Why We Chose Home Education From the Start

By Gemma Keenan

When I think back to it now, it doesn’t feel like there was ever a big, dramatic decision to home educate. It wasn’t a moment. It was more a slow, quiet knowing that this was how we wanted to do things. From the very beginning, we were already living in a way that leaned towards it. The days were full but unhurried. We spent a lot of time together, talking, noticing things, following whatever had caught their attention that week. Learning was just… there. Not planned out or labelled, but happening all the same.

So when it came time to think about school, it didn’t feel like we were stepping away from something. It felt more like we’d be stepping away from what we already had. And we didn’t want to do that.

That doesn’t mean it didn’t feel daunting. It did. There’s something about choosing a path that most people around you aren’t taking that makes you stop and think twice. You do wonder if you’re missing something obvious, or whether you’ll be able to keep it going as they get older. But even with all of that, it still felt right. Not in a loud, certain way. Just in a steady, settled kind of way that didn’t really go anywhere, no matter how much I turned it over. I think a lot of families who home educate from the beginning probably feel something similar. It’s less about making a bold statement and more about quietly choosing a life that fits.

For us, it was the idea of not rushing childhood along. Of having time. Time to follow a question properly, time to linger on something interesting, time to just be together without everything being broken up into separate parts of the day. I didn’t want learning to feel like something that only happened in certain places or at certain times. I wanted it to sit alongside everything else—woven into normal life, not carved out from it. And that’s what it’s looked like, more or less. It hasn’t been perfect. Some days feel long. Some days feel like we haven’t quite found our footing. There are still moments where I second-guess things, especially as they get older and the expectations from the outside world feel a bit louder.

But then I see what they’re actually doing day to day. The way they think things through, the questions they ask, the way they approach something new without immediately assuming they can’t do it. It’s hard to argue with that. As we start to move towards what would usually be the secondary school years, I sometimes pause and think about how it all felt at the beginning. How big it seemed. How unsure I felt at times and then I look at where we are now, and it doesn’t feel big anymore. It just feels normal; this is how we do things. The idea of changing that now feels far stranger than continuing. We’ve built something that works for us. Not in a perfect, polished way—but in a real, everyday one that shifts and adjusts as we go. There’s a kind of quiet joy in that. In knowing that this wasn’t a reaction or a backup plan, but something we chose on purpose, right from the start. And if I’m honest, I can’t really imagine doing it any other way now.