What Is Deschooling? The First Step To Homeschooling!

We made the decision to pull both of our kids out of the public school system and enter the exciting world of homeschooling! I immediately joined a handful of homeschooling Facebook groups, began listening to homeschooling podcasts, and even purchased some homeschooling books on my quest for guidance and one of the things I repeatedly heard was this thing called deschooling. A whole lot of confusion entered the chat, but here is what I’ve learned and what our personal deschool process looks like at our house.

What does deschooling mean?

“Deschool” is a term coined by Ivan Illiach who wrote Deschooling Society in 1971 and stated, “Society is not served well by institutionalized schooling.” (Did I mention I’ve been consuming all there is to know about what makes a “good” homeschool?) Deschooling is the time of adjustment between a child leaving traditional school and beginning homeschooling. This is a time of recovery especially from public school, emotionally and mentally. Parents and children need time to decompress and unlearn the ways of a traditional classroom.

How long should we be deschooling?

Each process should look however best fits your family’s needs, but the general consensus is that the longer a family has been in school, the more important it is to deschool. I’ve seen that one month for every year your child was in a traditional school classroom is the recommended duration, but in some cases that is either not enough time or too much time for your particular child(ren). My family is taking about six weeks between pulling them out of school and our homeschool start date. We have a rising first grader and rising fifth grader who have both been in school since they were two years old. I personally don’t think my children need a longer deschooling period because the excitement to get our homeschool show on the road is so high.

How to deschool?

There is more than one way to deschool, just as there is more than one way to homeschool. I started by reminding myself that I needed time to adjust my own understanding of and approach to how each of my children learn. I turned to homeschool Facebook groups when looking for opinions on different curriculum and the feedback was always a variation of, “What does your child enjoy learning about,” “What does your child excel or struggle with,” and “What are your child’s learning goals?” It was embarrassing to realize that I didn’t know the answers to any of these questions. Were my own kids really spending that much time away from me that I couldn’t answer these very basic questions? Deschooling is my time to learn the specific needs of each of my children so their education can be fine tuned and individualized, which is the whole point of homeschooling!

Deschool Activities

Now, this is not a free-for-all or all day Fortnite marathon. It’s simply a transition from what you’ve become accustomed to doing and easing into this new learning adventure. Here are some deschooling activity ideas that we have used over the last six weeks:

• Explore the fine arts, museums, and zoos in your area. We picked a few to get annual passes to for future field trips and camp ideas.
• Discover the wonder of audiobooks! I’m sad to admit that my kids have never listened to an audiobook before now so I didn’t want to spend any money in the event they were bored to tears. I simply used my local library card with the free Libby app found on the Apple app store to gain access to hundreds of audiobook rentals.
• Find new-to-you parks and libraries. This one was especially fun for us because we have only been in the DFW area for roughly a year and a half. Plus, the metro area is so expansive that we were able to find a pretty hefty amount of places we hadn’t previously been to.
• Keep skills sharp with the use of Khan Academy. My older elementary child worked on a Get Ready for 5th Grade math course while my youngest worked through the Khan Academy Kids app. Both are free resources and absolutely fabulous to throw a bit of math, ELA, or whatever of your choosing into your day. I’ve even heard of some families using Khan Academy as the majority of their homeschool curriculum.
• Try out different co-ops in your area. It can take time to find the group best suited for your family, children, and home values. Thankfully we had the time to put our feelers out there before getting started with any curriculum, especially with us being brand new to homeschooling.
• Make “All About Me” posters or vision boards for your upcoming school year. This was really fun for us! Of course we talked about favorite colors, favorite foods, and future careers. Even better questions were about the year ahead: What do you want to learn this year? If you could take a field trip to any city in the world, where would you want to go? What would you like to make this year? (My oldest wrote that they would like to make more memories traveling and my heart definitely swelled.)
• Practice a new daily schedule. My kids feel their best when we have a consistent and predictable schedule, but I still had to figure out what that would look like when we no longer had to be awake and dressed by a specific time. I also realized we needed to make some hard rules when it came to screen time and quiet time at the end of the night.

Final Thoughts

At the end of the day, deschooling can be made into whatever works best for your children, family, and circumstances. Above all, remember to take the time to learn about your kids and set realistic expectations for your daily schedule. It is perfectly okay to have academics take a back seat while you focus on the mental and emotional health of your family.