My Kids Aren't Going Back to School - Now What?
If your child isn’t going back to school, you don’t need to recreate school at home or plan the entire year immediately. In this blogpost, you’ll learn how to:
- Handle the legal requirements for beginning homeschooling
- Help your child adjust after leaving school
- Avoid rushing into curriculum, schedules, and too many activities
- Begin noticing your child’s interests and natural learning
- Prepare for the doubts that may surface when the school year starts
You don’t have to understand homeschooling—or unschooling—perfectly before you begin.
Take what works for your family, leave what doesn’t, and expect your approach to evolve.
This is a process. Parents and children grow and learn as they go.
Maybe you knew before the school year ended that your child wouldn’t be going back. Or maybe you spent the summer hoping that a break would change something, only to realize you couldn’t send them into the same situation again.
Either way, the decision has been made.
Your child isn’t going back to school.
For a while, making that decision may have taken up all the available space. You were thinking about what wasn’t working, weighing the alternatives, talking it over, worrying about whether you were overreacting, and perhaps trying one more meeting, accommodation, or plan.
Now that you’ve decided, a different kind of worry can move in.
What are you supposed to do instead?
This is often when parents begin searching for curriculum, printing sample schedules, joining every homeschooling group they can find, and trying to learn an entirely new vocabulary in a matter of days.
But you don’t need to turn yourself into a homeschooling expert before your child’s classmates return to school. You need to understand what your family is walking away from, what everyone needs right now, and how to begin without bringing all the pressure of school home with you.
First, take care of the part you actually have to do
There are legal requirements for educating a child outside of school, and they are different in every state.
Find a reliable source for your state, make sure you understand what is required, and complete any necessary paperwork.
Then stop there for a minute.
The legal requirements tell you what you must do. They don’t tell you what your days should look like, which resources your child needs, or what kind of learner they are. They certainly don’t require you to have the whole year planned before you begin.
Once the paperwork is handled, you have room to think about the decisions that belong to your family.
Pay attention to what your child is leaving
When a child comes out of school, the conversation often moves immediately to what they’ll be doing next. Before you get there, it’s worth looking honestly at what the school experience was like for them.
- Were they anxious every morning?
- Were they holding themselves together all day and falling apart at home?
- Had they started believing they were lazy, difficult, behind, or bad at learning?
- Were they bored, lonely, overwhelmed, bullied, or exhausted?
Even a child who seemed to manage school fairly well may need time to adjust to life without bells, assignments, permission slips, and adults directing most of the day.
You may see your child sleep more, spend long stretches on screens, avoid anything that resembles schoolwork, or insist that they don’t want to do anything. That can be unsettling when you’re already wondering whether you know what you’re doing.
Try not to rush to make those behaviors mean something about the future.
A child who doesn’t want to read a book in August hasn’t stopped learning forever. A child who spends a week gaming hasn’t shown you what the rest of their education will look like. They may simply be tired. They may be enjoying the first real control they’ve had over their time. They may not know what they like yet because they haven’t had much room to find out.
You’re seeing the beginning of a transition, not the finished result.
Don’t let fear do all the planning
Parents tend to make their biggest plans when they feel the least certain.
Buying a complete curriculum can make the year feel more official. A detailed schedule can make an open day look less intimidating. A long list of activities can reassure you that your child won’t miss anything.
None of those things are automatically wrong. The problem is making those decisions before you know whether they fit the child who will actually be living with them.
If school wasn’t a good fit, recreating it at home with fewer children may not solve the problem.
The setting changes, but the pressure, expectations, and daily battles can follow everyone into the kitchen.
Give yourself a little time to notice what happens when your child has room.
- What do they talk about when no one is quizzing them?
- What do they watch, build, research, collect, draw, replay, or explain?
- When do they seem most like themselves again?
You don’t need to turn every interest into a lesson. Right now, you’re learning about your child outside of school. That information will be far more useful than choosing a plan based on what a generic sixth grader is supposed to study.
Talk about what comes next without pretending you know everything
Your child may have their own ideas about leaving school. They may be thrilled, worried, embarrassed, relieved, or all of those at once. They may expect home to work just like school, or imagine that they’ll never be asked to do anything again.
Talk about it.
Ask what they’re glad to leave behind. Ask what they’ll miss. Find out what they hope will be different and what they’re worried might happen. Depending on their age, they may not have clear answers yet, but the conversation still matters.
You don’t have to present a polished educational plan. You can tell them you’re going to work it out together. You can also be honest that living without school doesn’t mean no responsibilities, no limits, or no consideration for everyone else in the family.
This is a change in how your family lives, not simply a change in where schoolwork happens. It will take more than one conversation to figure it out.
Leave some room before you fill the calendar
One of the first fears parents have is that their child will be lonely or that staying home will mean being home all the time. So they begin looking for co-ops, classes, sports, park days, field trips, volunteer opportunities, and anything else that puts people on the calendar.
Community matters. So does having somewhere to go and people to see.
But you don’t need to build an entirely new social life during your first week. Too many commitments can leave everyone just as overscheduled as they were before, especially if your child is recovering from a difficult school experience.
Start looking.
Make a few connections.
Choose something that genuinely interests your child rather than signing up for everything labeled “homeschool.”
You’ll have time to add more. It’s much harder to hear what your family needs when every open space has already been claimed.
Expect the decision to feel different when school starts
You may feel confident right now and still have a wobble when the buses return.
There’s something about watching other families buy supplies, post first-day photos, and return to familiar routines that can make your own path feel suddenly less certain. Even if school was clearly hurting your child, you may wonder whether everyone else knows something you don’t.
Your child might wobble too. They can be relieved not to return and still miss a teacher, a friend, school lunch, or the excitement of a new year. Missing part of school doesn’t mean leaving was a mistake.
This is one reason I like to mark the beginning of a new year, even when we aren’t going back to school. Your family is beginning something too. It deserves more than an ordinary Monday that everyone is expected to know how to navigate.
The question is what kind of beginning would feel right for your family, and that answer won’t come from a school supply list.
Give yourself a week to get started
The Not Back to School 7-Day Challenge begins with the parts of this change that are easy to overlook when you’re busy searching for the “right” way to educate your child.
Over seven days, we’ll look at how your home can support this new way of living, what to do with all that newly open time, where learning fits in, and which school expectations may be shaping your choices without you realizing it. We’ll also talk about handling other people’s questions and making this transition feel like a real beginning for your kids.
If the decision has been made but the rest still feels unsettled, come spend the week working through it with me.
Frequently Asked Questions
About Leaving School and Beginning Homeschooling
Do I need a curriculum before we begin homeschooling?
No. You don’t need to replace school with a curriculum before you’ve had time to see what your child needs. You can begin by slowing down, reconnecting, noticing what captures your child’s attention, and exploring how learning can happen through everyday life. The Challenge will help!
Can I try unschooling if I don’t completely understand it yet?
Yes. You don’t have to understand unschooling perfectly before you begin. Pick through the ideas, use what works for your family, and keep paying attention to what you learn about your child. It’s a process. We all grow and learn as we go.
What if I’m worried I won’t know whether my child is learning?
That worry is common when you’re used to school measuring learning through assignments, grades, and tests. One of the first shifts is learning to recognize the questions, skills, problem-solving, connections, and growing understanding already appearing in your child’s everyday life. The Not Back to School Challenge will help you begin seeing it.
Where can I get support as we make this transition?
The
Not Back to School 7-Day Challenge is a practical place to begin. Each day includes a short video, a simple workbook activity, and one action step to help you create a home that fits, see the learning, handle criticism, and grow your confidence.
If you want ongoing help beyond the first week, the Creating Confidence membership gives you continued coaching, resources, and a community of parents who understand this path.
