Called to Homeschool with Yvette Hampton

If you’ve been feeling that tug to homeschool, but you’ve been filled with worry (Can I handle the academics? Can we afford to homeschool? What about socialization?), I hope this chat with Yvette Hampton from Schoolhouse Rocked brings the encouragement and perspective you need to feel equipped and motivated to begin the adventure of homeschooling!

Be sure to check out all the other interviews in our Homeschool Conversations series!

Watch the video. Listen to the podcast. Read the show notes. Share with your friends!

{This post contains paid links. Please see disclaimer.}

Meet Yvette Hampton

Yvette Hampton is the producer and host of the documentary, Schoolhouse Rocked: The Homeschool Revolution and host of the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast. As a mom who is concerned for the future of this generation, Yvette has a deep desire to see a culture shift by encouraging people through God’s Word. She and her husband, Garritt, have a passion for strengthening and equipping families and the homeschool community by teaching parents how to live out their convictions and point their children towards Christ. Her greatest joy in life is being a wife and mom! Learn more by visiting SchoolhouseRocked.com.

Watch my Homeschool Conversation with Yvette Hampton

Prefer to listen to your content? Subscribe to Homeschool Conversations on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts so you don’t miss a single episode!

Amy Sloan: Hello, friends. Today I am joined by Yvette Hampton, who was the producer and host of the documentary Schoolhouse Rocked: The Homeschool Revolution. She’s also the host of the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast, which I’ve had the privilege of being on a couple times now.

As a mom who is concerned for the future of this generation, Yvette has a deep desire to see a culture shift by encouraging people through God’s word. She and her husband, Garritt, have a passion for strengthening and equipping families and the homeschool community by teaching parents how to live out their convictions and point their children towards Christ. Her greatest joy in life is being a wife and mom, and you can learn more about Yvette by visiting schoolhouserocked.com.

Well, Yvette, there at the beginning, everyone always hears the official introduction and bio, but would you just tell us a little bit about yourself and your family, and how you guys got started homeschooling?

Yvette Hampton: Yes. Thank you so much for having me. This is so much fun to be here like you said. We just recorded for my podcast and then jumped on to yours. It really is so much fun to be on this other side of the interview process. I am Yvette Hampton, I am a child of the King. I love Jesus, with all my heart, and I don’t say that flippantly. I say that like I cannot do this life without Him.

I have two daughters. Brooklyn, my oldest is 17, and she’s going into her senior year of high school. My youngest is 12. Her name is Lacey, and she’s in middle school now. My husband and I have been married for 28 years. We are a family who serves the Lord through the Schoolhouse Rocked Ministry. It’s completely ironic that we do that because years ago, we said we would never homeschool.

As a matter of fact, we had been married for about 11 years before our oldest daughter was born. For 11 years, we said we would never do that to our kids, we would never do that to ourselves. We just had every misconception, we believed every negative stereotype that there was about home education. We just said, “That’s not for us.” I was not the homeschooly type of person. It seemed ridiculous that we would do something like this, but the Lord had a different plan.

When our oldest was four years old, we went to our first homeschool convention, and we heard all of these speakers. It was literally in one weekend alone, the scales fell from our eyes. What we saw was that it wasn’t just about the academics, and that was the part of it that scared me, was I can’t do the academic part. I don’t know how to do that.

I barely made it through school on my own, and I can’t teach my kids. I’m not a teacher, I didn’t go to college to teach. I had all of these thoughts and beliefs, but the Lord showed us that weekend that it is so much more about discipleship and about relationships, and that curriculum is important, but character trumps curriculum, and reading is important, but relationships trump reading.

Once we started to see those things, and our eyes were open, we said, “Oh, this is totally different than what we thought.” I really went into it with, honestly, my knees knocking and sweat on my brow. I was like, “What am I doing? I have no clue, but I know that this is what the Lord is calling us to do.” We jumped in with everything that we had and trusted the Lord. Now, we’re getting ready to graduate our oldest, and it is amazing to me, just to see the Lord’s faithfulness in it. That’s how we got into homeschooling.

Amy: I know that it’s going to be an encouragement to a mom who’s thinking about this crazy homeschool thing and to hear that because I have talked to moms who maybe have a three-year-old and a four-year-old and they’re thinking about homeschooling, but they’re asking questions like, “Well, what about a high school transcript? What about calculus?” It’s like, oh, okay, let’s start with what the big picture most important things are like you were saying discipleship, and start there, and then you’ll work through some of those challenging things down the road. It’s really not as scary as you might think.

Yvette: No, it’s not. God is so faithful, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Really, that’s what we’ve tried to do the best that we can, is to seek Him, trust the Lord.

Growing ideas about homeschooling

Amy: Yvette, you started saying you would never homeschool, and you went to this convention and you’re like, “Wow, I see a different vision for what homeschooling can be,” and now you’re looking forward to the graduation of your oldest. Congratulations. How have you seen your philosophy of education, like your approach to homeschooling grow and change over the course of all those years?

Yvette: Yes. That’s a great question. When we first started, honestly, or why in the beginning was, when we very first started even considering and went to this homeschool convention, it was more because of physical safety thing for our daughter. We’re from Los Angeles, so we lived in LA County. We were in the LA County School District. We were seeing that the schools were not physically safe for her. We’re hearing about all these school shootings and this and that. We just thought, “You know what, it wouldn’t be physically safe for her to go.”

Then we top that a little bit with “Well, she will be taught evolution, and we don’t really want her to be taught evolution,” but I was okay with it only because I thought, “Well, if she’s going to learn that, I want her to learn that under our umbrella so that we can debunk it when she comes home.” I have this idea that all this stuff that she’s going to learn in the classroom, it’s going to be fine, because she’s going to come home, and we’re going to undo it, which is ridiculous because what I didn’t realize was as Luke 6:40 says that when a student is fully trained, he’ll be like his teacher.

When we’re putting our kids in a classroom for 40 hours a week, they’re going to likely become more like their teacher, and we’re saying to our kids, this is what is true, go learn from this teacher who says that two plus two equals four, and also that we evolved from slime. Kids can’t differentiate those two things. In the beginning, that was really what our idea was, was it’s not going to be safe for her to go, and she’s going to learn evolution.

12 years ago, 13 years ago, all of the other stuff that’s going on, in Drag Queen Story Hour and Pride Month and Celebrate and all this stuff, and My Body, My Choice, that existed, but it wasn’t pushed so hard in the classroom so that really wasn’t our thought process at all.

As we have homeschooled over the years, and the world has pushed further against truth and further against Christ, we have found ourselves clinging even tighter to the truth of God’s word, and wanting to teach our kids, “This is what truth looks like.” They’re exposed to all of that stuff. You walk into any store, any mall, and you see all the evil around you, but we can still have those conversations with our kids. This is what the world is doing. This is what the world believes, but as Christ’s followers, this is what we believe.

Seeing Jesus in every part of home education

I think our whole idea of education has really changed, in that, it started out as a physical safety thing, and some of the things that you might learn that we can debunk too. It’s really all about Jesus and using everything that we do to point our kids to Jesus. Even when you think about the different subjects that we teach our kids; math, well, how do you incorporate God into math? Well, that’s easy, because God is a God of order, not chaos. How do you incorporate Him into history? Well, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and you start there. You get to see God’s story throughout the last 6,000 years.

With science, you teach them science, and they have to learn the basics of science so that they understand God as creator. We teach them to write so they can write about Him. We teach them to read so they can read about Him. Everything that they’re learning, we incorporate truth into it, and use that as a tool to point them to Jesus, not just a tool to teach them academics, for the sake of saying, “I’ve got a really smart kid who knows a lot of facts.” I think that’s really where we have changed our philosophy of education of going from, it’s not just about the physical safety, it’s about their spiritual safety.

Building relationships through homeschooling

Amy: What a joy it is to be able to show our children the beauty of the Lord and everything that we’re studying in our homeschool, such a gift that we have. Well, that, in and of itself, is a beautiful part of homeschooling, but do you have any other favorite parts of homeschooling?

Yvette: Oh, by far, my favorite part of homeschooling is the relationships that I have with both of my girls. Even with my husband, my husband actually works from home, we are blessed that he is able to do that. He hasn’t always, but for the past several years, he has. We get to do life as a family. I never imagined that I could have the kind of relationship that I have with my 17-year-old that I do, and with my 12-year-old that I do.

People often will say, “Oh, those teen years, they’re so scary, and they’re so terrible.” We were at a restaurant not too long ago, and there was an older couple sitting next to us. This man was probably in his 70s, and he just said, “Oh, you got teenagers. Those teenagers, they’re awful. My teenage daughters were horrible at that age.” I was like, “Oh my. I’m so sorry that this man in his 70s is still distraught and having PTSD over his teen years with his daughters.”

I just was like, “Oh, you know, no, the teen years have been great for us,” and not that we don’t have hard times. I don’t want to paint this perfect picture of everything’s always perfect and easy, and our kids are always obedient and I’m always patient and we have the perfect home. It’s not like that at all, but we do have an incredibly good relationship with each other that I never thought possible and I am certain it is because we do life together and we get to just share in everyday experiences with each other and work through the issues and the problems that arise because we live on earth. Definitely, the relationships, that is, by far, my favorite part.

Amy: A lot of it isn’t like homeschooling will make you never have relationship issues with your children or with your teens, but just like you were saying, we’re not pushing them under the rug or only trying to deal with them in these short little windows of time we have together. We’re kind of forced to have to face these things head on, and that can be painful, but it’s also so good because there can be reconciliation and restoration and a deepening of love for one another. I’m so glad.

I would miss my kids if they were gone, and I love the teen years. It’s so exciting to see them becoming their own people. Like they’re not just parroting back stuff I’ve said. They have their own opinions and it’s really fun. You’re looking towards the teen years in trepidation. Do not be afraid. It’s a beautiful part.

Yvette: It’s funny. I’m just thinking about last night, my oldest daughter, she’s just dealing with some things and it’s not a relationship thing between her and I, but just life things. We were up till almost midnight just talking through it and praying through it together. I didn’t have that worry that “Oh, she’s got to get in bed because she has to get up at six o’clock in the morning to get ready for school.”

It was okay for us to stay up until midnight. It would be fine to stay up until 2:00 in the morning if that’s what it takes to discuss these things and to be able to be there for her and help her walk through these difficult times of life because we’re not on someone else’s schedule. It’s just us, and so it really is a great privilege to be able to walk through life with them.

The challenge of homeschool academics

Amy: I love that. Well, Yvette, what have been some of the more challenging parts of homeschooling? We all face them. It’s not always perfect and roses, and then how have you sought to overcome those challenges?

Yvette: Well, that’s a good question. I’m going to be super transparent and honest with you. For me, the hardest part by far, hands down, has been the academics. I really struggled in school, like I mentioned before. I was not a good student. I hated the academic part of school. I loved the social part of it and really struggled as a student. I have a hard time comprehending things oftentimes, and I just really struggled.

The academic part has actually been the hardest part for me as a homeschool mom. The funny thing about that is that the Lord, he thought it would be a good idea to place in our lap this ministry called the Schoolhouse Rocked Ministry, where I’ve now spent five years interviewing other homeschool experts, and we made a movie about homeschooling and interviewed homeschool experts.

While I’ve struggled with it, the Lord has brought so many people into my world who have helped guide me through this. One I think about is Rachel Carmen. She has been an incredible mentor to me who just, she encourages me. I can go to her and say, “Hey, what about this thing? How do I deal with this?” She’ll just walk me through it because she has eight kids and she’s already done it. She’s graduated all of her kids, and so really having those Titus 2 women who have gone before me and who have done this successfully to go to them and just say, “Can you help me with this? I really don’t know what I’m doing here. I really need help in this particular subject or this particular area of homeschooling.”

The academics have been the biggest challenge for me, and still, I get to see God’s faithfulness and, really, it’s all about going back to him and just trusting the Lord. He’s called us to homeschool our kids, and so we’ve been obedient to say yes. Sometimes I feel like Queen Esther, like, if I die, I die, but I’m going to do this either way. God is so faithful, and so that’s really what I cling to.

Amy: That’s an encouragement because I know that some moms can worry either about academics in general or maybe there was a particular subject that was really a struggle, and think “I’ll never be able to teach my kids math. I don’t even really understand fractions or I was never a good writer. I just don’t know if I’m going to be able to teach my kids how to write well.”

How to deal with challenging homeschool subjects

To, one, like you were just saying, to seek out mentors and community, whether it’s online or in real life near you to go to those women who have kind of been there, done that who has some experience, that’s invaluable. Have you found any other good ways of dealing with some of the challenging subjects? Have you outsourced or hired teachers, or how has that worked out for you?

Yvette: Oh, yes, for sure. We have actually done co-ops with our girls for the last couple of years. There are co-ops where we get to choose the classes that they take. Here’s the thing, I think that a lot of homeschool parents think they have to teach every subject to their children. Really, what it is, is we get to guide the ship. We get to be that captain and say, “Okay, I’m not sure how to teach you chemistry, so let’s go take this chemistry class at co-op.” I’m not sure how to teach even art. We always think about the higher academic subjects, but my daughter loves art. I am not an artist. I cannot teach her art. I can literally barely draw a stick figure. It’s really bad.

She took an art class at co-op this past year, and it was great because she was able to learn art from someone else who was actually an artist. With all the different things, we are the ones who get to guide that ship and say, “You know what? There are other people who can teach these.” We also utilize virtual classes for math. We do an online math program that works great. I don’t like math. I don’t understand all the math that there is to understand. We use an online math program, and so while we do a lot at home, we also are able to facilitate some of their learning in other ways, through co-ops, through online programs.

We’ve even hired a tutor. At one point, one of our daughters was struggling with math, and so we found a great retired homeschool mom in our town, and she was amazing. She just said, “Yes, I would love to teach her.” We paid her some money. It wasn’t very expensive, and she was able to teach her all the concepts in a way that I couldn’t teach them to her. God just opens the doors for us to be able to teach our kids the things that they need to learn without us having to teach them everything.

Amy: The good thing with that too, I’ve seen with my own children is you end up having these wonderful mentors who can speak into the lives of your kids as well. When my son, we just recently celebrated his graduation last spring, and a little surprise for him was I had contacted some of his teachers, his grandparents, youth leaders from our church, just men and women who have been a big part of his both academic and just spiritual life. They all recorded little videos for him and I put it together. Just to be able to see that and think to myself, wow. It wasn’t just about the things that I was saying to him, but the Lord gave him this whole crowd of witnesses to support me as well on this homeschooling journey that we’re not having to do it all on our own.

Yvette: I think it’s so important to have other people’s voices who we trust in the lives of our kids because sometimes they’ll say the same thing that we’re saying, but because it’s coming from a different person in a different trusted voice, they’re like, “Oh, so and so said,” well, I literally just had this conversation with my daughter the other day. She said, “Oh, so and so said something.” I’m like, “That’s exactly what Dad and I said.” She’s like, “I know,” but it was different coming from them. Same words, different delivery.

Amy: Oh my goodness. I’ve had that experience before and I just smile and on now because I think to myself, okay, the goal was for them to know this and believe it. As long as it got in there somehow.

Yvette: That’s right.

Common misconceptions about homeschooling

Amy: Well, Yvette, do you think there are any common misconceptions that people may have about homeschooling?

Yvette: So many that we made a whole movie about it. I think that, still, it shocks me, but still, people will say homeschoolers are unsocialized. They don’t know how to function in the world, and I’m like, have you met homeschoolers today? Now, maybe back in the day, that was true. Now, you’re a second-generation homeschooler, but you are super personable and friendly, but there are some who, and I think it goes back even further to when it was illegal to homeschool in some states where those kids had to literally be locked in their homes four or five days out of the week during the school hours.

Those kids, there were some weird kids out there, but you know what? There’s weird kids in public school too. That’s that whole weird, like, homeschoolers are weird. Have you walked through a mall lately? Public school kids are weird too. Like what kind of weird do you want? Kids in general can just be odd because they’re trying to figure out life. They’re trying to figure out who they are and where they belong in this world.

I think the socialization thing really is a misconception that some people still believe, but I think the greatest misconception is that parents think that they can’t do this. They think, “I don’t have what it takes. I’m not patient enough. I’m not smart enough. I’m not organized enough. I don’t have all of the things, and therefore, I can’t possibly teach my children at home.” Instead, going back to what we were talking about before, there are so many resources for us to be able to utilize today. Free resources, too.

Another one is that people often think, “Oh, I can’t afford to homeschool.” It’s maybe for those who have money.” We don’t have a lot of money at all. We don’t do charter school, so we don’t get money from the government. We have been able to homeschool for 13 years by the grace of God, and he has provided every single thing that we have ever needed to home-educate our girls. God always provides when we’re obedient to him.

I would say though that the one misconception that I think a lot of people have, and I think a lot of people don’t talk about this, is there are many parents who will say, “I’m not called to homeschool. Maybe you’re called to homeschool, but I’m not called to homeschool.” I would argue that as Christian parents, we are all called to home educate and disciple our kids. I know that that’s a really strong statement. I know that a lot of people will push back on that.

When we look at Psalm 1, and you look at the chapter as a whole, it says, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked.” You could stop right there and just say, blessed is the man who walks not in the public school system, but blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law, he meditates day and night.

You take that last part of verse 2, “And on his law, he meditates day and night.” How can our kids possibly meditate day and night on the word of God and on God’s truth if they’re not with us to help them meditate on it, and when they’re in a school that’s teaching them everything that’s contrary to the word of God? I think a lot of times, parents will say, “That’s great that you’re called to it, but I’m not actually called to homeschool my kids.”

I would say, we are all called to disciple our kids so that they’re not walking in the counsel of the wicked, and that they are meditating on the word of God day and night. We get to help them do that as their parents. We don’t do it perfectly. We screw up all the time because we’re sinful human beings, but the Lord does help us to get through this and to really give us opportunities as our kids are with us to really meditate on God’s truth all throughout the week.

Advice for a new homeschooler

Amy: If a mom is listening and she’s starting to get this vision for homeschooling or she’s thinking about it and she’s just not really sure where to start or what she should even think about first, sometimes it can feel overwhelming, if you were talking to a new homeschool mom or one who is considering homeschooling, what would be the most important bits of advice that you would want to say to her?

Yvette: I would say, for sure, find a mentor or a few. Find people in your world who will pray for you, who will pray with you, and who will just help guide you, moms who have gone before you, most places, have them now. I know we’re talking probably to people who live in other countries where it’s not as prevalent, not a lot of people homeschool, but that’s where podcasts like yours comes into play.

I cringe to say this because you have to be really careful with it, but even social media, sometimes you can be part of groups that are really encouraging. Not homeschool gossip groups because those exist, and those are just, I think, so damaging. There are some really great Facebook pages where people can interact with one another and ask questions and get biblical encouragement and advice if you don’t have that where you live.

If you live in a place that has other homeschooled families, hopefully, you have other homeschool families in your church or you have a homeschool community around you, cling to that. Find those other like-minded families who will help walk you through the journey of homeschooling, and then you get to be that to someone when you get through your journey and you get to help encourage them as well.

Amy: I love that encouragement; community is so important. Two are better than one. When one falls down, his friend can help him up. Sometimes we need to be that person who can lift up someone who’s struggling. I know that for myself. I often need that friend who can come and remind me of what’s true. I will mention here that I am a part of Made 2 Homeschool, which is a brand-new online homeschool community. It is started by Christian homeschool parents for Christian homeschool parents.

It is a place to ask questions to people who have experience. Lots of different styles of homeschoolers are there, but those of us who are the mentors, so to speak, in the group, are all believers and really have a heart for encouraging and being a safe place on the internet for homeschool parents. I’ll put that link in the show notes, or you can just go to humilityanddoxology.com/m2h.

Schoolhouse Rocked

Yvette, I wanted to ask you a little bit about your family’s adventure making Schoolhouse Rocked. You’ve mentioned the movie, the documentary you guys filmed a few times. I think you guys sold your house and traveled the country and had this crazy amazing adventure. Can you tell me a little bit, how did you decide to do this, and do you have a favorite memory or a favorite moment from that whole process?

Yvette: Oh, so many favorites, yes. It’s been quite a journey. It’s a long story, but I won’t tell you the whole thing, all the details because that would take us forever. In a nutshell, about seven years ago, the Lord called us. Like I said, we’re from Los Angeles. We had known for years that the Lord was just prompting us to leave California, but we didn’t know where we would go. We didn’t know how we would get there. We didn’t know what we would do.

My husband had worked in the Hollywood film industry for many years. He worked in the music industry before that. That industry wasn’t for us. It was very hard on our family, but the Lord was able to use that for my husband to get tons of experience in filmmaking and just in the world of movie-making. We were in our, I think, sixth year of homeschooling at that time. You talked about misconceptions. We had started to see that. We had all these misconceptions. We had gone to this homeschool conference.

The Lord opened our eyes, and so we had become homeschool evangelists in our area. We would meet people at church and we’d say, “Oh, have you thought about homeschooling?” We would talk to them about it and they would say, “Yes, but I can’t because this, this, this, and this.” They had believed all the same things that we had believed. We started to see a lot of parents aren’t homeschooling because they don’t understand it. They don’t understand what it is, they don’t understand why they should do it. They’re believing all the false things that we believed.

The Lord actually put it on my husband’s heart to film this documentary on homeschooling. At the same time, he– literally, it’s a crazy story that I don’t have time to get into the details on, but he made it clear to both of us that it was time to leave California. It was time to go. In December of 2016, we had sold our house. We sold basically everything in it. There were a few special things that my mom held onto that she kept in her garage that we’ve since been able to get. We basically sold everything, and we bought a travel trailer and a Ford Excursion.

We got in our trailer in December of 2016. We drove out of California not really knowing where we were going. That first destination we were heading towards Georgia because some of our family has moved there. We didn’t know where we would end up. We didn’t know how we were going to get there. We didn’t know what it was going to look like, but we knew the Lord was saying, “Go and make this movie.” We didn’t even know who the cast was going to be at that time.

We had interviewed a couple of people, but we just were like, “Lord, you have opened every door.” It was miraculous how he opened the doors for this to happen. We just stepped down in faith, and we just said, “Lord, we’re going to trust you. We don’t know what we’re doing. We don’t know how we’re going to do this, but we know that you’re calling us to do this.” We did, and it took us a really, really long time to make the movie and to get it out into people’s hands. It took us actually almost five years.

Part of that was we didn’t know why it was taking so long to make the movie. The Lord kept– he never stopped production, but he kept putting delays in front of us. Whether it was financial or just our living situation or whatever it was. Then COVID hit and millions of people brought their kids home, and we were like, “Oh. God’s plan really is best.” We were able to see for the first time really why the Lord had put those delays in front of us.

The most exciting thing about the journey though, making the movie was fun. We have traveled to over 30 states with our girls by car mostly. That’s been a lot of fun. We’ve gotten to drive the map. I said, “We don’t need to do geography with our kids. At least US geography.” We’ve literally driven a good portion of it. We still have several states to hit, of course. The making of the movie has been really fun. It was also really, really hard.

The most exciting part of the journey has been meeting people along the way and making friends with people in all different parts of the country. Some of those friendships have really stood strong and really developed into lifelong friendships. We have friends in all different parts of the nation now that we would not have had before, because we were in our perfect little bubble of California with our church and our family and our homeschool community and our friends that we’d had for life.

That was where we grew up, and so we were in our little comfortable bubble, and when we got out of that, we were forced into like, “Okay, now we have to meet people, and we have to actually establish other friendships.” While we still have many of our close friends, and of course, our family in California, we have friends all over the place now and it’s really neat to just see how the Lord has developed and establish those friendships. That’s been, by far, my favorite part.

Amy: When God takes us out of our comfort zone, sometimes we don’t know why or what he’s going to do through that, but to be able to see how you’ve had your hearts connected to all of these people, you would never have known otherwise, what a joy. I think one of the fun things, especially I think, as a second-generation homeschooler, I feel like I can see, I think pretty clearly, maybe more easily than someone who’s new to it, that there’s so many different ways to homeschool.

There’s not just the one right way, sometimes folks, they’ll jump out of the public school traditional model box, and then they jump into a new homeschool box, whatever, their little version of what homeschooling needs to look like. I think one of the best ways to get outside of our box is to just meet a wide variety of other homeschoolers because we can learn from one another so much. We can learn from one another in the ways we’re similar, but we can also sometimes learn just as much, if not more, from people who do things differently than we do. To see that we all share a common vision, a common goal, that it can work itself out differently is such a joy. I think that’s really important, and I’m excited to hear how your family was connected with all these other folks around the country.

Yvette: It’s fun, and even homeschool methods. We’ve met people who do life schooling, they just do homeschool through life. They find opportunities, they use some workbooks and textbooks and curriculum, but really, they incorporate into life. Then we’ve met those who do classical, those who do Charlotte Mason, those who do unit studies. There are so many ways. Every family has a different kind of personality when it comes to homeschooling, and it’s really fun to see that. It’s fun to see how the Lord just mold each family according to how He has created them to function as a family.

What Yvette is reading lately

Amy: That’s awesome. Well, Yvette, here at the end, I’m going to ask you the questions that I ask all my guests, and the first is just, what are you personally reading lately?

Yvette: Two things. Actually, one of them, I’ll have to explain because the title of it sounds like it can be a little bit shady but it’s called The Night To Remember. It’s actually a story about the Titanic, the sinking of the Titanic. It’s just true accounts of people who were actually on the ship and what they went through. I found it at a yard sale last week. I was like, oh, this looks really interesting. Obviously, I know the story about the Titanic, but to read those firsthand accounts has been really interesting. The one book that I’m really loving in addition to that, it’s by Missy Andrews, and it’s called My Divine Comedy. I don’t know if you’ve read this one.

Amy: Oh, I love that one.

Yvette: Her mother’s homeschooling journey. I’m telling you, I think every homeschool mom should read this book. It is so good. I didn’t even know it existed, and I interviewed Missy on this for my podcast and I was like “This is the greatest book ever.” I’m still making my way through it, but it is such a fantastic book and I just love her transparency and just sharing her heart of, “This is what I thought my homeschooling was going to look like and this is what it actually looked like, and here’s what the Lord did through my journey.”

I just love her honesty and, again, this is another way, you ask, what is the mom do who feels like she can’t homeschool? There are so many books available for parents. I think of Nicki Truesdell wrote a book called Anyone Can Homeschool. That’s another great one but this one here I think is just incredible. My Divine Comedy. Then just in my personal reading time, I’m reading through the book of Titus, and I love it. I just keep reading.

I’m reading through the New Testament. Right now, I’m reading through my whole Bible again, and I’m back in the letters from Paul. I love the book of Titus so much which is perfect. Perfectly relevant for our conversation today because I have this Titus too in my life, and I really strive to be that in the lives of others as well.

Amy: Yes, indeed. Oh, I’m glad you’re reading that book by Missy. Highly recommend that to so many, and anyone who’s listening, if you’re trying to find it, you actually can only purchase it from CenterForLit. That’s the Andrews website. CenterForLit is also just a great resource. They have several wonderful podcasts themselves if you want to learn how to think as a Christian about literature and deep ideas, highly recommend their stuff, and Missy has been on this podcast before too. I just really respect her and love that book. I’m glad you brought that in today.

Yvette: Yes, I love it.

Yvette’s best tip for helping the homeschool day run more smoothly

Amy: Well, the final question I have for you is, what would be your best tip for helping the homeschool day run more smoothly?

Yvette: This might be a bit of a surprising tip that I think a lot of homeschool moms might not give but it has worked the best for our family is to let your children sleep. We often don’t start school until noon, sometimes one o’clock in the afternoon. Both of my girls are just night owls just like their dad. Again, I’m not, I love to get up early in the morning, and I have the whole house to myself and it’s quiet. I can spend time with the Lord, I can work, I can do whatever it is I need to do, but the other three members of my family are night owls.

My girls, rarely are they in bed before 11 o’clock and it’s usually somewhere near midnight. I let them sleep in, I do not make them rise and shine at 8:00 in the morning and get to work because what I’ve learned is that when they are really tired, if they’re not well rested, they’re not going to have good attitudes, they’re not going to learn well. It’s just going to be kind of a difficult day for everybody. Homeschooling allows us the freedom and the privilege of being able to rest, and also, it’s important for them.

It’s important for their brain development, it’s important for their body development. I’ve got two teenage girls and they need to sleep, they need to rest. I want my girls to sleep. Now I don’t let them sleep until one o’clock in the afternoon. They would sometimes if I let them. I do get them up in the morning, but usually they’re up by 9:00, 9:30, somewhere around there, dragging themselves out of bed. There you go. Sleep is important.

Amy: Sleep is important. It’s a gift from the Lord, for sure, and now as I’m getting older and sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep, I think to really, really begin to appreciate that sleep.

Yvette: Yes, for sure.

Amy: The flexibility of the schedule, the fact that homeschooling allows you to make that decision that works well for your family is so great. I know that there are people I know who have a parent who works like a later shift, shift work, and so they would never see that parent if they did homeschool in the traditional hours. They’ve been able to reorient their family’s whole timezone shifts, or I don’t know what the right phrase or schedule just to reorient around a parent’s shift work. Again, that’s not specifically sleep, but it goes along with what you’re saying that you guys can adjust the time when you would do your school because we can. We have the freedom to do that.

Yvette: That’s exactly actually what happened was when Garritt, my husband, was working in the film world, he would get home from work at 9:00, sometimes 10 o’clock at night. From the time my girls were itty bitty, if I didn’t keep them up, he would not get to see them ever. It just worked for our family, and that’s just always stuck with my girls is that we just have a late bedtime, and it’s okay. I have heard parents worry and say, “Well, if my kids aren’t on a schedule, and they don’t learn to discipline themselves this way, what’s going to happen when they get into the adult world and have a job?”

Well, my eldest daughter’s had jobs where she’s had to get up early in the morning and she does just fine because when there’s a paycheck attached to it, she will get up to do anything. It’s not a problem. They’re able to get it for church, and we’re able to be at church at 10 o’clock on Sunday morning. It’s not an issue when it’s necessary but on the days when it’s not necessary for them to be up early, I would rather them rest.

Find Yvette Hampton online

Amy: Yvette this has been a wonderful conversation. Thank you for chatting with me today. Please let us know where people can find you all around the internet.

Yvette: Everything that we do. Our Home Ministry can be found at Schoolhouserocked.com. It’s R-O-C-K-E-D and we’ve got a link to the movie there. You can stream it for free. It doesn’t even cost you anything. You can watch the movie. Our podcast is there. We actually have two podcasts. We’ve got a blog that we post on every now and then, but really, the podcast and the movie are our main thing where we encourage people, so everything can be found at Schoolhouserocked.com. Thank you so much for having me. It’s been such a pleasure.

Amy: I will have links to all those things in the show notes for this episode over at humilityanddoxology.com, and I look forward to the next time we get to chat.

Check out all the other interviews in my Homeschool Conversations series!