SR 839: A Dad’s Homeschool Journey: Insights on Teaching, Fatherhood, and Faithfulness – Brandon Beckley, Part 1

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These things that we go through that aren’t quite what we hoped for, I think

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are helping us to prepare for whatever the next season is. Yeah. And

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God’s using it. And I think if nothing else, when my wife is home with

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the kids, I will have far more empathy than I would have otherwise.

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Hey, everyone, this is Yvette Hampton. Welcome back to the Schoolhouse Rocked

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Podcast. I have a new guest with me this week, and you guys are going

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to be so encouraged. And some of you may know of some of the work

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that he’s doing, but you may not actually know his name yet because he’s kind

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of a behind the scenes guy, kind of like my husband Garritt is.

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He is the founder of Made2Homeschool, and we’re going to talk a little bit about

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that ministry this week, but we’re going to dig deep into

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fatherhood and his journey that he’s had with his wife and

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getting started with homeschooling and all kinds of other fun things. But before we

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get started, I want to say thank you to our sponsor, BJU Press Homeschool. If

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you’re looking for great homeschool curriculum, and I know many of you are, right now

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it’s summertime, and you’re like, what in the world are we going to do next

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year? And you might be starting to panic a little bit because the summer is

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moving along and you’re just wondering, what are we going to do? And

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maybe you need curriculum for every subject. Maybe you just need it for one subject.

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Maybe you need it for all your kids. Maybe you need it for just a

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couple of your kids. Whatever you need, BJU Press Homeschool is there

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to help you. They have something for every grade, every subject,

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and they do everything from a strong biblical worldview. So

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if you have not checked them out yet, check

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them out BJUPressHomeschool.com.

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BJUPressHomeschool.com.

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Well, welcome to my new guest. I’m so excited, Brandon, to have you with me

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this week. Introduce yourself and your family to us because I know that you’re, you’re

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one of those sort of newbies to the homeschool world, but, man, you have come

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in full force. You and your wife Brigitte, and you’re doing amazing, amazing work

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to encourage and support the homeschool community. So tell our audience who you are and

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what it is that you’re doing. Thanks, Yvette. Well, and thank you so much for

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having me here. You know, we’ve been talking about doing this for a while and

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I’m glad that it just happened to work out today. Love that. And I

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love the opportunity to talk with you and your audience about, yeah,

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what we’re doing, but just what God’s doing, I think more

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importantly in our lives and in the homeschool

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community, I guess, for lack of a better word. Yep. My name is Brandon.

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My wife is Brigitte. We are the founders of Made2Homeschool.

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We are more or less a ministry couple. I was in full time ministry

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for about nine years down in South Florida. We’ve recently transplanted up

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to North Florida at the same time as we had a new baby and started

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homeschooling. And by the way, I’m the homeschooler right now for the most part. And

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I’m at home running a business and homeschooling my

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kids and trying to make that work. That’s a fun adventure.

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My wife is in full time medical work. She’s been in

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ultrasound for a little over 17 years now. I think it’s

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been a while. Yeah, that’s the big, big

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summary right there. Yeah. Yeah. You guys are doing great stuff. So you

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founded Made2Homeschool. And man, it’s

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so fun because we’ve gotten to connect with so many of the other

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homeschool leaders and speakers and writers and bloggers

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and podcasters who are part of that community. So we’ll talk about that in

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a couple of days. But you talked about how you’re the one kind

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of doing most of the homeschooling. I want you to tell your story because you

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have such an incredible story of how you got into

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homeschooling and you guys are still new to homeschooling.

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Your kids talk about that. Tell us your story.

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Yeah. And you know, Made2Homeschool is an integral part of that and I’ll share what

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pieces are relevant to the journey at least. But we can get to the whole

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what m two h is later leave you guys and some suspense.

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But it really was an

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unexpected journey and in the end the trigger was pulled

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kind of suddenly, like, I hate to be cheesy and say, well, God did it,

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but God did it. And I guess if you went

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back maybe a little over two years ago, there is no

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way I would tell you we’re going to be homeschooling. We had always thought about

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it, right? So we’ve been married for almost twelve years and we

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went into marriage knowing that I was going to be in full time pastoral ministry,

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which meant that I was never going to make as much money as my wife,

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who worked in the medical field. Right. She didn’t marry me for the money. That’s

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not what happened. And so she wanted to,

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she’s always wanted to just be home with the kids. And great, I wanted

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that for her. Maybe God will provide that one day, we thought.

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But we didn’t see it. We lived in South Florida, which cost 17 arms and

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twelve legs to live, and we needed both the

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incomes. And we didn’t feel like God had led us in that

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direction. It just wasn’t a strong consideration. Of course, we had all the questions that

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all the non homeschool families have. What about the socialization? What about

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this, that and the other? Of course, you’ve heard a million times. And

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then because of the crazy health journey, I have

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a whole bunch of autoimmune stuff that came up. And that’s what kicked me out

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of full time pastoral ministry in a church.

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Um, we ended up meeting a whole bunch of homeschool YouTube

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people. Yada, yada, yada, yadas will be explained later. And

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we launched Made2Homeschool. And that whole time we’re drinking the Kool aid.

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To the extent that by the time we had launched Made2Homeschool, we were

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like, we need to do this. This is a transition we need to make. This

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is the best thing for our kids 100%. So how do we do that? How

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do we get you home, Brigitte, so that you can homeschool the kids? Because I

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don’t want to do that, frankly, that’s just honestly the case.

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And then by this

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past fall, you know, we, once your eyes are

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open, they’re open. Yeah. You know, and we saw

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the families that we worked with and Made2Homeschool. We wanted it. We’re moving

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in that direction. But again, we can’t do it till Brigitte’s able to be home.

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Right. First it was some things

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with, we have an eight year old, Boyden, and a five year old girl.

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She was in a pre k four class. He was in third grade at a

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christian school. A good one, by the way. Like, it’s a good school. But the

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problem is, um, just like a good church

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or a good club of any type or a good school or a good, any

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place where people are, there’s gonna be evil. It’s in the world,

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right? Sin is here. And some things

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happened that were not the teacher’s

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fault because you know what? You cannot pay attention to every one of 15

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or 18 five year olds at every minute of the day.

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Yeah. And they kept happening. And so we decided

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we were pulling her out immediately, and all of a sudden I was homeschooling a

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pre k kid because we just couldn’t in good

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conscience leave our kid there. Yeah. Again,

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the school was great, but it can only be so good. It can. They

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can’t do what a parent can do. And we’re like, well, it

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doesn’t make sense to have her home and not her brother. And we want to

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bring him home anyway. And I got a kid here, so. Well, I guess we’re

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bringing him home, too. We let him finish out his school Christmas play through December,

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and then that was it. And so November 16, we had

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our third child, um, another

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son. And then November, like

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20th, our daughter came home. And then

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December 18 or whatever it was, our son was home, and that was it. Forever.

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Yeah. And then we moved within two months to a different part of the state.

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So lots of things all at once, and we’re learning as we go. Right? Like,

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like all of us do when we start out. And I’ve had the great benefit

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of these 20 something different moms on our team who teach me all the things.

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And so I have. I don’t know, this is a weird analogy, but if

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you remember the movie the Matrix, that scene where Neo was plugged in and he

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just downloads all the knowledge. That’s kind of how I feel sometimes because I’ve got

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the benefit of that. Yeah. But I’m definitely still learning and figuring out

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our methodology and our kids and their learning styles. And we

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finished out the year just finishing his curriculum. He had his

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workbooks because it was BJU. Good stuff is fine.

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Actually, it’s funny BJU for this episode, but, yeah, and we loved

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it. It’s good. We’re going to switch some of that next year because we’re learning

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our kids. Yeah, but the cool thing, there are so many cool things, and

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I’ll end this piece here, but one of the really cool things is

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that I get to learn what works best for them, and we get to

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try other things and see if our kids will thrive better

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with that. So that’s, that’s how we got here and where we are. Yeah,

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yeah. It’s so funny because you, and you don’t go deep into

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this, but you got into homeschooling and kind of introduced to

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it through a business endeavor. Like, you didn’t do that

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intentionally, but God did. God was like, I’m going to

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put all these homeschool mamas in your way, and you’re going to work with them.

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And as you’re working with them, you’re going to learn about home education and

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discipleship. And then it just kind of happened. And like, you. You

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said your eyes were opened and you can’t unsee now what

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you’ve seen. You can’t stick your head in the sand and pretend like you don’t

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already know what God is convicting you of.

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But you saw everything, and you were able to.

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You were, you thought you were coming alongside these moms to help them

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with their homeschooling blogs and podcasts and all the stuff that they have going

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on. And in reality, they were coming alongside you, and you were, you were

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teaming up together because you really have been a blessing to them, but they’ve been

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such a blessing to you and that they helped you open your eyes. Um, and

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so it’s. It’s so great. I love how the, the Lord works that way

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when we’re like, okay, we’ve got this endeavor that we’re going to go for, and

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we have no idea why we’re doing what we’re doing. But God’s like,

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I have a plan that you don’t even know about so. Much, and

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there’s so many pieces to it. But, you know, one of the things that, as

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you’re talking about that I’m reminded of is one of the things that convinced me

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the most early on is the kids. If you spend time

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or. And you’re not a homeschool and you spend time around teenagers

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especially, but all the kids of a parents who

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are intentional homeschoolers, I’m not saying there’s not some who, you

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know, should do whatever, but if parents are being intentional in homeschooling

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their kids, especially raising them in the fear and admonition of the Lord, those kids

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act differently. And when we’d go to hang out with these people, I would watch

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their kids. I talked to their teenagers, and they were amazing. Yeah. Like,

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I was stunned by these kids. I’m like, okay, yeah, I want my kid to

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be like that. And it’s like, anything you care about,

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anything you believe in, you evangelize about it. You can’t go to a restaurant you

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love and not tell a friend about it. Right? So if there’s something powerful in

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your life, something that you love, something of high quality, you’re going to shout it

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from the rooftops. And I think that that’s what people listen. The Bible

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says that. How can they believe if they have not

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heard, right? In the same way, I think we need to do a little homeschool.

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Evangelizing in a kind and loving way. But I was encouraged and evangelized

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about homeschool by all these moms who constantly were just walking

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the walk, and I was impressed by their families. Right, right.

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Yeah. You know, it’s so funny, homeschooling. When we talk about it,

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people often will apologize to me if they’re not homeschooling, it’s a crack up

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because they’ll say, I don’t homeschool my kids. I know that that offends you. And

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I’m like, you are not offending me. You are not

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accountable to me for the decisions that you make for your family. You’re accountable

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to God, and you have to pray and decide what God is calling you and

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your family to do. But, yeah, I mean, I love being able

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to, like you said, just shout it from the rooftops and just tell people, like,

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okay, here is. Here’s what homeschooling really is. Here are the blessings of

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home, education and family discipleship, and here are the reasons why.

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But without beating them over the head with it and shaming them for not making

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that decision, you know, that’s the last thing we ever want to do on on

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this podcast, is to shame people for not making the same decisions. We want to

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inform people so that they can make the best decision

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for their family according to what God has called them to do. That’s

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not my job. I’m not the Holy Spirit. I’m not bringing conviction to. Well, maybe

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I do sometimes. People actually do sometimes say that the podcast

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does bring conviction, but it’s not because I’m bringing that conviction. It’s because the Lord

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is using me and my guests and the

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movie and all the things that we have going on to just open their eyes

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to what homeschooling is. So I love that story. We have more to talk about,

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but we’re going to take a break. We’ll be right back. Have you tried

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very applicable. Thank you so much for all that you are doing in providing

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that’s CTCMath.com.

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we

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are back with Brandon. Okay, so you talked in the first episode about

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you’re the one doing the homeschooling. We talked about how you got into

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homeschooling. Talk for a few minutes about what it’s like for you as dad, because

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typically we talk to moms. It’s typically the mom who’s doing the

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homeschooling and, and teaching of the kids. And you have those a

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little bit reversed from what is the typical family. And, you know, praise

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God that God has provided a great job for Brigitte.

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And I know that you guys are really working towards getting to that point where

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she can be home to do this, but you, you guys are a

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great team. We’ve enjoyed getting to know you and your wife. Talk about

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what it is like for you as a dad because dads are

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totally different. Like, news flash, boys and girls are different.

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Men and women are different, moms and dads. Is that

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okay? Exactly. Moms and dads are different. And we

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spot respond differently to our kids and to teaching. So talk about

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what it’s like for you as a dad to homeschool your kids. And

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maybe you’ve only been doing this for one semester. Really.

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What does a day look like for you guys and how are you working

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through all the aspects of that? You know, I think

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that one of the things that I’ve

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appreciated about most homeschoolers, most of the folks that I know in the

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homeschool world is that they believe

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in homeschooling not just as a correct choice or the best

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choice for their family, but as a, as freedom to do

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what’s going to work for your family. And we are taking full advantage of that,

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sister. That’s what’s going on right now because we don’t know what we’re going to

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look like in three years. Hopefully that looks like my wife’s home, you know,

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things are different for dads versus moms. That’s super true.

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And I think that we are finding a good

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rhythm, like we’re finding the things we want to do on a daily

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basis. We’re finding how the day can be

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blocked out well, for the kids to have a good, healthy experience

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and for me to get some work done. But

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that will look different when mom’s home. It’s just gonna, and I

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think probably, and I’m not saying this for all situations, I

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know a couple of homeschool dads who. That’s their plan. They plan to be homeschool

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dads. For me,

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I think probably it is better for mom to be home for our family. And

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I think that’s probably, probably the general rule. Brigitte and I

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have talked about this a lot because neither of us are where we want to

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be, but we believe we’re doing the thing God wants us to do right now.

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And these things that we go through that aren’t quite what we hoped

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for, I think are helping us to prepare for whatever the next season

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is and God’s using it. And I think, if

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nothing else, when my wife is home with the kids, I will have far more

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empathy than I would have otherwise. Right. Like, I will be able to understand in

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a different way and vice versa. So what

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that looks like practically, though, we usually only have

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an hour and a half or 2 hours of actual work or instruction.

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Yeah. Um, we were, we stuck for the second half of the year. We stuck

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mostly to just primary subjects. We did. My son

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had Benjamin, he had reading and math

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every day, and he had English

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and spelling two or three days

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a week. And I would do some science lessons

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with them, kind of a la carte. We do some science experiments,

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but it’s like things that are applicable to life. So, like, there are potatoes

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and strawberries growing in my backyard right now that my kids

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planted that they think are the coolest thing in the world.

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That’s a good thing. But next year we’re going to

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use a little more curriculum. We didn’t know what was going to feel like yet,

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but we basically finished the entirety of their workbooks. I know that’s like a

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scary thing. People don’t want to do that, but, like, we did it because we

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didn’t want to, like, stop schooling for the whole summer. And so we kind of

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wrapped this year. Now just actually the other day, we kind of

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like, you completed a grade, will we always do grades? I don’t know. I have

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no idea. This is what we’re doing right now. I feel like our kids like

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milestones. It makes them feel something good. They make them feel they’ve achieved

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something. So my son got a little certificate. He completed the third grade, and my

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daughter has completed pre k four. And they were happy about that. And they feel

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like they did it. And I want them to feel that. Yeah. Um, what it’ll

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look like next year, probably actually a little

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more. A little more structured than we did this year.

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Um, but I I’m glad we didn’t do more

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because it helped us figure out what. What we needed to do. Does that answer

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the question of ed or. Yeah, it totally does. Because what you really did this

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past semester is got to know your kids. Yeah. And you have to kind of

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go through that unschooling de schooling

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process in order to figure out where you are as a family. And like you

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said, in three years, it might be completely different. Who knows? I

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mean, you can only take it one step at a time. But you talked about

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being, you know, empathetic towards moms and towards your wife.

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And I love that because I think oftentimes dads don’t realize

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what their wives are up against. They go to work and they do their

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jobs. And I’m so grateful for these dads who work so hard to provide for

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their families so that mom can be home. But oftentimes

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moms are. They’re working all day with the kids. Sometimes they’ve got a side

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hustle because they have to help bring in some extra income because we live in

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this crazy economy, and, you know, who can afford eggs? And, I mean, all the

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things, like, it’s just kind of crazy. And so it is a hard

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job to educate your kids because here’s the thing. It’s not just

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educating, it’s parenting. And so you’re spending your

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day parenting. You’re throwing academics on top of it, and then

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you’re trying to work on the side, and that’s a lot to take

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in. And ops. You have to be a husband and

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all those things. And so, like, I mean, I just love that you’re on that

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side of it, and you really can

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empathize with. With what your wife will be up against and what

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these other moms are facing on a daily basis. Well,

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and she will know that I get it, and she will

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know that I would do it in her place. We’ve had a number of. When

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I went through all this health stuff, she had been on bed rest for many

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months during her pregnancy where she could literally do nothing. And I took care

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of everything in the house and our one child at the time for a few

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months. And so when I had my health issues,

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she didn’t think twice. She knew that if the shoes were the

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seats, whatever, the roles were reversed, I would be there for her and I would

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take care of it because I had. Right. And so I think this is another

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one of those, when the roles get reversed, she’ll know that I would take

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care of it as well in the same way. And, yeah, it’s hard. Like, it’s

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Yvette. It’s super hard. Right. And, like, it usually means

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that on Tuesday and Thursday night, right now, I am going out to a coffee

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shop at night so that I can work in the quiet and do any, like,

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focus work. I need to do emails and writing and all this kind of thing.

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And that she’ll be home with the kids. And that’s a sacrifice we’re making right

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now. But all of life is choices. Well, I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I

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can’t. Well, we make choices and we are making some sacrifices right

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now to make it possible to do the thing we think is best. And I

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don’t. I don’t want to go too long on this, but, like, already it’s just

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been, what, January, February, March, April, May, June.

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Not quite July. It’s like six months. Yeah. Since we started.

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And I can see such a difference in my kids already. They’re already

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great kids, but, like, their relationship, like, on our

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podcast, I always ask, what’s the greatest, unexpected blessing you’ve had from

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homeschooling? And almost every person says, my relationship with my kids

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or my kids relationship with each other. Yeah. My kids still fight. Cause they’re

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kids, right. But they play together better than

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they ever have before and they amuse their imagination and they love one another.

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And it’s just good. It’s good. Yeah.

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Yeah. I love what the Lord’s doing with your family. And I love that you

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00:21:17,274 –> 00:21:20,472
and Brigitte can come together as a

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couple. And, you know, you think about the vows that we take when we get

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married, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. And I don’t think

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a lot of people really think through those when we say those words

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to one another. But that’s really what you’ve done. I mean, in sickness and in

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health, you’ve cared for one another for better or for worse. You know, you guys

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are in a season that’s difficult right now where she’s having to work to support

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the family financially. As you’re building a business

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and at some point in God’s perfect time, that’s going to turn and she’s going

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to be able to come home, amen. And fulfill the role that God

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has given her as mom. But it’s not that either of you are doing the

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wrong thing. You’re just supporting one another and doing what God’s called you to do.

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And so I love that. I love that you guys are working together and that

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as a family, you’re building relationships with one another, you know, your kids with

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one another and you with your kids. I mean, man, there’s

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nothing better than being able to be home and be that

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influence in their lives. And, and kids need dads desperately. And

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we’re going to talk more about that when we come back on Wednesday. We’re going

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to talk about fatherhood and the importance of fatherhood and being

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fully present with your kids. And so we don’t get to talk to a whole

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lot of dads about these things. So I’m super excited about that. But we will

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be back to talk about that really quickly before we close

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out, and we’ll talk about this later in the week. But

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tell our audience very quickly about a conference that you have coming

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00:22:40,194 –> 00:22:44,026
up in August. Yeah, August 1 through third, we’re going to be hosting the

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00:22:44,058 –> 00:22:47,682
Brave conference, which I’m super excited about. The idea of the

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00:22:47,706 –> 00:22:50,466
Brave conference being that no matter where you are in your homeschool journey, there is

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00:22:50,498 –> 00:22:54,290
some season that’s next for you for which you need some courage. Yeah. And so

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00:22:54,330 –> 00:22:57,850
brave 2024 courage for what’s next. Amazing speakers, awesome

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00:22:57,890 –> 00:23:01,602
sponsors, practical tips, not fluff, and not a pre existing

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00:23:01,626 –> 00:23:05,248
YouTube video. That’s my short piece. It’s going to be awesome. Yep. And

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00:23:05,264 –> 00:23:08,784
it’s online, you guys. This is an online conference, so one that

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anybody can participate in wherever you live. It doesn’t matter. You can be part of

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00:23:12,264 –> 00:23:15,424
this online conference. So if you want to hear more about it, you can go

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to schoolhouse rocked.com brave and we’ll put links to

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00:23:19,184 –> 00:23:22,160
that in the show notes. Stay tuned to the very end to hear what’s coming

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up next on the podcast. And if you guys have not left a review for

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00:23:25,656 –> 00:23:29,296
this podcast, we would greatly appreciate that helps so much for other

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00:23:29,328 –> 00:23:31,848
people to be able to find it. Have a great rest of your day and

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we will see you back here next time. Bye.

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This is hard, right? Because in the, let’s say, seventies, eighties, and nineties,

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especially, men were taught to become more

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sensitive, become and even told to be more feminine. That’s

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not the right approach. Right. It’s okay to be a

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00:23:52,120 –> 00:23:55,460
man. Yeah. Right. Whatever. And to

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be emotionally available,

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it doesn’t mean you have to be soft. It means you have to learn to

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00:24:03,076 –> 00:24:06,652
communicate, whether you’re a woman or a man, communicate about your emotions. These are

403
00:24:06,676 –> 00:24:09,932
important things to be able to do. Yeah. And what’s an appropriate way to deal

404
00:24:09,956 –> 00:24:13,180
with those emotions? What’s an inappropriate way to deal with those emotions? Because kids are

405
00:24:13,220 –> 00:24:16,148
watching us. The only way that I know how to be a father. I had

406
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a couple positive, real male male role models as I grew

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up, um, for short periods of time. But honestly, it was

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after I got saved in my early twenties that I was driving across the

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00:24:27,216 –> 00:24:31,008
state one day in the middle of a rainstorm. And I have this

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00:24:31,104 –> 00:24:34,344
epiphany that for the first time in my life, I had a relationship with someone

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who could be the perfect example for a father to me, and that was God.