"I am homeschooling my 13 year old daughter. We are currently using the [name removed curriculum] but we are both unmotivated and quite bored with it.

I am considering stopping the [curriculum] altogether but none of the other curricula on offer appeal to me. So I am considering pursuing pursue more of a life skill programme, where we concentrate on working with finances and grooming her for business, without a formal curriculum.

She is also interested in photography and is a talented dancer…She is fantastic on an auditory level and is very perceptive and intelligent generally...... She just can't handle the way the formal work is presented.

Do I pursue this ‘out of the box’ education or persist with a formal education which she will, in all likelihood, never ever use in
adulthood? …Am I mad to go this route with her?... Am I doing her a grave disservice by not following the socially-accepted norm?"

This is a shortened, edited version of a mother’s dilemma, posted on a homeschooling social media group. There must be something in the air, but we are experiencing that more and more home educators are finding themselves in a similar position, including both of us.

After years of home educating our children using models, materials, curricula and goals that WE have chosen for our families, we are finding, that particularly as they enter the high school years, for various reasons, that we have to let go our control and let them forge their own paths.

This letting go is rather unnerving as the outcome is vague and home educating mothers in general are not risk-takers. On the contrary, they like to gather data and have a planned end-goal in sight.

Suddenly there is no definite plan, very little structure, no plotted route to follow and the final destination is unknown at this point in time. It feels a bit irresponsible for mothers who feel they must be accountable, but actually it’s a great step of faith.

There is much to gain if you stop and analyse this situation:

Firstly, our children experience us taking a calculated risk, which is a life lesson for them to see modelled.
Secondly, we are showing them that we trust them to make a success of their lives, even if it isn’t patterned after the accepted norm.
Thirdly, we are allowing them to take risks and make calculated decisions IF we engage with them and advise them of the pros and cons of their choices.
Lastly, we are giving them the freedom to begin to live their own lives and learn in the way that we, adults, do – without anyone telling us what they think we should learn.

If we are diligent parents, then we do the things we MUST do daily so that when those responsibilities are completed, we can use our time to pursue the things that are IMPORTANT TO US.

In fact, this is where we must be diligent and accountable – we must model healthy, adult living so that our children will have good role models to learn from!

Some teens may still choose to follow a formal
curriculum for their high school years, as they enjoy the work and challenge, this too is self-directed education and deserves a parent's validation EVEN if you yourself might reach a point where you would prefer to see them follow a less structured route.

“Allowing children to learn about what interests them is good, but helping them do it in a meaningful, rigorous way is better. Freedom and choice are good, but a life steeped in thinking, learning, and doing is better. It’s not enough to say, “Go, do whatever you like.” To help children become skilled thinkers and learners, to help them become people who make and do, we need a life centered around those experiences. We need to show them how to accomplish the things they want to do. We need to prepare them to make the life they want.”
― Lori McWilliam Pickert , author of Project-Based Homeschooling

This is a great challenge faced by every home educating parent – to move out of our comfort zones and have the courage to lay down the plans we have for our children and to replace them with the meaningful things that our children wish to pursue!