253: How to Do Homeschooling: A Former Teacher Explores Unschooling

So when I was thinking about, well, it was kind of came around whenever I returned to work after maternity leave, and your perspectives just change. I think whenever you become a parent as well. So my perspectives had changed. I was coming back into work as a very tired, overstimulated mom, and then the children I was supporting. I was working with four- and five-year-olds. I was also managing a staff team. I was the lead practitioner, and it was just a lot. It was very, very intense, and I could see where things were going in terms of education and children with additional needs not getting the support that they needed due to funding, and it seemed to all come down to budgets and funding and money, because, of course, it does. Then, as a mom, I kind of thought, Oh, gosh, you know, I've been in this for so long. I've been teaching receptions, what we call it here, so four- and five-year-olds. I've been teaching in this year group for 9,10, years. I've done a lot of work with children aged naught to eight, and I can see the trajectory of what school system is like and what the expectations are, and how it can be quite confining and restrictive.

Hi everyone. I am Denise, a longtime listener of Your parenting Mojo. I love this podcast because it condenses all the scientific research on child development, compares it with anthropological studies, and puts it into context of how I can apply all of this to my daily parenting. Jen has a wealth of resources here, so if you're new to the podcast, I suggest you scroll through all her episodes. I'm sure you'll find one that will help you with whatever you're going through, or one that just piques your interest if you'd like to get new episodes in your inbox, along with a free infographic on 13 Reasons Your child isn't listening to you and what to do about each one. Sign up at yourparentingmojo.com/subscribe. Enjoy the show.

Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo Podcast. Today. We're diving into a topic that sparks curiosity for a lot of parents, and that's related to homeschooling and specifically unschooling. Now I do want to be upfront. This episode is not about criticizing schools or saying there's only one right way to educate children. I want to be really clear about that from the start. Many families are doing well in traditional school, and if that's working for your family, that's great. We've actually done episodes to help parents navigate the school system more effectively, like episode 221, with Allyson Criner Brown and Cassie Gardner Manjikian on how to advocate for the schools our children deserve. But I also know there are parents out there who are curious about alternatives. Maybe you're wondering if there's a different path that might serve your family's values and your child's learning style more effectively. Maybe you're an educator yourself who's starting to question some of the structures you see every day. That's exactly where today's guest Laura Moore finds herself. Laura's an early year’s specialist who worked in education for over 15 years. She just left the classroom to become an educational consultant, and is now exploring whether homeschooling or unschooling might be right for her three-and-a-half-year-old daughter. Now, you might think that being a former teacher would make homeschooling easier. After all, Laura knows exactly what children are supposed to know and by when, but it turns out that that knowledge can create its own challenges, because when a child isn't following a curriculum, they're inevitably going to be ahead in some areas and behind in other areas compared to grade level expectations. And it can be challenging for former teachers to navigate that tension between where the child is and where grade level expectations say they should be. This is actually a pretty common experience among teachers who become parents. It's one thing to manage a classroom schedule when you're the adult in charge, but it's quite another when you become a parent and realize how restrictive those systems can be. Laura shared something in this conversation that really stuck with me after she left teaching, she was amazed by simple things like being able to eat when she was hungry or use the bathroom when she needed to, rather than waiting for designated break times, which, of course, kids in school have to do too. What I love about this conversation is that Laura asks the real questions, the ones that many of us have but might hesitate to voice, how do you balance work and learning at home? Well, what about socialization? What if your child isn't at grade level. How do you handle judgment from others? Laura brings both her professional expertise and her mom perspective to these conversations, and I think you'll find her curiosity and thoughtfulness really refreshing. So whether you're firmly planted in traditional school exploring alternatives or somewhere in between, I hope this conversation. Gives you some new ways to think about learning in childhood. Let's jump right in.

Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast today, we have a very different kind of conversation for you in store, and I'm here with Laura Moore of Nurture Ed. And so Laura, I wonder if you can just kind of give us a little bit of a background on who you are and what you do at Nurture Ed first.

Hi Jen. Thank you so much for having me on so I am an early year’s specialist and consultant. I have got over 15 years of experience of working in education and childcare, and currently I am the lead early years specialist for nurture ed. So I'm supporting them with everything that we do in app and building our community as well. And so I've got a huge passion for all things early years, from naught to five, and I did my degree way back when in early childhood studies, and just became really engrossed and obsessed, probably a little bit about child development and how fascinating it is, and then have continued on the journey of developing my own skills and knowledge in terms of early years development. I'm also a certified infant massage instructor, so I support new parents with all things baby related, and just encouraging them to support their baby with lots of hands-on nurturing touch and trying to build up those bonds and attachments, which we know are so key, particularly from very early on. So yeah, I've been I think whenever I talk to anybody about my career, it's really obvious that I all about early years and early learning and education and so things are coming around nicely, and the things I am most interested at in the moment are very much to do with my own daughter. I'm a mama of a three-and-a-half-year-old, which comes with it everything beautiful and chaotic and overwhelming and joyous and all the adjectives. But yeah, she's three and a half. She goes to a nursery setting three days a week, and I guess with my early years specialist and my education hat on, I know certain things and I respond to things in a certain way, but equally, it's very different whenever you've got your mummy hat on and you respond and do things in the moment and in a certain way as a mom, without thinking about anything to do with my knowledge and skills and expertise. So it's really lovely to have a conversation with you today.

Awesome. Thank you for that introduction. And I'm wondering, have you been a teacher? Did you, have you?

So I started when I did my qualifications, my degree. I then was manager of a daycare facility, and that was back in Ireland, and then I moved across the water to London and did my teacher training, and I have been a teacher then since two thousand and twelve I only just left the classroom at the end of last academic year, so August twenty twenty-four.

Okay, okay, so you're a teacher for a long time, all right? And so we met because your team reached out to me to ask me to interview on the Nurture Ed podcast. And we sort of had some conversation about what that might involve, and we ended up talking about homeschooling and home education, as it's called in the UK. And I remember the interview. At the end of the interview, you were like, my brain is just popping with connections. Yeah. And so I said, well, how about you come on the Your Parenting Mojo podcast as well, and then we can talk through what some of those questions are, right because so tell me a little bit about where you are in your journey related to home education or you know, other alternatives at three and a half, your judges three and a half.

So I guess it comes from my perspective of being a teacher for such a long time, and I was beginning to get, I don't know what the word is, but maybe starting to feel a little bit uncertain about where the education system was going in the UK. And I from conversations that I've had through my colleagues and just other people and parents and friends who I know across the world, it seems to be a relatively universal thing, which was reassuring in a way, but also really sad in another way, that there are so many countries and places across the world where our education system is not really serving children as best that it could. So when I was thinking about well, it was kind of came around. Whenever I returned to work after maternity leave, and your perspectives just change. I think whenever you become a parent as well. So my perspectives had changed. I was coming back into work as a very tired, overstimulated mom. Um, and then the children I was supporting. I was working with four- and five-year-olds. I was also managing a staff team. I was the lead practitioner and it was just a lot. It was very, very intense, and I could see where things were going in terms of education and children with additional needs not getting the support that they needed due to funding. And it seemed to all come down to budgets and funding and money, because, of course, it does. Then, as a mom, I kind of thought, gosh, you know, I've been in this for so long. I've been teaching receptions, what we call it here, so four- and five-year-olds. I've been teaching in this year group for 9, 10, years, I've done a lot of work with children aged naught to eight, and I can see the trajectory of what school system is like and what the expectations are, and how it can be quite confining and restrictive. And just seeing my daughter and what we tend to practice at home, and we do, we go very slowly about things, and we spend a lot of time outdoors, and we don't tend to follow any particular scheme or pattern or learning. I'm definitely not that teacher mom who is expecting my three-and-a-half-year-old to know all of her letters, to write her name, to know all of her numbers, they come up in conversations, and they come up through our everyday life and our routines. But it's not something that I am hyper focused on. So I get with my mommy hat on, but also my experience of education and seeing it through that lens properly, inside the classroom, almost having inside information. It's like, I'm not sure where I stand with that in terms of me being a mom of my daughter, who I know is already a three-and-a-half-year-old. If anybody knows a three-and-a-half-year-old, they know that they are full of spirit, they are full of life. They are full of ideas and imagination and curiosity and in reception that is very much encouraged and enhanced because it's a lot of learning through play. But also, as a consultant, I visit other places, and I can see where the learning through play is getting less and less and less of an option for children in reception, and that just really makes my heart hurt. And so yeah, I'm just at the moment trying to find where we're actually going. She will would be due to start school in September 26. So technically, if we are going to send her to a school, her application would need to be in by January 26 so we might go and visit schools in our local area, just to have a feel for them and see what they are offering, see what is available. But I'm just curious about alternatives and other options and different ways.

Okay, and so I know you have a lot of questions for me, and so my kind of last question for you, before we get into those is around your values related to, you know, life in general, learning in particular. I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about your values and so. And what I'm leading to there is what you might be hoping to gain from sort of home education in general, and we, I think you were quite curious about unschooling in particular, that you might not get from being in school.

So I think as a family, we are very much wanting to ensure that we instill kindness and, you know, good manners and just acceptance of other children families. My daughter has dual heritage. My husband is of West African heritage. I'm Irish, so she's a beautiful combination of both of us, and we want to ensure that she thrives in her identity and that she fully accepts her identity as well. And we do a lot of work around celebrating both of our heritages and cultures. She's very much involved with both of our families, and we go to family events, and we really ensure that she is aware of her culture and her heritage. And then, from a learning perspective, we like to do things quite fluidly, and I very much as an early year’s consultant, but also as a mom, try to ensure that other parents are aware that learning takes place in every day, opportunities and routines, and it doesn't have to be okay. Let's sit down now and do numbers. Or okay, let's sit down and do something or it doesn't technically need to be an activity to keep children occupied. I mean, in our day-to-day routine, my daughter spends more time either helping me with the laundry or putting the clothes away or things that just need to be done, and we go outside a lot, and we explore local parks, and we do visit other places. And we go to, you know, we go to local facilities and cafes and museums and things. We're very lucky in London that there are a lot of opportunities on our doorstep. But equally, I don't put a lot of emphasis on that, because, one, it can get expensive, and two, I don't think it's necessary as a compulsory thing. I think is very much an enhancement. So we want her to be aware of just life in general, and how life is and how we need to be as people, in order to be kind and in order to thrive as human beings in this world, which can also, you know, be quite hard on certain individuals. So yeah, we were really ensuring, and hope we're doing a good job on instilling all of those values with her.

All right, awesome. Thank you for that grounding. Okay? And so now I'm going to turn it over to you, right, because you have some questions for me, and so just kind of take it away, and we'll kind of see where the conversation goes.

Yeah, I'm so thank you, Jen. I'm so curious about so many different aspects of home education, home schooling, unschooling. So I'll start with one that instantly comes to mind, because I, myself and my daughter have got a beautiful dynamic. I feel we spend a lot of time in each other's company. We do lots of things together. I cherish my days with her when I don't need to work at the beginning of the week, although I do work, obviously I try to juggle it. I'm usually doing an evening times in the morning before she wakes up, but I spend my Monday and Tuesday primarily with her. And when I think then about home schooling or unschooling. I wonder how that would play out in our dynamic, how it would look in terms of just in general, parent and child, but particularly mother and daughter.

Yeah, so it's interesting that you mentioned the dynamic between you and your child, because I know a lot of people listening will think, yeah, that's what my relationship is like. And there'll be a lot of other people thinking, yeah, I can. I do not want to be around my kid that much. We do much better when we speak. So I want to kind of address both of those, both of those angles. And I think one, one thing that can make the relationship more difficult when we when we move into that stage of life, is when we start being the teacher, right? When we step into that role which inherently has some sort of power over dynamic involved in it, right? It's saying that, well, I have some knowledge here, and you don't have that knowledge. And my job is to get that knowledge into you, whether I'm going to kind of talk to you about it, or whether I am going to sit you down, and we're going to do a curriculum, and you're, you know, you're going to, you're going to do these things that it says in the book, in the order that says in the book. And so whenever we get into that sort of teaching dynamic, things tend to get harder. And it kind of, you know, “works in school”, because there's sort of a, you know, the teacher is seen as a person who has a degree of authority, and there's all the other kids in the classroom who are, for the most part, kind of goosing the whole thing along. And there's a structure that if you don't do it, then you get clipped down on the behavior chart, and then other things happen from there. And so all of that combines to make it so that within a school system, you as a parent are not the one who's trying to get your kid to do the things that they're supposed to do. Right? There's all of that other stuff around them that gets them to do the things they're supposed to do. And so when we don't have all that structure around us and we're trying to teach our child something, and they're not interested in learning that, then it gets hard.

And of course, many parents saw that during covid So when they were all of a sudden responsible for doing that. So one of the big things that we can do is to try to step out of that dynamic, right? And that what we what we usually have to understand, is all of that, all of the curriculum, all of your kids should be learning a certain thing by a certain age, is really there for us. It's there for us as adults, so that we can look and see, okay, yeah, my kid has done three pages of this curriculum today. They're at grade level, right? They're at key stage level. They are doing the things they're supposed to be doing. And when we can step back from that and acknowledge, as you did in your introduction of yourself, that learning is happening all the time, all around us, in some in some ways, our kids are going to be “advanced” from other kids, and in other ways, they're going to be behind from other kids. And when we can kind of relax into that a little bit, then things tend to be a lot easier. So I think that's kind of thing number one. Thing number two is around just because you are homeschooling and, or and unschooling doesn't mean that you have to be the one who is with your kid all the time. So Carys, my daughter, is actually at a not school program three days a week, and so that gives us time to be a part, and I can organize my calls based on, you know, do I if I, if I actually think I need more of a break this week, I can schedule my calls on the days when she's here and she can go and do other things with her dad, and when there are things that we want to do together, then I schedule my calls on the days when she's out, so that we can spend that time together. So I think that that's sort of a big misconception that a lot of parents have that, well, I'm homeschooling, and so I have to be with I'm with my kid all the time.

Are we getting sick of each other? Anybody in a sweat?

Right? Yes, and yes, I would hate it too. And when we see that we don't have to be that person, that they can go to different programs, even if there's one other family who's interested in this, you can do an exchange, right? You have their kids for one day, they have your kid for one day, and you get a free day, right? So that's two things. And third thing I'll say is that I think school often tends to sort of force these boundaries that we don't have to force at home, right? When you're in school, it happens between these hours and learning looks like this. You're usually sitting at sitting at a desk, you're facing the teacher, you're listening to the teacher, you're doing what the teacher says. And in our life, it very much doesn't happen like that. And it's like an, almost like an extension of what you described at the beginning, in your in your introduction. So yesterday, we were at the animal shelter, where we volunteer every week. We've been fostering kittens for two weeks, and we got these kittens partially because we had two kittens right before that that she was super attached to. And then we got some of the bigger ones to ease that transition away from the super cute kittens, right? And that's learning how hard it is to say goodbye to something that you care so much about, and now we know a bit more about how to make that kind of transition easier, right? To have a less attached to version of the same thing. And that transition was fine, where we spend time at a farm. She's learning there when she decides she wants to read a few paragraphs of a book at 8:30 at night, right? That's, that's learning. It's not within that confines of a school day. And so I guess that's, that's what I'll say about how I see it affecting the relationship, in terms of when we see ourselves in that teacher role, things get harder, and when we when it's just lifeing together, then it builds the dynamic, right? It builds the dynamic, right? It builds,

I think that's a nice way to look at it as it is just lifeing together and it's an extension of that. Then from what you've said, I'm thinking, oh yeah, of course. And actually, the idea of meeting up with other parents who might be doing the same thing or a similar thing, and sharing the load effectively could work brilliantly. But also, because I haven't really looked into it, I have no idea what is on my doorstep. So that could be, I love that. Yeah, true Ireland. I think it would be less so. But I like the idea of the not School, where its like-minded families doing a similar thing. And yeah, you're absolutely right that, yes, I enjoy those times and those days that I have with her, but then thinking about, okay, you want me to be with her? Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I just don't, as you say it would be healthy for anybody's dynamic. Really, I'm not realistic as well, because I've got so many other questions as to how that would work, or how it wouldn't work. I guess it leads nicely into, and you've kind of covered a little bit, but thinking about keeping those boundaries, because, yeah, it is lifeing. But then to what extent are you able to, then do what you need to do in the day, but create boundaries of, do you know what I'm trying to say? It's almost like creating the boundaries of what's our learning time and what's just, although learning happens all the time, but what is the boundaries and keeping them kind of respectful and healthy?

Yeah, and I think that really comes down to how uncomfortable we are with boundaries, right? In general, and especially those of us who are socialized female, we have been socialized to say yes to everything, and so especially when our child says, Mama, can we do this? It's sort of a “yes”, right? I don't really want to, and I'm saying yes to and I'm saying yes to all these things through the day, and then the end of the day I explode, because I've said yes to everything, you know, to all this stuff. And so there's kind of that at one end of the spectrum, and at the other end of the spectrum, this school with its super rigid boundaries, right boundary learn, learning only happens within this window in this way. And what we're essentially looking at is, is there some kind of space in between those two things where we can play. And I think that there really is. And if you talk to any parent who has a kid in school, you will hear that the idea of, how do we make everything fit, and how do we ensure that we have time for work and for ourselves and for our kids, right? They struggle with that too. This is not a problem that's unique to homeschooling and to unschooling. So when the school day is not long enough to cover your working hours, you got some, you know, some moving around of parts to do. So, I don't want it to kind of seem like this is a problem that only homeschoolers face, because it's definitely not. And so…

We're summertime here in the UK, and parents are completely talking about, how are we going to fill the six weeks of the summer? How are we going to work? What are we going to do?

Yes, yeah. In in the US, it's called the summer camp scramble. And so, in January, it's used to be February, now it's January. Everybody's trying to figure out, okay, what camps are open? What can I afford? What has, what coverage, what hours? How can I piece the whole thing together? Yeah, so, yeah, that's the summer camp scramble. And so we're not talking about doing that all year. So what we're looking at is, well, how can I acknowledge and honor my needs and also acknowledge and also acknowledge and honor my child's needs, ultimately, is what we're trying to do, right? So when my daughter comes to me at eight thirty in the evening and says, will you help me read a little bit, she's we've just found out a few months ago that she's dyslexic, and for a long time, we weren't sure if it was mostly a motivation thing. And finally, she was like, I'm ready to figure this out, you know? I would like to learn to read. And so I ended up having to test her myself due to complicated circumstances. And it's hard to separate the effects of unschooling, because nobody's been trying to get her to read every day for the last five years, but she probably is a little bit dyslexic, and so when she comes to me and says, you know, will you help me read? Then my answer is usually going to be yes, even though eight thirty is usually going to be my time. And so in that moment, I'm sort of thinking to myself, okay, this is normally heading into my time. Eight thirty would normally be kind of tuck in, and now I'm going to do some work, or whatever it is that I choose to do with my evening. And what capacity do I have right now, right? And so I have to check in with myself and think, am I exhausted? Have I had a really hard day? Do I have the mental capability to be able to support her through this? What do I want, right? I want her to learn more about reading, to enjoy it, to know that when she comes to me, I'm usually going to say yes. And so I'm considering all of that stuff, and then I'm going to say yes or no, you know, yes, I can help you with that, or I'm not able to help you with that right now because I don't have the capacity, but I'm willing and able to do it tomorrow. So that's essentially what I'm doing in those moments where I am figuring out, how are we spending our time? And she's doing that too, right? When I make a request of her, she's figuring out, do I have the capacity to do that, and responding accordingly. And I think that sort of naturally leads into a question around, will I work full time, right?

Or maybe you don't work full time, but a lot of parents do work full time. How could I possibly make this work? And way back when homeschooling was still seen as a really fringe thing to do, I was exploring it. Then I actually created a course for parents who were thinking about homeschooling. It was it was very long, and it was very in depth, because at that time, people would take a year or two to make that decision. And I completely separate it from the podcast, because I didn't want people to think I was one of those, you know, lunatics who homeschools for, you know, for my very research-based podcast. And I interviewed about 20 parents who are homeschooling to do that course. And I saw every arrangement of bodies in space that you could imagine. Really, the only arrangement that does not work is when all of the parents and caregivers in a household have to be out of the house during the day for their job and there is no other place for the child to go right then. Then it kind of doesn't work. But I've seen professors who one of them will take the morning schedule, the other one will take the evening schedule, and they will be with the kids ultimately. There was a single mom who had a business that the five-year-old was helping the parent run the business. So, what we're essentially doing is we're looking at each person's needs and looking at how to meet those needs, rather than compartmentalizing this is this, this is this, this is this.

Which is a huge life lesson, really, in terms of honoring everybody's needs and boundaries, because you're so right as moms, I think, and people who identify as females, that our nervous systems are often completely dysregulated. But for our child to then have those boundaries, or have that learning opportunity where mom, or whoever it is, has said, do you know what, baby, I actually can't do that right now because I just haven't got the reserves, or whatever the reason might be, it then gives them permission to do the same thing whenever the shoe is on the other foot, or whenever, as you said. Whenever you've put something to your daughter, and she's thinking, actually, no, I haven't got the capacity. So even in that, there's learning. And I know there is so much learning in every single opportunity, there really is so much learning to kind of that can happen and that can be allowed to happen. But yes, so even just thinking about, when you're talking about the school kind of dynamic, and where the teacher is, and what, how the children have to conform, and how it happens within certain times. As a teacher leaving the education system, I completely underestimated, probably didn't even come on my radar, how I had to adjust to a different way of life after that. So coming as a grown woman into my self-employed work and working in a very different way, at a much slower pace, being able to manage my diary and kind of prioritize my own self-care as well. I completely underestimated even so dying as much as, oh, I can go to the toilet as and when I want to, I don't need to wait until, you know, it's my lunch hour, or it's my break, because when I can eat when I'm hungry, I know. So the idea of being able to facilitate that for my daughter and, you know, so she can eat when she wants to eat, or she can go to the park when she wants to go to the park, or she can read when she wants to read. Whereas in school, it's very much okay we come in the day, and I know why. In schools, there has to have a flow to the day, and there has to be a rhythm.

And children, I am aware, thrive on things, you know, knowing what is coming next, effectively, so having a bit of a pattern and a rhythm to their day. But equally, it is so intense when they have to conform so much, and I've seen them get to the end of the day, walk through the door of my classroom to their parent, and then the tears come. And I know it, I'm not naive to think, oh, that's entirely my fault. That's me. It's just because they have been on that hamster wheel, and they've had to do kind of as they were told, or they had to conform to the routine, and they couldn't just say, actually, I want to eat this apple right now, or actually, I just want to sit in the corner and read. And I facilitated that as much as I possibly could for those little, tiny ones. But it comes to a point whenever you think, oh, actually, it is lunchtime now, and we have to go to the lunch hall or whatever. So it's very interesting to have my kind of experience of it as an adult, and not really wanting to inflict that on my daughter. So I think that's where I'm kind of a bit stuck in terms of I know that it can provide lots of experiences for her, whether they deem to be positive or less desirable, that's a different story. But it's just wondering how we navigate that and balancing work and our diaries as well. So thinking about the realistic balance in terms of my husband's self-employed, I'm self-employed. We're very lucky that we can manage our diaries, but at sometimes there are clashes. So what? What do you do then?

Yeah, yeah. I just want to pick up on something from what you were just explaining, and you were sort of talking about the lessons for our kids in terms of learning about your boundaries and what your capacity is. And I think what I pull out of that actually, is our kids know these things already. They know when they're at capacity. They know when they're overwhelmed. And how do they learn to stop paying attention to that, right? They learn through being put in structures where they don't get to eat when they want to pee when they need to, to do the things that they want to do. And I'm not saying that every kid right should always be allowed to do whatever they want, of course not. What we're saying is it is possible that we could have a structure that would actually be respectful of what the kids want to do and what their bodies are telling them, and also have some routine, right? And have some senses of we know what's coming next, and I've seen it in not school programs, right? I've seen it. And we kind of live it in terms of our day to day, right? I am here on this call with you right now. Carys has a dog walking job right after this, and so she came up with the idea last night that we would walk the dog together to her not school program, and then I would bring the dog back to its owner's house, and that would get her to where she needs to go, and get me out of the house and walking a little bit exactly, and get the dog walked.

And so she's fulfilling her professional obligations. And so we each kind of considered, right? Does this meet my need? Does it meet her need? Does it meet the dog's need? And we decided, yes, it does. And so we're going to do it. And so that's what ends up forming how we are together. And if I had another call right after this one, I would have said, no, I'm sorry I can't do that. I have a responsibility to somebody else to be on a call. Instead, I have a call at eleven thirty and so I have this break, and so as long as I'm back by eleven thirty we can do it. And so it's not kind of letting our kids run wild. It's instead of having these super tight, arbitrary boundaries that some administrator somewhere has decided the kids eat lunch at this time and then they go to, you know, outside to play at this time. It's okay. This is what I have the capacity for. This is what you do. And so how can we play with that? And I think what comes out of that is beautiful, sort of, I see a capacity for joy in Carys that I don't see in in certainly, many adults. And you know when, when the sun comes through the windows on a like 11 o'clock in the morning and she is just basking out there like she, you know, she's basking, wearing nothing but underwear, just soaking in the sun.

Yeah, good vitamin D.

Yes, exactly. I just found a picture of her last night, lying in the bath with a towel over her eyes, reaching out and grabbing strawberries. Oh my goodness. And so wouldn't it be amazing for us to have that capacity for joy in our lives? And so I see her as my teacher in that regard. It's not that I'm teaching that too.

Actually, with my daughter I have, on, I don't know if, whether it's I have kind of been reflective on my own needs or also my own personality, or how I have had to be over the years, but then seeing life as her mom, but also through her effectively, she also has this just love for life and this curiosity. Being three and a half years old, just really curious about everything. She'll stop and she'll look at the tiny, tiny, tiny, little lady birds, and she'll look at them for hours that she could or she just looks at them for a little while, and then that'll spark a question, and then she might move on to something else. And I've really slowed down in that process, beautifully slowed down. And at times I did think, oh my goodness, at the beginning of motherhood, I kind of find that a bit frictional, because I thought I'm so used to doing my own things at a certain pace and going to where I want to go. And I got a bit cross at the at the fact that I wasn't able to have that life. But actually, there is so much to gain from just going slower or finding that joy through the tiniest, tiniest things. And absolutely, as an adult life can be very overwhelming, and juggling everything is intense, of course, and we have bills to pay and we've got children to raise, but actually I've learned to and I'm still learning very much, still learning to lean into that slower pace and to find that joy with them, which I think is why I'm so intrigued by unschooling and homeschooling, because it just, for me, seems to provide a lot more opportunities for that.

Yeah, okay, so I'm going to say one more thing about that, and then I'm going to address your boundaries question. I'm thinking of a paper by Susan Engel, and this was, this was probably fifteen to twenty years ago now, where she wanted to understand, how does the process of losing that curiosity happen right? Because you're right, three-and-a-half-year-olds have a boundless curiosity, and by the time they're not super far into elementary school, most of that is gone. And so she spent some time in classrooms trying to figure out what's going on with that. And what she realized is, very early on, kids’ kind of make this transition from being curious about everything, asking questions about everything, to asking, do I have to learn this? And how do I learn this, right? So they're no longer asking questions about things they are interested in.

That’s so sad, isn’t it?

Yeah, they're saying, I know you want me to learn this.

Yeah, but I've got no interest in it, and I don't want to learn about it, so therefore I might just switch off.

Yes, yeah. And in the same paper, she kind of walks through an interaction that happened where most of the kids, well, the kids were supposed to be building like some sort of wheeled structure, right? They were looking at how wheels were invented. And most of the kids are following, okay, the you know, the sheet, you're supposed to do these things, step by step, by step by step. And there's one group who are completely forgotten the sheet, and they're completely innovating by themselves. And, of course, as in science, this is what you want them to be doing. And the teacher calls out across the room and says, Okay, kids, enough time for a play. We're doing science.

Right now, that just blow my mind.

Yes. So, so, you know, shouted across the room for everybody to hear what science means is following the steps on the worksheet in the order that I say it should be done, not trying to figure out.

How do we investigating? Not putting things to the test,

Yes, yeah, figuring out a question that you're curious about and trying to follow that through. So yes, so that was what came to mind when you when you were talking about that. And so I want to come back to your sort of, you know, balance boundaries at home. How do we do this when we're both working? And essentially, I think what you'll find is you'll experiment, and you will figure it out. And you will probably start by taking on too much, and you will sign up for too much.

Just my personality, apart from anything.

And it is also the personality of many folks who listen to this podcast. And you'll take on too many things, you'll sign up for too many sort of not schoolish programs, extra classes, that kind of thing. And you'll get a few weeks in, you'll be like, we don't have time to breathe. And then maybe you'll back off a little bit too much the next semester, and you'll be looking around at each other being like, what are we doing? And so you're sort of figuring out for yourselves. Instead of being told what is the right amount of each thing, you'll figure out for yourselves what is the right amount of each thing. And that's how we landed on Carys Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule at the not school program. Because we found she does really well with one day of out in the world socializing and then another day of kind of regrouping inward. And so that's just how her body works. And so, as I mentioned, I can schedule my calls on her out days, or her in days, depending on you know, how I want to spend my time.

Sorry, does the not school program work everyday?

Yes, they run five days a week, and we can go as many days as we want. So we could send her every day. And of course, when your kids, yes, yeah, okay, and that's on a sliding scale basis. And so we love to support sliding scale programs when we can, paying more and we can, accepting more when we can't. And so the that kind of you know, as much as what is essentially childcare coverage is a lot more important when your kids are younger, when your kids are older, they're a lot more self-sufficient, right? She's 10 now, she's able to direct a lot of her own time and but when you're in that sort of four to six age range, then having a place to go on a more regular basis can be really helpful.

But also, that leads into then the social aspect of it, because there's sometimes whenever I think, okay, when I think of my own memories of school, yes, I roll my eyes when I think about the things that I had to learn. I went to an all-girls catholic primary School. I went to an all-girls catholic grammar school growing up in Ireland, in the north of Ireland. And I know when I think about my own kind of experiences, that I reflect more so on the friendships I made and the fun we had together. And I guess thinking with that aspect like there are so many things that school just inevitably introduces to you, I suppose, in terms of different dynamics of personalities, whether you like them or not, opportunities to learn about other people, to learn about other people's personalities. And I suppose a not school environment could provide that. But what if that's not around? What if that's not an option, and the only option is, are there families who probably have very similar values, who are doing the same thing, the children are likely to be very similar in a way, just, you know, putting aside their own personality traits and their own characters, but there would be a lot of shared values, whereas a school or kind of a setting that's got a large percentage of people and dynamics. I just wonder how, how I would not replicate the school system, obviously, but replicate the social experiences as such that she may not be exposed to?

Yeah. It's one of the most common questions people have homeschooling. Quickly followed by, how do they get into college? Do I have to know everything they need to know, which I know is less of a concern for you, but it is something I'd like to touch on, because I think it is important to a lot of listeners. So, yeah, so the socialization piece, I mean, I think the way I think about that is, I mean, I live in Berkeley, which is a fairly racially diverse town, although within the town itself is quite segregated, and funnily enough, that actually replicates itself within the school. So there's one high school. So, so you would think that with everybody coming together, right, there is going to be mixing, and there. Is not, right? All the Black kids hang out together in one part of the school, all the White kids hang out together in another part of the school. It's fairly segregated even within classrooms, right? Because the White kids are on the so the advanced placement track. The Black kids get funneled by the system into the lower division classes and so, so there is still segregation happening, even within a “fully mixed” school. And then I actually heard from a parent who has a kid at Berkeley, I think, at one of the elementary schools, and said that, well, in the kid's third grade class, the teacher had a super serious accident, was out most of the year. They had a substitute teacher who was basically babysitting, and the White parents brought in tutors. They taught their kids right? They kept their kids up to grade level. The three Black boys in the class did not get that same level of support. And so by fourth grade, when all of a sudden, you've got a teacher who's expecting you to do things. The three Black boys are now acting out, and the White girls in the class are all of a sudden, oh, I'm scared of the Black boys and what they're doing, right? And we wonder where this dynamic comes from.

So it just penetrates everything that's been going on for years and years and years and years because of the systems and the things that are in place and the people that are deemed to be in power. It's just allowing the cycle to continue.

Yes, and so, I guess there is no perfect environment, right? It's not like in school. They're going to be in this amazing, you know, multi colored, everybody accepted kind of environment. It may happen, they may get lucky, and it is also highly likely that they will not. And so what I see in the not school programs we have been in, firstly, it's hard as a parent, it's hard to be in a more of a co-op style relationship with other people, where there is nobody telling you what to do, because we're so used to being told what to do. In some ways, it's like, could someone just make a decision and tell us all what to do, and when you actually have to be in relationship with other people and consider each other's needs, that is harder. And yet, what I see within this, basically all of the programs we've been part of over the years that have come and gone is, I see cross racial friendships, right? I don't see systematic exclusion that happens in schools where you know you are you don't have the right kind of lunch box. Sorry, you can't hang out with us. And definitely there is, I don't want to play with you today, because you want to play the game that way. And that way, and I don't like it when it's played that way, right? Absolutely. And then the adults are there to support that, but I don't see the same kind of problems that there are in the school system because there's so much more adult support to help the kids navigate those situations.

And so probably then reflects on the school system being the way that it is. So then it obviously makes sense that when you remove the school from the equation, yeah, of course. And I actually hadn't thought of it from that perspective before, so that's very helpful in terms of then it's almost like it's not that the adults are guiding the conversations at all, but I suppose the children are probably more familiar with different opportunities and less they're not exposed to those less desirable, more negatively deemed, ones, racist ones, whatever it may be, homophobic ones, whatever. So then you can kind of not shelter the children from them, but because, you know it's probably going to come at some point in life. But it's interesting to see how the school system just kind of allows those to continue.

And I also want to kind of challenge the idea that everyone who homeschools is going to have similar values to me, right, particularly when you're in London, definitely in some rural areas, for sure, where a lot of the community is a lot more homogeneous than yes, the people around you are going to be homogenous as they would be in school, right? You're not going to magically have a diverse school if the community the school is drawing from is homogenous. And so seeking out programs where there is a sliding scale, right option available so that families with more resources can pay more families with fewer resources can pay less. Creates diversity, right? Because you're getting economic diversity. I do want to acknowledge that there will be some groups for Black parents, for other groups of parents who are like, you know what, we just don't want to have the White gaze on us, as we are with our kids in this environment. Yes, we'll be out there in the world with you all some of the time, and there are some of the times where we just want to be in the safe space. And so yes, we want to make sure we have diversity in our groups, and also who are just like themselves is what they need and works for them.

Yeah, and it makes perfect sense whenever you actually unpick it a little bit more, whereas I had, I guess, kind of surface level concerns, which is great, why we're, you know, which is why I really wanted to have this conversation, just to have a different perspective, because I only have my perspective, my thoughts homeschooling, unschooling hasn't really been anything I'm exposed to. I think it's kind of bubbling a lot now in the UK, because there are so many situations of, certainly post covid and pandemic time as well, whenever children thrived in an environment that wasn't the school setting, and then having to return to that school setting, children with additional needs, children with certain family dynamics, children with attachment needs, just, you know, need space to thrive in a different way. So it's very interesting to see where it's going. And equally, I think a lot of people are kind of pushing back now against the education system too, where they think this is archaic, this is just not working. What can we do? So I think it's a very interesting time for both parents and homeschooling and unschooling, but also to see what might happen with the school system? I mean, I'd love to see in my time it completely up ended and more reflecting more like a not school dynamic and facility, because I think you referred to it earlier, that if it can work in that regard, surely it can work in a larger scale or in a kind of a different model. So, yeah, very curious interest in time. Maybe you're going to lead the way on something to do that.

There are other people working on this too. I did want to sort of probe at something a little bit that came up in our email exchange when we were setting up this conversation. You would I was curious initially that you hadn't asked about well, do I need to know everything my kid needs to know before I get started. And your response was, well, you know, I'm a teacher. I know what she needs to know at each key stage, and I sort of wanted to gently probe on that. And, you know, bringing in the idea of unschooling and your kid is going to be probably ahead, right? Carys could explain the basics of supply and demand economics related to why are chicken wings are expensive once your grandparents, age four and a half, she couldn't spell her own last name at that point, and they considered to be a massive failure in her education. And so I wanted to sort of see where you are right now in terms of, what if my kid isn't up to grade level, right? Key stage level? How would that be for you?

Yeah, it's an interesting one. So I haven't worked across the what we call key stages here, so up until I worked up into the year groups, when they're about seven or eight. So I kind of have an idea, not kind of, I do have an idea of what is the expected deemed to be the exact expected level, according to the education system, or according to the government that has put these expectations in place. I feel, and can see already, every parent wants to think that the child's ahead. Every parent wants to think that their child is so bright and so clever and so wonderful, but genuinely, some of the things that she does and says, I just think, what like you're three and a half, and I don't want to take all the credit for it, because I can't, but I do think that the exposure that she has had to just conversations and how we talk about things, obviously, in a very age and stage appropriate way. But also, she has a brain. Do you know it's not like I'm muting things down, or it's not that I'm thinking, Oh, she's only three. She's got she won't understand that I say things and I explain things to her, however. That lands on her ears. It lands on her ears. She's probably likely to have more questions, but I genuinely more often than knock when we have a conversation, I can see her take that pause, and I always say, it's like I can see the cogs, you know, kind of making the connection they're working in her brain. And then it could be weeks, sometimes even longer, later, and she'll refer back to a conversation we've had, or she'll say something, and sometimes I just look at her and laugh, because I think, how did you remember that? How did you know that? So it's not that I would limit her learning to knowing okay in reception when they're four and five, they only need to know this, that's all they need to know to get by. Or by the end of year one, or whatever the key stage might be. It's very definitely not that whatever comes up in our conversations, or whatever she shows interests in is what I would follow, because I am very much a believer in learning through play, of course, but also child led learning and how beautiful and gorgeous that is. And refers also to the idea of the research project that you were saying that children lose this joy for life and learning because they then have to listen to things that they don't care about. So I would very much be able to follow her lead as best possible, but also kind of drip feed in the essentials of what I know she might need, but in her own kind of curious way, following her curiosities and her joys and interests. I think I'd be able to do that.

I'm very curious about that drip feeding in the essentials.

Well, it's almost like I don't want her to get to eight or nine and not know how to do basic math or how to do form her letters or, you know, so there are things that I will show her and expose her to, and if she responds to them and she's interested, then brilliant. It's not like I will say, okay, now we need to know that four plus two equals six, and we need to write that number sentence, and you need to form four properly. And, you know, it's very much, okay in order to get to certain stages in life, there are certain things that you are going to need to know or be aware of, and how that pops up in our learning and everyday learning opportunities would be when I would kind of strike when the iron is hot, effectively, I think,

Okay, cool, yeah, I there's a lot more that we could say about I think so, I guess one, one nugget that I will leave you with is, I would imagine, I mean, we don't test Carys, but I would imagine she's behind in in math at the moment, we've talked a lot about multiplication over the years, particularly related to gas prices, right? How much does it cost to fill up the tank of gas per gallon? Yeah, number of gallons in the tank? Sometimes it seems to kind of she gets it. Other times, I don't think she does. And then she stumbled across a toy at a friend's house that you press the button and it tells you the answer to the multiplication so it would be like two times two. And you press the button, and it's a super satisfying thing to press, and the answer shows through, and within a week, she knew the multiplication tables right up to up to nine by nine within a week. Wow. So that's the nugget that I want to leave you with is that when it is really by a child's interest, they get it, and it doesn't take, you know, as much dripping over as much time, because it just happens. And so that's just something to sort of consider as you, as you think about how we might do this. Okay, so I think you have one or two more questions in our time together. Is that right?

Yes, I do. I want to think about or get your perspective on judgment from others who are very much for the school system or steam it to be the norm. That's just what happens your child goes to school. I don't want them to see me as this earlier specialist is navigating on schooling, because, of course, she is, you know, and if they think that, they think that, let them. But how do you deal with that kind of judgment, or family members opinions?

Yeah, well, firstly, I remember being incredibly judgmental myself on this topic.

We've all been there for certain aspects of life.

I had a friend who was a friend in high school who I think would she was very knowledgeable, not sort of the top of the class, sort of grade levels that we're talking about, who announced on Facebook, this is, like, probably 15 years ago now, that she was going to start homeschooling her kids for a couple of years. And I was like, really, you think you can do better than a credentialed teacher? And so I had a lot of judgment there myself. And what I have come to realize is that other people's opinions about this kind of thing really reflect their own fears, their own unmet needs, more than

Absolutely, as with anything in life.

As with anything in life, yes. And so the way that we approach. It now very much differs based on how close we are to the other person, how often we see them, right? How much do I care about their opinion? And so if it's someone that we really care about that we see often, then yeah, we're going to have a conversation with them about their concerns. Because my hypothesis would be they have the same concern that you do. They want your child to do well in life, and they are wanted, they want your kid to be in school, because they care about your kid’s future and that maybe success has certain connotations for them. And it feels really scary to think, well, you know, your kid's not going to know those things. When my husband, my husband's parents, are Filipino, education was their “ticket out”. It got them to the US. So when she when Carys showed up, not being able to spell her last name, that was scary for them, right? Yeah, that's an opportunity for a conversation about our values. If it's somebody in the park, like, why is your kid not in school at 10 o'clock on a Wednesday morning, right? You don't need to justify yourself to that person. So really, what parents I work with always have these kinds of fears. They come up kind of cyclically, and what I advise them to do in this situation is to come back to your values, right? What's important to you in learning? And are we spending our time doing those things most of the time? And if that is the case, can we take a breath to relax? Yeah, that's kind of how I approach that.

I think I would come to that conclusion, because as you get older, you start to think in that way anyway, just about certain aspects of people's opinions, people's thoughts or statements that people say that just come from exactly that space. And it, of course, would probably come from a space of love and wanting the best for both people in the parties or everybody in the family, ensuring that one the family is not overwhelmed, or the child is getting the best, you know, possible start in life effectively. So yeah, I think I would probably be better equipped to respond to those nine than I would have ten, fifteen, 20 years, I think, and especially with gardens, a little bit.

With what you're discovering about yourself, about how the freedom that you now have now you're out of that I can only pee in this time and eat at this time. And wow, if I'm just learning that, yeah, right, I can share that as well.

I know, and that actually has been a huge thing for me. Actually, at I'm not, and I'll not disclose my age, but thinking then the last question, because it's one of those ones where it's like, and I have got my own opinions as well about school testing’s. And you know, when they get to certain ages, 15-16, in the UK, they have to do GCSEs, and what that looks like, but sometimes you do need certain qualifications in order to just enter into college or enter into university. So how do you facilitate that or allow for that? Are there places where you can go just to register and do those exams, or do you use the local school for that?

Yeah. So that's a little bit different in England compared to the US, right? In the US and California, right? We are a registered private school. That's how it's done here. I'm the head, the head of a registered private school, and as such, I can write my own transcripts, right? So I can graduate Carys and give her grades in certain topics, and that is enough, and she will have a high school credential. What many kids do who want to go to college is go to what's called Community College, which is two years. It's actually how I did my first two years, and that gives you an actual transcript and recommendations from teachers, and then you can show that to your school. So, yeah, so in the UK, yeah, absolutely, they would go to a community testing center, to a school and or and sit your exams there. And I think what's, what's really important about that is that by the time the kids get to that point, obviously you're going to want to have been having conversations about this for a number of years before right like this is coming. What do you want to do at the other end? And you're really going to listen to them when they when they talk about what they want to do, and because their goal is self-chosen, you will probably not find that you have the motivation problems that a lot of parents have when they're I'm doing it because I know I have to do it even though I really don't want to. And then when they get to college, if they decide they want to go there, homeschool kids very often, particularly unschooled kids, are the professor's favorites, because they are not the kids who say, can you just tell me what I need to do to get an A and I'll just do it right? The homeschool kid is still the kid who says, I'm so curious about this aspect of your research. Can I explore this in some way, right? What can I learn about this? How can I figure this particular aspect of it out? Can we work together on this? Because they've been doing it for a couple of decades by then. So, I definitely I met a parent who went to university for math and who did pretty much all of the math she needed to do to pass her exams in about six months.

Wow!

To get into university to study math she did about six months, right? And maybe your kid won't go to college. Maybe they'll have actually..

I thought, well, going to an all-girls Catholic grammar school, it was either you were going to be a lawyer, you were going to be a solicitor, you're going to be a doctor or a dentist. And if you didn't want to apply to university for anything other than that, then who even Are you and I wanted, and also, when you're when you're filling in those application forms at 17, 18, do you even know who you even are? Never mind you know figuring out who I want to be in life and what job I want to do for the rest of my days. No, and evidently that was a definite no from me, so I went to university to do what I well, I wanted to do speech and language therapy. I didn't get the grades. I then did a like secondary course, which was language and linguistics about three weeks in, maybe even about three lessons in. I realized this is not for me and I remember my mum and dad sat me down around Christmas time, I had started in September, and they said to me, look, you're putting off all your assignments. You don't want to go to class. We can see you're miserable. You know, you've lost weight, you're not eating properly. What's going on? And I let my first words was, I don't want to do it. Don't like it. And my mom and dad were like, Fine, brilliant, let's be done. And my mom helped me compose my email or my letter, whatever it was to my professor at that time. And I tell you, the relief of just being like, I don't have to go back there. I don't have to do that brilliant. And then I took an admin role. My mom, at the time, worked for social services. She got me an admin role, working with the early years social work team. And it was like a light bulb moment, because I thought, Oh, of course, being a speech therapist, I'll just, I'll work with children. And then my mom said to me, but you know, if you're a speech and language therapist, you could work with stroke is people who had had a stroke, you could work with people who had been in major accidents. You could work with the elderly. You could work with people with additional needs. And that hadn't even crossed my mind. All I thought was children. So having that time to just sit back and reflect and work in a different way and be around other people at 18 and 19 really made me have time to reflect and be very self-reflective and think, right, that's done that absolutely was not what I wanted to do.

Let's go full steam ahead on what I actually do want to do or what I think I want to do for now anyway, so I would very much be and my husband didn't go to university at all, and he has had a very successful career in real estate, and he is doing brilliantly. And she sees us both working, and she sees us now working very fluidly. She knows when she has time with daddy and she knows when she has time with mommy. So I wouldn't be one of those parents that's you have to go to university, and this is what you have to do, because I've got my own experiences of it. My husband has his experiences of not going to it. And it would be very much a is this something that you would want to do? Is this something that you are interested in and just following through on that? Because, apart from anything, it's very expensive now. It always was expensive. It's even more expensive now. And so, yeah, it would, it would definitely be lots of conversations around, where are we going with this? Or what do you what do you think you might like to do, which I can't even imagine at this stage, when she's three and a half, but I know it will be here in like a blink of an eye.

It will yes, and I guess the one thing I will pull out from all of that story that you said, was, how lucky are you that your parents saw how much you were struggling and created a path for you to do something different, right? And how many parents who are listening to this show were in that same boat, and either nobody noticed, or somebody said, just suck it up. You just need the degree, right?

Just happen. More often than not, you're in it now. You just have to finish it, and I have got truly marvelous, wonderful parents, and they are truly marvelous, wonderful grandparents to my gorgeous little daughter. So they definitely are someone that I people that I look up to in terms of replicating those values and how they knew me well enough, but also had the capacity to just say, don’t do it. It's making you miserable. Let's find something else. So I really hope that I can be very like-minded. I hope I am.

And on that note, is there anything you would like to ask or say to feel complete in our conversation?

I think you know. Had so much as you said, when I we had the conversation for our podcast, I came off the call, and I straight away, spoke to all of my colleagues, and I was just thinking, where do we go with this? And I spoke to my husband about it as well, and I was speaking to my mom about it, and it's something that I definitely am going to look a little bit more into and it's something that I'm going to just kind of look very loosely at for the moment, but see what is available. Because up until right now, I have got no idea what's on my doorstep in terms of this. I really genuinely don't know. So I'm curious to find out, and I want to see what is available, just to see if this is something that we can really make happen as a family, or what way we're going to take it. So I think we need to touch base in like, a year's time to see what actually is happening but honestly, I really, really appreciate our conversations. I really value the perspectives that you've given me and how you've challenged some of the things I've been saying and asking, because that's how we learn, that's how we grow, just by having these conversations with other people in similar situations or in very different situations. So thank you so much.

You're so welcome. It was a real pleasure to have you here and to get to explore some of these issues with somebody who obviously comes into this conversation knowing a lot from your perspective.

I don't know if that makes me in a better place position or a worse place position, because I know so much about the education system already

It has advantages and disadvantages.

That's a very polite way of saying it.

So thank you for allowing this window into your life and how you're making this decision so other parents can be supported making that decision for themselves as well. So thank you, Laura. I'm very grateful.

Thank you so much.

I'm a Your Parenting Mojo fan, and I hope you enjoy the show as much as I do. If you found this episode especially enlightening or useful, you can donate to help Jen produce more content like this. Just go to the episode page that Jen mentioned. Thanks for listening.