Jane McFadden:
Hello and welcome to another episode. If you’ve clicked on this and wondering, did I really pull three kids out of school and move to homeschooling? Yes, it is partially true. My daughter, who was in grade three, we’ve already tried a public school and I didn’t feel like the bullying and the mental health well-being was managed well.

I didn’t feel like there was enough resources and I felt like she just got lost and I didn’t feel like there was really any education on what a high-masking, neurodiverse girl looks like. So we decided to leave that public school. We moved into a private school that one of my good friends works in, so I had some really good intel about what it was like.

One of the things with the private schools in this area is, I’m assuming it’s something to do with the cell, in that they do a transient move into grade seven from grade three, so they start to prepare them for high school. We did an absolute huge amount of work in the lead-up. The school were fantastic, the inclusion plans, the transition was all followed.

You can’t do much more than what I did and we had the best set-up possible. However, it wasn’t enough. I think the jump from having a classroom teacher that my daughter just really connected with to subject changes and a violin and a laptop and Japanese and a lot of the extras that come with private schooling, and I absolutely would recommend this school to someone else who was academic, it is a really good school.

However, probably the high amounts of pressure that my daughter felt and the decline in her mental health that moved quite rapidly just after I did this interview, we consulted with medical professionals and mental health professionals that have worked with my daughter for a long time who both agreed that moving to a homeschool or a distance education was the right thing to do. I really have to thank Nicky from the Wildlings for opening up my eyes that things can work differently. I’m not somebody that I ever would have imagined would ever homeschool or use distance education as a tool for one of my children.

And there was a huge amount of grieving that went from my idea of being a mother was that I would have 3 kids on a bus going to school 5 days a week and coming home every day and I’ve got my son repeating kindy and I’ve got my daughter now in distance education. I really have gone through a grieving process that my life is not the way I thought it was going to look and parenting has not been the way that I thought it was going to look and I think we all need to acknowledge that. That’s a huge deal actually and expectations versus reality do not always meet.

We did move to homeschooling initially and my lack of ability, care, knowledge, interest in teaching has become very obvious. It’s definitely not an area of interest and so we’ve ended up moving to like a reduced distance education model where they only are doing English and maths and I think health with my daughter to begin with and if she shows interest and wants to do more she can. It is online and then she goes to a drop-off homeschool program a couple of days a week.

How is she? Thriving. Absolutely thriving. It was a decision that I didn’t want to make but it was one of those that you look back and just feel validated that you have to follow your gut as a mother.

One of the things that weighed up for me was the amount of worrying that I was doing about her and how she was. Getting her ready in the morning and pushing her, reminding her, prompting her and having her drag her feet and cry in the mornings and then in the afternoon pick up she would be very upset and at night how many hours was I spending trying to get her to go to sleep reassuring her, managing anxiety and then on the phone with the teachers trying to manage plans. When I weighed up what that was costing me versus what it would cost me to have her in a drop-off homeschool program with a teacher all she does is build their sense of confidence and identity and it’s a small group of four girls that are the same age.

And I suppose as well I looked out around social time and I looked at, okay, well is she actually socializing at school or is she actually so withdrawn and overwhelmed and shut down that she’s not able to? That was true. So she’s at a homeschool program three days a week doing a distance education program that’s very much reduced. She has a teacher online and then she’s with me but doing schoolwork and I work from home anyway two days a week.

This episode is not to convert people to homeschooling or distance education. This is absolutely not something that everybody can or should do or even is best for the child. Some kids, you know, love mainstream schooling and they’re happy there.

I suppose for me this episode’s really important about providing options, another way of thinking. Providing mums of neurodivergent kids an eye opener on how things could look differently. We are told by everybody around us that we must do it this way but how that education looks I believe needs to be a bit more flexible.

I think COVID has absolutely changed the workplaces and we all have, I think, more opportunities to do online courses, study, work from home, negotiate a flexible arrangements and that’s been really important for neurodivergent people. However, that hasn’t happened yet for schools and I can see the difference in my daughter. I’m going to read you what she wrote down as the reasons why she left school.

It’s because there is too much pressure. Like with the timers, having to do maths with timers and English with timers. But if they give me more time it’s just so embarrassing for me.

There is too many things like chapel, strings, Japanese and sport. I don’t feel like me when I’m at school. I feel really weird and funny and something’s happening where I just feel so, so, so, so sad.

I have too much pressure on me when it’s school but in homeschool there’s no pressure, there’s no timers at all. Everyone’s happy and asks me if I’m okay. There’s not that many kids which is really good for me and I love to homeschool because it means I can be me.

When I go to sleep at night I feel happy and when I wake up in the morning I feel happy. That’s why I go to homeschool. That’s a note she wrote for her friends because I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t at school anymore.

And I’ve only done this with my daughter who desperately needed it but I wouldn’t necessarily do that with my middle son and all my younger sons. But I love the flexibility and I love the open options and the fact that we can choose and that’s what this episode is about. It’s about choosing and opening your mind up to a different possibility.

So let’s jump right into it. I really enjoyed it and I hope that you do too. Hello and welcome to the next episode of ADHD Mums.

Today we have Nikki Farrell. How are you Nikki?

Nikki Farrell:
I’m very, very well despite a few tech difficulties we’re here. I’ve had a beautiful morning splash at a waterhole out at Bulumba Creek so really what a better way to start the week.

Jane McFadden:
Wow. Okay. I think I’ve got to learn a lot from you Nikki.

This is going to be interesting. Okay. So I’m going to do a bit of a background into Nikki. Nikki is based on the Sunshine Coast so most people on the Sunshine Coast know about Wildlings Warwicks Forest School but if you don’t I think it’s starting to expand nationally. Is that right Nikki?

Nikki Farrell:
Definitely through South East Queensland and I guess our teaching, our education for educators is definitely hitting Australia wide.

Jane McFadden:
Yeah, I’ve noticed that because I do follow a lot of your stuff but we’ll get to that. So Nikki is a teacher. She’s an unschooling mumma. She’s a changemaker and a children’s right advocate who has been running nature play programs and educator workshops across South East Queensland for the last seven years.

The reason that she’s done this is because of a general frustration with a lack of movement in classrooms and a lack of schooling options for her own children which led to her passion in alternative education and child advocacy which led her to co-create the Wildlings Forest School which is a space that ticked all the boxes as a parent and an educator. So a little bit more about Nikki. Nikki has two boys who are 11 and 9 and I have been to a couple of your forest kindies and I absolutely can see a neurodiverse clientele that you’ve got there.

We just had a little chat offline and Nikki said that she does notice some symptoms of neurodiversity within herself but she hasn’t got assessed yet. Is that correct?

Nikki Farrell:
Yeah, absolutely. It was funny. I clicked on one of your beautiful offerings and I was like, I need to deep dive into this because I just know how helpful it’s going to be not just for me but my family as well.

Jane McFadden:
Yeah, there’s a little bit of crossover here between you and I, I think. It’s really funny because I have been circling Nikki for a while and I’ve been to her forest kindies a couple of times.

I’ve always just assumed that you and your co-founder and everybody was neurodiverse and when I go to the forest kindies particularly, I’m like, wow, this is right up my alley and I love the parents there. Some of the stuff that’s happened there is hilarious, right? It’s really good fun.

It’s always a ride actually and I always made the assumption that you were neurodiverse and then we’ve had all these tech and timing problems and link problems and I’m like, it just feels like Nikki might have an assessment coming her way at some point.

Nikki Farrell:
Absolutely. The time blindness when I discovered what time blindness meant, I was talking to my husband because he is not neurodiverse and he just operates so smoothly in the world and he just doesn’t understand sometimes and when I discovered what time blindness was, I was like, oh my God, that’s it. I can’t predict.

I don’t have a map in front of me telling me the exact time and I was saying to Jane, I gave myself an extra half an hour to get here and I was still nearly 20 minutes late.

Jane McFadden:
Well, after I reassured you, I was like, I wonder if she’s ADHD. I wonder if I should just ask because I was like, I’m really getting a neurodiverse vibe here but I don’t want to be that person.

Now, Nikki, congratulations on firstly, just I think paving the way in alternative education. I heard that the Sunshine Coast is the home education kind of capital of Australia. Is that correct?

Nikki Farrell:
Yeah, as Southeast Queensland, I think as a whole, but particularly the Sunshine Coast, I think only Byron, which isn’t much of a surprise. The Northern Rivers might be very close as well. That’s not very surprising.

But yeah, and you look at what we do and how we operate, the amount of small businesses, people that run from home, people that need to be their own bosses so they can arrive to work not on time but when they can get there.

It makes sense to me that homeschooling is so big because I actually feel like there’s quite a neurodiverse population here on the coast too.

Jane McFadden:
What I really want to pick your brain about is around the how because I think as ADHD mums, sometimes we lack the steps. We’re like, okay, I actually might want to look at distance education or home education, but I work, I don’t know what to do and then you might join a group on Facebook and then you’re like, oh, well, that’s overwhelming.

Do you reckon you could lay out some steps as to how it actually looks in real life because I reckon that’s been really missing.

Nikki Farrell:
Yeah, and look, I feel very seen. I remember going on the exact same pages and the homeschooling pages and just going, well, no, it’s too much, too overwhelming and I’m backing out.

I think what’s helped me is being a teacher and seeing the other side of it and realising when I had my own children that I didn’t actually want that for my own children and that was a really huge and to be honest, it took a lot to admit that, admit that I’d been part of the problem as a teacher as well and that I hadn’t treated children how I would like my own to be treated and I didn’t realise that until I became a parent and so the how for me with the suspicions that I have about where I might lie on the spectrum or spectrums is that homeschooling works best for me because it is just flow and I can go with my own flow and with my children’s flow as well.

So I guess the steps would be are you going to start homeschooling straight away or are you in school right now and having trouble is your child struggling with what could be a myriad of things really but are they having trouble at school feeling safe and if so, are you ready to leave? So if you’re at the point where you think you’d like to start, it’s a lot easier. You don’t have to register here in Queensland until you’re six and a half so you actually have a bit of grace time.

You can just continue doing kindy, you can continue doing childcare for a little bit longer or you can do what we did and just let the children play which was really nice and I think I saw the difference when there was a real tug, a real grieving moment when my children didn’t go to school and my friend’s children did. My child’s having separation anxiety, coming home crying, they’re exhausted. I’m already getting phone calls from the teacher about him not being able to sit still or that she can’t focus, that she needs to read more and do homework and prep and that was when it solidified for me my children don’t need to be in this.

I guess my philosophy for my family is I want them to not just be fine, I want them to thrive and I thought I was a pretty good model for school, probably more lucky that I grew up in a tiny, tiny school. Classes of 15 were the biggest and so we got a lot more attention and I played netball with my teachers so they knew us on a deep, deep relational level and so they were able to cater our classes and our lessons and all the work for us and I just don’t think you can do that in schools anymore. You don’t get classes at 15.

Totally gone on a tangent and I guess going back to that, if you then get into school and you decide you need to leave then all you need to do is change your registration so you move from a school registration over to a home education registration through the home education unit. There’s a lot of help on the home education association. The best thing I would say that if you’re struggling with taking on all that information is go and shout and mum or dad a cup of tea or a cup of coffee and pick their brain and ask the questions that you really want to ask because there is so much information there and it seems really scary.

The reporting can seem really scary but I know people that do two paid reports at the end of the year and that’s enough. You just need to show progress. You don’t need to show that you are matching and getting A’s in the curriculum for example so take the pressure off yourself and really think about what you want for your child’s future and I would say it’s probably good wellbeing, health, mental health, physical health, emotional health and then how can you support that and if you can’t then how can your network or people in the homeschooling network support that because you don’t have to do it on your own and you shouldn’t.

It’s too much. It’s too hard. If I was doing it on my own my kids would be at school flat out.

Jane McFadden:
So yeah. Yeah, I love where this is going. I’m a little bit concerned I’m going to end up a hardcore homeschooler by the end of this conversation so I’m a little bit nervous.

Nikki Farrell:
It does feel a bit like a cult coming down to wildlings. People come not intending to homeschool and then somewhere along the line they dip in they’ll take a child out for a mental health day once a fortnight once a month and then suddenly they find themselves homeschooling and there’s very few that turn back which I think is the green flag for me. If I saw more people coming in and then going out and back to school I’d go oh maybe there is something missing maybe maybe this is better for my child but that’s the individual thing too.

I know families that have got one child in school and one homeschooling because education needs to be individualised. We talk about it in the schooling system as differentiation but how much can we truly differentiate when we’ve got 25 and 28 children in the class and a curriculum to get through in a really packed calendar so yeah it might be a few that convert.

Jane McFadden:
I’ve got so many questions I’m going to try and keep on track. I’ve got a lot written down already this is going to be problematic.

This question is out of nowhere and I know it’s without notice. There’s been a big outcry around the special schools in Queensland shutting down and they changed the intellectual disability now they’ve made it so low that it’s so difficult to get into those schools right so there’s a couple of kids at our school who their parents really want them to be at a special school but they can’t get in so they’re coming across to another school and then there’s a lot of resources being used with those children which is fair enough I mean absolutely as their parents I would want that and I’ll be actually doing exactly the same.

However from the teacher’s point of view it’s a complete mess right and I can only imagine what they go through every day and I’m hoping that they actually go ahead and rehaul overhaul the entire system because of the special education school being taken away. What impact do you think that’s going to have on the schools as that happens do you think it will be positive or negative?

Nikki Farrell:
I’m going to speak from I guess anecdotal personal experience more than try to cover I guess what everybody thinks. I didn’t work in our special education unit at the school that I worked at here for a year between my children and it was really eye-opening in a lot of ways because in a lot of ways it was the safe place for a lot of students that were so I worked at a high school so a bit of backstory worked at a high school really large public high school and I guess the special ed unit was where the numeracy and literacy generally was taught and then students would go out into the mainstream I’m sorry quote doing air quotes here for most other classes particularly the electives but quite often they’d come for lunches they’d come for extra help with extra subjects tutoring or if they were just having a rough time so while we weren’t a special school as such most schools will have particularly bigger schools a special education unit and they’ll be called different things learning units learning centres whatever you’d like to call them they’re places where people will get accommodations and help that they need to make their journey easier not even easier just sometimes just neutral I they were full they were packed we were under resource we were understaffed then so my biggest concern would be if we aren’t getting a shit tonne more budget then we are going to be even more under resource and more understaffed and everybody is going to feel that negatively and I’m not sure how teaching staff learning staff and the students are going to cope with that and that’s it that’s my main thing if we can get the budget we can get the help we can get the staff we can get the training but currently the way that I think this is going to go on a bit of a tangent here but public schools here are not funded as well as public schools private schools are funded three ways state federal and parent whereas state schools are only funded with state funding so we are one third of the funding of a private school and yet generally in lower socioeconomic areas and where our budgets are being cut so if we can get the funding amazing do I think we’re going to get it absolutely not so that’s my concern my concern is that these children are going to be just lambs to the slaughter frankly.

Jane McFadden:
Yeah and I think just even just basic confidence self-esteem and getting those positive experiences daily which is so important for any child it does worry me that the setups that we’re seeing at the moment doesn’t foster well-being it actually pushes kids down if I can say that because that’s what I’ve seen and experienced yeah and I think there’s just not a there’s not enough safe spaces there’s not enough places or more to the point people there are just not enough people safe people to go to because they’re busy they’ve got their own classes they’ve got their own issues and so if we’re taking and the lack of training we are just as teachers we are not trained and I think I did and granted my training was a long time ago it was probably 15 years ago now and probably a bit longer even and I did one subject on additional needs and that was it in four years and it was a taste of everything there were no tools there were no strategies and so everything I learned I learned the hard way on children who were essentially my guinea pigs for me going is this good is this bad is this working for this particular student their feedback was that was a bad thing to do work was safe so it’s awful we should be so much better equipped in general to serve these children even remotely well.

Nikki Farrell:
Yeah I agree and I think parents who I’ve spoken to really understand that it’s not the teachers personally it’s the usually great people that are just stretched so bloody thin that they just can’t do the most kind of it seems basic from a parent point of view when you’re just talking about my child just needs this tiny thing but from a teacher’s perspective I can only imagine what it would be like and I struggle on a weekend with my three kids and I don’t have to teach them anything so I’m trying to imagine how you would do that with so many and actually try and teach them something because I honestly would be completely overwhelmed.

Jane McFadden:
It’s truly an impossible ask in the system and I don’t want to set it up as school bad homeschooling best because again the spectrums all the spectrums and teachers are doing the best that they can and I have to say even the system is probably doing the best it can with the mass numbers we’re trying to educate but there lies the problem I believe is we have taken away this small village learning and relational learning and our classes are too big and our budgets are too small and we don’t have enough time and we’re focusing so hard on academics and if we don’t have well being and we don’t feel safe we can’t learn and it’s really hard for someone who is not having their needs met to feel safe so how are they learning so what are we doing honestly what are we doing.

I just wonder what is it for like when I went to my daughter’s athletics carnival I think it was last year and she was so nervous right and she’s not gifted sport wise she doesn’t have great gross motor skills she’s definitely more creative more arty and when I was at school I really excelled in sports so I always thought they were great fun never had really thought about it and all she was concerned about was coming last and everybody saying yeah and I’ve never really experienced any of those sort patterns as a child and I was like this is actually new for me so anyway watching it and looking at it just as her mother who only loves her and she is my priority not the rest of the day and how it works I don’t care I just want my child to be okay and I realized when we walked up that they had their finish line right in front of all the parents like this big banner and everything and then they all had to like run and then everyone was lined up clapping as they came through and then everyone like slow clapped the end and I understand the thought pattern behind it is to support the kids that are coming last and it’s meant that way absolutely but from the perspective of the child that’s being clapped in they just actually want to just wandering very quietly themselves so nobody notices them they don’t want someone clapping them for finishing like to encourage them because it’s humiliating and as I watched it I actually started to get a bit teary because I thought what the fuck is this yeah why are we here what are we doing yeah why are we why are we even figuring out who came first in this shit show who gives a shit who gives a shit and I just was like oh my god and everything I look at now I’m like why is she playing violin and doing Japanese what’s that for she ever gonna go to Japan and when we do the inclusion meeting because I’m very very honest and I don’t I very rarely raise my voice I’m not temperamental at all but I do say what I think just to someone’s face like I just said to the inclusion person but do you really think she needs to learn Japanese in grade two and they’re like oh well that’s our school’s policy and I’m like well that seems really stupid have you actually thought about that because she can’t read yet and I just and then you could see the inclusion head and the class teacher just like didn’t know where to look so I was thinking I bet you I’m right because I’m thinking I’m no teacher here but this seems like they should just go over the basics with her and it’s year two in some Nordic countries they’re still not even learning to read and write they’re just bloody playing because that’s all children need and I’m just going but does she need to have a violin and have a laptop because I’m confused and there’s a lot of these extra stuff where I’m like going what’s that for are you just filling in time because none of that means anything like that it just feels like to me because I want things to be meaningful and I struggle with small talk and shit that doesn’t matter and so when she tells me about how she’s learning D on the violin and I’m like why does that matter why are you getting stressed out about it she doesn’t want to learn the violin.

Nikki Farrell:
Oh Jane I’ve just had flashes of your future and I just know where you’re going.

Jane McFadden:
I know where I’m going too which is why I’m getting stressed out that I’m on this thing that’s not going to make me feel like I’m I love I want to reassure people that homeschooling can be as difficult as you want to make it or it can be I’m not going to say easy because it’s still life and you’re still parenting right so you’re still parenting children that have their own needs so it will still be difficult at times but you have choice and you have intrinsic motivation and And once you work out that none of it matters, your children will learn to read and write and add up.

And that’s all they need until they work out what they want to do. And then from there, you can help them get the support they need. Once they show the interest in what they’re actually interested in, they’ll learn all of that.

We live in a literate society. Unless your parents, your siblings, your friends, and everybody around you are not literate, your child will learn to read. And I’m an English teacher and I’m a PE teacher.

And I too, oh gosh, I have so many thoughts, Jane. If you haven’t read Alfie Kohn, please read Alfie Kohn on reward and punishment. Our whole school system is based on reward and punishment.

And when you think about it, even when you reward, and you would know this as a psychologist too, that if I’m rewarding one sibling in front of the other, what I’m doing is actually punishing the other because I’m comparing them straight away. So when I’m rewarding Jane for having won that race, that’s amazing. What I’m actually doing is punishing the other 20 children for not winning.

So who’s winning here? One person out of 20. So is this actually a great system for everybody? No. So what I’ve worked out along the years is that I’m actually a child advocate and I’m, and this is where I think I might have the bit of AUD too, is that I’m a social justice warrior.

And when things aren’t fair, I don’t like it. And I will take myself out of those systems. And it’s funny.

I grew up to, I was a very good girl. I did very well at school because I was a very good girl. And that’s, it suited me at the time, but the older I’ve got, the more the ick I feel around it because I don’t believe in it now.

And I look at children on days like today when my children have been out at the water hole on a beautiful day with 20 other children playing and learning really naturally. And we saw the school buses go past as we were driving and I went, oh, my heart breaks. And I’m, but I’ve been in this for a long time, right? And I know my children are reading, they’re writing, they’re playing, they have great relationships.

What more do I want for my children? So why am I making them do these other things? Because we’re schooled and our whole system is based around being schooled in all ways, shapes and forms. And some of this will feel really controversial and will bring up a lot of feelings in people who are hearing this. And some of you go, oh, this one is crazy, is how much are they going to learn and read and write? It’s all very easy for you as a teacher.

I don’t teach them. I don’t teach them anything. I don’t follow a curriculum.

I don’t do workbooks. I don’t do worksheets. I am the farthest left unschooling.

I’m not a radical unschooler, like I don’t have unlimited access to screens or unlimited access to the fridge or whatever food they want to eat. But as far as education goes, they’re not on their own, but they learn themselves. And that seems like a crazy radical idea until you read a bit.

Peter Gray’s free to learn when he’s an anthropologist and psychologist, and he talks about how we grew up in villages. And we learned through osmosis by viewing and observing the adults and now aunties and uncles and friends around us. And we kind of veer towards who we felt safe with and what activities we were interested in.

And that’s how we would learn. And we did. So.

I think we need to redefine what success looks like. I think we need to redefine what we think happiness is. And from there, we just start slowly making changes.

It doesn’t need to be straight away. It doesn’t need to be five days a week. You can talk to a school about doing part time.

A lot of them will arc up about that, but they’ll take your enrolment because that’s how they get funding. So. Just quietly, you won’t get a letter from your school until you’ve reached 80 percent attendance rate.

So if you’ve taken 20 percent of your time off, you’ll get a letter. You won’t get a call from anybody until a few more days after that. That’s around 60 percent when they might come and do a welfare check.

But if you have a relationship with your school and they know what you’re doing and they know that you’re going to wildlings or gymnastics or something that really helps fuel your child’s wellbeing. I don’t know many that have said absolute no to that. So keep your toe in, see what it’s like.

Join a homeschool co-op. Just start your own. And by a co-op, I just mean grab some friends, play together and see what comes up and out of that and follow the children’s interests.

And it also doesn’t have to be forever. If you go, that was great for a year, but holy crap, I’m overwhelmed. I’m not dealing with this.

I need more time. Put them back in school. It doesn’t have to be forever.

So take the pressure off yourself.

Jane McFadden:
Yeah, I do know what you mean with the rewards and punishment, because that’s become a real problem for me hearing about that and the amount of pressure and stress that my daughter’s under in grade three. And then the way that they reward the kids that do this, like do the homework and they reward this to do that.

And then everyone else is just like kind of left sitting there watching the other ones get rewarded. And I’m like, that’s actually really fucked up and feeling dumb. And then because I said to my daughter, you want me to just write a letter, like I’ll just write a letter and say you didn’t do your homework.

Like, I don’t care. It’s not you’re not doing it for me. I said to her at the start of the year, I don’t actually care if you do homework or not.

I prefer you didn’t. Let me just write a letter and I’m pretty sure I can get around it. Let’s not worry about it.

And then she said the amount of pressure that the teacher puts on them to get this thing done, she will actually like turn herself inside out to do that. Which is what you’re talking about, that good girl behavior. And so, yeah, I’m whenever anyone talks about high school, I’m always like, yeah, I don’t know if we’ll be doing high school.

Nikki Farrell:
I’m just not sure. So as a high school teacher, that’s why I left was the mental health for me. It was and it’s not just school, right? Like I can’t just say school’s the problem because obviously there’s family issues and cultural, societal issues as well.

And I’ve got friends who are still high school teachers that saying the children that are coming through post-COVID are having a lot more trouble. With school, so for me, I was just thinking these children don’t need me to teach Shakespeare right now, what they need is an adult that they can talk to about their problems, but I’m not allowed to do that in an English class where I only have them for three hours. And if I can’t do that for six hours a day, who the heck is? And it’s the guidance counselor who has a lineup out their door.

It’s not enough, we’re not again, we’re not resourced enough to deal with the issues that children and sometimes it is really innocuous to adults. It seems like something really minor, kind of we want to gaslight and say, oh, it’s OK, you’ll be fine, get over it. But it’s really big for them as teenagers and we forget how big our feelings are as teenagers and how important they are.

And they’re not allowed to talk in class, so they can only talk at lunchtime and only talking to peers. So they’re not really getting any adult perspective. So sometimes those things that are quite small, they’re not able to talk to anyone during the day to make them smaller.

And it’s a really, it can be a really rough time for a lot of children in any school, but particularly in high school. And I kept finding myself saying, don’t worry, school’s over soon and then you can get on with real life. And I went, holy shit, what am I saying that this isn’t real life? Because it’s not, it’s not.

You know, we’re in the rest of the world in your life where you hang out with only people of the same age, only studying the same thing, competing against your peers. I don’t compete with any of my peers. I work so beautifully and collaboratively with my team.

I don’t, I’ve not done an exam unless I’ve studied. Why would I do an exam in my work? It’s just ridiculous when you, when you really start to think about. So I’m getting very passionate.

And again, I’m going to be making people feel really uncomfortable.

Jane McFadden:
Oh, no, look, I’m here for it. Look, if people clicked on this episode, they’re here for a reason. Let’s talk about the elephant in the room, because the people listening are going to be like, well, that’s nice for you. You’re probably living in a $10 million house with Chris Hemsworth being your husband. And you’ve probably got the luxury of not working.

Like that’s what people will be thinking, that that’s not something that’s attainable for them if they work. How have you seen people structure this around work?

Nikki Farrell:
Yeah. And thank you for bringing this up because it’s huge. And first of all, I want to acknowledge my privilege. I’m white and I’m heterosexual. So straight away, I move through the world in a lot, in a lot easier way. So boom, there’s that. Yes. Easier.

We were double income, no kids when I met my partner. I still do have a partner, still with my husband and we co-parent really well. So I was going to say lucky. Part of it is luck. Life is always part luck. And the other part is we’ve worked really hard to make that happen.

We communicate really well. We’ve done courses on communication. And again, our motto is we want our family to thrive, and that’s all of us individually as well as family.

So we carve out space for all of us to get our own time. And you need, well, I need that again. Anecdotally, if I was doing this on my own, I would find it a lot harder than I do.

So the privilege of being in partnership is easier, too. Financially, I was teaching and then I was on mat leave. And to be honest, my husband left his teaching job right when we had our first child, made the decision to go back to university.

So we were on Austudy and mat leave. So thank you, government. That’s where my taxes went. And they came back to me during that time. And then I started this business and we didn’t pay ourselves for. Nearly two years, it was definitely 80 months, then it’s 50 bucks a week. Then it was 100 bucks a week. We were skint. We were on the bones of our bare butts for a couple of years.

But I knew this is what I wanted. So I took my long service for a day a week for six months, I think, if I’ve got that right, I don’t think it was a year, I’m sure it was six months. And then I made the leap and went to do this.

I was going to say full time, but it’s never been full time. I’ve never worked five days a week in this business officially. I’ve definitely tapped in for a couple of hours here and a couple of hours there.

And in the early days, I worked nights and I had no, my lines were so blurred between home and business and definitely touched on burnout at points. And the only way I’ve fixed that is by bringing on a team and letting go, letting go of this baby and this baby is not mine and Vicky’s anymore. So I have a business partner as well.

So that is hugely helped getting the business up and running because she’s, I’m going to selfdiagnose her, but definitely both probably ADHD, if not a bunch of other things. And I would say most of our team is as well. So if nothing else, we get it and we’re forgiving of each other’s idiosyncrasies and needs and accommodating to them as well.

But I think above all, we’re all very flexible and we all appreciate the working from home. So it doesn’t matter if I’m still in my pajamas at 10 o’clock, it doesn’t matter if my children need me on a homeschooling day. But I’ve never sent my children to childcare or school.

So I’ve had years to, I guess, quote unquote, train them to be able to work around them as well. So right now we’ve had our morning together. They have some chores to do, then they get their screen time and then they’ll be outside and just playing.

And that’s pretty much our life is for three to four days a week. I do work in the mornings and then the afternoons we’ll go and do something. I only have one drop-off session for homeschooling and hilariously, that’s wildlings.

I drop them off at my own business. That’s convenient. And then I go attend two co-ops during the week.

And hilariously, this term is, people go, oh, co-op, that’s where they’re doing their learning. Well, this term we’re doing snorkeling and fishing because it’s hot and wet and gross. And on my other co-op, we’re doing excursion terms.

So we went and did hobby horsing two weeks ago. We went bowling last week and we’re going to Aussie World this week. So that’s our learning this term.

And I would just say we’re just living life and it’s really fun and glorious at the moment. Next term, we do performance term. Term after that, we might do environment and life skills.

It just swaps around. But those co-ops have just been started by other mums that have their own small businesses. None of the mums I know work full-time.

Some of the dads do, some of them part-time. We’ve got single mums. We’ve got queer families.

We’ve got all sorts. It’s a real licorice all sorts and that’s what I love about it. And I think I needed to see that.

Everybody worries about the socialisation and homeschoolers being weird. I’m like, man, if you’re a teacher, you know how many weird kids are in a class. And you know what? The weird kids are often the kindest kids.

And that’s really important to me.

Jane McFadden:
Yeah. So when you say co-op, sorry, I was actually confused what that meant.

Nikki Farrell:
So a co-op is generally parent run and it’s not a drop-off. So the difference between say Wildlings homeschool program is you can drop your children off at ours. It’s only a half day. So that’s probably not enough for a lot of people that need to go to work. Whereas a co-op parents run it, they choose what they’re running and you need to attend with your children.

And that’s just for support. That’s just so one parent doesn’t end up looking after everybody’s children every week. Some co-ops I know rotate homes. And so two parents might stay for each week and two different parents.

So you might get a couple of days off per week or per term. There’s all sorts of drop-offs around the sunshine coast. Some run under family daycare, some run under the radar.

I’ll be quite honest. Some are more like babysitting. There’s a real array of what’s available, but we are so lucky here in the sunny coast, we’ve got robotics, we’ve got Lego, we’ve got dance, we’ve got aerial silks, we’ve got, if you name it, someone’s essentially running something that your child is probably going to be interested in.

And if they’re not, if you put your hand up and say, Hey, I’d like to get Jane in to run psychology 101 for children, you’ll get a group of people that will do it. So most people only don’t offer drop-off because they want to be insured. And it’s a little more difficult to run drop-offs and get insurance.

It’s possible. We run a whole course on it, but it just takes a lot more to set up the business side of things and get insured for it.

Jane McFadden:
Yeah. Okay. Okay. So around work then, I’m keen, but also confused and having time out. So when my daughter was in prep, I immediately couldn’t cope with some of the things that went on and that was my first child hitting prep. So don’t like my chances of getting all three kids, 12 grades probably. But, and then we went and I thought this is ridiculous.

I think actually what happened was my daughter was having some really major sensory issues. So it took 90 minutes to put two pairs of socks on, so a pair on each foot. And then the shoes, that was 90 minutes, nine zero.

So at the end of the first…

Why are you wearing shoes in a classroom?

Nikki Farrell:
Oh, it was ridiculous.

Jane McFadden:
Right. The end of the first term in grade one, I said to the teacher, oh geez, it’s been a bit of a term, hasn’t it? And she said, oh yeah, yep. It’s been, yep, been a bit of a term. Looking forward to when we start basically doing some teaching next term. And I said, what was that? And she says, oh, we’ve just been revising last year. We actually haven’t started the curriculum yet.

And I’m like, what was that? So I’ve just been doing 90 minutes of schools and shoes because I thought that she should come. And you actually haven’t started teaching the curriculum yet because you’re still revising from last year. And she’s like, yeah, yeah. And it was at that point that we bought a caravan and went around Australia in a caravan because I was like, well, it doesn’t seem like missing terms fucking matters at this point. Like apparently they’re not even learning stuff half the time.

But I suppose having the kids with me a lot was really difficult. And the people on this podcast, as you would have it within your wildlings, probably homeschooling group would be a lot of neurodiversity. That means that there can be a bit of a lack of emotional regulation.

There can be a lot of hyperactivity and a lot of on the go. That can be really draining for parents because I think you do get less downtime than a neurotypical family. How does that work with needing a bit of time yourself as well?

Nikki Farrell:
Again, the privilege of when I first began, my husband worked from home too. So he moved from teaching to behaviour management in teaching, special education teaching, and then behaviour management teaching and ended up, long story, anyway, working for himself in a coaching business, long form triathlon, random. And so he was home. So I got my time and he got his time.

And by the end of the day, we would like tag, high five, you’re it, like I’m fucking done. And that’s how it was in the early years. Because I think, I think that is how it is in the early years and definitely more heightened, obviously, than neurodiverse families in general.

But, you know, sometimes work is a form of escape too. And that’s OK. You need to escape and work feels like a safe place or a place where you feel valued and worthy.

You need that too. And I think we need to make sure that we’re not martyring ourselves for our children. We need to make sure that we’re looking after ourselves and our own well-being.

If that means your children need to go to school, that’s OK. We can find accommodations at school. We can do part time schooling, we can, we can work things out.

Look after yourself first. That is the first thing I will say, because Captain can’t go, if you, if you crash the plane crashes. So I guess for me now, it’s been years of training.

So my children just know, like on the way home here, I said, I’m running really late. I need to go straight into a podcast. I’m going to close the door when the doors open.

I’m ready. But my children have been trained for years in this now. So they do get their screen time.

I time my screen time when I have important things on. Not, not worried about giving that to them now at this age. In the early years, I didn’t give them a lot.

Now they do only get about an hour a day. That’s my, that’s my family’s choice. Don’t, like they’re saying, comparison is the thief of joy.

And let it all go and only do what is going to work for your family. Don’t, don’t give a shit what anybody else is doing for their family, because that’s their family and they’ve got their own needs and accommodations they need to meet. If you don’t, you can’t shower your kids every day, don’t shower them every day.

They’re going to survive. If they need an extra hour of screen time so you can get your work done, they’re also going to survive. You can select what they can watch.

If that’s a concern for you. So it is, it will be hard to begin with. And particularly if they’ve been at school, do a lot of research around de-schooling.

And I would, they recommend, they, whoever they are, recommend for every year you’ve been at school, at least a month de-schooling. And what we mean by de-schooling is not talking about school, not making homeschool at home like school, just letting them decompress and realize that you are not going to be their formal teacher. You are not going to reward or punishment for their academics.

You are just creating that safe space and letting their adrenals settle down again and letting them find out where and start thinking about what they might like again. Because often we talk about the school wound and particularly the maths school wound. I’m still unpacking that.

I used to get B’s and often A’s and I still think I’m shit at maths because I wasn’t getting A’s and I wasn’t the top student. So if you think about all the children out there who aren’t getting A’s and B’s, what kind of school wound are they carrying for any of those subjects as well? They’re going to need a long time to even want to find the interest again and trust that you’re not going to judge them and giving them an A or a B at home. So, yeah, it is a wild ride.

It’s a long journey. And particularly being a teacher, I think I’ve had to do extra unschooling, particularly around reading. My youngest learnt to read at six, reading a bird field guide.

Like, you couldn’t write it and you couldn’t make it up. My eldest is, sorry, my youngest is nine. He’s reading, basically.

I’ve had to do a lot of unpacking around that. I know he can read. I know he can understand all the letters.

Yes, he is behind his peers. But again, the research shows that forwarding, making people read earlier actually doesn’t make them better readers in the long term. And in fact, they quite often hate it.

So what I’m trying to do is, A, not make him feel dumb, because if he was at school, he’d be behind, he’d be failing. And B, I’m just encouraging a love of reading. And by that, we’re just reading.

That’s all we’re doing is we’re just reading books he wants to read together. And he loves reading, even though he’s not doing it fluently and easily on his own, he still loves reading. And that’s really important for me that he loves it.

I don’t care if it’s cartoons or magazines or whatever it is. So, yeah, a lot of people will find that really difficult. That would be the no, no, if they’re not reading by nine, I’m out, I’m done.

That’s it. You know, how can he be successful? But I’ve been around it enough now in the community to see, I know children that didn’t start reading until they were 14, 15, and they went from, and the, that, what, to reading novels within two weeks. So we have been schooled our whole life and we don’t know anything outside of school.

And there’s this saying that if schools taught children how to walk, we would assume that teachers need to teach children how to walk. The same with reading. We assume teachers need to teach children how to read.

It’s not true. Children will learn it if they’re in an environment where it’s available. So you do need to be able to resource yourself, but that’s what libraries are for, the greatest asset we have as communities.

So, yeah, I don’t know what tangent I started on.

Jane McFadden:
Oh, no, I love that. I’m fascinated. How’s your neuro spicy diagnosis going?

Nikki Farrell:
Oh, I’ve got a few, got a few bits of feedback for you after we finish recording. I want to address just another elephant in the room. So I loved what you said. I actually missed grade nine and 10 of high school completely. I did not do it. And I changed schools and went back into school in year 11.

And there was this whole thing for my parents around how will she possibly be able to do year 11 without doing grade nine and 10. Now, let me tell you, I decided that I wanted to be there and I wanted to study psychology. So I got nearly a perfect score in my HSC and I actually have no idea why I would have done year nine and 10 because I had such a horrible time there.

So I refused to go. I complete school refusal. I did not go.

And if I went there for an hour, I would then become physically sick and have to be picked up. So I had a very, very strong reaction to school, which is probably why I do have some stuff myself. Sorry, you go.

Nikki Farrell:
Naomi Fisher calls it school can’t. She’s got amazing books for our communities and she talks about even the language school refusal. I’m not refusing.

I can’t. I physically can’t go.

Jane McFadden:
Yeah. And it was can’t because it wasn’t I don’t I don’t really want to go. It was like I actually you will have to pick up my dead body and drop me there and I will lay on the ground because I can’t get up. It was complete.

And then as soon as I get there, I’ve seen photos of myself. I was so pale. I look like a heroin addict.

I was so stressed out. So I love what you said. I’m going to look up that book, actually.

My thought pattern is so around the objection, let’s just say one of your children had a really strong interest in like marine biology or something. Right. Let’s just say one of them goes, mom, I want to be a marine biologist.

And you’re looking at the entrance into uni and you’re like, oh, geez, this is a bit of a high mark that you’re going to need here. How how are you thinking that this is going to work moving into a year 11 and 12?

Nikki Farrell:
OK, remembering I’ve done a lot of letting go. So even some of this is going to be a stretch for people. The first thing is, whose timeline are we sticking to? Why do we need to be at uni at 17 and 18? Are we ready?

Jane McFadden:
That’s a good point. I didn’t even thought of that. 17 and 18.

Nikki Farrell:
So why if he’s interested in marine science, why don’t we go and see if there’s some work experience we can do first and see if you really actually enjoy it? Because I thought I wanted to be a marine biologist. And then I spoke to someone that was doing it was actually just writing science reports. Did you like writing science reports at school? And I was like, no, don’t do it then.

Jane McFadden:
So that’s a good point. Yeah. But also you can once you’ve turned I don’t I don’t have the dates off the top of my head.

Nikki Farrell:
It’s not 18. You might have to wait one year after most people finish year 12. You can go and sit a general entry test.

Get in that way. So that’s one. There’s over 200 different paths to getting into university.

A lot of homeschoolers will start by doing a TAFE certificate, but friends doing a trade. I’ve got a friend doing aviation. He’s 15, a certificate.

And from there, they’ll take that as recognised prior learning. They’ll give you some credits. You can get in that way.

You can do the early entry pathway. You can start uni early. They often don’t need a year 12 exams.

What they want to see is evidence. So your evidence for your reports is enough. And same with a lot of even in I think being a high school teacher also helps because I’ve seen many students say, for example, I want to be a doctor.

Great. I didn’t get the results. Oh, cry for days.

I’m really upset. Actually. You can go and do this biomed degree.

Yes, it’s an extra year study and then you’re in anyway. So there’s a bunch of different pathways to get in and around it. Ultimately, some people aren’t going to like this university is a business and they want your money.

If you if you seem dedicated. They’ll find you a way in.

Jane McFadden:
I think you and I are a bit of a problematic pair, Nikki, because. I actually remember my first day of uni, I remember getting there and I was like pumped right. I was so pumped. I was like, yeah, look at me.

I got into the uni, right? Everyone talks about getting into uni. Now, remember, I’m from Tasmania, right? And when I sat down in the first lecture, I sat down like, look at me. I’m at uni. Look at me. Right. I was so pumped.

And I looked at the person next to me and I was like, hey, how are you? And he’s like, yeah, yeah, good. And I thought, holy shit, how is he here? He didn’t even go to year 12. He I don’t even he got five points.

I don’t even think he showed up. Maybe he wrote his name and he was next to me. And I remember thinking, oh, my God, I think everybody gets in because at Tassie, in fairness, I don’t know, some universities are different and there’s different ways of whatever, but everyone gets in.

And that was really shocking to me that I had basically turned myself inside out for two years. To find that it really wasn’t that big a deal.

Nikki Farrell:
Yeah. And I think this is the thing, and it feels like you’ve been gypped, you’ve been ripped off. I worked my ass off to get here. Yeah.

And this 40 year old woman just did a general entry test and she only went to year 10, 50 years, I don’t know, it feels like 50 years ago, 20 years ago. And she just had a test and she’s in. Look, it is an unfair system and we build it up and build it up.

And even at school, I was the teacher going, ignore it. Don’t worry about your score. Look at everybody that you know.

And the Duxes are generally anxious, stressed out. And generally later in life, we find out that they probably missed a diagnosis as well and that they probably worked their asses off and for what they’re generally not in the university degree they started off in. And often they’re still paying that hexted off.

So are 17 year olds truly equipped to make the decision that they want to spend that amount of money on studying a path that we know now most people have six to eight careers at 17. So I won’t be encouraging my children to go straight into university. Extra study? Absolutely.

Trades? Absolutely. But university, I won’t say no if they say I absolutely want to be a marine biologist and I absolutely want to go this year. Yes, I’m going to support that.

But I will be strongly encouraging them to do lots of work experience first, even going to get a job in that industry first, maybe doing a TAFE certificate. Just minimizing that spend. To see if they really want it, because we also get sold the dream, right? And at 17, everything’s rose colored lenses, marine biology, I want to go train the dolphins.

That’s not what that job is. So, yeah, just having some really realistic talks and with our children about do you actually want to go to university or do you to study or do you just want the lifestyle of that too? Because you can hang out with your uni mates. It’s not a closed doors thing.

We buy into that kind of bullshit, really. It’s elitism, it’s classism.

Jane McFadden:
It’s interesting, though, because like a lot of people, I personally don’t do this anymore, but I used to before I had kids myself. I’d say to a kid, what do you want to be when you grow up or something like you’re just trying to be nice. You don’t know what to say. Anyway, we ran into someone recently and I asked my daughter, who’s eight, what do you want to be when you grow up? She’s such a mini me because she stresses about that stuff.

And she says to me late at night, I don’t know if I want to be an art teacher or whether I want to be a dolphin instructor. And I always say to her, you’re eight, like you really doesn’t matter. And you probably change your mind so many times, if you’re like mummy, that by the time you’re 40, you’ve probably done 10 different things.

Yeah. Anyway, so this person asked her the other day and she turned around and said, I don’t think it really matters what I think now because I’m going to change my mind like 15 times. So I don’t know why you’d ask me that.

And I was like, yes, so good.

Nikki Farrell:
Come and find a deeper relationship to come and talk to me about. And I think that’s even us, though it is. It’s such a my kids get asked all the time. Oh, skipped a day of school today, are we? And my boy’s like, nah, we homeschool. They just used to be smile politely and just nod and not say anything.

And now they go, now we unschool. We’ve been at the beach today. And they really kind of rub it in.

Get on them. Get on them.

Jane McFadden:
I just wanted to touch on the university thing, too. A lot of my friends, I think now, too, we’re sold the dream of university as being this high income thing. But so many of the degrees actually have very limited job opportunities.

Dietitians, very small. Graphic designers, very small. If you’re looking to work in a firm and also your incomes are quite tapped. Teaching, income capped.

It doesn’t matter if you’re the best teacher in Australia. Your income is capped as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, as somebody that dabbles in a bunch of things. You can work three days a week and earn the same amount as someone working five.

You can work seven days a week if you want, while you’re 20 and you can and then work less. So what is this idea of success? What is it that I want my life to feel like? And again, don’t compare to other people because they might want the Gucci bag and the $300,000 stressful corporate job. Awesome.

That’s their dream. That’s amazing. I would not cope. I’d have a mental breakdown. That is not what would suit me. So really, I think writing, and this is how I got here, year by year, not even year by year, day by day, tiny micro changes, heaps of reading, heaps of talking to people in community.

And I also wanted to bring back so people know I live on property now with my mum. So I’m 41 years old and I live with my mum. I thought that would mean heaps more support.

I am sorry. Let me rephrase. I’m very supported by her in what we do, but they work FIFO, they have their own lives.

What I love about it is not the help and the support that we do get. It is because I don’t take them for maths or anything like that. But every now and then when I can’t find my children, I go down and they’re baking cookies with Nana.

And I think, is there actually anything more important than that? No. For me and my life, that’s what I value right now. And that will change and that’s OK.

And if my children ever want to go to school, I’ll say, yeah, let’s try it out. It’s just an experiment. I’ve got no feelings about how it goes.

If it works out, great. And if it doesn’t, we’ll just keep doing what we’re doing. So there’s a lot of letting go, a lot of letting go.

And I think that’s probably one of my best strengths is, yeah, it’s an experiment. Let’s test it out.

Jane McFadden:
You know what I think is interesting, I just love what you said, my middle son, and he’s very driven, right? He’s got a very strong sense of social justice, right? He’s very diverse. And so, of course, for him, with his social justice crusade that he’s on every day about what’s fair and what isn’t, he wants to be a policeman. But he also wants to be rich. So he always writes, I want to be rich and I want to be a policeman.

And then he wants to own a Lamborghini. Those are his three things. OK, but only six.

And anyway, we were talking to him and I said to him, policemen don’t generally own Lamborghinis. I’ve just noticed that. And he goes, really, what do they have? And I said, probably just like a Toyota Corolla or something.

And they don’t get paid a lot of money. And that’s from the government. By the way, I explained it all to him.

And I said, if you want to be rich mates and get a Lamborghini, that might not go together. Also, as a mother, I’m like, that seems like a risky career. I don’t know if I want to encourage that one.

Anyway, so he said to my hubby, I could hear him asking, what do I need to do to be rich then and have a Lamborghini? Because he’s trying to think, well, I don’t know what what to focus on now because policemen’s out. And my hubby said, probably the best thing to do would be to figure out what it is that you love and then just create a business around it. And then just try and like that.

That’s probably a good way to make enough money to have a Lamborghini, maybe like technology, probably an app, something like that. Anyway, at the end of it. And then my middle son comes back to me, he’s a deep thinker, comes back to me, goes.

Do I have to go to school then? And he couldn’t he couldn’t figure out how that went together. And I thought, oh, my God, you’ve like opened up a whole thing. And so anyway, it was this whole and it was such a different take on life.

You know how you have those moments where you’re like, oh, wow. Yeah, that’s actually what he wants to do. And what my husband thinks is the way to get a Lamborghini actually is not make year 12 looking that relative or relevant.

Nikki Farrell:
You know, the coding programs we have in homeschooling are amazing. Like it’s crazy. And it’s I get really excited when I hear things like that.

You can go and work with someone that’s in the finance industry and just teach him about the benefits of compound interest. That’s all he really needs to know. That was compound interest and generational wealth.

Generally, that’s how it works. Yeah.

Jane McFadden:
And you know what? It might be really interesting to you. You might already know this. But I’ve been doing a lot of research into autism and this podcast, ADHD Moms for season two, which is coming up, is going to move into more of an autistic frame of mind, particularly for the female. That is, in my view, not really researched or there’s not enough out there around what that is.

And I really want to break down some stigma that’s for season two. So the best the best therapy tool for autistic kids is to find their special interest, which is, you know, kind of something that they hyperfix on. If you find a kid’s special interest, they then get emotionally regulated by it.

So they will want to do it more and more and more. And their love and passion for it will be extreme. They talk about autistic.

People can be not always specialists in a field like, for example, medical specialists, terrible bedside manner, amazing surgeons, that kind of thing. So if you do have neurodiverse kids, particularly autistic kids, what the research is showing is the best therapy tool is to get them into their special interest, support whatever it is, how no matter what it is, support it and then teach them education through that. And that is the most credible way to build confidence, selfesteem and also have them learning ways that are relevant to them, because a lot of autistic kids’ special interests that they find will be lifelong.

So these aren’t tangents. So sometimes people think that it’s just a tangent that won’t last. Often with an autistic person, it will last and it will be lifelong.

So if you have a child that’s really into robotics, that actually is probably going to be their career path. They probably won’t ever move off that. And the whole 10,000 hours creates a genius.

If those children have then done their 10,000 hours before they’ve even finished school in that specialist niche area, they are going to make money out of that because they’re at the top of their tier in that industry, in that field already. So it’s, and I don’t know why we hold people back from their interests like that. When they love it, you regulate through it.

They find joy in it. They find friendships through it and common interests. Why the ideal school for me would be a school without walls.

That was just people facilitating somebody else’s interests. So, oh, you’re into Minecraft. There’s a Minecraft convention ongoing in the city.

So we’re going to take a bus and take a crew of people that want to go and learn all about it in the city today. Great. Oh, you want to learn about marine biology? We’re going to sea life.

Who wants to go and talk to the marine biologist? Oh, you’re interested in dolphins. Let’s go talk to the trainer today. Or not talk and just observe.

That to me makes sense because you’re intrinsically motivated. It’s your niche specialist interest. Who cares if it only lasts six months? You’re going to learn literacy, numeracy, social skills, all of the things you want children to learn through that niche.

So why not? And this is, I think, where you can dabble. If you can’t homeschool, and there’s plenty of families that you can’t or can’t right now, whether that’s financial, emotional, whether that’s just you getting your ducks in a row before you make the big leap, find their interests.

And some of them don’t know. Like my, my eldest feels that pressure too about what do you want to be? I think because our youngest is like, I’m going to be a soccer player and a carpenter. Like he’s sure he’s, he’s going to be messy. Who am I to burst that bubble? Well, you better get training, buddy.

Like get out there. And he does, he goes out and soccer’s his thing at the moment, but we’re learning. We’re learning about angles.

We’re learning about fractions. We’re learning about speed. I’m not teaching him any of this.

And in fact, I’ve learned so much about soccer through him. But that’s a way you can dabble. And if they’re not sure, then just, again, it’s just experiments.

Do you want to go and try this? Do you want to go and try this class? If you don’t like it, we don’t have to commit either. You might, for your own sake, for you to get your money’s worth. If it’s a non-refundable term, you might want to say, we’re going to experiment for 10 weeks, and I’d really like you to try and get to most of them.

Knowing you’re human, you’re going to have sick days. You might need a mental health day. But so, you know, the expectation is 10 times, we’re going to go and try this.

And then you can decide if you want to do it more or not. That’s okay. You don’t have to do it for life.

I mean, I’ve done, I think the accumulation of all my different careers has led me here. I think this is my lifelong thing, but already within this business, by podcasting, we’re doing online courses. Oh, we’re starting at a shop.

I need, I need to follow the dopamine. I’m a dopamine miner and I can’t get that in many other jobs. I need to be my own boss where I can follow that little dopamine hit over there and no one’s going to have a go at me for doing that, and in fact, I succeed my version of success by being able to follow that.

Jane McFadden:
Oh, absolutely. I think you and I really align with that. And last time my daughter was getting very stressed out about like some really simple maths that she had to learn.

And I was in the background going to my hubby, but she’s got a calculator with her. Do you remember, do you remember when the teacher said to us, you won’t have a calculator with us everywhere? And then I said to my hubby, look at my calculator that I carry around. It’s called a phone.

So why does she have to learn that shit? And I’m in the background just like heckling it. And he’s going, be supportive. And he’s right.

Like, I would never say that to her, but in my mind, I’m thinking, why are we doing this? Cause like, she’s got a calculator. It’s there. Like why? I’m so confused what’s happening because I always want to know the why.

Nikki Farrell:
Yeah. Oh my God. If it’s not there, I’m like, why are we not, why are we worrying about this? Cause like, I don’t get it because I thought we were going to play rat attack cat or whatever it was called the card game.

But now we’re all stressing out about this long division thing that I just, I don’t even know how to do. And I’m 37. And then have you survived yet? Because you have a calculator in your pocket and who does long division after school? Do you know a single person that has ever sat down and done long division after school since calculators were around? No, I’m going to throw you another worm.

So if we have AI and AI is going to do so much work for us, why school?

Jane McFadden:
Now that is a great point. Okay. Because I actually was talking about hubby yesterday because I’ve been really into AI recently because I don’t know anything about it.

And I got chat GPT and I was doing all this stuff in there and rewording all the articles. And then I like writing podcast titles, using chat GPT. Right.

And then I was so excited. I came and got my husband. I was like, have you seen what AI can do now? And I was showing him and he goes to me, why are the kids learning grammar and shit then? Why are they learning what a verb is? And I said, I don’t know.

But I’m pretty sure when they figure out they can just use AI, they’re just going to do that all the time.

Nikki Farrell:
We’re already having massive issues in the education system with it. And in fact, I’ve got a friend who teaches technology to university teachers.

And she was, they were coding, coding, coding the new curriculum update, had coding all through it. As soon as AI came out, she was like, well, there’s that gone. It’s gone because you don’t need a code.

It’s all in a, you just type in, I need a code for this and it will create it. They’re already having problems with plagiarism because I can go in and say, write me an essay on Shakespeare and compare Macbeth to Hamlet, 500 words. You pop it open.

You go, ah, need more adjectives. I need a quote. Can you get the reference for that quote? Show me where you got that quote.

So I can double check that I’ve actually got the quote. So there goes our reward and punishment, right? Like oof, in our faces. Learning about the ecosystem in freshwater right now.

I’m not interested in it. I’m not going down that way. Yes, it should be.

It’s good general knowledge, but I can just go to this little device in my hand and go, Hey Siri, I’m at a mangrove and I want to know what that plant is. I’m going to take a photo of it. I’m going to learn it.

I’m going to remember it because I’m standing here touching it. And it’s not in a textbook, but I just, the more technology we actually create the less reason I see for school.

Jane McFadden:
Well, I think that is a good place to end and I love it. And I’m going to be going down a rabbit hole on Facebook later today. Thank you very much for sharing. I apologize.

I might also look up all pairs, Sunshine Coast, see if I can get somebody to come in as a third person that could possibly work for me, but it does work for many homeschoolers.

Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking because otherwise I think it would be too difficult just with the intensity that I have at home and just sustainability. But I think I could do it with a third person.

Thank you so much for your time, Nikki. I have lots of thoughts that I need to go away and think about, which is probably a recipe for disaster. But I kind of felt like there was going to be an end point for me at some point.

And I’m not sure when that end point will be, but I don’t think it will be at year 12. I think it’s going to be more like the next few years are going to be quite difficult, particularly because I’ve got a little girl first up and I think they maybe are a bit more aware of their struggles and the dynamics and girls and that’s all coming soon

 

Nikki Farrell:
We could all skip year nine. I think that’d be great for most people.

Jane McFadden:
Well, I skip grade nine and look how great I am. Honestly, I wish we all could.

Nikki Farrell:
Year nine is awful. As a high school teacher, we all, you know, please, can I not teach year nine? That’d be amazing because we need, in Montessori schools, they nearly double the support through those years because we need it. Our brains have literally imploded and are rewiring. We’ve hit puberty. Our emotions are all over the place. Our hormones are, we need more support during those years.

Again, budget, money, we could do this. We can, we can do this. We can make our schools more accommodating to everybody, but we need the money and we won’t get that without parent power.

Jane McFadden:
And look, we don’t, because we put the year nine kids back in with the other kids, which can make it a really toxic environment, and then we just leave them to it and force them to go. But anyway, I have my own personal problems with grade nine and 10, and I don’t recommend anyone does them, but in the normal schooling, anyway, thank you so much for your time, Nikki. This has been great.

If you’ve loved this, then of course, get on, share it, like it. We’ve got a Facebook community and I personally answer all of the questions for the moment. I might regret saying that at some point and I might have to outsource to AI possibly.

But for the moment, if you have any questions, jump in and I am in there personally. Thank you so much for your time, Nikki.

Nikki Farrell:
My absolute pleasure. It’s been a joy. I’m pretty sure we’re related. I felt very seen. So thank you for your support and for being so patient as well.

Jane McFadden:
Thank you so much, Nikki. The key message here is you are not alone.

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