I’m writing this because I have had a few people asking for an update – what have we been up to? Have any of our kids run off yet?
Ok, so it’s 10 months into when the Covid-19 panic started and I guess we as a family were not as affected as most, thankfully. It was, for the most part, business or study as usual.
What’s been pretty incredible for us is that in the last few months the whole homeschooling project, which is kind of nearing its end, or, you could say going into a new phase, really feels like it has been an overall success.
Now, sure, academically it was always a success from around 4 years ago, when the kids started doing their public exams, but here’s why I feel that in so many other ways it has been a success too…
So, Maryam (16) and Danyal (14) haven’t done any academic study for 2 years.
Maryam has been ‘working’ in the company I run, Jibble, and should, in a few months, be running the entire digital marketing of the company – and so be completely responsible for a US$400k annual budget. She’s learned things fast, she works hard, and she enjoys it.
Meanwhile, Danyal has been coding and he too has started ‘working’ at Jibble. I can see him progressing fast as he’s coding 12 x 7 – well, it’d Covid time so there isn’t much else to do!
I feel that within a few months both of them would be able to get beyond graduate-level jobs at a top tech company with the skills they will have acquired – most tech companies don’t care about degrees. We used to contemplate them perhaps doing degrees – but now we are absolutely sure there is no point as long as this continues.
You guys might think that I’m taking it easy on them. Kids lazing around in daddy’s business, being spoilt. Sure, I’m the CEO of Jibble, but honestly they need to achieve a higher benchmark because I’m very aware of their privileges. Those of you who read my writings will know my biggest fear for my kids isn’t that they don’t inherit enough money, it’s that they end up spoilt and lazy, achieving nothing in their lives.
Part of the reason they’re doing well is that my wife and I are personally guiding them and pushing them- and we can be more direct with them than with most other employees – I mean, they’re our kids too. For example, if they’re assigned work by a manager I tell them to work damn hard and get it done well and fast – it’s like they’re getting constant one-on-one coaching on how to succeed in a tech company.
I am confident that if they maintain their drive they’ll achieve big things. So it’s odd, we have four of us – my wife, Maryam, Danyal, and myself all working really hard in Jibble.
And finally, Sabeen (12) is doing her A-levels in January (first paper tomorrow) and in June 2021 – Mathematics and Accounting. She seems to be doing fine. Like her siblings, I don’t think she wants to study further – but we’ve not discussed that yet.
What we hate about the formal exams is that they really tie us up – once Sabeen has finished her exams it’s kind of cool that we can go anywhere anytime – remember, Jibble is run remotely so none of us need to be in any office. And, frankly, I believe it’s really good that my kids won’t have a good part of their teens and early 20s ruined by mostly-useless exams – that is the way I look at it. I mean, these days they learn what they want to learn, without any exam pressure.
Oh, and one more thing, we can really see our persistence with the languages paying off – it has been a slow process. The kids are now at least close to conversant in all their 6 languages (English, French, Bahasa, Hindi/Urdu, Arabic, Mandarin) – all learned by simply chatting to someone over Skype 3 times a week, which they often do while cooking or doing something else.
Overall, the homeschool leading on to business has worked out REALLY well.
Stay safe everyone! 🙏
The Wonder Years 
I read your blog years ago and it has left a mark to say the least, We decided to have kids and are hardcore homeschoolers even though he is only 4 :). you gave us the insight and vision to actually do it and I will be forever grateful, I really enjoyed the update and I’m happy I got to grow up with the kids too on their journey through life , I wish them all the best and maybe one day we could all meet up and i could explain to my kids what impact you and your family had on our entire lives 🙂
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Mohammed, really appreciate your comment and really glad to know this blog has helped you.
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AOA Asim, I’ve really enjoyed following their progress over the years, and looking forward to get the other side of the story, i.e. your children’s perspective on all this.
What did they enjoy, what would they have done differently? What would they want to tell my 4 home-schooled children (11, 9, 7, 4) for example, a been there/done that type of post.
Yes, Covid hasn’t made much of an impact on our lives either, except pretty much validate everything we’d been thinking when we started down this journey.
Thanks for sharing.
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I have asked the eldest, Maryam, to write several times. Let me nudge her again.
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Hi Asim, it’s been 2 years since I followed you. I am 26 years old Indonesian and not married yet. But, following your blog has made me think about the kind of education I would prepare for my future kids. I want to let you know that I am thankful that you share your family journey with us. Your story even inspired people who have not married yet to think about their future life. Thank you!
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Hilmy, glad to have helped, and thanks so much for reaching and letting me know.
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Thanks for sharing your wonder years bringing up your family, indeed your story never fails to inspire me. What a story from homeschooling your kids to grooming them at Jibble. A learning curve that cannot be created in any other way. Well done to you and your wife plus your kids of course. Keep inspiring us all.
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You should write a post a post on how to teach yourself from scratch. Please elaborate on the ‘test preparation from Question papers’ method.
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Hey Asim, thank you for posting!
My son was fluent in 3 languages but as he started going to kindergarden, english took over and he isn’t communicating in the other languages. What service do you use for setting up the language sessions for your kids? I would like to try your approach.
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Hi Bhusha, we just hired students to talk to them over Skype for 20 minutes two to three times a week. It works very well.
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Hi Asim, how did you find students willing to do this pls? Is there a centralised platform online for this?
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You could use this… https://preply.com
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Very interesting. Thanks for taking the time to reply.
How did you find these students? Did you use some app?
I really like the idea to limit the conversation to ~2o minutes and have multiple sessions instead of one hour long session. I think the kids may lose interest if it is long.
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Hi Asim, can you please let me know how your kids learnt 6 languages through Skype?
Thanks
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Khansa, it’s pretty simple, you find a student in the country that natively speaks the language, pay them to speak to your child for around 20 minutes a day (and make sure they make it fun) about three times a week, and do that for about 3 years. The important thing is they don’t teach like teachers, they teach like when you land in a new country, the people speak to you 95% in their language and the rest is sign or a few words of English. English must barely be used, that’s important.
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