Welcome to Big Blend Radio where we celebrate variety and how it adds spice to quality of life. So everyone, you know we love to start off the month with Johnny Shafer. He's an amazing and award-winning singer/songwriter and he's here on the very first Sunday and today is the first of September. So we're kicking off the month of right and we're doing it with a back-to-school party. We're talking about education today and we have Jeff Nellgen at the end of the podcast to take a listen through. He is an amazing parenting author and he talks about screen time and how to get your kids and you into a good balance of screen time so that you do have family time, homework time and also just connectivity right away from the screen because it's like eight to nine hours that kids are spending a day on their phones on a screen. Like what? So it's important that you listen to the end of the show. But of course we've got Johnny Shafer here and we have special guest Rhea Chamberlain who is an innkeeper and owner of, oh I just, I want to go here. Everyone, you've got to go to this website oxbowacresnh.com. It represents the inn and oxbow acres in Myland, New Hampshire. Did I say Myland? Did I say it right? Myland, yes, you said it correctly. Like a true New Englander, New Hampshire. Okay, oh my. So welcome back to the show, Maria and Johnny, are you ready to talk about going back to school? Didn't we have fun at school? Did we? Oh yeah, I should. Yeah, I'm really glad to be with you again. And yeah, school was a great experience for me. So there's a lot to celebrate with school for me. Well, yeah, school is very interesting because in our teens, like I went to 16 schools that we think we think at 16 and maybe 14, it could be 18. But in between that time, we say 16, but we traveled the world. You know, Nancy and I, my mom and I, and it wasn't always easy. But I learned a lot of skills from being the new kid and then suddenly one day you're the star of school and then you're dropped like a hot potato, right? Because now we know now you're part of us and like who cares. So one day you're high, one day you're low, and no matter what your nerves are all over, and it taught me to know who I am. It taught me so much resiliency and to laugh at yourself to, and I still laugh at myself every day, even as recording this, I may, may does mess up on time zones once again, so I can laugh at myself, but also take ownership, right? And think about how to fix things. And those things in travel and school taught me so much. School is also so important for kids that need to be out of situations at home, but then Maria, you homeschooled your kids, right? So this is so fascinating. So let's just dig into some background of both of you. So Johnny, for you, school, portable, California, right? That's where you know, we know portable up in California. Right? Yeah. Oh, yeah, and schools are a big deal there. You know, my most of my schooling was public education with, there was a year and a half where my father, he was a looping minister, and he was pastor briefly at a school that had a pro-keo, a church that had a pro-keo school. So I had a year and a half of pro-keo school, but other than that, I was public educated all the way through college, and I had a wonderful experience. When I was in Porterville, you know, we had 1,300 kids in my school, and the lucky for me music was huge and with all the cool kids during music. So I had a really great time, particularly high school. Actually, junior high was a bit difficult, well, very difficult for me because I got bullied and, you know, for, because I was gay and trying, you know, I hadn't come out yet, and so that was a difficult time for me, but then all the rest of school was pretty wonderful. And I really, I have a lot of wonderful teachers in my life, relatives, my brother teaches high school. My other brother is a teacher's voice at Cal State Bulletin, where we all went. So yeah, lots of, lots of educators in my life. That's amazing. And educators are so forgotten sometimes. It wasn't there like marches for teachers to get paid, just like nurses, right? Was it, you know, the red, they were wearing red, I think, at one time. We lived in Tucson, there was that. And educators, I mean, they shake lives, you know, they're, there is important as parents. So, you know, it's like a good teacher is, is everything. And I think some of us remember our teachers in life. Do you remember any of your teachers, Johnny? I do. I remember all their names and many of my teachers profoundly impacted my life in various ways. And I, you know, there were teachers that, that a lot of the kids didn't like, because they were really strict. But I guess I was just so into learning that they liked me. So I had a really, I liked those teachers. But I, yeah, I'm friends with several of my teachers after 40 years, you know, on Facebook. So yeah. That's amazing. And it's really, yeah, it's really fun to connect with them now, you know, after all this time and more as sort of as peers, but it's also acknowledged, you know, what they did for me. Let me get a chance to do that. Um, I do want to talk about that on September 10th, we have a special podcast with you about your new song. Do you want to give everybody some insight to that? And, and they can go on YouTube and, and see the video, which is awesome. Shout out to Paco and Jeffrey and Sue Holder, but also the song is out there now. So people can listen. I want to give everyone a quick overview. And then I want to go to Maria. Yeah. Well, thank you. And I kind of awkwardly attempted to, to allude to it when I was talking about my junior high school experience. But, um, you know, I think in the context of talking about school, it is important to talk about kids' mental health and, and seeing signs. And, you know, I, I hadn't come out or anything but somehow kids picked up on the fact that I was gay and, and picked up on, picked on me virtually. And the, the teachers there did notice it and, and called me in and got me additional support. And fortunately, once I went to high school, the way the school districts were in portable half the kids that went to my junior high school didn't go to my high school. So that might have helped, but plus band and choir were so big that it, you know, it, it shined and it was great. But the song, um, you know, I, as a 62 year old man, I see all these posts on TikTok and Instagram all the time about all the youth really frustrated and kind of angry about the world, but we're leaving them. And I thought, you know, this needs a song. And I thought, well, what would that song look like? And so I started with my own experience about, of being bullied. And I remembered a young man who had killed themselves after going to church and the preacher railing against homosexuality for 20 minutes. And sadly, his family was ready to accept him, but they chose to come out on his own. It didn't say anything. And so I used, I tell that story in the song and then just simply ask, you know, if it's your, when it's your kid, you want them to be happy, but you want them to thrive. And so I, I use that approach rather than preaching. I just try to tell honest stories. I talk about school shootings. You know, these kids are upset that they have to be active, shooter drilled all the time and they don't feel like we're really doing anything to address the actual problem. And so to the younger generations saying that I need you and I feel horrible about what we're doing and I want to try to make it better. And that's, that's the idea behind when it's your kid. I, I think the fact is the arts always reach people that may feel alone, no matter the age. And authors do it. Writers, musicians, art, the arts have always connected out, you know. And I think teachers, those who teach you and teachers can be in school, yes. And but in so many places in life, I can't count the number of mentors I have had in life as we've traveled, you know, all over. I feel like a military black, Brad, but I'm not, I'm a grad, but not a military grad. I respect the military what they've done. And Marie, I want to bring you in on this. I mean, I would feel kind of nervous now sending your, I mean, I, I wonder about that. I'm not a parent. And I always think, Oh my God, I wouldn't know what to do if I was to have a child right now. Like really, I kind of get a little anxiety about even thinking of it. What would I feel like with kids going to school? And I went to school where we were taught to understand what a limpet mine is, what a AK-47 is, what a hand grenade is, and things like that, because we were raised in Africa where stuff went down. And bomb blasts did happen. And yet we also had a lot of security. And then when we came to this country, I was 19. And you go through a mall without a scan check. I was like, Oh my God, this country is so backwards. You know, and then after September 11th, this country kind of went, Oh, we got to do this. You know, I felt really out of, I duck out of water when we got to this country. It was weird for me to not have that kind of, because Europe had that security level and understood bombs and, and everybody's like, Oh, this country is so safe. I'm like, Oh, it's coming. And it did. And then I felt terrible saying that. So I had a different upbringing and my friends, you know, from Israel and all over the world, who are similar. And I think we have a little hardcore edge to us that maybe isn't as polite or as nice. But it's about survival, a little rougher skin. But when we went to school, we were all trained to understand stuff goes down. And in this country right now, I, I just, I, my hat goes off to every single parent, teacher, educator, child going to schools and having to have that fear of going to school of, of a shooting or anything like that. I mean, Maria, what do you think on that as a parent? And you know, it's just, it just feels like it isn't the cozy school play yard anymore, but then it's probably a lot better, right? Also more than what I'm saying, because I'm thinking of everything that we see on the headlines. And it's one thing impacts a lot, but it does actually, you know, one shooting in school and backs into our country and does ripple effect. So what would you say as a parent? I mean, I'm sorry. I'm just kind of, I just watched Johnny's video again last night. Okay. So I'm kind of upset. But like, I want things to be good for our kids is what I want. Yeah, I, I think back to when I was a child, so I too, Johnny grew up in California and Southern California, in Downey. And I went to Catholic school for 11 years near Long Beach. Oh, okay. Okay. So all right. Oh, my brother's in. Okay. Yeah. So Nancy was born in Hollywood, North Hollywood area, and I was born in some are, some are North. So we're all Southern California babies. Oh, yeah, I even went to Cal State Fullerton for a bit. Okay. All three of my brothers graduated from there. So I mean, two brothers, mostly, yeah, all three of us. Awesome. But when I was little, and Johnny, you may remember this, but, you know, we were, we were as a country worried about nuclear war and who was going to push the red button, you know, so we had, we had that fear of annihilation actually. And what would you do? And we had earthquake drills. So we were always, you know, taught to hide underneath the desk. So it may not have been a school shooter from within, but there was always the fear of a threat of something, you know, so what do you do for a disaster, you know, in the end of a disaster? So it's a little different now. Now it's, you know, worried about maybe a shooter in the classroom, but there's still that, there's still that element of fear that that week we're up with. Oh, but is that in it? And so that's a really good point about looking back in the history of different things, right? And different, every era has had a challenge. And it's about having a plan, because if you don't have a plan, you have fear, period, then you go crazy. If you don't have a plan of what happens if, right? Well, we still have earthquakes, you know, so they have, I think what I noticed in the, you know, the TikTok reels and all that is they rattle off a whole list of things. And in my song, I cover three different topics. And I got criticism about that. People said, it's overwhelming. I said, well, that's kind of my point. I feel overwhelmed with so many different things. And so, yeah, they have the active shooter drills and earthquake drills and, you know, depending on what part of the country people are in. So yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot for us as adults, but trying to help the kids manage that. I think, you know, that's where partnering with the schools to make sure that we're kind of giving them hope and the best way of coping with and managing all this, you know, is important. Nancy did want you to have an extra verse in there on the cartoon. She went there and she's like, he left it as a cliffhanger. Like you cliffhanged your song. Yeah. He totally did. And she was like, what's with that? I'm like, well, they do it in movies, Nancy. And she's like, no, I wanted another song now. She wants you to do it in the cartoon. So I just want you to know that that was her first reaction. It's like, what do you mean? Just close it off at that? You know, like, come on. And so I'm like, no, it's called the cliffhanger. And she's like, but, but, but I'm like, well, so Johnny must have something to sleep, right? Am I right on that? Because Nancy wanted more. It's just, I know it's only one of the brothers, but she just didn't want it to end. Like, I guess I just felt like all we need to do is mention it. And it's because that that's kind of the number one topic on a lot of the kids' minds that I talk about. Is there going to be a planet for me to live on, you know, and what's that planet going to be like? And so I felt like, you know, I'd gone really heavily into those other two subjects in the first and second verse. And I just thought, all we really need to do is just kind of, you know, and... I want to say... Leave them wanting more, they always say. Yeah. Sorry, I got a little delay here. We're in a storm here. Go figure. We're not climate change. You mentioned that about kids also thinking about climate change. And we interviewed Rob Jackson, and it was eye-opening. His book is amazing. I encourage people, he is the chair of the Global Carbon Project, a senior fellow at Sanford's Woods Institute for the Environment and Precourt Institute for Energy and a professor of earth science at Stanford University. He's one of the top climate scientists in the country, if not the world. And his latest book is called Into the Clear Blue Sky, The Path to Restoring Our Atmosphere. It's out now. He was on our show, I think it was August 9, he was on. Yeah. And he wrote this book because one of his students came up and said, "Are we going to be able to live?" And it broke his heart, like literally just went, "Oh my god." Yes. Yes. We can do something, you know. So, I want to go Maria. Why did you make the choice to homeschool your children? Oh, that's... That's like a multi-faceted... Did I just jump? I just jumped from one kid subject to another. Come on, let's do it. We can have cocktails in between, right? So, I never am. It was never my that I would be homeschooling. My husband, when I think my oldest was about four, had seen a PBS special about homeschooling. So, this is a long time ago. This is 36, 37 years ago. And he was like, "Oh, this kid was running around and he was exploring outside." And he didn't have to sit at a desk. And I come from a family of educators. Oh, okay. And I was like, "Well, that's weird." And I couldn't wait until my two girls were old enough to be in school. And I could maybe go for a bike ride or I could have some time for myself for a few hours. And in New Hampshire at the time, there was no public kindergarten. It was private kindergarten. And you had the choice whether or not to send them. And I said, "Well, what are they going to do, you know, in kindergarten, that's going to cost me." I think it was like $130 or $150 a month. And I was told, "Well, they just, at the end of kindergarten, they should know how to spell their first and last name and how to stand in line." And I said, "Well, I can do that." And more, probably. I didn't have an education background at the time. But I worked with my daughter and taught her, you know, some basic kindergarten things and enjoyed the time with her. And my two girls are, those two girls are 19 months apart. So the second one had a September birthday, so she was going to go into kindergarten that year. And my oldest went to first grade and she had a fantastic teacher. And I would volunteer a couple of times a week. And at the time, they were doing whole language. I don't know if you remember what that was about, but they didn't teach phonics. They just taught how to memorize books and sight words. And eventually, he would catch on to reading. And now it's my second year homeschooling kindergarten. And I'd found a good phonics curriculum. And the younger sister was reading better than her older sister, just because she was learning phonics. And there were things that were happening, and my daughter started coming home with headaches. And she would be all grumpy. And then I would help out in the classroom. And like I said, she had a fantastic teacher. But at the end, I would administer the sight reading test to the students. I would take them aside and have them read two, three, maybe a four letter word. And my daughter was in a like the advanced reading group, but she really wasn't because her younger sister was doing the same thing. And at the end of, you know, we're in the third quarter. And a lot of the kids couldn't read these two and three letter words, because they couldn't process memorizing them. And that bothered me. And it bothered me the books that they were reading. And because there's so much good children's literature out there, because I always read to my kids. And there's fabulous books and fabulous authors. But the books this particular school chose, the hero of the story was always some little brat that got his way. And the things that they were reading just drove me nuts. Like it was just, you know, like a little boy was frustrating everybody because he'd have to go pee whenever they had to leave for somewhere or go do something. And so she just kept reading over and over. I have to go pee. I'm like, you couldn't pick a better book for them to read. Like it just, it just drove me crazy. So we were about partway through. And then I just saw a lot of wasted time. And I just thought, well, I think I could homeschool them. Some other parents in the area that were in a little kindergarten group that we were doing from my younger daughter said that they were going to homeschool. And at first I thought they were crazy. But I thought, well, I think I could try that. And then we started and we basically, well, we ended up having more kids. So we ended up with a total of seven. Oh my gosh. Now it's 32 years later. And we were very always very involved in homeschool groups. And I was devouring things about education. And my husband was very tolerant. And we have thousands of books. And I've gotten rid of thousands of books. And our kids have been able to explore all kinds of unusual activities. And now, you know, as their adults in their 20s and 30s, they're using their skills and talents. And we always homeschooled with other people. And in the last 14 years, we were involved in a very structured classical group that's worldwide. So they met with other students and parents who were doing the same program. So it was really great if you moved or went overseas, so you could hop into another program and it was the same thing. Because you're a military family too, right? So you write, well, we didn't have to move, but my husband would be deployed. And then we got to stay home. But yeah, it's a great program. So that's what that's what we did. I was very involved in that at the local level and then kind of administering New Hampshire, Vermont made in Western York and making sure all these groups ran the same way so that people could make that transition a lot. This is what's interesting too. I think people think when you're homeschool, that your kids are secluded to the house and never get to see other kids and have, you know, playtime or interactivity with other kids. And that's the one thing that I always hear about homeschool is like, oh, well, you know, kids are just like, you know, and you could have some wonky parents out there in the world. And if they're going to be wonky and try to entrap their kids, they're going to do it whether it's homeschool or not. Like, seriously, let's think about that. And there are some that there are some cult-like entities out there. And we'll be doing that on a show about cult awareness later in the year in November. Jeffrey will be on that, right? We talked about that on the show that's coming up on September 10th, Jeffrey, and that do try to kind of almost brainwash your kids. So there is that entity. There's a whole gamut and I've seen it. So, yeah, I want to touch on that. Infancy a little bit, but for the most part, their parents who really love their kids want the best for them and will go the extra mile to make sure that they have every opportunity. And that's what we did. So, yeah, and we've had a lot of like-minded people. So it's, you know, they're just like you said, in every situation, there's kind of those outliers that can make a bad rap for everyone else. But most home-school kids are pretty awesome adults. And they get to hang out with other kids. Yeah. And be themselves, you know, like, and go out. It's like, because I was talking about this where people are talking about helicopter parenting. And so they kind of look at like homeschooling is the ultimate helicopter parenting. Is that the truth? Or what do you think? I mean, I'm not a parent. I don't do that stuff. But I do know that the times that I had discovery on my own and fell down, that I needed to pick myself up and I learned more about myself and got stronger through that. And going through so many schools, whereas people kind of gave my mom hell over it as a single mom. Oh, you know, she's a, you know, you've got to think back in the late 70s and early 80s, being a single woman, that was also poo-pooed, right? And she had a reason why she did what she did. And it was protective. And it was right. And we went halfway across the world for a good reason and ended up in Kenya. And she's in wildlife conservation. That's what we did. We lived out in the bush in Africa, lived with two different tribes. And I learned a whole different world that people don't know. It sounds like you were homeschooled. I was at a very young age. I also went to a kindergarten that was Snow White Nursery School, which was the, the, and so Nancy's boss, which was Joy Adamson, which, anybody look at Born Free Else of the Lion? Yes, I love Born Free. So Nancy worked for her, like Joy Adamson. Oh my goodness. But, you know, that was, Virginia McKenna was the actor, and you know, it's a whole movie, but like Nancy did the real thing, and we get there, and then Joy got murdered. And like, our life went upside down because we weren't even in the country legally at that point. And it was crazy. Like, Nancy ended up taking, talk about pet setting, which we do across the country. It's pet setting for a guy from the CIA. Like, it was crazy. Our life was crazy because Joy didn't finish our paperwork and didn't even care about it. And, you know, and then I wasn't allowed on camp because she was revocating a leopard, penny, and all kind, it was crazy. And my mom was just trying to do the right thing. And then also was really good at wildlife conservation and those animals and her art. I don't know, you know, many people don't know her art anymore, but she was really well known back in the day, pre-Google. So we'll have to resurrect this thing at some point. But she was a wildlife artist and took tours to Kenya, all of that, and then decides to divorce my father and necessarily so, and goes halfway around the world. And off we go. And what are you going to do? And you're trying to do the best for your kid and for you as a young woman. And off she goes, she should be on this call to speak about it. But I would like to rave about her right now. She did it. She's excuse my language, everyone. A badass. And she was. And what an upbringing I had. It was called reality based. And I went to school, the first school, the kindergarten I was in, I got expelled because I hit the Minister of Home Affairs kid. The kid was hitting me and spitting on me, which was a blessing because he's part of my side. Little Oli Oli tip tip. He kept hitting me didn't understand what I was. I was the only white kid. It was the multi racial, the only multi racial school. And I was the white kid. The school was predominantly India from India, not like Native American. And then we had all these different, different black tribes within. So as kids, we don't give a damn. We don't care. But what's this white chick doing in here and issue a girl, you know, and it was flat-chested, but I had long hair. Miss I have long hair for the men. The women shave their heads. What is this? And they don't see white people. So I experienced racism as a young age. And so they were hitting me. They were spitting on me. And we were getting the stupid bus that had diesel that made me throw up every day. And eventually I just turned around and hit this one kid back. I just got so mad. I'm just going to punch you back. And like, I didn't, you know, we're kids. It's not real like violent. Like he would hit me. He would jump up, hit me out of the head. He would spit on, you know, well, it was the Minnesota of home affair son. And we were in this school. And I have to go back and look up the name because it was like not a Montessori thing, but it was the Sedrudin. I don't know how to explain this. The Sedrudin was almost like a mystic. I want to say Egyptian kind of being used. It's crazy. It's crazy. But Nancy got called to his house, and he told Nancy to bury a goat's head in the backyard, dance around it, pee on it three times, and like ask for forgiveness. To avoid the curse. It's crazy. It's a crazy story. I'm not telling it correctly. She'll do it better. But anyway, I ended up going to Catholic school and put into another nunnery. She taught art to nuns at that point because Joy had died. Joy Adamson had died. And she, the nuns helped us. They were all, they're nuns, the barefoot nuns. They were barefoot sisters, but coistered nuns, and the Carmelites. Johnny, you know about that, right? Yeah. Carmelite sisters. And so I went to their school, and then I learned you will have your knuckles whacked it any time you misbehave. But they taught me so much about gardening. They taught me so much about nature and life. And I love those sisters so much. And yeah, it's very interesting how your education can change. So Maria, like you talked about going to Catholic school, right? Did you get your knuckles back to? I did my best not to. We had that, yeah, I remember, I don't want to say there else, just say, Georgie and Charlie were notorious for having rulers broken over their knuckles and yardsticks over their behinds. And we had a fourth grade teacher who, she was very tiny. She was maybe four foot seven, but she could tweak your ear if he was behaving. So she was the ear tweaker. Wow. So but you had one, you had one teacher with 40 kids. Our classes had 40, 40 students. Wow. And, and they knew how to rule them. I, one of my favorite teachers actually was my fifth grade teacher who was kind of intimidating. She was a very rugged woman with like purple tinted hair. Do you remember that in the 70s? Like, oh my gosh, like, oh, what's your name from? Are you being served and on the show? Yeah, the purple tint, her name was Mrs, Mrs, rubber row. And she, she wrote her name on the board, you know, on the chalk board, scritch, scritch. And she's like, my name is Mrs, rudder row. And I run my class like a ship. Wow. And she was strict. And I loved her because she controlled that class. And you knew, see, kids want to have the rules, because then they know how to break them or what you need to do. But rules met you cared. And I think structure and routine is important. And you can change so like, like, like, I said Nancy, you know, we traveled all over, right? Different schools. But the routine stayed the same no matter where we moved. The rules, the core, the morals, the values did not change, just because we went somewhere different. Maybe we learned more and can incorporate them more into our lifestyle, right? But you don't change the basic foundation. There's a foundation and you can travel everywhere in the world if you have that. And you don't need stuff. It's no interior, right? Yeah, it didn't cost, you know, I think my remember, I remember seeing the checks that my parents wrote to this particular Catholic school. And it was like $35 a month, which was big at the time. But I think that must have been per student because it was probably I was the last one going through and the other ones were in different high schools. But I'd also seen a huge deterioration in the Catholic high school that I went to. Hence, I transferred myself the first week of my senior year to the public school. And then I had a much better education. And that's a whole nother story. Wow. Yeah, Johnny, I mean, like, what do you think about all this? The show just went on a whole different world. It's like, did you go to it? Like, did you get your knuckles wax? And it's like, that's what we should just label the show school. Did you get your knuckles wax? I did not. I what I would say is that I've had other friends also who homeschooled their children and have friends who were homeschooled. And it sounds really wonderful. And I think it's a really great, great thing that if parents have the resources and the wherewithal and the ability to do it, I think though, as a society, it's very, it's vital that we supply as great an experience for all of our kids as we can. And so I do think that that public schools should always have an important revered and, you know, supported role in our society as well. I don't think that every parent would ever be able to homeschool their kids. And so I, and I think that it's really important to have a great public school structure in place as well. So I think we can do both, which we are. And I think that, you know, each parent, I'm not a parent either, but I think that I, you know, both my brothers have kids and, and Paco's family, you know, has lots of kids. And so, you know, I we're doubting uncles, as we say. And so we know I, I, I just want, I think every family needs to do what's best for them. And since I grew up and had a wonderful experience in public schools, I, I really want them, you know, do what I can to make sure that they also thrive. So that, you know, that we, we have a, a balance and we're making sure that every kid is, you know, is nurtured and given the best chance they, they can have to succeed. Yeah, I can literally agree. Yeah. Yeah. And I think for me, music, you know, I just lucked out because I wanted to be a singer's songwriter since I was four years old. I wrote my first song when I was four and music was everything to me. And I lucked out that, that my school happened to be like a haven for great music. I, we had 300, there were 1300 kids in our school. We had 300 in our marching band. And we had four choirs, four big choirs. And we, the band would put on a band or choir would put on a concert. We had a really nice auditorium and we would sell out 1,800 feet auditorium. And when we did musicals in high school, we filled out that auditorium four nights. So the, the community really supported us. And the band and choirs went all over the world. And the community always, you know, footed the bill came, you know, the fundraisers and, and a lot of those fundraisers themselves were really good experiences. We sent you and I talked recently when we had my friend Rob Taylor on. He and I were in high school together in band. And the band did a fundraiser at the local radio station where we took over the station for the whole weekend. We, for months, we sold ads. And then the kids were guest DJs on the show for an hour each shift. And, and Rob and, and Rob and I got assigned together. And, and all these years later, we did the podcast together. So it's kind of coming full circle. But yeah, it's, you know, my high school band director was this short, quiet man. And he would get up in front of this room full of 300 kids with noise makers in their hands. And once he, when he stood up on that podium, you could hear him drop, they had so much respect for him. Because our band was pretty awesome. We won a lot of band tournaments and we, you know, marched in all the big parades and all that. And so he was very loved and respected. And he, he loved to, at the band concert every year, he loved to have all the kids that were on the honor roll stand up. And it was most of the band. And he said, you know, there's no, that's not an accident because music gets both sides of the brain working together. And it, it, that synapse makes for great math scores and communication skills and everything. So arts education is really important. And when schools leave it out, kids suffer. And I'm really happy that the California voters realized that. And in 2022, we overwhelmingly passed Prop 28, which actually provides a billion dollars a year in funding for teachers. And 80% of the money has to go towards the four disciplines of dance, music, art, and, what is the other one? Yeah, physical art. And they, yes, visual art. And so they are in the process of hiring 15,000 teachers. And people are actually coming from all over the country to solve those positions. They're having a hard time filling them because, you know, for a long time, arts were underfunded. Only one in five schools had an art teacher. It got that bad. Yeah, I'm a product of that. Really? Yeah. My father was a middle school music teacher and polysverteous. And, oh, wow, every year, it was, is, is the music program going to be cut. Oh, yeah. And he had a fantastic thing. He was, he had a fantastic band. It was 7th, 8th, and 9th graders. He would, this is all before computers. He would spend all summer writing the music. He would listen, you know, whatever was popular at the time. So, of course, like Star Wars came out, John Williams, he would sit at his piano and then he would compose the music for every single instrument in his orchestra and write it out all by hand and then work with these kids. And they all loved him. And they'd sound like a college, um, college band when they played. It was phenomenal. So yeah, he was well loved and respected, too. Oh, is it Mr. Holland's office? It is? Yeah. I love Mr. Holland's office. I do, too. I'm talking. I'm like, I get teary-eyed just even thinking of that movie. Yep. We all cried with that. Yeah. He, he passed away at a young age, but the tribute and the, you know, the hundreds of students that came to his funeral and the things that were said and, and read about him were, were pretty amazing. So that's great. But we were always afraid, like, you know, is he, is dad going to have a job? And sometimes he'd have to ask, he would teach Spanish because he was Mexican. And, um, you know, something he would drive right now if he had to to make ends meet, you know, because we never, we never knew if that was going to have a job because they were always working to cut the program. Oh, and if he was Mexican, he would be first, possibly to, you know, it's, um, who that, you guys are unpacking some big stuff of history of education, right? You know, but when I go back to Nancy, my mom, and, um, she should be on the show, but she's like, we're going to a huge dorm, um, and, and she turned her computer off, but she, she, she went to school into hunger and, um, all around the areas that you guys in her school was her savior, savior, really, you know, she came up in a family that was really abusive, but her school was everything. And her and her brother, Ricky, were able to get jobs in school. And they were like doing stuff in the cafeteria for other kids. And it school gave them their resiliency to continue life in a way. It's her safe haven. That was their safe haven, but also gave them the credibility, like having those jobs within the school did everything that you can do something. And I think that's important. So I wanted to go to you, Maria, about that with, when you talk about, um, raising kids within homeschooling, how, how can, how does homeschooling, like, replicate that part, where kids can find themselves as an individual within that kind of education. Oh, my goodness. There's just so many opportunities for the parents who's, who are in tune, you know, um, all of our kids have different likes and interests and our, um, our second daughter. Ever since she was two, we would go to this, uh, it was called the Rochester Commons, which had a playground and it was right across the street from a Catholic charity's orphanage. And she would face her swing the opposite way, like out, not into the playground, but out. And then she would say, the orphans are out, the orphans are out. And she would watch the kids playing. And then she went, uh, as a high schooler, she volunteered there for the kids. And the nuns had this running program where, um, you know, to help the kids work off their energy, they would run, literally run around the city. And my daughter would run miles and miles with them and encourage them. And, um, you know, she would volunteer there. And then she went to college in Florida, for psychology. And then she was just like born for that. She ended up working at the Nashua Children's home, which would Nashua was kind of the city that had the, it was notorious for getting the most unwanted kids that didn't work out in any other situation. And she worked at a group home for kids there for a long time. And, uh, after she married, she started taking in foster kids and she still has foster kids. And she is fabulous. But, you know, she sees the, well, as a foster grandparent, no, not everybody should have their kids home. And, um, you know, some kids really need to be in school so that they get a meal and they get some affirmation and they're in a safe place. So that's, that's huge. Yeah. So that was, I mean, I could talk about all my kids, but they all have different interests. Uh, all of our kids did Lego, but the, the two younger ones who are now 21 and 17, um, were really into it, especially the 21 year old. And that led him to, uh, he was the younger kid. The older kids did not have computer in their life, you know, per se, they were kind of before that. The younger ones grew up kind of in the computer age, but he approached me one time and he was like, he was always into sports. That's another way they get, right, their socialization. But he said, can I join this group of, uh, their kids from all over the world and they, they meet on Skype and they build Legos together and they talk Lego and I'm like, okay. So he started meeting with these kids and then, uh, they all meet at these Lego conventions. There's Lego conventions for adults. They fall adult friend of Lego and they are phenomenal. Mostly made of engineers and everything, but this, they made their own, um, Lego users group called a lug. And, uh, I took them all the way to Chicago for brick world Chicago and down to, um, Chantilly, Virginia for Brick Fair, Virginia. And there's, there's brick fair is every, there's a brick fair, California. And excuse me, just a moment. That's amazing. I have the door. I have to go ahead. Go ahead. I just want to say our friend, our friend Peter Norby helped bring Lego land to California. It's actually the very first Lego land that came to this country, helped bring Lego land and it inspires creativity. That's the beauty of Lego. We, we laugh about Lego playing with Lego. Lego is creative and you can build enough and do things. I mean, what, I mean, when you say that, Johnny, too, I mean, come on, I would, I would sit down right now as an adult and play Lego. Wouldn't you? Come on. Oh, yeah. Yeah. My, my nephew James is very, he's, his grandfather on my sister-in-law side, was an engineer and he got some of those jeans and he's always, you know, putting stuff together and building, building things. And, and, you know, Legos, Legos are fine. I, I used to, you know, have fun with, like, building blocks and all that stuff. And anything that gives kids a chance to create and, you know, use those skills is wonderful. I know. But I think we adults need to take some classes from kids. I want to go back. Maria, you're back. I mean, she's a didn't keep her. She's got gas, you know. It happens. But Maria, while you're talking about our friend, Peter Norby brought Legoland to California, to this country from, you know, overseas, he, he instrumented. Have you been to Legoland? Oh, multiple times. Yeah. Go back to see family in Legoland in Florida, but it's nothing like these brick world things because you have to make your mock, my own creation. And so it's amazing what people construct without a pattern or a plan and these things that move and are motorized and they're incredible. If you should just look up, like, brick fair and see some of the exhibits, you know, the Vatican and all kinds of things. It's crazy. But, but yeah, it was what was great about that is that he has these international friends. He's been friends with now for close to 10 years because, you know, now he goes to brick fair by himself. He just borrowed my car and took down tons of Legos. And yeah, it's just, it's a, you know, it's kind of the, that niche group of people that share a common interest. And then there with, like I said, it's a lot of engineers and really bright people that make these amazing creations. So anyway, yeah, there's, there's all kinds of ways, you know, between sports and youth groups and volunteerism, which I try to encourage all my kids to volunteer doing something 4-H, 4-H with a big thing. We've raised farm animals and so there's plenty of opportunity for socialization and volunteerism and leadership and all of those things. As a kid, I, you know, went to all these different schools but had good times in them, you know, and had time to bond. And when I was in my first year of high school, my mom, you know, Nancy went on a tour of South Africa with her artwork to raise funds for the National Cancer Association. And she was also working with Sator, which was the South Africa Tourism Association, creating an exhibit of her artwork of South Africa. So we were national parks and everything. And, and I'm like, well, you can't just go without me. Like that's enough of that, you know. And so if I wanted to go on the tour, I had to get the best grades. And she's like, well, you have exams here. You need to prove not just to me but also the school system that you can be able to do this. You go on the road for a year, which turned out to be two years. I cannot even tell you how I worked so hard. I never took studying so seriously. And I was bored. I was a very bored kid in school because I traveled. And once you travel, you start to see things differently than being the same kid in the same school room, right? And to be able to do the exams, which I was used to and knew. I just knew what they were doing. I took all the textbooks that I had, and I reconstructed them. And I, Johnny, I don't know if you've been on a show when I've talked about this, but I took every textbook and rewrote it and made my own tests. And created my own like SAT test, basically. I good for you. My own set of exams. And that's how I had 100%. I went in and I'm like, my mom's not traveling the country without me. Hell no. I'm doing this. So I learned by deconstruction, right? And they do this with cooking deconstructed construct. But that's what I did as a kid. I just went, well, the only way I know how to really win is to have what I have in hand. And I deconstructed, reconstructed. And by the time I went in, I could just like, like I looked at teachers not in the best way. Then I didn't mean it rude. It was just kind of like I took ownership and went on tour with her. And then it got real, because I had to check in at schools that I was being hummed. I was a true road scholar, not the road scholar, but a true road scholar. And I had to check in because the tour, you've got to think about this era of my mom being a single mom too. So this was South Africa. So this was at that point, the early 80s, mid 80s from thinking mid 80s. God, I don't know. I can't keep up with our time travels and whatever. And they still looked at her like you're a crazy American, right? And she was like, I'm an American, I could take my kid wherever. And they're like, no, you can't. So it's like a weird thing of learning. You're in a different country. You do not have, you have permanent residency, but you don't, you know what I mean? You you have to abide by the country, right? And they also at that time being a single woman was not looked upon positively. But then when they saw what she was doing, it was like, okay, and I came in, she's like, you're going to have to do your side to prove it that you can do it. And I did. And then on the road, I had to keep proving myself. The only thing I screwed up on was when it came to trigonometry, I'm like, you know what, I'm not. Now, here's the thing. I love history. And as a kid, loved history, I read novels. Honestly, I'd already read War and Peace by the time I was 13. I'd done all that. I'd be on yours, all of that stuff. Did I understand at all? Probably not to the context that I should have. But I was a I read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read. Feracious reader. So going on the tour, I'm like, okay, read more. It was interesting, because I actually got to go to the places in everything in South African history that you're being taught. My history was what was lagging, was history, because it was so freaking boring in school. They sucked as teachers. They sucked. It sucked. It's because you just had a little snippet of a social studies book about some very dull facts. And it didn't come alive. It sucked. It sucked. And then I came back from the tour, had to finish high school. And that's where I met my friends. And I put myself in boarding school. Nancy said, don't, and I call her Nancy. It's not a disrespect. My mom, I worked with her for years. And I couldn't go, hey, mom, there's a client on the phone, you know, back in the day. This is how long it is. But I went to boarding school because I chose that. And she said, you're not going to do well in there. You are too much of your free spirit. And I said, no, I'm going to do this. And she was right. And I sucked at it. And but my best friends come from there. And, you know, then we all also left the boarding school because we all needed to because it did suck. And it really was a sucky school. So we all left and went home and went to the same school and everything to close out high school. But going back to that, traveling those two years, I got to see the history of South Africa, which meant the history of England, the history of Portugal, history of Italy, history of France, Germany, African history, you want to talk about Malaysian history. I could go on all the different cultures that made up the country of South Africa. When I went to the battlefield, and I talk about it. It's I've written articles about this. Isla Wanda rocks. When I went there and I saw what happened to the Zulu's and it didn't sway. Oh, and and Chaco Zulu, everything that went down on the Anglo-Boor Wars don't even start me. When you are there and you see piles of whitewashed rocks, of graveyards, and you see mass graves, and you're a kid, you are going to now understand history that they cannot teach you in a school as they cannot move you unless they get you. Like my party is on our show every first Monday. He's a teacher and he gets them to he gets the kids to reenact things. Now he's teaching college. It's a little different. And I hope he does that. I'm not asking the next podcast, but you have to you cannot just do statistics to kids. It's boring. Who cares about what year? We don't care. We don't care. I don't care as an adult, but I want to have the vibes and the feeling and travel doesn't. And I wonder about what happens in schools now on taking kids out on school trips and things. That was so important because if you could go to all of that, you know? Probably my worst class in college was history western civilization class. It was a huge textbook. And my experience of the class was just basically, well, you know, here's the phone book and I might ask you any phone number in the book. I think that it just it was all about dates. And it was just about dates and and regurgitating facts, but but not anything about the history of coming alive. It was like, here's the Middle Ages. Yeah. And you go, I don't care. The Middle Ages don't even Middle Ages. Here's the medieval times in the Middle Ages. What's that? I'm in my Middle Ages right now. I'm about to hit that and I feel it around my waist. You know, that's where home going can shine. So yeah, that's what I want to do. Yes. Yeah, living there's so many living history museums that are kids have participated in and where we used to live about three miles away, a friend of mine built his own castle. And what? Yeah, he built his own castle. He's fascinating. He's a he's a master gardener. And he knows everything about the Middle Ages, plus he is a performer. And he has he has this tapestry in hanging in the castle and it tells about the Norman invasion, you know, but the Bayou tapestry and as it because it was a backdrop and somebody gave it to him. And so I would coordinate these these groups when we were doing our medieval studies because we homeschooled classically. So every three years you kind of you go through cycles and we'd kind of go through the medieval times. And he he and his wife, they would dress in costume. They had the kids flailing wheat, you know, making a meal and using tool, you know, tools around there. And he had a sweat, a little sweat lodge and he would tell these stories, you know, make it all come alive. Which about the Norman invasion. I mean, it was it was pretty magical. Pretty cool. He could chalk your ear off and it was like, okay, David's three o'clock and he said, we'll have to go home like you need to wrap it up. But he loved doing it. And yeah, I I've brought a lot of school groups there to go listen to him and talk about things coming alive is amazing. Yeah, that's the thing when kids get to actually experience it, except for a textbook that they only give you a paragraph. And then the teacher drones on and on and on. You're like, come on now. And then you're not anti, I'm not anti the teachers. And it was the teachers that gave me like grief that challenged me that I thought were the greatest teachers. And I had one in English, I'm writing and everything. And look what we do now today, you know, but he grinded me, man. He was like, no, no, you, you know better, do better, do better. Like, and he did. He taught me a lot. But I really believe kids have to go out into the world to experience things. And it cannot just be in the classroom. I remember I was in school in England. And one day the teacher said, it's a beautiful spring day. Let's have class outside. I'm like, what? Yes. I mean, I just come from Kenya. So I'm like, let's go. And there's butter cups and the different kinds of trees. And I didn't know what a butter cup was. You know, a butter cup was different flower like Kenya. We had way more exotic and a little bit different. But I was like, Oh, yes, yes. And as soon as we ran out there, I'm up in the tree. And I'm like, no, you need to come down out the tree. But it's it was so cool to have that experience in England when the teacher just goes, let's go outside. Let's do something out of the ordinary pattern interrupt is a lesson I learned from a great educator, Bobby Deporter. And she always says pattern interrupt, stop what is happening right now to make a positive impact. If something's going negative or if kids are bored, she teach she has a company super camp, which is the world's largest summer camp, basically, for kids, but for higher education. And she's retired now. And she also ran quantum learning, which taught teachers. And she made Nancy and I go to school on how to become teachers. And we realized there was no difference in education, what we do in podcasting and and what they do as teachers was very similar. There's difference, I shouldn't say no difference. But it's about how do you how do you encourage people and get people out there, you have to change it up. And schools, if you keep kids in a box. I does an in a textbook with a paragraph and some stupid graphic that doesn't, if you've got to do more, you've got to do more. And now I think it's better. We got technology and everything. And I think education is becoming a little bit more. Right now, it's like a game of how fast can the education keep up education system, keep up with kids in technology. That's where I think we're at is that level of challenge. And how do we balance that with kids being able to do things hands-on, right? Because technology is where it's it. I mean, new jobs are created almost daily through technology. And so we have to be aware that, oh, well, you know, my kid may not be a doctor. They may be in this career that we didn't even know existed. And so everything is changing so rapidly. How do you balance our kids for that? It's about becoming individuals, right? Strong and doing what they want. Now a lot of school districts are giving out, you know, tablets for all the kids now and more and more of the books are starting to be on the tablet instead of a physical book. And then on the other side, you've got some school districts banning books, which is ridiculous to me. But, you know, there's a big battle over what information kids are getting and how they're getting it. And I think we all need to be engaged in that because it has big impact on where our society goes. Yeah. Maria, what do you think? About technology or both? I mean, where this whole thing is, where we are now, you know? I think there's a, well, for young kids, you know, it all starts with your gross motor skills and movement and development. You know, they need to, they need to run around, get their hands dirty, experience a garden, jump and play and exercise and burn off that energy and then they'll be able to get, you know, the fine motor things. But I think if you plant small children in front of a tablet or a book and they're just used to digital experiences, it's completely different. My niece, she's now in law school in San Francisco. Wow. See. And she had just written a paper, she graduated from SC this past spring and she was writing a paper about how the difference of reading allowed to children versus having a book read aloud to a child and they don't get the inflection, they don't get the experience. I mean, we've spent, I've read aloud so many books. I've read, I've read the Lord of the Rings trilogy because I have like three generations of kids allowed three times plus the Hobbit before they could watch the movie, you know, so, but there's, there's so much to like, you know, having, having that circle around you or a child next to you and reading with them and listening to them read and having that interaction that they do not get and there's, there's like a missing link and her paper was about that. So there's a, there's a place for technology. And in, in this era, kids are going to pick it up in their recreation time. I don't necessarily think it needs to be in their, their school time. But they will. At a point need to navigate that so that because college classes are a lot of those have that online component, but, you know, be, if you could stave it off off as long as possible, it's better for the child because they really need just to run and jump and play outside. Well, to your point, there are a lot of parents that I've been seeing lately. I won't let my kid watch Peppa Pig because they jump in puddles and it, and my kid wants to jump in puddles. And I go, well, that's wonderful. That's going to jump in puddles. Yeah. And it's the, the strange things that people are, you know, are fixated on. I don't know. It's odd. Well, as a young mom, I have to, you know, like I said, I was not in this education homeschooling mode and somebody gave, I think my brother, the architect, gave my, my two girls, this building thing. And I put it away because it had lots of little pieces and I didn't want to be picking them up all the time. And now you like, you should see all the Legos, lots of the Legos. But yeah, I think this is such an interesting conversation because it really comes down to, yeah, we have technology that's great, right? But there's really about the human connection that has to be there. And, you know, when we think about going back to school, whether you're in a public school or not or homeschooled, and there has to have that human connection. And you talked about reading, Maria, that just really hit home for me because there's reading. And then there's, Hey, can you read this part for me? Right. You know, with a kid where you, you know, it's like, you're going to sit down with a kid. I would always like, you know, I, I have friends with kids and, you know, I don't have kids, but I've always done that where I've taught kids garden plans, the ABCs and everything. I've done that even as a kid teaching kids, right? And sitting down with them, and, you know, you're not going to just read, you bring them in to read a section too, or a portion or even a sentence to see that they can read it and go, Hey, this is something I think you like. Why don't you read this part? And you're acknowledging them and bringing them in and acknowledgement is that I always used to laugh at that, like acknowledgement and acknowledge this, acknowledge that it would become annoying, like this word. No, just a friend with kids and stuff. It just became like, Oh boy. You know, just, you know, an era where everybody was having kids in my age group. And it got like, Whoa. But now I really do realize acknowledgement is everything. And in schools, you could not get that acknowledgement at all because of a big class. But for those listening that may be in school and not being acknowledged, you're acknowledged right now. Know that know that you are acknowledged. Don't ever think you're not acknowledged. The day you were born, you were acknowledged because you're here. And I think that's a very important thing to close the show with. You know, there's all these different ways of learning and doing and trust me, I've been through me personally as a kid of the world. You know, I've been through all kinds of places and travels and it's been bumpy. It's been joyful. It's been hard. But I always have to go down deep and remember that no matter what in the world, I'm here. And if I'm here, I was supposed to be here. So move on, grasp whatever's in front of you and go for it, because you're here. And if you weren't supposed to be here, you wouldn't be here. So that's it. You have a simple, you have a purpose. Yeah, each person has, and you may have multiple purposes. You know, just you guys being on the show today makes me happy. You have a purpose just on that. I mean, come back. You're all here to get my life in my life. You know that, right? You were just put here on Earth just to be in my life. So thank you. You know what I mean, though. Thank you. No, I don't negate anything. You're here for a reason. And the more you learn, the more complex it gets. And as many rabbit holes that you can go down is the better thing. That's why we're the blend. People went against us for years and still are like, you should do all these different separate things. And I'm like, no, we're supposed to have more than one interest in life. And it's okay. You can change location. You can change interest. You can change careers. You can make changes because the world makes changes every second. And the most important thing we can all learn in life is change. That is the key thing to life is change, I believe. That's my personal thing. If you can learn how to handle change and move with it, get ahead of it, move with it, even just grapple with it. I think you've got something going. What do you think, Maria? Oh, you say is a good thing for life. Oh, goodness. That's I would take time to ponder. I go to Johnny. What do you think about change, though? Well, change. Yeah. To learn how to adapt and be resilient through changes and welcome what you can learn from different experiences. That's all very important. Because all of it, I think of all the things that have impacted my life to bring me to this point as an innkeeper. I have a lot of different backgrounds and interests, but then all of these things contribute to who I am now. I had some hard times in school when you talk about racism. I was Mexican inside a little white oasis area. We had that and growing up. There were different things that I stood for. I have very strong principles and feelings about things that came out as a young age that maybe unpopular because I didn't necessarily go with the blow if I felt there was an injustice, which is still a trait that I still have, but that carried me through different situations later in life as an adult, the things that I experienced that were really hard as a kid. So if there's kids out there that are going through something really, really hard, just know that there's other people that care about you and to hold on and work through it. Because it's going to make you stronger. Yes. It made me go through some other things later in life that if I hadn't been through some things as a child to get me ready for it, I would have been broken. Yeah. That's exactly it. I love that you said that. Be resilience. That's my thing. The word is resilience. I keep using this every time we talk about parenting and family and life. Resilience is it. I think I learned it in Africa more than anything because I saw kids wanting to go to school and would walk miles to go to school and have no running water in their huts. And they would walk miles just for that chance of a little bit of education. And so when we come to this country, I ask our students, hello. What are you going to do for your education? Get off your butts. Go to school. You've got so many more opportunities now than what we had back in the day. Is it better or not? I don't know. It doesn't matter. Reality is you do have opportunity and you should take it while you can because the world is always changing. We have wars across this world right now and it can all be swept away real quick. So do what you can now. I'm not trying to be a drama person, but the reality is there. Do what you can when you have it in front of you. What do you think, Johnny? Yeah. I think being in band and choir taught me a lot about adapting because things come up a bit unexpected when you're performing. People miss notes or some people may not be watching the conductor very much and they get out of rhythm with the rest of the group and things like that. And so you really have to be adapting all the time and working with other people to get back and think. When I would sing and mess up, my teachers just said, "Just keep going like it was supposed to be that way." And that was a really important thing for me to learn because if I forgot words or if I lost my place or just somehow got off, I found that, yeah, if I just keep going, a lot of people don't even realize it. Like, I'll be singing a church. And afterwards, somebody comes up and says, "Oh, that was just incredible." And I'm just, I don't even say anything anymore, but I'm thinking, "Oh, it was horrible. I messed up that one verse, but I don't show it when I mess up." And so I think that that was a valuable lesson for me in just kind of, you know, rolling with the punches and adjusting. Huge. I think music and performing always teaches you to stand strong, keep smiling, even though the mic is not working or something's not working. But I also lost my voice doing that too, because I would just go like, "I'm just gonna power through this." Well, that wasn't smart. But anyway, no, but that's, that's huge advice, you know? Oh, thank you both so much. Everyone, Jeff Nelgens, next with his episode or segment on our show today talking about screen time and with your kids. Very important lesson, but Maria, thank you so much. I'm so glad you're, you're like, "I don't know what I can bring into this character conversation." I'm like, "Hick, you need to." Don't you think you've, you, I think you contributed quite a lot today. Thank you, Maria. I hope that was helpful. Oh, and listen, everyone go to her website and learn more about the end, because honestly, we all have to go. That's the thing. Go to Oxbow, acres, nh.com. Do you allow kids that we're not? I should ask that since it's kind of- It's mostly for, we love kids, we have seven of them, but we also know how important it is to get some time away and, and focus on your significant person in your life that brought you together in the first place. And we didn't do that enough as young parents, and it's just important. So, you know, if kids are older, that's okay, but we're trying to create an environment really for adults to, to reconnect. Have a break. Yeah. We, we are going to have some special events, you know, like a mother-daughter weekends or father-son type things in the works. That, you know, that would be particularly for kids, but it's, you know, in the middle of child raising, you get so child focused and you, you need to focus on your relationship, you know, together. So, um, that's important. No, no, I think that is. I think that is. That's the thing about bed and breakfast. They usually are, there's only one that we've been to that is like, oh, we are family-friendly. And then, you know, while we're there through the night, I'm like, uh, okay, I'm out. Because it was just like, no, you want some quiet. Right. I think there's a quietness that we all kind of need at a certain point. And let's, you know, I remember when we used to print our magazine back in the day, we'd go to Vegas. And that's where our printer was. We tried everything local and that was our printer and our magazines would go into the, you know, the newspapers and everything out, out that way and everything. But Nancy and I actually, even though we don't have kids and everything, we, once that magazine was printing, we just went into the hotel room, closed the blinds and went to sleep. That's all we wanted. We just wanted some sleep. In Vegas, the loudest city, you know, we just wanted sleep. And we're like, put the do not just leave us alone, because we hadn't gone to sleep for hours, like, you know, days, but to get it on time. You know, those are the old school days of printing, but, but honestly, for parents, oh my God, it's non-stop. It's non-stop. And I don't care if your kids are in their twenties and thirties. It's still non-stop. They need a break, let them have a break, give them a gift of a break, get them a gift certificate, book them into an inn, like, let them have some freaking time out. I'm just saying, is that okay that I say that Maria? I think I'm not a parent and I'm a parent for like looking at what you all go through going, oh, hell no, I'm not doing that. I'll like support it, but I'm not doing it. And I just say like, you guys go through a lot because it's never ending. It's a never ending story. Really, you are always on like the moment you know you're pregnant, you know, it's never ending. That's it. Even as an adoptive parent too. It's once you adopt a child, it's it. That's it. It's the rest of your life is that, right? And it's a beautiful thing, but you do need time out so you can keep it beautiful. Is that right? May I say that? That is right. Yep. Yep. You do. You just need you need to you need to refresh yourself. You need to put on your what the mask right before you put it like in the airport in the airplane. Yeah, the oxygen mask. Yeah. Yeah. So that's that's what getting away once in a while. And even just thinking about getting back to school and I really need to go, but any mom, especially a homeschooling mom, you need to get away by yourself and just and just have a day of planning and thinking about, you know, where you need to be, what's going to be the routine and getting it written down and just putting your thoughts down on paper or on your digital planner or whatever it is that you have. There's lots of resources out there to help you. But when you're constantly spinning your wheels and going from one thing to the next and you know, everything's urgent and you never have you got to make dinner and you got doctor's appointments and you got sports and you got dance and performances and all of those things. And you never stop to take a breather and assess where my ad and what's coming up and you just need to get some time away and have some time to schedule and plan and take a breath. And that's okay to send your kids to a babysitter or a friend's house or a grandparent's house or find someone to take care of your kids and take just even a weekend, get all get away for a weekend by yourself just so that you can regroup and think and plan. I love it. Everyone, Oxbow, Acres, NH.com. Thank you, Maria. I know you got people to check in. So, thank you so much for joining us. Johnny, thank you so much too. Go to here, Johnny.com. He'll be back on our show September 10th and you'll hear more about his latest song and the video and we talk deep about teen suicide on that. So, thank you so much, Johnny. As always, we're going to go over to Jeff Nelligan out of where he talks about screen time and what you can do with your kids. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. So, you know, back to school season is in whether you're homeschooling or your kids are going to school. You know, they're all getting back in there and that means we have to change our schedules around a little bit and also kind of think back to what it was like being a kid going back to school like after a summer of fun. So, we've got Jeff Nelligan back on the show. He's the author of four lessons from My Three Sons, how you can raise resilient kids and I encourage you to go to his website, NelliganBooks.com. So, welcome back. How are you, Jeff? Hey, Lisa, I'm great. Thank you for the idea behind this show. It is so good and obviously, it's so timely back to school. Back to school? I think we should always be back in school somewhere, you know, because we should never stop learning. But when you talk about going back to school, I know you've got your sons, right? Doesn't things kind of change a little bit in the household and it's kind of like, all right, you got to go back to studying or when, you know, it was summer and playtime. Did you always keep some kind of structure in the household of you're still going to do some kind of, you know, schoolwork during school? I mean, vacation, not school, you know, that's coming. I agree. I think, you know, the back to school is a great time for parents if they have any questions about the direction their kid has headed is really to start changing things. And maybe that requires a very serious sit down with the whole family and, of course, no electronic devices within 100 miles. And there we go. Yeah, exactly. Decide how this year is going to unfold differently than past years in terms of accomplishment, in terms of values, and in terms of the overall satisfaction and joy that the kid has on a day to day basis. And what about, you know, there's so many different extra curricular, you know, activities you can do as a kid. Some of them are getting pulled out of schools like the arts, which sucks. And then sometimes a get put back, which is awesome. There's sports. There's all these different interests. Isn't that a really good way to kind of find out where your, you know, your kids' direction is going in life? What their interests are, finding out who they are, and it's part of their development to find out who they are. So going back to school, isn't that kind of an exciting time to have those family discussions on, hey, what are you excited about this year? You know, keep it on a positive, not the negative of like, oh, I don't want to go to school, it's boring. Right. I like the way you put that, because one of the things as an author of books about parenting, having been around kids for a quarter of a century on a day to day basis in every realm, you can imagine that the American son, I do think that parents need to really step in and learn early on what their kids really like, what they're good at, and then use that discussion to guide that kid towards those endeavors, because you don't, you know, people don't understand, I don't think parents do, I did, but it was just through common sense, maybe back in the day, that 75% of the time you spend with your child is overt by the time the kid turns 12 years old, and that 90% of the time you spend with your child is over by the age of 18. So incumbent upon parents is to find out early, and to model early, and to, you know, drive home, those things that that kid should be doing in terms of behavior and their attitudes, and what they're reaching for, and finding out, just as you said earlier, what that kid really enjoys and is good at is essential, because that sets that path for the kid after 12, after 18, when the kid is 22 and 28. Do you sit down, you know, as a parent, I know your sons are often in the serving, and the military, and you know, adults now, you know, but in regards to sitting down, do you look at their goals and help them goal set? Because I think sometimes that conversation's like, okay, what do you want to do? Or I go for it, do it, but we have to kind of put those, those how to's in there, right, and not do it for them as well, right? So that's the other part of it. It's like, all right, you want to set some goals while here, and then next, you know, you give them a plan to follow, but if they didn't help, or even make it themselves, that might not be as effective. Correct. And I will say that, you know, they call it parenting, not childing. It's the parent that provides the structure. It's the parent that has the authority to sit down with a kid and really learn what that kid is guided towards. And yes, I sat down with my sons. In fact, it was a routine, you know, life is a lot better when you're in a routine, because then there's no drama and there's no panic. But I would sit down with each kid once a week on the most peaceful place on the planet in the high school bleachers on a Saturday morning at eight o'clock in the morning. And I would say, let's talk about the week. What was hot? What was not? What's working? What's not? And from that would develop away and kind of a path forward for each kid on what they wanted to do, what they were good at. And that involvement, that engagement in an early age, by the time these guys were 12, they had a good, good sense of where they were headed. And I had used that 75% of the time I had with them pretty wisely. And I'm not being boastful or kind of bragging about it. That's just the way things worked in our family. And it seemed to have worked out because as they moved on from 12 years old and their achievements and accomplishments and their personalities, it allowed them to constantly being situations where they were striving and being pushed and were satisfied with that. That's cool. And also, you know, talking about, yeah, where they're struggling. I think that's the thing too, is to not have that open door so you can help and help guide and, you know, because if sometimes there's fear to say, hey, I'm struggling with English or struggling with math or struggling with history, you know, in school, whatever the class is, you're struggling or it could even be, you know, a sports or something. And if there's a struggle, you shouldn't be ashamed, right? So you have to have that open door too. Right. And when when they were failing at things, you know, we saw it early and we tried to correct it. And sometimes you can't correct it. Sometimes there's going to be a C in math and there's going to be a D, you know, in biology. And that's just the way it works. And at some point, you have to say, look, you know, do the best you can, cut your losses and focus on the things you're good at, because you're never going to be good at everything. And that's that's a fool's errand to think that, well, I'm going to be top notch at everything that I touch. And there's plenty of times when I told kids in the sports realm, hey, that's what I remember telling a kid about basketball, I said, look, you know, you're not going to make it. And playing, you know, no matter how hard you practice, you know, you're going to go to other schools, maybe in the, in the inner city or wherever, and you're going to get destroyed. So I would just give this sport up right now. You're very good at lacrosse. So maybe that's something you can pursue and that will take you somewhere. But in terms of basketball, forget it. Same thing with soccer, you know, boy, that's great. You're playing soccer, but you're going to go up against teams in the other county where you're going to get destroyed. And it's going to be bad for your morale. So hey, let's just get the heck out of soccer and focus on something else. And I have a friend in the education field and she says, sometimes in life, we just keep banging our head against the wall and it becomes this really miserable life. And, you know, because you think you should keep doing that just because, right? But if it's not, and sometimes it's not a passion. You know, one thing could be a hobby for fun in the backyard, like you're talking about sports, but sometimes it's like cut your losses like you're saying and go with the doors open up because that's where your flow comes from. Your focus will be better and you'll enjoy it, you know, because we're supposed to enjoy life too. You know, and it's being going back to school should be fun. But I do want to, you know, in closing here, when you were on the show, you, the first time, you shared some alarming statistics in regards to kids and their phone usage. I think you were saying it was almost like eight to nine hours a day is how long a child spends on their phone or teenager, which is alarming. And I looked at someone who was telling me that Florida is starting to ban phones during school. There seems to be some kind of change happening hopefully. But what would you suggest for parents in regards to, you know, because you need a phone maybe for an emergency, but I wonder, like, are we googling during class and getting the answers, you know, instead of just thinking for ourselves too, when a teacher is trying to teach. So any, any suggestions for parents right now in regards to cell phone usage? Certainly, Lisa, and I will tell you that it's the phone usage. It's the appearance of the iPhone and then, you know, beginning of broadband in 2010 that have left parents, you know, almost in a quandary, because if your kid is looking as your average age 10 to 18 at eight hours and 47 minutes a day on a phone, and that doesn't count other screens, it doesn't count homework. It's more time than they sleep. So let's say nine hours a day, that parent is letting the culture raise that kid and not the parent. The parent engagement at that point has disappeared, and that's the biggest fear. And it's not just for that age group. The age is three to five. The average time on a tablet or a screen is around an hour and 48 minutes, which is almost two hours. So that kind of exposure breeds a passive, anxious, insular kid. And those, that screen is, you know, is a death trap. You're right. Florida has banned in schools, many of the big districts. LA has our big school districts here in Virginia hand. And so you, and there's a movement underway in Chicago. Can you imagine having a, I've known teachers in this area, not one, not two, a dozen, whose classrooms are circuses, because the kids have phones, and they will get phone calls in the middle of a classroom, in the middle of a lesson, or they'll be on their phone staring at the phone as the teacher is trying to teach. And that's just, that's not the way that a kid's going to learn, and it's not the way a classroom should be conducted. Exactly, exactly. So rules have got to be even at home, you know, for family time, study time, and actual just cognitive thinking, you know, that's a thing. Yeah, critical thinking, actual just thinking, having conversations with your family about things like, Hey, what do you think about this? We were at a friend's house the other day, and they have a stack of cards on their table for conversation topics with your kids. And there were some, I mean, Nancy and I both looked at each other going, wow, man, this is like, we're going to try and solve the problems of the world kind of style. And that's cool. And it's like, everyone's going to have these discussions. I mean, it was about what do you think about this happening in politics today? I'm like, whoa, you know, what do you think about religion in schools, kind of like, like way up there, kind of topics. So I think that's cool. Because that starts the whole idea of getting yank in that damn phone out of a kid's hand begins with the social media contract that the parents and the kids sign. And it also requires the parent not to be drank dragging out the phone every minute. You know, again, it's the responsibility is on that side as well. With a social media contract, you define the times and the amount of time a kid can use a screen at any point during a day. And you sign it. And if either side reaches the contract, then there's real life consequences. Because if parents, I don't think there's any parent in this country right now, even one's listening to think that the culture raising their kid is a very good idea. And if you're on a phone nine hours a day, that's exactly what's happening. We don't want that everyone go get four lessons from my three sons, how you can raise resilient kids. Again, from Jeff Nelligan, he is on Big Blend Radio frequently. So keep up with him. Go to NelliganBooks.com. Thank you so much, Jeff. Good stuff. Thank you for having me, Lisa. Thank you for listening to Big Blend Radio. Keep up with our shows at bigblendradio.com.
