Hello friends! It’s been a while because homeschooling during a pandemic is a lot and I definitely took on too much over the last school year (which also threw some curveballs which I will be unpacking later in this article) but I have had some time to rest and decompress and am BACK with some of that sweet sweet incredibly niche homeschooling content based on like, one specific question I get asked a lot.

And by that I mean: “So what do you DO when your kid just isn’t “ready” but is like, school age and needs to be doing SOMETHING”

Which wasn’t a question I had an answer to when I was homeschooling my first kid because she was basically just born a fully formed adult and while I would never ever say homeschooling her is EASY it’s just the difficulties we’ve faced are... not because she isn’t understanding or capable of doing the material at her age/grade level.

THEN, last year I started “officially” homeschooling my second.

My sweet soft summer child that could not care less about learning... anything that isn’t about Legos or Minecraft. And like, as a boy with a July birthday I very much COULD have just delayed kindergarten (like I did with my October birthday child so she wasn’t starting Kinder at 4 years old), enrolling him in our homeschool charter meant opening up access to the funding and support services, which he definitely needed and we very much utilized.

BUT that came with the responsibility of, actually doing the work of doing school every day and submitting work samples and doing monthly meetings with the charter school about his progress and well... some months we really struggled to find anything to “show” for our daily homeschool time. Which I’m not going to lie, was DISCOURAGING AF.

Because we were really truly working on it! Or, more accurately, I was really truly working on helping my son meet the Kindergarten benchmarks of learning letter names and sounds, numbers up to 20, how to spell and write his name, etc. and he just... wasn’t there yet. Not at the beginning of the year and still not really at the end of the year either.

So what do you DO in this situation? Obviously I have amassed a vast body of knowledge through my singular year of homeschooling my singular son and you really need to take this entire article to heart and follow it to the exact letter or your kids will never catch up (sarcasm). Ok I actually do have some advice though.

Honestly, I really think the first and most important thing you, as the parent, need to do is take a step back, take a deep breath, and remind yourself that this is YOUR CHILD that YOU LOVE UNCONDITIONALLY that is a WHOLE INDIVIDUAL PERSON with their own unique strengths and weaknesses and that educational standards are averages and guidelines not checklists. I know as parents we all want what’s best for our kids and sometimes we oversimplify that into “above average” but that’s not really a healthy or even relevant way of looking at things. The most important benefit of homeschooling is having the flexibility and the teacher-to-student

ratio that allows for custom tailoring your schooling to meet the exact needs of the specific kid that you have and this is the exact kind of time to take advantage of that.

Next, you’re going to need to meet your kid where the are. Not where you want them to be or where the textbook says they “should” be but like, where they currently are in their abilities. And this is where you do the work. If they can only sit for five minutes? Then do five minute lessons. If they’re not reading independently yet? Read out loud to them, use songs and mnemonic devices to memorize material. If they’re not ready to trace or write yet? Try using stamps, sensory play materials, or manipulatives to help them express that they understand new concepts. If working out of a book is overwhelming? Pull out or copy individual pages.

The most important thing you can do at this stage is slow down and observe HOW your child learns best so that you can encourage them and bring in tools that will help them understand. Some kids are very visual and need to SEE how things are done, other kids are more tactile and need to things to touch and build with in order to model out their new skills, still others are very auditory and will memorize anything put into song form immediately. Some kids need the same structure every day to build on and others need variety. All are totally valid ways of learning, and once you know HOW your kid learns you can move on to the next step and play to their strengths.

Example: my son’s memory and comprehension levels are amazing, so any material I can read out loud to him and have a conversation about? That’s happening at or above his grade level even though we’re still working on how to spell his name and the short-vowel sounds. I don’t know who else needs to hear this because for several months this was very much what I was wrestling through but: you don’t have to do all of your work/subjects at the same “grade level”. You just... don’t. Go ahead and keep moving forward in areas your child isn’t struggling in and stick to the foundational material in what they are. It’s ok.

Oh, and if what you’re working on is not resonating at all, and is only bringing frustration, the problem is definitely the curriculum, not you or your child. Try something different. Try many different somethings until you get one that does make sense for your situation. And if it stops working you can try something else. Just don’t feel like you need to push through the end of a program or workbook just because you bought it. There are, and I cannot emphasize this enough ENDLESS options when it comes to homeschooling.

Finally, even if your child, despite being “school age” just ISN’T ready to sit down and “do school”, there are so many ways you can think outside the box and practice skills in a more organic way. I already have full posts about alternative learning activities and how we use board games as a school supply so I’m not going to go into detail about that here.

Kids are natural explorers and their brains truly are sponges for new information, and no, you do not have to sit them down for SCHOOL school in order to help them learn. Follow their interests! Have fun with it! Don’t be afraid to repeat things! Try some weird activity you found on pinterest! Don’t feel guilty about not “finishing” books or curriculum that’s not working for you!

P.S. if you’re curious about what life is like for a single, self-employed, homeschooling mom of high-maintenance kids feel free to give me a follow on IG (but yes, it is 100% as exhausting as it sounds).

-Victoria aka Homegrown Homeschooler