Why Your Homeschooler Isn’t Buying In

From the Notebook: Field Notes

There is a difference between buy-in and compliance, and I think we get ourselves into trouble when we confuse the two.

Compliance asks:

How do I get this kid to do what I have decided they need to do?

Buy-in asks something different:

How do I create an educational life this kid can understand, participate in, and increasingly take ownership of?

Those are not the same goal.

A child can be perfectly compliant and have very little investment in their own education. They can complete the worksheet, sit through the lesson, get the grade, check the box and still have almost no idea why any of it matters to them.

Likewise, a child who is resisting you isn't necessarily rejecting education.

They may be rejecting this particular version of it.

And that is worth investigating.

First, claim your job as Education Manager

I think this is true whether you are a dyed-in-the-wool homeschool family, solid public-school people, Christian or not, living in India or Northeast Tennessee.

If you are legally responsible for raising this kid, you are managing their education.

That doesn't mean you have to personally provide all of it.

It means you are the person responsible for continually asking:

Where can this child thrive in their childhood and their education right now?

Not where did I dream they would go to school.

Not what does my homeschool community think we should do.

Not what did their older sibling do.

Not even what worked beautifully last year.

What is the most effective educational environment I can reasonably provide for this particular child, this particular year, with the resources, capacity, finances, transportation, time and energy we actually have?

That's a question worth asking again every year.

Because kids change.

Families change.

Needs change.

Resources change.

Sometimes homeschooling is absolutely the answer.

Sometimes public school is.

Sometimes it's private school, a co-op, a microschool, an online program or some glorious Frankenstein combination of all of the above.

Being committed to your child's education does not require being committed to one delivery system forever.

In fact, sometimes the bravest thing we can do as parents is admit that the education we imagined for our child isn't the education that child needs right now.

Does your kid know what you're trying to do?

This sounds ridiculously obvious, but adults do this to children all the time.

We decide what they are going to learn, buy the curriculum, organize the schedule, set up the workspace and then announce:

Okay! School starts Monday!

And from the child's perspective, an enormous system has just descended upon their life.

Before asking for buy-in, try showing them the map.

What are we hoping to accomplish this year?

What do we want you to know?

What do we want you to become more capable of doing?

What experiences do we want you to have?

What responsibilities will increasingly become yours?

Make those goals visible. Talk about them in language your child can understand.

Kids deserve to know what we're asking them to spend their time doing—and why.

Once they understand the destination, they can begin participating in decisions about how to get there.

They don't have to choose everything. But they should probably choose something.

Here's where conversations about child-led learning sometimes get unnecessarily complicated.

No, your ten-year-old does not necessarily get to announce:

Fractions don't really resonate with me. I've decided to opt out.

Some things are non-negotiable.

But there is a tremendous amount of territory between “the child decides everything” and “the child decides nothing.”

Maybe learning fractions is non-negotiable.

How might not be.

Would they rather learn them through cooking?

Woodworking?

Games?

A workbook?

Manipulatives?

An online lesson?

Working beside you?

Working with someone who is decidedly not you?

Same educational objective.

Different pathway.

That is real ownership.

And this isn't exclusive to homeschooling.

A child attending public school may not choose the school or the required subjects, but perhaps they can choose electives, extracurricular activities, project topics, books, clubs, sports, study routines or where they do homework.

The question isn't:

How much control should children have?

A better question might be:

Where does real choice exist here, and how much of it can I reasonably hand over?

Don't offer fake choices.

But don't hold onto decisions that don't actually need to belong to you, either.

Maybe your homeschooler isn't the problem

This is the part I wish we talked about more.

When a child consistently refuses, avoids, melts down, procrastinates, wanders away, argues or simply shuts down around school, that behavior is giving us information.

Sometimes the information really is:

I would rather play Minecraft.

Fair enough.

But curiosity should probably come before correction.

Can this child see well?

Hear well?

Sleep well?

Is the work actually at the right developmental level?

Are they hungry?

Exhausted?

Overstimulated?

Understimulated?

Are they moving their body enough?

Are there developmental differences or delays that need attention?

Is there so much tension elsewhere in their life that there isn't much capacity left for long division?

Think about the basic human needs underneath education, too.

Does this child feel safe?

Do they have adequate food, rest and physical space?

Do they feel like they belong somewhere?

Do they have a friend?

Not seventeen friends.

One.

Is there one person roughly their age who genuinely likes them and whom they genuinely like?

What is happening between siblings?

How much individual adult attention does this child receive compared with how much individual attention this particular child seems to need?

These things may appear unrelated to curriculum.

They aren't.

A kid with a giant unmet need will usually experience that need as far more important than whatever is happening on page 84 of the math book.

You don't have to be everything your child needs

This may be particularly important for homeschool parents to hear.

Choosing homeschooling does not mean agreeing to personally fulfill every educational, social, emotional, physical and developmental need your child will have.

You couldn't.

None of us could.

Your job as Education Manager isn't to be the entire ecosystem.

Your job is to help build one.

If your child needs more interaction than you can reasonably provide, who else can become part of their world?

A grandparent.

An aunt.

A neighbor.

A coach.

A tutor.

A music teacher.

A 4-H leader.

A homeschool co-op.

A farmer.

A mentor.

Another family.

A local business owner who knows everything there is to know about the thing your kid suddenly cannot stop talking about.

Finding good people to help meet your child's needs isn't failing at homeschooling.

It's community.

And while you're looking at all those relationships, look carefully at your own.

Ask yourself:

What does this child have that is special with just me?

Not school.

Not chores.

Not corrections.

Not driving them somewhere.

Something that belongs to the two of you.

Maybe you make pancakes on Saturday mornings.

Maybe you garden.

Maybe you watch terrible movies.

Maybe you fish.

Maybe you take the dog for a walk.

Maybe you go get a drink somewhere and sit in the car talking nonsense.

Protect some part of the relationship from becoming educational management.

Because when nearly every interaction with Mom becomes Did you finish your math?, math may not be the only thing experiencing a buy-in problem.

So what does buy-in actually look like?

I don't think successful buy-in means a child wakes up every morning overcome with gratitude for the educational opportunities you have lovingly curated.

Children are still children.

Sometimes they don't want to do things.

Sometimes the thing they don't want to do still needs to be done.

I'm more interested in the trajectory.

Over time, is this child increasingly participating in their own education?

Do they understand why they're doing things?

Do they contribute ideas?

Express preferences?

Ask questions?

Develop interests?

Recognize their strengths?

Recognize where they need help?

Make choices?

Learn to tolerate necessary things they don't particularly enjoy?

Take increasing responsibility?

Does their voice have some actual consequence in their educational life?

Those things tell me considerably more about educational effectiveness than simple obedience does.

Eventually, hand over the clipboard

When children are little, we manage nearly everything.

Then, slowly, they participate.

Eventually they help make substantial decisions.

And if we've done our jobs well, somewhere along the way our role begins changing from manager to consultant.

Because ultimately, the person we're trying to teach to manage this child's education...

is the child.

That is why buy-in matters so much.

Not because it makes homeschooling easier.

Not because kids who have ownership never complain.

Not because every lesson suddenly becomes delightful.

Buy-in matters because education is ultimately supposed to belong to the person being educated.

Our job is to create the conditions in which they can thrive, remove barriers where we reasonably can, provide meaningful choices where choices actually exist, and stay curious when something isn't working.

And then, little by little, start handing them the clipboard.

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FROM THE NOTEBOOK | FIELD NOTES Observations, questions and practical ideas from Regenerate Education Lab about how children learn, grow, work and belong.