Ep. 58 The Heart of Homeschooling with Laura Lines

I'm Lacey Jones with Elevate the Individual episode 58 the Heart of Homeschooling with Laura Lines today's guest is a certified life coach for homeschool families. She is married to Jeffery and together they have six kids, ages twelve to one, four boys and two girls. And she was born and raised in Arizona and claims to be a cactus prickly, pear prickly on the outside, sweet on the inside. And her lifelong dream is to world school with her family around the world and learn through real world immersive experiences, which I am all for. So we need to dig into that a little bit more. But through the challenges of homeschooling, she has developed the heart learning model that empowers kids to love learning and empowers parents to love homeschooling. So with that, let's welcome our guest Laura Lyons to the podcast.

Welcome, Laura.

Thank you so much for having me.

Yeah, I'm glad you're here.

So with all of this, I need you to tell me what does a typical day look like for you and is there anything that is typical about your day?

Yeah, that's actually a good question because it's not really typical. That's the beauty of homeschooling is we really just kind of roll with the punches and have a lot of flexibility. We do have a morning routine and an evening routine and kind of like break up the day with quiet time in the middle of the day. We have kind of like a block schedule. So in the morning is our learning time, like our more structured learning time. But really I believe that we just learn throughout the day, throughout life. There's always learning happening wherever we're going and we're always looking for opportunities to learn.

Yeah.

So how did you get to this point where you have decided to homeschool your families? Let's start with your personal education journey.

I was public schooled and I graduated high school with 21 college credits. And I had a lot of goals as far as my education. I was going to become a nurse. I graduated high school with a lot of my prerequisites for my nursing degree. And then once I got into the degree and halfway through the nursing program, I decided that's not what I wanted to do. And I remember my education in high school being very focused on the future. I didn't really enjoy the moments, if that makes sense. I was in a hurry to graduate, I was in a hurry to get to the next thing. And I didn't really have much of a social life. I didn't really know who I was. I was always chasing happiness, chasing the next phase. And it's interesting because even as an adult, that's been a challenge for me, is being very busy, avoiding myself and just kind of following those social norms of what I'm supposed to do next. So that kind of led to a lot of questioning in my adult life of just the way things are supposed to be with childbirth. Even my first child was born in a hospital and we had a lot of problems. And then that led to going down a path of learning, kind of shaking things up of like, wait, there's other ways to do this. And that kind of journey led to eventually having a home birth with my last baby and then same thing with my oldest child, struggles with highly emotional, highly sensitive issues. And so we've started to question our eating and the way just food dyes and things like that, which was actually a huge factor in his emotional explosions and has shifted so much in our family's health, eliminating food dye. And that's something that was really challenging because it's different as far as social norms.

The easy answer, right?

Like what's readily available?

Exactly.

So all of this just to say education for me, we've had to really question what do we want versus what were we told or taught growing up as far as following the way society lives or teaches you. So as far as my philosophy of education, I believe education is not just the mind, but the heart.

Yeah, education is not black and white.

There's no one right way to educate like today. I think at least in our country, public school is the social norm. But not long ago, everyone was homeschooled and lived and worked on farms and learned and read from books with their own families.

But like I said, education is not.

Just for the mind, but the heart. And I think so many of us don't focus enough on the heart. Like seek learning by study and by faith, right? And the steady part is that action and then the faith is the being and who we are. And so we often focus more on the actions and results of our kids education versus the emotions. And we know that emotions drive all actions. And so when we focus and shift our focus to nurturing their hearts and their learning emotions, that includes the love of learning. And then that naturally leads them to take those learning actions on their own and creating results on their own. And so then we raise and create self driven, autonomous learners. Did I answer your question?

Yes, you did. And I'm scribbling notes over here like crazy and I want to go back. First you had these experiences, but then you started to question them and question the direction which you're going. So that opened up to curiosity, right, of like, what works best for not.

Just me, but our family.

And so I would imagine that's an experience that you and your husband and your kids, you get to work on.

Together and understand, okay, does this work?

That questioning and that curiosity really leads to more of a genuine approach of what works for our family. We're being offered this solution or this opportunity.

Does that work for us?

Can we work within that? And is that the best option for us?

If it's not, what can we do?

What can we create so that we.

Find the best opportunity situation.

Experiences for our family, which I love. So you kind of had to go.

Through those things to realize, hey, this isn't really what I want. Moving forward, what do I want?

I also liked that you talked about it's not just the mind, but also the heart. And what I see you developing is.

These children that now become more mature emotionally, which is kind of the push.

I think, with coaching, is how can we take an individual from emotional childhood and empower them to live in emotional adulthood along the way? And it's never like, okay, you have arrived.

You're 18.

You're now an emotional adult. No? So with all of this, I imagine.

That there are questions, doubts, fears about.

Which direction to go. How do you maneuver all of that in your decision making process?

If I could go back really quick.

I wanted to insert a little story.

Yes.

So during this time when I was questioning our children's education and stuff, I was doing family history with my extended family. My roots are from Finland.

Okay.

I came across a cousin, and we connected on Facebook and talked a lot, and I learned a lot about the Finnish education system. And it's really interesting because they lead globally in education and have a model of learning that is amazing. And they don't start preschool till like, age eight. And it's fascinating because even those first eight years of learning, or those first eight years of life, they focus on emotional and social development of their children, which is so interesting because that is vital for building the academics.

Yes.

And so those first eight years of life, they nurture their emotions, nurture the heart, connect with their children, spend a lot of time outside.

A lot of their daycares are nature.

Daycares, where they spend a lot of time outside and connecting in that way. And then when they go to school, that first year is like half day, and they don't have homework, they have tons of recess. It's a lot more play based and child led. So they follow their children's interests and let their children kind of guide and direct their education. And so I've really focused a lot on weaving some of those concepts into our homeschooling as far as empowering my children to lead their learning instead of me being a teacher and teaching them what I think they should know. Kind of like how I felt my childhood education was a lot of me being taught what to think and what to learn, instead of guiding me to learn to trust myself and my own inner knowing and building that foundation. But that actually leads to this next question.

Yes.

How do you overcome any doubts or fears or questions about the next step to take and how do you make those decisions?

Yeah.

So I actually have a life coach myself and I am on an ongoing, evolving journey of self trust. Kind of like I just mentioned, developing trust within myself, developing a relationship with myself. And ironically, like I've said, I feel like I was kind of raised to be a passive thinker, let things happen to me instead of owning my decisions and trusting my inner wisdom. And so the work that I do personally with my own coach has helped me develop my own conscious thinking and decide on purpose the steps that I want to take as far as the.

How in our homeschooling.

Okay.

In your family setting, you now have.

A mother who is learning to trust.

Herself and her decision making process.

And how has that benefited your family?

So mostly our relationships with each other, all the things that I was worried about before we ever started homeschooling because I was actually anti homeschool before we started this as a whole experiment. So the things that I was worried about have actually benefited us the most. So, for example, missionary opportunities. I was worried that if we take all the good kids out of the schools, what will be left in the schools and how will we have opportunities to share our light with others. And this has actually led to more opportunities to do that, more in quantity and quality because we get to know people in our own homes and share the feeling of our home with people as we invite people to our home and connect with people through co ops and things like that.

But not only do we have a greater impact on others by sharing our.

Family culture, but also with each other. And I think the most meaningful relationships within our own home and the time that we're able to spend with each other, supporting each other in our challenges, it's not 100% happy all the time. Right? I was thinking that.

I was like, wait, there's always a flip side to this, right? Yes, there is the beautiful moments, but we got to be real. There's the flip side of the coin where it's not always ideal.

Exactly.

That's part of the experience.

Yes.

And it's interesting because also kind of connecting with impacting our community and stuff. When we're out and about, I tell my kids all the time we are being watched because people aren't used to seeing kids out during the day. People ask us all the time, why aren't you in school? And things like that. We travel and whether we're in a.

Hotel, swimming pool or at a restaurant.

Or a park, people are watching us and they are watching your behavior and things because, yes, it's challenging. There are a lot of challenges being together with the same people every day. You kind of sometimes need a break from each other, right? Yes. We have these POW wow meetings all the time. This is kind of how whenever we get into this rut or there's a day where there's a lot of contention or whatever, we will sit down in a circle and have a POW out and talk about what's working. What's not working and let everybody have a voice in how the home is being run, how homeschooling is being run and just let everybody kind of share. And that is where the coaching comes in. Because I'm able to use the same tools that I use with my clients and with my coach to help my children to be able to feel and process their emotions, to learn how to communicate their emotions, to learn how to interact with each other and share their emotions and their feelings with each other and communicate their needs and just all that. It's amazing.

Yes. And you've really set the stage for that by first doing the work yourself. And so to go back a little bit, how do you care you've mentioned you have a coach, but how do you care for your own mental health along the way, maybe when you're not feeling it that day right. And the contentions within you. Right.

How do you care for your own mental health within the day?

Yeah. So slowing down is probably the number one thing. And this is hard for me because I am a go go kind of person. I'm a doer. I'm very goal oriented. I like productivity and seeing things, checking off the list and things. But this is probably one of the biggest things I have learned that has impacted my self care. My mental health is the concept of.

Less is more, doing less, but doing.

Better, more efficiently, more conscious living and doing, focusing more on how I'm feeling and allowing all my emotions and my fears and discomforts, my doubts, letting it all be there and then taking steps forward anyways while holding space for all those feelings. So that slowing down.

I sit in silence.

I try to sit in silence every.

Day for up to 30 minutes a.

Day because when I'm sitting in silence, all my thoughts and feelings come to the surface and my brain thinks, you're too busy to do this. You need to go do this.

Right?

I'm a busy body. Like I said, when I was young, I was always trying to get to the next thing to chase the happiness instead of being content with where I'm at. And so when I can pause and be still, it helps remind me, like, live in the moment that you're in instead of trying to run and chase something. Because ultimately we can feel all of that right here.

Right.

And we don't need to do anything.

To create a feeling.

And I think focusing on my being versus my doing, a lot of people think that I'm really busy because I home school. It's so interesting. And I always say I'm actually not busy at all because I choose not to be. It's a choice, and it really is a state of being too. And when you're operating from that calm, not busy state of mind and heart, you're so much more efficient in the.

Things that you get done. More productive, all the things.

Yes.

And I was going to ask you, well, how do you balance it? And I think you're answering that question right now. The balancing of the homeschooling, you have a coaching practice, your own personal education and motherhood. So how do you balance all of that?

Yeah, essentially it is being very intentional about how I use my time, valuing my time, and setting a lot of boundaries around that and really deciding what my priorities are. And there's a lot of things that.

Don't get done, but the things that.

Aren't getting done are just not my priorities.

And so I'm very selective and yeah.

I'm very conscious and a lot of.

This is just I practice what I preach.

I have my own life coach. I don't think I'll ever not have a life coach.

Right.

The work that I am doing on myself helps me to be able to do it all.

And I don't do it all.

That's the thing. I don't want to do it all.

Because there's something that you said in there is that you're intentional with your time, but you also value your time. And when you value something, you treat it differently. And so the choices that you make reflect how you feel about your time.

It's interesting because I value my time. It's really a value of myself. It's like because I love me and the more I strengthen my own identity and love for myself, the more I have to give my children, my spouse, and my family, my clients. Right. And I think in our society, a lot of there's a misunderstanding or of taking care of ourselves is selfish. And it's the opposite because the more I develop myself, the more I can impact and influence those close to me.

Yes.

You also mentioned setting boundaries, and typically.

We set boundaries because we value something. And so I love that that kind of interplays with each other.

And so with all of this, what.

Successes or wins have you experienced as.

A result of doing the personal work.

And also homeschooling within your family?

Yeah.

Oh, there's so many. It's hard to pick.

First and foremost, I would say my.

Biggest win is the incredible belief in myself and the love for myself that I have developed I didn't even know was possible or even okay to feel for myself. What's interesting, though, is it took me losing myself to find her. And my first like, when we first started homeschooling, I did lose myself. I hit rock bottom. Laura has had to overcome a lot through this journey. Her first year of homeschooling knocked her down so hard, and her mental health was rock bottom. But the challenges that I overcame through that experience. These experiences became some of the most refining experiences that led to really knowing myself. Whereas before I was hiding from myself.

And didn't even realize it.

Knowing yourself involves really seeing yourself and being willing to be seen and acknowledged. All of you, not just the beautiful parts. And only then can you really know all of you and love her wholeheartedly. And so then transferring this to my relationships with my spouse and my children, marriage has evolved to levels that I wasn't aware of. Because if you're hiding from yourself, you're hiding from someone else, right? And so, yeah, it's just taken us to a whole nother level of knowing each other, being vulnerable with each other. And then parenting homeschooling is basically full time parenting on steroids. There's no one to send your kids to to discipline for you. It's up to you. And so having your kids home an opportunity to create an amazing connection through sharing your hearts and learning together and supporting each other in those challenges of learning.

And like I said, it's not always.

Beautiful, it's not always perfect. There's a lot of challenges. But our family motto this year is teamwork makes the dream work. And so that is in all parts of our life, in every aspect, family chores. And when somebody's struggling emotionally, like just really supporting each other and helping each other create that emotional and spiritual foundation. When you create that foundation, the wins happen as you step back and trust your children's hearts and let them have the space to take the lead in their learning journey. Watching them overcome doubts and fears and struggles and feel empowered emotionally to achieve goals and do hard things is so rewarding.

Witnessing your child learn to read after.

Struggling so hard, it's like watching them take their first steps after falling over and over again. And it's just a very humbling experience.

To watch and very rewarding, for sure.

Okay, so with this, through homeschooling your children, you've had to create this thing, this experience.

You do a lot of creation, I'm sure, like, whether it's curriculum experiences, scheduling moments, relationships, you are creating within that.

How has having something to create been.

A benefit to you as a mother?

Yeah, it's interesting because I've shifted my mentality around creativity. I grew up thinking I was not creative. I hated projects when we would go to church events or church activities and we're going to create a craft. I'm not a crafter, but yes, I am creating so much in my life now. I am creating experiences, I'm creating beautiful children, I'm creating opportunities. There's a lot of creation and I like to see myself as a co.

Creator with God in this.

We are creating our lives. We're creating our future. We're creating who we are. Every day we make decisions and it creates who we are, who we are becoming. And in that creation.

The way we.

Create something beautiful is loving who we are right now.

So in this process, as I'm creating.

Me and my future, I'm also nurturing my children and helping them to create their futures. And I believe that God has given each one of us natural gifts and talents and abilities for the purpose of contributing to society, for offering value to the world.

And as they decide or not decide.

As they discover who they are and what their natural gifts and talents are, then they can then use those to.

Create value and create just value in the world. And that is going to lead them.

To fulfill their life's mission, their life's purpose.

And it's not so much as what.

Am I going to do in my career, what am I going to become? How am I going to make money in my future? It's more about creating them and who they are and creating their future mission and purpose in life. And as they follow those dreams and follow their passions and follow their heart and live in alignment with that, then naturally they're going to create value for the world and that's going to come back in value. And that is what my goal is.

In all of this.

And I think that's what you're achieving, right? And it's this big cycle, right? As the individual learns to love themselves, they show up for their family in this beautiful, healthy way. The family can then go out to the community and they can share their light, their gifts, their talents and then they continue to develop themselves and gain that love and trust and understanding of who they are and it builds, right? And I love that you said you're a co creator with God. He is the ultimate creator and we follow in his example. And so I love the work that you're doing for yourself, your family and community. And now you have developed this Heart Learning model so why don't you go into that a little bit and share.

With our listeners what that is.

Yeah.

So the Heart Learning Model is essentially I love acronyms, so Heart Learning stands or the Heart stands for Higher thoughts, leads to our emotions, which leads to our actions, which leads to our results, which leads to our transformation. It's ultimately that becoming like we just.

Talked about who we are, who we.

Are trying to become in this world, in this life and it all comes from focusing on our thoughts and our emotions and that leads to the actions that we want to take. And so this model empowers children to love learning. My first year of homeschooling I created this really detailed plan of what they were going to learn every day, every week, every month, right, for the whole year. And after the first week we butt heads and they didn't want to learn anything and it was just a lot of fighting and that's when I threw all of it out the window throughout all the curriculum. That whole first year, all I wanted was to help them love learning. And so we just went on walks, spent a lot of time outside. We went to the library, and I had asked them, what do you want to learn? What do you want to learn about? What are you interested in? What animals do you want to learn about, what country do you want? It's just a lot of self discovery and cooking together, creating crafts, or doing crafts together, artwork, just really kind of offering them the buffet of opportunities and options and then letting them kind of pick and guide themselves. And so this heart learning model is really about nurturing their emotions. And there are specific emotions like curiosity, creativity, right. Those things that when we nurture, it leads them to take actions on their own. And so a lot of us will focus so much on their actions. Why isn't my kid reading? They're falling behind. They're not meeting the standards comparing to public school and all this. And then we create, and then we have self doubt and lack of confidence. And it just kind of is what do you call it? Spiral. But when we shift to nurturing their hearts, warming their hearts, building connection with them, and building confidence with them, all of that, it will naturally lead to them taking the actions that will lead to their learning. And then also the same model also is applied to us because really our.

Own development is the first step in.

Being able to help our children.

Yes.

And so I love how instead of spiraling, we now take it.

And it becomes more of a more positive cycle as the individual learn and grows and contributes and shares their light. So it's very beautiful. And you've provided a free resource for our listeners. There's a link in the show notes for that, but why don't you just explain real quick what that free resource is?

Yeah, so it's a free training for heart learning, and it basically teaches kind of like what I just mentioned, how emotions drive all actions. So there's learning emotions that drive learning actions. And so it teaches what those learning emotions are and kind of how to focus more on those emotions and nurture those emotions to help be able to trust their own actions and empower our.

Children to be self driven learners.

I love it.

And I think it's something that is so necessary in today's world, as we see the we see the things that kids are bombarded with and mothers are bombarded with. But we also have these beautiful resources and we live in a beautiful time where there are valuable resources that we can use to go and create the life that we want. So, Laura, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm excited for our listeners to step into that learning model that will be in the show notes and then do you have a podcast?

I don't.

It's coming up, though, really soon. It'll be called the Heart School Podcast.

That's awesome. Okay, so we'll want to look for that. But again, thank you, Laura, and I really appreciate the message that you're sharing.

Thank you so much.