Episodes

Are you stuck in holiday traffic? Are you locking yourself in the bathroom at your family get-together to avoid Crazy Uncle Larry? Are you sick of hearing Christmas music? This quick episode is just for you! Merry Christmas HIRLers! Join Fletch and Kendra on this short and fun episode as we share some Christmas laughs with you. You might find out a few things that you didn’t know about Fletch and Kendra. (No, she really doesn’t like Italian Christmas music!) Find out more facts as we play a qu...

We received a message on the HomeschoolingIRL Facebook page that said, “Please, please, please do an episode on siblings fighting. Thanks!” Sibling relationships. Sibling rivalries. Siblings fighting. We put out the question to our listeners and they responded with story after story of siblings who know how to tease, fight and use sarcasm like professionals. On this episode, we dig into the topic of parenting through sibling relationships in your homeschool. Fletch and Kendra open up about thei...

Join us on this episode of Homeschooling in Real Life as we talk about the ins and outs of traveling with kids. On this episode we are NOT talking about vacation planning. Instead we are talking about giving your family a love for travel, a love for God’s world and a love for taking your love for Jesus around the world as a family ambassadors living on mission. Live from the Teach Them Diligently convention floor in Nashville, TN, Kendra interviews family travel expert Jen Reyneri from WordTrav...

Homeschooling Multiple Ages! How does a homeschooling parent possibly educate older kids while at the same time juggling preschoolers, toddlers, and babies? Is it even realistic to think we could do a good job while spinning so many homeschool plates? On this episode of Homeschooling in Real Life, Fletch and Kendra talk about how they’ve managed to homeschool 8 kids, how to structure a day so that schooling actually gets done, and how mom can survive and thrive during the demanding years of home...

For the rest of the year, we will be running a “Best of” series of the Homeschooling IRL episodes. Many of these episodes were earlier episodes that you might have missed. Enjoy! Let’s be real folks! It’s February and the mid-year homeschooling doldrums can hit any of us. One of our listeners sent us a great email with five questions all about homeschool challenges and wanting to throw in the towel. As we read through the questions he asked, we decided to combine all of them into one podcast a...

For the rest of the year, we will be running a “Best of” series of the Homeschooling IRL episodes. Many of these episodes were earlier episodes that you might have missed. Enjoy! How important is it for us to practice transparent parenting with our children? What should you do when your children ask you questions that are just too personal or too painful to answer? If we do practice transparency, will our kids simply follow our example? In this episode, we sit down with marriage and family the...

On this episode of the HomeschoolingIRL podcast, Fletch and Kendra begin a new series called, “I Love Homeschooling But…” and discuss the topic of having your kids with you All. The. Time. We really do love this aspect of homeschooling, and many of us want to spend the best hours of our kids’ days with them. But the reality is, there are days when we feel as if we’re all breathing down each other’s necks, and that can be difficult to navigate with grace. Joining Fletch and Kendra in the studio...

On today’s episode of Homeschooling In Real Life, Martha called in to ask, “How Do I Make My Homeschool Fun?” We loved this question, so both Fletch and Kendra take a stab at answering. As you have come to expect, their answers line up perfectly with the “have to” parent and the “get to” parent. Tune in to make your homeschool fun! For the rest of the year, we will be running a “Best of” series of the Homeschooling IRL episodes. Many of these episodes were earlier episodes that you might have m...

Hard times! As much as we might like it to be, life is not all ponies, rainbows, and watercolor daisies. On this episode of HomeschoolingIRL we discuss the issue of homeschooling when life gets hard. Difficulties can look different in every family – marital stress, tragedies, health challenges, financial loss – and we’ll consider how each of these hardships can put unusual stress on a homeschooling family. What is our response? What should it be? Join us as we interview homeschooling mom and b...

For the rest of the year, we will be running a “Best of” series of the Homeschooling IRL episodes continuing with Homeschooling and Marriage. Many of these episodes were earlier episodes that you might have missed. Enjoy! You are going to want to grab your spouse for this episode! Fletch and Kendra dive right into the middle of the topic and discuss how the stress of homeschooling can leak into your marriage relationship. Throughout this episode you will hear live interviews conducted with cou...

For the rest of the year, we will be running a “Best of” series of the Homeschooling IRL episodes, starting with 5 Ways to Rock Homeschool. Many of these episodes were earlier episodes that you might have missed. Enjoy! Need some motivation? Encouragement? Tips? Join us for 5 Ways to Rock Your Homeschool! We originally titled this one “The Practical Episode”, and that is exactly what we’re talking about. Let’s go back to school with some tips that will hopefully bring you some freedom and joy t...

This week on the Best of Homeschooling IRL: Do you struggle with teaching writing to your homeschool kids? This is the episode for you. As homeschool parents, some of us were not given great tools for writing in our own education, so when it comes to teaching the subject, we already feel ill-prepared. Others of us are great writers and love to write, but we have no idea how to teach our kids how to take great ideas from their head and put them into words on paper. We are joined in the studio by...

In this Best of Homeschooling IRL episode, Fletch and Kendra chat with Kathy Lee, mom of many and co-author of The Homegrown Preschooler. Kathy is a child development specialist who has homeschooled and raised kids and now speaks all over the country to parents (often with several of her kids in tow!) We discuss the growing trend of high academic unrealistic expectations at younger ages, play-based preschool, and developing relationships with our young kids and teens that last well into their ad...

This week on the Best of Homeschooling IRL: Sheila Gregoire is the author of the book, The Good Girl’s Guide To Great Sex. She is also a popular speaker and blogger at To Love Honor and Vacuum. Sheila joins us in the studio again this week as we discuss the phenomenon that is the “purity culture” and its affect on the Christian homeschooling community. How do we convey a Biblical view of sex and marriage to our kids without strapping them with the burden and bondage of religious behaviorism? H...

For the next few weeks, we’re playing a few episodes of Our discussion on this episode comes right out of the current headlines. Homeschool graduate and reality TV star, Josh Duggar, has fallen from the spotlight due to his confessions of struggling with adultery, pornography and a history of molestation. We jump into to discuss the frequent failures we have seen by men in the homeschooling movement. We talk openly on this episode about what happens when we forget the one thing that tethers us ...

All good things must come to an end, and as such, this is the final episode of the Homeschooling In Real Life podcast. Thank you for hanging in there with us through 155 episodes. It was a great run and we even slipped a final episode in last week before saying goodbye! Celebrate with us as we say thank you to everyone who has impacted this ministry, from guests to tech help to our in-house babysitters to you, our faithful HIRLers. We’ll also leave you with the four things we think made up the ...

In 1997, 21-year-old Joshua Harris wrote a revolutionary book on dating. The book would go on to be an international bestseller and catapult Joshua into the Christian spotlight. I Kissed Dating Goodbye was embraced by the homeschool community and the Christian church at large, and continues to shape the consciousness of how Christians view singleness, dating, and relationships. Lately, though, Joshua Harris has weathered a battering of online criticism from disenchanted Christians. Some have la...

Spiritual abuse has been alive and well in the homeschool community for years. From early leaders like Bill Gothard/ATI to the deceptive charm of Doug Phillips and the Vision Forum/Family Integrated Church movement, homeschoolers often fall prey to the abuse of misguided leaders. Joining Fletch and Kendra for the last full episode of Homeschooling in Real Life is Julie Anne Smith from the Spiritual Sounding Board website to discuss openly how the church and homeschoolers still fall into the tra...

Ever wonder how to give your kids a healthy love for the world and a desire to know other cultures? How about making missions an every day part of your homeschool and home life? What if you can’t travel far from home but want your kids to develop a view that reaches far beyond your hometown? Join us and Sonlight Curriculum co-founder Sarita Holzmann for a lively discussion on homeschooling, reading, missionaries, biographies, a desire to love the lost, and of course, the gospel. SHOW NOTES: So...

Author Kristen Hatton joins us for an important discussion that encompasses the world our teen girls are growing up in. From eating disorders to the impact of social media on a young woman’s self image, Kristen’s latest book, Facetime: Your Identity in a Selfie World, is a significant guide to pointing our teenaged daughters to Christ to find their acceptance and worth. Raising daughters? This episode is just for you. SHOW NOTES: KristenHatton.com Facetime – Your Identity in a Selfie World San...

Raising boys can be tricky business, no? And if we have a heart to see our boys really change the world with solid character, big ideas, and compassionate hearts, we can feel defeated when we see them being goofy and a little out of control as kids. That’s exactly why we wanted to have a solid conversation with friend and author Heather Haupt, who has written a book about teaching our boys what it means to take the high road and be “knights” who fight for honor and protect the weak in our world...

Hey! Hey! We’re once again answering listeners’ emails on a wide variety of topics this week. Want to know how not to be a homeschool whackjob? Or how to choose a different schooling option without caving to judgmental responses? Chances are, if you’ve had a question for Fletch and Kendra, you’ll hear the answers you’ve been waiting for. We’re also talking about a podcast we think we should never, never do. Tune in! SHOW NOTES: Recommended Resources: None Get Social With Us: Follow Fletch/Ken...

We’re almost 150 episodes in and the emails keep coming! On this week’s episode of Homeschooling in Real Life, we’re answering listeners emails on a wide variety of topics. Judgmental homeschoolers? We got that. Homeschooling high school? Yep, that, too. Chances are, if you’ve had a question for Fletch and Kendra, you’ll hear the answers you’ve been waiting for. It’s fast-paced, light, sometimes serious, but always with the goal of keeping the main thing the main thing. SHOW NOTES: Recommended ...

Our listeners love when we podcast about the process of raising children into adulthood. But every time we talk about raising kids or the transitions into teen years or launching our adolescents out into the world, we are asked constantly for resources. On this episode we introduce our listeners to one of our favorite new resources for young men. Our old friend, Barrett Johnson from I.N.F.O. for Families, is releasing a new book called The Young Man’s Guide to Awesomeness and we love what he ha...