The Modern Homeschoolers’ Guide to Dealing — Politely — When People Are Rude about Homeschooling

Why do people feel like it’s OK to make rude or intrusive comments about homeschoolers? We don’t know, but being prepared with a polite response when they (almost inevitably!) do can help keep their rudeness from getting under your skin.

When Holly Rauser announced to her family that she would be homeschooling her first child, her mother was horrified. 

“I only know one girl who was homeschooled, and she was weird,” Rauser’s mom protested.

“I know hundreds of people who went to public school or private school, and some of them are beyond weird,” Rauser retorted.

Looking back, Rauser — an etiquette coach who is working on developing a homeschool etiquette curriculum for teens — acknowledges that she might have been less confrontational. But like many homeschoolers, she found herself in a weird social situation where people felt comfortable making very personal comments about her choices. Homeschooling isn’t the weird, crunchy-granola or hyper-religious activity it once was (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but it’s still not mainstream enough to be unremarkable. And just as strangers feel entitled to touch a pregnant woman’s burgeoning belly, they can feel entitled to weigh in on your homeschool choices and success. And sadly, even fellow homeschoolers aren’t immune from rude behavior. 

There are etiquette books on everything from minding your manners on Twitter to throwing an engagement party, but homeschool etiquette is a brave new field. So we’ve turned to the experts to help sort out the best way to respond to everything from nosy questions to rude comments.

Your child tells a curious stranger she’s homeschooled, then gets hit with an impromptu quiz on multiplication tables or geography facts.

• What you’d like to say: “Let’s see how you like pop quizzes. What’s the capital of Madagascar?”

• What you should probably say: “You must have loved math when you were in school. Was that your favorite subject?”

Quizzing anyone who hasn’t signed up for your class is just plain rude, says etiquette expert Sue Fox, author Etiquette for Dummies. But the first rule of good manners is not to respond to rudeness with rudeness, so instead of getting snippy, deflect the question by turning it into a conversation, suggests Maralee McKee, an Orlando homeschool mom and author of the book Manners That Matter for Moms.

“Ask them about the subject they bring up — people like to talk about what they know, so someone asking your child about the dates of the Korean War may be a history buff,” she says. “Instead of rebuffing that person, engage him.”

If you’re quick-witted, humor can also defuse the situation. Saying something like “We usually do a little cardio before our quizzes” lets the question asker know that you’re not comfortable with the quizzing without making a big thing out of it.

Just as important as how you handle these stranger interrogations is how your child handles them. Very young kids can get away with saying “I’m not allowed to talk to strangers,” but as children get older, they should be able to deal with an unexpected pop quiz using the same bounce-back method you’d use. A smile and a laughing response like “I usually do better on written tests,” will not only refocus the conversation; it will also help dispel the notion that homeschoolers are socially awkward or academic automatons.

If your child does end up blindsided by a self-appointed quizmaster and can’t answer the questions, support him. If you catch the tail end of the conversation, shift the focus to one of your child’s strong points: “Next time, ask him about dinosaurs. He knows more about the Mesozoic Era than I do.” Otherwise, let your child know when you’re alone again that the quizzer was out of line and that his academic work is up to snuff as far as you’re concerned: “It’s really rude to put people on the spot like that. I would have felt really confused and frustrated if someone came up to me and started quizzing me. I’m not sure I would have been able to come up with answers off the top of my head either.”

Homeschooling is going great, but you’re tired of having to defend your educational choices. Every time you get together with your family, someone questions your decision to homeschool.

• What you’d like to say: “What we do with our kids’ education is none of your business, so shut about it already!”

• What you should probably say: “I’ve listened to you, and I really hear what you’re saying. I am glad you love our children so much that you worry about their wellbeing. But now, I need you to understand that I love them, too, and they are our children. You have to know that I would not do something that I did not believe with all my heart was best for them. And right now, what’s best for them is homeschooling. We have made our decision.”

You can’t really fault a grandmother — or an aunt, or a brother-in-law — for caring enough about your children to express an opinion. After all, you want your family to care about your kids. “But ultimately, they’re your children, and you’re the one who is responsible for deciding what is best for them,” says McKee. Unlike rude strangers, who are best rebuffed by distraction, dealing with family etiquette blunders is something you should tackle directly. 

Start by doing one of the hardest things you’ll ever have to do: Just listen. Let your mother-in-law obsess about the perils of non-school socialization, let your dad worry that your weak math skills will make it impossible for you to teach your children math, let your sister obsess about how hard it will be for your kids to get into college. Resist the urge to counter with facts or opinions of your own — just listen. When your mother-in-law is done expressing her concerns — and only then — calmly and simply explain your own perspective: “You know, I was worried about socialization, too, but I find that my kids have even more opportunities to socialize with other kids now that we’re homeschooling and they aren’t stuck behind a desk all day,” or “I definitely hope my kids will be better at math than I am. That’s why I’m using this really great program that walks us through everything step by step. If we ever reach a point where I feel like I can’t teach them, there are some great homeschool math classes I can sign them up for.” Don’t get into too many details; you want to address the concern without falling into the trap of justifying your choices, explains McKee.

It’s unlikely that whatever you say — however intelligently reasoned or expressed — will change your mother-in-law’s mind about homeschooling. Like politics or religion, homeschooling can bring out strong opinions that aren’t easily shaken. You don’t have to change your dad’s mind — and good manners dictates that you shouldn’t even try, says McKee. Instead, you should focus on making him feel like his concerns matter to you, even if you don’t agree with him. Let him know you’ve heard what he has to say and care about it, but you’ve made your own decision. Then, resist the urge to get pulled back in. If the topic comes up again, say “I know you feel that way, Dad, but we’ve made our decision.” 

If your family member just won’t let it drop, you’ll need to take a firmer position. (It’s best for the person who’s directly related to the worrier to handle this since these conversations can be tricky, says McKee.) Say, “I understand that you don’t understand our decision. But I ask that you respect it.” Repeat this whenever the topic comes up, and eventually you’ll quell the commentary.

And take heart: While your words may never convince your mother-in-law you’re doing the right thing, your results may win her over in time. Rauser spent years asking her family not to second-guess her decision to homeschool. “Now my mom is proud to announce that her grandchildren were homeschooled because they turned out so well,” Rauser says.

You’re having a perfectly nice conversation with another mom on the playground when you mention that you homeschool. “Oh, wow, I could never be around my kids all day,” she says.

• What you’d like to say: “I could never be around your kids all day either.”

• What you should probably say: “I love the new landscaping they’ve done by the pavilion. Are those tulips?”

When another mom makes a comment like this, your immediate response is to feel embarrassed and flustered. Are you weird because you don’t mind hanging out with your kids all day? Is she weird because she can’t imagine hanging out with her own kids all day? Before you start stammering an apologetic explanation about how homeschoolers have hard days, too, take a deep breath. When someone makes a comment like this, she’s not usually looking for a response at all, says Rauser. If you smile and change the subject, you’ll defuse the moment before it even has a chance to become awkward.

If ignoring her comment feels too rude, McKee recommends acknowledging the other mom’s perspective without going into lots of details about your own. Say, “Well, there are some days where I would agree with you, but for the most part, it’s a pleasure.” Then switch the subject. While you may feel like this mom is putting you on some kind of Super Mommy pedestal, if you try to respond to her comment with a lengthy explanation of how great your kids are or an uneasy treatise on your failings as a mom, you’ll make both of you uncomfortable. Treat comments like this as off-hand remarks that require minimal response on your part, and you’ll be able to continue your conversation comfortably.

You mention to someone that your kids are homeschooled, and she immediately asks, “Why do you homeschool?”

• What you’d like to say: “None of your business!”

• What you should probably say: “Why do you ask?”

Some homeschoolers want to shout their educational choices from the rooftops, but for other families, the decision to homeschool may be more personal. Knowing why someone is asking you about homeschooling is the key to answering this question politely, says McKee. “People who are just being nosy deserve a minimalist answer — ‘It just feels like the right thing for our kids for right now,’ is true and nonspecific — but you may be surprised by people’s reasons for asking and want to give a different answer.”

McKee speaks from experience: More than once, a stranger has asked her reasons for homeschooling only to admit that she’s considering homeschooling herself.

“This is one of those situations where you can really be an ambassador for homeschooling,” says McKee. “Someone might have a good reason for asking, and you might be able to help point them in the right direction.” And if someone’s just prying? Well, you can smile and give a brief answer before changing the subject.

The Homeschooler’s Bill of Rights

There is no single right way to homeschool. What works for your family is right for your family—and if that right thing changes from year to year (or month to month), that’s okay. These homeschoolers are life learning on their own terms, and you can, too.

You have the right to outsource everything.

There are a lot of things I love about homeschooling. I love how relaxed our mornings are. I love how my daughter gets to focus on what she loves. (Right now it’s chemistry and soccer.) I love how much I’ve learned myself. But I don’t actually love teaching my teenage daughter—and now, I don’t. Hailey takes classes online and at a nearby college, through dual enrollment. Sometimes we talk about what she’s learning, but I’m not her teacher or even her co-learner. I’m just her mom.

I was actually excited about homeschooling when we decided to pull Hailey out of school during her first year of 6th grade. (Cue the usual stories of mean girls, bullying, and unhelpful school administration.) That first year was really terrible, though. Our kitchen table felt like a battleground. I wasn’t confident in my own knowledge — so many countries had rearranged themselves since I learned geography, and apparently you really don’t use pre-algebra that often in real life because I was always getting confused trying to explain problems.

A friend recommended our state’s cyber academy, which we joined in 7th grade. They sent us big boxes with all the books and supplies Hailey would need for her classes. Technically, Hailey was enrolled in the public school system, but for all intents and purposes, she was a homeschooler, logging into her online classes from home. Even though the workload was a little heavy and we opted not to continue with that program, 7th grade was a huge improvement over 6th grade. We really found our stride in 8th grade, signing up for some classes online and taking some classes through a local homeschool group. Obviously I’m around if Hailey needs help or has a question, but I’m not her primary teacher for anything, and for us, it’s much better that way.

Someone at a homeschool group asked me if we considered ourselves homeschoolers even though Hailey doesn’t do any subjects with just me, but I think we’re definitely homeschoolers. In my opinion, homeschooling is about figuring out what your kid needs and finding a way to make it happen for them. That’s exactly what I’ve done for Hailey—and there’s no way I would have been able to discover that without homeschooling. —Jamie C.*

You have the right to change your mind.

Once upon a time, I was the most gung-ho homeschooler you could hope to meet. I knew from the day my oldest son was born that I wanted to homeschool. I help found a secular homeschool co-op in our town and served on the board in various roles for almost a decade. And then, last year, I sent my kids back to school. My oldest was in 8th grade, and his brothers were in 5th and 3rd grade.

There were so many things I liked about homeschooling. I loved getting to spend the day with my kids. I loved learning with them. I liked the slowed-down pace of our everyday life, especially compared to the hectic schedules our school friends were dealing with. But I missed having a “real job” and spending time with other grown-ups. I found it hard to find space to mentally and emotionally recharge. I found it harder and harder to walk that line between being my kids’ teacher and their parent. And so, I changed my mind.

I miss homeschooling, but sending the boys back to school has been the right decision for us. They love their teachers, their classes, their friends. I love my job. I feel like homeschooling laid a great foundation for our family—we still learn together, we still make family a priority, it just comes together in a different way now. I like to think that our life now is just another phase of homeschooling since we’re making the learning choices that work best for us as a family. —Alison H.*

 You have the right to use those workbooks.

I have a confession to make: We use workbooks. And I really like them.

When we first started homeschooling and went to our first park day, there was a group of moms making fun of workbook-users. They weren’t doing it to be mean — they definitely didn’t know that I had a little stash of Scott Foresman workbooks in my tote bag. Later, I would get to know these moms. I would understand that when they made fun of workbooks, they were making fun of the school system that had let their kids down. Their experiences with the school system had been bad, and workbooks had been a tangible piece of that experience. Once they got their kids away from fill-in-the-blanks or circle-true-or-false, those kids had bloomed.

But that first day, when I was a brand-new homeschool mom with no idea what I was doing, those comments about workbooks were like a slap in the face. Was I going to give my kids a terrible learning experience? Were they going to be stuck in a little intellectual box because they answered some multiple choice questions every couple of days? Why had I even thought workbooks could ever possibly be a good idea?

So I hid those workbooks in my file cabinet, and I decided that we would do something else. We tried unschooling. We tried narrations, the Charlotte Mason way. We tried Waldorf. But nothing felt like the perfect fit — until I pulled out those workbooks again one rainy day, and they just clicked for us. My daughter liked filling in the blanks and circling the letters. I liked being able to see her progress on the page. We liked workbooks. And so we kept on using them. We’re still using them — not exclusively and not every day, but workbooks are a significant piece of how we learn.

Sometimes other moms still make snide comments about workbook users. Often, I just keep quiet. Every once in a while, though, I’ll say, “We use workbooks.” Not because I want to put those moms in their place but because there are always new homeschoolers at park day, and I think it’s important to recognize that homeschooling can happen lots of different ways. Including with workbooks. —Amanda P.*

You have the right to not use a curriculum.

Every summer, all the homeschool groups and forums I belong to start buzzing about curriculum. What are you going to use, what’s the best program for language arts or math or music? Where are you going to buy it? It’s a conversation that I always feel a little left out of because our family doesn’t use curriculum.

We’re unschoolers — even though I know some unschoolers who use curriculum (usually in a relaxed, child-led way but not always), we don’t use it at all. I think most homeschoolers understand how unschooling works. I feel like I’m always explaining to non-homeschoolers that yes, my kids choose what they want to do all day, and no, we don’t do any sit-down lessons unless they want to learn something specific and ask for them, but yes, my kids can read and write and do math. Homeschoolers — even more traditional ones—understand what unschooling is about, so no one ever seems to look askance at us because we’re living curriculum-free. But the times when everyone else starts obsessing over curriculum are the times when I realize that our choice to unschool is still pretty unusual. 

I don’t worry that my kids won’t learn — every time they have been motivated to know something, they’ve been able to do it with no problem. My daughter mastered basic math skills saving up money for a new laptop, and now she can figure out sales tax in her head faster than I can. My son wanted to learn Spanish because one of his Minecraft server friends is bilingual. We used a free program through the library, and he’s learned enough to pepper his online conversation with Spanish words and phrases. They both learned to read because they played a lot of video games and I wasn’t always available to read the screens to them, and now they both read for fun, too.

I know some unschoolers are pretty vocally anti-curriculum, but I’m not. What works for people works for them. No curriculum works for us. And while it does sometimes make me feel like the odd mom out at our homeschool group, I look at how my kids are learning, and I know I’ve made the right decision for our family. —Lora V.*

You have the right to not push college.

My daughter is a homeschool graduate. She’s about to turn 26, and she didn’t go to college. If you’re a homeschooler, you know that people love to ask “But how will she get into college?” I actually had a lot of answers for that. When Josie was in elementary school, I’d tell people about that homeschool family whose kids had all ended up in Ivy League schools. When she was in middle school, I’d talk about the homeschool advantage — how homeschoolers actually tend to do better on standardized tests and in college classes that kids in traditional schools. By the time Josie was in high school, I could talk about transcripts and SATs and college visits with the authority of any parent of a college-bound kid. Only, as it turned out, Josie wasn’t that interested in going to college. She had gotten interested in photography and slowly built up a photography business during high school, taking senior pictures for the school kids in our neighborhood, at homeschool proms, even at a couple of weddings.

“I’m going to take a gap year and do an apprenticeship with a good wedding photographer,” she told me her senior year.

And, as it turned out, her business kept growing, and she decided she wasn’t that interested in college after all.

At first I felt apologetic. I felt like I had to make excuses about why my bright, homeschooled daughter wasn’t off to some great college like her friends. Then I realized that Josie was doing exactly what our homeschool life had taught her to do: going after what she wanted without getting stuck thinking that there was one right way to get there. I’m so proud of her. There are still times where part of me wishes that she had chosen college, but then I have to remind myself that this wish is about me, it’s about showing the rest of the world that homeschooling was the right decision for us. That I did right by my daughter educationally speaking. Josie doesn’t need that. She’s not wasting any time wondering whether she had a well-rounded education. She’s doing what she loves, and I love that. —Corey H.*

You have the right to give your child a bad grade.

My son has a C in 11th grade English on his transcript.

As homeschoolers, we talk a lot about how grades don’t matter, but when your child starts high school and you have to start thinking about transcripts, you kind of have to think about grades. And they do matter, at least a little, because your transcript is a record of your homeschooler’s academic experiences. If you’re a homeschooler, it’s easy to see that transcript as a measure of your own personal success — or failure.

I assumed that my son’s transcript would be full of good grades. Isn’t that the point of homeschooling? We wouldn’t have to speed up or slow down to accommodate anyone but ourselves. We could play to my son’s strengths. He could pick the classes he wanted to take. There was no way his transcript would have anything but As on it, right?

English has never been my son’s favorite subject, but he’s always done the work. That changed during his junior year — he had four novels on his reading list, and he always had a reason he hadn’t kept up with his reading. Our “book discussions” were basically just him promising that he’d catch up next week. By the time February rolled around, he’d only made it halfway through one of his assigned books. He ended up writing a decent paper on that one book, which he did finally finish, but the comparing and contrasting authors I’d planned never happened.

People talk about mom-made transcripts, and this was the first time I really understood how tempting it is to give your child a good grade no matter what his actual performance was. I have to be honest: There was a big part of me that wanted to just give him a B and move on, trusting that he’d learned to work harder next time. But I knew that wasn’t fair to all those other moms out there making homemade transcripts. We all live under the shadow of colleges and universities thinking that we’ve inflated our children’s grades — if I gave my son a better grade than he earned, I’d be making it that much harder for every transcript-making mom. But more importantly, my son hadn’t earned a better grade. He’d had the time and ability to complete his work. He’d had the freedom to decide what that work would be. And he’d chosen not to do it, he’d chosen time with his friends and playing video games and soccer practice over English. That was his choice to make, but it meant he’d earned a C.

I worried that he would be upset, but my son didn’t seem surprised at all. He knew he hadn’t done his best work or even good work. And in his senior English class, he earned an A. He might not have learned everything I thought he should have learned from 11th grade English, but maybe he learned something even more important. —Allyson E.*

* last names omitted for online publication

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How to Transform the Homeschool You Have into the Homeschool You Really Want

If you’ve ever felt like the homeschool you really want just isn’t happening, I have good news: You have the power to change your homeschool for the happier. All you need is a clear vision of where you are now, a little imagination, and a plan for moving forward.

1 : Understand What You Really Want

The first step to getting what you want is knowing what you really want. That sounds simple, but this is where people often get hung up on vague ideas or not-quite-thought-out scenarios.

How do you want your homeschool to feel? What do you want it to accomplish? Life coach Erin Michaelson recommends borrowing a trick from the home decorating world and creating an inspiration board for your homeschool.

“Choose images and words that reflect the way you want your homeschool to feel,” says Michaels. “Don’t overthink it — just grab the images that appeal to you and start pinning them on a wall or Pinterest board.”

Your dream board may look different from what you imagined — maybe you had visions of a nature-centered Waldorf environment, but all your pictures are of cozy book nooks. That’s okay, says Michaelson. “Often, we don’t know exactly what we’re looking for until we start to pin it down. Sometimes, that disconnect can make us feel permanently dissatisfied because we haven’t taken the time to understand what we really want — we’re working toward the wrong things and trying to figure out why we’re so unhappy.”

Really focus on what you want — not on what seems affordable, or reasonable, or doable in your current situation.This is your chance to dream big.

2 : Know Where You Are

You need to know where you are before you can figure out how to go anywhere.

You probably spend a lot of time thinking about what you’d like your homeschool to be, but it’s equally important to understand where you are. Start another inspiration board to capture your current homeschool life: What is a typical day like? What do you do all day? How do you feel? How does your day look?

Find words and pictures that reflect your homeschool as it actually is right now —and be honest. There will probably be good parts and parts that aren’t so photogenic — that’s okay. Go ahead and include what feels true, which may include messes and arguments, unfinished projects and kids playing video games all day. This is where you are, and it’s essential to have a clear picture of where exactly that is.

You probably have a clear idea of the things that aren’t going right, and that’s part of this project. But don’t neglect the things that are working for you, whether it’s little things like finally finding the perfect pencil sharpener or bigger-picture things like figuring out the right bedtime routine. Here are some things to consider:

• Curriculum

  • Think both about the curriculum you are using and the subjects where you aren’t using curriculum. What’s working? What isn’t? What’s getting done, and what’s perpetually on your yeah-I-should-really-get-around- to-that list? What do your kids look forward to, and what do they dread?

• Routine

  • What do your mornings look like? How do your aernoons feel? How do your days wind up? Pay attention to the parts of your routine that work really well and to the parts that aren’t really working. When do you feel the happiest? When is everyone the most productive? Definitely consider the parts of your day that fall under the traditional homeschool umbrella — the times when you are learning or working in focused ways — but give attention to the rest of your day, too, which is an important part of your family’s regular routine.

• Yourself 

  • This is one of those things that you might not usually give a lot of your energy to thinking about, but how you feel about yourself can play an important role in your homeschool. How do you feel during the day? What do you look like? What’s the first thing you think about in the morning and the last thing on your mind before you go to sleep? Sometimes, it’s not your homeschool that’s the problem — it’s you. Months or years of concentrated, non-stop effort without a break can slowly erode your patience, your immune system, and your overall happiness. If you suspect that you’re just plain worn out — not an uncommon problem for homeschool parents! — take a mini vacation to clear your head before you decide to change anything.

3 : What’s Missing?

Here’s where things get fun: You’re going to plot a course to start transforming the homeschool you have right now into the homeschool you really want.

A lot of inspiration boards start and end with step one, but to really start to make your happiest homeschool come to life, keep going. Create a follow-up dream board for each of the important elements in your main inspiration board.

For example, if you collected lots of photos of happy families making art in a sunny room but art is always getting shoved off your to-do list, start a list called “Let’s Do Art.” Start adding images of what you imagine your ideal art home- school would look like — cool pictures and projects, a big table, great art supplies, a gallery wall running up your staircase, etc. Do this for all the repeated images that you put together in step one: Maybe you’ll have a page for field trips or carschooling, a page for a super-organized homeschool room, or a page full of nature activities. You might have a page of a happy, well-adjusted student settling into college life or a page of mom outfits that don’t involve yoga pants — anything that you pinned to your dream board more than once should get fleshed out with more images and details. Don’t try to convince yourself that anything is unimportant or unnecessary — you may end up needing to set priorities down the road, but this is not that time. It’s okay if this process takes a while, too — there’s no need to rush.

“It’s tempting to jump right into thinking about what you need to do to get from Point A to Point B, but it’s important to really give yourself room to explore the Point B you want to reach,” says Michaelson. “Pretend that you have all the money/time/ space/whatever in the world: What does this particular thing you want look like?”

4 : Let Go

Just as it makes sense to hone in on the specifics of what you really want, it’s important to spend some time considering the parts of your current life that you’d like to change.

Make a page for each thing that’s not working: A schedule that feels too hectic, arguing kids, a perpetual mess, that permanently frazzled feeling you have at the end of every week — whatever it is that’s making your homeschool feel stressful or boring or unhappy. Collect images and ideas for changing these difficult moments: You may want to search for ideas online or in magazines or ask friends for advice about strategies that have worked for them.

“A lot of times, we get so caught up in trying to figure out what’s causing a problem that we never actually address the problem,” says Joshua Holland, a career advisor who specializes in helping people align their career paths with their passions. “Sometimes, though, your time is better spent moving forward in a productive way.”

Instead of wondering why your kids grouch out over morning math or why you fall apart every night after park day, think about what you might be able to do differently to change that problem part of your day. Knowing what you want to avoid is just as important as knowing what you want to concentrate on.

5 : Collect Supplies

Only now is it time to start actually making changes — and that’s because now you know what you really want and how to get it.

You can start with adding things you want or with trying to erase things that you aren’t happy with, but it’s usually more fun — and maybe more straightforward — to begin with adding something new. For example, if your wish-list includes more nature time, you might start by checking out a stack of nature guides from the library to familiarize yourself with local plants and wildlife or sign up for a naturalist-led hike at a nature center. Start spending more un- structured time in the backyard, or set up a bird feeder near the window. Add a daily nature sketch to your journal or challenge your- self to take a nature photo every day. Your goal here isn’t to jump in with a new curriculum or a structured plan of study; instead, you want to incorporate your new experience into your life. Once it feels like it fits naturally into your routine, you may want to look for a curriculum or classes, but for now, you just want to get comfortable.

“Give yourself space to figure out how this thing you want for your homeschool fits into your actual life without the pressure of spending lots of money or time on a curriculum,” says Michelson. In other words, don’t be tempted by quick-and-easy solutions: Some things you will try during this time will be revelatory — they may change your homeschool forever and for the better — but many will just be okay and some will be total failures. Commitment is the last thing you want right now — the thing you need is freedom to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

Follow the same procedure to change the things that don’t work. Try earlier bedtimes or saving math until after lunch if you feel frazzled. Sort and toss artwork every week to minimize clutter, or set up a specific shelf for library books so they don’t get lost. Experiment with lots of small, different things to find the ones that work for you.

6 : Move Forward

The process of creating your ideal homeschool is an ongoing one. Every year, the rhythms and needs of your homeschool will change, and you’ll begin this process all over again.

In other words, this is a continuous process, so keep updating your dream boards as your experiences dictate: Maybe free access to all the art materials got too messy, and art study works better one medium at a time. Pull those overstocked art cabinets off your inspiration board and replace them with station-style art storage. Maybe school outside is distracting, and it makes more sense for your family to do hands-on learning inside. Update your dream board with photos of attractive learning spaces. You may find that the more you focus on reading aloud, the better your homeschool works — add more pictures of books and reading to your dream board. Images and ideas will go up and come down — that’s totally normal. Your homeschool is a work in progress.

You can also update your real homeschool board as you find things that work for you: Add that great science curriculum or the writing program that really worked. Add the covers of books you’ve read together and loved or posters from movies that had an impact on your homeschool. Take photos of your own happy, smiling kids to paste on your board, or add tickets from movies, museums, and concerts.

Let the board of your homeschool life gradually evolve to reflect your dream homeschool.

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Homeschool Summer Reading Guide 2023

What should you read this summer? Whatever you want!

What should read this summer? Whatever you want! But if you’re looking for a summer reading challenge, we’ve got you covered with Summer Reading Bingo — you can win by finishing a row or column, or get ambitious and complete the entire card. (Download your card here!) Whatever you decide, we’ve rounded up some books you might want to add to your list — some slot neatly into Bingo categories; others are just great reads that might tick off a particular category for you personally (even if’s just “a book you want to read”). Happy reading!

5 New Graphic Novels

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• Four Eyes

  Middle school is hard enough — Rex’s best friend seems to migrating to the cool crowd, Rex is embarrassed about being on the free lunch program, and why won’t his locker open? — but it gets even harder when Rex needs glasses, and he ends up with the ugliest pair in the store. This funny-tender graphic novel has a Raina Telgemeier vibe. (Middle grades)

• Hoops

  Travel back to 1975, when Title IX opens the door for a girl’s basketball team at Judi’s Indiana high school. The girls’ sports budget is a joke — while the boys get fancy uniform they send out to be dry cleaned, the girls have to make their own uniforms with t-shirts and electrical tape. Based on a true story, this graphic novel is a warm story of friendship and determination, a reminder of the struggle that women’s sports faced in getting started, and also an opportunity to look at the continuing inequality in high school and professional sports. That sounds like a lot for one book, but Tavares makes it look easy. (Middle grades)

• A First Time for Everything

  The amazing thing about travel is not so much that it changes your life but that it changes you — and so your life feels different because you’re different. Dan Santat captures that evolution perfectly in this memoir about a teen’s first trip to Europe on a class trip. (Middle grades)

• The Bawk-ness Monster

  If you loved Pip Bartlett’s Guide to Magical Creatures, The Spiderwick Chronicles, and Nathaniel Fludd, Beastologist, you’ll be delighted to know there’s a new cryptid series in town. Penny knows that a magical creature saved her from drowning three years ago, and before she and her mom move out of town, Penny is determined to prove that her mysterious rescuer exists. It’s a good thing, too, because a shady cryptid-hunting organization also wants to track down the Bawk-ness Monster, and Penny and her friends may be the only ones who can save it. (Middle grades)

• The Princess and the Grilled Cheese Sandwich

  Princesses can’t inherit the crown in Lady Camembert’s world — but that’s just fine with Lady Camembert, who is delighted to move to the capital of Fromage and reinvent herself as Count Camembert, where she can enjoy life with none of the restrictions and expectations that plagued her life as a princess. But when she meets activist Princess Brie, keeping her secret becomes challenging. It’s a graphic novel full of cheese jokes with a queer love story and feminism — it’s like they made it just for me. (High school)

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5 Inspired Short Story Collections

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• You Are Here: Connecting Flights

  The Chicago airport on the Saturday before the Fourth of July is the connecting thread for 12 cleverly linked stories about Asian American teens navigating air travel in the 2020s — and the casual and not-so-casual racism they meet on their journeys. In one story, an adopted Korean is reluctantly visiting the country where she was born with her two white dads; in another (told entirely in lists), a boy gets a finger stuck in an airport chair; and in another tale, a long line at airport security is made even longer by a Chinese grandma who is traveling with her husband’s ashes in a coffee can. Happily, the stories’ protagonists end up finding ways to navigate the airport — and, by extension, life. (Middle grades)

• Jackal, Jackal: Tales of the Dark and Fantastic

  If you are looking for an eerie, unsettling collection of speculative fiction, look no further: Tobi Ogundiran’s debut collection is pure creepy delight. Drawing on Nigerian folklore and bouncing off science fiction and fantasy tropes from around the world — “The Tale of Jaja and Canti” is a wistful take on Pinocchio, while “The Goatkeeper’s Harvest” has Lovecraftian vibes — this is the read-with-a-flashlight-at-summer-camp book you’ve been looking for. (High school)

• Meet Cute: Some People Are Destined to Meet

  There are plenty of light and fluffy romances in this collection — Emery Lord’s “Oomph” about two teens who meet at an airport during a flight delay is wholesome, heart-warming romance at its finest — but there’s also some real depth: In one story by Meredith Russo, a trans teen and a closeted teen find their school bathrooms a point of contention — and, ultimately, connection. (High school)

• A Thousand Beginnings and Endings

  What’s that you say? You’d love a fairy tale collection that draws on Asian lore rather than European traditions. Well, here you go: Roshani Chokshi’s “Forbidden Fruit” reimagines a classic Filipino tale of a goddess who falls in love with a moral; “The Counting of Vermillion Beads” spins a happy ending for a Vietnamese Cinderella story; and “Nothing Into All” is a magical retelling of a Korean folktale. And that’s just for starters! (High school)

• Rags and Bones: New Twists on Timeless Tales

  I love this collection because it retells “classic stories” that many students won’t actually be familiar with — in addition to takes on familiar texts like Carmilla and Sleeping Beauty, authors riff on lesser-known tales like “The Jolly Corner” and “The Machine Stops.” You could absolutely build a comparative literature unit around this collection and its inspirations if you wanted, but it’s also fun to just read. (High school)

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4 Books Featuring Teen Detectives

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• What Happened to Rachel Riley?

  New kid/mystery podcast geek Anna is fascinated by a mystery at her new middle school: Last year, Rachel Riley was the most popular girl at East Middle; now she’s a social pariah, and Anna is determined to find out why. Anna dives into the mystery, collecting clues from social media posts, interviews, passed notes, and more. (Middle grades)

• Gideon Green in Black and White

  Former kid detective and current film noir buff Gideon Green has sworn off solving mysteries after his last case blew up in the worst possible way. But when his ex-best friend (and current high school cool kid) shows up at his door with a case, Gideon can’t resist the urge to solve one more mystery. (Middle grades)

• The Agathas

  Alice Ogilvie’s disappearing act last summer was the biggest story in Castle Cove — until Alice’s former bestie is murdered. Alice’s ex-boyfriend is the prime suspect — but Alice thinks he’s being set up, and she convinces her new tutor Iris to help her find the real culprit. Iris, though, has reasons of her own for being interested in the case. (High school)

• Pretty as a Picture

  Please let this be the first book in a series! Extreme introvert film editor Marissa Dahl takes a job on a top-secret set for a legendary director and finds a mystery: The actress playing the murder victim is murdered right on set. Two teens with a true crime podcast enlist Marissa’s help solving the murder. I think this would be a great addition to a YA mysteries reading list, even though it’s not shelved as a YA book. (High school)

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4 Books Set in the 1990s

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• Rewind 

  McKinley’s town celebrates the past with a Time Hop every year. This year’s celebration is focused on 1993, the year her dad was in 6th grade just like her. With life in the present increasingly challenging, McKinley isn’t too upset to find herself transported back in time to the 90s — but what exactly is she supposed to set right in the past? (Middle grades)

• Rana Joon and the One and Only Now

  In 1996 California, Rana Joon is not the perfect Iranian daughter, but she thinks she can maybe be a perfect friend by entering a rap competition to honor her late friend Louie. (High school)

• Retro

  Remember life in the 1990s? A social media site is offering 21st century teens a big cash prize if they can live without smartphones, tablets, and other current tech for a year, and Luna signs on to participate — but finds herself in the center of a major conspiracy. (High school)

• The Black Kids

  The Los Angeles riots are the center of this novel about a group of Los Angeles friends navigating their final year of high school. Ashley and her pals have been looking forward to beach days and life after high school; instead, they’re forced to grapple with the destructive ways racism and classism are playing out in their own backyards. (High school)

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5 Books Set at Summer Camp

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• The Last Girls Standing

  It’s an 80s slasher flick in novel form: Sloan and her girlfriend are the only two survivors of a camp massacre, but the more Sloan discovers about what happened that terrible day, the more she suspects her girlfriend of keeping big secrets. (High school)

• Camp Damascus

  It feels like the time is probably right for a horror novel about super-religious camps designed to scare queer kids straight — and this one delivers just that. (High school)

• Not Now, Not Ever

• Elliot’s determined to reinvent herself AND win a scholarship to her dream college by participating in a cutthroat academic summer camp designed for super-overachievers. This book gave me fond memories of summer enrichment programs past. (High school)

• You Have a Match

  When Abby takes a DNA test, she discovers that she has a sister she’s never met — social media sensation Savvy, who’s just as surprised as Abby to discover a surprise sister. The two plan to meet up at the summer camp where Savvy is a counselor to figure out their family’s backstory. (High school)

• Camp

  Randy loves his summers at Camp Outland. He’s met his best friends there, found his passion for musical theater, and (maybe) fallen in love. This summer, though, he’s determined to reinvent himself as someone who his crush will actually notice. (High school)

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7 Awesome Poetry Anthologies

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• Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times edited by Neil Astley

  Themed around life milestones, from falling in love to losing loved ones to death, this collection features work from poets around the world. This collection leans into hope and optimism — it doesn’t ignore the challenges of life in the modern world, but its life-affirming slant makes it a lovely beginner’s collection.

• A Poem for Every Day of the Year edited by Allie Esiri

  With poems for Diwali, the spring solstice, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and other nontraditional holidays as well as the usual suspects, this anthology is a lovely way to add a little more poetry to your everyday life.

• Firefly July: A Year Of Very Short Poems edited by Paul B. Janeczk

  Themed around the seasons, this compilation emphasizes short, evocative poems that are perfect for discussion — and copywork, if that’s part of your homeschool routine.

• Poetry for a Change: A National Poetry Day Anthology

  Here’s a perfect little poetry collection: 43 poems about the challenges and delights of change from Yeats to Abigail Parry’s “Instructions for Not Becoming a Werewolf.” This one’s especially good if you're looking for poems to appeal to a wide range of ages.

• Emergency Kit edited by Jo Shapcott and Matthew Sweeney

  This is the poetry equivalent of in-case-of- emergency-break-glass — poems designed to see you through the spaces where you just feel too much, whether it’s giddy happiness or intense sorrow. If you like Spanish poetry, it’s really well represented here.

• Forget-Me-Nots: Poems to Learn by Heart edited by Mary Ann Hoberman

  Memorizing poetry has been a much-loved part of our homeschool life, but even if you aren’t interested in committing poems to memory, this is a fun and memorable collection of classic and contemporary poetry.

• Norton Anthology of Poetry

  If you want a comprehensive, chronological collection for serious poetry study, this is the one you need. It’s maybe a little more intense than you want for a first poetry dip, but if you’re ready to get into deep critical reading, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better anthology.

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Real Life Secular Homeschool Stories: What It’s Really Like . . .

Ready to be inspired? Real homeschool families answer the question we all want to ask: “How do you do it?” From managing the education of a big family to dealing with depression to traveling around the country in a 150-square-foot RV, these families make homeschool life work on their own terms.

What it’s really like to go away to college after homeschooling

I guess I always kind of thought I would go to college. My mom and dad both went, and they had lots of friends from college and told lots of stories about their college days. And as I got older, I knew that I wanted to study veterinary medicine, which is something you kind of have to go to college to do.

When people find out I was homeschooled, they often ask me if it’s weird to go from being home all day with my mom to living on a college campus. And I guess that would be pretty weird! But that’s not what it was like for me. I was homeschooled all the way through, from kindergarten through 12th grade, but it’s not like I spent every day at home. We always had park days and activities, and I usually took a few outside classes — I took history at our homeschool co-op and karate at a dojo and other stuff here and there. In high school, I started taking dual enrollment classes at a nearby college. By the time I was a senior, I was spending half of my week on a college campus. I’m not sure how much better prepared for college I could have been!

I actually think I was more prepared than a lot of students who went to school. One of the girls on my hall had no idea how to use a washing machine. I had to show her how to sort her clothes and get the machine started. She’d never washed her own clothes. I’ve been doing laundry since 6th grade — and cooking my own meals and cleaning up my own messes. I think all those dual enrollment classes served me well, too. Not because I learned so much but because I learned how to do things like talk to professors and navigate the campus. I notice that a lot of students are kind of shy or hesitant about approaching professors, but I’m totally comfortable taking advantage of office hours. One of my professors offered me a lab internship next year that I didn’t even apply for — I’d just been talking to her about internship opportunities over the course of the year, so she thought of me when one came up.

I know how to manage my time and my workload, too, because my parents gave me a lot of responsibility for that in high school. I think it helped a lot that my parents gave me a lot of freedom to mess up. One time, back in 5th or 6th grade, I signed up to do a history fair project at our co-op. I was really excited about it, but I flaked on doing the work and ended up throwing the project together the night before. I was so embarrassed seeing my slapped-up posterboards surrounded by everybody else’s cool projects. I learned that I have to care about my work more than anybody else does — and that’s something that has served me really well in college.

—Ginny*, sophomore in college and former homeschooler

What it’s really like to homeschool a big family

When people find out I homeschool five kids ages 2 to 15, they always ask me how we do it. The honest answer is that I don’t know — and that sometimes we don’t do it very well! It’s much easier now that most of the kids are older — they can work independently, get their own snacks, help each other out. In fact, at this point, it’s probably easier to homeschool them than it would be to get everybody up and dressed and ready to catch a bus in the morning. (I don’t know how people do that!)

In my life before kids, I would never have called myself an organized person, but homeschooling has forced me to become one. Without structure, our life would be impossible. I don’t know how I’d make sure we covered the academic bases with each kid if we didn’t stick to a pretty detailed schedule. At the same time, I have to be really flexible — if Sasha gets chosen for a ballet performance, we have to make time for getting to and from rehearsals, or if one of the kids comes down with a cold or the toddler refuses to take her nap, I have to improvise. On the other hand, sometimes there are days where we have a little extra time — the toddler naps longer or our math lesson clicks right away — and I try to make the most of that time. I actually keep a to-do list just for unexpected extra time so that I’m not just standing there with my mouth open in surprise until it ends.

I’ve learned over the years that the moments when we’re really connecting as a family, all working together, are some of my favorite parts of homeschooling. When I give those up, I feel more frustrated, less patient, less sure I’m doing a good job as a homeschooling mom. So I make sure we always have one subject we do all of us together — it’s nature study now, but we’ve done art and history together in the past. I think it’s good for the kids, too, but it’s something that I do for me.

As the kids get older, I’ve found that they can be a great help. Right now, my 10-year-old is teaching my 5-year-old math. Not only is Daniel loving learning from his big brother, it’s also reinforcing Ryan’s math skills and improving his math confidence. That’s what I call a win-win.

I also rely on the kids to help around the house. The way I see it, homeschooling them is my full-time job, and keeping up with the house is everybody-who-lives-here’s job. Even the littlest kids get chores. I make a monthly meal plan, which sometimes makes me feel a little blah about cooking, but ultimately, three meals and umpteen snacks a day is just too much for me to cope with on the fly.

We do have to sacrifice some things. We can’t really handle more than one outside class/activity per kid — I’d basically be running a taxi service if we tried to do more than that. And the younger kids sometimes have to wait a year on something they want to do because of the older kids’ commitments. That might get easier when Sasha starts driving next year.

Because we’re so scheduled, I try to shake up the routine every once in a while — take a day to play outside just because it finally feels like spring, rent a bunch of movies and make popcorn for a movie marathon, bake cookies after breakfast. I have to be so organized to make it all work that sometimes I start to feel like a draconian taskmaster rather than the fun mom I want to be. Fun days remind all of us, especially me, that we homeschool because it’s smart and good and right for us — but also because it’s fun.

—Kathryn*, homeschool mom to Sasha (15), Eric(13), Ryan (10), Daniel (5), and Ellie (2)

What it’s really like to work full-time when you’re homeschooling

Going back to work wasn’t the plan. When I quit my nursing job after Erin was born, I thought I was done with the working world for good. And for 22 years, I was. Then, my marriage fell apart, and I had to go back to work. Erin was already in college and Josh was about to graduate, but Stephen was just finishing 8th grade. We talked a lot about what to do: The schools near us aren’t bad, and Stephen is a good student. I thought he’d be OK there. But he was adamant that he wanted to keep homeschooling, so we’ve been figuring it out together. I do 12-hour shifts, three days on, two days off, so he does a lot of independent work. We plan out his assignments a month at a time — he doesn’t love that, but it’s the only way I have the space to plan things. He works on his own on my work days, and on my off-days, we check over his work together and talk about what’s interesting or what’s confusing. I also have to run errands, do housework, and manage everything else on those days, so it’s hard. It’s exhausting. But I see how hard he’s working, and it inspires me to keep at it.

—Lora*, mom to two homeschool grads and one homeschooled high-schooler

What it’s really like to live without a TV

Honestly, I don’t think it’s that different from living with a television. We got rid of our television set three years ago, and we really haven’t missed it. We read a lot and play a lot of games and work on a lot of big puzzles — we almost always have a big jigsaw puzzle going on the table in the dining room. We go to movies now and then, and the kids play Minecraft, and sometimes we’ll watch a documentary on the computer, so I wouldn’t call us screen-free. But I do feel like I am more intentional about my downtime, and I like that a lot.

—Emily*, homeschool mom to 10-year-old and 8-year-old boys

What it’s really like to homeschool a gifted child

People always said “Oh, she’s so smart,” and I noticed that she did a lot of things earlier than other kids — I remember her putting together puzzles all by herself before she was 3 — but I was still surprised when she scored 180 on a MENSA I.Q. test when she was just 10. We were already homeschooling Maggie when we found out she was gifted. I think we would have made the same decision if we had known. Homeschooling gives us a lot of flexibility. We can move at Maggie’s pace, which is often a lot faster than schools can move, but we can also slow down when we need to. There’s no busy work! And no waiting on anyone else to get it. It’s hard sometimes, though, because your kid is your kid, but sometimes it feels like whatever you say comes across as bragging. Or worse, you’ll seem like one of those Tiger Moms, pushing your kid too hard too fast. (Which you worry about all the time anyway. Am I pushing hard enough? Am I pushing too hard? It never ends.) Other parents at the playground don’t have to weigh their words to talk about things like reading lists and math scores, but I always do.

—Kim*, homeschool mom to 12-year-old Maggie

What it’s really like to homeschool when you’re depressed

At first, I didn’t know I had a problem. It just felt like a bad day, but the bad day kept coming. Just getting out of bed in the morning felt like it used up every scrap of energy I had. The prospect of making breakfast was more than I could handle — I felt so annoyed when the kids didn't want something easy, like cereal or toast, that they could get for themselves. They were younger then — my oldest was just in 2nd grade when my symptoms started — so they really did depend on me for a lot. And I was always letting them down. They’d want to take a class at our co-op, but I was too overwhelmed by having to call to sign up, so we’d miss the deadline. They’d want to go to a museum exhibit, but I’d keep putting it off until the exhibit was gone. They’d want to play at the park with friends, but I couldn’t make myself call the other moms to set something up. Every night, I’d lie awake thinking “Tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow we’ll go to the nature center and read books and have fun. Tomorrow I’ll make it up to them.” I felt guilty pretty much all the time.

I slept so much, but I was tired all the time. My phone’s voice mail filled up with messages I couldn't make myself listen to. Laundry piled up. The kids were spending their time playing video games and watching television instead of doing school work. And I was just moving in this haze, constantly telling myself that tomorrow would be different, tomorrow would be better.

Finally, my husband said, look, I think you should talk to someone, I think you might be depressed. I was honestly horrified. Mothers aren’t supposed to be depressed, especially stay-at-home mothers, especially stay-at-home homeschooling mothers. Wasn’t I supposed to get all the happiness I needed from taking care of my family and spending time with my kids? Wasn’t that what I had wanted? Wasn’t that why I had quit my job to stay home with the kids? What was wrong with me? Thank goodness he pushed, and I finally went to see a doctor. She prescribed me some medication, which I was really resistant to taking, and scheduled me for therapy.

I couldn’t believe what a difference the medication made. Suddenly, I felt awake again. A week after I started seeing my doctor, I woke up early and made scrambled eggs with bacon and hash browns for breakfast. The kids came into the kitchen and watched, like they were seeing a unicorn or something rare and amazing. We fell back into a routine of school work and park days.

Medication and therapy made a big difference, but depression isn’t something that magically goes away. I still have days where I don’t want to get out of bed, where all I want to do is sit on the couch. But I’ve learned to accept those days because they’re the exception rather than the rule now. A bad day is just a bad day (or a bad week sometimes), not a sign that I am a bad mother. Feeling guilty just makes me feel more depressed.

—Jennifer*, homeschooling mom to a 9th grader and a 6th grader

What it’s really like to homeschool for $0

My kids are young, so it’s probably easier, but I don’t spend any money on homeschooling. That was the deal we made — I could quit work and homeschool as long as our expenses stayed the same. I don’t even look at other people’s curriculum stuff because there’s no way I’m going to spend money on it, but there is a lot of good free stuff. I think there’s free stuff that’s better than curriculum you can pay for. What it costs is time because I have to spend a lot of time on the library website and searching online for materials. but they’re there. I just have to keep hunting until I find the right one and know that it sometimes takes longer than I want it to.

—Rachel*, homeschool mom to three kids

What it’s really like to homeschool on the road

We’ve been homeschooling since Amelia was in first grade, and Henry has never been to a traditional school. The idea of roadschooling just kind of happened. My partner and I have always loved traveling, and we spent a big chunk of our pre-kid days in planes, trains, and automobiles. Money and mobility slowed us down after Amelia was born, but one of us was always saying ‘Oooh, it would be so cool to take the kids here’ or ‘We’ve gotta plan a trip there.’ We wondered what we were waiting for, so we started planning a cross-country road trip with the kids. That morphed into buying an RV — after all, we’d be saving lots of money on hotel rooms, right? And once we had the RV and had done a couple of long weekends in it, we thought ‘Why don’t we just live this way?’ It felt right, way more right than living in the suburbs had ever felt to either of us. So we sold our house in Tennessee and most of our stuff (we still have some stuff in a storage space in Texas, where my mom lives) and headed out to explore North America.

I know we’re lucky to be able to make it work. Not everyone could. My partner does medical transcription work, which she can do from anywhere, but we do sometimes hit panic mode when WiFi is spotty for miles on end. We’ve checked into a hotel a couple of times so she can get her work done. I do freelance writing, so as long as I make my deadlines, I can work anywhere. We don’t make a ton of money, but we make enough to live a simple life and travel when we want to, which is all we need. Our permanent address is my mom’s place in Texas, which means we don’t have to worry about school paperwork for the kids — Texas is totally relaxed when it comes to requirements for homeschooling.

We’ve been on the road for almost a year now, and every week is different. Originally, I thought we would do all this research before visiting different sites, but it’s turned out to be the reverse — seeing sites, visiting museums, and experiencing different places is what makes us want to learn more about them. Another idea I had was for the kids to keep travel journals — to write down their experiences on the road — but they weren’t really interested in that. So I thought I’d keep a family travel journal instead. Of course, seeing me journaling made them want to participate, so now we all take turns writing in the journal. I love flipping back through the pages and remembering how many things we’ve done together. We have also become huge fans of the Junior Ranger program at the National Parks — the kids love completing the activities to earn badges.

The hardest thing is probably having such limited space. We have to be really selective about what we keep with us, and I’m always wishing I’d brought different books. There’s always something I want that’s in our storage locker! But thank goodness for laptops and e-readers, which have saved the day more than once.

—Carole*, homeschool mom to two roadscholars

*last names removed for online publication

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How to Be More in the Moment in Your Homeschool

Get out of your head and into the joy of your everyday homeschool experiences. Here’s why embracing the magic of the moment can change your homeschool for the better — and how you can do it, one moment at a time.

Chances are, you’re thinking about something else right now.

It’s kind of hard not to. Homeschooling is one of those projects that depends on multitasking. You may be measuring the pH level of red cabbage or tracing a map of a medieval village, but you’re probably also listening out for the clothes dryer or waiting for an email or trying to figure out how to turn the odds and ends currently in your fridge into dinner so you don’t have to squeeze in a grocery store run. Most of us, most of the time, are probably thinking about something other than what we’re doing at any given moment.

People talk a lot about enjoying the moment, but it turns out that being in the moment is a skill we have to acquire — not something that comes naturally for most of us. It seems like it should be easy to get lost in what we’re doing at a given moment, but our brains aren’t really wired that way.

One of the distinguishing features of human consciousness is our ability to do one thing while thinking about something else. Being able to anticipate the future — whether we’re doing it consciously or unconsciously — is a benefit of our big brains, and often, this ability really is a benefit. When we’re making plans or looking forward to something we’re excited about, we may actually feel happier and less stressed than when we’re engaged in routine activities. And remembering is a plus, too: Catching a glimpse of a family vacation photo or hearing a song that reminds us of a great road trip can make us instantly connected to past happiness. That’s the upside. Any homeschool mom who has ever been up at 3 a.m. replaying something another mom said at park day or worrying about her son’s math skills never developing can tell you the downside: Our ability to look beyond the present moment can also equal worry and rumination. It can also keep us from really connecting to everyday moments. If we’re worrying about what’s next and fretting over what has been, how can we reorient ourselves to be present in what actually is?

“Everyone agrees it’s important to live in the moment but the problem is how — when people are not in the moment, they’re not there to know they aren’t there,” says Ellen Langer, a professor of psychology at Harvard University and the author of Mindfulness.

Being in the moment — also called mindfulness — is, at its most basic is just being present in what’s happening around you. It has two essential parts: Being there requires you to focus on the actual experience you’re having, without being distracted about what you’ll do next or what might be going on somewhere else, and it also necessitates open, nonjudgmental acceptance of whatever is happening. In other words, mindfulness is being there and being okay with being there — which, for parents, means ignoring those critical thoughts about your parenting choices (Maybe this whole homeschool project is really a big mistake) or frustration at your child’s choices (Why is he standing right in that mud puddle in his brand- new sneakers?).

This is easier said than done, especially for homeschool parents who are usually juggling a never-ending to-do list of projects and worries. You may be enjoying exploding that baking soda volcano in the backyard, but if you’re like most of us, you’re also mentally organizing the post-eruption clean-up, trying to remember what you’ve got on hand for lunch, and wondering if that co-op teacher responded to your email about the age requirement for her medieval history class. Maybe you’re also worrying because your sixth grader sulked and grumbled his way through math practice this morning, even though he’s already way behind where his public school peers are in math and really needs the practice. If you were in the moment, you think — pulling yourself even further out of the moment — you’d be enjoying all the volcanic fun, but instead, you’re only part there. The rest of you is somewhere else.

“We live in a world that contributes in a major way to mental fragmentation, disintegration, distraction, and decoherence,” says B. Allan Wallace, a Buddhist scholar. Buddhists call this permanently scattered mental state that so many people tend to live in “monkey mind,” referencing its ability to swing from thought to thought without settling in any single spot. Being in the moment asks you to change this and be where you are — which means accepting all the less-than-great things about where you are without letting yourself get caught up in them. This doesn’t mean you have to like everything that’s happening: You can be a perfectly mindful person and still not love it that your middle schooler is refusing to do math. You can be a mindfulness adherent and still be bored playing your 2,000-th game of Stack the States or listening to your child explain his Minecraft project in micro details over a 45-minute traffic jam. People often think mindfulness means being happy in every single moment, and while that might be a lovely dream, there are plenty of unlovely moments in everyday life.

“Taking care of children all day can be emotionally, cognitively, and psychologically exhausting, and it’s really problematic that parents aren’t more honest about that,” says Claire Lister, a New York City-based psychologist. “Sometimes, you’re going to zone out. Sometimes, you’re going to think about the other things you need to do next. Sometimes, you’re going to be in the moment and be bored out of your mind. It’s great to be present, and I think you’re usually happier when you are, but expecting yourself to be fully present and totally delighted every single minute of parenting is likely to be a recipe for failure.”

What keeps you in the moment in those situations where you’re not basking in the glow of a moment’s perfect joy is recognizing and accepting what’s actually happening instead of immediately jumping into anger, blaming yourself, or trying to problem-solve for the future. Being in the moment is an active, open, intentional process — and it’s one that comes with a host of benefits for you.

“When people are in the mindful, they are more likely to experience themselves as a part of humanity, as part of a greater universe,” says Michael Kernis, a psychologist at the University of Georgia. “The line between self and other gets blurred in a way that’s conducive to growing strong, healthy relationships and self confidence.”

Blurring this line is surprisingly positive in all kinds of unexpected ways. For starters, it makes you more empathetic, which can be a big plus during those middle school math stand-offs. It may make it easier for you to see your child’s perspective and to feel more connected to her needs and interests. Even better, it helps you take your ego out of potentially emotional situations so that you’re less likely to link your self-esteem to events — like your kid’s academic success or how well she enjoys homeschooling on a given Thursday — and more likely to take things at face value. Ultimately, this kind of perspective can make you less aggressive, defensive, and reactive and more understanding and accepting — of yourself and of other people, says Kernis.

Learning how to be more in the moment can also help alleviate one of the plagues of homeschool life: that constant second-guessing we always seem to be doing about everything from whether homeschooling is the best choice for your child to whether you should have spent that $500 on science supplies. “Being present minded takes away some of that self evaluation and getting lost in your own mind—and in your mind is where you make the evaluations that beat yourself up,” says Stephen Schueller, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania. Learning how to be in the moment can reduce the overthinking that drives us to doubt our confidence and be our own worst critics. When you’re able to focus your attention on the moment, you’re better able to stop problematic catastrophizing (worrying about the future) and rumination (worrying about the past) — in the moment, definitely, but also later, when you’re back in everyday multitasking mode.

Mindfulness also seems to have physiological benefits, though it’s an area that hasn’t historically been the focus of rigorous scientific research. Still, the existing studies suggest that people who practice being in the moment, even with minimal practices like five minutes of daily meditation, report reduced stress, better immune system functioning, lower blood pressure, and even reductions in chronic pain. These small benefits may lead to bigger ones — reduced risk for high blood pressure and other chronic health problems, as well as sometimes significantly reduced depression and anxiety symptoms.

These benefits aren’t just for you either. Parents who practice mindfulness are more likely to have kids who can enjoy being in the moment, which can do a lot to mitigate some of the bigger emotional challenges of childhood and adolescence. If it feels selfish to focus on your own well- being, remember that your wellbeing when it comes to mindfulness has a direct, positive benefit for the rest of your family, too.

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Mindfulness isn’t really complicated, though we often try to make it that way. “People set the goal of being mindful for the next 20 minutes or the next two weeks, and they end up thinking mindfulness is difficult because they are using the wrong yardstick,” says Jay Winner, author of the book Take the Stress Out of Your Life. The only way to measure mindfulness, Winner says, is one moment at a time, which means every moment is an opportunity to practice mindfulness. There’s no magical way to learn to be in the moment, but these tips can help you start incorporating mindfulness into your regular routine.

Practice in happy sensory moments. Ultimately, you want mindfulness to be a part of your whole life, but if you are struggling with getting started, happy sensory moments — eating your favorite dessert, taking a bath, stepping out into the sunshine — make for good mindfulness practice.

“The easiest way to start being in the moment is with a physical sensation that makes you happy,” says Sonja Lyubomirsky, author of The How of Happiness and a psychologist at the University of California at Riverside. Concentrate on one specific sensation—revel in it, and savor it — and you’ll find that being in the moment feels easier than you might have thought.

Let yourself relax about messes — at least sometimes. That baking soda volcano may cause a clean-up emergency in your yard, but homeschooling in general can be a messy project. Even if you’re not making oobleck or glittering up your homework, being a hands-on homeschooler will often mean that your dining room table is buried under books, your breakfast dishes are still stacked in the sink at lunchtime, and your family room is full of the clutter of everyone’s projects and activities.

To be mindful, you have to let go of thinking about clean-up while things are happening. You’ll still have to dust-bust the piles of glitter or load the dishwasher later, whether you’re thinking about it now or not, so give yourself permission to deal with the mess when it’s actually time to deal with the mess instead of proactively planning your tidying. Obviously you may not be able to do this every time there’s a mess in the making — that’s okay. But letting go of that kind of forward-thinking future planning even sometimes can really help you be more in the moment.

Cultivate a mindfulness habit. If mindfulness doesn’t come naturally to you, finding ways to encourage it can help you integrate more moments into your routine. One strategy that works well for some people is keeping a memorable moments journal and making a point to write in it for a few minutes every evening. (You don’t want to write in it — or even think about writing it — during the rest of the day since that can pull you right out of the moment.) Knowing that you’ll be looking for information to write about at night can subtly encourage you to pay more attention to moments as they are happening. This doesn’t work for everyone, but if you’re struggling with everyday mindfulness, this is a trick worth trying.

Press the pause button before acting. Homeschool parents can develop a tendency to jump right in when kids are struggling with an assignment, unsure at the playground, or otherwise experiencing a moment of uncertainty. But being in hover mode can make mindfulness impossible — that state of perpetual readiness it requires is the opposite of the nonjudgmental attention to the present moment. Practice giving your children space to explore and problem-solve on their own.

As a bonus, reducing parental steering has mindful benefits for both you and your child — solving problems on your own boosts mindfulness, decision-making, problem- solving, and self control.

Let go of the myth of “quality time.” Parents have a tendency to value special, focused time — a trip to the nature center, a family picnic — over everyday life moments, like trying to find a parking space at the karate center or folding the clean laundry. But all time has the potential to be quality time.

“My son is in college now, but his favorite memory of homeschooling is cleaning up before school started in the morning — we’d turn up the music and do a one-song clean-up session as fast as we could,” says Naomi Vincent, who homeschooled her son from 4th to 8th grade. “I planned a lot of field trips and special activities, so I was surprised that silly ritual, which was really just about trying to keep the dining room from becoming a disaster area, was his happiest homeschool memory.”

Don’t schedule away your down time. It’s tempting to do a grocery run during ballet lessons or to answer email while you’re waiting in the co-op parking lot, but this perpetual busy-ness doesn’t leave much space for mindfulness. Sometimes you may really need that gallon of milk, but when you don’t, bring a book and settle in under a shady tree or find a cozy spot to knit a few rows. This kind of slowing down won’t come naturally at first if you’re not used to it, but you’ll find it makes a big difference.

Similarly, don’t always save time just because you can. If it takes you an extra 15 minutes to walk to soccer practice instead of driving, take the walk occasionally. Bring a deck of cards to the library and play a quiet hand of spades before you leave. Stop and have your coffee at the shop instead of zipping through the drive-through. Leave more openings in your schedule for experiences.

Accept that there will be bad moments. Homeschooling is full of great moments, but homeschooling — and parenting and pretty much all of life — has its share of not-so-wonderful moments, too. Mindfulness is not going to magically make those moments go away, but mindfulness can help you through the rough moments just as it can enhance your enjoyment of the good ones.

Ideally, being in the moment lets you approach challenging moments with your kids with more empathy and understanding — you see that your third grader refuses to read because he needs to move around in a way that’s not conducive to long reading sessions or that your first grader’s tantrum is a way of testing his limits. But it’s also great if the effect of mindfulness is simply that you can accept when a bad moment is happening and not take it personally or feel like it’s your problem to solve immediately.

Make mindfulness part of your routine with these tips from other homeschool families who have discovered ways to be more in the moment.

Shake Up the Routine

Homeschools run on routine, and most of us would be lost without our everyday rhythm. That’s why the very occasional disruption of that routine can be one of the most effective ways to get you out of your head and into the moment.

Throw a surprise shake-up. A few times a year, let the gang get about ten minutes into your regular morning routine — then announce that it’s ice cream — or swimming pool or ice skating — time. The unexpected momentum shift will kick your homeschool energy into higher gear. (A version of this can also be fun for bedtime.)

Make time for mystery trips. Whether it’s a weekend in the mountains or an afternoon at the zoo, the fun of a mystery getaway is not knowing where you’re going. Help your kids dress appropriately and let them know if they need to pack a bag, but don’t tell them anything else — the anticipation is what makes a mystery trip so fun.

Shake up someone else’s day. The only thing more inspiring than giving your own routine a little jump is inspiring someone else’s day. Bake cookies to leave surprises for your neighbors, bring flowers to your favorite supermarket clerk, or stop by a senior center for a singalong. Doing something nice for other people will help you enjoy the moment yourself.

Put Adventure on Your To-Do List

It’s easy to slip into a rut, so build your own momentum by keeping fun on your radar.

Update your calendar every season with the activities you don’t want to miss: planting a veggie garden or taking a waterfall hike in the spring, visiting a pumpkin farm or navigating a corn maze in the fall, or finding a new swimming hole or painting a new fence mural in the summer. Scheduling spontaneous fun may seem weird at first, but getting the fun on your calendar is the first step to actually having it.

Keep a choose-your-own-fun box, and fill it with cards describing possible activities. Have one color card for free or cheap activities (like a picnic in the park or a hike on a nearby trail), another color for activities that require a little more cash (museum visits or favorite eateries), and a third color for splurges, like a trip to an amusement park or a camping weekend. When you have free time to spare, choose a card that suits your time and budget and head out on an adventure.

Celebrate the Little Things

Don’t save all your celebrations for a couple of annual events. Make moments all year long by scheduling low-pressure celebrations.

Look for silly excuses to celebrate, like Star Wars Day (May 4), Lost Sock Memorial Day (May 9), or National Doughnut Day (June 1). There’s no hype or stress surrounding these low-key holidays, and you can invent your own ways to celebrate them, from all-out party time, complete with costumes and props, to laid-back movie nights.

Schedule fun studies periodically. In our house, we call them DEAPs — Drop Everything and Play — and we pull them out when we feel like learning has become a bit of a grind and we want something new. A DEAP might be a new art curriculum or a complicated Lego kit; it might be a board game, a unit study, or a creative writing project. The idea is to have a built-in burst of fun to get you through the inevitable times when homeschooling starts to drag.

Have a birthday party for your favorite writer. ReadWriteThink maintains a great list of beloved kid’s lit authors’ birthdays, and you can set aside a day to read your favorite book, bake a cake, and sing an enthusiastic happy birthday to an author whose work you love.

Make a ritual of one everyday meal. Maybe it’s setting the table and lighting the candles for dinner or opening the window and pouring juice for breakfast — whatever meal you choose, establish a pattern that you follow every single day.

Have a Plan to Deal with Stress

Being in the moment can be the hardest when you’ve got big worries to deal with — when you’re confronted with a major life stress, like changing jobs, moving, unemployment, health problems, or relationship problems. Getting stuck in worry is totally normal — you’d be superhuman to get through a really big life upheaval without stress, but you can still find moments of peace by focusing.

Start with your breathing. People always say this — if you slow down and just focus on your breathing, clearing your mind of everything else, you’ll feel more centered and in the moment — but they always say it because it’s actually true. Take five minutes, and just breathe.

Single-task the little things. Resist the urge to listen to a podcast while you do the dishes or to respond to email when you’re eating lunch. Instead, use these pockets of time to be fully in the moment, focusing on the sights, smells, sounds, and sensations of the single thing you’re doing.

Make the Most of “Wasted Time”

Most homeschoolers spend plenty of time between the good stuff, whether you’re driving to and from lessons or squeezing in a load of laundry. Obviously every single one of these moments can’t be a profound experience, but there’s no reason some of them can’t.

Park farther away. Sure, a close spot is convenient, but parking farther from your destination gives you space to shake off the drive, connect with your kids, and refocus on what you’re about to do.

Do it together. Probably things like making dinner, sorting clothes for the laundry, or staking the tomato plants will take a little longer if you get your kids involved, but involving someone else in the process will automatically make you slow down and focus more on what you’re doing.

Let Housework Be Your Inspiration, Not Your Nemesis

You’re always going to have housework to do. Some people can find mindfulness in rituals like folding laundry or scrubbing toilets, but if housework just feels like, well, work, try adding a dash of fun to your chores.

Make it a party. Whether it’s a laundry-sorting mock-snowball fight, where you pile all the dirty laundry on your beds and sort it by throwing it into the correct hamper, or a sweeping and mopping dance party, making your everyday chores an excuse to play together can pull you all right into the moment.

Start a friendly competition. If there’s an everyday job you hate, turn it into a competition. Time how long it takes everyone to work together to wash the dishes or fold the laundry, and make a point of trying to beat your best time. (Make it clear that smashed plates and crumpled-up T-shirts don’t count as finishing the job!) Keep your family’s best time posted prominently, and you may find that racing the clock makes that dreaded chore zip by.

Employ a little logic. When you’re tackling a big mess — cleaning up the playroom or a big day of lawn work — up the ante by putting together a mystery for your family to solve: Borrow or concoct a logic puzzle, and break it into pieces that you hide in ziplock bags around your work site. As kids clean, they find clues to help them put together the answer. Not a logic puzzle fan? Try a scavenger hunt instead.

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The HSL Guide to Finding Your Homeschool Style

Your homeschool style isn’t exactly a philosophy, a method, or an academic approach, but understanding it can be the key to a successful homeschool. What kind of secular homeschool parent are you?

Homeschoolers talk a lot about homeschool philosophies and methods, but it’s your homeschool style that really shapes your family’s secular homeschool.

There are as many homeschool styles as there are people, which is why your homeschool doesn’t look exactly like anyone else’s. Hand any homeschooler a shiny new book or math game and say. “Come back in a month and tell me what you did with that,” and the answers you’d get back would be totally different.

Some people might have read the book together, others might have used it to launch a unit study, and a few might have created activity sheets around it. All of these approaches are totally valid.

Whatever choice you made, you probably wouldn’t be thinking too hard about your homeschool philosophy or your curriculum — you’d be thinking about whatever was happening in your particular homeschool at the time I handed you the book. That’s why understanding your homeschool style can be so helpful — knowing how you approach homeschooling can help you make better, smarter choices for your homeschool, both in the moment and in the long term.

Your homeschool style isn’t something you can use a formula to figure out. There’s no quick and easy quiz that will tell you what kind of homeschooler you are. Instead, it’s something you come to learn through self-exploration and reflection. Your homeschool style may change over time; it may also not match up to the vision of yourself as a homeschool parent you have in your head.

To get to the root of your homeschool style, start by thinking about your life in any context unrelated to homeschooling. When you get together with a group of friends, do you make the plans — or do you go with the flow of what everyone else decides? When you children were toddlers, did you plan your days around their nap time, or were you more likely to be spontaneous? What’s your negotiating style? What does your perfect lazy afternoon look like? What are your strengths? Your weaknesses?

The point is not what you think you should do or what you’d like to do — that data can be handy for lots of things, but your homeschool style is all about the way you normally approach your everyday life. Skip the “should” and the “ought to”s, and just focus on how you actually deal with everything. How do you exercise? What’s your meal planning strategy? How do you write a grocery list? How do you interact with your family and friends? What about with strangers? Are you good at letting go of control, or do you need a master list for every project? The more you pay attention to yourself — something that can definitely end up on the back burner for a busy parent — the more you’ll understand your natural homeschool style.

And the more you understand your homeschool style, the better you can determine how to build a homeschool that really works. Are you spending your homeschool budget on the things that fulfill you and bring you joy? Are your homeschool resources appropriate for your personality? Are you prioritizing resources and activities that align with your passions and beliefs? When challenges pop up and homeschooling gets hard, how do you respond and react? How can you minimize stress and maximize happiness in your homeschool? It’s your homeschool style that points the way.

Though there are dozens of homeschool styles, most people fall under one of four big umbrellas. (We’ve named them the Dude, the Metronome, the Ocean, and the Magpie.) All four of these styles can be the foundation of a happy, successful homeschool — you just have to trust yourself.

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Quick Question: How do you usually plan your homeschool weeks mid-year? 

Don’t think about the planning you do in the summer but the week-to-week planning you do (or not!) every weekend.

• If: You like to look back on what you accomplished each week instead of planning every day in advance.

  • You’re probably a: DUDE

• If: There are weeks where you plan everything out and weeks where you just sit back and let your kids lead the way.

  • You’re probably an: OCEAN

• If: You enjoy making plans for next year’s homeschool more than checking off your to-do lists for this week.

  • You’re probably a: MAGPIE

• If: Once you get your daily rhythm down, your schedule takes care of itself.

  • You’re probably a: METRONOME

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Homeschool Style: THE DUDE

Dudes set their own pace for homeschooling. They rely on rhythm and routine more than schedules and curriculum to guide their homeschool, and they tend to keep going until they are finished with whatever they are working on.

YOU MIGHT BE A DUDE IF:

• You homeschool year-round.

• You track what you’ve accomplished each day instead of planning days in advance.

• Your day is anchored by a series of specific rituals.

• You usually finish your curriculum or unit study, even if it takes you across multiple years.

• You store your homeschool materials in plain sight.

• You tend to try new crafts and activities with your kids.

• You do a lot of homeschooling in your pajamas.

If you’re a Dude homeschooler, you probably spend a lot of time in your pajamas. Dude homeschoolers embrace the relaxed possibilities of homeschooling — they usually lean into academics, but they prefer to dive deep and slow rather than to try to get to a finish line. They rarely work at tables or desks, preferring to set up on the couch, the deck, the floor, or even in bed. Their homeschool routine looks the same most days, and most days of the year are homeschool days. They’ll often continue activities like readalouds or nature journals even when their homeschool is officially “on vacation” because they tend to see homeschooling and parenting as intricately connected projects. They tend to be patient and optimistic, willing to give their students time and space when they seem to need it.

“Dudes like the freedom of slowing down and speeding up as the mood takes them.”

Dude homeschoolers are relaxed planners. They tend to start and finish curriculum at different times instead of starting a year with a stack of new curriculum, so they’re rarely in hyper-curriculum-shopping mode. They spend time finding a rhythm for their days and tend to stick with it, even as their kids get older and move into more independent work. They’re more likely to keep up with what they’re accomplishing as they go instead of trying to plan out every week in advance — they like the freedom of slowing down and speeding up as the mood takes them. Dude homeschoolers gravitate toward homeschool philosophies that rely on rhythms and repetition, like Classical or Waldorf homeschooling, but Dude homeschoolers can adapt any homeschool philosophy to their relaxed vibe.

Dude homeschoolers value harmony and community, so they may find it challenging when their students push back or resist deadlines. While following directions and hitting due dates might not be important in your everyday homeschool, they are important skills that students need to learn before they graduate from high school, so Dudes need to find ways to enforce some standards. Students need the experience of following through and finishing projects, and Dude homeschools may need to add more structure to support procrastinators and students who need scaffolding for executive function skills. It’s important not to always prioritize harmony over academic success. 

A few other things for Dude homeschoolers to keep in mind:

• Don’t be afraid to let stuff go. Dudes tend to hold onto student work, books, curriculum, and other homeschool resources. It’s fine to save stuff, but some people have a hard time tossing old homeschool materials because they’re afraid of the loss — or too nervous to commit to a permanent decision,” says Susan Bartell, PsyD.

• Buy supplies that inspire you. It’s worth it to spend money on the fancy pens and notebooks you love since you’ll be spending a lot of time with them. A basket or envelope system that lets you collect important stuff as you go to sort later will help keep you feeling efficient without making you feel rushed.

• Take some risks. Dudes can tend to be homebodies, which is fine — but give your kids the opportunity to participate in social activities with other kids sometimes, too. “Pick one day a week or a couple of days a month as your designated Out And About Days, and work on making them part of your routine,” says Timothy Pychyl, PhD.

• Say no. Dudes can be people pleasers, especially when it comes to their kids. It’s OK to say there’s no space for a karate class right now or that you really do have to clean up your science project before you go to the park. You’re also allowed to tell your kids you need a break or you’d like them to stop teasing you about something — being a supportive parent doesn’t mean never putting yourself and your needs first.

• Delegate sometimes. Dudes tend to be mostly DIY homeschoolers, but it’s good for students to experience learning from other teachers. Look for opportunities every year for your kids to learn outside your home, whether it’s a one-day workshop or a semester-long class.

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Homeschool Style: THE OCEAN

Oceans homeschool in cycles: Sometimes, they’re focused, organized, and hands-on; other times, they relax into a routine that’s largely student led. These cycles come and go naturally, so your homeschool may look very different from one season to the next.

YOU MIGHT BE AN OCEAN IF:

• You have found a few curriculums that work well for you, but you don’t necessarily use them all the time.

• You do a lot of planning some years and not much planning other years.

• You usually go into planning with a specific list of things you want to look for or accomplish.

• There are times when you go to the library twice a week and other times when you don’t go for months at a time.

• You generally have a few outside activities that you stick to from year to year.

• You sometimes rely heavily on your planner and sometimes don’t keep one.

• You have holiday routines that your family looks forward to all year.

• You enjoy planning vacations and other travel far in advance of your trip.

• Your bookshelves have books and materials for several different years and subjects.

Ocean homeschoolers move from high-intensity to low-intensity homeschooling. Sometimes, their homeschool will change from month to month to month or week to week; other times, they may be high- or low-intensity for a year or more. Sometimes your homeschool intensity may be determined by your kids — they need a slower pace, or there’s somewhere they need to grow. Other times, it may be determined by life, your mood, or even the weather.

“During high-intensity times, ocean homeschoolers will lean heavily on schedules and planners; during lower intensity times, they may do little or no record keeping. ”

Ocean homeschoolers usually plan each year in advance, but they let the weeks happen as they happen. During high-intensity times, they might plot out every week. Ocean homeschoolers can follow any homeschool philosophy, but they often lean into an unschool or project-based approach during their slower times. During more focused times, they rely on more structured philosophies, which often change over time. Their organization process tends to follow the same rise and fall pattern: During high-intensity times, ocean homeschoolers will lean heavily on schedules and planners; during lower intensity times, they may do little or no record keeping. Activities and outside classes tend to pick up during low-intensity times, and high-intensity periods may mean little to no outside activities to make room for hands-on learning at home. Ocean homeschoolers may ease gradually from one mode to the other, or they may wake up one day and find themselves ready for a different mode with no warning at all.

The challenge for Ocean homeschoolers is in knowing when you’ve entered a natural low-intensity phase and when your homeschool is hitting a bumpy patch. Your feelings will be a good indicator for this: If you feel bored and frustrated, like you’re not getting anything accomplished, it’s a sign your homeschool may need a little TLC; if your low-intensity periods feel peaceful and productive, it’s a sign you’re in a normal homeschool cycle. 

These tips can help you make the most of your Ocean homeschool:

• Stay organized. You can’t always predict when you’ll speed up or slow down, so keeping records is essential so that when you’re ready to return to something, you know where to start.

• Keep lists for life stuff and school stuff. If you keep running lists of things you want to get to, it will be easy to pick up projects when you enter that phase, says Melissa Maker, organization expert.

• Keep important dates on the calendar. Time-sensitive projects, like AP exams or summer camp, may require high-intensity you during a low-intensity mode, so keeping them on your radar can significantly reduce your overall stress.

• Be aware of down time. When your high-intensity mode powers on for several months, you may need to block off time for a break, even if you would normally just keep going. “A week off every three months is a good rule of thumb for most families,” says Amy Johnson, PhD.

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Homeschool Style: THE MAGPIE

For the Magpie, planning the next thing is always more exciting than the thing you’re doing right now. This isn’t inherently a bad thing — that excitement and energy keeps your homeschool moving forward. Magpies need a steady injection of new ideas to feel fulfilled in their homeschool lives.

YOU MIGHT BE A MAGPIE IF:

• You are constantly researching new curricula.

• You spend a lot of time planning your homeschool but rarely follow through on your plans for more than a few months.

• You love finding programs and classes that last for a few weeks.

• You spend a lot of time looking for homeschool ideas on forums and in groups.

• You’ve gone through several different homeschool styles over the years.

• You have accumulated several different homeschool resources that you’ve never used. 

• You love field trips and homeschool travel.

• You get bored doing the same thing day after day.

Magpie homeschoolers always have their eyes on the horizon. They’re less interested in the everyday than in the big picture. They’re always willing to try something new — a new curriculum, a new homeschool philosophy, a new routine. As long as they stay busy, they’re happy and enthusiastic, but too much routine drags them down. Magpies love buying curriculum but rarely finish a curriculum — knowing this, it makes sense to shop second-hand and buy curriculum in the smallest increments instead of giant packages to see how well it works for you. Magpies are great at living in the moment, embracing spontaneous field trips and rabbit trails with enthusiasm and following their kids’ interests wherever they lead. Magpie homeschooler are always ready to change directions and scrap things that aren’t working, which means they can constantly tailor their learning plan to their particular students.

“Magpies are great at living in the moment, embracing spontaneous field trips and rabbit trails with enthusiasm and following their kids’ interests wherever they lead.”

Magpie homeschoolers can thrive with almost any homeschool philosophy — and will probably test-drive most of them at least once. Unit studies and project-based learning are natural matches for the Magpie’s ongoing desire to start something new. Magpies love planning their calendars, but often shift gears dramatically as the year progresses — sticky notes and Trello boards make it easy to move things around and delete things that are no longer relevant from your planner. Magpie homeschoolers are always keeping an eye out for fun new additions to their homeschool, whether it’s a budding local homeschool group or a new history curriculum. They love sharing ideas — you’ll find lots of Magpies in homeschool chats, asking for recommendations and sharing things that worked in their homeschools.

The challenge for Magpies is in following through. Their early hyper-organization often falls apart after a few months, and even curriculum that works well for their particular kids might not hold their interests long enough for them to finish it. There’s no intrinsic value in finishing a curriculum — plenty of traditional schools don’t finish their curriculum every year — but there is real value in feeling finished. Sometimes magpies can get so focused on the next thing that they forget that kids benefit from the feeling of completion. Find ways to mark beginnings and endings so that your students can feel successful — and don’t get so focused on the future that you forget to lean into the things that are making your homeschool happy right now. 

Magpies often thrive on the flexibility and freedom of homeschool life, and keeping these tips in mind can help you make the most of your homeschool:

• Plan quarters instead of the year. This gives you the opportunity to recharge your homeschool four times a year instead of just over the summer and means that researching new stuff for your homeschool is always relevant.

• Pay attention to what’s working. Shiny new curriculum can be hard to resist, but if you have a math curriculum that’s been working great for your kids or a science class that everyone loves, resist the urge to change for the sake of changing.

• Keep a list of goals for the  year. When you’re busy homeschool planning, jot down the three or four big accomplishments you’re aiming for this year — mastery of multiplication, essay writing, making friends, whatever your particular homeschool goals happen to be. This gives you a touchstone to check back in with, even if your everyday plans change.

• Check your motives. “Homeschooling lets you give into what feels good in the moment — when you’re scheduling lessons and activities, it feel like you have control,” says Timothy Pychyl, PhD. That’s great, as long as you’re not using homeschool planning as an excuse to avoid something else you need to do. When you find yourself in hyper planning mode, do a quick self-check to make sure you’re not putting something you don’t want to do on the back burner.

• Set deadlines. Magpies can get so engrossed in researching and tracking down resources that they never get started. “Pick a due date for buying or one subject at a time to focus on so that you’re not always in research mode and never in doing mode, says organization expert Linda Cobb.

• Give opportunities for evaluation. If you know you have a tendency to not finish classes or curriculum, look for a few outside classes or activities where your kids can have other teachers rate their performance. Students will get the satisfaction of finishing something, and you’ll still have the freedom to follow your inner compass where it points you.

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Homeschool Style: THE METRONOME

Metronomes are naturally organized. Organization doesn’t look the same way for everyone: Some metronomes have messy houses, but their routine runs like a well-oiled machine. They thrive on consistency and schedules. They like rules and checklists and knowing “what’s next.” They like clear parameters and guidelines.

YOU MIGHT BE A METRONOME IF:

• You get grumpy or frustrated when your routine gets interrupted.

• You prefer a curriculum that plans things out by the day or the week.

• You mostly wake up and go to bed at the same time even when you’re on vacation.

• You make your grocery lists following the store layout.

• You have a specific spot for storing your holiday decorations.

• You have an “order of things” that you usually follow.

• You fold and sort your laundry as soon as it comes out of the dryer.

• You keep track of birthdays without relying on Facebook.

• You tend to do quick chores or activities when you have unexpected free time.

If you’re a metronome homeschooler, your daily schedule is the most important tool in your arsenal. You can’t relax unless you have a rhythm to relax into, so finding your homeschool rhythm is more important than finding the right curriculum. In fact, you might be wasting your money if you go curriculum shopping or start signing up for classes before you find the rhythm that works for your homeschool. Spend time just getting to know your routine — do you do better getting things started right after breakfast, or is early afternoon your most productive time? Do you need to have a clean sink before you start homeschooling? How long does it take you to get everything tidied back up at the end of the day? Homeschooling is different from just parenting, so if you’re a new homeschooler, you may find that your routine needs revamping to include at-home learning time. Giving this kind of space won’t feel natural, but the more room you can give your routine to settle around you, the more likely you are to find a routine that works well for your family.

“Metronome homeschoolers may or may not use a planner, but they definitely have a plan.”

Metronome homeschoolers can do well with most homeschool methods, including unschooling, as long as they feel like their days have a consistent structure, but metronomes are often drawn to methods that have small daily to-do lists, like Montessori or Charlotte Mason. Metronome homeschoolers may or may not use a planner, but they definitely have a plan. Metronomes enjoy planning holidays and time off at the beginning of each year, and they mostly stick to their beginning-of-the-year schedules. They’ll read books and do research so that they feel like they’re working from specific instructions. And while they may be neat or messy, metronomes prefer to be organized in a way that makes sense to them. Metronome organization may show up as binders, tabs, and file folders, or it may be a tottering pile, but it’s easy for them to find exactly what they need.

The big challenge of being a metronome homeschooler is that there is no outside authority to stamp your annual homeschool report with “Good job,” which means metronomes can be overly critical of themselves and spend a lot of time analyzing and overanalyzing their homeschool. Learning to trust yourself is an essential piece of your homeschool journey. So is learning how to embrace the places where things go wrong: Sometimes, metronomes can stick with curriculum or methods that aren’t working because they don’t want to be wrong, so getting comfortable viewing failure as part of forward momentum is an important skill for metronomes to master. 

Metronomes are usually happy, successful  homeschoolers — just keep these things in mind:

• Make finding your rhythm a priority. Your homeschool will feel successful if you’re crossing things off your to-do list, but a too-rigid routine will make you feel like you’re always missing something. Focus on a rhythm instead so that you can adjust your schedule as you need to.

• Be willing to compromise. Your schedule is important to you, but your kids may need you to be flexible sometimes. Don’t let your need for order and routine keep you from supporting your kids in the ways they need you to.

• Give positive feedback. A lot of metronomes tend toward perfectionism, which means you may be too hard on yourself and your kids. Your expectations are high, and you meet them often! But it’s important to recognize growth and effort, not just getting the right answer, so make sure you’re finding opportunities to tell your kids — and yourself — what’s going well.

• Try using a timer. If you have trouble transitioning between activities because there’s always “one more thing to do,” a 7-minute timer can be your best friend. Set it when you’re ready to wind up a subject, you need a quick clean-up blitz between activities, or you need to get everyone ready for park day.

• Set clear priorities each year. Your steady pace means that your days usually feel successful, but you may feel less confident when it comes time to evaluate your year. Make this easier by starting each year with a short, concrete list of goals so that you know what you’re working toward in the long-term as well as in the everyday. This way, you’ll get daily satisfaction and the satisfaction that comes with feeling “finished,” says Susan Bartell, PsyD.

• Keep a master checklist. Believe it or not, metronomes can get so caught up in the details that they lose sight of the bigger picture, says organization expert Linda Cobb. “When you find a window of time, consult your master checklist before diving into a project or activity. This way you’re steadily making progress toward your goals.”

• Be deliberate about scheduling downtime. Metronomes sometimes keep going because they’re afraid to slow down, says Bartell. “Some people are afraid they’ll be judged if they relax, so they feel like they have to prove that they’re not wasting any time. But everyone needs space to unwind.”

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The Ultimate Homeschool Problem Solver Guide

Your Homeschool Problems: Solved.

All of our very best advice for dealing with everything from burnout and library fines to high school record-keeping and making your own curriculum.

IN THIS FEATURE

• How to Shop the Homeschool Conference

• How to Make Math More Homeschool-Friendly

• How to Break Up with Your Curriculum

• How to Maximize Your Homeschool Budget

• How to Beat a Bad Homeschool Day Before It Even Starts

• How to Survive Homeschooling High School

• How to Write Your Own Curriculum

• How to Tell How You’re Doing Without Grades

• How to Deal With Homeschool Conflicts With Your Kids

• How to Hire a Homeschool Tutor

• How to Socialize Your Homeschooled Child

• How to Tell When It’s Time to Stop Homeschooling

• How to Keep Homeschool Records, a.k.a. The Easiest Homeschool Organization System Ever

• How to Deal with Homeschool Mom Anxiety

• How to Skip Tests and Still Encourage Deep Learning

• How to Stop Losing Library Books

conference shopping tip

It’s as important to know what you DON’T need as what you do.

How to Shop the Homeschool Conference

1. Do your reconnaissance.

Scan the vendor list in advance to pick out the curriculum companies you don’t want to miss — there’s a lot of stuff happening at homeschool conferences, and advance planning will ensure you get peek at everything you wanted to see. At the same time, make a list of any “black hole” subjects where you don’t have a clear plan in place — you might discover the inspiration you need. Finally, list subjects you’ve got covered and curriculum vendors you know you want to avoid. (Especially at inclusive conferences, you may find vendors selling non-secular science or history that looks cool until you get it home and realize it isn’t actually secular.) In the excitement of the sales floor, it can be easy to buy materials you don’t really need.

2. Set your limits.

Establish your total budget, as well as the maximum amount you want to spend in any area. (You may want to limit literature spending to $50 but be willing to spend up to $500 if you happen upon the perfect science curriculum.) At the same time, make a note of methods, projects, and learning styles that just don’t work for your homeschool. This reduces your risk of buying stuff that isn’t the right fit.

3. Don’t feel pressured to buy.

It’s true you can score big deals at conferences, but the big draw is the chance to check out materials in person. (Just be prepared for long lines and crowded tables.) If you decide a deal is too good to pass up, great — but don’t feel like you have to come out with a bagful of homeschool materials to count your experience a success.

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How to Make Math More Homeschool-Friendly

Struggling with math? The problem may be with the way that the subject is usually taught and not with your child’s ability to understand it. Wellesley College mathematics professor Oscar Fernandez suggests that non-mathematicians often master math most effectively when they start with real world examples and gradually build up to theory, but most math classes do the opposite — echoing the way that naturally math-minded folks think but often confusing as many as 80 percent of students, says Fernandez. Using math to figure out real world problems (like the best seat at the movie theater or the fastest route to karate class) gives kids math experience that helps them make sense of more abstract theories.

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curriculum tip

If you find a homeschool curriculum you love, you can use it as a jumping-off point for creating other curriculum.

How to Break Up with Your Curriculum

You put a lot of effort — and sometimes, a lot of money — into choosing the right curriculum, so it’s not always easy to let one go.

• Consider your timing.

Maybe the curriculum is great — just not right now. Your child might not be academically or emotionally ready for a particular curriculum, in which case, putting it back on the shelf for a few months or years may be all you need to get the perfect fit.

• Tweak the assignments.

If a curriculum has too much writing or too few hands-on activities, you can easily change some of the writing assignments to oral presentations or add a few experiments. An okay curriculum can become a great one with a few strategic tweaks. But if your tweaks end up rebuilding the curriculum from scratch, you might be better off letting that curriculum go and forging your own path.

• Use it as a guide.

If you like the content a particular curriculum covers but not its methods, you can always use the syllabus as a starting point to create your own curriculum. Similarly, if you love a curriculum’s method but wish it covered different topics, you can use its methods to inspire your own curricular creations.

• Recoup your loss.

If a curriculum doesn’t work, don’t let it glare at you from your schoolroom shelves. Resell it, and use the money to invest in a program that you DO love. Chances are, that not-right-for-you curriculum is perfect for another family, so you’ll be helping someone out and getting rid of a problem in one swoop.

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How to Maximize Your Homeschool Budget

If you’ve got money to spend, you’ll always benefit from investing in these homeschool essentials:

1. Travel

You will never regret the money you spend on adventures with your kids. (In fact, more than 90 percent of homeschooling parents said they wished they’d made travel dollars a priority in a survey conducted by Atlanta Homeschool magazine.) And don’t be afraid to think bigger: Set aside that $2,000 you’d spend on a trip to Disney and use it as a starter fund for a trip to Europe.

2. Technology

“Our computers are by far the things we use the most in our house,” says unschooling mom Tama McGee. “We use them for research, games, email, Skype with friends and family, typing stories, doing puz- zles—the list never ends.”

3. Art supplies

The better your supplies, the more fun it is to make art. With sales, coupons, and smart shopping, you can afford to invest in your child’s creativity.

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How to Beat a Bad Homeschool Day Before It Even Starts

On a good day, when you’re feeling energized and excited about homeschool life, write a message to yourself to read next time you’re having a bad day. Think about the words you need to hear when a math lesson ends in tears or you snap at your toddler for making a mess of the science center. Pull it out when you need to as a reminder that you’re doing the right thing even when things don’t go just right.

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homeschooling high school tip

If you prep for the most rigorous college on your “possible college plans” list, you’ll know your transcript contains everything it needs.

How to Survive Homeschooling High School

To survive high school as a homeschooler, you’ll cut your stress significantly if you start by thinking about the end game. Figure out what the academic requirements at three of the colleges your student might be interested in are (obviously your child’s interests may change between 8th grade and application time, and that’s fine), and zero in on the most stringent list. How many history credits do applicants need? How much foreign language? Then use the information you’ve culled to piece together a four-year outline for high school that includes all the essentials. You’ll have a few blank places and a few options for some classes (like English or history), but don’t worry about completely filling the schedule. You don’t need to know what you’re going to use for each of these subjects, but planning this way helps ensure that you cover the bases while still leaving room for your child to pursue her passions.

Next, you’ll want to come up with a system to track your child’s high school career. (We like the envelope system we recommend below, but there are online databases, old-fashioned checklists, and even companies that do all of the tracking for you, so choose the method that best suits your organization style.)

You will have to be organized about keeping track of classes, credits, and book lists if you don’t want a last-minute graduation panic, so enlist your student’s assistance. After all, this is her future, right? Plan quarterly or annual meetings to compare notes and go over your records together and to make adjustments to your plan. (Maybe she’s decided to study computer programming instead of history and needs to add more math classes, or she’s aiming to go into classics and wants to add Greek to her foreign language studies.) If you track on a computer, back up your files or print them out regularly so that if you have a technology meltdown, you don’t lose four years of records and your last remaining shreds of sanity.

It may seem smart to ease into high school, but it’s best to carry a full load in 9th and 10th grade, says homeschooling mom Elizabeth Ackley, who has sent two homeschoolers to college and has a junior in high school still at home.

“By the time you get to junior and senior year, you’ll have internships, college classes, and other activities that take up a lot of time, so you don’t want to have to catch up with geography or first year French then,” she says.

Also, let go of the notion that you will ever teach your child everything you want him to learn him to in high school. You’ll make yourself crazy thinking that you have to teach your child everything he needs to go to college or out into the world. Trust your good work, and give your student the space to learn some things on his own.

When application season rolls around, Ackley recommends putting your student in charge. “Let her figure out the deadlines and what she needs,” she says. “If she’s not responsible enough to handle applying to college, she may not be responsible enough to go to college yet. Taking a year off never hurt anybody,” she adds.

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curriculum writing tip

Make plenty of room for the fun stuff up front — that’s the learning your kids will be most likely to remember.

How to Write Your Own Curriculum

It’s easier and less stressful than you might think. Really.

Once you’ve been homeschooling a while, you realize something. However excitingly irresistible a curriculum seems when you’re researching it, by the second week of using it, you’re itching to tweak it. Maybe it’s little tweaks, like subbing one science experiment for another one or adding books to the recommended reading. Often, though, it’s big changes you’re making: Slowing down and adding more information to focus more closely on one topic, skipping a subject that you’ve already covered in depth, cutting this and adding that until your curriculum feels like the right fit.

One of the biggest complaints about public school education standards is the notion that any packaged curriculum can be one-size-fits-all, but it’s easy to feel intimidated by the notion of eschewing professionally produced curriculum for a DIY version. Don’t you have to be an expert or a great writer or a professional educator to write a curriculum? Of course you don’t.

It’s time that we stop thinking of the perfect curriculum as some Holy Grail that we’ll eternally seek and never find. Shift gears: Stop being Indiana Jones, and channel your inner Frank Lloyd Wright instead. Think of making your own curriculum as making a master plan. You’re not an expert in your subject? That’s a perfect starting point to learn more about it. You’re not a great writer? Well, fine — you’re not writing a script. You’re making a tool, one that will combine different resources and ideas into a personalized study program.

THE BIG PICTURE

Your first job is to hone in on what you really want your homeschool — not your curriculum — to accomplish.
If you’ve never made a homeschool mission statement, here’s your chance. (If you have a homeschool mission statement, revisit it to make sure it still reflects your homeschool’s spirit and goals.) Get creative: You can jot down words and ideas, but you can also make a Pinterest board, a collage, or even a series of drawings. Don’t worry about being super-realistic: Dreaming is allowed. (If you’re stuck, think about that future day when your homeschooler is graduated. What do you want him to look back and think about his homeschooling experience? What will he have accomplished through his years of home education?) You need a clear vision of where you want to go before you start drawing a map to get you there.

At the same time, work on a one- or two-sentence description of your student’s learning style. What work does your student enjoy? Is she a reader or a doer? An experiencer or an analyzer?

You’ll use these two things — a vision for your homeschool and an understanding of your student’s learning style — to craft your curriculum. Constantly ask yourself: Does this mesh with our homeschool goals? Will my student be inspired by this? When the answer is yes, you know you’ve got a keeper.

While you’re at it, start a list of “Absolutely Nots.” Here’s where you can make note of the things that just plain don’t work in your homeschool, whether that means workbooks or narrations. As you dive into planning, it’s easy to get excited about ideas or resources that just don’t work with your real life homeschooling style. This list will help you avoid those things.

NAME YOUR TOPIC

Now you’ll direct your focus at the topic you want your curriculum to tackle. Maybe you’re determined to cook up an animal studies curriculum or you’re yearning for a good U.S. history program. Take a little while to consider what you want your curriculum to achieve. Are you interested in a broad introduction? Is mastery your goal? Do you want to work with big themes or specific chronologies? Use your homeschool goals and student learning style to guide you as you narrow your focus: Your student who loves knowing about the people behind historic events may be inspired by an art history curriculum that focuses on the lives and works of great artists, while a hands-on, creative kid may respond better to a curriculum that focuses on techniques and allows them to experiment with the styles of great artists. Both approaches will teach art history, but the The People Who Shaped Art History and Art History Lab are very different classes. Naming your class will help you zoom in on its focus, which will make weeding through all the available information a lot more efficient.

BIG PICTURE SCHEDULE

Along the same lines, breaking down how much time you want to devote to your curriculum on a weekly basis will help you get organized. If you want to spend five hours a week on the History of the American West, you can dig a lot deeper and include more rabbit trails than you can if you want to limit your study to an hour a week. Be honest as you consider how much time you want to spend on a given topic: If you’re dedicating an hour of poetry time a week, you can’t feasibly choose twenty different poetic styles and fifty different poets to talk about. You’re going to have to tighten up your focus and aim to simplify your list to include the very best examples. Be as pragmatic as possible: If you know you have a busy schedule of activities, don’t just tell yourself you’ll make time somehow. Work with the time that you really have, and you’ll be a lot more successful.

Think about the kind of work you want your student to do: Weekly readings and narrations? Book reports? Journaling? A weekly art project? Labs? There’s no right or wrong answer, as long as you’re meshing your goals with your child’s learning style, but you may want to scan one of the “What Your X- Grader Needs to Know” lists to see if there’s any kind of academic milestone — like writing a research paper or doing a science project — that might be a good fit for your curriculum.

BREAK IT DOWN

Here’s where the work most people think of as curriculum planning begins. Look at as many existing curricula in your topic area as you can: Check online for freebies, search your bookshelves, borrow copies from friends, scour textbook tables of contents. Keep a notebook, a Pinterest board, or a master document on your computer where you can make lists of things like topics covered, reading lists, organization, projects and activities, special tools or equipment, and anything else that feels relevant to your project.

Your task here is to break the course you described in Step Two down into its component parts. Say you’re putting together a curriculum about Big Issues in Philosophy. You may decide that truth, beauty, love, and goodness are the big issues you want to tackle. If you’re working on a grammar curriculum for your elementary student, you may break it down into nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, sentences, and punctuation. If your smaller subjects are still pretty big, you’ll want to break them down into smaller sections, too. So, for instance, you might break your punctuation section down into periods, exclamation points, question marks, and commas. As you work, you may go back to the drawing board to start over a few times, but eventually, you’ll start to see an outline for your subject emerge.

THE FUN STUFF

Before you jump into scheduling reading and projects, take a few minutes to consider the fun in your curriculum. Look around for field trip opportunities. Consider putting together a soundtrack to go with your class — songs inspired by poetry for a poetry curriculum, or a chronological journey through American musical history for American history. Rustle up movies and documentaries to support your studies. These extras are often the things that make the biggest impression on your students, so make room for them from the beginning instead of trying to squeeze them in as you go along.

COMPILE YOUR RESOURCES

Now, you’ll make a list of all the materials you want to include in your class — the books, websites, and other things your student will use to explore this subject. Go ahead and make a ridiculously big list — you know you want to! Include any book, workbook, or activity that you think you might possibly want to use. Though it seems counter-intuitive, knowing that you’ve really done a thorough job of listing all your resource options will make it easier to narrow it down to the dozen or so resources you can actually use.

Once you’ve made your list, start trimming. You don’t need ten books on cells for a life science class, so you’ll want to weigh titles against each other to choose the one that’s really the best. As you do this, something kind of cool will start to happen: You’ll become an expert — you’ll feel good about the choices you’re making, the resources you’re choosing and the ones you’re leaving out, because you’ll have a real sense of your subject and the available materials. You may make copies of chapters from different books, taking a section from this title and a timeline from that one, and clip them together into a book for your class. Or you may just want to make notes to yourself about what you’re reading and why.

PUT IT TOGETHER

Here’s where the outline you made back in Step Four achieves its destiny. Fill in your topic breakdown outline with your resources. Jot the fun activities and resources you’ll be using to cover each topic beside the topic name. (Include relevant page numbers, or you’ll end up doing a lot of frustrating page-flipping.) You may find you’ve left a topic without a good resource. If that happens, head back to your resource list to fill in the blank. Or you may find that despite your best resource trim- ming, your plan is heavy in a particular topic and you have to winnow down your materials a little more. When you’ve finished, check your plan against your resource list and your fun stuff list — did you leave out any- thing really fabulous that you really wanted to include? Are you excited about each topic? Go back and fiddle with each section until it feels just right.

ASSESS AND ADAPT

Remember: Your curriculum isn’t set in stone. If it feels like you need to change something, add something, or drop something, do it. You’re the expert.

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How to Tell How You’re Doing Without Grades

Without tests and report cards, how can you tell if your child is making educational progress? Happily, evaluating outside the test bubble actually gives you a better measure of how much your child is learning since you can weigh his success using a variety of methods.

• Trust yourself.

If your child clearly seems to be zipping ahead in science, he’s probably zipping ahead in science. If you feel like your child is struggling with reading, he’s probably having trouble with reading. Your experiences teaching your child are some of the best indicators of his learning that you have.

• Keep a portfolio.

Stash a few of your child’s pieces of work in a folder every week, and pull the folder out every six months or so. You’ll be able to see his progress right in front of you, making it clear where your child is excelling and where he might need extra help.

• Ask your student.

Kids often know what subjects they feel intimidated by, even if their work on paper sug- gests otherwise. Talk to your student about how he’s doing, and let his input guide your thinking.

• Keep a checklist.

Books like the What Your X-Grader Should Know series break down skills and knowledge by grade, so it’s easy to pinpoint what your child should be mastering each year.

• Take a standardized test.

If your child doesn’t get stressed out by testing and you use the test as only one factor in your overall evaluation, a standardized test can be a helpful measurement tool.

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How to Deal with Homeschool Conflicts with Your Kids

Homeschooling can test your parenting skills like nothing else, and there will be days when you hit serious relationship turbulence with your kid. The most important thing to remember during these admittedly trying times is that they pass — next week, this math-fueled shouting match will be a distant memory, and you’ll both be back to your regularly scheduled homeschool groove. In the meantime, these functional strategies can help pave the way for fewer future conflicts:

Don’t be a fake.

If your daughter’s study habits drive you crazy or you can’t stand the way your son walks into walls because he has his nose in a book, speak up. Your goal here isn’t to try to change your child, simply to express how you feel. Keeping annoyances bottled up robs you and your child of the opportunity to learn how to disagree productively, explains Carolyn Cowan, a family researcher at the University of California at Berkeley.

Do be narrative-aware.

The way we talk about our homeschool lives can have a significant impact on how we feel about them. Complain about grumpy kids, impossible assignments, and sloppy work? A􏰇er a while, those things might be all you see. Focusing your conversation on the positive can help you see the good stuff more clearly.

Be the change you want to see in your homeschool.

If you’re unhappy with your homeschool life, do something about it. Sure, you can try to change your child, but it’s a whole lot easier — and ultimately more beneficial — to change yourself. Unless your child’s behavior is clearly harmful, turn your correcting eye inward: Why do you respond to him this way? What could you do differently?

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How to Hire a Homeschool Tutor

• Start with recommendations from other homeschoolers.

  • Teaching a homeschooler can be radically different from teaching a student in traditional school.

• Interview a few.

  • Not only will you increase your pool of options, you’ll also get a mini-education in your child’s chosen subject as you chat about resources and methods.

• Define your goals.

  • Knowing what you want your child’s tutor to provide — a basic intro to chemistry, mastery of Spanish grammar, or the skills to knit a sweater, for instance — will help you pinpoint the right tutor for your teen.

• Focus on your subject.

  • If your teen wants to do a novel study of Jane Austen, you want a tutor who’s spent time studying Austen. Help your teen hone in on some of the specifics on his learning wish list so you can address those topics with potential tutors.

• Get references.

  • Talking to other people a tutor has worked with will give you an idea of her teaching strong points. If you can, let your teen talk with other students a tutor has worked with so she can ask her own questions.

• Take a trial run.

  • One tutoring session is often all you need to tell whether a particular tutor is a good fit.

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How to Socialize Your Homeschooled Child

Really, this is going to be the easiest thing you do as a homeschooler. (The hardest thing may be not sighing loudly when non-homeschoolers ask you about socialization.) Go to homeschool events, play at park days, talk to families at co-op, plan a few playdates, go grocery shopping, do volunteer work, take a class — trust us, your child will be socialized.

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homeschool tip

Check in with yourself and your kids frequently to make sure homeschooling is still the right path for your family.

How to Tell When It’s Time to Stop Homeschooling

Homeschool burnout can be hard to talk about, but it happens to almost every homeschooling parent at one time or another. It often strikes in midwinter, when post-holiday blahs and cabin fever collide with the January blues to make homeschooling a chore rather than a pleasure. These are the days when you feel like homeschooling was a massive mistake, you are a terrible teacher, and your children are going to grow up to be unhappy, uneducated adults because you have failed them utterly — which would bother you more if they weren’t grating on your last nerve.

Homeschooling is hard work — and smart homeschoolers pause occasion- ally to make sure that home-based education is still a good fit for their families. If you’re questioning whether your homeschool funk is a temporary setback or a sign that it’s time to make a change, ask yourself these questions:

What would make homeschooling happy again?

If the answer is something straightforward — like trimming your schedule so you do less running around, making more time for field trips, or saying goodbye to a not-a-great-fit curriculum — just making the change might be enough to put things back on the right track. More complicated answers may also have easy solutions: If chaotic mornings make you feel like a nag, consider pushing back your daily start time, or if you’re butting heads with your child over a difficult subject, outsourcing that class to a tutor or co-op could put the fun back in your homeschool. Still not sure? Pretend you have an infinite budget and infinite time for homeschooling. What would you do with those resources? If time and money aren’t the problem, you may have deeper issues.

How is your homeschooling making a difference for your child?

Homeschooling without a strong sense of purpose is like cleaning the bathroom: You know you have to do it every day, but it’s never going to be something you get excited about. Working hard without feeling like you’re making an impact is demoralizing, but a little perspective can help you give yourself the credit you deserve. Not convinced? Think about the other benefits of homeschool life — stronger family ties, a more relaxed schedule, lifetime learning — and try to see your homeschooling as a means of achieving those goals. If you genuinely feel that your homeschool efforts aren’t making the least bit of difference, it may be time to make a change.

What are you learning?

Of all the problems you can run into as a homeschooling parent, feeling like you’re mentally stagnating can be one of the most insidious. Lots of homeschooling parents appreciate the heady thrill of learning new stuff right along with their kids, but what happens when you’re not learning anything new? Being bored is, well, boring. It could be that all you need is a perspective shift — if you view learning as a mutual endeavor rather than as a project that you have to facilitate, you may be surprised by how much you can learn. But if you’re genuinely at a mental impasse, you definitely need a homeschooling break.

How would life be different if you stopped homeschooling?

Think about the prospect of letting go of your homeschool days for a while. Does the prospect inspire you with possibility — maybe there’s a project of your own you’ve been yearning to pursue or you can see your daughter blooming in an environment where she gets to spend time with her friends every day. If the thought of letting go of homeschool for a while lights you up inside, you may want to seriously consider taking a break. If, on the other hand, the idea of not homeschooling feels like a mistake or a great loss, it’s worth seriously considering ways to improve your everyday homeschool experience.

If these questions don’t point you in a clear direction, take two weeks off. Your feeling when those two weeks are up — quiet dread or recharged enthusiasm — will reveal your attitude toward homeschooling. The truth is, there is no absolute right answer to the question of whether you should stop homeschooling your child. Only you can find the answer, and it may be an answer that changes from year to year. If you do decide quitting homeschooling is the right step for your family right now, don’t let that decision make you feel like a failure. Homeschool works so well because you can tailor it to your child’s specific needs — and sometimes those specific needs may warrant being educated outside the home.

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homeschool organization tip

If you didn’t start out keeping records, don’t stress! Start now, and go back and fill in the gaps as you can.

How to Keep Homeschool Records, a.k.a. The Easiest Homeschool Organization System Ever

The envelope solution is elegant, effective, and so simple you can’t screw it up. Start it in 9th grade — 8th if you’re feeling particularly ambitious — and when it’s time to start the college application process, you’ll be all set.

Label a large envelope for each class with the full name of the course and grade number (9-Honors English 1 or 11-AP U.S. History). Add an envelope for extracurricular activities — if your child is serious about an activity, like soccer or theater, you may want to create a separate envelope for that as well as one for general extracurricular activities. Label another envelope with your teen’s grade level and Honors — you’ll stash certificates of achievement, pictures of science fair experiments, and other awards and recognitions here. Add one last envelope for community service — again, be sure to label it with your student’s grade level.

• Make a basic information sheet for each class. Include:
  the textbook(s) used, with ISBN number

• a copy of the textbook’s table of contents (Do this now. The last thing you want to do is end up rooting through boxes in the garage in a couple of years to figure out if your son’s freshman biology class included a section on genetics.)

• the course description and syllabus the name of the teacher (yes, even if it’s you)

• the number of credit hours the course entails

Tuck this information sheet securely in the envelope. Add items to envelope as the year progresses. Things you’ll want to include:

• graded papers and tests

• samples of presentations, lab re- ports, or other work done in the class

• a running reading list (Add titles of books and essays to the list as you read them so you don’t have to try to remember everything at the end of the year. Even better, have your student keep an annotated reading list — with notes about each book.)

• notes about associated activities — visits to museums, lectures, theaters, etc. — that relate to the class

• At the end of the class, write the final grade and total credit hours on the front of the envelope. Add:

• official grades — community college report cards, printouts from an online class, or your evaluations

• Ask any outside teachers to write a recommendation letter for your student. Do it now while your student’s work is still fresh in their minds, and add the recommendation to your envelope. If you decide to ask this teacher for a recommendation when you’re working on college applications, you can give him his original recommendation to refresh his memory.

• If your student ends up taking an AP or CLEP exam in a subject, add the exam results to your envelope. Similarly, if your student publishes or wins an award for work she started in the class, add those credits to your envelope.

Use a binder clip to group your envelopes — depending on how your brain works, you may want them grouped by grade level, by subject matter, or by some other criteria. However you group them, they’ll make writing that final transcript a lot easier since all your information will be organized in one place.

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How to Deal with Homeschool Mom Anxiety

1. If you’re worried about something specific — your child’s math skills or standardized test scores — the best thing you can do is to enlist a little help. Look for a teaching workshop or conference in the area you’re struggling with, or consider hiring a tutor or signing your child up for classes in the subject so that you can take a break from teaching it. This isn’t giving up: It’s using your resources wisely.

2. Schedule your days to emphasize problem areas. If your child is really struggling with fractions, change your daily math class to a cooking class so she can do some hands-on fractions work. If you’re worried about your child learning the states in the United States or the capitals of countries around the world, pick up a geography puzzle or game and make it a part of your daily routine for a while.

3. If your anxiety is more general, look for ways to relax, such as meditation, a walk, yoga class, or a solo cup of tea. You may also want to start a journal of good homeschool moments to flip back through during crisis moments to see that (at least sometimes) you really do know what you are doing. Joining a homeschool group where you can chat with other moms — many of whom have the same worries you do — can also help.

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How to Skip Tests and Still Encourage Deep Learning

Want your students to really grasp a subject? Skip the tests, and let them lead them teach you the material instead. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis found that students who expected to teach material to another student had better recall and more sophisticated understanding of their subject than those who just expected to take a test. Instead of just trying to memorize information, students who expect to teach seek out key points and organize information into a coherent structure.

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How to Stop Losing Library Books

If you’re racking up library fines left􏰇 and right, getting organized can save you big bucks in the future. Set up a library station inside your house, where you can store your library booty and post the list of checked out materials every week. When kids want to grab a book or CD, ask them to sign it out, the same way they do at the library, then sign it back in when they return it. Not only does this boost library responsibility — kids and parents are more likely to keep up with books when they have to sign them out — it also makes it easy to track down lost books since you have a record of who had them last.

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