Don’t make it harder than it has to be.

Millions of parents unexpectedly became teachers due to COVID-19. For some, there was a patchwork of distance learning hastily constructed by unprepared school systems. For others, there was no support at all.

I hesitate to call this sudden state of affairs homeschooling. When a family chooses to teach their kids at home, they’ve had lots of time to decide and prepare.

In my family’s case, one of my kids was very dyslexic, and one tested extremely gifted. We tried, but the public school where we lived just couldn’t meet their needs.

I’d been looking forward to all the kids being in school, and I definitely qualified as reluctant. Within a couple of years, I became a passionate advocate. Interestingly, all of my grown children say that their unusual education has given them an advantage in life. They are creative and self-sufficient; four out of five are entrepreneurs.

Families this year had no time to decide and no choice. No doubt about it, that’s tough.

School may be a long way from happening.

Parents have time to think about whether they should plan on homeschooling in the fall or hope that school will get back to a somewhat regular schedule.

For all of you, I want to share a few ideas to make life easier.

I homeschooled my five kids through high school, and we all lived to talk about it. I’ve taught countless classes on how-to homeschool, and even authored a book, Learning for Life: Homeschooling in New Mexico, now out of print.

Certainly, teaching kids at home because of the systemic disruption of a serious virus isn’t easy.

When I homeschooled, we spent at least two days a week away from home, enjoying community resources and spending time with friends.

During quarantine, that’s impossible; no soccer leagues, 4-H, or part-time jobs to keep kids busy.

Working AND homeschooling?

Most families who choose to homeschool have a stay-at-home parent who isn’t trying to work remotely like many parents are now. That’s an obvious challenge!

So what can we do to make it better? We’ve got to look at the options to come up with a plan.

In the homeschooling continuum, there are four basic methods.

Unschooling: Child-directed learning that happens as kids lead their daily lives.
Distance learning classes: Set up like a traditional classroom via conferencing platforms.
Pre-packaged curriculum: School in a box; can be religious-based, but not necessarily.
Eclectic approach: A little of this and a little of that, leans toward unschooling

What’s the best option for your family?

The method you choose will depend on your children’s age, learning style, and family schedule.

Consider the unschooling option; it’s flexible, inexpensive, and less stressful. That sounds like a win-win-win right now.

I jokingly say that my youngest child never had a textbook until he was 13 and insisted he wanted to try a correspondence school. A short stint filling out workbook pages and writing essays was all it took to convince him of his mistake.

He quit any formal learning attempt at 15 and traveled the United States as the keyboardist in a band. He started work at Prodigy (remember them?) and is now a self-taught, successful software engineer.

Unschooling builds on the natural interests of the child.

As the parent and unschooling mentor, you just hope to inspire curiosity and provide resources. Parents are comfortable with preschoolers learning this way but lose confidence once kids hit four or five.

We forget that somehow they learned to use utensils to feed themselves, walk, and almost certainly are potty trained by now. These are some heavy-duty skills, folks. Trust me; you can do this.

Think about how children learn to walk. It may be from eight to 18 months, but as long as there’s no physical problem, the kid will walk. After all, she sees everyone else walking, and they’re getting where they want to go a heck of a lot faster. She can’t wait to walk and will practice over and over until she succeeds.

Reading is no different.

When children see the adults around them reading magazines, recipes, text on the phone, or books — they will want to read. Sure, there are things we can do to facilitate learning, but you don’t need to worry if they read at different ages.

My daughter read fluently at five and one of my sons not until thirteen. They both read equally well now.

Here was a typical day in the life of my unschooling daughter.

At seven a.m., she was outside feeding her horse and 4-h pig.

Then she helped me weed the vegetable garden and spent the rest of the morning practicing piano. She’d decided she wanted to read the complete works of Shakespeare, so she was engrossed in Hamlet for a couple of hours.

My daughter and her horse, Jewel. (photo by C. Heath)

In the afternoon, I gave her a ride to a friend’s lawn mower shop, where she helped with the inventory. As the president of her 4-H Club, she directed a lively discussion of the upcoming International Night plan that evening.

Although she had not opened a textbook all day, she’d practiced animal science, business principles, literature, and public speaking.

The Force is strong within.

Admittedly, it takes some time to get comfortable with this method. We’ve all been taught that education is something that is done to us, not that we do ourselves.

Now I know that children crave learning and want to grow up and take responsibility. When we hold them back, this urge often leads to rebellion.

The topic is too large to discuss here. Check out this book: Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom by Kerry McDonald. Look at Sandra Dodd’s website; she’s been at this a long time—our kids used to play together way back when in New Mexico.

I’m thrilled that the World Book’s Course of Study is still available online. It will give you peace of mind when you realize that so much of what your kids are expected to know is part of daily life.

For instance, third-grade Arts specifies ‘Improvise music with classroom instruments’. Substitute household instruments and you have a plastic bean-filled jar turned into maracas and the lids of two pots repurposed into cymbals.

Your downstairs neighbors might not appreciate your family’s rendition of ‘We Will Rock You’, but what are you going to do?

Much of what our children are being taught at school is, in reality, everyday skills of daily living.

Parents! Don’t freak out.

You may not want to home school forever, and your kids might agree, but trust me, you’ve got this.

It’s not as complicated as you think. Trust the natural human instinct of curiosity. Love your kids, communicate, and enjoy this time with them.

Make life a little easier and give unschooling a try. Questions? I’ll try to help.

Tested Tips To Help You Survive Homeschooling— And Love It