Claire Denault: Parents Are Quietly Leaving the School System | DSH #1735

The bullying doesn't stop in the classroom.

It gets worse after.

Yeah, it doesn't stop. It gets worse and goes on and on and there's no end to it.

So these children don't have any reprieve. They don't have anywhere to escape to anymore.

Right. And I think bullying, and it's been shown in studies.

I know a lot of people say, oh, well, they can get bullied. It toughens them up.

It's detrimental.

I think in the long run for me, it motivated me, but I don't think most people think that way.

Actually, my sister's husband was bullied severely.

And it crushed his soul for many years.

And it's sad to see.

I tried a lot of mental issues because of it.

I mean, mental health and adolescence.

You know, the number two cause of death is adolescence.

We got Claire on today.

We're going to talk about a very important subject today.

Schooling.

Yes, absolutely. My favorite topic.

Yeah, and that is something that I went to public school.

Did you go as well?

Nope. I was homeschooling my whole life pretty much.

Back when it wasn't cool, too.

Yeah, when it was absolutely not cool.

When it was fringe, a bunch of weirdos did it.

Yeah, I used to like make, not make fun of kids.

But like in the back of my head, I was like, is this kid normal?

Yeah, you can say it.

Yeah.

You can say it.

Not as common, right?

Back then.

Yeah, no, it was.

I mean, when we look at homeschooling today,

and I think back about my childhood,

we were definitely a little bit of the weird kids.

Yeah.

So it's shifted light years over the last 10, 15, 20.

And you're a big part of that shift.

So thank you, first of all.

Oh, thank you.

But secondly, like, what caused you to, I guess,

speak out about this topic?

You know, I had a life change shift a few years ago,

and I thought to myself, the one thing I know very well,

probably better than a lot of people who speak out

on homeschooling who haven't done it themselves

from a different place is homeschooling.

I know it because I went through it.

I was a product of it.

My brother and sister also were homeschool.

And my brother homeschools his children

and my sister's planning on homeschooling hers.

So we went through homeschooling

when it was uncool, unpopular fringe, and we loved it.

So I think it takes a perspective

that's different to talk about this one that's been through.

You can ask me questions that I can actually tell you

an answer to because I saw it.

So I decided to just start talking about what I know.

And I'm homeschooling my son

because to me, that was the best education

I could have ever had or even asked for.

When you were getting homeschooled

or both parents actively involved with it?

To be honest, no.

Well, I guess in a way, my dad worked.

It was a typical, he worked nine to five, worked very hard.

And my mom stayed at home and took care of my sister

and my brother and I.

With the caveat of my dad is a math genius

and a math professor.

And he did all the math teaching.

So my mom did basically the majority of the rest.

However, it's different.

The way I was raised was more unschooling

versus what people traditionally think of as homeschooling.

So it's a pretty big differentiator

when we talk about homeschooling

and the styles there are today.

Could you explain what unschooling is for people that don't know?

So unschooling is basically child-led learning.

We don't have a nine or seven to eight hour work.

Sorry, we don't have a daily schedule

or daily routine necessarily.

What the parent does is try to follow the interest of the child.

And if that interest leads them down

a route for me of loving horses,

then we'll let that child go and read about them,

plan to have one, write spreadsheets,

document where you get feed from, source product,

turn around with something that's meaningful for that child,

engages them and then teaches them along the way

of something they actually care about.

So we weren't doing necessarily reading, writing,

and math every day, but we were experiencing things.

And for the majority of when I was younger,

I basically just went outside and played with my siblings.

There was a whole lot of no education going on

for my early years.

It was a lot of play, a lot of adventure,

a lot of creativity.

So that's kind of the basis around unschooling.

It's a little less structured,

but everybody has different ways to do things.

So the way I, my unschool,

is different than the way somebody else might do it.

So it's kind of a broad brush of how it works,

but that's how I was raised.

And I didn't actually do any real formal education

until I went to junior college.

Wow.

So I went from pretty much being a feral wild kid

who just wanted to ride horses and I was, I was tough.

I mean, my personality was not easy.

Not it was my brothers.

He, for all intents and purposes,

probably had ADD, ADHD, but my mom did not want to diagnose him.

And I can get into that story as to how we started,

but that was essentially the beginning of our homeschooling

because the two of us were impossible to handle.

I mean, full wild, never sit still,

never pay attention, never listen type of children.

Well, I think that's how a lot of kids are.

That's how I was.

And then through the schooling system,

it kind of numbs you, right?

Right.

Well, that's the thing.

When you're put into a system that goes against your biology

or your nature,

there are usually two different ways that kids react.

And I think Gabor Matay talks about this a lot.

He says they're either going to act out

or they're going to go numb and become quiet and reserved.

So that's what the schooling system does.

And I argue that teaching children

on the unschooling method or homeschooling

or alternative schooling allows them to develop

through their natural abilities at their natural pace

versus putting them in a box

and making them change their demeanor,

their personality to conform to an environment

that isn't part of their national being.

Right. That's what happened to me.

I shut down.

I went from class clown to introvert.

They tried putting me on medication in elementary school.

Yeah.

Crazy, right?

Well, that's the thing they do is they label it a pathology.

So your behavior goes from normal behavior.

And a lot of times it's more common in boys

because they develop at different rates than girls.

And that's just the truth.

Their biology is designed to develop differently.

They're more spatially aware earlier on.

They're more active than that's how they learn.

And we all know they develop maybe impulse control

a little later, right?

So when you're put in that situation,

you're essentially changing your biology

and then getting labeled that it's disease.

And then instead of changing the environment

or the classroom to adapt to the child's needs,

we medicate them.

Yeah.

I've always learned through action.

Most people do.

I mean, the easiest way to remember something is to do it.

Whether you're remembering a name,

I remember they taught me this in a sales class

when someone tells you their name,

repeat it back a couple of times with their hands,

say something right, you know,

there's all these tricks and methods.

But you'd be so shocked when children learn

at the rate they're meant to or when they're ready to,

it's not a slow learning curve.

Like when you want to learn something,

when you really want to learn it,

you don't take a year to learn it.

You learn it in seconds.

So for an example, it's kind of funny

this happened recently.

My son would not ride a bike.

Now he's eight.

And I'm thinking here, you need to ride a bike kid.

Eight year olds need to be riding bikes.

He wouldn't do it.

Refuse, refuse, refuse.

A month ago, he told me,

mom, I want to ride a bike.

Okay, took the bike out to the park, let him ride it.

Within one day, that kid was riding around the park

no problem.

No training wheels, no training wheels.

No, nothing.

He decided he wanted to ride a bike and he rode it.

And that happened for me.

I talked about this before,

but when I was younger, I did not want to read.

There was nobody who was going to put me in a room

and make me read a book.

In my mind, it's funny because when we're children,

we have different perceptions of how things happened to us

versus what our parents will tell you.

So in my mind, everybody who showed me a book,

I thought they were all stupid.

I did not want to read them.

To me, that was dumb.

It was early readers, cat, hat, fat, just things

that I could not be bothered with.

So I would not read.

And in my mom's eye, she thought,

there's something wrong with me.

This kid's delayed what's going on,

but she stuck to her guns of,

I'm going to let her develop better on pace.

I mean, for her, God bless her for that,

because if you think about it, I don't know if I could have

that fortitude to stick to what I believe

that my kid was going to learn to read when she's 12

and not reading.

That was a long time.

I picked up a book that was about horses, a novel,

and I started reading novels on day one.

Wow.

I didn't go through the standard reading process.

So somewhere along the line,

seeing words listening to books being read, I understood it.

And when I was ready, I read almost instantly.

That's cool.

So it's just interesting when we look at the behavior of children

and their learning abilities,

that we try to force kids into a learning pattern

that a curriculum has decided is right

for the majority of the population.

And then we get upset when they don't do it

the way we think they all need to.

And then we medicate them.

Yeah, fascinating.

Crazy.

The public school system, I guess inadvertently,

maybe intentionally taught me to hate reading

because the books I didn't give a shit about.

So yeah.

But now I listen to a book every week, at least.

Like, I love reading, I love learning.

Right, right.

Well, loving learning is probably one

of the most important things we can ever teach a children

or bestow upon kids.

And that's hard to teach when you're being forced,

when you're being given small little rewards or punishments.

I mean, that's not the way to teach someone to love learning.

And I think, as we were talking about even before,

in today's world of AI, you need to love learning

because this world's changing at a breakneck speed.

And you don't know how to adapt quickly and maneuver

and be creative.

You're not going to make it.

You're toast.

So toast, yeah.

I hated learning probably my whole year to 18,

yeah, my whole years in school, which is awful,

which is terrible, because at those ages, you're so creative.

Yeah, that's, I mean, you've seen the study

by George Land from NASA.

Yeah.

I mean, those formative years are our most creative years.

And what school ends up inadvertently doing.

And this wasn't, well, it's debatable,

but I don't think it was planned.

I think it's the result of it being designed

on the industrial revolution.

It created children to get so used to being put into these

classrooms in rows, following rules.

And it basically took away their ability

to think for themselves and critically think and be leaders.

So you've taken away the child's natural interest

in being creative, learning hands on,

and basically told them, you need to sit still and listen,

ask questions when we tell you to memorize.

Memorize is being one of the most important skills

you can learn, which isn't really learning in my opinion.

It's not at all.

I remember when I went to college,

because I went a little early.

Going from homeschool to college,

one of the things that blew my mind was

that the tests we were given were all about memorization.

I mean, when I think back to college,

I always thought it was so bizarre.

I just wanted to get through it.

It was fun, all that.

But you basically just needed to get a good grade

to prove that you knew what you were doing,

and that meant memorizing the material

and regurgitating it quickly.

My mind that did not come, that did not compute.

So a lot of times people ask me,

how'd you do going from homeschool to college?

I did fine.

There's no issue, but to me, it just made no sense.

No sense, and how many times have you been asked for a GPA?

Never.

Exactly.

I don't even think anybody knows what I graduated with.

And think about how much stress you had

in the moment of maintaining a GPA.

Absolutely.

That doesn't matter.

And I didn't care.

I personally thought it was ridiculous.

I went through college.

I got my degree.

I'm glad that I had the experience, maybe.

It's a little debatable on that.

But I look at it now when I talk to my son

about what his future looks like.

That's not my number one priority,

because I truly don't think in today's age that we're in,

it's going to be as impactful.

I mean, years ago, it was the Golden Ticket, right?

And honestly, for my generation,

I thought it was going to be the Golden Ticket as well,

but it wasn't necessarily the Golden Ticket

to get me that great job that I'm going to have

for the rest of my life.

So yeah, I think our parents' generation benefited from it,

but I can't make the same argument for ours

and let alone our kids will be even worse by then.

I know.

And truly, that's what scares me a lot

when it comes to education is what are they going to do?

I mean, the reports that the world economic forum said

that somewhere 65,000 or 65 million jobs

are going to be gone by 2030.

Totally crap.

Is that an America or a worldwide?

I think it's worldwide, but that's a lot of job.

That's still a lot, yeah.

I mean, and then the sales for CEO,

he cut a bunch of jobs and gave them to AI.

I mean, the world's changing so fast yet.

Our education system is stuck in this primitive industrial

revolution format.

They're so far behind, it's actually scary.

But and it should, and parents should be scared.

And I don't mean this as necessarily for harming your kids,

but what are they going to do?

I mean, the most, the one thing I want as a parent

is for my son to be happy and successful.

And I don't want to worry that he's not

going to have food on the table.

But truthfully, with the way the world's changing,

I think parents need to really start getting

concerned about what their kids know.

I mean, regardless of how the education system's

performing academically, which is atrocious,

they need to think about what these kids are getting taught

so that they can survive.

And I don't think it's going to be rope memorization

and the ability to regurgitate numbers.

Yeah, parents need to wake up.

I think just because it worked for them,

they're assuming that if their kids maintain good grades,

they'll get a job.

They won't.

No, they're generations ago.

I mean, think of it this way, marketing jobs alone.

I mean, the dawn drapers of the world,

that doesn't exist anymore.

I could get better marketing advice from chat you these days.

Not only that, you can market, and people

are going to look to influencers as they already do,

and celebrities versus the marketing people.

Because look what happened for Cracker Bell.

That was a marketing person.

They changed that.

It didn't work because people want storytellers.

So I think when it comes to education,

aside from the education system, not necessarily

giving the best outcomes globally, which we can get into

the statistics of where they stand.

But they're missing the mark in preparing children

for the future.

And I don't know if that's to buy design.

I mean, we spend trillions of dollars

on education every year.

Do you know that?

I didn't know that on public schools or on K through 12,

we spend almost a trillion dollars.

That is crazy.

Where's it going?

Where the fuck is that going?

Teachers work.

I think they work somewhere around 53 hours a week.

And then they spend some of their money

on the classrooms of supplies.

Oh, they're coming out of pocket?

Yeah.

That is awful.

So you just sort of scratch your head and think,

wait a minute, we're spending more money

than almost any other country out there.

And we're still number 16th.

And falling too.

And falling.

We're at a 30 year low.

We used to be like top 10, right?

Yeah, 30 year low.

Do you know that kids graduating today

from high school are going to lack basic skills.

So much so that they are probably more behind

than children were 30 years ago.

That's not.

Yeah, I saw some stat on that that most kids,

or not most kids, but some kids couldn't even read

that are going to college.

Eighth graders, now they can't even read at a basic level.

We're not talking like Shakespeare either.

We're just talking a basic level.

That's nuts.

And I mask scores are down there.

The lowest they've been since 2005.

So you just sort of wonder all this money going into education

and satisfaction rates for parents.

Only 16% of parents in the US think the education system

is going in the right direction.

Wow.

So you just sort of say here and think, what's going on?

What are we doing with all this money?

All these children and children are important

are going to a school that no one satisfied with

that we see declining.

And it doesn't seem like anyone's really clamoring about this.

That is nuts.

A lot of money goes to college too, right?

I know Trump got in a hole or deal with Harvard.

Yeah, there's a lot of money going into college.

I mean, I think it's $1.3 trillion.

Don't quote me on that.

But overall money spent on education is huge.

And then 60% of college graduates can't even find a job.

They're saddled with debt.

I'd love to see a pie chart of how the money

gets spent at the university level.

Oh, administration.

I mean, the salaries and building expenses,

but I'm sure they fluff up a bunch of stuff.

And the same goes with the K through 12 public schools.

I'm sure a lot of it goes to all sorts of admin.

It's not going to the teachers.

It's not going to the children in the classroom.

Yeah.

So there's actually a exp principle on my street.

And I talked to her because I was like, hey, I'm coming here.

Give me some thoughts on what you think of the public education

system.

Principle for 30 years, retired, loves school.

She says, what's going to happen is the school system

is going to lose so many people.

Mind you, loves the education system.

She's going to lose so many people

to nature-based school, forest schools, homeschooling,

private schools, et cetera, charters

that is going to be forced to make a change something.

Wow, that's good.

That's what she said.

I'm not that hopeful.

I hope so, but yeah.

I almost feel bad for these parents

because they're paying so much in taxes,

thinking that they're benefiting their kids.

Yeah.

Yeah, paying so much in taxes and handing your child off

to someone else, because here's the only thing

I have to remember, when you do homeschool your child,

you're taking full responsibility for their education.

That's a pretty heavy burden.

Yeah.

So you're in charge of their success.

So I am highly invested in what I am teaching my son.

And when I say me, I actually have classes he goes to.

I still have no attention span for a lot of that bottom.

But I'm highly invested in his outcome

because it's on me.

Whereas when you hand your child off to a school,

you're hoping that they're as invested as you are,

which I don't think it's possible

when they have so many children.

How can they be that invested?

So there are so many layers to this issue, so many.

But I think one of the things I try to do is explain this

so that parents can stop and think.

And yes, it may be easier to put your children

in the public school system because it's hard to live

on a single salary income or have your child at home.

I mean, it's not easy to homeschool.

But what's important is that your child's outcome?

Is it their future?

Is it how they can manage in an AI-driven world?

Or is it what's going on right now in your life?

Or do you need to make changes?

So it's just one of those things that you really got to stop

and think about what's important to me.

Yeah.

And I mean, I change where I live simply

so I could financially afford to homeschool my son.

Wow.

I mean, you have to be a little bit uncomfortable sometimes

to homeschool to make that decision.

Yeah, to be decision.

I don't think a lot of people aren't prepared to do that.

I don't think they can afford it.

OK, listen to this.

I should double check the statistic because I didn't believe it.

Do you know that 57% of homeschooling families

make less than 50,000 a year?

Really?

Because I just assumed it was a bunch of rich families.

No.

No.

Wow.

That's, and that's a true statistic.

I double checked it.

150K a year.

Is that household income?

Yeah.

Wow.

Family is under 50K a year.

Wow.

Yeah, so it's not a lot of rich families.

Interesting.

I think actually when it comes to the percentage of rich families,

I want to say it's actually fairly low, not super low.

But it's definitely not as high as we think.

OK.

Yeah.

So that's a myth, huh?

Yeah.

It is a myth.

I think back in the day, when homeschooling started,

it was originally a lot of people who were very religious,

conservative.

Those were relatively true.

When you look at the reasons for people homeschooling,

one of the number one reasons for homeschooling

prior to the 2000s was religion.

And that's changed.

That's now number three.

OK.

So some of these myths that we've heard over the years,

they've just sort of carried on.

And they're not necessarily true anymore.

And I am actually on the board of one

of the largest homeschooling groups in Dallas.

And you can see the diversity in the people who are homeschooling

now.

It's huge.

That's cool.

I mean, it is wildly diverse group of people

from all walks of life, backgrounds, political views,

economics, everything.

It's just all over the map, which is definitely changed.

But also, it's really interesting to see

because it's showing that parents are really

investing in their child's lives, which, to me, is a great sign.

That is.

What's the number one reason people are homeschooling now?

Safety.

Safety.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Safety is the number one reason.

Wow.

Because of all the school shootings or?

One school shootings.

But what people also don't realize is when people say,

oh, I went to school and I was bullied and I was fine.

Bullying is one of the huge reasons

why people are choosing to homeschool their children.

Because when, and now I can't say,

I went to school and was bullied because I never went.

But a lot of times when people were bullied, probably,

maybe when you were in your age, okay,

you could go home and the bullying stops.

Yeah, no social media back then.

I mean, look at that Netflix show that came out

unknown caller.

Have you heard of that?

I heard of it.

Okay, the bullying doesn't stop in the classroom.

It gets worse after.

Yeah, it doesn't stop.

It gets worse and goes on and on.

And there's no end to it.

So these children don't have any reprieve.

They don't have anywhere to escape to anymore.

And I think bullying and it's been shown

in studies.

I know a lot of people say, oh, well,

you know, they can get bullied at tough and sum up.

It's detrimental.

It was tough.

I think in the long run from me, it motivated me,

but I don't think most people think that way, you know.

My actually, my sister's husband was bullied severely.

And it crushed his soul for many years.

Yeah.

And it's sad to see.

I had a lot of mental issues because of it.

I mean, mental health and adolescence,

you know, the number two cause of death

is suicide and adolescence.

That's awful.

Yeah, I think if I grew up with the social media era,

it would have been real bad.

It would be horrible.

Because I'd rather get bullied in person, honestly.

Right, because you can defend yourself.

You can say it to someone's face.

I think bullying in person is what the system

used to look like and that has changed.

And that might be causing some of these people

to be so depressed.

A hundred percent.

I mean, there's so many studies on that.

Now, it's irrefutable.

Social media is a direct question.

Yeah, directly.

Yeah.

And then in schools, you know, the argument to you,

they have phones.

Do they not have phones in the school system?

Well, immediately, my mind says, no,

I would never want them to have phones in the school system.

But then you look at the safety again.

It was shootings and people bringing weapons to school

and this being so common lately.

There was another one yesterday, right?

Right.

In my town, actually, there was someone

brought a knife to the school.

I mean, this is happening so regularly.

I would not be able to send my kid to school

without having a way to communicate with him.

These days, yeah, you need something.

So it's like a double edged sword,

even if they do go to school.

And this one says, no phones.

I'm like, that's great for their mind, for education,

but they're safety.

I don't know what's going on.

And then on top of that, you look at children

who have maybe neurodivergent issues.

And I know someone, one of the women in my homeschool group,

she was sending her child back to school for personal reasons.

And they had some neurodivergent challenges.

And she was generally so petrified of this

because her daughter wouldn't be able to contact her

if she had a breakdown, if she had an issue.

And her mom knew how to deal with them best.

So I mean, I look at this on a spectrum of,

there's so much good and bad.

And to me, again, just relates to this whole issue

of the education system as a whole,

failing our children, failing the American children.

Yeah, I mean, the stats these days with issues,

like autism, one out of 30, right?

With kids, it's on real, that's one in each classroom

at this point, maybe two.

Yeah, and the amount of ADD or ADHD is crazy.

And do you know, boys are diagnosed three times

the amount of girls?

Interesting.

So they just show it more because it can't be that different.

They just show it more.

Exactly.

So a lot of times people say, well, you know,

is it classrooms are okay for girls, but not boys?

No, it's again, and I always talk about boys.

And it's not because I don't know much about girls,

but I have a son.

So I talk about what I know.

A lot of times boys are more,

they're more kinesthetic learners.

They're more energy driven, more active.

They learn by actually physically doing,

where girls are just designed to learn

in a different way earlier on.

It's not that boys don't get there.

It's just, there's a difference.

And that might be a debatable topic

with a lot of people, but the way they learn is different.

So when you look at the education system

and see that boys are being diagnosed more frequently

and then put on ADHD medicine more frequently,

you just start to wonder, is it really this epidemic

that's going on?

I mean, what's happening in the education system

that we're not looking at and saying something's wrong,

we need to change it.

I mean, another way you can look at it is,

look at a community that's kind of quiet,

like the Amish community.

They have a very low prevalence of ADD, ADHD, very low.

And I'm not even sure what the numbers are.

I saw something about it the other day,

that thought was fascinating,

but they're outside all the time.

They're working.

They have classes, but their model of education

looks similar to some of the Scandinavian company.

Countries where they prioritize outdoor activity,

exercise, troubleshooting, the model is just different.

It allows kids to go outside and learn in an environment

where they feel challenged.

So I mean, there's just so much baked in

to why the system needs a massive, massive change.

Yeah, you mentioned outdoor schools earlier,

so it's not an emerging thing right now.

I haven't heard of those.

There are a lot of them.

So Scandinavia has some of the highest test scores

in the world for their education.

I think they're number one.

Wow.

But what they have always prioritized

is children being outdoors.

Year round mind you, I have a friend who's Swedish

and she says she remembers when she was growing up,

they'd have you go swim in the pool to give a test,

learn that you could still go outside in the winter.

Holy crap.

Don't know if it's true.

I heard in, it might be Russia,

they leave babies outside in the cold.

They do, right?

They do, yeah.

Crazy.

Fresh air is good for everybody.

I mean, fresh air is good in Japan.

I don't know what it is,

but isn't there a study where you're supposed to go

into the forest?

Yeah, doctors will prescribe you.

Yeah.

In the forest.

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They're also available in Canada, too.

All these other countries seem to know

that this does benefit children.

Yet, we put our children inside a four-wall box

for seven hours a day with 30-minute break for recess.

So yeah, a lot of schools is really interesting.

There's a lot of schools that are emerging in the US

that are taking on the environments

that we've seen in other countries.

And they're private, small.

There's forest-based schools,

which basically a lot of the learning

has just done simply outside.

Thoughts hands on.

So you may be teaching math, reading, writing,

but they'll do it outdoors.

I mean, sit on it.

I've seen one of my good friends,

her children's go to a beautiful forest school

and she says it shows pictures of them sitting on a rock,

doing their math homework and then playing

in the river, bare feet, and running around.

So I mean, there are emerging schools

that are really trying to embody

what's better, healthier for children

than what we've seen here over the last three years.

Yeah.

And then some, actually, I just refer to that

because that's what the latest asset of how our schools

are going, but nature-based,

there's also that AI school in Austin.

Is that Elon Musk's or?

No.

For Tim Kennedy.

Future of it.

No, both of those are great schools, too.

Future of education.

She's open to a couple of schools around the country.

But again, it's a two hours of learning.

That's it.

Two hours of education and the rest is play, activity,

entrepreneurial skills, hands-on activity,

all sorts of creative stuff.

And they're opening schools up around the country as well.

So I see this like very large push

for alternative education.

So while I was homeschooled and loved it,

I mean, personal experience, I thought it was great.

I mean, I went to homecoming's proms.

But you still went to all the, how did you get a prom date?

How did I?

I mean, no, of course I went to proms.

I was also, you want to hear some wild.

So I was captain of my crew team.

I rode crew, OK?

Yeah.

It's captain of my crew team.

And I was in the yearbook.

I never went to the school.

How?

I don't know.

I think it was a fluke.

I don't know.

And at this point, I'm like, let's not

talk about it people.

I still know how they work that.

But yeah, I was captain of my crew team.

I went to proms.

I went to homecoming's.

I had a blast.

I was very social.

Interesting.

So that's amazing.

Oh, it's a myth.

I don't know a single person in the homeschool community

who believes that that's ever been a problem.

It's just something we all know that we

have to constantly rebut against.

Because, I mean, think of it this way, my family alone,

my brother, who had social anxiety issues, ADHD issues,

he now is a lead business director for a large company.

Wow.

And he's nuts.

Granted, trust me, like, I love the guy.

But he's nuts, but he still functions so well,

talks a millions of people.

He was running a sales force for a long time.

You need social skills to do all those things.

So when you look at it and you look at the statistics,

oftentimes, they have studies that show homeschoolers

outperforming school students when

it comes to socialization skills.

Interesting.

And job force, where they end up in job placement.

But if you talk to them, too, I think it just ends up

with if you are going to be unsocial anti,

if you're not typically a very social child,

and maybe your parents aren't too social,

and they don't feel like exposing to you a lot of things,

you might not be as social when you're younger.

It kind of depends on what environment you're in.

And while the education system is a false socialization

environment, you still have the experiences we have

with different age groups,

different backgrounds, ethnicities.

I mean, my son, this is my son's schedule to wild.

I'm thinking there's too much going on

because I'm not used to this amount of dedication to classes.

I mean, he has tennis three to four times a week,

all by his design.

I'm going to tell you this, this is his choice.

I didn't put him in any of this.

He takes tennis three or four times a week,

a couple different kids in each class.

He has duology, ancient civilizations.

He takes STEM classes.

He takes drum lessons.

He takes ninja warrior classes.

He's all by design his choice to take.

That's awesome.

Okay, so when we talk about socialization,

he has kids of all different ages, different abilities.

And he's developing skills, not just with peers.

When you think about a peer group socializing,

how great are those influences on your ability

to create great socialization skills?

I mean, when I think about that,

I think people who teach me to socialize well

come from all backgrounds.

Right, it's not the same age.

Not the same age of teenagers.

Yeah, not the best influences sometimes.

Or for instance, the other day, my son,

I had to do something at the house

and I have a neighbor across the street

who's a West Point grad, retired family,

and he was doing woodworking.

I told him, hey, go run across the street

and go bother him, you know?

And he said, sure.

He's never hung out with him before that much,

but the garage door was open.

He had a whole bunch of tools.

And I said, hey, go see what he's doing.

Happy to run across the street.

Wow.

I mean, they used to call him the mayor of the neighborhood

because everybody knows him.

So I think the idea of socialization

back in my era of homeschooling,

I definitely agree that that could have been,

we could have all been looked at a little bit crooked.

But now, not only are kids out and about with homeschooling,

there are groups, there are clubs,

there are apps, specific apps designed

to meet other homeschool families

with ideologies that are similar to yours.

So you can find a lot of people

and another thing that's kind of crazy

is the parents of homeschool children,

I almost feel like become more close knit

and I don't see that in the school system.

My son plays with two children in tennis

that whose mom moved here,

they moved here from another country.

And she says she feels very isolated

because her kids go to public school,

but the parents don't have much time to interact or meet.

So it's not really a sense of community in that environment,

whereas in our homeschool environment,

I've got about 10 moms on any given day,

anyone needs a break, hey, can you help me with reading?

Can you help me with some writing lessons?

Kids are driving me nuts.

Our group messages say drop them off, we got them,

we'll take them off your hands, bring them to my house.

I mean, it's a revolving door.

Community is important.

But our community is so tight and so wonderful.

Truthfully, it's a wonderful community.

And I feel like we've moved away from that in education

where community schools were common back in the day

and parents helped each other out.

Now it's a very isolating experience.

I haven't heard of any school like that,

community school like that.

Well, there are community schools too.

Oh, yeah.

And there's also like hybrid homeschools.

My nieces just started their hybrid homeschool

where they go two days a week

and then they're home three days a week.

I would love something like that

because I film like two to three times a week

so I can't be home.

But I would love to still be active, you know?

Yeah, and it's a great, I love that school too.

That's another great way to do an alternative education system

that's still benefiting your child

versus just four walls in a place to keep them all day.

I hate to say it like that,

but sometimes that's really how it feels

when it's not in the best interest of their development.

I mean, think about all the wasted potential.

I mean, that is insane.

When you look back at that George Land study

and you have 98% of four to five year olds

showing highly creative skills

and then it dropping to 2% of those same adults

showing those highly creative skills.

It's just showing that the education system

is beating it out of them.

It's insane.

And I think that's what people feel.

Yeah, because when you're that young,

you're just so creative and you lose it year by year

as you get more indoctrinated.

And you see it and you know, one of the things I always say

was a gift of my education is I can learn anything.

I might be full of myself in thinking that and that's fine.

I mean, I know I'm not going to be a basketball player.

I'm not that tall.

There's some things I know I can't do.

But if there's something I need to learn,

I have never felt like I couldn't figure out

how to learn that.

I love it.

So I feel like one of the things

all that outside play, do it yourself,

figure out what you're doing, you know,

taught us to do was actually learn.

And I think that's a skill people really underestimate.

A hundred percent.

And it needs to be a huge priority.

Yeah, when I put my mind to something I want to learn,

it's easy.

Yeah.

School, I didn't, I didn't give a shit.

Like, you're forced to do some, does anybody ever want to do

something they're forced to do?

No, like geometry pre-calc, all of its BS.

I still to this day don't understand what I needed geometry for.

And there are people who needed it.

And I aced all my math classes.

Wow, well done.

All calc, I went to Union College in upstate New York.

I went there when I was 15 and took calculus classes.

She is.

And I just liked it because the numbers lined up

pretty and it probably like satisfied some of me I had for

organization.

There was, there was, I think I was probably a little bit proud of

myself for being so good.

I couldn't pass pre-calc.

I was a bit of a handful in that.

Yeah, but pre-calc I couldn't pass.

Really?

I thought that was ridiculous.

It's the second most filled class at the university I want to

conquer.

Is it really?

Yeah.

To me, that one didn't make sense.

You needed it to get in the business school, which that doesn't

make sense also.

So I couldn't get into the business school.

Why are there all these weird, I never understood that too.

Why are there all these requirements to do the thing you want to do?

Yeah, you had to pass like a essay writing class, something literature,

and everyone filled that one too.

Yeah.

Now, I do think math is very important for people to actually learn,

okay?

And I don't think you need to learn at a calculus level, everybody.

But I think understanding math and logic, which is no longer taught

anywhere, I don't think.

I think that really teaches your brain how to process things,

how to think, and it helps kids understand the world.

Now, my dad used to tell me this.

He used to say math is the way the world works.

Now, I never listened to anything he told me when I was younger.

Just barely started listening a few years ago.

But truthfully, I understand that now.

Because if you can understand and actually understand math,

not just memorize the equations so you can regurgitate it on a test,

then you can critically think.

I think the two things that people need to master.

I don't care when you master it.

Because when you become a doctor, you're still a doctor.

It doesn't matter.

I didn't master reading until I was 12.

You need to master reading, and you need to master math.

Agreed.

Once you can do that, there is nothing you can't solve in life.

There really is.

I understand, I agree.

Yeah.

So all these things that we're told we need to learn to get our degree.

This rate, I feel like all I need is YouTube,

and I can figure out anything.

Some of the classes I took looking back at,

it's honestly comical sewing class.

I mean, biology, what the fuck was that?

Lit cooking.

I mean, cooking, I guess, is comical, but sewing.

I broke the machine on the first day, and then she gave me an F.

Exactly.

She put me in the corner of the room the whole semester.

I had to do homework while everyone else was sewing.

It's wild.

Yeah, she hated me.

I was in the sewing club as a kid.

Oh, you are?

I mean, it's a lost art.

Respect for people that sew and sell shit on Etsy, honestly.

I don't do it now, but it's not my thing.

It was funny.

Okay, sure.

I'm like a guy trying to do other shit, like sewing.

You know, they took, they took home a majority of schools,

took home a shop.

Mike Rowe talks about all the time.

They took it right out of the classroom.

Wow.

And now Blue Collars back, and then those guys are making

this game.

Those guys are crushing it.

Yeah, and they took it a lot.

Well, because, I mean, what can't AI replicate?

I look at the world right now is what can't AI replicate?

Blue collar.

Exactly.

And it's needed.

100%.

That's why we're going to need to understand how to get hands-on,

do things physically.

And then I think the next thing we're going to have to master

is our social skills, our storytelling skills.

I mean, storytellers right now, that's the age of the internet.

The better you can tell a story, I mean,

nobody's are becoming millionaires in seconds

because they know how to tell stories online.

Yep.

So I think those are huge skills that we're going to need to learn.

And then adaptability.

If you can't adapt in this whiplash world we're living in right now,

you're going to fall behind.

None of that is taught in the education system.

Not even close.

None of it.

If you bring it up, the laugh of you.

No, they don't understand.

And then people, and what always got me too,

was when I went to college,

this is kind of like going back a few minutes,

but when I went to college, people would always say,

when you went to college, do you go wild

because you were finally like free to do whatever?

And I sit there and say, well, no,

I've been free my whole life.

Kids who go to school are not free

because they're living by all these rules.

That's deep.

Right?

So when they go to college, they're the ones

who go off the deep end of the party.

I mean, I had fun in college,

but I never felt peer pressure.

That's such a good point.

Day in my life with it, I feel peer pressure.

I can tell you, I'd be sitting in the room

with all kinds of things going on.

I just did what only I was okay with, you know?

Respect.

And I think the thing is,

it's because I was given freedom as a kid.

And I'm not talking like I could go wherever I wanted

or I could party or do anything like that.

I was given mental freedom, right?

Nobody told me I had to be at such and such a place,

at such and such a time,

answering in such a, such a manner.

I was self-directed my whole life.

So when it was time for me to move away from home

and be self-directed, I already knew what I was doing.

Yeah.

So it's interesting when people bring up

all these concerns about homeschooling

and alternative education.

And I hear them and I try to process

how people feel about it because in my mind,

it's like, yeah, but that's what you want.

You don't want homeschooling,

replicating the education system.

That's the beauty of it.

I love that.

I also think a lot of the issues on the parent

if the kid is going crazy in college

because I think the parents are being too strict.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, parenting is tough, you know?

And I don't have all the answers

for what it looks like and my son's not in college yet.

So I might eat my words, you know,

but I do think when a parent's reinforcing these rules

and a child has had rules their whole life

as someone who hates rules.

Really?

Most kids do, right?

Yeah, then you try to enforce more rules,

but I'm in a situation that's allowing me no rules.

I mean, I could hate, I would hate my parents too.

You set me free and now you're trying to bring me back in.

No, I'm dealt with rules my entire adolescence.

I'm done.

I understand the idea.

But if you're, if you've been raised

on the a sense that you have freedom of choice,

freedom of speech in your household, freedom to choose,

then when you're sent away to college,

it's not that huge of a change, which is funny

because everyone's always worried,

oh, what you got, you went to college out.

That, that, I think comes from the idea

that it's homeschooling is a conservative religious choice.

Yeah.

And it never was for my family.

It was simply, these two kids are wild.

Ha, ha, ha.

Shout out to your parents for being one of the early ones

to go that route for real.

Oh, yeah.

They took a leap of faith, huh?

Yeah, I still make comments.

I probably shouldn't know.

Oh, you're starting to look homeschooled.

I got to cut your hair to my son.

I'm like, just don't make those guys.

I love it.

What age did you let your kid on social media?

How old?

He's still not.

He's eight.

Yeah, he's not.

I will say, my opinion is social media, the apps,

the social, the Instagram, the Facebooks, those,

I don't want him on.

I don't know how long that's going to last.

So in my head, never.

I'm sure he has friends that already have it.

Well, a lot of his friends don't

because we put so much emphasis on being outside and playing.

What they do have, so I'm not going to say we're not perfect.

What they do love is Minecraft.

And they love Pokemon.

Wow.

Pokemon go like the, no, no, I don't do that.

I just Pokemon cards and they check the pricing.

But I'm actually really into the whole Pokemon thing

because I've decided it's turned my son

into a little entrepreneur

because I'm not shelling out the cash for the Pokemon cards.

So now he's decided to take his 3D printer

and start creating little figurines

that he can sell at his Pokemon shops.

That's cool.

We got told him to go ahead.

I was like, you want money for those Pokemon cards

then you got to make some.

Respect.

And we're not doing a lemonade stand every day

in my neighborhood, we just can't do that.

Yeah, can't do that.

So he said he'd take his 3D printer

and I said, well, go ask the stores.

Like, you go be a little businessman.

You want something, go figure out how to get it.

Go ask the stores.

He went into two different Pokemon stores

asked him if they would put his 3D models on display.

And if he could sell them, they said, yeah.

That's what my mother did for me.

And I hated it at the time.

But looking back now, so grateful.

I had no allowance.

Everyone grew up in a rich neighborhood.

So like, kids got cards given to them when they were 16.

And I didn't get that.

And I hated it at the time.

But it taught me to be an entrepreneur.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I think it's something that he has to learn.

I think every child needs to learn entrepreneurial skills,

financial literacy skills.

I mean, these are things that they can teach themselves.

A lot of homeschooling.

You end up teaching yourself a lot, really.

Once you get old enough to research,

but back to social media.

So he doesn't have it.

I learned early on because I've been a single mom

for a long time.

And it's been very hard to do homeschooling alone.

I have allowed him to have a tablet

so that he could watch approved programs that I allowed.

But I will say, early on, I thought

it would be fun to let him have chat so he could text me.

And I could text him.

And he wanted one friend of his to text.

This lasted for five minutes.

I was like, why?

He had one little friend.

He was probably seven years old.

I said, OK, how harmful could that be?

Let me tell you something.

I gave him the ability to text his friend.

And when his friend texted him and he didn't answer,

he'd get mad and start putting emojis.

Now I don't mean in an aggressive mean way.

I just mean in a little kid way, sending lots of emojis

and why haven't you answered me.

And my son got upset.

He says he got upset with me because I didn't answer him fast enough.

This is over a text message.

This is at seven years old.

And it's my fault for doing this.

I should never have done it, but I didn't know.

And I realized that's the type of anxiety

adults feel when it comes to text messaging.

100%.

You do not need that.

And you're not going to have that for so long.

So I did a little toe in there and learned my lesson real quick,

took that away.

I mean, it lasted literally one day.

And now my idea is he'll probably get like a gab phone

eventually where I can approve who he calls but no social media.

But I do think YouTube in the right way

under supervision can be used very effectively.

I mean, truthfully, there's a lot of bad on there.

There's a lot.

I don't like YouTube shorts.

I don't like short form content while minds are developing

because I think it's very bad for their development.

Big talk for any of the call it.

Yeah, I don't want it.

So I think you can learn anything from YouTube,

anything from the internet, essentially.

So if you can keep it in a reasonable manner, they can learn so much.

I mean, my son knows so much about animals.

It's it's that's impressive.

YouTube University, they call it.

Yeah, I learned more there than 18 years of school.

100%.

Not even close.

My son was invited to go visit the NC State Preserved Animals Lab.

That's awesome.

Basically, it's a huge, huge inventory

of all the animals you can file, all the reptiles you can find.

And he knows so many of them and can talk the lingo.

I'm just there as an observer.

But he learned all that because he wanted to know about reptiles.

It's his obsession.

So cool.

If he was in public school, they'd label him autistic and ADHD.

Exactly.

Oh, gosh, my son.

Absolutely.

He's wild.

But that's another thing, too.

If you have a passion, there's no end.

There's no term, right?

There's no semester to your passion.

So if you love an animal or you love whatever it is,

you can chase that dream, chase that interest for years.

So I can run his education essentially all

through his love of reptiles, reptile books, reading

about them, watching shows, learning things,

going to visit places.

I've been on this train for him for years,

and he loves it, and he learns and devours

because it's a topic he loves.

And that's how learning should be.

Figure out what they're interested in,

and just double down on it, support them.

Exactly.

What's the saying?

If your son's not good at math, but great at tennis,

I'd rather hire a tennis coach than a math tutor.

Oh, cool.

Because the idea is, if you have an interest

in a talent in one area, rather than making everybody

mediocre in the same level, let's dive into what

you're passionate about and what you love.

So that's kind of, it's a debatable way to look at it,

but I'm on the side of I agree with that.

I think it's the best way.

Why would you learn about six other topics?

I think I had nine topics when I went to school,

and I didn't give a shit about, probably eight of them.

Right, right, it's crazy.

Yeah, so that's a lot.

The education world we live in has a lot to unpack,

but I think one of the things that we really have to focus in on

is parents need to be aware of what their children are learning,

how they're learning, and what is setting them up for.

Like you want them to be set up for the future.

Would be your advice for, I got a lot of young parents here

that have to work because they can't afford

to just be home all day.

Would you advise people to those kind of people?

57% of homeschooling families make less than 50,000 a year.

So you can make it work?

You can make it work.

There are so many ways to make it work,

and I think a lot of parents are afraid to do it.

So they use that as sort of the crutch,

and I don't mean to say that in a bad way,

but I was a single mom living in LA when I had my son,

and I wanted to homeschool him.

Oh, and I lost my job.

Geez.

We're still homeschooling.

Oh, yeah, I never put him in daycare.

I never put him in kindergarten.

And I decided I was going to homeschool him

because that was a non-negotiable.

In our lives, we can make things that are non-negotiable.

And I know that sounds hard, but the reality is

you just need to make decisions to make it happen.

So if that means moving closer to your family,

you may have to do that, right?

Not everybody can do it.

I understand that, but you need to really get serious

with yourself what your limitations are

for homeschooling or alternative schooling

if that's what you want.

You can find a community.

I have a great community of moms.

One of the moms, she runs a multi-million dollar business

from home with three wild children, but in our community,

I know that if she's got meetings and needs some help,

I'll be there to help her.

And she does the same thing for me.

How did you find those people?

You wanted the best way to find homeschool families?

Where?

OK, you can find them on Facebook.

Yes, you can join all the homeschool groups everything.

But you never know if you'll like them or have people

go to the park during the middle of the day

when school kids aren't there.

That's literally how you meet people.

I am not kidding.

That is how I met the majority of the homeschool people I know.

Wow.

Because then you know, you meet them.

You vibe.

You like each other.

You have the same sort of personality.

Yeah, that's how I, when I go to the gym,

I like 2 p.m.

I meet some entrepreneurs, so a similar concept.

Exactly.

But it'd be hard to go on like, what is it?

Bumble friends where you meet people?

I don't know.

Oh, people do that.

I think I don't know what friends.

Isn't that what it is?

I heard of it.

Yeah, something like, or where else do you meet people?

I got off those apps a long time ago.

Right.

But like before they even had the friends option.

Well, that's the thing.

Like, it's hard to meet people online.

It's weird.

It's weird.

Yeah.

So if you just go to a place, I mean, a lot of times

for us people who are homeschool, when children are in school,

we're out.

It's when we emerge because the museums are less busy.

The parks are less busy.

We are always out and about.

That's when I grocery shop.

Yeah, they go exactly next to me.

Meet people at parks.

Next time you go when you're grocery shopping,

look around, you'll see some school kids

because we go to middle of the day.

I love that.

So I mean, that's one of the things.

And I think you have to realize, homeschooling

isn't replicating school at home.

And I think that's very intimidating concept for people.

We're not replicating school at home.

And that's the entire point we don't want to.

So a lot of times people reach out to me and say things like,

I'm so nervous about what curriculum to choose.

And I read this whole thing about how

they're worried about what to do.

And then they say, my child's turning five.

Like, he's some creepers at five.

Five, I think we were playing with Plato in the front lawn

and water tables.

And there was no, you don't need to implement these schedules.

So I think people don't need to get overwhelmed.

I think that was my thought process too

when I thought of homeschooling.

Because eight hours school day,

how do you translate that to the house?

And that's where I was like, can I pull that off?

But you're right.

You only need like two, three hours of actual learning, right?

It depends on the age.

Yeah.

Two or three hours of actual learning

until I turned maybe like 13.

Wow.

That's awesome.

I mean, truthfully, what kids learn best through doing

is hands-on play activities.

So when you think about it, my son right now,

although he goes to classes,

the rest of the time is spent with his friends outside,

getting dirty in the woods, building forts, I mean,

destroying things.

That's so cool.

I'm like jealous, honestly.

I know.

Sometimes I sit there and I go, wait a minute, what on earth?

And you know, that's what our community does, too, though.

And this isn't unique to where I am as a community here.

Last year, I was on a podcast here as well.

And y'all have a huge community here for homeschooling.

Really?

Well, the public school sucks here.

Exactly.

For like 49th in the state in the country or so.

Yeah, so there's a huge community here for homeschooling.

A lot of people.

So I think when it comes to it,

if you're interested in homeschooling,

go meet some homeschooling parents.

Yeah.

Everybody does it different.

Remember, everybody does it different.

Oh, and that's another thing.

So if you start one way, unlike the school system,

if I start and say, I'm going to do this curriculum

or I'm going to do complete unschooling and it doesn't work, you can change.

You don't need to notify anybody.

You don't need to do anything.

You just change the way you do things.

Yeah, you don't have to change schools or move cities to change schools.

If you want to take a break for a week, go take a break.

It won't, people worry, is it going to set my child back?

The mindset people need to learn is children are pre-designed to learn.

That's how they develop.

They will learn.

You just need to let them.

And we don't let children learn in this society.

Not at all.

Traveling's another good topic because you can't even travel

when you're in public school or else they won't let you pass.

And that goes back to socialization.

What's a great way to socialize and meet real people in the world?

Traveling.

Go learn about different cultures.

Go see different people.

My son has been traveling since he was six months old.

And we travel all the time.

I have a good friend, actually, who homeschools,

specifically because she likes to go to Disney once a month

and travel with her children and take the RV.

That's she loves to travel and go on cruises.

And that's what some people really prioritize.

And if you think those children aren't getting an excellent

understanding of the world and socialization, it's crazy.

Because even we don't get to socialize as much if we wanted to.

A lot of people can't take that time off to travel.

But it's just, to me, traveling is one of the best things

you can do to educate a child.

Yeah.

I mean, so much.

We one time went and stayed at Conestoga wagons

just to see how people traveled out west.

We slept in one wagon like that.

That was my son's history education.

Yeah, the town, the school I went to, if you got caught traveling,

you would end up in the principal's office.

Isn't that crazy?

That's wild.

It's not.

Like they would punish you for missing school to travel the world.

That's always blows my mind.

Because I'm like, God, you guys got to get up early.

You can't sleep.

And then you can't leave.

It's nuts.

It's pretty much a jail.

That's how I think of it.

That's why, to me, it's so innately natural for us

to homeschool our children or educate them

in a way that's more child-led so that these kids can discover

and learn versus forcing them into something

that seems so artificial.

Yeah.

I mean, me personally, my favorite memories

as a child are me playing outside, kickball, dodgeball,

whatever, just playing outside with friends.

Yeah.

I mean, that is so much of what my son does.

And I don't see that with the current generation.

Oh, there's stuck inside.

And then the depression rates go up.

And people, although they can communicate,

have all these devices to communicate.

They're so isolated.

I can't believe kids are depressed.

Like, kids, young kids.

God, I mean, I always say, you've got your whole life.

You can't have a bad, you can't have a depressing childhood

because of these things that are going on.

Yeah.

And that's the thing.

You're stuck indoors, you're stuck inside.

We need to get kids outside learning, physically learning.

So I mean, it's a sad situation.

Yeah, I remember coming home as a kid

and immediately dropping on my backpack inside

and running outside, and I was there till dinner.

Yeah.

Yeah, till, you know, street lights came on.

You had to go back inside, biking, kick.

We had neighborhood kickball events.

That's awesome.

Everybody get together and play kickball on somebody's lawn.

That's so cool.

I mean, and right now, even in my neighborhood,

my son will knock on neighbor's doors, go say hi,

play with it.

Anybody in the neighborhood just go, go play.

How fun, enjoy it.

I was like, unheard of these things.

And we, and I never prioritize, if he wants to see something on TV,

but we have a plan, you are never allowed to say,

oh, but I want to watch this.

I'm like, no, we are leaving.

That is never an excuse to stay indoors.

We are always on the move.

A lot of them.

So it's, it's just an interesting, it's an interesting society

with the living.

And to me, it feels a lot like we aren't prioritizing children.

Agreed.

Claire, how can people work with you, support you,

and find you and everything?

You can find me on Instagram, live.leaf.learn.

And you can find me on Facebook, same hashtags.

You can find me on my website, liveleaflearn.com.

Beautiful.

And I respond to, I'm just me, his old person on this.

So if you ever have questions about homeschooling interests,

you can always send me a message.

I respond to everyone.

And I try to genuinely help people.

Questions, concerns, you never hurts to just ask.

Thank you.

I hope you guys are enjoying the show.

Please don't forget to like and subscribe.

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Thank you.