So imagine this scene with me. You are sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner. You have all your relatives, some that are close, some that are distant. They've all gathered in your house. And you're getting ready to partake of this wonderful feast. And Aunt Flo right next to you says, so tell me about your homeschooling. What do you say? How do you explain Charlotte Mason

homeschooling to a relative just off the bat like that? How deep do you go? How do you explain

it? Let's talk about that and give you some ideas to help you in that situation.

Welcome to the Simply Charlotte Mason podcast.

I'm Sonia Schaefer.

Today we want to talk about how do you explain something so deep and so rich as a Charlotte Mason education and something

so different?

How do you explain that to relatives who are inquiring?

Joining me for this discussion is my friend Amber O'Neill Johnston.

Amber, have you ever encountered a situation like that?

All the time.

Every time I get together with our extended family.

And coming from, I was raised by two public school principals and a whole family full of teachers and educators.

There's a whole other layer.

That's a whole other layer.

So this would come up frequently for us, yeah.

So as you got started, this probably came up more than just at Thanksgiving dinner. So yeah, how did you approach it? Well, at first, I was very defensive. And I just wanted to tell all the things all at once and get everybody on my side. Just agree with me. I'm going to tell you how wonderful this is and there's this this and there's this. And here's books you can read and here's a website and all of that. And once you do all that, you'll see how great this is. And I saw, okay, that did not work. And I think I learned to pace myself that I'm in relationship with my relatives for the long haul and that I don't have to explain every

single thing. So I start with something light and tell a little bit about some of the ways we

spend our days and over time more and more unfolds. I think that's wise. When someone asks

that question, especially if it's a distant relative whom you don't see very often,

one of the first things you have to do is assess what is their interest level? Are they just

making casual conversation and they're hoping for a two-sentence answer? You know, like,

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