How to Hang Out with Your Homeschool Friends in a Socially Distanced World

With Covid spiking and the usual back-to-school sniffles, this fall might start to feel like a tough season for homeschool get-togethers. If you want to keep your homeschool groups healthy, you don’t have to go no-contact, but you do have to be smart about how you socialize.

“In some ways, it’s harder for people to navigate socializing now than it was when the pandemic first started,” says Andrea Chronis-Tuscano, a clinical psychology professor at the University of Maryland who specializes in parenting and parent mental health. “The rules were clear.” But now that hanging out is back on the table, it’s hard to navigate: How can you stay safe? What does it mean to be a good host now? What does it mean to be a good guest? How do you say no when you’re uncomfortable with the way a social situation is going?

The good news is that we’re all figuring this out together, says Chronis-Tuscano. “No one has a rule book with all the answers, and everybody’s answers look a little different.”

We all know the basic rules: Wear masks, maintain six feet of distance, don’t share food and drinks, stick to small groups, stay outside, and wash your hands frequently. But how does that play out on a homeschool play date or at an in-person co-op class? Here are some things to keep in mind.

Respect the strictest rules.

People may not always want to disclose why they’re being extra-cautious, but the why doesn’t really matter — if you’re hanging out with friends, you want your friends to be comfortable. This is why it’s important to spell out the safety guidelines you have in mind for a get-together when you’re issuing invites. You don’t have to change your plans to accommodate someone else (you’d love to hang outside, but your allergies are killing you this fall), but you may find that there’s an easy fix (sure, you can bring your own food instead of ordering something with the rest of us).

Follow your own rules.

If you issue an invitation for an outdoor gathering, resist the urge to move the action inside. If you’ve promised social distancing, don’t send the kids on the trampoline together. No one wants to be the killjoy who has to keep reminding everyone else to follow the rules, so don’t put your guests in that unpleasant position. If you’re the unfortunate person in the killjoy position, you may find it easier to make an excuse and leave than to try to persuade people to follow the rules. (Even though they made them. And you’re not being a killjoy!)

Set up in advance.

Make your hangout area social distance friendly by setting chairs six feet apart and removing extra seating. If you’re a throwing an art party, have everyone’s station set up before they arrive — if you’re having a snack together, set up the tables and chairs in advance with space between them.

Stick with your comfort zone.

It’s fine if you’re more relaxed than your pals, or if you’re sticking to a stricter quarantine plan than they are. Everybody has to make these decisions for her family individually. It’s OK to say no to get-togethers that make you uncomfortable. We’re all looking forward to the day when we can hug our friends and share a bag of pretzels at the park, but until that day comes, we’re all doing the best we can.

How do you help middle and high school homeschoolers build academic focus?

Now that my son is in sixth grade, he’s doing work that requires him to really dig in and focus. He’s doing good work, but he’s so easily distracted, and he has trouble concentrating. Is there anything I can do to help improve his focus?

Learning to focus can be hard even for adults, but most of the time, all you need to boost your concentration is a change in your routine and regular practice, says Michael Coates, M.D., chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at Wake Forest School of Medicine. Try these easy-to-implement actions to help your son improve his focus.

Set a timer.

Something about an established time limit — “Work on this math for 15 minutes” — inspires focus, so don’t hesitate to break out the kitchen timer when you get to a subject you know taxes your son’s concentration skills. Start with small increments of time, and gradually increase time spent until you reach the amount of focused time you’re shooting for. This works best if you don’t rush — you don’t have to increase the time every day. Instead, give your son a chance to really adjust to each increase before adding more time.

Check your sleep habits.

Around sixth grade, some kids start making the shift to adolescent sleep habits, which means their bodies naturally want to stay up later and sleep longer in the mornings. Kids really need at least seven hours of sleep a night to concentrate during the day, so if your child’s sleep patterns are changing but your schedule isn’t, it may be time to try something different. Even just starting an hour later in the morning may be enough to improve your son’s concentration.

Practice mindfulness.

If your son starts to drift off during reading assignments or conversations, it may be that he’s spoiled by the everything-now nature of video games, Wikipedia, and Twitter. To help him shake that I-could-be-doing-10-other-things-now feeling, encourage him to pause and wiggle his toes or snap his fingers. That moment of focused concentration will help his focus settle back down.

Have a glass of water.

A 2012 study in the Journal of Nutrition found that being as little as two percent dehydrated — such mild dehydration that your body doesn’t even feel thirsty — can negatively impact concentration. Pour your son a big glass of water before his next intensive focus session.

Jump around.

Exercise is one of the best ways to improve focus, so take plenty of action breaks to walk around the block, kick a soccer ball in the backyard, do jumping jacks in the living room, or play a quick round of Wii Sports between subjects.

Bottom line: Don’t expect your son’s concentration abilities to develop on their own. Help him sharpen them over time by test-driving different focus-boosting techniques.

What’s the best way to organize your homeschool library?

I have a problem: Our library is out of control. I don’t mind the bookcases taking over our house, but I hate when I discover a book that I bought for a particular subject but forgot about until months after we wrapped up studying that subject—or worse, when I buy a book only to find that I already own a copy of it. Is there any way to organize our homeschool library so that it’s a resource and not a headache?

The key to useful and accessible homeschool library: Good organization. If you want to wrangle your book collection into a well-organized library, you’re going to have to get hands-on. Here’s how:

Start by making an inventory.

I know! It’s a huge project. It’s dusty and messy — and it’s probably not something you can accomplish in a single afternoon. But it is the only place to start if you really want to organize your library. Start a list of all the books in your collection — I use index cards, but you could set up an Excel spreadsheet or use a tool like LibraryThing instead. (If you have a lot of newer books, LibraryThing has an app that scans book barcodes to instantly upload their information, which is pretty convenient.)

As you sort, you may find books that you can discard or give away — I hear this happens sometimes, though I’ve not personally experienced it. If you uncover books you can part with, trade them in a used bookstore for more books, drop them off at your homeschool group’s free pile, or donate them to your favorite thrift shop. (You can try to sell high-quality or expensive books you’re ready to let go of.)

Catalog your books.

A list of books is great, but you really want to make it easy to find books about, say, Egyptian history and mythology or the California gold rush when you want them, right? Tag your books with labels to help you sort them.

With my index cards, I create subject cards where I list books I own in a particular subject — medieval history, coming-of-age novels, dinosaurs, etc. (Some subjects require more than one card, some books go onto multiple cards, and I jot new titles as we acquire them.) In Excel, designate a field for tags. The idea is to create a simple system that will remind you what books you have on any subject when you want to find them, so it’s better to err on the side of extra tags — that way, when you hit search, you’re more likely to actually find what you are looking for.

Shelve your books.

Lots of homeschoolers have more books than shelf space. To deal, “shelve” subject-specific groups of books in plastic bins, and label your bin with the subject (Japan, biology, astronomy, etc.) and a list of the books inside. (I think this is easiest with a bin per subject, but of course you can lump subjects together if you prefer.) Then note which books are binned — I fold a sticky flag over the right corner of my index cards, or you can change the color of binned books in your spreadsheet or just leave yourself a note.) Then, when you’re ready to tackle a particular subject, all your books are ready in one place.

For the books that go on your shelves, sort them by author, subject, or size, and note where to find them. (My daughter’s Warrior Cat books are shelved as O-1, cluing me in that they’re on the first bookshelf in her room, while our Story of the World collection is in the foyer bookcase: F.)

Keep it organized.

For this system to work long-term, you have to be vigilant about updating it every time you add a new book to your collection. At our house, new books go into a holding box, and they’re considered unavailable until they’ve been cataloged and shelved — otherwise, they’d drift off with a happy reader and vanish from our records. I don’t love having to move things around in the garage to add a single volume to our U.S. History bin, but I do love the fact that when we need our U.S. History collection, it’s easy to find and enjoy.

Working Full-Time and Homeschooling: How I Do It

I’m totally lucky to get to balance a job I love with hands-on homeschooling, which I also love, but hitting that balance isn’t always easy, and I’m learning to be okay with that.

I work full-time. (And then some.) I also homeschool my kids in a pretty hands-on way. And you might think that this all gets easier as kids get older and more independent, but I’ve found the opposite to be true. High school homeschooling, when you’re doing most of it in the homeschooling-at-home kind of way, takes a lot of time and energy. People are often interested in how I balance these two big jobs, so I thought I’d write a post about my work/homeschool balancing act.

First off, I’m pretty sure a lot of the time that I do it pretty badly. It’s not easy. Things slip through the cracks. I have a vague, nagging sense of guilt all the time, like whatever I’m doing at any given time, I should be doing something else. (I’m not saying this to complain — I know I’m lucky to get to do things this way. But I think it would be totally fake to pretend that working full time and homeschooling is easy or that I do it well all the time!)

And second, I love what I do. I think I have the best job in the entire world, and I find homeschooling really fun and satisfying. I think if either one of those things weren’t true, my situation would feel much harder. I also know that I’m able to make my balancing act work because when my kids were younger, I worked 95% of the time from my home office. That changed when my oldest started high school and I started a hybrid homeschool in Atlanta; first I worked one day a week teaching AP English, then two days a week running the high school humanities program, and now I’m at the school five days a week for middle and high school. My youngest, who is in 11th grade, is a student at the school, though we also do a lot of homeschool stuff together at home.

Here’s what works for me:

I completely let go of the idea of a normal workday.

I have a big workload, and in a more traditional environment, I’d be logging plenty of overtime. Last year, I made the decision not to keep up with my hours of work time at home or try to set up a consistent schedule. I work when I need to work. My kids are late sleepers, so I’m usually able to get in three or four hours of work before they wake up in the morning. I usually work while I eat lunch and then in the afternoon and evening when the kids are doing their own things. I work through the weekend. Most days, we’re actively homeschooling for about four hours, and we try to spend at least an hour or two every day just doing something fun together — watching a show, playing a game, taking a walk, tackling a new craft project, whatever. I have accepted the fact that I’ll be working a lot every day, including weekends and holidays, and I try to make my non-work hours really count.

I do not try to do everything.

I usually make dinner and we all eat together, but unless I’m at home and feeling particularly into it, I don’t do breakfast and lunch — everyone’s on their own for that. (I stock up on easy-to-make things like instant oatmeal, sandwich fixings, or yogurt, and do occasional mega-cooking sessions where I freeze individual portions of meals like macaroni and cheese or enchiladas that the kids can heat up. Sometimes I buy frozen meals from the supermarket. I try to buy the healthiest ones, but I buy them, and I don’t feel guilty about it.) Our house is usually messy because cleaning is low on my priority list, and I’m okay about that. (Well, at least mostly!) 

I push myself to be all-in with whatever I’m doing.

When your to-do list never ends, it’s easy to feel perpetually fragmented — you’re doing one thing, but your mind is on something else. I work hard to stay in the moment: If we’re homeschooling, I turn off my phone. (I’ve actually got my phone set up so that it doesn’t even receive work email — I have to check it on my desktop.) If I’m writing a lecture, I don’t check Facebook until the lecture is done. Some multitasking is inevitable and some days I do better at staying in the moment than others, but I really try to stay focused on one thing at a time.

I compartmentalize.

Along the same lines, I keep a separate bullet journal for life (including homeschooling) and for work. This makes sense practically because my work timelines and my life schedule are pretty different, but it’s also symbolic: When I open my work bullet journal, I’m working. When I close it, I turn off work—as much as I can, anyway, when my office is just steps away from my bedroom. This is a small thing, but it’s made a big difference for me: Now, I have a life calendar that doesn’t just get swallowed up by work to-do lists.

I say no to extra stuff.

I wish I had time to go to every homeschool day and park day and play date, but that’s just not realistic with everything else I have to do. So the kids and I try to choose one out-of-the-house adventure each week, and that’s it. I don’t take on volunteer projects, even when they’re awesome projects that I really believe in, or extra responsibilities, even when they come in the form of super-fun classes I could teach. I have to know my limits and be honest with myself about them.

I take time for myself.

Our house would certainly be much tidier if I went straight to housecleaning every time I logged off from work — but that’s never going to happen. Carving out little corners of free time for myself is really important to me. So yes, I could be cleaning when I’m watching Poldark with Jason or having lunch with my best friend or knitting on the back deck, but I would feel overwhelmed very, very quickly. I don’t always get a lot of me-time, but when I do, I never feel guilty about using it for what I want to do (not what I might think I need to do).

I try not to talk about how busy I am.

I know people whose conversations always seem to circle back around to how busy they are, and I don’t want “busy” to become the way people think of me — or, more importantly, the way I think of myself. So yeah, I’m busy, but unless you catch me right on the cusp of a magazine deadline, I’m not going to tell you all about it. I’m going to enjoy the break that I get chatting with you for all its worth and go back to my projects a little rejuvenated when the conversation is over. Dwelling on how busy I am just makes me feel busier, if that makes sense.

I take busy work weeks off from homeschool — and vice versa.

When we’re ramping up for a new term at the Academy or I’m on a big deadline for a project, I don’t even try to do any kind of structured homeschool — our homeschool has a year-round calendar, so a week off several times a year isn’t a big deal. Similarly, if we have a big homeschool project going — like the trip we took to Savannah this year or our big New England road trip over last spring break —I organize as much as I can in advance so that I can do the bare minimum work stuff during that time. I’ve learned that when something needs my full attention, trying to split my attention is a recipe for stress and grouchiness.

I feel like this balancing act is always a work in progress — for every day that I finish triumphantly, feeling like I’m that one person in a million who’s figured out how to have it all, there’s a day where I feel like the worst mom/wife/editor/teacher/friend in the history of the world. Mostly, though, I’m thankful that I get to have a job that I love, homeschool my kids, and make it — mostly — work.

How do we grow our secular homeschool community as our kids become teens?

Sometimes, the way to get the homeschool community you really want is to build it from the ground up. If growing community is on your to-do list, try some of these strategies to make it happen.

Whether you’re a new homeschooler looking to find your people, a long-time homeschooler whose community is undergoing a disorienting shift, or just someone who never really found the homeschool community you were looking for, 2023 can be the year you find your people.

There are two keys to getting the community you really want, says Niofer Merchant, author of The Power of Onlyness. The first is to make building community a priority — it’s probably not going to magically happen on its own if it hasn’t already. The second key? Take it one small step at a time. You don’t need to get from A to Z with one big leap, says Merchant. Getting to B is great progress and much more achievable. These small steps can get you moving in the right direction.

Find a different seat.

We tend to stick to the same patterns in familiar places, but if you always end up in the same corner of your co-op sitting room or beside the same moms on park day, you might be missing an opportunity. The more you’re willing to venture outside your comfort zone, the more resources you find, says Merchant. Little changes, like sitting on the opposite side of the room, checking out a different park day, or hitting the homeschool day at your favorite museum in the afternoon instead of in the morning can broaden your community.

Extend your age range.

Senior centers are always excited to get new blood, even if you only have a few hours to give, says Kimberly Trusty-Doughty, general manager for volunteer services at the Hillsborough County Department of Aging Services in Florida. Seniors may not be your first thought for your homeschool community, but one of the great benefits of homeschooling is that we get to do real socialization, the kind that’s not limited by age or grade level. Volunteer a few hours at a senior center, and you may be amazed at the results: You can find surrogate grandparents, sure, but you may also find local resources and connections you didn’t know anything about through your new friends.

Host a Jeffersonian dinner.

The typical Jeffersonian dinner — modeled after the historic gatherings Thomas Jefferson used to host at his home Monticello, not after his shady approach to dealing with issues of slavery in the early United States — brings together eight to 15 people to discuss a specific topic — for homeschoolers, that might be how to tackle language arts or thoughts about online classrooms. Keeping the conversation focused on a specific topic means that the people who show up are genuinely interested in the topic of discussion, which may lure people who don’t regularly join into your regular homeschool activities. (Bonus: This kind of structured socialization is introvert-friendly.)

Refocus your routine.

Your regular routine can be a great opportunity to build community. Not only does developing a routine help get you get into the habit of getting out of the house regularly — a habit that can make your community feel bigger all by itself — it also puts you into the path of other people who have similar routines. If you always hit the same park on Friday mornings, visit the library every Tuesday, stop by the coffee shop on Monday, and go shopping at the farmers market on Thursday, you create a rhythm where it’s easy to feel connected to the people at your regular haunts.

Show up if you say yes.

Homeschoolers can be notoriously flaky, and we’ve all had moments where we appreciate the amazing flexibility homeschool life offers. If we want to take off on a field trip to the mountains or watch movies in our pajamas all day, we can! But with freedom comes responsibility, and if you want park days or field trips or social activities for homeschoolers in your community, showing up when you commit is essential. You don’t have to commit to everything, of course, but when there’s an activity that you’re really excited about or that you’d like to see continue in your community, a firm “yes” and actually showing up for it can be the best way to ensure that activity doesn’t vanish. “A ton of work goes into planning classes or activities, and if the turnout is low or people don’t show up, there’s no motivation to keep an activity going,” says Loren, who runs a small homeschool group in southern California. “If someone no-shows twice, I take them off our group’s mailing list.” Just showing up is a big part of building a homeschool community, so be wary of saying “yes” or even “maybe” if you’re not pretty sure you’re willing to follow through.

Manage your expectations.

You may not find the homeschool BFF your child has been dreaming of — but maybe you can find a pal for karate lessons or a buddy for robotics class or a friend for park day. The higher your expectations for a new friend are, the less likely you are to find someone who meets them, so instead of looking for a perfect fit, look for someone who fills a specific community or social need. It’s great to have a math nerd friend to text tricky problems, even if that friend doesn’t also like skateboarding and Minecraft. Expand your notion of friendship to include a wider community instead of pinning your hopes on finding one perfect pal.

Think local first.

I love a one-day Amazon delivery as much as the next homeschool mom, but if you want to build community, shop local, recommends David Downey, CEO of the International Downtown Association in Washington D.C. The surest way to grow your local business community is by shopping and spending time in it, says Downey — so do your weekly debriefing at the coffee shop on the corner instead of the chain store with the big drive-through, or bring your booklist to the independent bookstore on the square. Bonus: These businesses are community businesses, and as you become a familiar face, you’ll start to feel like you really are part of your town’s community.

Offer to lend a hand.

Whether it’s a new family who looks a little lost at homeschool day or a stranger juggling a stack of books and a baby at the library, offering a little assistance is an easy way to connect that makes you feel good even if it doesn’t end up leading to a long-term relationship. If you’re shy about starting conversations with strangers, offering to help can be a great conversation starter. 

5 Ways to Get Excited about Teaching Math Beyond 5th Grade

Don’t dread higher math! Get inspired with these resources that will give you confidence and ideas for middle and high school math in your homeschool.

If math is pushing your buttons, reconsider your perspective. Math beyond the elementary years can be creative, inspiring, and even fun.

Read This : Rethink the Classroom

Finally, an answer to that inevitable question: “But how will you teach your child calculus?” Wherever you are in your math timeline, you’ll appreciate the existence of MOOCulus, a massive open online course created by Ohio State University mathematics professor Jim Fowler that’s totally reimagining the way people learn higher math.

Watch This : A New Math Philosophy

Getting the right answer is not always the point of math, says math teacher Dan Meyer in the TED Talk “Math Class Needs a Makeover.” If we make fill-in-the-blanks teaching the cornerstone of a kid’s education, of course that kid is going to hate math. Meyer suggests we shift focus to math reasoning, emphasizing figuring out how to solve a problem over filling in the right bubble.

Expert Advice : Throw Away the Textbook

Can’t find the right curriculum? Why not skip that textbook altogether? Sarah Hagan, an Ohio math teacher, has students DIY their own math text- books each year from scratch, using a wild mix of materials (including origami and lots of doodles). Hagan says it makes math more personal and helps kids remember what they’ve learned.

Read This : Shift Your Emphasis

“I don’t see how it’s doing society any good to have its members walking around with vague memories of algebraic formulas and geometric diagrams, and clear memories of hating them.” writes mathematician Paul Lockhart in “A Mathematician’s Lament.” This essay is an impassioned criticism of classroom math and its negative lifetime effects on so many students.

Be Confident : Embrace Your Inner Genius

NPR’s Math Guy Keith Devlin thinks math is everywhere — and we learn it best not in a classroom but out in the real world, doing real-life math and observing real-life math-ing in nature. If you’re feeling math-insecure, boost your confidence with Devlin’s The Math Instinct: Why You're a Mathematical Genius (Along with Lobsters, Birds, Cats, and Dogs).

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.

Sometimes Homeschooling Is Right for One Kid in Your Family and School Is Right for Another One — And Good Homeschooling Is Supporting That

When I first started homeschooling, I’m pretty sure I believed that homeschooling was all-or-nothing: either you homeschooled your kids throughout their childhoods, or you sent them off to school. But many families I know aren’t like that. Maybe their kids homeschool for most of their childhoods, then head to junior high or high school. Maybe their kids avail themselves of select activities at schools but remain homeschoolers. Maybe some of a family’s kids attend school, while others homeschool. 

We’re that kind of family — a part homeschooling, part schooling family. Our 13-year-old son learns at home and has no interest in going to school — ever. Our 10-year-old daughter attends a private, part-time “school for homeschoolers” and says she never wants to go back to full-time homeschooling. It’s a combination that works surprisingly well for our family. You’d never know just how much hand-wringing and agonizing it took to get us to this point. 

Our part-time schooling arrangement came about during a particularly long, brutal winter up here in Minnesota in 2013-2014. Cooped up by heavy snow and wind chills that were regularly hitting 20 or 30 below zero, the only learning we seemed to be doing was about working through interpersonal conflict, and boy, was there a lot of that kind of learning. I was stressed. They were stressed. My energy for homeschooling was at an all-time low. 

One bitter-cold February day, I sat both kids down in the living room and said I thought we needed to really look at whether homeschooling the way we were was the happiest choice for our family. My daughter, then eight, burst into tears.

“But I don’t want to go to school!” she wailed.

I told her there might be another, less drastic option. A few old homeschooling friends of ours had ended up attending a three-day-a-week Christian Montessori school intended to give homeschoolers some of the benefits of school while allowing time for family learning, too. The school had unusually long breaks — six weeks off in December and January, two weeks in March — and finished for the year in mid-May. There were no grades, no tests, and minimal homework. It felt like School Lite — a gentle way to try out school without completely giving up on homeschooling.

My son was emphatically not interested. My daughter agreed to check it out. 

The day we toured the school, I was impressed by the school’s peaceful, friendly atmosphere. But there were also things that gave me pause. The school was run by evangelical Christians, but our family isn’t Christian. Would my daughter be accepted here? Could we as a family feel comfortable here even though we don’t go to church and aren’t believers?

My daughter was quietly observant throughout the school tour, her body language stiff. By the end of the tour, I was sure she was going to say she wasn’t interested. Honestly, I kind of wanted her to say she wasn’t interested. As miserable I’d been with homeschooling that winter, I didn’t feel ready to give it up, either. 

As we left the school and walked to our car, I asked my daughter, “So, what did you think?”

“I liked it!” she declared. She was perfectly clear on the matter; she was going to that school that fall.

I wept many tears that spring and summer, agonizing that sending her to school was a big mistake (always out of sight of my daughter, of course). 

My daughter did occasionally feel out-of-place attending a school where almost all the other kids were regular churchgoers. She was startled when one teacher mentioned that they didn’t teach about evolution at her school, but that they prayed for people who believed in it. My daughter had taken a class about evolution at our local zoo the year before and had read extensively about it at home. The idea that her school would completely dismiss discussing it floored her.

At home, we talked about approaching these sorts of differences as a chance to learn about the range of perspectives that make up our country and our world and the different ways people approach controversy and disagreement. We brainstormed how she could stay true to herself even if she didn’t feel comfortable speaking up loudly at school. I was grateful that our family’s work together as homeschoolers had laid down a foundation for us to talk this way, and that my daughter’s years as a life learner have given her a strong sense of self she can fall back on when she feels confused or out-of-step with the people around her. 

As that first year went on, my daughter found that she really liked the way Montessori learning combines structure with freedom of movement and choice. She’s also fairly introverted, and she found that her school — a school where “nobody knows how to be mean,” as she put it recently — helped her come out of her shell. Seeing the same kids regularly in a routine, predictable environment was more comfortable for her than going to unstructured homeschool play groups, where she’d mostly clung to my side and not talked to the other kids. Once-a-week, short-term classes for homeschoolers also hadn’t really given her enough time to warm up to other kids. 

I still don’t believe that school is necessary for kids to get “socialized” — it’s simply that for my individual kid at the developmental stage she was at, this particular school was a better social fit. 

Meanwhile, back at home, my son was enjoying having three days a week of one-on-one time with me, combining a few classes at a local homeschooling co-op, a bit of math, lots of reading, and plenty of time pursuing his passionate interest in all things gaming-related. Some days, it felt like we had our own little writer’s colony of two, as my son worked in one room on video game-inspired fan fiction or creating the rules, characters, and storyline for a role-playing game he was designing, and I worked in another room on my own writing. We’d check in with each other over lunch, a board game, or during a hike by the Mississippi, two creative colleagues egging each other on. 

My daughter is now preparing for her third year at her school. It will probably be her last one there; she’s feeling ready for a secular learning environment, where she doesn’t worry that she might scandalize a schoolmate if she mentions a pop singer she likes or alienate a teacher if she mentions evolution in a school project. 

Luckily for us, there’s another part-time option for schooling here in our town, a public charter school where students attend classes in person three days a week and then work at home two days a week. She is hoping to transfer there for sixth grade. She wants school, yes, but she still wants a bit of freedom about how she spends her days, too.

I tell her that if she’d ever like to return to homeschooling, it’s always an option. She just smiles. “You really want me to come back to homeschooling, don’t you?” she teases me.

Well, yes, I’d love for her to come back to homeschooling. But what I want even more is for her to know she has choices. I’ve learned I can trust her to make the best of whatever situation she’s in and to know what’s right for her, even if it’s not what I would have chosen for her. She’s learned that she can handle new experiences with grace, take the good with the bad, and then walk away when something is no longer working for her. Those are lessons that I think will serve us both well as she moves forward in her life’s adventures, wherever they take her.

Great Books for Your Secular High School Detective Fiction Unit Study

From Sherlock to chemistry prodigies and everything in between, classic detective fiction is sometimes just the comfort read you need. These are some of our favorites.

It all started with Nancy Drew, of course. Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, the Bobbsey Twins, Encyclopedia Brown, the westing game, Trixie Belden, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Three Investigators. So it was natural that sometime around junior high, having exhausted my local library’s children’s section, I gravitated toward the mystery section over on the adult side and discovered Agatha Christie. (It wasn’t a very big section, as I recall, and after a year or two I’d finished off everything that looked promising and moved over to the neighboring science fiction/fantasy shelf. Once I discovered sf I took a several-decades-long break from the mystery genre — with the exception of Isaac Asimov’s mashup robot mystery series that begins with The Caves of Steel — but that’s a different column.)

When people ask me about young readers moving to “grown-up” books, I think of Agatha Christie first. Not only is she Queen of Mystery Writers, she was wildly prolific, and there’s nothing I loved more at that age than finding an author and realizing I had dozens and dozens of books to look forward to. That’s still true today, of course, and it’s one reason I’ve recently found my way back to the mystery section. When everyday life makes me a bit crazy, and I don’t have emotional energy to tackle the big thick novels on my to-read list, it’s comforting to pick up a favorite mystery writer — or find a new favorite — and know I’ve got shelves and shelves of books waiting, where I get to hang out with the sleuths I’ve come to love.

So what do you do after you’ve read your way through Poirot, Miss Marple, and Tommy and Tuppence? First, you reward yourself by watching the Agatha Christie episode of Doctor Who (“The Unicorn and the Wasp”), and then you go back to the beginning with Sherlock. We started the Sherlock Holmes stories as readalouds with my two oldest children (then upper elementary and middle school) shortly after the entire family became obsessed with the BBC series starring Benedict Cumberbatch. It was great timing: having met the characters on television, my kids had a lot more patience with the Victorian literary stylings (and sometimes ridiculous plots), plus we were able to pick up all the references to the original works sprinkled throughout the show. And, of course, one of the great things about Sherlock is that he’s been adapted and adopted so many times that you can keep reading him forever. My first experience with professional fanfic (long before the term “fanfic” was invented) was Nicholas Meyer’s The Seven-Percent Solution (Holmes meets Sigmund Freud) and The West End Horror (Holmes meets everyone else, including G.B. Shaw, Bram Stoker, and Oliver Wilde). I’ve read several of the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes mysteries by Laurie King (beginning with The Beekeeper’s Apprentice) and enjoyed Michael Chabon’s Sherlock novella, The Final Solution. My very favorite borrowing of the great detective may be Lyndsay Faye’s Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson, though she has tough competition from Eve Titus’s children’s series Basil of Baker Street (hurray! the inspiration for Disney’s The Great Mouse Detective is finally back in print!). But the books keep coming: I’ve got The House of Silk, a Sherlock story by Anthony Horowitz (author of the wonderful Magpie Murders, a murder mystery about the publication of an Agatha Christie-type murder mystery) in my bedside to-read stack right now.

As a younger reader I somehow managed to miss out on Dorothy Sayers’s mysteries, but once I finally discovered Lord Peter Wimsey, gentleman detective, I couldn’t get enough of him and his complicated romance with Harriet Vane. Sayers’s books are not necessarily easy or simple, but she’s been on my ‘comfort read’ shelf (next to Agatha Christie and Georgette Heyer) for years.

Many readers encounter Josephine Tey’s detective, Inspector Alan Grant, in The Daughter of Time, a historical murder mystery (where Grant, laid up in the hospital, tries to solve the murder of the Princes in the Tower) that keeps showing up in ‘best mysteries of all time’ lists. Recently I read all of the Alan Grant books (which make good use of Tey’s real-life experience in the theater world) and found out what I had been missing. Tey writes good, solid mysteries that are a little bit quirky and often take a different and unexpected path from other Golden Age detective stories. But the strangest detective series I’ve read (and am still in the process of reading) has to be Peter Dickinson’s Inspector James Pibble books. So far, Pibble has encountered a lost tribe from New Guinea, man-eating lions, psychic children, and two different island monasteries inhabited by crazed monks. I have no idea what to expect in the sixth and final book in the series.

Pibble, whose books were published in the 60s and 70s, comes a bit after the British Golden Age of crime fiction, but as an English inspector he fits right in with that tradition. I could read and reread those authors forever, but I’m grateful that there are slightly more diverse options available. One of my favorite ongoing series (and a great one to hand middle and high school readers, though it’s marketed for grown-ups) is by Alan Bradley and stars Flavia de Luce, an 11-year-old science prodigy living in a broken-down country estate with her slightly bizarre family in 1950s England. We’re introduced to Flavia when she solves her first murder in The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. (These books are worth reading just for the titles.) Another book I’ve handed to middle school and YA readers is Alexander McCall Smith’s The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, the first in the long-running (and still going strong!) series set in Botswana and starring the independent and strong-minded Precious Ramotswe.

I’m running out of space and I haven’t even gotten to Dalziel and Pascoe (a hard-boiled crime series — beginning in 1970 with Reginald Hill’s A Clubbable Woman — that expands over the years to include both a Jane Austen homage and a trip to space), Amelia Peabody (amateur Victorian Egyptologist crime-solving!), or Phryne Fisher (a 1920s Australian sleuth who is very much NOT for young readers—but grown-ups need books too). I’ve also neglected to mention some of my favorite stand-alone mysteries, including Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (where the murder victim is a dog and our narrator-sleuth is a teenage autistic boy), John Dickson Carr’s The Murder of Sir Edmund Godfrey (a nonfiction account of the murder of a judge during the reign of Charles II that reads like a modern mystery), and Hazel Holt’s My Dear Charlotte (an epistolary mystery inspired by Jane Austen’s letters).