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🦠166: Homeschooling While WFH with Kathryn Haydon

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Pivot Insider member and creativity expert Kathryn Haydon is here to help parents “turn a difficult time into a time of possibility.” Over the past decade, she has written four books, several hundred articles, taught and trained thousands of kids, educators, and businesspeople, all while working from home and homeschooling her son, while her husband worked long hours at the office and on weekends.

Before we get into her many helpful ideas for homeschooling while WFH, a caveat: just hours after we finished recording, I read a New York Times article titled, “I Refuse to Run a Coronavirus Home School.” If you’re already maxed out with kids and home and trying to get your own work done, that article may provide much-needed solace! You have permission not to Pinterest your pandemic, as we said in episode 162.

If/when you do want some best practices from someone who home schooled for over a decade while also working from home, this episode is always here for you!

Kathryn is also a great podcast success story: she listened to the episode with Rohit Bhargava from December 2017, 75: Become a Trend Curator, reached out to him, and next thing you know his imprint Non-Obvious Guides was publishing her book, The Non-Obvious Guide to Being More Creative, No Matter Where You Work!

For a deeper dive, check out Kathryn’s Course: Work From Home With Kids and THRIVE (Enter discount code PIVOTTHRIVE20 for 5% off) , and this great list of online learning resources for kids from my business attorney, Francine Love.

View full show notes from this episode at http://pivotmethod.com/166 »

What’s on your mind? Submit follow-up questions for a future conversation at http://pivotmethod.com/ask

Background from our kick-off to this Pivoting Around A Pandemic series, episode 159: With so much happening daily in the world and global economy around coronavirus, we’re all dealing with massive amounts of uncertainty, pivots at work, and for many—fear and anxiety that comes with not only the health concerns, but questions around how to maintain our livelihoods moving forward.

When Momentum member and pandemic expert Dr. Michael J. Consuelos reached out to offer himself as a resource to the JBE team and the MoMo community, I jumped at the chance to record a conversation for all of you as well, which has now turned into a full-blown series:

More About Kathryn

Rainer Maria Rilke in 1900 (Wikipedia)

Kathryn Haydon, creativity and innovation expert, founded Sparkitivity to deliver training, workshops, and keynotes that help you future-proof your business and career.

She teaches courageous leaders and teams to apply the science of creativity to grow revenue, cut costs, and add innovative value in a fast-paced world. Her clients span industries, from Bosch and ZipRecruiter to banks, accounting firms, and educational institutions. Kathryn began her career in banking and moved into the science of creativity to understand the structures and practices that support the full contribution of individuals and teams in the workplace and in learning.

She is the author of the award-winning The Non-Obvious Guide to Being More Creative, No Matter Where You Work and co-author of Creativity for Everybody. Kathryn has written and spoken widely on creative thinking, learning, talent development, and the secret strengths of outlier thinkers, including several chapters in edited volumes and hundreds of articles. She is a regular contributor to publications like Psychology Today, and her work has been featured in The Washington Post.

Topics Covered

  • Reactive and creative are spelled with the same letters

  • Possibility question: What might be all the ways . . . 

  • What shifts as kids grow older? Different stages?

  • What about parents who need their kids to do schoolwork, but who are also WFH?

  • How to stay out of the fear spiral, obsessive control over learning

  • Learning in the margins, let go of expectations

  • De-schooling: take unscheduled time; stop, feel how things might be different

  • What do you wish you had known when you started?

  • What lessons did you figure out the hard way?

  • What did you do on days where your patience was thin? What about days where your kid just doesn’t want to learn?

  • Find your own time, space, ground rules

  • Every homeschooler has a different philosophy of learning; states have different mandates (in NY, report quarterly) 

  • My sister-in-law Gil’s MOMtessori invitation to the extended family

  • Activities: go to a class, historic site, unschooling (follow their children’s interests), Skype or FaceTime with family members

  • Build on your children’s strengths and interests, especially during times of stress

  • How to involve your kids in the process 

  • Interest inventory to identify things they love, the way you like to learn, the way you like to create

  • The Centers Approach: different stations around the house, things like craft projects, money sorting

  • Tactile items and asynchronous learning

  • Daily themes: fashion show, farm animals,

  • Balancing work with homeschooling, mingling of many worlds

  • Focus on your priorities, build your schedule around deep work 

  • Create a vision for yourself: it would be great if . . . 

  • Learning as part of life

  • Life skills; help the family move forward

Resources Mentioned

Check out other episodes of the Pivot Podcast here. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen, and if you enjoy the show I would be very grateful for a rating and/or review! Sign-up for my weekly(ish) #PivotList newsletter to receive curated round-ups of what I’m reading, watching, listening to, and new tools I’m geeking out on.