One Size Doesn’t Fit All: How My Two Kids Taught Me to Rethink Homeschool Goals
This has been on my mind today…
When I first started homeschooling, I thought my kids would more or less need the same kind of structure. Same curriculum, same goals, same “system.” What I learned very quickly is that no two brains work the same way — even when they’re siblings.
My son, Gavin, has always been a dawdler and a daydreamer. He’ll happily sit with a math page for an hour — but not because he’s focused. He might be staring at a butterfly out the window or lost in his thoughts about the Lego project waiting for him in the other room. For him, saying “Do 20 minutes of math” was a recipe for wasted time. His strength was that once he actually did the work, he could get through it. So instead of giving him time-based goals, I gave him task-based ones: “Do 8 math questions.” If he worked steadily, that took about 20 minutes. If he dawdled, it might take an hour. But either way, the goal was clear and doable.
Grace, on the other hand, is wired completely differently. She has dyslexia and dyscalculia, which make reading and math both more difficult and much more tiring. For her, telling her “Do 8 math questions” was overwhelming. It felt like a mountain. What worked for her was time. If I said, “Do 20 minutes,” she’d buckle down and focus — because she wanted to finish and move on with her day. Sometimes she’d get through 8 questions, sometimes only 2. But I knew she’d be working hard the whole time, and by the end of that 20 minutes, she’d be at her limit.
That’s the beauty of homeschooling. I didn’t have to nag Gavin to hurry up, and I didn’t have to push Grace to burnout. They each got a plan that fit their brain. The goals were different, but the value was the same: honoring their process while still moving forward.
There is no one-size-fits-all way to learn. And as parents, when we shift from “making school fit the child” to “making learning fit the child,” everything changes.
? Lindsey
Certified Special-Ed Educator & Co-Founder, Schoolio