Creating a Homeschool You Love: Encouragement and Practical Tips from Carrie Lindquist
Summary:
Are you wondering how to create a homeschool experience that truly fits your family’s unique needs—especially if you're juggling work, neurodiversity, or the realities of everyday life? In this episode of Show Me Homeschool, host Erin sits down with Carrie Lindquist, a second-generation homeschooler, bestselling curriculum author, and mom of three energetic boys. Carrie shares her journey from being pulled out of private school to becoming both a homeschool mom and curriculum developer, highlighting how her own childhood fears and challenges have influenced the joy and flexibility she now brings to her own children's education.
Listeners will hear practical, encouraging advice on finding the right curriculum, integrating biblical truth across subjects, coping with burnout, and building supportive homeschool communities—whether in person or online. Carrie provides hope for moms who feel overwhelmed, emphasizing that homeschool doesn’t have to look perfect and that every family’s path will be different.
Links & Resources:
Carrie Lindquist’s website, www.theeverydayhomeschool.com
Instagram, @theeverydayhomeschool
Carrie’s curriculum at Master Books, including Foundations Phonics
Connect with Erin & Joe at Show Me Homeschool:
On Instagram, @show.me.homeschool
On X, @ShowMeHomeSch
On Pinterest, @showmehomeschool
Be sure to leave a rating and review, and subscribe so you never miss an episode! For questions or comments email us: info@showmehomeschool.com
Transcript:
Erin [00:00:00]:
Hello, and welcome back to the Show Me Homeschool podcast. Today, our guest is Carrie Lindquist. She is a homeschool coach, best selling curriculum author, and busy mom to three wild boys. As a second generation work at home homeschooler, she has a passion for helping busy moms create a homeschool that fits into their life and that they love. She has served the homeschool community for nearly twenty years and combines her real world experience and background in education to create homeschool courses that are biblically based, easy on mom, and fun for the family. Carrie and her husband, Wayne, live in the beautiful Ozark Mountains where they enjoy going camping with their boys. I'm Erin.
Joe [00:00:41]:
And I'm Joe.
Erin [00:00:42]:
We're the hosts of the Show Me Homeschool podcast where we guide parents through the wilderness of home education. Each weekly episode will focus on supporting and encouraging homeschool moms conversational interviews with like minded Christian leaders in the homeschool community.
Joe [00:00:58]:
In our experience, we've seen the lack of resources and support available for homeschool dads. So we want to address that by covering relevant topics concerning husbands and fathers as they lead their families through this lifestyle of home education.
Erin [00:01:11]:
We understand the need for creating connections and building authentic relationships to sustain a healthy homeschool environment for yourself yourself and your children.
Joe [00:01:20]:
Our goal is not to show you how to replicate our homeschool, but to show you how you can create a home learning lifestyle that is sustainable for your family.
Erin [00:01:28]:
Show Me Homeschool is here to come alongside you. So, Carrie, hello. Welcome. Hi. It's so nice to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Of course.
Erin [00:01:41]:
When I saw that you booked, I was really excited because I love talking to second generation homeschoolers. I think your perspective is unique, and you have seen things from a wide angle lens, I think. So do you wanna talk a little bit about, more detail about your growing up in homeschooling, and we can go from there?
Carrie Lindquist [00:01:58]:
Yeah. Sounds great. So, yeah, I actually went to a private school about halfway through first grade, and there were just a lot of things. It just wasn't a great experience. And my parents had pulled me out to homeschool. My mom actually had to reteach me to learn how to read, and that had been her biggest fear going into homeschooling. So that was why they had chosen to put me into private school for a while. It ended up being the reason that they also had to pull me out of private school because I can't know how to read still.
Carrie Lindquist [00:02:23]:
And so she had to reteach me how to read, and those ended up being some of my most favorite memories. Like, what ended up being one of her biggest fears turned into my biggest memories and so much fun. I remember sitting on the couch with her and learning, and I just hold those in my heart. And so, yeah, from there, I was homeschooled from halfway through first grade all the way up through graduation. I wouldn't have had my education any other way. It was such a blessing to me, and I had the freedom to learn and explore topics of interest. My family ran a business, and I was able to participate in that business and gain so many skills from a young age that I knew that we would also want to homeschool. And when I was dating my husband, he also wanted to homeschool.
Carrie Lindquist [00:03:06]:
So we knew that we were on track there, and that is the direction that we ended up going with our boys as well. So it's been a blast to homeschool them now as the second generation and, you know, you tweak things that didn't work for you and blaze a new path along the way. It's it's just so much fun.
Erin [00:03:25]:
I love it. So I've talked to a couple different people recently on our podcast that, have been homeschooled, previously, and then chose to do that with their own kids. And there's such a difference in what was available curriculum wise when you were learning. So what kind of curriculum did your parents use for you?
Carrie Lindquist [00:03:43]:
We had primarily the standard box curriculum.
Erin [00:03:46]:
Mhmm. You know,
Carrie Lindquist [00:03:47]:
that was what was popular then. That was what was available. And now there's so many more options, and you can really tailor I mean, you could tailor homeschooling back then to your student, but now you can do it so much more. I mean, we have audiobooks available. We have computerized curriculum, you know, all sorts of learning styles that we cover. So whatever your student needs or whatever we have learning differences in our household. And so whatever you are dealing with, you can really tailor their education so much. Mhmm.
Erin [00:04:19]:
Yeah. Our listeners will probably recognize that I've had several master books authors on the podcast. I'm not getting paid to do that, but I did work with the publisher there. And, you know, I I love MasterBooks products myself. I'm a MasterBooks user with my children's curriculum. And so I love talking with the authors and homeschool parents that are working. So how how did you get connected with MasterBooks and what curriculum have you put together for them?
Carrie Lindquist [00:04:48]:
Yeah. So we actually got connected with MasterBooks back with my family's business. So we had a homeschool distribution business, and we resell curriculum from all different publishers. And so that is where we had gotten kind of familiar with them. And then my mom also worked for them, and she played an integral part in developing their curriculum and their processes. And so as my own kids were coming up into the school age years, I had the opportunity to write a phonics and reading program for them. So I have very, very active boys. I call them wild boys because they they never stop moving.
Carrie Lindquist [00:05:23]:
Yeah. And so I knew that as my oldest was coming into the school age years that we were going to need it to take a different approach with reading for him. And so I began to think about what that would look like. And at the same time, like, my mom's biggest concerns coming into homeschooling, I began to notice that a lot of my peers had the same concerns where they were like, I would love to homeschool, but I'm so worried about teaching my kid to read. I don't think that I can do it. And I thought those are some of my favorite memories with my mom. And what an honor it is as a mom too, when you get to share those moments with your kids, because we all know there's nothing like when we see their eyes light up for that first time and they're like, oh my goodness. And the world is just opening to them and we get to be a part of that experience.
Carrie Lindquist [00:06:04]:
And so as I was processing all of this, I was also thinking, okay, these reading memories are ones that have always stuck with me. And what would that look like if they had been faith based? And so that is how Foundation Phonics really came to be as I wanted something that was going to be really easy on mom. It's not intimidating, hands on for very active learners, and very faith based. So that as they're going through it, they're learning the gospel message from the beginning of creation all the way through the resurrection of Christ. And so that was my first project. And then from there, my boys continued growing and they started to have a lot of questions on science. And they'd come to me with these things and I'd be like, I have no idea. And that's the key homeschooling is then we say, let's go find out.
Carrie Lindquist [00:06:46]:
Right. So we started having all of these learning adventures together, and that ended up becoming the Let's Talk Science series was putting together the things that we had discussed and the things that they were learning and then putting those available in a way that's very accessible for mom as well. Because science is another one of those very intimidating subjects where we want it to be hands on, but then it really easily becomes very overwhelming, especially if you are a very busy mom. You're juggling a lot of kids. You're you have you're working, all of these things. And so I wanted to put together something that would be really, really accessible.
Erin [00:07:21]:
Yeah. And you hit on so many pain points that we have as homeschool moms. You're working, you have little ones, you have to teach reading at some point in the day. And so that's a lot of our listeners have those same issues with how do I sit it all in and especially when they're little. You know, I I'm on a lot of different Facebook forums and groups and stuff, and I see these new homeschool moms or want to be homeschool moms, but they haven't made that decision quite yet, or their kids are still three or four. And they're just kind of feeling out what is homeschooling? How can I do that? Whether what are the resources? And something that I love that you incorporate into the master books curriculum is the Bible and the biblical worldview. Because as believers, I think it's so important to find strong, true biblical resources. Be it's like that habit stacking.
Erin [00:08:08]:
You know? You're not just learning about science. You're learning about God. You're not just learning how to read. You're learning about the word. So So do you wanna talk a little bit about that process for you as a, as a homeschool mom? Like how do you manage all of the things?
Carrie Lindquist [00:08:23]:
It is a juggle, isn't it? So, yeah, I definitely think being able to choose curriculum that is going to fit your family really well. And then also knocking out, like, what are your family's priorities? So my biggest priority is in homeschool. I want my kids to be really grounded in the word of God. I want them to love learning and exploring. And those are two of my biggest priorities. And so, obviously, those are things that are really important when I'm looking at curriculum. And so that becomes the starting point. I have juggled all different working schedules, especially when my kids were younger.
Carrie Lindquist [00:08:54]:
There was one point I was working full time, homeschooling, and writing one of the science books. But the beautiful thing is you don't have to make your homeschool look like anyone else's. And so in that season, we were doing school in the evenings when my husband was home. And on weekends, we had four day work week, school work week because I was off one of the weekdays. And so that allowed me to catch up on household stuff and run the errands and do field trips and that type of stuff. And each season, our homeschool schedule looks different. There's no year that it looks the same. Sometimes even half the or down to the quarter.
Erin [00:09:26]:
This year has been down
Carrie Lindquist [00:09:27]:
to the quarter where it's like every time I turn around, something is changing and I'm like, you need to reformat that. The process that I use is I'll go through and I'll lay out my week. On you can find planning sheets online or hour brackets, and I'll say, okay. What are the things that cannot change right now? My work schedule, regularly occurring appointments. I have a son who's in intensive speech therapy right now, and so that consumes a lot.
Erin [00:09:53]:
Mhmm.
Carrie Lindquist [00:09:53]:
And I'll put those in and then see where are the moments now that we have margin and where where can we put school now in between. Sometimes that means we're doing school in the morning. That might mean mean evening. That might mean over the weekend. And then from there, you also have freedom to get really creative. So we have time commuting back and forth to therapy. Well, that makes it work really well for an audio book. So one of my other son's subjects, we have an audio book so that we can listen to that in the car as a family, be discussing it, and there's not wasted time.
Carrie Lindquist [00:10:26]:
We're we're utilizing the time that we have available. And so one encouragement that I give to working moms is just you're free to be really creative with your schedule. It doesn't have to look like anyone else's. It doesn't matter if it's the proper way to do school. This is you own this. This is your family. God has given you a unique family to steward And doing it in a way that works for your family, that's all you need to do. It doesn't have to match anyone else's.
Erin [00:10:54]:
I love that response. That's so encouraging. I mean, even as a long time homeschool mom myself, I was public schooled, but we've been homeschooling. We're finishing up our thirteenth year. We've graduated one. We're about to graduate another one, and then we've got two more at home. And so, you know, even as we've started this business with Show Me Homeschool, it's been a challenge, you know, like you said, that sometimes day by day, it's like this was the schedule and now we have to reevaluate because something else came across that needs priority attention. So I love how you you lay out your week, your schedule, and then having that flexibility.
Erin [00:11:27]:
And I think as moms, it's sometimes personality wise, it's easy to be really rigid in our schedules, depending on what type you are. You know? Yeah. I call myself like a type D mom, you know, I'm very distractible. So like
Carrie Lindquist [00:11:39]:
That's half of the same.
Erin [00:11:41]:
Let's see.
Carrie Lindquist [00:11:42]:
Yeah. And I think
Erin [00:11:43]:
Go ahead.
Carrie Lindquist [00:11:44]:
There's that tendency too where we wanna have things perfect. You know, we want to know that we set a schedule and we stuck to it, especially as distractible moms, because we feel like this is our weakness. Right? But there's also something beautiful in showing our kids that, hey, this came up today, and we're going to take care of that because this is where God is pulling our attention today. Or, you know, this is really inconvenient for us, the fact that this is happening, but it's also an opportunity that we get to show love and care and concern for someone else who's going through something. Or with business, it it's not just, oh, we have the business that we have to manage. Our kids get to gain so many valuable things. I learned so much. I learned customer support.
Carrie Lindquist [00:12:25]:
I know how to run a shipping department. I know how to manage inventory and track inventory. And I learned coding. All of these things that have served me so well throughout my life, I learned through my family's business. And even for my sons now, they know how to write a textbook. They know how the publishing process works. As we've created courses for the MasterBooks Academy, they've been very much a part of that, and they're learning how to produce videos and how to edit all of these things. And so those distractions aren't necessarily something that we have to beat ourselves up about, or they're also a training ground for our kids.
Carrie Lindquist [00:12:59]:
And one thing now, like I said, we're running a lot of speech therapy. And, initially, my boys were kind of frustrated with our schedule. And I said, but this is an opportunity that for your brother, we're showing him love and concern, and we're enabling him to grow and to become who God has called him to be. Is it inconvenient for us? Absolutely. There's some days that we don't wanna have to go downtown for his appointments. Mhmm. But we're also growing the character in all of us to become less selfish or into someone else. And I think that these are all things that we often discount that God's still using in their lives and in ours too.
Erin [00:13:37]:
Yeah. The character part of the home education is I think the most underlooked sometimes or bypassed when we're talking through curriculum because it's easy to focus on the task and not so much the relationship. But a wise homeschool mom back in the day when I started, she said, you know, never makes the baby the inconvenience because you're gonna teach your child how to look at interruptions. You're gonna teach them how to care for other people. And that baby is part a tool that God is using to grow your children and character and yourself. And so talk about that. You've got kids of multiple ages. How do you, as a homeschool mom, have littles and homeschool at the same time? Because I know that's a struggle for people who are like, how do I even logistically make this work?
Carrie Lindquist [00:14:24]:
I think there, again, it comes down to a lot of setting aside what our expectations are. You know, in my household, we are not going to have a quiet school morning. Mhmm. It's just not the way that it's going to be. I have very loud, very rambunctious, very active children, and my toddler is a wild card. He tops his brothers, and I didn't know that that was possible. So there's a lot of activity, a lot of interruptions, a lot of just chaos. And I would love for it to be beautiful and quiet and Instagram worthy and perfect, and that's just not how it's going to roll.
Carrie Lindquist [00:14:59]:
We we work a lot on, okay, the setting is never going to be ideal in your life. Any job that I've had, any career path, there's always interruptions, there's distractions, there's noises, there's things that don't go our way. We control what our responses are to those things. And so that's been an important thing teaching my children is we're in charge of our our our own emotions. And, when those distractions arise, we go. We handle those as they come. And then keeping the fun in mind. And so as my three year old is sitting with us, he might be bouncing on the couch, but he's also a part of the discussions.
Carrie Lindquist [00:15:34]:
He's also learning alongside with them. And it's just more of the family. You know, even if we go to the kitchen and we're cooking a recipe, even if we don't homeschool, if we're cooking a recipe as a family, we expect there to be chaos and eggs on the floor and all of these things. We can approach our homeschool day the same way where, yeah, it might not be perfect. There might be some chaos, but we're together as a family. God is growing and shaping us together, and we have the opportunity to be pursuing knowledge about all of the things around us. And that's a really beautiful thing, even if it's loud, rambunctious, and
Erin [00:16:04]:
somebody ends up crying halfway through. Yes. Yes. I love it. It's so true though. You know? So you touched on something that I think is so important. When I first started homeschooling thirteen, fourteen years ago, Instagram was just kinda like not there. You know, it was just it came a little bit maybe, I don't know, maybe it was there, but I wasn't on it or was being used differently.
Erin [00:16:25]:
It was just, you know, hey, here's what we had for lunch or, you know, like Yeah. We're going to the park. It's kind of adjacent, but it is related. When we're homeschooling as moms, comparison can be like the death of our homeschool. Because if we are just getting the life sucked out of us because we're engaging on social media or we're seeing people who are posting perfection or it is a business page, and so of course the marketing is there and it's gonna look pretty. Yes. Can you address some of that? Because I think it's so important, especially when we're talking not only just to newer homeschool moms that have this, like, already unattainable look at what, like, a Montessori layout is and a flat layout on Instagram. But then some of us who have done it before where it's like, my goodness, you know, like, this is just really unrealistic.
Erin [00:17:05]:
Can you talk a little bit about that?
Carrie Lindquist [00:17:08]:
Yeah. I think, like you said, comparison is absolutely a thief, and we are so bombarded in our culture with everything that the envy, you know, of, I wish I wish I had a homeschool room that was as beautiful as her. I wish I could be as crafty as her. You know, all of these things, it's really a tool of the enemy that distracts us. Because the truth of the matter is you are fearfully and wonderfully made too as their mom. Your children are fearfully and wonderfully made. Your homeschool is going to look different because you're not called to steward anyone else's children. You are called to steward your own.
Carrie Lindquist [00:17:43]:
My homeschool is going to look very different from someone else's. That's a beautiful thing because all God has called me to do is to steward my own children well. Doesn't matter if I'm not super crafty that we don't have a big house. I can utilize the space and the tools that he's given me. I can utilize my own personality for his glory, right where I'm at. I think another thing that we have to be careful of is, you know, the information and the research changes daily. So one day, if you do this, your children are going to turn out horribly. And the next day, it's the complete opposite.
Carrie Lindquist [00:18:15]:
And you make this mistake, they're going to be in counseling forever. And it puts so much pressure on us as moms. There's beauty in the gospel that we're human, we're going to make mistakes, but God is there. And he also redeems the mistakes that we've made in the lives of our children. And our job is to point them to him and remind them that, look, mom's human. I'm gonna make mistakes. There's days that I've lost my temper. I've had to apologize to my kids and point them to him.
Carrie Lindquist [00:18:43]:
Like mom is also walking the road towards Christ, towards sanctification along with you. And this is what it looks like. And that is also a beautiful, beautiful thing and part of homeschooling and part of how we're wanting to raise our children. Oh, thank you for saying all of that.
Erin [00:18:59]:
I think it's important no matter how many times we say it, we need to just repeat it because it's easy to forget that truth and who we are in Christ and and the role that God has put us in specifically in our own homes. So as you are homeschooling and you look back at how you were raised in your your mom's homeschooling, are are you seeing trends or things that have just drastically changed? Or what are you, noticing? I I think it's always interesting to kinda talk about, like, how is homeschool evolving? Have you seen, some things that you've noticed?
Carrie Lindquist [00:19:33]:
I have noticed and this comes down to our personal experience right now. So the last couple years have been a season of just diagnosis and learning that my children are neurodivergent. And I have one with a neurological speech disorder. I have one with significant dyslexia. And in the process, we've also found I am very likely ADHD, and a lot of my struggles in school would have come down to that. And I'm seeing that as well happen throughout the homeschool community now where we're seeing a lot more, my child is neurodivergent in this way, or we have this diagnosis. How do I homeschool through this? Mhmm. And I think having the information available is so important and so helpful.
Carrie Lindquist [00:20:17]:
And where my passion and my heart lies in all of this is even when there is a diagnosis or a difficulty or a challenge, there's still our children are fearfully and wonderfully made. They are created on purpose for a purpose. As homeschool moms, it's another area that we get to steward. My children have differences. We learn different. We're we're doing things differently. However, the Lord is still using this process and we have the opportunity to see his hand at work. You know? Mhmm.
Carrie Lindquist [00:20:48]:
What I've had to learn for my one son to be able to speak is mind blowing. You know, how the Lord has created and fashioned the mind and all of the processes that have to come together for speech is something beautiful. And we have such a testimony in that, in the way that the Lord is working and guiding and caring for us. And so I think that that is something that's been really interesting in the homeschool community, and I'm seeing more resources and more things being talked about for the learners who they need a little bit more. You know? Mhmm. We have all the resources available, and we live in a great day and age. I'm excited for resources and tools and information that's coming out now for how we better serve and steward our learners who need a little bit different of an approach.
Erin [00:21:32]:
Yeah. I'm so glad that you brought up neurodivergence and special needs and things that I I'm I'm seeing that as well. And I think that's like you said, you didn't maybe realize it or those were the struggles that you were having in school because of something that was undiagnosed. And I think that's the catalyst for a lot of homeschool moms and dads now to pull their kids is that they're seeing things in the school that, you know, their kid isn't learning the same way. They're frustrated. They're getting bullied. They're losing that spark to learn, and they don't want to do that. So they bring them home, and then they're like, now what? You know? Yeah.
Erin [00:22:03]:
And then so I don't know about your area, but around us, we've got a lot of co ops, a lot of opportunities. There's field trips, like, I mean, it's we're in Kansas City, so there's a lot of stuff happening. And so can you speak a little bit to that mom who might be now she's home and she's feeling isolated and there's just not a co op that's been a good fit or an enrichment program or something. How can you help that mom, feel connected with the community that she's in?
Carrie Lindquist [00:22:27]:
Yeah. Oftentimes, if you're on Facebook, I start by searching my area and looking for homeschool things, and you can
Erin [00:22:34]:
get a
Carrie Lindquist [00:22:35]:
lot of information or find, you know, park play dates or that type of thing. Another thing is to start checking around in your church or other local churches and just call and be like, hey. Do you know do you happen to have a homeschool community? Is there anyone that you can connect me with? And you can start making those connections. Now in my area, they're also as working moms, sometimes co ops can be really difficult when you have to have another commitment in the course of a week. Mhmm. And so you also have the option of low key homeschool groups. So we had one where we met up once a month for a mom's night out. We would just meet to a restaurant, support, encourage, and sometimes not even talk homeschool, just be together as moms.
Carrie Lindquist [00:23:12]:
And then we do a field trip once a month. So it's a very low key, just relaxed thing. And those are also easy, to start. If you if you have a few moms who wanna participate, you can be like, hey. What if we plan, you know, the first Friday of every month and we go out and we start looking around for local field trip options? It doesn't have to be anything big and formal or anything like that. It can be as simple as just, hey. We're going to the park. Do you guys wanna come along and start building out those connections? And that's also a really good way too to help combat the comparison trap that we see online.
Carrie Lindquist [00:23:46]:
Because chances are, if you're with another mom in person, she's gonna be like, oh my goodness. School was a disaster today. And
Erin [00:23:52]:
Yeah. It's so true. Yes. I always tell new moms, like, I I get online and I see and, you know, there's social media is good and it's bad. But I have had some friends who had high needs children or medical complex situations where they couldn't meet with people in person due to the immune system. So online was their their source. You know, it was the encouragement. So ladies, if you don't live in an area that has a lot of in person resources, don't discount the social interaction that you can get online.
Erin [00:24:24]:
You know, it is something and that's nothing to be like, oh, that's not as good. Because in some circumstances, that's that's your lifeline. For us too, we also have a local support group. So if there's a support group, I'm always like moms on, you know, posting what's the best co op whenever I'm pulling my kid. I'm like, no. Stop. Don't join a co op, especially when it's academic focused because you're gonna get behind or quote behind where you think you should you're still trying to attach yourself to someone else's schedule. But the first question I think homeschool moms really should ask is what support group is there for me? Because if you feel supported no matter how you educate your child so that's one of the things that I've noticed.
Erin [00:25:01]:
I don't know if you've seen the same is back in, you know, eighties, nineties homeschooling from what I've heard, you know, it was really just a bunch of moms who would join a coop together, and it truly was a cooperative effort. The mom was there. They were leading things. They were hands on. Now things have moved more to, like, drop off programs or academic focused. It's not just the extracurriculars. And sometimes I feel like moms can get so bogged down in other people's academic standards still even as a homeschool mom. Yeah.
Erin [00:25:30]:
And I really just encourage moms to find that support group, find the moms, do things like playgroup or like you suggested. Park meetups are fantastic because it doesn't matter if your kid's reading or not. If they're eight years old, they can go play and jump and, you know, those types of things. So Yeah. Do you have any other advice for a mom that might have been homeschooling for a long time and is just really feeling burnt out? Did you ever see that in your own mom?
Joe [00:25:57]:
Never. And honestly, I mean, I come
Carrie Lindquist [00:25:59]:
to that point too. My oldest is in seventh grade this year and there's times where, you know, you sit down and you think, Lord, I don't even know. I don't know if I have what it takes, you know, am I making a mistake? Am I doing this right? And my encouragement, you know, if you find yourself sitting in that place, spend time with the Lord and pour out those things to him and ask him to give you insight, to give you wisdom. Because I can tell you, we have faced some big challenges in our homeschool, especially over the course of the last couple years. But what I can also tell you is the Lord has been so faithful to meet me there, to meet my children there, to give me wisdom, to give me insight. Because, you know, I love the experts. I utilize the experts. We we have people involved in our children's lives as well who are experts in what they need.
Carrie Lindquist [00:26:50]:
But God is their creator. He is their fashioner. He knows all of the intricacies of what's going on, what challenges, you know, even internal struggles of things that have come up that have nothing to do with learning differences, just emotional needs that I've had no idea about. The Lord has given wisdom and insight and breakthroughs in those things. And so if you're in that place and you're struggling with those thoughts, reach out, you know, spend time with the Lord, reach out to another mom, share those things with your spouse if you can, or with a veteran homeschooler and begin to talk through them. But chances are it's discouragement from the enemy and the Lord has something for you even in that. And we come through these things with our testimony of being able to say, Hey, even in the darkest days of my homeschooling, when I didn't know, mhmm, he was still so faithful and he was still there. And then as we walk through those seasons, we get to come to the other side and we get to say, hey, this moment right there, this is where the Lord was, and this is what he was doing.
Carrie Lindquist [00:27:57]:
And this is what he was speaking to me. And this is how he led me through that.
Erin [00:28:01]:
Oh, and that's that's a fun testimony. Like, it's not fun in the moment. Maybe it's No. It never is. It's in tears. Yeah. I mean and, you know, you you do this for any amount of time and things are going to happen in your life, whether that's a diagnosis, a death, some sort of loss, a friendship or something. You know, and that's the key is always taking it back to the Lord and saying, you know what? You know, the whole thing I don't see past two seconds from now and and I'm discouraged.
Erin [00:28:29]:
And I think that that's so important as Christian homeschool moms too. There's a lot of voices out there. What tips would you give to a mom on how to be discerning in social media, in who the experts are, in who they're seeking advice from when it comes to educating their children from a Christian perspective?
Carrie Lindquist [00:28:47]:
Yeah. One thing that I've seen through my own homeschool experience and even currently, if there's something that guarantees an outcome in a certain way. You know? If you do it this way, you're going to to have children who turn out godly. If you if you do it this particular method or you do this and you're gonna you know, you're guaranteed the results almost. Those have tended to be the things that produce very poor fruit. And that's what I've seen over time is we can do our best, but we can't control outcomes. You know, we still have to hold these things with very open hands and seek the Lord for our own children, because I can give you advice. I can tell you things, but I'm not the holy spirit for you.
Carrie Lindquist [00:29:35]:
And just because something works for me, doesn't mean it's going to work in your situation. And so asking the holy spirit for wisdom and discernment as you're evaluating things, you know, and if something causes you to compare and cut down on yourself and you are not seeing good fruit from someone that you're following or the advice in your own life, then that might be another cue to say, maybe this isn't isn't the best voice to be following, for my particular homeschool. But again, I think holding you know, we do our best. We pour our hearts into it, and we also hold the outcomes loosely and allow the Lord to direct the paths.
Erin [00:30:12]:
Yeah. Definitely. And I think you probably could speak to this more too, having been in the homeschool community, longer than I am because you were homeschooled yourself. But even long time people that were believers that were really solid at one point, I oh, I mean, just culturally, we're seeing such a shift in what is quote a Christian. And then you go back to the word. So it's so important as moms too to spend time in the word yourself. You know? Know what it says. Listen to, like, what you're you're saying here.
Erin [00:30:39]:
Like, don't listen to voices that are causing you to have negative feelings towards yourself or other people or, you know, promising those outcomes. That was such a great point. As you're saying that, I'm like, yes. That is something that is so true because there are a lot of people doing that.
Carrie Lindquist [00:30:54]:
Like you said too, people change over time.
Joe [00:30:56]:
Mhmm.
Carrie Lindquist [00:30:56]:
And so it's a continual process of discernment as well. It's just listening for those things and how they're influencing you and taking it back to the word.
Erin [00:31:05]:
So we talked about your curriculum that you have, and you can find that on MasterBooks. You also have a blog that you do. So would you wanna talk about your blog and your coaching a little bit, and then we can tell everybody where to find you?
Carrie Lindquist [00:31:17]:
Yes. So this last year, I had a lot of fun. I took a program to become a certified coach, and that was just it was so much fun. I learned so much, gained so many tools. And I did that with other homeschool moms in mind to figure out, you know, where are we getting stuck? What are the beliefs that we're having that are holding us back? The I need to have everything perfect, or it has to look a certain way. These things, the fears that we have even that impact our homeschool. And so my passion is helping moms to uncover those things and work through them so that they can create a homeschool that they actually love. Because if we're homeschooling out of fear or the expectations that we're piling, chances are we have a lot of pressure and we're just not loving it.
Carrie Lindquist [00:31:57]:
And so that's a really fun thing. I used to blog many, many years ago, and I had to set it aside while I was working in curriculum writing. And this is another season now where we've come to a place in life where I can get back to that, which is something that I'm really passionate about. So I'm excited now to have a new space online to be able to share and, and connect with moms in that way as well.
Erin [00:32:20]:
I love it. And what's the name of your blog?
Carrie Lindquist [00:32:22]:
It is theeverydayhomeschool.com.
Erin [00:32:25]:
Okay. Great. Well, thank you so much, Carrie, for coming on. I really enjoyed this conversation. You have such wonderful insight, and I I just love your perspective. And I'm so thankful that we've crossed paths.
Carrie Lindquist [00:32:35]:
Yeah. Thank you so much, Erin. This was so much fun.
Erin [00:32:37]:
Alright. Well, we will talk to you next time. Thanks for listening. To learn more about booking one on one or group homeschool coaching sessions with us, upcoming events, see our speaking schedule, or to get access to more resources, be sure to check out our website, www.showmehomeschool.com and sign up for our weekly newsletter. You can also follow us on Instagram at show.me.homeschool, on Pinterest at show me homeschool or email us @infoatshowmehomeschool.com.
Erin [00:33:11]:
This episode was sponsored by Podcast with Faith, our favorite Christian podcast production company.