Why We’re Choosing Unschooling
Learning to Trust the Spark ✨
🌿 Why We’re Unschooling
A reflection from a former teacher turned mother
Before becoming a stay-at-home mom, I worked as a teacher. I taught various grades, and from the very beginning, something inside me felt unsettled.
So much of the school day, I realized, was spent not learning — but waiting.
Waiting for the bell.
Waiting for someone to finish.
Waiting for the teacher to circle back.
Waiting to be told what to do next.
I had small classes and an educational assistant — and still, I was constantly ping-ponging between children, trying to help them all succeed. It wasn’t that I didn’t care. It was that the system itself made it nearly impossible to give each child the attention, curiosity, and space they deserved.
Even with only fifteen students — a number many would consider ideal — I found myself questioning the setup. Why are they sitting for hours? Why are we pushing forward when it’s clear they’re confused or bored or checked out? Why does learning have to feel so disconnected from real life?
And the curriculum — though well-intentioned — often felt outdated. Arbitrary. I found myself asking: Who decided this is what they should learn? And when? And why this way?
I started taking my students outside more often. We played. We talked. We practiced social skills. I tried to give them space to be children, because I could see what was missing — freedom, movement, wonder.
Eventually, I began to burn out.
Not because I didn’t love the children — I truly did.
But because I was tired of trying to fit them into a system that didn’t seem designed to help them thrive.
🌱 A New Chapter
When I became a mother, everything shifted. I fell so deeply in love with my baby that I just couldn’t imagine a world where I had to return to a job I didn’t love while sending my children off to be raised by someone else. It didn’t make sense in my heart, and it didn’t align with the life I wanted to build.
I wanted to be with him — to witness his learning, protect his spark, and let him unfold at his own pace.
At first, I imagined I’d homeschool in a traditional way. I’m a certified teacher, after all.
But it never felt quite right — it was still a rigid schedule, with rigid expectations, minus all the nearby friends.
The more I read, the more I learned — and the more I unlearned — I realized what I truly wanted was something even simpler:
✨ Unschooling.
Not school-at-home.
Not rigid schedules or grade levels.
But life itself as the curriculum.
Curiosity as the compass.
🧠 Why It Feels Right
I believe children learn best when they’re trusted. When they’re given time to follow what lights them up — whether it’s numbers, mud, dinosaurs, or music.
If a child loves math but dislikes history, why should they be forced to do both equally every day? Why not let them dive deep where their passion lives — and trust that learning will spill over into everything else?
When we let kids follow their interests, they tend to learn more — not less.
And they don’t have to spend six hours a day waiting around for that one moment they’re truly engaged.
I don’t believe every child learns the same way. I don’t believe childhood should be spent at desks, preparing for an adult life we don’t fully understand.
And I no longer believe that a system designed to standardize can also nurture individual brilliance.
💛 What I Believe Now
I believe in learning through living.
I believe in wonder, in freedom, in family.
I believe children don’t need to be conditioned — they need to be seen.
Unschooling, to me, is a way of honoring my kids’ natural curiosity and giving them the freedom I wished I could offer every student I ever taught. It’s not perfect, and I don’t have all the answers — but I trust this path.
And more than anything, I trust them.
So I stepped away — from my career, from the system, from the expectations I once carried — and toward a slower, more connected life. One that puts presence before productivity. One that invites us to learn together, at home, in our own time.
This is why we’ve chosen unschooling.
And this is where The Kindred Path begins.
✨ Want to keep walking this path together?
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💌 And feel free to reply — I’d love to know what brought you here.