The Sequoia Breeze

Rebecca: One of the greatest benefits of homeschooling is all the time that we get to spend together as a family. And one of the greatest challenges of homeschooling is all the time that we get to spend together as a family. Sibling relationships can be a challenge for every family, and today our guest is going to hit that topic head on. So stick around.

Kendra: What?

Rebecca: Welcome, listeners, to the Sequoia Breeze Podcast, a breath of fresh air for your homeschool. I am your host, Rebecca Lasavio. Listeners, today I have Kendra Fletcher with me and we are going to talk about the perhaps sensitive topic, but probably pressing topic of siblings in your homeschool because they're together all day, right? And so it can get a little tricky. And welcome, Kendra. Thank you so much for joining me.

Kendra: Thank you, Rebecca. Very, very excited to be here.

Rebecca: Would you tell us a little bit about yes.

Kendra: So I'm old. That's the first thing right there. We have eight children, my husband and I. We didn't plan that super well. We did figure out how we had them, but took a while. So eight children. And actually when our oldest was about four, I realized he's super little smarty pants. And he was already reading, and I thought, oh, no, if I put him into kindergarten classroom, it's going to just be like, he'll be bored and he doesn't have a lot of self control. So I just stuck my big toe into homeschooling. That was oh, my gosh, 1997. Crazy, right? So we started homeschooling him, and I kind of caught the bug and we kept having children. And 25 years later, I finished my homeschooling career. I do still have a 16 year old at home and a 15 year old. The 16 year old is pretty independent. He homeschools through school here and has taken charge of that on his own. And then the youngest one is a special needs student and he goes to school. So somehow I've worked myself out of home. Eight kids in there.

Rebecca: With eight kids, you definitely will have some distinct experience in talking about siblings. You teach as well, correct?

Kendra: I do. I teach online throughoutschool.com, so yeah.

Rebecca: Awesome. That's so cool. And my daughter actually was in one of your book clubs online.

Kendra: How did I not know this?

Kendra: I didn't know this.

Kendra: That's fantastic.

Rebecca: She was in the island of the Blue Dolphins.

Kendra: Oh, very fun. Okay, good.

Rebecca: Let's talk about the struggles of having you're homeschooling. And you probably have some activities that kids are involved in separately, but for a good portion of most days, your kids are all home together. And we all know that getting along with your brother or sister is harder than getting along with anybody else. So talk a little about the struggle of that.

Kendra: Yeah, well, I mean, you're absolutely right.

Kendra: And the order of our family was three boys, then three girls, and then two little boys at the end.

Kendra: And so there was a little bit.

Kendra: Of natural grouping, but also there were dynamics that shifted. And I'm sure anybody who has two or more children, the dynamics shift from year to year and changes in kids maturity and things like that. And so we would find that, for example, that third boy would be really close to the brothers above him, and then they'd sort of move on a little bit in maturity. And then he would pal up with the oldest daughter that was right below him, and that would kind of switch back and forth for a lot of years. And so conflicts arose because of that. People felt a little left out, maybe here or there, teasing and all those kind of things. So yeah, we sort of had it all. One of the things that I did super early on, like long before there was the whole morning basket thing, we did a group teaching time and we called it circle time, just because that's what we called it. And I did that on purpose because I didn't ever want my little ones to feel like they were just being kind of shoved off in a corner while we were doing school. And it also fostered some really nice relationships with the older ones. I had a very personal policy of mine that I didn't really want my older ones to feel like they were bearing the burden of parenting the little ones, and so I made very sure that I was doing that. But at the same time there were just some natural opportunities for the older ones to connect with the younger ones. And I would say our oldest daughter, who's now 24 and our youngest child, I always joke that he loves her more than he loves me, because I think she was about nine or ten when he was born and it was just this she just wanted to be around him and so that naturally occurred. But we also allowed for some of those opportunities to occur through some group teaching time and doing some things together. On the flip side, we also really valued everybody having their own space and time. And I don't think you really need.

Kendra: A big, huge house to do that.

Kendra: If you just sort of say, hey guys, go grab a corner of the couch, or whatever time you need to not have to be social or interact with each other. I think that's super valuable. I'm an introvert, so I find the value in that, but I think our kids need that too.

Rebecca: How do you decide who gets to sit in the front seat?

Kendra: I love that. Well, I'm the mom. I'm like, oh, it's so nice to have I'm just up here by myself, everybody's back there. So I was really strict about the twelve year thing. I'm like, no, you have to be twelve to sit in the front seat. And then when that oldest turned twelve, I was like, Darn, hi, Kevin. Sitting up here with me kind of started like that and it was just sort of yeah, I think order. Who is the oldest getting in the car with me. That one usually got to sit in the seat if they were twelve.

Rebecca: And it's hard with eight kids if you're on the couch reading aloud or something, you've only got two sides to sit next to.

Kendra: Oh my gosh. One of my favorite photographs is of me lying down on my stomach reading a book in the playyard with two on top of me sitting on my back like I'm a dog, and then the next one up kind of hanging out with them. We're all in the playyard. And then the older kids were outside of it. I mean, it was survival. My last two were 14 months apart and I was clearly in survival mode, and I had to get in the playyard, apparently, to keep everybody happy. So there you go.

Rebecca: So I think that with trying to keep the peace of siblings, but more than that, perhaps trying to build relationship, the challenge is, while the kids have relational work to do, they won't figure it out on their own. Most likely to us as parents, it's a challenge to us to help them know how to love one another, how to give of themselves, how to see the other person for who they are instead of who they wish they were. And talk a little about how you would encourage parents to go about that.

Kendra: I think one of the big things that I keep saying as an older mom is just have the conversation. Don't be afraid to go there with those difficult topics, no matter what it is. Get it all out in the open and say, hey, you two have so much conflict. What is going on? And have that conversation and allow them to voice their frustrations or their struggles.

Kendra: And perhaps you're right.

Kendra: Sometimes they can't even say that for themselves. They can't always discern what it is that they struggle with in that relationship or relationships. But I think ignoring it or just disciplining for it doesn't really get to the root of what's going on. And so take the time if you're folding laundry or we lived on property at the time, and the walk to the mailbox was a bit of a walk. And so I would grab a kid and say, come walk with me and get the mail with me and let's talk. What's going on? What's happening here? Why are you so struggling with this sibling? Oh, she's a show off, or she's just so immature. I can't stand the way she talks around my friends or she takes all my stuff. These are actual things we've lived through and whatever it is. And to allow them to have that conversation with you and then to say, okay, I understand that, but you know what? You're going to have conflict in relationships your whole life. That's just reality. We're humans. We're flawed. You are a jerk, too sometimes. You're going to find out when you get married that you're a jerk just as much as your spouse is. And so that's reality. And let's figure out how to go beyond that and be kind and love somebody out of kindness. You don't have to be Mushy Gushy. You don't have to be best friends right now, but how can you be kind to them instead of all of this animosity? And I think that just kind of starting out those conversations and being super honest with them and being really honest about my own struggles. I found if I was sort of my husband calls it the Chief Confessor, if I were the one, if we were the ones who sort of said.

Kendra: Yeah, you know what?

Kendra: Mom needs Jesus. Mom needs help. Mom needs to try to be kind to children and to each other and to dad and all of that. Then they understand this is a human issue, and we do have to figure out how to stay calm and be kind.

Rebecca: And I feel like often my kids struggle with their sibling for two reasons that you're usually the most. One is because they are not getting their own way. So the frustration with the sibling is actually about them. And the other is that the sibling, one or the other of them might be going through a developmental shift. And so maybe a younger sibling is kind of going through a brain growth spurt, and so now they have more ideas about a situation or more opinion or more desire to be involved than they used to. And often the older sibling doesn't recognize that that's what's going on. They just know they're doing something different. And they're kind of getting in my space or how we normally interact is not happening right now. And they don't really realize, well, you need to allow them this space to understand the world around them better, to have an opinion about what's going on, and to give them the right to a voice in the situation.

Kendra: Yeah, absolutely. And one of my favorite things is when the older kids will it's usually when a kid gets to about nine, we used to always say, nine year old boys are so weird. And they would get to that little time, that little period there, that little tween age nine through 13 perhaps. And the older ones would be like, oh, my gosh, he's so cringey. They would always say this. And I would love to pull out photos of them at the same age and just be like, do you remember what this felt like? Do you remember how it felt to try to fit in or to try to get the attention of those kids at co op or whatever, who you just thought were so cool and they just wouldn't give you the time of day or do you remember what that feels like? So it's fun to see them now. I mean, of course there's a little more maturity with teenagers, young adults, but they'll look back now and they'll just kind of shake their head and say, oh, he's going to be so embarrassed in a couple of years when he looks back on himself. And so I think maybe what that is, is eliciting a little bit of empathy and just kind of saying, like, hey, do you remember when you felt that way? Do you remember how difficult it was? Or if they're the oldest child and there isn't a reference point to just say, hey, I was the youngest child and I know how much I looked up to my brothers and so badly wanted them to just give me the time of day. Do you think you could do that? Do you think you could just give them a little bit of something, give them a bone and just elicit a little bit of empathy there, if you can? I mean, that's just a human thing, right? It's heightened. It's made more apparent in kids because you're right, they don't really necessarily recognize and understand what's going on beneath the surface. But I think that's a good relational thing for a parent to have those conversations and just say, hey, we all kind of go through this awkward thing. We all kind of go through this annoying thing. How can we just be kind?

Rebecca: I think that for some families, while having all of the kids home together and trying to get along as siblings together can be one of the biggest challenges to homeschooling, it is also a pretty incredible opportunity for really deep family connection.

Kendra: Yeah, it really is.

Rebecca: How did you foster that as your kids were growing?

Kendra: So I'm not the fun parent.

Kendra: I used to tell my husband I'm.

Kendra: The has to parent. You're the get to parent. He would get home and he'd get to do things with them. And I was like the one who always like, we do your math, grab do your laundry. I was like, these are the things we have to do parent. But without that get to parent or without that side to me, like, hey, we're just going to have fun together, we're just going to enjoy one another. I don't know that we would have fostered very good relationships, but my kids do have some really fun memories together. In fact, one of them was just posting a bunch of old pictures in our family group text last night and my oldest is 30 and there's grandchildren in the mix and spouses and all of that now and they're still kind of laughing about fun things we did when they were growing up or silly things that happened amongst them or whatever. And I think, as trite as it sounds, I really think that having a lot of get to moments, a lot of fun moments, a lot of memory building things is crucial. It's just absolutely crucial to their relationships, to the family dynamic, to kids who want to be part of the family once they've gone off to school or jobs or life, but who still want to stay connected and still want to have those memories because they had so much fun together growing up too.

Rebecca: Did you set that expectation within your family that, hey kids, you don't have to hate each other because you're brothers and sisters. You don't have to disdain one another, but you can be friends. We can love one another, which is so contrary to what we see in the culture. And even if you pay attention to movies and kids TV shows, hollywood always, almost always portrays siblings as being highly irritating and assuming that it's very normal to have want nothing to do with your sibling.

Kendra: Right? You're absolutely right. And I would point that out. We would talk about that after watching a movie together or I read aloud a Gazillion books and I would point it out like, oh, look at how great this relationship is, or what did you think about that relationship with their brother? Or what did you think about this thing that was said in the book or the movie or whatever. And so I just kind of pointed out but we did a little bit of brainwashing too.

Kendra: We just kind of said, hey you.

Kendra: Guys, you can be each other's best friends. If you want to work on that, you really could have a lifelong relationship here. And I'm going to be super honest. One of my kids struggles with a mental illness and an organic genetic kind of a situation. And before that was diagnosed, it was really hard between him and two other siblings in particular. And if we had not really fostered this idea that we are on each other's team and we have each other's back and we love each other well, even if it's difficult, I think it could have been irreparable as they went into young adulthood. But then once all of the information came flooding in and we discovered really what was going on, the other siblings, in spite of their hurts and they did have to work through that for a couple of years, they could come out sort of on the other end of it and say, hey, you know what? He is still our brother. We are going to walk this long road with him. It's probably not going to get easier or it's going to be ups and downs because that's the nature of his brother. And so I think the foundation was there years and years past where we said it is possible for you to be best friends. It is entirely possible for you to have a great relationship. It doesn't have to look like what our culture communicates or all of that antagonism in movies and books and things like that. It doesn't have to look like that. It can look like this. And so when the rubber met the road and it was a really difficult situation with that sibling in particular, they knew that is what they ultimately wanted, and they've been working toward that. So I don't know. There are things I did that I think, oh, that should have gotten this result, and it didn't.

Kendra: So I don't know that I want.

Kendra: To take credit for that necessarily, but I do think we communicated a different picture of what sibling relationships could look like.

Rebecca: Well, we were overseas. My kids friends, often, they came and went. People came and then they'd move away. Or we'd go home for five months, come back to the States to reconnect, and we'd come back and other friends would go back to the States for a few we, we talked a lot about other people in your life will come and go, but your siblings are here to stay. And so it's a relationship worth investing in because you might have a best friend right now, but something can change in life, and they might not be nearby one day, but your sibling will still be your sibling for the rest of your life. Groundwork worth laying?

Kendra: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's such a great example, Rebecca, of how people come and go. Even in a daughter who just was married two weeks ago, she had all these bridesmaids up there, and I thought to myself, I wonder in 20 years who the ones she'll still be really connected to are. I mean, two of them were her sisters, and I thought, well, those two, yeah, those two she'll be connected to. But I wonder who of those ten bridesmaids is going to still really be a part of her life day to day? That's just the reality. And so if we can help our kids maybe even sort of think through that when they're little, they don't see that. They don't have that perspective. But if we can sort of help them gain a perspective that, hey, you know what? Family, again has your back and we want the best for you and we're looking out for you. And I think our kids in our home really do feel that this is a safe place and a shelter for them. Thank God, because I feel like there were a lot of things we did.

Kendra: That sabotaged that as well, because we're human.

Rebecca: And I want to remind parents who are listening who didn't grow up in a family like that. If you are attempting to create something different in your home, it's never too late to start. And you don't have to do what you know, you can learn a new way. So if sibling rivalry was a big thing or nobody attempted to create peace between the siblings in your home, and this is a kind of mind blowing idea that you can actually do that. You aren't just at the mercy of the relationship your kids have. You can begin to establish new relationships, new expectations now.

Kendra: Absolutely, yeah. And just create a different environment and culture. I think just that safety of saying, this is a family that wants the best for you. And they kind of look at me. That sibling does not have the best for me at all. They're grabbing my legos. What are you talking about? In our home, too. And I think for some others as well, our special needs. Kiddo is really hard to live with. And one sibling in particular has had to share a room with him his whole life. We are now in a small house, so there's not a lot of bedrooms available. And he's had to learn. And yet, I'll tell you, he went off to a summer intensive at a university this summer, and he walked into his room and his roommate was on the autism spectrum, and he just wooled with it like it didn't even faze him because he has a sibling so similar. And he was just like, yeah, cool. Okay. And it got intense that Kiddo had some struggles while he was there. And my son just knew, just kind.

Kendra: Of went knew how to handle it, knew how to diffuse the situation.

Kendra: And for that I am incredibly grateful because that was born out of a sibling relationship and I could never have created that in that kid. Now I'm like, oh, he's such a better person than I am 16. He's just this amazing human because he's had adversity with the siblings. Those are amazing opportunities, too. I would say just like, don't shy away from the conflict because that conflict is really character building as well. It's just an opportunity, though, to sit down and say, I hear you, I see you. I know how hard this is. Let's figure out how to reach across the Gulf and be kind.

Rebecca: So talk to me about a few of the nuts and bolts of daily life homeschooling with multiple kids. How do you find that one kid the quiet space to do their math when there's other kids who need to ask you questions or need to be read aloud to, or all of those different? How do you find the space? I wouldn't say find the space. I'd say manage the space so that each kid is able to get done what they need to get done.

Kendra: Yeah. I was just thinking back early on, once I set a routine, it was very hard for me to say, okay, we're going to scrap that entirely and start over again. I had the chart and I knew what the day was going to look like. And then there was one year, I remember I was about a half a day into it and realized this is never going to work, and had to rethink all of the strategy. And I'm pretty sure that's the year that I decided I was going to meet with them one on one. And so I only had six children at one time homeschooling, because by the time yeah, well, I know, but by the time my youngest were starting to homeschool, I was graduating the oldest. And so that's how that worked. I had these six and I was able then to say, okay, we're going to give 45 minutes to this one and then we're going to take a break and then you come into the living room with me or whatever, and we're going to work on your stuff that you need me for for 45 minutes. And then I kind of went down the line. So that is one way to tackle those things that need that one on one attention kind of overall.

Kendra: What I'm trying to say is that flexibility is going to be the biggest tool that you have. So if that works for your family to grab a child and work with them one on one and then go to the next child, work with them one on one, and have other things for them to do, once you send them out of that one on one, it's not like a free for all. There's no way I could have survived a free for all. So then it was like, okay, I'm done helping you with your math or this English assignment or whatever it is now I need you to go practice the piano or whatever that thing is. So do have a structure, but if one on one is what is needed, that was super helpful that year. I think we only did it for one year, but that's what we needed to do. And then every single subject that I could do altogether, I did altogether. So we did a four year history cycle with gradated assignments. So the youngest one is coloring, and the oldest one is taking notes and then off to work on some sort of an assignment that was related to whatever we were studying in history. That was something we did together once online. I mean, think about this, 1997, there were no classes online, right? There was nothing like that. And so once those things became available, I did start to take advantage of that kind of a thing, even if it was asynchronous just for a kid to work through something online. Teaching textbooks went that way pretty early on, and so that was like, oh, this is glorious. They can do the lesson and then click that they're finished and move on to the next one. So a little mix of those things was super helpful to me, too.

Rebecca: So let's take a second while we're talking about this and talk about since you had lots of experience of homeschooling with babies and toddlers, for the mama who's listening, who's trying to figure out how to manage that, honestly, a newborn is not that hard, but the three year old talk about, oh my gosh, right.

Kendra: Actually, I kind of feel like it's like the 18 month old that can't really do anything but can't also sit still and oh my gosh, yeah, maybe 18 months to three years is really hard. Or 15 months or something. So I mixed things up a lot. I would say you're going to be in the play pen or the playyard for 30 minutes, 45 minutes, something like that. Okay, now we're going to watch Sesame Street. Okay. Now we're all going to go on a walk, or some of us are, and we're going to leave the older ones to have some quiet house so they can work on their things. And then we younger take the younger ones and go take a walk. Okay. Now we're going to come back and fix lunch. Okay. Now, I really had to have a schedule like that for myself. It's sort of how I'm wired. So, I mean, I know that's hard for some people, but for me it was survival to have at least a flowchart. I didn't stick to real like, okay, by 10:00 A.m., we have to be doing this thing. But there was a flow order of events. An order of events, absolutely. Yeah. And with little ones, it was about kind of micromanaging those order of events. What are we going to do between getting you up and getting you back down for a nap? How do I fill that time? Oh, this was another thing. There was a time, maybe about three or four years where I didn't start school until the afternoon. And it was because I think those last 214 months apart and then there was a three year old above them and I just had to survive mornings and kind of get everybody all my ducks in a row and do laundry and all that kind of stuff. And then when those little ones went down for a nap, we dug in and did school. Kind of a bummer because we found ourselves doing school until like four or 05:00 p.m.. But that's how it had to happen.

Rebecca: How did you manage so many kids wanting maybe their own activities as well? You can only drive so many kids so many places, right, and still get school done and naps.

Kendra: Yeah. Okay. So I think the key to this is really figuring out what the priority is for your family. So if sports are a priority and you want everybody to play baseball, then try your darndest to get everybody on the same team or just somehow create some way to do that. We were able to do this with water polo for our three oldest boys because there was a club team in town and it meant it wasn't a traveling team. They did maybe one tournament, I think, every couple of months or something like that because it was a club team. It was multi ages. They didn't all have to be the same. It wasn't like 16. To 18 or that kind of a thing. And so that's how we got around that for them. They also did like martial arts, and so martial arts is super flexible that way too. Everybody can take the same belt level or whatever. Same with music lessons. I found a teacher that we could walk to, just little creative ways to kind of go about it. Now, I did have kids who had some specialty things. I had a son who was a very serious guitar player, and he ended up taking lessons with somebody at the university. And I did have to make that special concession for him. And I would do that for any child who had something a little unusual or out of the norm. But for everybody else, if we were just trying to get in some good PE time or get them moving or get them into music or whatever the thing was, I tried as best I could to sort of lump at least a few together in the same thing.

Rebecca: For parents who are pulling their kids out of school and this is maybe their first or second year homeschooling, and the kids are used to relying on a classroom full of friends instead of their siblings.

Kendra: Yes.

Rebecca: What advice would you give them as they're getting going on this journey?

Kendra: Well, I had some kids who are super social and were sort of like, I need to be with people all the time. And then I had some who it didn't bother them. So I think that that can be a child by child question. Some people are going to pull kids out of a school setting and into their home school, and the kid's going to be relieved. I've seen that in my own online classes where kids have told me when we went online during the pandemic, I was like, I love this. This is the best. But then other kids are really going to struggle with that. Maybe even a little bitterness, like, why'd you take me out of school? I miss my friends and all of those real practical issues. And I would say don't ignore that. Allow them that social time. So figure out with them like, okay, what does that look like? If we're going to do school at home and you've got siblings that you can hang out with, how are we going to fill that little social cup for you? Is it youth group at church? Is it co op? Is it a sports team or an activity or some other kind of a social connection? It's super important. And again, I'm an introvert and I don't necessarily need a whole lot of that. I created a giant community by birth, so I kind of didn't feel that need. But I had to be super sensitive to my kids who were that way. For one daughter in particular, she went into a hybrid high school situation. She was super sciency and wanted all the labs and to be able to do all the sciences. And I was like, oh, man, that's not me. And so there was a hybrid high school and I'm near us, where she could take online classes, on campus classes, or home school in any combination that filled her social cup immensely. And she today is a high school biology teacher, so there you go. And she loves the school thing. It just kind of makes me laugh because there's this home schooled girl who just loves all the social aspects of school. I'm like you. Go, girl. And so we just tried as best we could to really fill that social cup. My husband's pretty social, too, so our home is still often filled with lots of game nights and people coming by and all of that kind of thing. So I know that's really hard if you're both introverted parents, but if you've got that super social kid, you've got to let them fill that cup somehow.

Rebecca: Does your biology teacher daughter regret being homeschooled?

Kendra: Not at all. Yeah, not at all. She's very thankful that we did the high school thing. She actually does work for a charter, which is kind of funny. She didn't necessarily set out to do that, and she didn't do her teaching in a charter situation, but she's in a little bit of an out of the box. Well, I say that now 20 years ago would have been an out of the box kind of a situation, but now she's in a charter and she gets it. She so gets these kids that are coming out of home schooled situations or are just kind of stepping their toe into a classroom situation for the first time or whatever. And she loves that there are all kinds of ways to educate. She noticed that during school and during college and during her credentialing program that.

Kendra: There were a lot of people who.

Kendra: Can only see sort of one way of schooling. And she does love that she has a much broader view of what that can look like. And you know what, you guys? Don't worry. I did have my 30 year old come to me and thank me for homeschooling him. So he gained some perspective in his twenty s. And one of the things he said to me was, mom, I have friends who grew up in all kinds of schooling situations, and everybody thinks that their school situation had flaws. And he just said, I'm so glad you homeschooled me. I think it was the best thing for me. So it could happen. It could. You might get some grateful attitudes eventually.

Rebecca: Well, Kendra, do you have anything else that you would like to encourage parents with in regards to helping their kids? Love one know, the only thing I.

Kendra: Would say, Rebecca, at this point, is that the number one big gigantic benefit for us as homeschoolers was that ability to build relationships in our family. We both come from pretty nice families but that time spent together and listening to my kids talk about their memories and laugh together and just really have all this connection because they spent their days together, that's huge. That's not an opportunity everybody gets. And they know each other's faults, they know each other's front sided strengths and they really rely on each other in a lot of ways. I find out that they have these little text groups behind my back where they talk about me and I'm like that's so healthy though.

Rebecca: So good because I'm sure I annoy.

Kendra: The heck out of them. And so that's an amazing attribute to being able to homeschool kids. I don't think it's unattainable if you don't homeschool them. I just think it's harder. We just have that opportunity for time spent together. So if everything else is going awry, if the schooling is you're struggling to do the math and all of those things and it's hard to get dinner on the table or whatever, just remember that your kids have an opportunity to get to know each other at the very least as they're homeschooling.

Rebecca: My mother in law told me years ago she homeschooled her kids as well in the she said if he can get along with his brother, he can get along with anybody.

Kendra: Yeah, and that's so true because I've had these kids go off to college and you walk in that first day and meet a roommate you never knew before. And my kids are super flexible that way. One of them walked into a dorm room and said she was talking about a friend and she's like, what is she talking about? These rooms are big. Have you ever seen a dorm room? I'm like, Are you kidding me? But because she'd always shared a room her whole life and her friend had know my daughter was this is nothing. And the friend was really funny.

Rebecca: Kendra, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your years of wisdom and experience with our listeners. And I just really appreciate the time and your willingness to be here.

Kendra: Well, thanks so much for asking me again. It was kind of delightful to go down memory lane.

Rebecca: And listeners, I will put a couple of places where you can see what Kendra is up to and get a hold of her. If you wanted to ask her any questions in the show notes so you can be sure to check that out. Listeners, I hope you've been encouraged by Kendra's words and the wisdom that she has to share and her vast experience with her eight children and all her years of homeschooling. Listeners, if you have some tried and trued methods for helping our kids learn to love one another in a relationship that will last them all of their lives, would you share that with us? We could all use tips and ideas from parents that have been there and done that and fought that battle that is so worth fighting for. Would you go to your school's website and find the podcast page and click on that button that allows you to speak directly to me? You'll send me a little voicemail and lets me hear you tell me how have you helped to build your kids sibling relationships? And before we go today, I've been telling you all about the upcoming Literature Festival for the last couple of weeks and I want to know which one are you going to? There's an opportunity to attend in Tahoe, Cameron Park, Roseville, Elk Grove, Chico and Uka all taking place on September 29 from 11:00 A.m to 01:00 p.m.. Dress up as your favorite literary character, participate in activities and challenge, and don't forget to stop by while you're there and ask questions and learn about the wide range of services offered to our Sequoia Grove families. While you're checking out our school sponsored information booths, including adventure academy, library services, family liaisons, dig, virtual academies, multilingual learners and high school. I'll be in Cameron Park, so if you're there, please come say hi and get a Sequoia Breeze sticker from me. I would love to meet you. Visit sequoia. Signup to let us know that you're coming and find out more details in the Sequoia Scoop. This has been an episode of the Sequoia Breeze podcast. As always, I am your host, Rebecca Lasavio. I hope this has been a breath of fresh air for your homeschool. It truly is my desire that you end each of these episodes inspired to start anew tomorrow. To find a little more joy in your homeschool and a little more peace in your family. I'd love to hear from you. Podcasts@sequoiagrove.org or the podcast page on your school's website.