: We just knew that the Lord was calling us to this. And, and our parents at that time, I don’t think they really understood. Even now, they don’t a hundred percent understand. But they are so supportive of it and they have never given us you know, grief about homeschooling arcades and they’ve been supportive of school house rock to, I mean, the whole ministry that the Lord has put on us. But it’s not that case with many. There are many, many people who say they want to homeschool and then they go tell their parents and their parents are like no, that’s a terrible idea. And they will do everything they can to try to convince their children otherwise that they should do anything but homeschool their grandkids. And so I am so excited that you’re here to bring some encouragement to grandparents, to parents and, and talk about some just amazing ways that grandparents can actually be involved in the home education and discipleship of their kids. So tell us really quickly, first a little bit about you and your family.
Rich Heki: Okay. Well, we are Rich and Barb Heki and we have homeschooled our children from basically birth, you know, till to adulthood. And we are very blessed. They’re all walking with the Lord and, and they’re all now into their careers. And we’re, we just very thankful for what the Lord has been able to let do through homeschooling.
Barb Heki: And we have three wonderful grandchildren, but they live on the East coast and so we are separated by miles. So we also want to encourage grandparents who are long distance from their grandkids as well because there is so much that they can do. Don’t just, you know, close the door because you think you’re not close. Yes. Awesome. And I also, just so you know, I want to talk to, I’m kind of towards the end about grandparents who are actually homeschooling themselves who may have custody of their grandchildren or maybe they don’t have custody of them, but they are somehow involved in the home education of their grandkids. So we will talk about that as well. But first I would love to talk about the understanding between education and discipleship and, and why oftentimes grandparents are not on board with this whole idea of homeschooling.
Rich Heki: Hmm. Okay. Well typically grandparents that just hear about homeschooling and let’s say like in your case your parents were on board, but let’s say somebody they come home, tell their parents, Hey, we’re going to homeschool our kids, but they don’t know anything about it. The first thing that comes to their mind is, Oh, just just the education component. Okay. But there’s so much more to homeschooling than just the, the technical education. Discipleship is a huge, huge part of home education. And if I could just share something analog you can use my phone to tell people that I’m the missing element. The difference between just education, discipleship is Jesus Christ. Okay. And so we want to honor and exalt Jesus in everything we do, including the a home education, discipleship of our children. So just real quickly this verse, this is Jesus. He actually said it. It’s found in Matthew and also here in Mark, but it says in Mark 8:36 “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?” So education is important, but we see that overriding that is discipleship and character building and things like that. And so much of that can be done so effectively through homeschooling
Barb Heki: And it’s all interwoven together too, because the education and discipleship are one thing. And so through every subject, every interaction, we’re looking at that from a biblical worldview and bringing Jesus Christ into it. And that’s something that’s missing in a, in a public school. Yeah, absolutely. So can give us some practical ways that you did that with your children. How did you disciple them as they were growing? I think just starting from a foundation of scripture and, and looking for resources that were written from a foundation of scripture and like, especially the science things we, we didn’t want things that just added in scriptures here and there to kind of make it Christian. It needed to actually be developed and written from a biblical worldview, but we did so much hands on education. So we were in, in everything we did, like okay.
Barb Heki: One example when we were driving home Rich was at work. I was driving home with the kids and this pheasant flew into our car and our winch, or I’m sorry, not our car, the car ahead of us. We saw it happen that flew into the windshield and was immediately killed. And so that car kept driving on. I pulled off the road. Okay. Roadkill and it’s fresh. So anyway, we we got the thousand but in the car and you know, took it home, cleaned it out. We had an anatomy lesson, science lesson, we cooked it for dinner, you know, cooking, Mac, all of that. But then there was an opportunity to discuss death because that pheasant had no idea it was going to be dead in two seconds. It was just flying across the road. And it’s the same with us. We have no idea how many years or days or even hours from now God is going to give us. And so death can happen so suddenly, and you know, do we know Jesus Christ as our savior? Because you know, that’s the most important thing in the world because it determines whether we are going to have Trinity in heaven or not. And so that’s an example of how you can bring scripture into just everyday teaching experiences. Yeah.
Rich Heki: Just along with that. So that was like an example of informal education because it just happened right in front of you. But if we are alert to those, almost everything we do can be an educational experience and we can interface that with scripture and, and you know how that all worked just like you just said now. So it’s almost just like if you think about you know, like, Lord, what is it you’d like to teach me today and just be receptive to that throughout the day and then things will happen and to see how you can convert that into educating the kids, the grandkids. So yeah. Well, I can assure you that if I ever hit a pheasant, I will never
Barb Heki: Stop and pick it up. Just call us. I’ll come and get it. You just want that to go on record. I might, I might feel a little bit sad for the peasants, but I will pull over
Yvette Hampton: And get it, put it in my car. Though we did put your chickens last year. No, wait a minute. We didn’t put your chickens, my girls butchered chickens. That was an experience. Wait and, and I’m even saying that wrong. I should say harvested chickens. I’ve, I’ve learned that that is the correct way to say it. So Kajsa white, that one’s for you. W we got to spend some time with some friends last year and they’re 86 year old grandma was there. And speaking of grandparents, I mean this was such a neat experience. We were staying at their house in Nashville, in the Nashville area and her 86 year old grandmother comes to stay with them every year. And so her grandmother came and grandma harvested chickens. That’s one of the things that she did. She grew up on a farm, still lives on a farm.
Yvette Hampton: And so she gathered all the kids around and, and that’s what they did. And it was the most amazing experience for my kids. And to watch my children doing this. And I’m like, we’re city folk. Yeah, we don’t harvest chickens. But it was really cool. So anyway it’s neat to see though. Help. Oh, go ahead. No, I was going to say it’s, it was neat to see how her grandmother had had such an impact in her life. And I know that that for you, you know, you’ve had a great impact in your, in the lives of your grandkids. How did, when you were growing up, did your grandparents have a great impact in your lives?
Barb Heki: You know, it’s amazing. They were both long distance for me and I didn’t see them very often, but they did have a huge impact in my life, just the times that we were together. Cause I, I appreciated that. And actually statistic, probably 90% of adult of adults say that their grandparents had a profound influence in, in their character. When even, you know, no matter where they lived and, and grandparents now live, but half of grandparents live more than 200 miles away from their grandchildren. And so those grandparents who live long distance have a huge gym packed, whether they know it or not. 90%. That is huge. And so that even played out with, with me growing up, I don’t know about you Rich, if your situation was different.
Rich Heki: I only had my grandma on my mom’s side and she lived we lived in Chicago area. She lived in Iowa soil, only saw her very briefly, but I still to this day, remember I had like one week where I went out and stayed with her. And even though I got a kajillion cousins, it was just me and her. And so we got a chance to get to an end. I still remember she lived very modestly. She literally had a pot belly, wood burning stove that heated the house. I remember going out to get the wood. It was just a wonderful time. Unfortunately she’s the only grandparent that I, I had that was living at the time and I was just a little guy at the time. But those memories are incredible and indelible.
Barb Heki: One other thing I might mention too is the my grandma that I only saw like once or twice a year, she taught me the Lord’s prayer in the bathtub. Oh wow. And I was, I was probably the three or four years old. I was really young, but I just, that is in, you know, ingrained in my memory, but it’s just an amazing, she was a Christian. And so she was discipling me, you know, when she could and how she could, and this time it was in the bathtub.
Yvette Hampton: That’s great. I love that. How fun. So I know that your ministry, that you have grandparents of homeschoolers, do you really try to reach the hearts of parents and grandparents and how they can work together to, to really impact the lives of their children and grandchildren. So can you tell me a little bit about that? How have you guys, well, let me, let me ask first. Let me back up. I’m sorry. How did you get started in this whole ministry of grandparents for homes?
Rich Heki: Sure. Well. We actually visited a, a homeschool convention in a neighboring state and they had this informal gathering, I guess you’d say of grandparents. They just called it grandparents tea. And so it was an opportunity for grandparents of these homeschooling families to get together and, and it didn’t take long before they pulled out the wallets and purses and they were sharing the pictures of the grandchildren and going back and forth and we just realized what an encouraging opportunity that was for [inaudible], especially if their grandparents, they’re there are maybe on the edge not knowing if this was a good thing or what, what’s this conference all about? Why are they doing this? You don’t know, that kind of thing. So it was, we found that to be a huge encouragement and the grandparents were just so happy to be there sharing the pictures of their grandchildren and talking about them that we thought, man, it would be neat to really expand that idea and do something on a ministry level with it.
Yvette Hampton: That is so cool. I love that. So then, yeah, now let’s talk about how, how you are able to involve the parents and the grandparents together and get them kind of on the same page of, of working together. Yeah. But without grandparents overtaking the responsibility.
Barb Heki: Yes, exactly. Yeah, that’s, our ministry has both parents and grandparents as members. Cause it’s all free to join. But the reason for that is they have to together. And you know, we encourage grandparents, they’ll go to a convention, get all excited, there’s all these resources, but we encourage them, you know, ask the parents, you know, what would be most helpful and that sort of thing because they’re kind of setting what is going to be taught. And grandparents might come up with some ideas parents haven’t thought of and the parents might say, Oh yeah, that’s a great idea. But you know, use for parents use their talents and, and, and their excitement and their love for the grandkids. But there’s two kinds of, of ways that grandparents help typically. Those who haven’t thought about getting involved in their education will help by, you know, they’ll fold the clothes, you know, do the laundry, do the dishes, that kind of stuff help around the house, which is a huge help.
Barb Heki: But you know, that’s not being actively involved in their education unless they’re teaching the kids two grandkids to do that. But like some of the more things that are really helpful to Gran to parents would be like, I don’t know about you, but what I got most behind in was checking papers and, you know, math problems, all that kind of stuff. I mean, that’s, that’s something grandparents could do, but they also need to be doing fun stuff too, like art projects and going in the kitchen and exploding things in science experiments and having fun with the grandkids and kids so they can help on two different levels.
Yvette Hampton: And I can help long distance too. Yeah. Well, I want to talk about that too because there’s, there’s really, as I’m thinking about it, kind of three different types of grandparents. There’s those who live close by and are involved. There’s those who live close by and are not involved at all. And then there’s those who live far away who, who can’t be too involved day to day because they’re because of the distance. And I know you’ve got some great ideas in ways that grandparents who live far away can even be involved in the, the education and, and blessing of their grandkids. So can we talk about some of those things? Sure. Correct.
Barb Heki: Okay. All right. There’s so much they can do online. Oh my goodness. Just about anything that you can do sitting right beside them. You can do online, you can read a book together, you can have them write a story. You can even do science experiments. You can send, grandparents can send a package with all the things necessary for a science experiment and then, you know, set up a video chat and do it with them. They’re in their kitchen doing it and grandpa and grandma are doing it from their kitchen. T teaching crafts you know, like knitting or whatever. You can show that real easy on the easily on the computer screen. You can even go on a nature hike or a trip to the zoo with the through the, you know, having the video chat and on your phone.
Barb Heki: And if they’re at the zoo, then they can tell you what they’re seeing. And and vice versa. At the zoo. Gay parents, I shouldn’t say you because you’re a parent at the zoo and their location as well. But just talking about the animals and really bringing a Bible along and, and talking about creation, what days were, you know, different things created and, and just it’s, it’s a whole discipleship thing. Memorizing scripture, helping with verses, whether they’re in some other you know, scripture, memory thing, they can do that online. They can see grandkids to sing him. And that’s something that, you know, not all grants,
Rich Heki: No. Great. researched is that going to the grandchildren is time because not in all cases, but in several cases. A lot of them will be retired maybe have more disposable time. They can, you know devote to the grandchildren. So maybe the parents are involved and teach a certain subject, but maybe we could do the practicum side of that. So like if maybe they’re studying animal oils but we might have the time to actually take them to the zoo. So there where we can help out and be support. Oh we see. Our role is being supportive of the direction that the parents are going. Any way that we can help them in helping to home educate the children or grandchildren is the way we want to go.
Barb Heki: There’s two other things that I think are kind of unique. Long distances are kind of fun when when our grandma taught the kids to play the piano over the telephone, not a video chat where you can see something. But over the old fashioned telephone she would listen and they all learned to play piano beautifully. And then another, another thing situation birthdays might be kind of hard cause what if grandma and grandpa can’t come to celebrate the birthday with their grandkids? Okay. There’s a story. This is a true story that some fam grandma total old friends and there was this little girl, Oh. And grandma lived on the other side of the [inaudible] and couldn’t be there. So the, the little girl was pewter screengrab birthday and as as she so what had happened was grandma had baked the birthday cake where she was decorated Lee and was bringing computer screen and little girls looking at that. And then from behind comes her mom who had baked the exact same cake and comes up behind the little girl and in front of her puts the cake down that the grant and the grandma takes it away. So it was like grandma was giving her a cake through the computer screen. It,
Yvette Hampton: It was so cool because you know, they say you can do have the cross the internet, but yes you can. That is so fun. It’s funny you would say Kate, cause as you were talking about doing like science experiments and stuff, I was thinking my daughter loves to bake and you know, that’s something that even with, I mean nowadays you don’t even have to leave your house. You can call Walmart, you know, a delivery service or any groceries for pretty much nowadays and have the food delivered to your grandchild, you know, to their house or the ingredients that they need to bake a cake. You could even do it through Amazon. Have the ingredients still live right there and they get on the phone. Anybody can take together. I mean there are so many things. I love that you talked about reading. You know, how easy is it to just prop up your phone, pick up a book, you know, read a book, show them the pictures through the screen and they get to hear your voice.
Yvette Hampton: They get to see you. I mean, what a blessing that is to build that relationship. You know, unfortunately we are thousands of miles away from my mom and my sister. And that’s really hard because my, my girls are really close with both of them, but we’re in Georgia, they’re California. And so wait ideas that, I mean, things I have never even thought of to bring together my girls with their grandma and, and even with my sister that they can just continue to build that relationship with each other. You know, what an incredible joy and a blessing that is because just because you’re far away doesn’t mean you’re forgotten. You know, you still want to have that relief with them. So I want to talk about a topic is, is a difficult thing to tackle. There are oftentimes, and we talked about this in the beginning of those grandparents who just are really opposed to homeschooling. Right. You bring encouragement and first if you can talk to the parent whose parents are opposed to homeschooling, how would you encourage them?
Rich Heki: Okay. well, I, I just, I know barbell touched on this, but you got to find out exactly what it is that they oppose to homeschooling. Is it, did they have a great education in their situation growing up, which was years back and now schools have changed drastically since then. Is it one particular area? Are they worried about, Oh, they won’t be able to get involved in sports or band or something that which can easily be taken care of through there’s lots of homeschool groups involved in both of those things. Or what, what, you know, find out what the particular thing is that’s they’re opposed to. So that can be addressed because a lot of times it’s just misinformation.
Rich Heki: We did idea of [inaudible].
Barb Heki: Yeah. And sometimes they don’t even know why they oppose it. They just think, Oh, it’s not what everybody’s doing. So I’ll tell it to be different. The one thing that’s really important for parents to do is to find out how the grandparents comments or reactions, negative reactions to homeschooling is affecting their children. Because that’s huge because some kids might just say, you know what, might have one grandchild in a public school and another homeschool. That’s pretty common. And they might be comparing them. And so, but one of them, one might say, that’s crazy. I would never want to be in public school. Oh my goodness. You know, no way. I’m so glad I’m homeschooled. But another child to have to grandma and grandpa and might say, you know, yeah, maybe grandma and grandpa’s right. Maybe homeschooling is, is not as good as public school. And so parent really needs to know how that, those comments are affecting their kids. And then of course get the comments stopped. You know, that’s, that’s inappropriate to make comments
Yvette Hampton: Around the kids, but yeah, sure. Yeah. I was familiar with a family who the kids were being homeschooled and grandma was adamantly opposed to them being homeschooled. And so every time they would go to grandma’s house, grandma would, you know, just feed into her grandkids. You know, how terrible it was that they were being homeschooled and they really needed to go to school. And sadly those parents buckled under the pressure and ended up putting their kids back in, in public school. And I just thought, Oh, how sad. That that grandparents, the grandparents had that much influence because grandparents really do have a lot of influence. Oftentimes, not always, but a lot of times they do. So talk to talk to the grandparents now you’re coming face to face with grandma or grandpa and they’re saying to you, you know, I just don’t think this homeschooling thing is a good idea for my grandkids. My child is, you know, my, my daughter who’s an adult or son, you know, they’re not educated enough themselves. They’re not organized enough. They’re, you know, they’re too busy with little ones, whatever it is, and they’ll get, you know, they’re not going to be social, you know, socialized. I mean, all the misconceptions that grandparents also often have. What would you say,
Barb Heki: How would, how do you encourage the grandparents to get on board with this? Okay. one thing is that parents don’t suddenly lose their ability to raise their kids when the kids turn five years old. So whenever God calls us to do, he enables us to do and we’re fully capable of doing and you know, they might just look at kindergarten or first grade. How can you mess that up? You know, just watch. Well mom and dad homeschool them during there a lot of times
Barb Heki: Then Dixon if they went to public school so well but they have sometimes some fond memories because those are their only memories really. Cause the school comprise this like 95%, you know, preschool through college basically. But they need to understand that the schools today are not the school and it happening in the schools right now. The agendas that are being pushed, the anti-Christian teaching, you know, the pro homosexual indoctrination, do they really want their grandkids exposed to that? And it’s just, I think a lot of grandparents aren’t reading the news and aren’t realizing what’s happening. They need to visit a public school. But the, the, the other thing I would recommend is get involved in doing something with the grandkids in homeschooling because they will realize it’s a whole new world out there. And it’s nothing like the envision. That’s what we thought when we started homeschooling. It’s like, wow, there’s a whole new world that we didn’t even know existed. And I think every homeschooling parent will say that. And so the grandparents, by being involved, they are having fun with the grandkids. The parents are plugging in what they’re doing under different academic courses that they actually are helping the child to complete. And it’s just all around beneficial for everybody.
Rich Heki: Yeah. So we encourage the grandparents especially if they don’t know where to start. Just start with something they know. Maybe they, I have a hobby. Maybe. there’s some area they have a particular knowledge gen and they could share that. I, I remember my dad was very adept at invest in stock market and I always kind of wish he would have shared that with my children. But he never, he, he kind of lacks self-confidence. He, I think he would’ve done
Speaker 5: [Inaudible]
Rich Heki: Tremendous job.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Rich Heki: I didn’t think that he could tell.
Rich Heki: Sure he’ll job had he be doing that.
Rich Heki: So they don’t have to be experts or anything. They can be very conversational. But just they can start with something they know and share that with the grandkids. And then if there’s something they don’t know, they can learn it to GAD kids. So, so I got another pro trustee flat flight. A great thing to do with the grandkids is just take them outside, well led light on it. So, but any, any kind of a magnifying glass would work great for this. But you can just show them like the vein or look at an ant up close. I mean, it doesn’t have to be anything, but all sudden you can start sharing things with the grandkids. That is a new experience for them. Cool. Just like this.
Yvette Hampton: Yeah. Yeah. There are so many, so, so many ways that grandparents can be involved. You, you briefly just brushed over the idea of, of grandparents going to a public school, which I’m, I’m certain most of them actually, they couldn’t do that. They’re not going to ever let a grandparent just randomly walk into a public school. And sit down in a classroom and listen. Right. So if grandparents are not the things that are happening today and the public school system, they need to be we, we, if you go in school house, rock.com, actually on our Facebook page, we’re constantly posting articles and stuff and things about what’s going on in the public school system all across the country, even across the world. But one of the things that I think parents could do really for their grandchildren and for their great grandchildren is to get involved.
Yvette Hampton: And this is a little bit of a rabbit trail, but oftentimes, you know, grandparents are, they’re retired maybe from their jobs and they, they don’t have all of the responsibilities that those of us who are in the trenches right now have, they, you know, they’re, they don’t have as many time constraints as us. And so one of the things that they can do is get involved in their local politics and organizations, you know, go to school board meetings, know what is being called. And even if your kids are not well, if your kids are in public school and you go to those meetings, you will want to quickly pull them out. But if your kids are being homeschooled, go get involved because the, the kids who are being raised today, we talked about this with Heidi st John the other day, those kids who are being raised in the public school system right now, those are the future leaders of our country as are the homeschool kids, right?
Yvette Hampton: But know what’s being taught to these kids and fight for what’s right. Take this opportunity that God has given you and the time that you have to, to do something and make a huge difference for your generations to come in your family and stand up and fight for what’s right and fight against the, this progressive movement of, of the, the total disaster of what’s happening in the public schools and the horrific things that they’re being taught. Because, you know, I myself you know, I don’t always have time to go to a school board meeting. I don’t have time to do any of those things. But grandparents, if you have time, get involved, do those things and fight the fight that we as parents today don’t have time to fight. So anyway, sorry, that was a little bit of a rabbit trail.
Rich Heki: We have every right to be there because we’re, whether we like it or not, we’re paying for that public school. So we have every right in the world to be there to you know, just to listen in, to voice our opinion. And by the things we say there, we might be able to shed some light on a situation.
Speaker 5: Chin,
Barb Heki: Well, I would encourage grandparents to parental rights being taken away. Yep. Thumbs and, and other places. But I, you know, I know there’s some sad situations where grandparents can’t see
Speaker 5: [Inaudible]
Barb Heki: The parental rights are so important because if rights are taken
Speaker 5: In a way
Barb Heki: To raise their own children the way they see fit, the grandparents aren’t going to get those rights. The government is, and that’s the last thing that we want.
Rich Heki: Yeah. I got a a, in fact, I haven’t just an article here put it in there. So it’s, there’s a, there’s a a bill down in one of the Southern States right now where they want a mandate beyond the public school. They want to mandate what a curriculum is used for teaching about government. In this particular case. And they, they want to extend it to private schools, Christian schools and homeschools. And it’s a huge overreach because they want to mandate exactly what the curriculum is that all the students in that state would get. Now it may be they just want to make sure something’s covered, but they’re being very heavy handed in their way. They’re doing it. So that’s something that should be left up to the parents and the grandparents to do.
Barb Heki: One more thing on that line too, that grandparents and parents might not realize, but like the American library association, you can look this up on the internet. They have a document that tells librarians how to sneak sexually explicit materials into children’s libraries and it’s filtered through all the curriculum. But there isn’t a movement out there to sneak things in so that parents and grandparents don’t have a clue what their kids are being. You know, what they’re reading, hearing and experimenting with under teacher instruction.
Yvette Hampton: Yeah. And oftentimes they’re not sneaking it. They’re right out front about it. I mean, it’s shocking. I was listening to a podcast with James Godfrey who’s actually gonna be on later this afternoon on our round table panel. And he was talking about how he and his wife had gone to the library in Colorado and I’m on in the kids section. He found a book there called the gay B CS. And it was like, you know, Ellis for lesbian and has this cute little Ryan about it. And you know, T is for transvestite and it has this key or transgender, I don’t even know which one. And it has this key and this is in the children’s section of the library. You know, never get another rabbit trail. Never, never, never, never, never let your children go into a library and just say, go pick out books anyone’s that you want.
Yvette Hampton: It’s not safe to do that. Now. I’m not a hundred percent anti library a while only because I always end up paying fines. But but you know, we, we, we use the library to where I basically will find books. I, I order them online and, and then I bring them home. I don’t go, you know, browse the aisles of the library anymore and I don’t allow my children to do so either. And, and speaking of libraries and books, I mean that’s a great way for again, grandparents to be involved with their grandkids is they can get this same book we talked about reading a minute ago, but they can get the same book and do kind of like a book club. I think you’re the one who actually mentioned that, you know, grandma reads a chapter, kid reads a chapter and then they talk on the phone once a week and discuss the chapters in the books that they’re reading. I mean, how fun would that be to read a book with your, your grandparent from, you know, long distance or if they’re close by, read the book together if possible. Talk about really quickly you know, I know that oftentimes grandparents simply don’t understand they don’t understand education. And, and you have on here, you know, oftentimes it just doesn’t look like what it looked like for them. So how, how can you help grandparents to really understand that? It’s just different today.
Barb Heki: In addition to, I mean, we talked about a lot of that already. They need to be reading the news articles and seeing what’s going on and that’s not CNN. Okay.
Yvette Hampton: Right?
Barb Heki: Not going to understand that. In addition to all their good memories of school, that’s just not the reality today. They need to understand that and they need to throw away those, those nice little traditions and memories that kind of grip them that like, I remember my mom saying, she was so hoping that our daughter could try out for homecoming.
Yvette Hampton: Right? Oh my goodness, she’s a daughter of the King. Okay,
Barb Heki: I need to be homecoming queen. But grandparents tend to hold onto those things because those are, you know, fond memories. So they need to realize just how different it is today. And it’s not education at all. It’s indoctrination. Totally. And they’re the people bring up socialization. The, the thing you have to ask is what is the content of the social who’s first, who’s doing the socializing, right? And second, what is the content of the socialization? So if grandpa and grandma can look at who is socializing their kids in the public grandkids, in the public schools, strangers largely and what is the content of that socialization? And also the peers. They’re socialized by peers when they’re sitting in a classroom with 30 people the same age.
Rich Heki: So talk about a word that’s bantered around a lot right now is diversity, right? Well what’s diverse about having a classroom of 30 children all the same age that are combined together in this small area? There’s, there’s nothing diverse about that at all. And how much more enRiching if that child is exposed to people of different age groups, you know, grandparents, parents, a brother, sister, whatever the situation is there. So there, and then socialization. My goodness, the most socialize people I know are homeschooled children that know how to interact with people of different age ranges from all the way from adults to little babies. They know how to engage them cause they’ve done it their whole life.
Barb Heki: Hmm. Yeah. And there’s dangers in the, in the public schools too. I mean, going to the restroom is dangerous now,
Yvette Hampton: Right, because you don’t know what sex is going to be in there and you have to figure out which one to go to. Yeah. Yeah. It’s just it’s, yeah, it’s shocking. I know. It’s absolutely shocking. Let’s shift gears a little bit and let’s talk to the grandparents who they themselves are homeschooling and sometimes they have gotten custody of their grandchildren for some reason and sometimes they maybe live close by and, and mom and dad have to work. And so grandma or grandpa are taking on the responsibility of, of home education. And there’s, there’s actually a question here and so I’m going to read her question and then let you guys kind of run with this. She says, I am a grandmother of 12, but recently our grandson came to live with us. I homeschooled all four of our children, but I’m so afraid to get into homeschooling again. It’s been 15 years and think of things have changed so much. Where do I start with curriculum these days? He’ll be in the ninth grade next year when I’m praying about starting homeschooling.
Rich Heki: Oh, I thought it Ecclesiastes, he’s us that nothing new was under the sun. So the fundamentals are still going to be there. Nothing’s changed in the fundamental. So I think if it’s been, you say she homeschooled like 15 years ago. Yes, 15 years. She was called off for, for children, but it’s been 15 years. Well sometimes gone by. But other than that, I mean, I think that’ll come back to her just like a duck swimming in water. I mean it’s just gonna I think. I think that’s the only thing is going to change is maybe things in technology have moved ahead a little bit, but the basic fundamental things are still going to be there. So I think, I don’t think it’d be, it should be any trouble at all for her to jump right back into it.
Barb Heki: One really important thing that hasn’t changed at all is her grandsons need to know Christ and to be discipled as he’s being educated. And so, you know, people were educating their kids back when there was no curriculum at all. The big companies now that want to sell all their wares to homeschoolers, they refuse to sell the homeschoolers back in like the nineties homeschoolers had nothing but they educated their kids better than anybody so that grandma can do a wonderful job. Even if she hadn’t had the experience, even if she was new to homeschooling, there’s so much more out there and it can be overwhelming. I would suggest getting involved in, you know, contacting a local support group in her area because those moms are on top of everything new that comes out there. There’s so much out there. We’re not on top of everything either.
Barb Heki: So, you know, w we would go to people for advice and, and she needs to hone it down to, is this a special needs child? Is this a child who’s soaring above everybody in honed down what the needs are and then local groups can and other homeschoolers can, can help with the curriculum. There’s also for grandparents who are, you mentioned have total custody of their grandkids. There’s a Facebook page actually that was started by some friends of ours who work with us in this ministry, but it’s called grandparents raising and homeschooling grandchildren. Oh, wow. Okay. And those are, yeah, those are the grandparents. We have three. We actually have two other Facebook pages for our ministry and I think they’re up on your site. But grandparents of homeschoolers is the main one. And then grandparents is homeschoolers. Discussion group and idea sharing forum.
Barb Heki: But the raising and homeschooling grandchildren, one will get them into a network of grandparents who are doing the same thing because the, the one thing that they’re dealing with besides having lack of energy, because I have as much energy as I did in my twenties and thirties and forties and even 50s. But they are, they, they kind of miss out on being grandma and grandpa because they’re the mom and the dad. And so that’s a hard thing. But you know, God enables them to do that. He gave them that situation and he’s going to enable them to do that. And, and eternity is what matters. And they’re going to
Rich Heki: [Inaudible]. And I just add to that they may feel compelled to just, they have to do everything perfect. There may be a lot of guilt maybe on them that, Oh, how am I possibly going to be able to do this? But the goal they need to remember is not perfection. Perfection. The goal is progress. So as long as the kids are making some kind of progress, you’re heading the right direction. So they don’t have to be you know, perfect little Einsteins. They just, you know, you need to be teaching them, you know, things that are important in life and God will fill in the gaps. Yeah,
Yvette Hampton: I love that. That was exactly what I was thinking. I mean, you know, God, he is so faithful and we have talked about this all through the week and that he, when he calls us to do something, he equips us to be able to do it. And if you want to know whether or not you’re being called to homeschool, listen to Abby Rinella session this morning on the why of homeschooling and it is fantastic. I mean, she just just poured scripture over us and in regards to, you know, why, why we should be homeschooling and and it’s fantastic. And so yes, God is going to equip you and he is going to give you everything you need. He is going to give you this strength. He’s going to give you the rest. He is going to give you the resources that you need. Go to a homeschool convention.
Yvette Hampton: I highly recommend doing that. Pretty much every state for the most part, has a homeschool convention, a state homeschool convention. Some of them have more than one go to a homeschool convention. There’s private conventions as well. Visit one of them and go look at curriculum and talk to people. You know, it can be overwhelming to go and see all of this curriculum. What I always recommend to people, it was what was recommended to me. The before, the very first convention I ever attended was talked to a few people who you know, that are homeschooling and ask them, and you can even pop this in these questions here. Or you know, somewhere on, on a homeschool Facebook page. Just say, you know, what, what curriculum are you using for science or history or grammar? You have something that is, has a biblical worldview, but just get some ideas and then go to a homeschool convention and open the books, you know, and take your grandson.
Yvette Hampton: I mean, if he’s going into ninth grade, he’s at a great age where you take him with you and have him look at the curriculum with you. If you can’t get to a homeschool convention look at our vendor hall for sure. Through this event because we’ve got a lot of great resources there, but just start asking people, asking around in a lot of, a lot of companies nowadays, you can actually download the first several lessons or at least the first one or two lessons from their curriculum and, and, and get a really good feel for how it works and whether or not it will work well for your family, but don’t feel like you have to do, you know, everything I mean there, you can’t do everything there. There are so many different things to choose from, but but find a community around you and I’m telling you, if you’re a grandmother who homeschooled all four of your kids, a homeschool community is gonna welcome you in and they’re going to want to hear your wisdom and, and, and connect with them and connect with the heck he is. I mean, I, I know that you guys are really approachable and you know, I’m sure we’d be willing to talk to this grandmother as well. And encourager. Here is another question from Sherry. She says, my mother, my mother in law lives three hours from us and was a former Christian school teacher. She specialized in Spanish. So I’m thinking maybe we could do a FaceTime class that she could teach them. What would you do you think that would work?
Barb Heki: I think that’s a great idea. Yeah. I mean having grandma teach is going to be so much better than having a stranger teach. Like I like our kids. We had a friend who taught them Spanish and and that worked out great. She was a homeschooling mom was a Spanish teacher, but to have grandma or grandpa do that is just extra blessing and it just deepens that relationship. Every interaction they have together deepens their relationship and gives them opportunities for discipleship. Because I don’t think someone else teaching your children is going to be as focused on discipleship is grandma and grandpa are, they’re going to be looking for those opportunities. The other teacher most likely is going to, even though they might be a Christian and are Christ centered in their teaching, they’re, they’re just, they want to cover the material and you know, get through what they need to in time and stuff. And grandma and grandpa are just going to be, so, it’ll just be so neat. Yes. Do it. Absolutely.
Yvette Hampton: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I agree to do it. That would be a ton of fun. So mom, if you’re listening, you speak Spanish, you need to teach my girls how to speak Spanish. And this is really fun. I’m seeing this comment and someone posted said, I’m nine years old watching my mom’s phone and I’m so thankful that she homeschools me. I am so thankful that you’re watching your mom’s phone and what an exciting thing that you are. Grateful. I know my girls are grateful that we homeschooled them and, and for many reasons and sometimes it’s the reason that they see the, you know, they don’t see, they hear about the school bus coming at six 45 or seven o’clock in the morning and they’re still fast asleep. And they hear of these children who have to get up and go to school at the wee hours of the morning and they’re like, why would anyone want to do that? I don’t. But I think that’s awesome. So let’s tie this up. If you guys have more questions, feel free to post them, but I know you have a story that you wanted to share
Barb Heki: About homeschooling. So, yeah. And this is the most important reason, reason to homeschool as we see it. When they tell you this is a true story of a friend of ours. My, our daughter and their daughter were best friends and they were about 10 years old and they were homeschooling family. And this little girl, they moved away to another state, but they came back here for the her grandma’s funeral. And during after the funeral was over, it was an old country church where the church is on one side of the road in the cemetery is on the other side. And the girls were, she had several brothers and sisters and and friends that were there. And they were playing and laughing and talking, and this little girl, her name is Jessalyn, and she loved Jesus. She was full of life and just you know, having fun with her friends and she stepped out into the road without looking.
Barb Heki: And this car came out of nowhere and just plowed right into her. She died instantly. And the tragedy that it was I remember attending the funeral and there’s two things that I’ll never forget that her mom told me. The funeral. Number one is that Jesse loved Jesus and she was very overt about that. They knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that she loved Jesus and she was going to be in heaven and they were going to see her again. This time on earth is just temporary. They were, can have Aternity with Jesse. And so that was a huge, huge blessing to her parents and siblings. The other thing she told me was she said, I am so thankful that we homeschooled because if we had, I had 10 years with Chessy day in, day out, every hour, if I had, if we hadn’t homeschooled, we would have only had five years with her. And that just really struck me because it’s so true. What is really important in life? Sending your kids off to learn stuff or keeping them at home and discipling them and teaching them to love Jesus and having eternity to look forward to together. Yeah. Wow. That’s why, that’s why grandparents need to be supportive of homeschooling and parents need to be diligent and keep on doing it. And grandparents help them to get that done.
Yvette Hampton: Yes. Wow. What a powerful story and what an incredible testimony to her faithfulness to have her daughter home and to disciple her. I mean, I, I can’t even imagine something like that happening. And, and it’s true. I mean there’s, I would not change the time that I’ve had with my girls for anything in the world. You know, I, it’s, it is such a joy and a blessing and a privilege that we have. And it’s a responsibility that we have to be the ones to have our children at home to, to train them and to teach them the ways of the Lord. No one else is gonna do it the way that we are going to do it. No one knows our kids like we know them. No one loves them as much as we love them. No one knows their strengths and their weaknesses like mom and dad do.
Yvette Hampton: And, and as much as you know, teachers often love their students. There’s not a teacher in the world who can take your child under their wing and train them up and raise them up to become everything that God created them to be. And you know, I often think I, I’ve known a lot of people who have regretted the decision to put their children in public school. I don’t know anyone who’s ever regretted homeschooling their children. And I’m not saying it’s always easy and I know that they’re, I know that there are homeschooled people who have been homeschooled, who they themselves say, I would never do that. And maybe it was because, you know, their, their parent was harsh with them or for whatever reason, it was just a really bad experience. And I get that right. And so it’s our job to make it the best experience possible.
Yvette Hampton: And I don’t find in games all the time, but I mean, to truly love our kids the way that God has called us to love them, and one way we get to do that is by homeschooling them. I see another question that just popped up really quickly and then we’ll wrap up in a few minutes. Said, what can I do to show my children are learning and progressing to my inlaws and family who do not support homeschooling? So they don’t think I’m failing my children. Coming from a grandparents point of view, how can I as a daughter and how as a daughter-in-law make them feel good about my choice to homeschool? That is a great question. [inaudible]
Barb Heki: I guess what, so many people look at, where should my child be? Parents look at that grand champ. Parents look at that or are they behind? Well, the question is what is behind behind what behind who behind some imaginary line that the public schools said where all kids by age six or seven should be able to read. I mean, who invented that? Kids are different. Some of them learn to read at four or five and some learn to read at 11 or 12 and, but they’re learning other things. They’re, you know, the, the thing is two things. Kids shouldn’t be compared with one another. And because they all learn differently. One might learn the, in one, let’s say call it a grade level in one subject and be two grade levels ahead or higher than that in a different subject. So the really it’s the parent who sets where the goals for their own children and their education and where they need to be at a certain time, what they should accomplish, that sort of thing.
Barb Heki: Maybe helping grandma and grandpa have letting them help set some of those goals or at least be in on it might be helpful because then they would see that the parent is looking at the child’s talents, their learning styles. That’s huge. Teaching to their learning style. She’d see all that goes into planning for what that child is going to be today and begin to realize that you know, they, they don’t need to be the same as, as someone in public school. We, we actually are. Our son was very entrepreneurial and he started a business when he was in high school and all the things that he had to do to start that business covered, you know, marketing, finance, government, everything about 20 different subjects. But we did not do algebra that for about a year and a half. Okay. We did algebra a year and a half later than everybody else because he was so busy learning things. There wasn’t time for that. And so when it came to that point he went through it really quickly, kind of all at once, just pouring himself into it. So there’s no set time table for, for homeschooling.
Rich Heki: And then another thing is a lot of homeschool support groups and co-ops will put together what they call a share fair. And so the, the children will be working on projects throughout the year and they’ve been researching and, and writing about it and then maybe making displays about it or artwork or things that they can demonstrate from what they were learning. And the neat thing about the sheriff area is that everybody gets to benefit from that. So they’ll, they’ll have a set time and a set place and everybody, all the families in the, in the children bring together the projects they’ve been working on and set them up like a booth style. And so everybody gets to go around and see what they’ve been doing. And it’s just tremendously encouraging to see what these children in middle learning in and, and it’s, it’s played out in what they’ve created.
Rich Heki: And so that can be a hugely impressive to a prospective or to a grandparent that’s kind of wondering, Oh, is this going to pay off? Will they actually be learning anything? And when they see that, they’ll not only see maybe things that are done at the L the, the age level that their grandchildren are, but there’ll be able to see older children’s work too, and the, and, and how, you know, it’ll be more intricate, more involved you know, maybe more grandiose or whatever. And so they’ll see, yes, there is progress here, so that can be very hard.
Barb Heki: They also could get involved in helping the grandkids in areas that are challenging for them or more difficult. And you know, they could just dive in and help with that. And and then areas where the grandchild is excelling and, and kind of needs to leap forward, they can get involved in helping with that two.
Yvette Hampton: Yeah. Yeah. One thing, I have a friend who every year I think she does it maybe once a year, maybe twice, I’m not sure. She’ll just bring, she’ll invite the grandparents over and they’ll have like little, you know, snacks and stuff. And then her kids, she has four kids and her kids will just show some of the things they’ve done that year. You know, maybe read a paper that they’ve written, sing a song that they’ve, you know, learned or recite a poem or a scripture or whatever and the grandparents get to just be involved and just get to hear what they’ve done. But it’s so funny, a Trisha just popped up her comment and, and I’ll read it, but it’s funny cause I literally wrote down almost word for word the exact same thing she said. Some parents and in-laws may not come on board until your children begin to graduate and they see the fruit of all your labor.
Yvette Hampton: Mother-In-Law was very angry. But now that my girls are young adults, she admits that we did a great job. And you know, your job is not to please your parents or your in-laws. Your job is to please the Lord and to follow his leading for your family and to do what he has called you to do. And so trust that and then trust that at some point they’re going to come on board. If you, if you missed Karen abuse a session earlier this week, I would definitely go back and listen to that because she has her whole story of how, I mean her parents were adamant about her not homeschooling. I mean they were like literally like you will not homeschool. And she and her husband were like, well actually this is really what we’re going to do. And now her parents are, I mean there are some of their biggest cheerleaders and they actually attend homeschool conventions with them now because they’ve seen over the years and it took like 10 years.
Yvette Hampton: Literally it took 10 years for them to come onboard. But now they’re all the way on board. They don’t have just one toe on board. They’re fully involved and they really support their decision out of homeschool because they have seen that it works. They’ve seen the fruit of their labor. So Trisha, thank you for that encouragement and, and just keep pressing on. Do what God’s called you to do. And if they don’t get it yet, they, they will. And if they’re pushing you to put your child in a public school, just ask them. Okay. Which, which a character quality of these public school kids do you want your grandchildren to emulate and let them answer you. Ask them questions. Why, why? And you talked about that earlier, Rich, I think you said that, you know, ask the question, why do you want our kids to be in school?
Yvette Hampton: And it’s most of the time is that they simply just don’t understand. So, which again is part of the reason that we’re making this documentary schoolhouse rock to the homeschool revolution is, and that’s actually a big part of our audience because we really want to open up people’s eyes to the blessing and benefits of homeschooling. And so when the movie finally comes out, you will be able to hand that to them and just say, watch this movie and you’ll understand why we want to homeschool. So well Rich and Barb, you have been such an encouragement and a blessing. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for the ministry that you have to parents and to grandparents. It’s so very important. Really quickly tell your website again.
Barb Heki: The website is just GrandparentsofHomeschoolers.org and if you just click on join, it’s free and that will get you on our list to send you out resources. We’ve got several new things under development right now and we want to let you know when they’re available and a lot of it free. So yeah, that’s the best way. And then that’ll get you to our Facebook pages as well.
Yvette Hampton: Very cool. And maybe as a special gift, people can sign their in-laws or their parents up for your newsletter secretly just put there. They’re just in their parents and grandparents, parents and grandparents, you know, maybe sign them up and they’ll get this random email come into their mailbox. Grandparents of homeschoolers. Yes. And I did put the links to the Facebook pages that you mentioned earlier. I popped those in these comments. So for those who were looking for those especially the one that was grandparents raising and homeschooling grandchildren and grandparents of homeschoolers, those are all in there. And really quickly, Sherry, I see you’re asking about when the movie is coming out as soon as possible. This event, the Homegrown Generation Family Expo is a fundraiser to help bring in some of the funding that we need to finish postproduction on the movie. But we have a really long way to go.
Yvette Hampton: So we would love your help to get this movie funded and help get it done so we can get it into your hands so that you said that everyone will have access to it. So if you want to know more about the movie, go to SchoolhouseRocked.com. There’s an “ed” at the end of SchoolhouseRocked.com. You can see the movie trailers there and learn more about how you can support the school house rock to ministry. So this event that the Homegrown Generation Family Expo is a ministry of the school house rock to ministry. So I’m it, it’s all one huge ministry. So thank you so much, Rich and Barb for spending your time with us today. Thank you. Will you will be back shortly with Sam Sorbo and we’re gonna keep talking about more things, homeschool, and then we’ve got a panel at the end of the day that you’re going to be really blessed by. So thank you guys for your time today. Have a fantastic rest of your day. You too. We will talk to you guys soon. Bye. Thank you. Bye.