A Letter to the Mom Who’s Thinking About Pulling Her Kid Out of School

Dear Mama,

I see you.

You’re up at night wondering if maybe - just maybe - school isn't working for your child.

You’ve tried everything.

You’ve talked to the teacher.

You’ve adjusted the routine, the food, everything.

You’ve told yourself this is just a phase.

But deep down, a little voice is whispering…maybe this system wasn’t built for my kid.

And that whisper? It’s not wrong.

I was once exactly where you are.

I was the mom who loved school growing up. I thrived in that environment. I knew how to color in the lines and get the grades and follow the rules. School made sense to me - and I expected it to make sense for my child, too.

But it didn’t.

And when I finally admitted that the system was doing more harm than good for my kid…I decided the day before my kid was supposed to return from winter break that we would not be sending him back. 

I didn’t have a plan.

I didn’t have a curriculum.

I didn’t even have a spreadsheet (and I love a good spreadsheet).

I just had a kid who needed something different.

If that’s you - if you're staring down the possibility of pulling your child out of school and feeling terrified and unprepared - I want you to know:

You do not have to have it all figured out right now.

Truly. You don’t.

When we made the decision, I was gifted the most surprising advice: “Do nothing for a few weeks. Just be.”

At first, it made no sense to me. I wanted a checklist, a system, a step-by-step reinvention of school at home.
But that advice? It saved me.

What I didn’t realize at the time is that I had some serious unlearning to do. I had to deschool - not just my child, but myself.

I had to peel away the layers of “what school is supposed to look like” and start asking a much more important question:
What does learning actually look like—for my child?

Spoiler alert: It didn’t look like a tidy little classroom corner in my dining room.

It looked like:

Conversations

Curiosity

Rest

Healing

Nature

Laughter

It looked like rebuilding trust—in our kid and in ourselves.

If you’re standing at this edge and scared out of your mind, please hear me:
You don’t need a five-year plan.
You don’t need a boxed curriculum or a Pinterest-worthy homeschool room.
You don’t need to know exactly what comes next.

You just need to trust that stepping out of something broken is a bold and beautiful act of love.

I won’t pretend it’s always easy.
But I will tell you this: I have never—not once—regretted choosing something different for my child.
And now, a few years down the road, I can say with full confidence: Learning didn’t end when we left school…it began.

You’ve got this.

With love and solidarity,
A fellow mom who had no plan but did it anyway