I started reading How to Homeschool the Kids You Have at 11:18 PM. By 11:22 PM, I hated it. By 2 AM, I had powered through the entire thing—fueled by spite, caffeine, and pure disbelief.
I wanted something encouraging and grounded, something that honored the real-world, messy, beautiful challenge of homeschooling. What I got instead was a frustrating, condescending, and completely out-of-touch book that left me more irritated than inspired.
If you’re part of a secular, neurodivergent-affirming homeschool family—or honestly, just someone who doesn’t want to recreate a rigid school structure at home—this book is probably not for you.
So here’s my honest, no-holds-barred review.
What (Almost) Worked
- Breaks classical homeschooling into useful subcategories and even critiques Eurocentrism.
- Includes thoughtful references to learning science and instructional design.
- Doesn’t center religion—refreshing in today’s homeschool landscape.
And… that’s about it. Now onto the rest.
What Absolutely Didn’t Work…
1. This Is Public School at Home
“Scripts are your friend. If there is a scripted option, pick that one.”
(This is not an exaggeration, but a direct quote from the book)
If you’re a neurodivergent, eclectic, child-led, or creative homeschooler, you’re not doing homeschooling “right” by their standards. The book’s constant drumbeat is that you should mimic school at home complete with rigor, textbooks, assessments, and all with little to no deviation.
Despite its cozy title, this book reads like a manual for how to replicate a traditional classroom environment in your house.
The authors repeatedly make the case that if you don’t have a brick-and-mortar teaching background, you’re likely to get it all wrong unless you lean heavily on scripts and pre-written curriculum. At one point, it felt like I needed to prove I knew what a “summative assessment” was just to be allowed to educate my own children. Spoiler alert: you don’t.
2. Elitism Dressed as Expertise
“Unless you have subject expertise in a major subject area and a background in education and considerable experience with instructional design and the means to field-test your program for several years, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to produce anything that works as well as even a middle-of-the-road textbook.”
Translation: if you’re not an formal expert working for a big time curriculum publisher, don’t even try to create your own curriculum. That’s not guidance—it’s gatekeeping.
3. Misunderstanding Neurodivergence
Despite name-dropping neurodivergence often, the book clearly doesn’t get neurodivergent kids at all. A few rage-inducing quotes:
“All children, whether they are gifted, typical, or with other learning differences, will succeed with an evidence-informed curriculum… Good teaching is good teaching for all children.”
And this disaster:
“Light school,” “school-lite” or “soft launch” schedules are also helpful when you must take a sick day. Whether you’re sick or your child is sick, 90% of the time, you can get some work done.”
“Eventually, Courtney decided that if she waited to do serious academics when her child was well, her child would never learn to read. So, they did academics even when her child was irritably ill.”
This is not just bad advice, it’s actively harmful. Pushing sick kids (and caregivers) to work through illness teaches them to ignore their bodies. For many neurodivergent kids, rest isn’t optional, it’s necessary for regulation and learning.
4. Narrow Curriculum Standards
Their criteria for a good curriculum?
- The author should have substantial subject matter expertise.
- The program should have undergone field-testing.
- The program should have been written for use with average students, not just gifted ones.
That last one isn’t terrible on its own, but in context, it becomes clear they’re dismissing differentiated instruction entirely. They seem to not want curricula that adapts. It felt like a push for one-size-fits-all, factory model learning.
They double down with:
“We believe homeschoolers should test their children on a regular basis.”
Because nothing says personalized education like constant standardized testing.
5. Anti-NGSS?
“Next Generation Science Standards rely heavily on inquiry-based instruction. Courtney finds this emphasis to be patently absurd… Your average 7-year-old is not capable of designing a scientific investigation… We do our children no favors by pretending otherwise.”
This is a massive misunderstanding of NGSS. Inquiry-based learning isn’t chaos—it’s age-appropriate scientific thinking. And yes, even young kids can observe, hypothesize, and explore when given the tools.
6. A Whole Lot of Unschooler Hate
The authors do make it clear that this book is not targeted toward unschoolers, which is fair. But their bias against unschooling is unmistakable and often feels dismissive.
For example, they say:
“Frankly, we don’t have the time, money, inclination, or connections to provide our children with an ever-changing array of educational resources and activities across the entire curriculum. But our hats are off to those who do.”
While framed as admiration, this line reads more like a smug dismissal. It completely overlooks the research and successes behind unschooling methods, painting them as impractical fluff for the privileged rather than valid educational approaches.
7. This Mess About Learning Styles
“Neurodivergence is not a ‘learning style.’ Learning styles are bunk. You do not need to tailor your teaching to your child’s supposed ‘learning style.’”
This statement conflates a popular but widely debunked concept “learning styles” with the (very) real and valid differences in how neurodivergent brains process information. While the idea of rigid learning styles (like “visual,” “auditory,” or “kinesthetic” learners) has been challenged by research, that doesn’t mean all individualized or multisensory approaches are useless marketing fluff.
Neurodivergent learners often benefit greatly from flexible, multisensory, and differentiated methods precisely because their brains process information differently from neurotypical peers. To dismiss these approaches wholesale as marketing gimmicks is not only ignorant but deeply ableist, but it ignores the lived realities of many families and undermines the need for accessible, adaptive education.
Good teaching isn’t about fitting children into one-size-fits-all categories; it’s about recognizing and honoring diverse ways of learning, engagement, and expression—something this book unfortunately glosses over.
8. Well-Trained Mind Worship
The book name-drops The Well-Trained Mind and its associated products so frequently that I started to wonder if this was a stealth advertisement rather than an impartial guide. What’s more troubling is that these recommendations come without any critical discussion of the many problems families have had with WTM materials, particularly BIPOC, LGBTQ+, secular, and neurodivergent families who have experienced exclusion, harmful messaging, or lack of representation in those resources.
Beyond The Well-Trained Mind and other Susan Wise Bauer products, there was almost no mention of alternative curricula or resources throughout the book. This narrow focus not only reveals a strong bias toward the (often eurocentric) classical education method but also gives the impression that the authors were speaking only to a very specific, limited slice of the homeschool population, all while pretending that slice represented the whole pie.
9. Tone: Condescending and Know-It-All
Let’s talk tone. This book is drenched in “we know best” energy. It reads like a few educators talking at homeschoolers rather than to them. While they occasionally use warm language, it often feels forced, especially when paired with their frequent dismissals of unschooling, interest-led learning, or any parent who dares to approach things differently.
They posture as experts in every aspect of homeschooling, yet much of the advice feels like it was written by people who haven’t actually lived this life, especially not with complex kids.
I’ve been homeschooling for over 14 years. Reading this book, I couldn’t help but feel frustrated, because I know firsthand how much more informed, compassionate, and genuinely helpful homeschool advice can be. This book, written by two traditionally educated “experts,” lacked the lived experience and nuance that so many families truly need.
Conclusion
I don’t usually blog about books I dislike, but this one felt dangerous in how confidently it dismissed the needs of so many homeschooling families.
If you’re looking for flexibility, trust, autonomy, and neurodivergent-affirming support, skip this book. You already know your child better than any textbook ever will.
Homeschooling should be about freedom—not scripts, not testing, and definitely not shame.
Note: This review isn’t personal. I have no beef with the authors. I just expect better from fellow homeschoolers—and you should too.
Rabbit Hole Learning 
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