Uncovering Your Child’s Genius: Rethinking Intelligence, Learning Styles & Education

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Welcome to the Where Parents Talk podcast. We help grow better parents through science, evidence and the lived experience of other parents.

Learn how to better navigate the mental and physical health of your tween teen or young adult through proven expert advice. Here's your host, Lianne Castelino.

Welcome to Where Parents Talk. My name is Lianne Castelino. Our guest today is an educator and a homeschool coach.

Houlie Duque is also founder and CEO of homeschooltogo.org, a bilingual K12 program that blends traditional classroom instruction with homeschool teaching techniques. It is designed to give parents the confidence to create learning that fits the their child's unique learning and lifestyle.

Houlie is also a mother of one and she joins us today from Fredericton. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you so much for having me. I love what you're doing for the parent community across America and the world.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

And we are going to be focusing our conversation on uncovering a child's genius, which sounds like, as a parent, it just sounds amazing. Like, tell me how to do that. So when parents hear the word genius, they often think of things like grades or gifted programs.

But how do you define genius in a child?

I think genius is the set of qualities that can make you outstanding in a group.

So I think because there are conditioning with the traditional and the school system, we believe that it's based on grades or, you know, scores, whether you're advanced, if you, if you're in grade one and you have math skills of grade five or beyond. That's how most of us see it.

But I believe a high quality education is that which teaches an individual or a student how to use their unique gifts and develop them to an, to an extent where they can offer value to a community or value to the world.

So I think genius is when we develop our child's genius is when we identify what those unique gifts are and we're able to focus on developing them consistently over time so that at a certain point, graduation, call it what you will, any milestone along the way, you have a confident child that is sure and knows how to use those specific skills to put them to the service of others.

That is such a wonderful way of describing it because that is not how, as you mentioned, typically we think of that in terms of being parents and getting the best out of our kids.

So.

When you say that, how do you expect parents or how can parents help facilitate getting the genius out of their child?

Absolutely. There's a process and I Think the word, the keyword process is important to keep into account. We use two different measures to identify this.

So at first the parents can start, start to identify what are the dominant learning styles of the child right from the age of three or you know, three, four, five years old.

And it doesn't really set because of the development of the child during those first years all the way up until 7, they're still discovering themselves. They still, a lot of them believe that they're the center of the world. Like they call it the nine year change.

But now it's because this generation is much more advanced and growing rapidly because they're getting exposed to more quicker. Those developmental stages are happening earlier.

So I would say from 7 to 9, there's a change that happens where the child realizes, oh, I'm not the center of the world. And they start to see how they can put those, they can connect those identity or those skills that are innate to the world around them.

And so to go back to answering your question, in the beginning stages you can start to define what their domino learning style is. Visual, kinesthetic, auditory. And then you can start to. Once they hit 8 years old in our program we do a multiple intelligence assessment.

So then we can see from this assessment, it's a psychological interview and we can see which one of the multiple intelligence they are outstanding or what's the predominant.

So we have the interpersonal, the linguistic, verbal, the logical, mathematical, the visual, spatial, the musical, auditory, the corporal kinesthetic, or the interpersonal. So in schools, it's mostly the kids that excel are either logical, mathematical or linguistic.

So it's interesting because we're leaving all of these, all of these other intelligences behind and everybody who is maybe predominant in any of the other ones grows up believing that they're just not good enough or they're just not smart.

And it's an important point because that label can last, you know, for years, if not the entire lifespan of that individual. So let's talk about that a little bit more. Huli. You know, you believe that every child is intelligent, but just in different ways. Why is that?

Reframe, especially in important in a system that expects children to learn at the same pace, which is what we find ourselves in, in the traditional educational model.

Yeah, I think if we go back to the beginning of the history of the traditional public school system, it was designed during the Industrial revolution where the parents were taken away from the home to go to work at the factory and the children no longer had supervisors at the beginning, they were trying to Bring the children into the factories. And there were accidents happening, like, children losing limbs even, like. So they were like, okay, let's reorganize this.

Send the kids somewhere where we can train them so that when they come out of that training or that conditioning, they can be perfect for the factory. They can be good factory workers.

So the school system was based on obedience, following instructions, and the ability to just basically sit there in a space.

So it's killing creativity, it's killing critical thinking now because it's a setting where you have, let's say, a ratio 1 to 30:1 to 20:1 to 18 in the smaller schools. You can't really take the time to explore what's this child good at and how can we develop that.

So they kind of had to do one standardized so system for all of them. They did that not thinking of the best outcome for the child.

They did that thinking of the base on the best outcome for the people that were establishing the system, which they needed more factory workers. They needed people that question the. The way things are, because this is the way that is going to work for us.

So I think this is why there's been a whole boom in homeschool, because people are realizing this is not working. I went through that system and I felt like a lot of that education I didn't carry into, you know, my life.

Like it wasn't life applicable or like you're saying, scars in their confidence. I was talking earlier about those first seven years and, and that's, you know, before the age of six, we haven't developed a rational mind yet.

The understanding of, oh, this happened to me because of this person. Or. So basically we're. We're so vulnerable and we absorb everything as a part of our own identity.

So if we're called a certain label at that age, we immediately think there is something wrong with us because we're being measured against this arbitrary standard.

So I think it's very important to build confidence during those first years and to train rather our children to face challenge and regulate their emotions while facing challenge. And I think that's like the emotional intelligence. That's one that is so important for everyone.

It's one that I would say if there was something that they had to teach in school, that it would be good for everybody.

I would say that one, because anytime we face a problem in life, the first thing that we have to do is regulate the emotions that we have so that we can focus on actually solving the problem. So if you can get past that first emotional regulation, which A lot of people don't have that tool.

For me personally, I started learning them way later on in life. You can't get to the solution from the beginning. You can't even start using your skills because you're blocked by the emotional stress response.

So, yeah, to go back to your question, I think that the reason why the system doesn't work for everyone is because it wasn't built for the children.

So.

And building on that point, you know, take us through what happens to a child emotionally when their strengths don't fit the narrow sort of definitions of intelligence that you talked about that are currently, you know, what we see in schools. What happens to the child emotionally?

Well, I seen a lot of. A lot of the confidence, you know, like, you probably have had this conversation because, you know, parenting topic.

They say that the voice in your mind as an adult, your inner voice, is the voice of your parent. Like when you were a child under six, I don't know if you've heard that before, maybe some of your conversations.

Well, whatever your parent is saying to you constantly when you're young, that's kind of what carries on, because it goes in. Because like I say, your rational mind is not yet developed. So everything goes straight into your subconscious during those years.

So anything, anything that you're told during those years, you believe to be true.

So if you're a child with an ADHD diagnosis or undiagnosed adhd, and you're sitting in a classroom like most ADHD children have, let's say, and I'm generalizing here, so, like, don't think that if you have, if you have a child with adhd, this is your case. But in most cases, children with adhd, ADHD have a low auditory intelligence. So if you're talking to them, you're talking through them.

You know what I mean? Like, that's, that's the classroom setting, like, they're being talked to.

Some children need more visual aids when they're learning to be able to follow what's being told. A lot of ADHD children also have very developed kinesthetic intelligence.

So they need to use their bodies to learn their hands touch to be able to understand a concept. And so when this doesn't happen in the classroom, they think that there's just something wrong with them. They're constantly being scolded.

They're constantly being told to sit down. Their parents are getting calls because the kid is not behaving properly. And so then the kid gets talked to at home.

So what happens is the child grows up Believing there's something wrong with them. And that's the first problem that you have to overcome before you now even try to develop their genius. Because they don't even believe in themselves.

Right? So it is very detrimental to hurt a child's intelligence very early on.

We want to build children that believe in themselves and that also believe in the process. I think it's important. The same thing can happen the other way around.

When children grow up thinking or being told, oh, you're so intelligent, you're so smart, you're so good, you're so kind. They can also create kind of like pressure on themselves to live up to this identity that they're being told that they are.

And that can create another set of problems like constantly seeking external validation.

And that's another problem with the school systems because it's like, you do good, you get a sticker, you do good, you know, you do bad, you get detention or whatever it is. You're, you're behind on this, you're going to have to work now, you're bad at math, you're going to have to do more math now.

So I think it's very important to be very aware of how we speak to children and to put the emphasis on the process rather than the outcome, because that's what life is about, right? So we're told now, and I'm sure you probably heard this before, but the best practice is to tell your child when they're doing good.

Instead of saying, you're so smart, you're so bright, saying something like, wow, I see that you're very focused on what you're doing. You're working really hard.

Like just like point out the passion for what it is that they're doing rather than a skill or a label that you're giving to whatever it is happening.

Building on that point, in traditional education system, it tends to be a priority on linguistic and logical intelligence. Are there other forms of intelligence, Huli, that are often overlooked? And if so, what are they?

Yes, I think that I was naming them before. Like you're saying linguistic and logical mathematical are the ones that get the most praise.

However, when we see, for example, a child that's incredibly gifted in the realm of logical mathematical, sometimes, again, I'm generalizing here, but a lot of cases you see, if they're super good at logical mathematical, they'll have low interpersonal or low intrapersonal. You know what I mean?

Like the brain, when the brain focuses more on one side, it's, it's less, it's less strong in, in, in it isn't the cases when you see there's a person who becomes blind throughout their life or is born blind, then their, their auditory skill is prominent, is the same. So I think one that gets overlooked a lot is the interpersonal, which is very useful for life. The intrapersonal as well.

I say intrapersonal intelligence is something that.

So if we get a child that finish their assessments and we see that sometimes the assessment comes back and we see that there's an intelligence that is not present at all. Like there's the two predominant and then there's one that is absolutely not present at all.

Let's say the one that is not present is the auditory, for example. So if this is the case, you're not going to try and teach a new skill or something challenging to that child through that intelligence.

You're wanting perhaps to spark or ignite that development that is not going to happen innately through something that's fun and easygoing and not a lot of pressure around it. Now most of the times I say don't even touch it, focus on the strengths.

But when it's intrapersonal, if the child has a non existent interpersonal intelligence, that's one that I say we still want to create little prompts and little opportunities to develop that one. Because to be self aware. Not self aware.

Self.

Self conscious. No, self aware, not self conscious. That's where I was going. I think there's.

The term for it is metacognition is the awareness of like your ability to reflect on how you reacted to a specific situation and how you can make that better. So metacognition is actually one of the new ways that people are measuring genius.

If you're able to see something that you did in the past that didn't work well, or you know, in that moment when someone told me something and I was triggered and I respond a certain way and you're aware of that and you're able to consciously kind of like rewire yourself. That is something that as a child you can learn if you see the adults around you modeling it.

And that type of intelligence has the ability to, to create a very capable, very incredible leader. So you know, those are, you said, what are two that get overlooked other than the linguistic and the mathematical, all of them get overlooked.

Sometimes the kinesthetic gets a little bit of a spotlight because kids tend to be really good at sports. And in North America there's a lot of emphasis in sports. But I think other than those three, all of them get overlooked.

I would say the interpersonal and the intrapersonal are extremely important.

So on a sort of a related note, for parents who may be experiencing a child who's restless or seems disengaged or is behind, how can they tell whether it's an issue of ability or the way that the learning is being delivered to that child?

In most cases, it will be if it's a restless child, like you're talking about the case where, like, you're teaching and the child's, like, bouncing off a chair and like, needing to move, like, that child actually needs that movement in order to process. So the fact that the teacher can't continue the lesson because the child is moving, that's the teacher's problem, not the child's problem.

That's just the child needing kinesthetic stimuli to be able to focus.

So you were saying, how do we know the way that you try it is by introducing the skill or the learning through a learning style that matches the need of that child. So, for example, a kinesthetic child that is learning math using a lot of manipulatives, using a. Using, you know, built. Like I've seen.

I have a kinesthetic child in my program who, in the school, he was under pressure. And speaking about the confidence in, in the, In Florida, the. And I think it happens in a lot of different states in America, actually. The, The.

The value of the real estate goes up if the district has really good scores. Like, if the school of the district has really good scores.

So there's a lot of pressure from the schools to, like, a lot of emphasis on grades and a lot of emphasis on hard work. And it's, it's kind of like a very forceful type of education that kills the, the.

In the motivation of the child to want to learn because it doesn't make sense in their head. It's like, I'm. I'm. I'm learning for this grade and I'm doing all this work that I don't really enjoy.

So I have many cases of children that come from schools like that, but I'm thinking about one in particular. He was pretty average when it came to school, and he started doing homeschool. And we focused his entire curriculum around kinesthetic learning.

And he's now doing.

He's in grade five, and he's doing grade eight, mathematics and robotics and coding and learning different languages, you know, because their parents travel. So then from real experience, they learn the importance of.

So you take a child who couldn't sit still, who didn't like writing, now all of a sudden Speaking English, Spanish, wanting to learn French, Italian, you know, and this is a kinesthetic child. You just have to learn how to frame the learning so that it becomes relevant to them.

Let's talk about homeschool to go for a little bit. Huli, what made you decide to start up this program and tell us what it entails and why it's.

Yes, absolutely. So I was a teacher for Cambridge schools for about 10 years.

I also taught Montessori and used a lot of Waldorf curriculum to do like homeschooling for other families in my, in my early career. And, you know, I was, I was working at a school where parents pay $25,000 a year for their kids to go there. And it's, you know, the top of the line.

It's like you want your kid to be, to be great, send them to the school. And so when you are a teacher there, you learn what are the best methodologies to teach, you know, high quality education.

And we did have the best tools.

And I, and I took a lot of my inspiration from those types of tools and curriculums, which is project based, active learning, experiential learning is the, it's been proven that it's the best way to learn. It creates 60% more retention and I think 50% more engagement.

So it's not only more engaging for the child, but it's also, it stays, the knowledge stays longer. So I was teaching there and I was still feeling like, okay, this is like the top of the line of where you can be in the, in the pyramid of education.

And I still don't feel like I still know that these kids could get so much more out of their education because every single one of them has different needs.

Me as a teacher, I don't have time in one day with 30 of them at the same time to focus on each of them and give them the attention that they need to take them to their full potential.

So it ends up being that the kids that get that personalized experience or that get most out of their education are the ones that get, you know, there's always like the five top students in a classroom, and usually those are the students.

I also realized in that experience that the kids that had those initiatives to be more involved in their education and to be more interested and to work harder into getting something out of it were the students that had parents at home that were involved in their education. The parents that cared about. They were doing. Those were the kids that were. There's not, it's not, it wasn't the Smartest kids.

It wasn't the kids with the parents with the most money. It was the kids that had the parents that cared the most at home.

And so I always knew in that experience I'm not going to be able to create an impact at the skill that I want this way.

So I think I thought that if I could make the job easy enough for the parents and engaging and high quality enough for the kids, that would be my best chance at creating the skill of the impact that I wanted. And then from that experience, I also knew that I wanted to homeschool my own child. I'm a teacher at this school. School.

I don't want to have to pay this money to send my kid to a school where they're still not going to see their full potential. I know how to do it at home because I have the tools and I can give them that personalized experience.

So when I had my child, I started looking for homeschooling options just to get ready for the time. And I didn't find anything that checked all the boxes of what I considered to be what the parents needed. And so that's why I started my organization.

And since then I spoken with thousands of parents. And so I've learned better and better what it is that the parent needs. It's a team effort.

It's not just the child that needs better tools, it's the parent also that needs more flexibility, more coaching, more support, more community. So I built it to make it easy for more parents to say yes. Because I think this is the way that we can really create an impact in the next generation.

It's so interesting to hear you describe it because we live currently in the knowledge economy. Knowledge is in the power of our hands in the form of a smartphone that we all seem to have.

We are living at a time when parents have never had more on their plates to deal with. So how did you go about simplifying all of that when it comes to education? For parents to be able to do this in their own homes with their children?

Yes, that's a great question.

I think the first thing is to understand that the need for five hours, six hours, eight hours a day, whatever it is that they do in the school district where you are located as a parent is not necessary. The real golden learning that is happening doesn't require all those hours.

So once you understand that with active learning, with experiential learning, you can do so much more in way less time than is understanding what are the things that your child needs in order to make that even more. And then after that, creating a few family rhythm that is. That is sustainable for you as the parent as well as for the child as a parent.

Inside of homeschool2go. This is one of the things that we do in our onboarding. We teach the parents about the family rhythm.

So there's a few different strategies that you can use. And actually, I created this course. It's a free class that we offer through our website. If you go to homeschooltogo.org you can get it for free.

And so we also talk about the family rhythm there and what are like, the key points of the things that you can do. But then we go more into depth once the parents join.

But yeah, creating a family rhythm where you as a parent can have specific days to focus on your work, whatever it is that you do, and then specific days to focus on your child. And knowing that it doesn't have to be every day for five hours, with the resources that we develop, you can do it in five to 10 hours per week.

So you can do homeschooling two days a week for two hours, and then, you know, you can balance out your time to do the things that you need to get done.

So on that note, what would you say is one small, realistic shift that a parent can make at home this week or in the short term to better honor how their child learns?

Yes, I think something easy that every parent can do at home is if you are like, you want to be more involved in your child's education.

And this is a new insight that I haven't mentioned before is don't try to be like, I'm the teacher and you're the student and you're going to sit down and I'm going to tell you everything. Because then in that moment, you're thinking, I need to be this qualified person to be able to teach you all, like, get rid of that mindset.

And instead of it, think of in terms of, we're both students and we're going to walk through this together.

And so the thing that you can do is do at least one project, one game, one challenge in the week where your child and you are going to do something together and your child gets the opportunity to work, watch you struggle through that problem. And of course, you're going to bring your best attitude forward in doing that because you want to model how you want them.

It's like, it's okay for your child to watch you struggle and resolve a situation that is more valuable than anything else you can do with your child.

Because it's important for children to trust the process of when they don't know something, keep trying, even if they don't get the immediate outcome. And with children, it very much is that, you know, you do it so many times and you. You think like, it's not. It's not. I'm not getting anywhere.

And you do it for two months, and then one day it clicks. And all of a sudden they're experts. I see that again and again, not just the families in my program, but when I was a teacher. So it's like.

It's like, let your child watch you walk through that process. That's going to have so much impact over their development and their psyche growth. Mindset.

What would you say to parents who perhaps have kids who are tweens, teens who have not been exposed to this type of thinking have left it to the school and teachers and the whole system to take care of it?

Is there anything that they can do to change their mindset to better support their child's learning potential, even if they are a little bit older than. Than, let's say, seven years old, as.

You talked about earlier, right? Yes.

So I think that if you have a child in this age group and they're struggling with the current situation, one of the best things that you can do is go through the deschooling process.

So it's like, if you're thinking of pulling them out of school because they're not excelling, they're not feeling worthy, the school is not benefiting them, and you. You're thinking of, okay, I'm going to homeschool.

Before you even start to homeschool, go through a period of deschooling where you don't do any school and you just let your child be so that they can kind of.

Because there, There is a process that both parents and children go through when they transition into homeschool is you're still kind of conditioned under that idea that you have to be doing work all the time to be learning. And really, it's unbelievable. It's so incredible to see how parents are. They're like, oh, but I think I'm not doing enough.

And then they get to the end of the year and they look up the portfolio and they see everything that their child has done, and then they look at what their children were doing in school and they're like, this is wild. Like, this is so much better. But I didn't even realize that I was doing so much.

It's important to understand that consistency always Always, always beats intensity.

And so, and so again to those parents to trust the process and to go through a period of, you know, kind of like forgetting the old system of you need to be, you need to be on a leash all the time and you're under clock, you know, for, for proving your worth all the time. Like, you kind of have to just relax and pretend that that doesn't even exist before you start the new system.

Really interesting conversation. Lots to consider. Houlie Duque, founder of homeschooltogo.org thank you so much for your time and your perspective today.

Thank you so much for having me.

And if you're thinking about homeschooling and you feel alone in the process and you're looking for support for community, for Expertise, go to homeschooltogo.org There's a free masterclass you can click as soon as you go to that website. It's a class that's going to walk you through everything.

And if you feel you want to talk to a human to talk about your individual issues, there's going to be an opportunity there to have a call with me. So if you feel this calling in your heart, I'm here to support you because I truly believe this, this can change the future.

Thank you so much for having me today, Leanne. Thank you.

Take.

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