Reflections from the Wild: The Origin Story

The journey hasn’t technically started yet... But - also - it started about a year ago. 

We pulled our daughter out after trying three preschools and three nannies. There was nothing categorically wrong with the last preschool… There also wasn’t anything remarkably right. She brought home work every Friday in her tiny 3-year-old-sized backpack, crammed in a plastic bag to keep all the papers together. As I shuffled through her “seat work” papers and various creations, laying them out on the counter side by side: two-tone colorings of princesses, rushed paintings of winter scenes, a paper cup that looked vaguely like an animal… I wondered, “Is this it? Is this what my daughter is capable of creating?” 

A few months later, at the annual Holiday Concert - a performance the kids started preparing for shortly after Halloween - I would get a closer look at how she was doing at preschool. At home she loves music and we dance together for fun. She was excited for the concert, and I was too!  When I saw her standing blankly for the majority of the performance, deer-in-headlights and just whispering words to most of the Christmas concert songs, I thought, “That’s not the best my kid can do… is it?”. I knew my child: sure, she was a little timid but she has a bright and vibrant personality when she is ready to show it. When she is comfortable… 

And then there was the sleeping. Having her come home, tired and grumpy after a long day of preschool and a short afternoon nap, she was almost unrecognizable to me. She had so little interest or energy for most of the afternoon. I knew she wasn’t thriving. But was it egregious enough that we reject preschool all together? Could we do better on our own? 

I floated the idea to my husband: “What if we pull her from preschool and have her home with us?” 

Supportive and confident, as always, my husband said, “Sure! Let’s do it.” 

So we did. I work from home and have a flexible schedule, so I can spend mornings with her and his afternoon schedule allows him to carry the baton forward. She also is a prolific napper, so from 1-4 PM, she’s happily snoozing and lounging in her room nearly every day, which alleviates so much of the afternoon parenting burden. 

It’s not technically homeschooling since kids aren’t required to attend school until first grade in California. Nonetheless, we ran the experiment over the past year to see how keeping our daughter home would affect her development. After a year of our patchwork homeschooling, my husband and I both agree that it is better than we ever imagined. And we’re just getting started!! 

While there’s no manual for homeschooling, I know my child and I know what makes her tick. So that’s where I started: let’s lean into her interests. I learned that while her preschool teacher had to require her to use more than two colors in her work, at home her favorite way to color is rainbow everything. Use every single color in the palette. We explored colors with markers, crayons, paints, pencils - but also with magna-tiles, beads, stickers, yarn, and flowers! I learned that she loves colors and has a talent for arranging unique colors together in a piece of work. I doubt her teachers would have seen this in her because the context of her preschool didn’t allow her to show it to them. And maybe she didn’t want to either.

As for her singing, my daughter is a singer and young performer! We learned the lyrics to our favorite songs, belting them in the car and while dancing around the house. Hearing her sing “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” in the hallways was nothing like the anemic vocals at her school concerts. I would have never guessed she’d be a musical child from what she did at her preschool. 

And then there’s the sleeping. I learned that she needs most of the early afternoon for rest. Between lounging in her bed and snoozing, she needs a few hours of sleep every day. Allowing her the uninterrupted opportunity to rest in her cozy bed every afternoon transformed her demeanor from a grumbling grouch to an mostly alert and engaged child. I hadn’t realized that preschool left her in chronic sleep-debt. I don’t know when she’ll drop the naps but we’ll continue to protect this time for her until she no longer needs it. 

The other unexpected learning we had in our homeschool experiment over the past year is that learning happens everywhere. It sounds cliche - I know - but it’s a reality that gets stifled by traditional schooling. Kids are set up to learn continuously. No, I don’t mean that in a metaphorical sense: kids truly soak up every bit of information around them and constantly are expanding and adjusting their understanding of the world. We found that our daughter learned from everything: counting out bell peppers at the grocery store to understanding spatial representations in the instructions for how to build her bunk bed. Of course, we do some formal learning with workbooks but that’s frosting. The cake is everything else she fills her time with over the course of our varied daily activities, whether running errands, tide pooling, or growing peas in the backyard. No time is filler or wasted. 

So we just started our journey and it’s already been an adventure. We love it! We’re building as we go, following our paternal instinct and child interest. No formal institutions - we’re out here in the wild! Not without challenges or bumps, these blog posts will be my reflections and notes from the adventure in this educational wilderness: the good, the bad, and the messy. Nonetheless, we’re committed to building the educational experience for our daughter that allows her to flourish into the best version of herself: competent, confident, and deeply content.