Why we homeschool

The Honest Homeschool Guide: What Seven Years Actually Taught Me

By a mom who tried everything, moved to a Caribbean island, and somehow found her groove.

First, Let's Be Real: You Cannot Do It All

Before we talk curriculum, apps, or transcripts — let's have an honest moment.

You cannot be the mother, teacher, principal, executive assistant, playground supervisor, chef, maid, and flirty wife all in one day. No one can. And pretending otherwise is the fastest route to burnout.

If you want homeschool to work, the first thing I'd advise is building your tribe. That might look like:

• A grandma who lives nearby

• A babysitter for one or two hours a day

• Kids who genuinely help with chores (yes, this is trainable)

• Doordash on busy days (zero shame)

• A tutor or coach who comes to your home

• Creative solutions you haven't thought of yet

Our family currently relies on Doordash and older kids who pitch in. But I've been through every season, and what I know for certain is this: every family needs help differently. Know your limits. For roughly every two to three kids, you'll want some kind of active support built into your day — even just one to two hours where someone else has eyes on the crew. Six kids? Please, please build a team around yourself.

Once I stopped trying to be everything and started creating a support system, homeschooling became not only possible — it became genuinely peaceful. My mornings are quieter now. I exercise more. I feel healthier than I did during the rush-hour school years.

If you are replicating the school model while homeschooling, you are missing out on all the potential; you should not just be getting rid of the building, you should be getting rid of the educational philosophy too. — Hannah Frankman

The Fear List (And Why Most of It Doesn't Hold Up)

Every parent considering homeschool has the same list of fears. Let's go through them.

"Will my child be socially isolated?"

Consider the world we actually live in. We have sporting events, gyms, ballet halls, churches, pickleball clubs, club sports, and social media. The problem in our century isn't being social — it's being present while we are. I'd argue homeschool gave me back more time to be truly present with my kids during the day than the school rush ever did.

The real truth? If your child is naturally social, they'll find friends whether they're homeschooled or not. If they're reserved, that won't change with a building around them either. Character follows family culture far more than it follows a school system.

"Will they get into college?"

Yes. Universities accept homeschoolers far more readily today than even a decade ago. My own daughter got into a major university without an ACT or SAT score. She graduated a year early, and her application was built on real experiences, strong essays, a clear code of ethics, and letters from people who knew her well.

The only time test scores become critical is for merit-based scholarships or old Ivy League institutions. For everyone else, there are community colleges, BYU Pathway, Coursera, EdX, dual enrollment, and a growing list of universities rethinking admissions altogether. According to my research, around 68% of US universities accept parent-prepared transcripts and diplomas. Policies shift, so always call your local admissions office directly — they'll tell you exactly what they want.

"Will I burn out?"

Possibly, if you try to do it all alone. That's why we started there. Know your daily minimums. Protect your rest. Let technology do more of the heavy lifting than you think it should. The goal isn't to become a one-woman school. The goal is to guide, encourage, and show up consistently.

"Will they miss out on a better education?"

Research from the National Home Education Research Institute shows homeschool students typically score 15–25 percentile points higher on standardized tests, and around 78% of peer-reviewed studies show homeschoolers outperforming traditional school students academically. Kids raised in environments that encourage real-life problem-solving and curiosity gain a significant competitive advantage — and it shows.

Why Homeschool Makes More Sense Now Than Ever

Education used to require gathering people in a room around the one person who owned the book. That era is over.

Every person now carries a device that gives instantaneous access to virtually any subject they'd ever want to learn. With AI, we can refine knowledge with extraordinary precision — processing thousands of pages, filtering exactly what we need, in under thirty seconds. The landscape has changed, whether institutions are ready for it or not.

What the AI economy will reward isn't memorization. Listen to what Jensen Huang, Co-founder and CEO of NVIDIA, says the new definition of "smart" will look like:

"I think the long-term definition of smart, and my personal definition, is someone who sits at that intersection of being technically astute but human — with empathy, and having the ability to infer the unspoken around the corners, the unknowables. People who can see around corners are truly, truly smart... To be able to preempt problems before they show up, just because you feel the vibe — that vibe, I think, is smart. That is going to be the future definition of smart... and that person might actually score horribly on the SAT." — Jensen Huang

Homeschool's structure of personalized pace, curiosity-led learning, and freedom from grade inflation lines up almost perfectly with what's coming. The public school system is still debating whether to allow the tools at all.

And on the subject of moral formation — the University of Austin puts it plainly:

"America's elite institutions have failed us because our universities failed them first... Just 18% of Americans under 35 say they're 'extremely proud' to be American — down from 85% a decade ago... At University of Austin, we believe a collapse of academic standards had a lot to do with this. When institutions stop demanding rigor — when they refuse to distinguish between serious scholarship and activism dressed up as scholarship — they stop forming responsible citizens." — President Carlos Carvalho

The Gifts Homeschool Actually Gives Your Kids

Beyond core subjects, here's what homeschool quietly teaches that most schools can't:

Time. When core subjects take under two hours a day, your child has the afternoon to build something real. Teach tennis. Start a business. Train for a sport. Learn to fish. The hours exist — you just get to decide what fills them.

Real skills. Sales, budgeting, networking, communication, patience, entrepreneurship. These are not electives. They are the skills that move any industry forward.

A global network. When your kid plays pickleball with your husband's colleagues, tours a company with their grandpa, or competes internationally — they are building relationships that no classroom can manufacture.

Flexibility. Travel during the week. Sleep in when you need to. Move school to the sunshine if there's wifi. Let your athletes train during school hours. You captain the schedule now.

Our Kids, in Their Own Chapters

Our oldest daughter spent her high school years learning entirely through online programs — no live math teacher, ever. During that time, she saved over $20,000 of her own money. She taught tennis and pickleball to kids in the community, built a wholesale beading jewelry business with her best friend in Puerto Rico (women are still wearing those earrings), earned a Pilates reformer certification at 14, and learned door-to-door sales, professional teaching, networking, and business budgeting — all outside her core curriculum. She applied to college with no ACT score, and is now studying biotechnology at a major university. She's thriving — socially, academically, and professionally.

Our basketball son was spotted as a gifted athlete from a very young age and went on to play for the Puerto Rico National Team. He now plays in the EYBL — the Nike circuit — which is as competitive as it gets at his age. Homeschooling online gave him the flexibility to train seriously while keeping up with his education. He's toured his grandfather's workplace (a wholesale cabinet company where Grandpa is President of Sales), played pickleball with his dad's network, and connected with founders and successful people across multiple industries. He's built international friendships, an appreciation for different cultures, and a perspective that most teenagers simply don't have access to. This would never have happened inside a traditional school schedule.

Our fishing son is something else entirely. He rounded up a crew of homeschool buddies and together they've been reeling in 40–80 pound tarpon — casting nets for bait, cutting it themselves, and sitting patiently for hours. Huck Finn is alive and well. When he's in the winter states, he builds robots and motors from subscription engineering kits. He often finishes his math videos before I'm even awake. We recently spent two hours making freezer jam from organic strawberries, calculated the cost of sugar, jars, and pectin, and set a selling price. He is enthusiastic about teaching other kids to fish — and making money doing it.

Our youngest daughter is becoming a beautiful little reader, and our read-aloud time together has honestly become therapeutic for me too. She loves learning on the couch. She loves the resources. She loves that mom is right there. After an interrupted year (spent helping an older sibling through a major injury), she's the one who begged to come back to homeschool, and we returned to our homeschool rhythm and she has flourished. None of my children are behind. They all have time for rest, fun, and real adventure.

On Schedules, Transcripts, and Letting Go of Accreditation Fear

One of the most liberating things I've done is go unaccredited.

It took me years to get there. But once I did, I realized that reading a book counts. Hiking counts. Cooking counts. Learning to trade stocks counts. Studying scripture counts. Watching a science documentary together counts. The transcript is really just a well-organized resume of your child's actual life — and with AI, building one takes less than thirty minutes if you've been tracking things in a spreadsheet.

Admissions officers aren't looking for a rubber stamp. They want to see academic consistency, growth over time, evidence of challenge, strong essays, and integrity. Homeschool transcripts need recognizable course titles, clear progress, and your signature as the administrator. The content inside those courses? That's where you get creative.

A few things worth knowing:

• Dual enrollment classes (college credit in high school) are excellent to include on a transcript.

• Letters of recommendation matter enormously — be intentional about who your child builds relationships with.

• Portfolios of work, activity resumes, and personal essays can carry just as much weight as test scores.

• If your child is an athlete hoping to play in college, an unaccredited transcript paired with a few standard NCAA forms is all that's typically required.

• Community colleges are generally open enrollment — no competition to get in, and they transfer well.

Technology: Your Best Friend and Your Biggest Responsibility

Here's the thing about homeschooling on the internet: most programs require open web access, and expecting a child — especially a teenage boy — to self-regulate on the entire internet is an unrealistic babysitting job.

Our solution is layered:

Separate devices for separate purposes. Our homeschool devices are not entertainment devices. No gaming apps, no social feeds, no blue light. We use Daylight Kids devices — they stream in greyscale, with warm ambient light, no glare, strong battery, and no distracting notifications. They work in full sunshine. They double as an alarm clock at night without any of the risks of a phone in the bedroom. (Coupon code: BUILDCHARACTER.)

Locked cabinets during Prime Time. Gaming devices, laptops, and entertainment tablets go in the cabinet during our core learning hours. When the cabinet is locked, focus happens.

Screentime limits on everything. Apps, social media, entertainment — all of it has limits based on age and maturity. This is not unique to homeschool families. Every household needs this.

A family computer for deep internet work. Password protected, heavily monitored, used only when needed for research or older-kid assignments.

When we finally separated homeschool devices from everything else, peace returned to our home. It's one of the biggest shifts we've made.

A small old phone set up as an AI tutor. When our children encounter difficulties, they quickly find solutions with our favorite new AI apps. These apps are designed for kids, offer parental monitoring, and provide step-by-step hints instead of instant answers to assist in any subject. Grab our recommended AI applications here.

Configure the phone to be restricted, removing all apps except for a few homeschool AI tutors. We named our AI tutor phone "Dexie." She is a family favorite robot. We put her away when we need to. We even found one that works for little kids who can't type. They speak to Dexie and she tutors them.

What Our Homeschool Day Actually Looks Like

Core subjects take less than two hours per day on focused devices. That's it.

We use a mastery-based, proficiency-based program that works for every age from kindergarten up. It covers all four core subjects — English, Math, Science, and Social Studies — and tracks progress automatically. You can tailor it to each child. You can even input ACT scores and it will generate skill targets to improve test performance. It is not accredited, which is a feature, not a bug. Get our homeschool blueprint here.

Here's what we don't worry about anymore:

• Spelling lists (spellcheck exists)

• Memorizing history dates (we engage with the stories instead)

• Grades (mastery-based means you learn it, then move on)

• Falling behind (school travels with us)

• Internet distractions (devices are locked down)

• Burning out (we know our daily minimums and protect them)

• Getting into college (parent diplomas work)

• Social isolation (we get creative and gather people)

• Rush hour (we don't do rush hour anymore)

The Bigger Picture: What Education Is Really For

I'll close with this, because after seven years, it's what I keep coming back to.

As Dallin H. Oaks said:

"Science after all — even when it is true and final and factual — is simply man's discovering of a few things that God already knows and controls in his ordering of the universe. God has not told us all that he knows."

I believe our children need education in four areas, and the order matters:

1. Spiritual — meditation, faith, inner wisdom, prayer, scripture study

2. Social — community, connection, conversation, writing, journaling

3. Physical — well-being, health, movement, sports, nourishment

4. Academic — science, math, history, career preparation, university

Homeschool has given our family the space to pursue all four — not just the one that shows up on a report card.

It's not for every season, and it's not for every family. But if you're even reading this far, you're probably the kind of parent it was made for. The tools are better than ever. The research backs it up. And the kids? They don't want to give it up.

You've got this — just don't try to do it alone.

Questions? Want to know which programs we actually use? Head over to [our detailed homeschool breakdown] where I share everything.

Five minutes a day. That's the investment. Our homeschool tracking workbooks and handwriting & spelling series were designed to be light on time and rich in return — cultivating the kind of diligence, care, and values that compound quietly over years. Built from a Christian worldview, they've woven real peace into the rhythm of our family life. See for yourself — head here.

Head here if you are interested in coaching with Steph.