Deschooling is the process of letting go of public school conditioning before beginning your homeschool journey. It’s a crucial step for both parents and children, allowing you to shift your mindset and reset your approach to learning before introducing academics. Rather than diving straight into researching curriculum, learning styles, or co-ops, taking the time to deschool can help create a strong foundation for your homeschooling experience.
In this post, we’ll explore what deschooling is, why it’s important, how long it should last, its ultimate goal, and when to start incorporating academics after a deschooling period.
What is Deschooling
Deschooling is a time period of relearning, refocusing, and reconnecting with yourself and children. Deschooling gives you the opportunity to see that there is a difference between school and learning. If you spent time in the public school system, you are used to school starting at this time, lunch at this time, and school ends at this time. These start and stop times are usually signaled by a bell and everyone is aware of what to do and what the expectations are.
Deschooling is a period without school work to start building trust with yourself as the mother and to build up your family connection with your children and the kids with their siblings. Basically, while you are deschooling, you are just learning to live together as family home all together all day. When do your kids usually wake up? When do they usually go to sleep? How many snacks do your children need between meals? How do your children like to learn? What excites them? What inspires their curiosity? This deschooling period gives you time to learn about your children, yourself, and be able to answer these questions so you can make more educated homeschool decisions.
Why You Should Deschool
If you are bringing your children home from school, many kids will need a decompression period. The deschooling period gives your children an opportunity to learn a new way of life – a slower way of life with more freedom. They need time to realize that their whole day won’t be planned out, and it allows the mom to focus on nonacademic learning. For example, you could focus on your children’s health, life skills, and reinforcing positive behaviors. If you’d like to read more about how the public school system operates and its impact on students, I recommend reading Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto. When you understand how these processes aren’t serving our children, you realize why we need to deschool and show them a new way of life.
How Long to Deschool
Every family will have a different answer when it comes to how long you will need to deschool. It is recommended that you deschool for 1 week to 1 month for every year your child attended public school. Depending on how long it takes your family to get in a rhythm will decide on when you start introducing academics into your family. I wanted to provide some things to look out for while you are deschooling so you can keep an eye on how things are going and make an educated decision for when to transition from deschooling to homeschooling.
The main thing you will want to wait for is when as a family you are having more good days than bad days. This will take a different amount of time for every family, considering how many siblings there are, how long they were in school, and how much time it takes for the novelty of being home instead of school to wear out.
Look out for how hard it is for you to slow down during the day. Do you find it hard not to rush your kids into the next thing? I struggled with this and knew I needed to relearn this before we started homeschooling. For you, it might be a struggle with preparing and cleaning up 3 meals and snacks. When you are all home together, there will be something that will need to be relearned, and when slowing down is natural for you, know that you are heading in the right direction.
While you are deschooling you might start comparing yourself and your kids to other families, parents, or children. You want to make sure you are doing enough and the deschooling period can certainly make you feel like you are not doing enough but it is a crucial aspect of getting your homeschooling off on the right foot. Comparison will most likely be something that you battle for your whole homeschooling journey but try to put blinders on and trust that you are doing enough for your family.
Lastly, you will want to look out for your child’s interests. You should be able to see what kind of games they play, shows they watch, and books they read. Make a note of these interests and see how you can start making connections with these interests. Knowing their interests and building this mother-child connection will serve you greatly when you start introducing academics. Once you are able to spot an interest and start connecting over it with ease, this is another sign your deschool process is a success.
The Goal of Deschooling
The main goals of Deschooling are to decompress from your time in public school. A time to relearn your child and how your family will be doing life together every day. While you are relearning your child and family, you will notice behaviors that need corrected, where they might have academic gaps, or how much they know on a particular subject.
After you have the opportunity to relearn your family, you can refocus on your family’s values and beliefs. You can start turning the focus off schedules and rigorous academic expectations to fill a day and turn on natural curiosity. You can start encouraging your children to refocus on the things that interest them and discover how that interest can teach them so much.
Another major goal of deschooling is to reconnect with your family and build trust with yourself. Reconnecting may take the longest, depending on how long your children were in school. Reconnecting looks like playing board games together, reading a book together, sharing a documentary, or taking walks. You will want to take time to rebuild a connection and trust that you can teach your children before you start homeschooling.
A few books that I would recommend the parent read during the deschooling period are:
When To Start Encorporating Academcis
When you are noticing more good days than bad and your children are able getting bored during the day in my opinion would be a good time to slowly start incorporating academics into your day. I would recommend to start slowly with one subject a day for a week and add a new subject the following week. It will take some adjusting for your children to view you as teacher as well as mother and will want to ease into academics.
When I first started homeschooling I stayed with the core subjects Lanaguage arts and math. Everything else was learned through natural exploration like videos and books. I wanted to teach my children that school is never done and that education is a part of life. I often wouldn’t even announce that we were doing school and they would just come to the table curious as to what I was setting out.
Final Thoughts On Deschooling
Deschooling is a powerful and necessary step in transitioning from public school to homeschooling. It’s not just about taking a break from academics—it’s about rediscovering your family’s rhythm, rebuilding trust, and shifting your mindset from school-based learning to a lifestyle of education.
Throughout this process, you’ll learn so much about your children—what excites them, how they process information, and what truly captures their curiosity. You’ll also learn about yourself as a homeschooling parent, recognizing the areas where you need to grow and giving yourself grace as you adjust.
It’s important to remember that deschooling looks different for every family, and there’s no perfect timeline. Trust the process. Let go of the pressure to replicate school at home, and instead, embrace a new way of learning—one that is rich with connection, exploration, and joy.
When you start noticing more good days than bad, when your children’s natural curiosity starts to bloom, and when your home feels like a place of learning rather than just another version of school, you’ll know that deschooling has done its job. At that point, you can start introducing academics slowly and intentionally, creating an education that truly serves your family.
Homeschooling is a journey, not a race. Give yourself permission to ease into it, and know that every step you take is shaping a beautiful, lifelong love of learning for your children. You are more than capable of leading them on this path. You’ve got this!
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