Am I doing enough??
Before I start brain dumping on here, as per usual I will be talking about children aged between 4ish - 8ish. This is where a lot of these questions I get surrounding this topic & its also the fundamental age of starting to build deeper knowledge on things & academic skills, however it’s still a vital age to keep the act of PLAY alive & letting kids just be kids! Which is what alot of us are forgetting to keep!
A life without school is one where we generally deem innocence & exploration play just as important (if not more so) than learning the 5 times tables etc. so let’s chat about it -
How can you marry the 2 so they enjoy learning, given the time & resources to keep learning and yet not feel pressure to go against their natural capabilities of what they can handle (developmentally) and still be a kid?
(I know the internet, so let’s just preface this by saying every childs needs are different, what works for some - won’t work for others)
Let’s start by asking ourselves, what depicts our views? Who is actually telling us what our kids should be doing and what they should ‘know’ by what age?? I know what is a popular answer according to my community - School.
The comparison of school kids & ours unfortunately plays a role in our lives, without wanting it, needing it or it making sense. Neither one is right or wrong, we’re just purely talking about 2 completely different fields. Like 2 ways of doing things, running parallel to each-other, with different strategies, different goal posts and guidelines but I promise - both will reach the exact same finish line.
I can see why though, it’s hard to imagine filling a kids day when we know school goes from 9am-3pm. And how are we, as regular parents, meant to replace that amount of time with enough stimulation? Quick answer… you don’t. The whole point of raising your child not in a school setting is so they don’t have to be stimulated that much - or even do that much - or required to participate & ‘show up’ that much.
I personally couldn’t even fathom having to show up to something 7 hours a day, 5 days a week, for the next 13 years! Even as a grown adult - that makes me tired just thinking about it. Omg actually it sounds like a normal job to be fair… but a job I personally would’nt choose for myself haha and I definitely feel its too much for a small child…
But, luckily I’m not alone in these feelings. A quick google search can give you a rundown on what a child actually ‘needs’ according to age, and thats even according to the department of education (which I didn’t think we’d ever share that opinion!)
Because in all those hours - how much immersive learning are they actually getting in school? Take away assemblys, walking to and from class, roll marking & admin time, sharing the space with 30 kids full of questions, interruptions & preperation.. they’ve got lunch breaks, behaviour management for every child, transitions & lining up and most of all they have a lot of waiting time… If your child finishes something you’ve set up for them at home, you move on. At school they have to wait for the other 29 others to finish, thus more time spent not “learning”.
So when you add it up, the actual focused learning time in an average (primary school) classroom in a day is estimated to be *120 minutes!
Don’t know about you guys but that in itself makes me feel a bit better & we hav’nt even touched on the value of efficient, personalised and interest led learning that we can do instead and how much smaller that number needs to be for us!
Most of the world thinks “more hours = more learning” but in homeschooling, the opposite is true. But how?
Efficient learning is when a child receives clear, uninterrupted instruction, exactly at their level, without delays or unnecessary steps. Efficiency comes from immediate feedback (you can correct misunderstandings instantly), no waiting time, challenges that are appropriate to your child, 1:1 explanations (children grasp concepts faster when they can ask questions freely and on the spot) & no “time fillers”.
So how do we create efficient learning at home?
Teach in short, focused bursts (10-20 minutes) especially if you are new to this.
Stop as soon as the understanding is there - dont drag it on for the sake of filling more time
Use real life tasks (where you can) instead of worksheets
Let the child practise skills through living, not just sitting
Keep resources ready so transitions are seamless: books, baskets, tools, activities
This frees the child’s brain from overwhelm, boredom, confusion and long periods of passive time. Instead, their brain stays in a state where learning sticks because its meaningful, immediate and clear. When a child is not mentally drained by wasted time, they absorb more in minutes than they do in hours at school.
So what is personalised learning and why does this play such an important role?
It’s when you ‘teach’ at the child’s exact developmental level, through their strengths, with materials that fit their learning style & at a speed that suits them. Really, only you know your child… only you can truly respond and match their emotions, energy and personality. So you can adjust the difficulty instantly based on cue’s, break things down or stretch things out as needed.
We can notice when our child is done for the day and stop. We can offer choices that can assist with their needs “Do we read outside or on the couch?”. We can build learning around who our child is, not who a curriculum expects (Big tick from me!) Want some examples? Thought youd never ask hehe
A child who loves movement → learn maths while jumping, skipping or counting steps. A child who thrives visually → charts, diagrams, colour or sketches might help. A child with anxiety → slow mornings, gentle entry and a safe environment is a good start. What about a child that loves hands on tasks? → Do more baking, gardening and building..
The world is your oyster!
When a child is taught in the way their brain likes to learn - the information lands faster, they retain it longer and they stay emotionally regulated, which in return allows them to enter a “flow state” - where the magic of deep understanding happens!
Okay, interest-led learning… could mean “do whatever you want all day” haha but more informatively it means ~use their interests as pathways to real learning~. Especially in the early days, build units around passions (dinosaurs, space, farms, art, bugs) to spark curiosity to activate the brains dopamine pathway. This will increase memory, heighten focus, boost motivation and just makes learning feel enjoyable rather than forced.
All of these things is what schools have trouble replicating in a 30 child environment. It would be difficult to spark 30 unique interests at once, but at home, you only need to spark ONE. This means they explore more, deeper and stay with it all naturally - thus - actual time focused on a ‘subject’ is a lot less.
From working with 100 children a week from ages 1 through to 11 for the past 2 years in an open environment, I really do believe in the short bursts of activities being key to keeping a child engaged.
And I actually did do some research to back my opinions here… you would be happy to hear your child is normal if you can only get them to focus on a task for 18 minutes at a time (if aged around the 5-7 mark) and that number only minimally rises with age. And if you’ve been raising them without school for the whole time you should be able to gauge how those minutes have risen or changed etc. so use what YOU know about your child and work with it, not against them for the sake of your own expectation.
Now, If I havn’t lost your attention yet (I could talk about this for hours) I just want to touch on the importance of choosing who influences you, how to reduce the amount of pressure on yourself and what the rest of your day can look like around those short bursts we talked about.
At the start of this article I mentioned that what your child needs will differ from what others need… If you can take anything away that can be changed to help you from today - I want you to reduce your feed (online) of the accounts you have followed to inspire you with homeschooling and choose to only keep the ones that actually fit in with your lifestyle! I admit, I still follow some that are so far removed from what I can do with my child because I have the life, knowledge and resources to adapt it accordingly (I also dont have a doubt in my mind of what I am giving my child is enough) but if you dont, and you still find yourself comparing to others and creating a frustration around your experience not looking like others - please please reduce that noise! Social media isn't real.
Let’s take my account for instance, I only share small increments of my experience, I only share what I think is worthy of having a permanent space on my feed or what I deem worthy of 6000+ eyes.. what you aren’t seeing is the amount of time I’m not actively providing any ‘educational’ moments for my child. Im not showing you the hours Isla spends just playing! Or the fact that I think the world itself is teaching her by us just living our daily lives; filled with tasks, chores and just normal things we like doing..
Because for the rest of the time (around those suggested 40 minutes a day) that I “should” actually try to teach her something, we do ~nothing~. Because I believe that everyday life is one of the richest educational environments we have. Holistically, through experience, repetition and participation in daily life.
I don’t know about you guys, but i’m never doing anything with mine without a million questions being asked anyway. Just driving to the beach thats 5 minutes up the road, Islas already asked me about spelling, a maths question or some random thing about stingrays that I have to answer when I get there because I don’t know.
These important moments happen all day every day and they aren’t even part of the time the department suggests is enough for our children's development, this is just your bonus!
So more often than not - go and enjoy your life WITH your child! Bush walks, beach dips, building, drawing, get them keen on op-shopping early and have them help you pay/greet the seller, take them to markets, lay in the sun and stare at the clouds, get them to help you cook lunch or prepare dinner, start a garden with them, ride your bike with them, teach them the hobby you like to do when the house is quiet or ask them to fold the washing with you… and while you are doing all those - TALK about everything you know with them!
All of these activities that make up your life will one day make up theirs.
And if you’ve done one of those or held 18 minutes of focus on a frogs life cycle or a short burst writing practice - go and literally DO NOTHING. Imagination play is what comes when your child has time to think and explore it, let them! You do not need to feel like you have to fill every hour of every day with something for it to be enriching.. trust me, they dont need it. Life isn’t school :)