What you’ve mentioned here is so important for anyone considering non-traditional schooling: that every kid is different. Each has their own way of learning and some may even do better in traditional schools.

In our case, my son is like your eldest… LOVES to read, research and learn on his own. Whenever I try to impose a curriculum or “force” a topic he checks out, completely bored. But when HE is interested in something, there’s no stopping him. He’ll teach himself everything about it.

So my approach has been much like yours: teach strong fundamentals (the 3 R’s) so that he has the tools to pursue whatever he wants later on. This seems to be working really well for us now.

I definitely need to check out Teach Your Own. THANKS!!

My criteria were: they must learn to read, write and speak grammatically correct and socially acceptable English and they must be able to perform correctly the basic mathematic functions (add, subtract, multiply and divide) and know where/when/how to apply them appropriately.

Beyond that, I was flexible. I hoped to ignite the desire to learn, having taught them how to begin to find information.

I was successful with my eldest, a kinesthetic learner. She loves to read and often pursues her own rabbit trails.

Not so with my middle one, a visual learner. She wanted to know exactly what she’d have to do to be “done” with school. I told her, she did it, and that was that. However, she is a gifted self-taught floral designer, which explains a lot.

My third was the biggest challenge. She’s an auditory learner and not quite as quick as her sisters. It was apparent early on that this one would have no use for most of the curriculum I could offer. She pursued what interested her, and ignored everything else. She speaks well, struggles constantly with math, and neither writes nor reads well. Not as much of a homeschooled success as I’d hoped. There just comes a point where it’s not worth fighting daily.

However. All three have been gainfully employed (in retail – not fast food) since age 17 and are highly regarded by their employers. They go above and beyond daily, making sure that their customers are satisfied, and each time they move to a different department, sales go up in the new one and drop in the old one.

I am a firm believer in unschooling – with the proviso that the student finds things to pursue. I recommend John Holt’s Teach Your Own. It made all the difference to me.

Some would argue that kids learn about life in the process of whatever interests them. I still haven’t figured out the details of how a hands off approach eventually leads to the desired result, though… but I’m working on it.