What if Taking Your Child Out of School Isn’t a Last Resort?

Sam shared an insight in a recent podcast episode that has stayed with me:

“I was immersed in this PDA community, which was very much using the medical model for looking at things and the deficit lens of looking at things. And then in the podcast, you all were taking this totally different lens. You're not doing this because it's a last resort and you have no other choice. It's this intentional way of approaching life differently.”

It’s such a beautiful reframe of a moment that can have you feeling like an intense failure: removing your child from school because you just can’t figure out how to make it work.

I remember that season. A child who deeply dislikes school. Weekday morning struggles to get out the door and grappling with homework in the evenings. Countless meetings with teachers. With principals. Changing schools.

It’s hard to think about anything else other than how to fix it. Fix the child to fit in the school environment. Fix the school environment to fit the child. Find the happy medium in the middle of it all. It’s exhausting and oh so stressful.

But what’s the unquestioned assumption that lies at the root of it all?

That a child has to go to school.

Why? To learn.
Why? That’s where the teachers are.
Why? Because to learn things you need to be taught.
Why? So you can grow up to be a successful adult.

Wow. That one belief is driving a lot of actions!

But is it true?

It can be life-changing to take some time to explore this assumption. Life-changing no matter where you land because now you truly understand that it’s a choice.

To get started, it’s important to set aside what you think you know about the assumption that a child has to go to school. You don’t need to decide it’s wrong up front and throw it away. Just set it down, for now, and be open to other possibilities.

What if your child leaving school is not a failure but the start of a beautiful journey?

If your child has left school, what if the goal isn’t for your child to recover or change or improve enough to return to school?

What if childhood doesn’t require school at all?

Sam describes his journey through this season beautifully, thinking about all these assumptions he had never thought to question before. Is it actually true that school is required? What’s the goal of education and what are other ways of achieving that goal?

Along the way, he discovered our podcast and immersed himself.

“I probably listened to like 150 episodes of the podcast, I’m just walking around the house, the headphones all day, just episode after episode, after episode, everything I’m doing, I’m listening to it. I was just like, I’m not afraid of this anymore.”

As he continued to attend the calls for a PDA class he was taking, he could hear the panic and fear in the voices of the other parents as they shared their stories and he realized that his own feelings of panic and fear had faded.

“Then I joined the Network, really not knowing what to expect, but one thing that really struck me when I joined the Network is nobody in the Network was using any of the same language that I had learned in my PDA curriculum that I had found. But a lot of people were describing similar things that sounded like similar experiences.

And I was just like, wow, this is like a parallel universe over here where we’re dealing with the same human things, but this group of people is taking a completely different mindset and a completely different approach to it. It’s not a crisis. It’s not a problem. We’re just rolling with the phases of life and making adjustments that we have to make.”

What if your child leaving school is not a failure but the start of a beautiful journey?

A journey where your child leaving school isn’t a crisis. It’s not even a niggling problem. It’s your family rolling with the phases of life and working together to figure things out.

Please know that this isn’t meant to be a call for you to “join the Network!”

What I want to share is an invitation to consider the possibility that there are other paths on the map of childhood. Other ways for your child to learn. Other ways for you to be in relationship with them. I want you to know there are choices.

That’s it. I encourage you to just take some time to question the assumption that so many of us absorbed growing up: a child has to go to school. See what you find.

Maybe listen to the podcast to open up the possibilities. There are over 400 episodes now, all here on Substack. Or you can listen in your favourite podcast player.

What’s that quote? Something like, “The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.” (Yes, I looked for attribution.)

Even if your child remains in, or returns to, school, knowing it’s a choice you’re actively making stretches your mind in a way you will never lose.

Your world will be bigger and your relationship with your child better. Really.

We invite you to join us in the Living Joyfully Network, a warm and welcoming online community of like-hearted parents. It’s a non-judgmental space where you can steep in these unconventional ideas around parenting, relationships, and learning, and explore what they might look like day-to-day in your uniquely wonderful family.

We offer a free month trial so you can meet us there and see if it’s a good fit for you. Click here to join us.

“The Network has been so important in our unschooling journey. It has provided me with a safe haven of support and understanding, which I can then radiate out in to my family. It grounds me, calms me and always helps me to see any problems in a different light. It’s the only space where I don’t feel judged and I feel like I’m surrounded by people who genuinely care and want to celebrate our way of life. It helps me to be the kind of Mama I want to be for my children.” ~ Alicia Stanton

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