32 Years of Homeschooling

32 Years of Homeschooling

아이의 호기심을 지켜주는 법|: What Ms. Sundae Taught Me (Again!) | Episode 10 (2026)

Four years ago, I invited Ms. Sundae onto The More Sibyl Podcast to talk about homeschooling. I remember listening to her describe her experience while quietly thinking, Good for you, ma’am, but this could NEVER be me. I meant it, too. I’ve always believed in building community and connecting people to resources, even when those resources have absolutely nothing to do with me. So I happily interviewed her, shared her wisdom with our listeners, received wonderful feedback, and carried on with my life.

Fast-forward four years, and guess who found herself homeschooling her daughter in South Korea? Yours truly! And listen, I was struggling. Between my Fulbright research, caring for a baby, managing my daughter’s education, and keeping up with my other responsibilities, some mornings felt like I was running a school I had never applied to operate. Suddenly, the woman whose advice I’d once listened to purely for other people’s benefit was exactly the person I needed. So I invited her back, this time with a rather selfish agenda. I had questions, plenty of them, and I was prepared to take notes.

Ms. Sundae was completing her 32nd year of homeschooling six children, with her youngest approaching graduation. Thirty-two years! At this point, if she had been teaching in a conventional school, we’d probably be discussing her retirement benefits. Meanwhile, I was barely surviving one child. But what I appreciated about our conversation was that she didn’t present homeschooling as some perfect educational arrangement. She talked about mistakes, exhaustion, adjusting expectations, and learning to trust her children’s different paths. And somewhere along the way, she challenged several assumptions I didn’t even realize I was carrying.

How It All Began

Ms. Sundae’s homeschooling journey began partly because of her own experiences with bullying in elementary school. She wanted something different for her children, and when she heard a radio broadcast about homeschooling on Focus on the Family, she became curious. Interestingly, when she mentioned it to her husband, she discovered he had listened to the same broadcast. They took that as encouragement to explore an educational path neither knew much about.

This was long before YouTube tutorials, online curriculum reviews, and the countless homeschooling communities available today. When they moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, she attended her first homeschooling convention and was completely overwhelmed by the options. Eventually, she chose a curriculum and figured things out as she went along. She still remembers those conventions fondly, particularly the opportunity to meet other homeschooling mothers, examine books, share meals, and seek advice from parents who had been doing it for years. Although the internet has made homeschooling resources more accessible, she feels something has been lost in those face-to-face interactions. I thought that was an interesting observation because having more resources doesn’t necessarily make a decision easier, especially when you’re already overwhelmed by the responsibility of educating your children.

Why Are More Families Choosing Homeschooling?

One of our listeners wanted to know why more Americans, particularly families of color, are choosing to homeschool. Ms. Sundae was careful not to speak for everyone. Her own decision began with concerns about bullying, but she recognized that families have different motivations, including dissatisfaction with conventional schooling and the desire for greater involvement in their children’s education.

I added another dimension to the conversation, particularly for Black families. Research has documented racial disparities in school discipline, including situations where Black students receive harsher consequences than their White peers for similar behaviors. There are also concerns about the underidentification of giftedness among Black and Brown children and the ways learning or behavioral differences may be misunderstood. For families navigating both racial inequities and neurodivergence, homeschooling may offer more control over the learning environment and pace of instruction. Of course, it is not automatically the best solution for every family, particularly when parents may lack the time, resources, or specialized training their children need.

For Ms. Sundae, homeschooling eventually became about much more than protecting her children from bullying. Her husband was creative and artistic, and conventional schooling hadn’t worked particularly well for him. Five of their six children inherited much of that creativity, and she appreciated being able to give them time to pursue their interests. She also loved that her children, despite the considerable age differences between them, grew up spending time together and getting to know one another. What began as an educational decision became a family lifestyle.

Your Curriculum, Your Rules?

One of my biggest frustrations during my homeschooling experience was the structure of the program I’d selected. Because we were temporarily living in Korea, I wanted my daughter to remain aligned with the American curriculum so that returning to school in Oklahoma would be relatively seamless. I enrolled her in Epic, an Oklahoma virtual schooling program, without fully appreciating how much daily oversight and participation would be involved.

There were daily check-ins, assignments, fifteen minutes each of reading and mathematics on designated platforms, attendance requirements, and even a little dance celebration after completing certain tasks. It sounds manageable until you have a child who needs considerably more time to understand some concepts, a baby demanding your attention, and a research appointment waiting for you. Some activities that were supposed to take thirty minutes stretched into hours. I was constantly trying to balance completing the assignments with ensuring my daughter actually understood what she was learning.

So naturally, I asked Ms. Sundae how she’d managed to meet curriculum requirements while homeschooling six children. Her response surprised me because she had never used a program like mine. She selected her own materials, designed her schedule, and adjusted instruction based on her children’s progress. She also explained that homeschooling laws differ across American states, and parents need to understand the requirements where they live. Her approach in Texas and Oklahoma allowed considerable independence, while mine came with the additional expectations of the virtual school I’d chosen.

I hadn’t fully understood that distinction before enrolling my daughter. Here I was assuming homeschooling meant following a prescribed set of lessons, while Ms. Sundae had spent decades doing something quite different. I should have paid closer attention when she explained all this during our first interview!

One of the most interesting things she shared was how she handled grades. Her oldest daughter couldn’t have cared less whether she received a 5 or a 100, while her second daughter was devastated by anything less than a perfect score. Recognizing that grades weren’t helping either child, Ms. Sundae developed what she called the smiley-face system. When her children completed an assignment, she reviewed it and returned anything that needed correction. They kept working until they understood the material, at which point she drew a smiley face. Her daughters decorated theirs with bows, while her sons added scars and other embellishments. The system was simple, but it helped her track mastery without making every assignment about achieving a particular score. She eventually introduced grades when her children reached high school and needed transcripts.

I found this fascinating because we often focus so heavily on grades that we forget to ask whether children actually understand what they’ve been taught. Her system also acknowledged that children respond differently to evaluation. One child may be motivated by scores, while another becomes unnecessarily anxious about them. What works beautifully for one child may be entirely unsuitable for another.

Learning Through Play and Everyday Experiences

This was one of the more interesting parts of our conversation because Ms. Sundae strongly believes that young children should have plenty of opportunities to learn through play, especially before the ages of seven or eight. I jokingly told her that, as a Nigerian, fun and learning weren’t necessarily two things I grew up expecting to find in the same sentence. You went to school to learn, and you played when you were done. Sometimes even the playing came with instructions!

Ms. Sundae challenged that assumption by explaining that children are constantly learning through their interactions with the world. She introduced me to unschooling, an educational philosophy associated with John Holt that emphasizes children’s natural curiosity and interests. She described her own approach as structured unschooling because, although she valued child-led exploration, she also believed children needed to understand that learning sometimes requires effort, discipline, and persistence.

What she wanted me to recognize was that opportunities for learning exist everywhere. When children notice ants during a walk, parents can encourage them to explore what the insects are doing. When they’re curious about clouds, that curiosity can become a conversation about weather. Cooking offers opportunities to discuss measurement, chemistry, and changes in matter, while grocery shopping can introduce mathematics and economics.

That last example resonated with me because I’d already been doing something similar with my daughter in Korea. Whenever we went shopping, I’d sometimes give her a budget and ask her to make choices. If she bought one item, she might have to give up something else. Without necessarily calling it that, I was introducing her to opportunity cost. Ms. Sundae expanded on this by describing how she compared prices and package sizes aloud while shopping with her children, showing them that the largest package isn’t always the cheapest per unit and explaining how percentages work when items are discounted.

She also shared a lovely example involving one of her daughters, who was studying the systems of the human body. Rather than assigning another worksheet, Ms. Sundae asked her to create a model using toys they already had at home. The resulting project was remarkably creative, but what impressed Ms. Sundae most was listening to her daughter explain why she’d arranged the figures the way she had. That explanation demonstrated how well the child understood the concepts. Interestingly, Ms. Sundae admitted that she’d partly given her daughter the project because she needed time to help a younger sibling. Sometimes necessity really is the mother of invention!

We also discussed the Charlotte Mason educational approach, particularly its emphasis on nature, observation, journaling, and learning from experiences outside the classroom. Ms. Sundae encouraged parents to explore different philosophies without feeling obligated to adopt any one approach completely. Her own homeschooling practice evolved as she discovered what worked for her family, and she believed other parents should have the freedom to do the same.

When Your Child Takes Longer to Learn

This was an especially meaningful part of the conversation for me because I had been wrestling with the gap between what my daughter’s curriculum expected and what she could comfortably manage at a given time. Ms. Sundae shared the experience of her oldest daughter, who struggled with fractions for an entire year. The curriculum she was using emphasized that fractions were foundational to more advanced mathematics, so rather than push her daughter forward without understanding the concepts, she continued working with her until they finally clicked. Once that happened, her daughter progressed much more quickly through subsequent material.

She also described another daughter who was still struggling to read around third grade. At the time, Ms. Sundae was managing several competing demands and couldn’t give her daughter the attention she needed. Once she was able to devote more focused time to reading instruction, her daughter’s skills improved considerably. By fourth grade, she was reading enthusiastically and eventually became one of the family’s most avid readers.

Ms. Sundae’s broader message was that children sometimes need more time than we expect, and parents shouldn’t automatically interpret slower progress as an indication of limited ability. She had learned this through years of adjusting instruction, managing family responsibilities, and watching her children develop at different rates. However, I think it’s important to distinguish between children progressing at different developmental speeds and children who may have learning disabilities or other challenges requiring specialized support. Patience and flexibility are important, but they shouldn’t replace timely assessment or evidence-based intervention when a child needs them.

What I took away was the importance of understanding the child in front of you rather than becoming fixated on a timetable. There are times when persistence is necessary, times when an instructional approach needs to change, and times when additional professional support is essential. Our responsibility as parents is to recognize those differences rather than assume every child should progress in exactly the same way.

Homeschooling Burnout and the Pressure to Do Everything

One of Ms. Sundae’s most candid admissions was that she nearly burned out her first child by trying to do too much. She had been so focused on covering material and ensuring that homeschooling looked a certain way that she eventually realized the experience was becoming counterproductive. She stopped and asked herself what she actually wanted to accomplish through homeschooling. Her answer was that she wanted to raise lifelong learners, children who enjoyed acquiring knowledge and could continue educating themselves long after formal schooling ended.

That decision changed how she approached teaching. Reading and mathematics became foundational priorities, and she increasingly encouraged her children to pursue subjects that interested them. She didn’t force them to finish every book they started. Instead, she allowed them to explore different genres and abandon books that didn’t capture their interest. Interestingly, she said they rarely abandoned books. Her oldest daughter developed an appetite for mythology, fairy tales from different cultures, cookbooks, and classic literature, eventually reading much of Shakespeare on her own.

Ms. Sundae also acknowledged how exhausting homeschooling could become, especially when she had several young children at home. She remembered periods when the house was a mess, the children needed constant attention, and she was simply trying to get through the day. Her husband’s support was especially important during those seasons. He helped where he could and reassured her that she was doing well, even when the house didn’t look particularly organized. She also described how caring for an elderly family member sometimes disrupted their normal routine and left her wondering whether her children’s education was suffering.]

I appreciated her willingness to discuss these experiences because homeschooling is often presented as either an idyllic family arrangement or an unreasonable burden. Her reality contained elements of both. She loved what she was doing, but it required considerable time, emotional energy, flexibility, and family support. Even after decades of experience, she sometimes questioned whether she’d done enough. Her adult children have occasionally had to reassure her that they’re doing well and that she can stop second-guessing every decision.

Apparently, thirty-two years of experience still doesn’t completely eliminate mother guilt!

Supporting Children Who Learn Differently

I asked Ms. Sundae what advice she would give parents whose children struggle with focus, attention, or traditional instructional approaches. This was particularly relevant to my own experience because some days my daughter could move through lessons fairly smoothly, while on other days the same activities required repeated explanations, breaks, and considerable encouragement.

Ms. Sundae suggested several practical approaches she’d used over the years. Sometimes she stopped a lesson and returned to it later. At other times, she changed the environment by taking the children to the library or teaching outside. When they lived in Texas, she occasionally spread a blanket under a tree and continued lessons there. She tried something similar in Oklahoma but quickly discovered that the wind wasn’t particularly cooperative.

Her larger point was that parents need to be willing to acknowledge when an approach isn’t working. She explained that strategies that worked well for one child weren’t necessarily suitable for another, and even the same child might respond differently as they grew older. She encouraged parents to reconsider their methods rather than forcing children through something that consistently produced frustration.

One of my favorite moments came when she described having her older children help teach their younger siblings. One day, an older child approached her, thoroughly exasperated, complaining that she’d taught her sibling the same thing four times and the child still couldn’t remember it the following day. Ms. Sundae had to bite her tongue because she wanted to say, Now you know exactly what I’ve been dealing with! I laughed because I could relate. There are moments when you’ve explained a concept repeatedly and genuinely wonder what else you can possibly say to make it understandable.

Of course, children who experience persistent attention or learning difficulties may need more than a change of scenery or a different teaching style. Specialized instruction, accommodations, and professional guidance may be necessary. But Ms. Sundae’s practical examples reinforced something I needed to remember: frustration is information. When an approach repeatedly fails, we need to examine what’s happening rather than simply demand that the child try harder.

What About Socialization?

One of our listeners asked how homeschooled children develop friendships and social skills outside a traditional classroom. Ms. Sundae seemed amused by the question because, for her family, socialization had been one of the most enjoyable aspects of homeschooling.

Her children participated in library programs, church activities, sports, physical education classes, and homeschooling co-ops. She spoke fondly of friendships she had developed while waiting for her children at library activities, some of which have lasted for years. Her youngest son was particularly social, so she intentionally sought additional opportunities for him to spend time with other children. At one co-op, he took Spanish lessons and arrived early enough to have lunch with his friends.

Her daughters eventually began teaching sewing and crochet classes at a co-op, which I thought was a lovely example of how homeschooling communities can become intergenerational spaces for learning and sharing skills. The co-op she described offered everything from art and theater to music, history, cooking, and practical crafts. It reminded me somewhat of the private academy my daughter attended in Korea, where she had access to several extracurricular activities in one building.

Of course, these opportunities aren’t equally accessible to every family. Location, finances, transportation, and available community resources all matter. Nevertheless, Ms. Sundae’s experience demonstrated that socialization can happen in many settings beyond the traditional classroom, particularly when parents make intentional efforts to create those opportunities.

Six Children, Six Different Paths

Toward the end of our conversation, I asked Ms. Sundae to brag about her children. After thirty-two years, I thought she’d earned the right! I expected to hear about degrees, professional accomplishments, and other conventional indicators of success. Instead, she began by describing their relationships with one another.

She talked about how her daughters show up when a sibling with a newborn needs help, how the family has embraced a book club and regular family fun days, and how her oldest daughter prepares elaborate meals inspired by different cultures. She also remembered evenings when the electricity went out, and the children gathered around the table playing games, sometimes while one of them made candles. What stood out was how much they seemed to enjoy one another’s company, even as adults pursuing very different lives.

Eventually, she told me about their careers and interests. Her oldest was pursuing midwifery through doula training. Her second daughter was an artist creating comics and commissioned illustrations for games. Her third had established an Etsy business designing plushies and clothing and was also teaching sewing. Her fourth designed and sold crochet patterns while helping with the family business. Her fifth pursued technical training and found work repairing manufacturing machinery, quickly earning significant responsibility as an apprentice. Her youngest was studying carpentry and working toward becoming an Eagle Scout.

I found their different paths fascinating, particularly because so many of their adult interests could be traced back to activities Ms. Sundae had allowed them to explore while growing up. The children who loved drawing, sewing, crochet, cooking, and working with their hands had opportunities to develop those interests, and some eventually turned them into careers or businesses.

When I asked about conventional measures of success, Ms. Sundae explained that she had never made wealth the primary goal for her children. She wanted them to develop useful skills, discover what they enjoyed, and build meaningful lives. This wasn’t an argument against academic achievement or financial success, but a reminder that there are different ways to define a successful education.

One of the most memorable things she said was that she doesn’t merely love her children; she genuinely likes them. She enjoys their company and appreciates the adults they’ve become. I thought that was a beautiful distinction, especially because parenting can become so focused on what we want our children to achieve that we sometimes forget to appreciate who they are becoming.

Life After Homeschooling

Ms. Sundae is approaching a major transition. With her youngest nearing graduation, the daily routine that has occupied much of her adult life is coming to an end. When I asked what she planned to do next, she admitted she was still figuring it out. Homeschooling had been an enormous part of her life, but she had also maintained interests outside her children’s education, including volunteering and studying Korean language and culture.

In fact, Korean school was how we originally met. She explained that she had always tried to continue doing things she enjoyed rather than abandoning those interests because she was homeschooling. Her children often participated in or observed those activities, and some developed similar interests themselves. She felt that this helped them develop shared experiences and gave her opportunities to model lifelong learning.

She made a point that stayed with me: if you want your children to read, they should see you reading. If you want them to learn another language, they should see you learning. If you believe education is important, your own actions should reflect that belief.

I had spent much of my homeschooling experience resisting the idea that it needed to become my primary identity. I was still a researcher, professor, podcaster, and mother, and I had no intention of abandoning those responsibilities because I’d temporarily taken on my daughter’s education. I joked during our conversation that I was merely cosplaying as a homeschooling mother until we returned to Oklahoma and I could hand that responsibility back to the professionals!

She made a point that stayed with me: if you want your children to read, they should see you reading. If you want them to learn another language, they should see you learning. If you believe education is important, your own actions should reflect that belief.

Ms. Sundae helped me appreciate that parents can model learning even while pursuing their own interests and professional responsibilities. Of course, that doesn’t magically solve the problem of limited time. My Fulbright year still involved some incredibly demanding days, and homeschooling remained a challenge. But I began to appreciate the value of the informal learning opportunities that were already part of our lives.

What I’m Taking Away

I came into this conversation with a long list of frustrations and questions. I was exhausted by daily assignments, attendance requirements, and the constant feeling that I was trying to make my child fit a schedule that didn’t always work for her. I was also struggling with my own expectations. I’m someone who likes structure, organization, and measurable progress, so I found it difficult when our lessons didn’t unfold according to plan.

What Ms. Sundae helped me understand was that completing an assignment isn’t necessarily the same as learning. Sometimes a child needs more time, sometimes the teaching approach needs to change, and sometimes additional support is necessary. Grades and benchmarks can provide useful information, but they don’t tell us everything about a child’s understanding, interests, or potential.

I also appreciated her honesty about her own mistakes. She nearly burned out her first child, changed curricula repeatedly, adjusted expectations, and continued learning about her children over three decades. Even with all that experience, she wasn’t pretending to have perfected parenting or education. That made her advice far more meaningful than a polished success story would have been.

Perhaps the biggest question this conversation raised for me was what we ultimately want our children’s education to accomplish. Academic competence is important, and I want my children to develop strong foundational skills and have access to whatever support they need. But I also want them to remain curious, ask questions, enjoy discovering new things, and understand that needing help with something doesn’t diminish their abilities.

Ms. Sundae’s experience doesn’t mean homeschooling is the right choice for every family, nor does it guarantee that every child will have the same outcomes as hers. What it offers is a perspective on education that makes room for children’s different strengths, interests, and developmental needs, while reminding parents that the process of learning is often more complicated than a checklist of completed assignments.

Four years ago, I interviewed Ms. Sundae thinking her advice would be useful to somebody else. This time, I was the somebody else, and I’m grateful she was willing to teach me again.

If you’re homeschooling, considering it, or simply raising a child who learns differently, I hope this conversation gives you something useful to reflect on. And if you’re like me, the person who confidently declared that homeschooling would never be part of her life, perhaps keep an open mind. You never know when life will have you calling an old podcast guest for help.

Until next time, keep learning, keep adapting, and keep making room for the different ways our children grow. See you in the next one, Mosiblings!

🅻🅸🅽🅺🆂:

• Listen:https://mosibyl.podbean.com/e/sundae2026/

• Download:https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/rhpbms8q25nqzq2t/SUNDAE2026.mp3

• Or on the website: www.mosibyl.com

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• Teach Your Own — John Holt: A practical introduction to homeschooling and child-directed learning.

• How Children Learn — John Holt: Explores how children acquire knowledge through curiosity, exploration, and everyday experiences.

• Find Homeschool Co-ops and Support Groups: A directory for finding homeschooling communities, co-ops, and group activities.

• Montessori Method: An introduction to hands-on, child-centered education.

• Charlotte Mason Education: A free curriculum and resources inspired by the Charlotte Mason philosophy, including nature study, literature, and observation.

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