Welcome to The Educating Parent Beverley Paine's archive of articles about homeschooling and unschooling written over a period of 30 plus years

Free download a quick guide to getting started with homeschooling and unschooling by Beverley Paine The Educating Parent in this excellent Resource Directory
Introduction to
Home Education

 

Free directory of Australian homeschooling and unschooling support groups organised by national, state and territories National and State
Support Groups

 

Plan, record and report all in the one document! Always Learning Books planners available in each year level to suit your homeschooling needs, includes curriculum checklists
Yearly Planner, Diary & Report

Let Beverley and friends help you design and write your own curriculum to suit your child's individual learning needs, learn how to prepare lessons, unit studies and more, record and evaluate your children's learning in this series of 3 parent workbooks developed on Beverley's popular homeschool manual Getting Started with Home School Practical Considerations

Homeschool Course for Parents

this Always Learning Year 7 Plan is everything you need to get started a comprehensive collection of curriculum aligned resources and links to activities, lesson plans and unit studies for your year 7 homeschooling student
Homeschool Learning Plans
go back to The Educating Parent home page click here to learn more about what The Educating Parent offers to help you start and continue your awesome homeschooling or unschooling adventure click here to subscribe to Beverley's substack blog with new entries added every other day click here to join the largest Australian online homeschool community The Educating Parents Homeschooling and Unschooling Facebook group

Should you send your young child to school if he asks to go?

"I'm really keen to homeschool my 3.5 year old, but lately he has been asking to go to school and preschool."

by Beverley Paine, May 2019

Home educated kids often ask if they can try school, or express an interest in it and want to go. Going to school is normal - it is what most kids do. And like most things they see around them, they're keen to find out about it. Consider this though: as toddlers they mad keen to help you with the chores but by the time they reached five and understood that it wasn't really playing, it was actually work, and that they need to be done everyday or most days even if you didn't want to do them, the shine had rubbed off doing the chores. School's a bit like that too.

This curiosity about school is something that comes and goes as kids grow through various stages of development. There are times when during our development we're full steam ahead learning everything that matters socially and we need to knock about with a range of people. Notice I said range of people. These people don't need to be same age peers!

School does satisfy this need, but the need isn't always present. Trouble is, school is. Preschool is okay because for most youngsters it's only one or two days a week, or a couple of hours each morning. There is plenty of down time to reflect, evaluate and process social, emotional, moral and intellectual experiences and learning. Most preschoolers move up to 'big school' at age five and for many this is developmentally early to be at school 6-7 hours a day, 5 days a week. It is convenient and handy, especially in our economic climate where it takes two incomes to pay the mortgage or rent and the never-ending bills.

My daughter showed a huge need for learning from other people at age 3-4 years, and between 4-6 she very much withdrew, was content to hang out with her parents and her siblings. At 6-7 she had another massive need for social learning. Over the years we noticed that other kids seemed to go through similar stages at about the same developmental age.

It's not too hard to meet this need because it is a social learning one and people learn from all people, not just same-aged peers. We simply get out and about more, among people, all sorts of people, for all sorts of reasons.

Sure, the media (books, TV, movies, games, etc) push school as THE thing kids want to do, but schools have only been around for a couple of centuries - how did kids learn social skills before school became compulsory? From a range of different people as they moved in and around their communities, doing what kids do - playing, and especially playing games that mimic the work and lives of adults.

We can protect our kids from exposure to this school-biased media but that's really difficult. A much better solution is to get out there, into the community. Hang out in different local playgrounds on the weekend - you'll meet a ton of parents and their kids. Go to cafes every so often. Visit museums. Go for walks around your neighbourhood, stop and pat dogs and chat to their owners and your neighbours. Invite other home educating families to visit you. Set up a few excursions to places you like going with your family, or want to visit as part of your home educating program. Take the kids food shopping with you.

And lastly, play 'school' at home. Set up some desks, take turns being the teacher. Create a school uniform. Pack lunches. Younger children love playing this game. We know what school is like and they don't. So share your memories and experiences with them in a fun way.

Browse our comprehensive library of articles!

keep up to date with new posts to this website daily by clicking here to subscribe

Support Groups: National SA VICWANSW QLD TAS ACT NT
Registration Guides: VIC NSW QLD SA WA TAS ACT NT

Looking for support, reassurance and information? Join Beverley's
The Educating Parents Homeschooling and Unschooling Facebook

Need a ready made homeschool learning plan in a hurry for your homeschool registration? Try one of ours!

Need a ready made homeschool learning plan in a hurry for your homeschool registration? Try one of our Always Learning Books homeschool year level learning plans, packed with links to FREE lesson plans, unit studies and activities for each curriculum subject area, hundreds of suggestions, use what you want, only $18

Want to learn how to write your own education plans to suit your unique children's individual learning needs?

itap into Beverley's four decades of home educating experience and learn how to write your own homeschool curriculum and learning plans to suit your child's and your family's individual needs, a complete how to homeschool course for parents in 3 self paced workbooks each focusing on a different aspect of home educating, planning, recording, evaluating and creating lesson plans image shows 3 workbooks, plus samples of pages, and 3 children walking in bushland

The Educating Parent acknowledges Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders past and present.

click here to become a Fearless Homeschool member giving you access to all past summit workshops as well as exciting new content and webinars, online discussion platform, and more

Twinkl downloadable Home education resources helping you teach confidently at home

say goodbye to home education registration stress with this ultimate rego bundle from Fearless Homeschool

make homeschooling a lot easier, zero to homeschool's excellent course is here to help

go back to The Educating Parent home page click here to learn more about what The Educating Parent offers to help you start and continue your awesome homeschooling or unschooling adventure click here to subscribe to Beverley's substack blog with new entries added every other day click here to join the largest Australian online homeschool community The Educating Parents Homeschooling and Unschooling Facebook group

The information on this website is of a general nature only and is not intended as personal or professional advice. This site merges and incorporates 'Homeschool Australia' and 'Unschool Australia'.

The opinions and articles included on this website are not necessarily those of Beverley Paine, The Educating Parent and April Jermey Always Learning Books, nor do they endorse or recommend products listed in contributed articles, pages, or advertisements on pages within this website.

Without revenue from advertising by educational suppliers and Google Ads we could not continue to provide information to home educators. Please support us by letting our advertisers know that you found them on The Educating Parent. Thanks!

Affiliate links are used on this site that take you to products or services outside of this site. Beverley Paine The Educating Parent and April Jermey Always Learning Books assume no responsibility for those purchases or returns of products or services as a result of using these affiliate links. Please review products and services completely prior to purchasing through these links. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question before purchasing or signing up.

Text and images on this site © All Rights Reserved 1999-2025