Everything I wish I knew before I started homeschooling

Image credits: Issy Butson | All rights reserved

When you first start homeschooling, a lot of headspace goes into what curriculums and resources to use. A lot of headspace goes into what a study area will look like, where and how it will be set up, and when it will be used. A lot of headspace goes into how a day will be scheduled, and what progress will be tracked. 

What. Where. When. How. The list goes on and on.

But before you get to all that, you should spend some time on your why. The reasons, beliefs, and convictions you hold that sit behind choosing to homeschool are important to get clear on because they will be unique to you. You’ll know them on the surface, but when you’re on a journey like this, you have to go deeper. Thinking about those reasons, analyzing them from different angles, talking about them, and processing them fully, will wash away anything that’s not significant and solidify the rest into something that’s more than gut feeling. You’ll find those reasons, beliefs, and convictions strengthened, with a growing ability to articulate them.

Involving our children in this process is important too, or we’ll end up building a life environment they’re not bought into. The more of a say you have in the mission you’re on, and the more you get to contribute to what that will look like as you go along, the more invested you’ll be in making it work. In leaning into it. Ask for their input. Listen to them. Then weave their beliefs and motivations into your own.

Starting with why will give your family a bright north star on your journey. And when the going gets tough (because it will), you’ll have a deep well of confidence and fuel you can draw from.

If I could go back to the start, I’d spend a lot more time here early on. Especially with the kids. Only once I had built that strong foundation would I start laying down the what’s, when’s, how’s, and where’s.

(P.S. If you’ve never read Simon Sinek’s book – called Start With Why – I highly recommend it.)

You will worry about not making enough progress (but you shouldn’t)

As a society, we put a huge amount of emphasis on a child’s progress. On whether they’re behind or ahead. On the things they need to get better at. When kids are young, it’s milestones like walking and talking and growing. When they get a bit older, it’s things like tests, grades, and standards.

It’s only natural, then, that this focus on progress follows us into our homeschool life.

What I learned was that the idea of ‘progress’ itself isn’t a problem – making progress in life is empowering and important – it’s the types of progress we default to that cause all the homeschooling stress.

What’s that saying about comparison being the thief of joy? Some of the most important work you do early on in your homeschooling journey will be re-orienting yourself away from external validation measures for your child, and toward more internal things. Moving away from expectations that someone else has decided you and your child should be matching, and toward whatever progress markers fit most neatly with where you all want to go.

So, ‘How does my child stack up compared to where they should be for their age in writing and math?’ Becomes, ‘What is important to my child, what do they want to explore, what do they need to learn and discover to help them get there, and how can I help them see the progress they’re making towards that?’

Oh, and speaking of the work you’ll need to do on yourself when you first start homeschooling…

You will need to unlearn as much as you learn

Getting yourself back to an educational blank slate – which is where you need to be to properly build the right environment for your family to thrive in – is commonly called ‘deschooling’. Heard of it? If you have, you’ve probably also heard that for every year you’ve spent in formal education, you’ll need a month of going through that unlearning process to decouple yourself from its influence. That means if you spent 13 or so years in the school system when you were younger (like I did, and like many of you will have), you’re probably going to need a solid year of deschooling to wipe your slate clean. That timeframe held up pretty well for me, and if I could go back in time, I’d start the process much sooner.

Why is this so important?

Because without necessarily being conscious of it, there will be SO many things you associate with education just by default. From the big stuff like curriculums, standards, benchmarks, and tests, right down to day-to-do things like study areas, desks, exercise books, stationery, and reward stickers. But none of this should take its place in your homeschool environment unless you consciously decide it should. And you can’t consciously decide it should until you’ve stepped back and fully thought about the role all that plays in education, what kind of impact it will have on your child (your child), and whether or not it’s important or necessary.

If I could go back, I would unlearn and unwind everything I thought I knew about education as early as possible.

There is no ‘right’ curriculum or ‘best’ way to home-educate

Following on from the last point, it’s very easy to get stuck on making sure the big pieces are in place before you start. Every July and August – summer holidays in the US, and a time many parents are either preparing to start homeschooling their child for the first time or have taken their older child out of school to try something different – there’s a huge spike in Google searches for homeschool curriculums.

It’s easy to fall into thinking you’ll find the ‘best’ or ‘right’ one, making everything easy, but I don’t believe that actually exists. Don’t get me wrong, there are some wonderful pre-made homeschooling curriculums out there. You only need to take a quick scan through Instagram to see how beautiful and inspiring they can look and feel. But that doesn’t necessarily make them inspiring or engaging for your child. And that’s the fundamental problem with focusing too much on the ‘right’ or ‘best’ curriculum.

See, too often, we set a curriculum at the heart of everything. We try and make the child fit it, just like a school does. And we inevitably end up measuring the performance and progress of the child against the curriculum rather than the ability of the curriculum to help the child explore, grow, and thrive. Read that line again because, in my experience, it’s one of the most important things to get your head around before you start homeschooling.

An individualized, tailored approach is one of the main benefits of home education, so don’t sacrifice that. If you’re going to use a pre-prepared, boxed curriculum, make sure it fits with who your child is first. Take the parts of it that do. Mix in other stuff over the bits that don’t.

Or, just put together your own.

Put your child at the heart of everything. Add guiding layers to life that will support who they are and how they most naturally interact with the world.

I learned that if you start there, you can’t go wrong.

Self-care will be more important than you could ever imagine 

Oh boy, I had no idea how full life would be as a homeschooling family. You don’t feel it when everything’s fresh and exciting early on, but that fullness creeps up and creeps up, and then one day you get the chance to do something completely alone, and you think, “Oh my goodness, more of this please.” It was only when my wife Kate and I started prioritizing small but regular blocks of space for each other that we realized a focus on self-care is way more important than we first thought. And not just for your sake.

Let me explain.

Imagine a lighthouse. Standing tall, shining bright, providing constant guidance to those who need it.

Now imagine that same lighthouse but with years of neglect. Peeling paint. A dim, flickering light.

It’s the same lighthouse, standing in the same place, trying to do the same thing. But because it hasn’t been looked after, it can no longer guide those who depend on it. The neglect is obviously bad for the lighthouse, but it’s bad for those under its watch, too.

You are a lighthouse. And to shine the brightest, you can for those who depend on you most, you need to make sure you’re looking after yourself. It’s just not possible if you never invest in your own well-being.

Another way to think about this (I’m doubling down on this point because when I think back to the start, I hugely underestimated its importance): imagine a sports team about to compete in a major championship match. Imagine the unity of the players, their focus, their energy, their shared goal. Their whole season has built to this. You can feel the anticipation in the locker room. The excitement, the tension.

Then…in comes the coach. The leader, the mentor, the guiding force. But instead of being the confident and energized figure they usually are, they're visibly run-down. Their eyes have lost that sparkle. They look tired. Their words of encouragement and guidance, which usually spark fire in the players, feel flat and forced. They're physically present, but their spirit – the very essence that inspires the team– just isn't there.

What effect does that have? Well, the game they've been enthusiastically preparing for suddenly feels daunting. An exciting challenge now feels hard. Morale drops. The players, who rely so much on their coach's guidance and enthusiasm, are probably now questioning their preparedness. Even their ability.

This is the power that a leader’s energy – negative or positive – has on a room.

If I could go back to the start, I’d take this on much sooner, and much more seriously. I would understand sooner, that asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s a testament to your strength, your commitment, and your love for your children. I would have understood sooner, that I’d have no chance of helping my children be their best selves if I was struggling to be mine.

So please - take care of yourself. Prioritize your well-being for the sake of both you and your children. Ask for regular help from other people in your life. Find the time and space you need to recharge, refuel, and restore your energy.

And then shine bright.

You’ll be asked the socialization question (and all those other ones) at least 400,000 times

Maybe more than that, actually. But if I could go back to when I first started homeschooling, I’d stress way less over trying to justify our choices when people ask these (sometimes genuine, often pointed) questions. Especially when it’s in a light, passing conversation where there’s no time or space to properly dig into anything. Maybe that’s because we’re almost a decade deep now, and our strength of conviction in our choices means we don’t really feel the need to defend them. Maybe it’s because, as the years have gone on, I’ve realized how much work it’s taken me to unwind and unpack my own educational experiences as a child and how I can’t possibly expect another adult to do that through whatever answer I give in a four-minute conversation. Maybe I’m just better connected to my (finite) well of personal energy and want to protect it by investing back into myself and my family.

Whatever the reason, I wish I’d spent more time early on trying to disconnect myself from (and relax about) the questions people ask. I would spend more time learning to understand that their frame of reference in life is completely different to mine. That there is no right, wrong, or otherwise.

Yes, it’s easy to feel defensive when someone says, “But don’t you worry they won’t get the social interaction they need,” or “Aren’t you worried your child won’t be prepared for the real world when they’re older?”. But understand this – that is their worry, not yours. That is their projection of how they would feel if they were in your shoes. It is not your worry, and you do not have to take it on. You’ve invested in deschooling yourself, and you’ve invested in your ‘why,’ so you know where you stand. 

(and if they are things that fire up some worry in you, do something about that - go as deep on researching and reflecting on whatever it is until you have truly convinced yourself that worry isn’t justified)

My answers to these questions now aren’t specific at all. I’ll say something like, “No, for lots of reasons I definitely won’t bore you with, we’re not worried about any of that.” If there’s genuine interest to dig into anything more, and it’s the right setting with time to do so, I’m more than happy to. But for the vast majority of those lighter conversations that come up at playgrounds, in supermarket aisles, or across library desks, I would have deflected to talking about the weather way, way sooner.

You will stumble, trip, and feel like you’re failing (but you’re really not)

I wish someone had sat me down early on and given me this pep-talk:

“Hey, Issy, before you do this, you need to know something. You’re about to take on almost total educational and life responsibility for your children. That’s awesome, but you need to understand right now that it won’t always be smooth sailing. You think trained teachers in a classroom nail it day in and day out? You think an athlete’s coach always feels like they’re doing the absolute best they could? You think mentors always feel like they’re giving the best possible advice? You will be taking on all these roles, and more. Understand, right now, that there is no way you’re going to get to the end of every day feeling like you’re winning. Understand, right now, that the lows aren’t failures – they’re just the parts of life that make the highs feel great.

There will be times when you feel you’re not enough. Not smart enough, prepared enough, structured enough. Not relaxed enough, social enough, positive enough, selfless enough.

Not qualified enough, successful enough, ambitious enough, supportive enough, energetic enough.

Just...not enough.

But remember this: as you work hard to build a life for your child that throws out the standard expectations and respects who they uniquely are, don’t forget to do the same for yourself.

There is no one right way to homeschool. There is no one best flavor of homeschooling parent or approach. And there is no one measure to show that it’s ‘working.’ If you believe there is, you are applying the very same pressure to yourself that you’re trying to free your child from. You have your strengths, and you know your child better than anyone else in the world.

Every child has their own story to tell, and every child should be given the freedom to tell it. But so does every homeschooling parent. And your true, authentic story will never be told by believing you need to be someone you’re not. You are – truly are – more than enough. Now, Issy – go write your story.”

You don’t have to obsess over structure and schedules, but you shouldn’t fear them either (even if you’re unschooling)

When we first started homeschooling, we were pretty traditional about it. We had printouts and schedules and plans and progress measures and…it was all a bit of a mess. It worked ok for one of our children at the time, but not the other. So, naturally, we swung completely in the other direction. Out with all of that stuff, in with total fluidity and flexibility. We gave our kids almost complete freedom over how they spent their time. And we did that for just long enough to discover that wasn’t helping them be their best selves, either.

Through our unintended ‘experiment,’ we discovered one of the big problems with home education. The labels. We were homeschoolers. Then we were unschoolers. And then, when neither of those worked for us, we thought…well now what? Who are we? What are we doing? What’s our identity? All the groups are labeled one thing, or the other, and there’s often tension between them. The homeschoolers find the unschoolers too loose, and the unschoolers find the homeschoolers too rigid. 

If we can’t homeschool, and we can’t unschool, is this version of life just not going to work for us? 

If I could go back to the start again, I’d avoid any and all labels and do what we eventually did. Throw all that out, and design and craft a life that was fully customized to our family. We’d take bits we like from all along the home-educating spectrum, and discard the rest.

For us, it became all about rhythm and seasons (both the actual seasons and life ones –because respecting the need for slower times is as important as running deep into something when you have the energy). We started tailoring our days to who we were, what we wanted to get out of them, what our individual goals were, and what was important to us as a family. It didn’t look like traditional homeschooling, but it wasn’t full unschooling either. We didn’t have set schedules, but we had rules and guidelines and checks and balances in place to help us make sure we were always where we wanted to be. Against our own plan. Using the rhythms that helped us thrive.

One of the best pieces of advice I could give my past self is to never take on any of the labels associated with home education.    

Design, tailor, and craft the life you want. It’s your family. Make your own rules.

Screens are not the enemy (but app makers are not your friend)

I’ll keep this section short because the whole ‘screen’ topic is something for another day, but I can’t talk about what I just did in the previous section without specifically calling this out.

I work in the tech industry, so screens, games, and technology have been in and around our family forever. I understand their power and value. I wouldn’t have the career I do if computers and iPhones and iPads and software companies didn’t exist. But by virtue of working in that space for so long now (not far off 20 years), I have a clear view of what goes on behind the curtain. Those apps your kids use – whether entertainment or educational – have teams of people behind them being paid very good money to keep their attention held. Internally, they measure all sorts of engagement metrics related to keeping your child coming back to their app over and over and over again.

They literally sit in team meetings and talk about how to get your child to spend more time with their software, and then set out to leverage human psychology and physiology (hello, dopamine hits) to make it happen. I don’t want to paint these folks with a broad, negative brush because there are some wonderful technology experiences out there – from basic iPad apps to deep, extensive VR worlds. But the nature of the beast is that the more time your child spends using their software, the better their metrics look and the more their company is worth. (This is super simplified, but you get the point.)

When we first experimented with unschooling, we let our children do whatever they wanted with their time. My second eldest, who was 8 at the time, chose screens. His older brother found ways to regulate (sort of), but Mr 8 just couldn’t. He was obsessively drawn to them, and he couldn’t put them down. And this wasn’t a short experiment, by the way. I shut down everything I knew about the tech world, and we let it run for 3 months, ‘trusting’ that he would find ways to regulate himself.

Looking back, it was never going to happen. The odds were stacked so heavily against him, he never had a chance. Eventually, we stepped in and took control back, and he literally went through withdrawal symptoms for a few days. Then, about two weeks later, in some of that wonderful ‘bored’ time screens tend to soak up, he discovered he really enjoys the sound a piano makes. The piano he’d walked past a thousand times with his iPad in his hand. Fast forward 6 years, and he’s the most accomplished pianist I know – of any age.

I don’t want to vilify tech, because it has some incredible uses (and our whole family uses tech in different ways at different times). But I couldn’t write this piece without telling my younger self to be a better guide on it.

Because hey, if you think kids can easily develop a resistance to those continual dopamine hits they get in that space, I challenge you not to touch your phone – even when you see it light up with notifications! – for the rest of the day. Can you do it?

You don’t have to play the role of a teacher (in fact, it’s better if you don’t)

Being a trained teacher involves a lot of things. It’s a skilled profession that takes study and preparation and ends with a hard-earned qualification. But it’s important to understand that a good deal of that training relates to skills that apply specifically to a school setting. That applies to managing large groups of children and delivering curriculum and testing schedules on time with the results a school’s administration expects.

I know this because my wife used to be one. And I know that when we started home-educating our kids, she needed to unlearn a whole lot of her training before we found ourselves in a good place.

If you ask a teacher what it is that slows down or prevents children’s learning the most, they’ll tell you it’s the schedules, tests, expectations, and pressure that get in the way of them working closely and patiently with their students.

And if you ask them what the ideal learning scenario would be, they’ll talk about children being ready to learn, being open to learn, and the physical and mental environment they’re in is conducive to it.

Long-lasting knowledge and skills are not gained just because we decide to deliver them. They are gained when a person is ready to receive them. When, ideally, they’re actively seeking them out.

If I could go back to the start of our homeschooling journey, I would tell myself this: the most critical factor in a child learning at home is not how qualified their parent is to teach or deliver information. It’s that they know who their child is and what makes them tick. It’s that they know when to push forward on something and when to ease back. It’s having the time and space to do that. It’s that beautiful synergy between a child ready to explore something about the world, and a parent in tune with how and when to open the right doors so they can.

It’s understanding that none of that needs a qualification. Just continual focus, care, and attention. That’s a role parents are more than qualified for.

The sooner you find easy ways to document your journey, the better

I’ll never forget the day. We’d been homeschooling in Melbourne (where we lived for a few years for work, before moving back home to New Zealand) for about 6 months when a letter arrived from the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority. Every year 10% of homeschooled families in the State are chosen to go through a review process, and our name had come up.

“Your child’s homeschooling registration has been selected for review. We conduct reviews to see that the requirements of homeschooling registration are being met. These requirements are set out in the Education and Training Reform Regulations 2017, which state that…”

Oh boy.

“We need evidence that your child’s educational program, taken as a whole, substantially addresses the learning areas, and that instruction is regular and efficient…”

Sweat. Lots of sweat.

At the time we felt super unlucky – a 1/10 chance of being selected, and it’s happened in our first year! But we eventually realized that it was a gift. Up until that point, we hadn’t been very organized or thoughtful in how we stored away any ‘work’ the kids were doing (I use the term ‘work’ lightly because my definition of that for a child could be some math problems written on paper, but it could also be what they did to save that buzzy bee in the garden from certain death or those muffins they helped bake).

Luckily, Kate is pretty obsessive with the photos she takes, so we were able to cobble together a view of that 6 month period that almost kinda sorta represented where our time had gone. And I weaved a narrative together about our goals and progress. But it was harder work than it should have been, and it highlighted some gaps for us. Aside from the fact most countries have guidelines in place for homeschoolers that you might (or definitely will) have to answer to, it’s just a super important thing for you and your child to be able to track your own definition of progress. And it’s hard to do that if you can’t look back on where you’ve come from.

You can make this as light or as extensive as you want – we do it in the style of journal entries, that are private to us, so we capture our thoughts, feelings, and reflections (and actual photos) from the time it happened. I use a note-taking app called Day One for it, but there are dozens of those entry-style apps around. And we store any hard copies of anything in folders, jotting a month and a year on them.

But the other key factor is leveraging experiences and platforms like Outschool (one of the reasons you’re reading this post on their blog right now is because I absolutely love what they add to this space). If I could go back to when we were reviewed, and produce a track record of cool classes the kids had participated in – whether traditionally academic, or something socially oriented, or something based on one of their hobbies, it doesn’t matter – it would have given some immediate structure and weight to what we packaged up. If I could go back in time, I’d find platforms like Outschool that I could start leveraging not just for the experiences and learning, but for the built-in tracking and recording of all that.

And while we’re on the topic of using outside skills and resources to make your journey easier…

Play to your strengths, and outsource everything else 

When we first started homeschooling, we focused a lot on resources. We thought that would be where our kids would find the inspiration they needed to dive into interesting things. But if you’ve ever put some books about solar systems, or the animal kingdom, or science experiments, or engineering, or anything in front of a child, you’ll know that sometimes it sparks something…but often it just results in a light flick-through and not much more.

What we discovered – and what I’d lean into far more heavily, and far sooner, if we could go back to the beginning – is that resources and information aren’t where children find their inspiration. It comes from people. Interesting, experienced, passionate people. And while Kate and I had varied backgrounds and some skills to share, we were still the ‘parents’. And even combined, we didn’t come close to having the full spectrum of the possible human experience covered. 

So we outsourced. We didn’t just wander through the park, we’d find a ranger to talk to. We didn’t just explore the museum, we’d find a staff member to ask questions of. We didn’t just go for a walk or a swim at the beach, we’d find some surfers to chat to. We didn’t just watch art tutorials on YouTube, we joined live classes with experienced art teachers.

Because when you connect with people who are passionate about what they’re doing and are happy to share their experience with it, something magic happens. The resources suddenly have context. They’re given color, flavor, and sound. They come to life. And you can almost guarantee that if your kid gets hooked on something one of those people shares so passionately, all those books you’ve left around will suddenly be picked up and poured over.

Going back in time, we would play firmly to our strengths and outsource as much of that inspiration as we possibly could.

To sum it all up 

My family and I are fast approaching a decade of homeschooling. We’ve been at this for a long time! And you know what? It’s just as rewarding and challenging as it was in the early days. The rewards and challenges have shifted and changed and evolved, but I don’t think they’ll ever go away.

If you’re just starting on your homeschooling journey, or you’re finding it bumpier than it should be, and you’re looking for ways to smooth the ride out, I hope this list of things we wish we knew sooner helps. 

Remember, too, that this is your journey. Your family makes the rules. Throw out the labels, throw out any preconceptions, and design life your way. Dig deep into your why, work out who you all are and what you need, find and lean on some inspiring people, and set sail.

All the best, and I’ll see you out there 🙂

Issy (aka Stark Raving Dad). 

Issy ButsonIssy is a home educating dad with fresh ideas on learning for the next generation. He’s the voice behind the Life Without School podcast, the pen behind the Stark Raving Dad blog, and definitely doesn’t rely solely on coffee to parent effectively.