AusomeHomeGrownLearners

I’ve been watching a lot of homeschooling videos on YouTube lately, and at least three of them mentioned something that stuck with me: they were discouraged by healthcare providers from homeschooling their autistic children. The reasoning? That parents wouldn’t be able to provide the same level of resources and support […]

Have you ever found yourself standing in the shower or pulling clothes from your closet and suddenly started crying? Not necessarily because something terrible happened. Not because of one specific event. Just an overwhelming rush of emotion that you’ve been carrying for so long that it finally spills over. Sometimes […]

✨ When “Life Skills” Feels Like One More Thing When I became a stay-at-home mom and we began homeschooling full-time, I truly believed I would have time for everything—chores, homeschool, life skills, shopping, maybe even some free time. The reality?The floors were dirty.The laundry wasn’t started.The kitchen was a mess. […]

Ever watch those homeschool videos where the mom is doing the most amazing activities with her kids? You know the ones. The homeschool room is perfectly organized. There are colorful bins, hands-on activities everywhere, and the kids are happily working through creative lessons. And for just a moment you think: […]

Ever spend hours researching the “best” homeschool curriculum, only to discover it doesn’t actually work for your child? You buy the program.You print the lessons.You follow the schedule. And then suddenly… things fall apart. Maybe the lessons move too fast.Maybe they move too slow.Maybe your child understands one concept immediately […]

My children are 10 and 8 at the time of writing this. Both are autistic. Both were nonverbal until ages 3 and 6. And for a long time…Tablets and TV were a constant in our home. I worked full-time. My husband was in the military. We survived in seasons. We […]

I’m 41 (almost 42). I hold a bachelor’s degree in anthropology, a master’s in elementary education, and a PhD in curriculum and instruction. On paper, I am deeply trained in how children learn. And yet, homeschooling my own children has humbled me in ways no degree ever could. I’ve been […]

My newest mantra over the past few days has been this: Progress, not perfection. In September, our family moved to Belgium in search of a slower lifestyle — one that would allow me to homeschool our two autistic children full-time and step away from the relentless pace we had been […]

If you homeschool long enough, you start to notice something unsettling. Every time you open your phone, scroll social media, or read a homeschool blog post, someone is telling you the right way to do something. The right curriculum.The right order to teach skills.The right method.The right timeline. And if […]

I can still remember the day someone finally told me that homeschooling my kids was actually doable. That moment—the moment I believed it—didn’t happen when I pulled my daughter out of public school. It happened months earlier, near the end of the school year, when I started questioning whether the […]