As a mother of 15 and the creator of Fun-Schooling, I’ve spent decades helping families embrace a natural, joy-filled approach to learning. Recently, as I’ve been reading The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins and listening to her podcast, I realized just how deeply her philosophy aligns with what I’ve been teaching through Fun-Schooling for years.
For me it started on the day I woke up, a homeschool mom of eight who was worn out micromanaging their education and depressed because there was no joy. So I said, “Today I will just say YES to whatever they want to do.” I had created a beautiful environment for learning, but curriculum was boring, limiting and too much work for me. I was drained and wanted to enjoy being a mom while homeschooling. I told my kids, “We are going to Fun-School today”. It was amazing. The learning that happened amazed me, and the joy set us all free.
Mel’s Let Them theory is about releasing control, allowing people to make their own choices, and letting go of the urge to micromanage. Fun-Schooling is based on the same principle—letting children study what they love, explore their passions, and skip the boring, outdated schoolwork that kills curiosity. Instead of forcing learning through rigid, one-size-fits-all curriculums, we let kids take the lead, trusting their natural desire to grow, explore, and create.
Here are ten ways Fun-Schooling and The Let Them Theory are a perfect match:
Let Them Learn What Excites Them
Mel Robbins encourages us to let people pursue their own interests, even if we don’t understand them. Fun-Schooling follows this same logic: if a child is obsessed with horses, let them dive deep into everything horse-related—biology, history, art, business, and storytelling—all through their passion.
Let Them Skip the Boring Stuff
Traditional education forces kids to memorize facts they’ll never use, leading to burnout and frustration. But what if we let them skip what doesn’t spark their curiosity? In Fun-Schooling, we trust that when a child is deeply engaged, they’ll develop the skills they need naturally.
Let Them Make Mistakes
Mel emphasizes that people learn best through their own experiences. Fun-Schooling embraces this truth—kids don’t need to get everything “right” the first time. They need freedom to experiment, fail, and try again without fear of judgment.
Let Them Go at Their Own Pace
Not every child learns on the same timeline, just like adults don’t all hit milestones at the same time. Fun-Schooling allows kids to develop skills when they’re ready, not when a curriculum says they should.
Let Them Create Instead of Conform
Mel Robbins challenges us to step away from people-pleasing and embrace individuality. Fun-Schooling does the same by giving kids the space to create, imagine, and build rather than just regurgitate facts.
Let Them Follow Their Curiosity
We trust that adults will figure things out when they’re interested in something—why don’t we extend that same trust to children? Fun-Schooling encourages kids to chase their curiosity, knowing that a self-motivated learner will always go further than a forced one.
My house is a place of creativity, innovation, technology, tradition, beauty, art, music, good food, and education. Fun comes first! As the one who organizes and orchestrates the events and environment for over a dozen children and an adventurous husband, I’ve embraced an opportunity to throw out the common uses of the rooms in my house. Most houses were designed to serve as a place of relaxation and comfort for hardworking couples, and school age children. As a homeschooling mom and home-based entrepreneur I began to rethink the way Americans use their homes. I saw the impractical design of a home as an opportunity to transform the underutilized living spaces into something far more useful and exciting.
What It Looks Like Our kitchen is now a “Science Kitchen” and a place for fermenting, cooking classes, experiments, a place for making body-care products, and for inventing new remedies and recipes. In the past our kitchen was a birth center, where a few of our kids were born! Our living room is a lending library and music room where family and friends gather to create music together and to read, share and borrow books. Our living room is also a place where children can play with puzzles and puppets. Sometimes it becomes a church, where we gather daily for Bible stories, worship and prayer. Our dining room serves the usual purpose of a space for family meals, often squeezing two dozen of us around three tables! But often we set up the space as an Art and Game cafe! Watercolors, beads, and rubber stamps await the touch and imagination of creative kids. We added a coffee bar with three espresso machines and a beautiful assortment of ceramic mugs and flavored syrups. During the week the tables are used as a school space for my five or six youngest kids.
The nook attached to the kitchen is a tearoom, with a DIY tea making station complete with about twenty healing blends of loose leaf teas made from herbs, flowers and spices which were grown in our garden, foraged from our woods and meadows, and imported from around the world. On our recent trips to Italy, Greece and Israel we searched for local blends to bring home and recreate. The media room in the basement is a Preschool Paradise – even though our youngest child is nine. We fill my house with young moms who have little ones every chance we get. Our office is a studio of creativity, design, publishing, and relaxation for myself and my team of collaborators who often drop in to work on projects with me. Our garage is a charging station for two Teslas and a Cybertruck. It is also a gym for my kids who are into fitness and bodybuilding, and another part of the garage is a pottery and jewelry making studio. My husband has a workshop in yet another section of the garage. Half of the old barn has been renovated into a DIY creative space for neighborhood homeschoolers, complete with a Lego city, shelves full of games, a small stage, and loads of art supplies. The other half of the barn serves as an art studio for our daughters who are studying oil painting and drawing. The space also includes the set for a podcast studio.
Our family spent a few days with the Robertson family in Louisiana, and Korie gifted me a copy of her book. It meant a lot to me because my daughter Anna recently had this conversation:
Over the holidays three of my adult daughters were visiting. When I came out the the living room early one morning half a dozen daughters were gathered around the fireplace reading their Bibles, writing in their prayer journals and listening to worship music. And I said, “How am I so blessed that my children are truly following Jesus? So many of the people I know are complaining that their adult kids and teens are rebelling against their faith.” Anna said to me, “You and dad are not hypocrites. You showed us a faith worth following, and always live what you believe. You and dad were authentic.”
I’m at a coffee shop this morning, with Josh, Anna and my daughter Christina. Everyone is having their devotional time. I brought my copy of “Strong & Kind” that my friend Korie wrote. I’ve met four of Korie and Willie’s six children and was amazed at how faith and love glowed in the hearts and hospitality of each member of the family. Rarely have I met other families with young adult children so passionate about the faith they grew up with. I wanted to know what was at the heart of their parenting victory. So here I am in Chapter 20. This morning. I asked Korie if I could share her wise words with all of you.
Be Real
It seems that society today is clamoring for something real. Organic and all natural are buzzwords for everything from food to clothing to body lotion. Could it be that we’re finally done with fake? I doubt it. Along with all the talk of going back to a more natural approach to living, our magazines and television screens are full of ads for products that include fake eyelashes, fake nails, fake tans, fake food, fake hair, and fake fur, There’s still plenty of fake to go around.
But fake things don’t last–well, except for Twinkies and Spam. Those have been around forever. Eventually, the fake tan fades and the eyelashes fall off. Fortunately, we’re usually at home when that happens, which is the best place to get rid of fake anything. In the interest of full disclosure, when you’re in the entertainment business, there are times for fake hair, false eyelashes, and a spray tan. It’s fun to feel glam for one night or for a photo shoot, but it feels even better to get home and take it all off. Home is where we can be ourselves, take off our makeup, put on our stretchy pants, and just be. But being real in our homes can be more complex than just being free to walk around in a pair of sweatpants and our husband’s T-shirt.
What exactly does it mean to be real? Here are several questions I want to explore as we talk about being real in our homes and as parents.
Do we try to appear one way to the world while acting differently at home?
Is the life we’re living true to how God made us?
Are we allowing our kids to see that being real can sometimes be messy?
Do You Act Differently in Public Than at Home?
Let’s discuss the first question. Kids are damaged when the inside of the family home doesn’t match the outside impression.
I’m talking about parents who put on a front to appear one way to everyone around them but then come home where they’re totally different people. Nobody likes a hypocrite, yet I think that’s exactly what our children see and think of us sometimes. They may not know the term or how to articulate it, but they see it, and it will affect them negatively. It will impact the level of respect they have for adults and how they approach and interact with the world as they grow up.
A very common reason people give for leaving the church is they’re convinced it’s full of hypocrites. A hypocrite is a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, or principles that he or she does not actually possess, especially a person whose actions contradict stated beliefs. A perfect example is a person bragging about her humility.
Hypocrites are deceivers and pretenders, so they may put on a false show of humility so that others will notice and commend them. Are we doing that in our homes?
Are we pretending that values such as honesty, kindness, patience, goodness, and self-control are important to us while living lives at home that demonstrate the opposite? Are you doing that? We do this when we gossip- we may be kind to others when face-to-face with them but belittle them behind dosed doors.
We do this when we lie about little things, perhaps saying, “Tell them I’m not home,” when someone calls.
We do it when we tell our kids not to tell their daddy how much money we spent at the mall. Yes, it’s a problem when we appear to be one way in public and another way at home. It’s also a problem when we burnish our appearance as the perfect little family when we’re out in public but spend our time yelling and fighting behind closed doors.
Don’t get me wrong. We’ve all had those moments when we’ve argued and griped right up until the time we walked through the doors of the church building, then quickly changed our tone and thrown a smile on our faces. If moments like that are just moments, there’s no need to worry. Nobody’s perfect. But when moments like that define your family, it’s time to take a good look and make the changes necessary to really become the family you want others to think you are.
Have you seen the apps that can Photoshop or adjust your pictures to perfection? In seconds your skin can be flawless, your teeth glowing white, and any stray hairs smoothed into shape. While it’s natural to want to put your best face forward, it’s never good to present yourself as something you’re not. Our family is often asked to do photo shoots, and when I am asked to choose, of course I always want to pick the best version of me. However, I don’t ever want to pick a “fake” me, or a picture that has been doctored so much that it doesn’t look like the real me.
Why do we work so hard to show others our best selves?
Why do we give our best selves to the ones who matter to us the least?
Then when we get home to the people we love the most and who love us the most, we offer them our worst our gripe-y, unloving, selfish selves.
I truly believe that being inconsistent with who you are, being one way at home and presenting yourself to the world as something else, is one of the most destructive things you can do as a parent. When we do this, we’re asking our children to live a lie.
Kids learn values by watching our actions, and this type of hypocrisy confuses them and diminishes their respect for us. You may not see this affecting your children when they are young, but during their teenage years, you’ll definitely see the damage.
What I’m talking about in this chapter, being real, is not about whether you stay in your pajamas all day and then dress up to go out with friends. It’s about your value system and the way you treat others.
Certainly, we must act differently in the workplace or for a dinner out than we do at home. No one expects you to act exactly the same way at a board meeting as you would playing UNO with the kids. That would be silly. How we behave is one thing; what motivates that behavior is another. Whether our actions show the values by which we claim to live is the key here.
I’ve learned a few things in my twenty years of parenting. One is to never expect your children to do what you won’t do. Willie and I know that if we want our children to view our value system as real and something important to live by, our own actions have to match our values.
Leading by example is the number one way to teach children any behavior you want them to have. Kids respond better to “Do as I do” than to “Do as I say.” Jesus came to this earth not only to offer Himself as a sacrifice but also to be our example of how to live. God knew that His children need an example, a pattern to follow. Our children need one too.” (excerpted from Chapter 20, “Be Real” in Korie Robertson’s book, Strong and Kind.)
As a teen, Anna authored about twenty Thinking Tree Books! They will all be on sale this week for $10!
At age 8 Anna couldn’t even read the word “dad”! Now she’s a well known author. Anna was the first child to use Dyslexia Games! She is a daughter of the creator of the games! They were made originally for Anna.
Listen to Anna share her story on Monday, February 6th on the Podcast “Sisters & Friends” (the Monday feature of “Whoa, That’s Good” Podcast! by Sadie Robertson Huff:
