An open letter to my past self about homeschooling

Dear past Hunter,

I write this to you as someone who is about to go into the journey of homeschooling your child through the pandemic. Previously you have held the opinion that homeschooling is stupid. Hunter, nothing about the next 6 months is going to dissuade you from this opinion, in fact, you’ve probably underestimated how unsuited to it you are.

Yes, you do get to be part of your child’s life and there will be some great moments and memories made. But just like ordering McDonalds on Ubereats late at night, the joy will be short lived and not worth the pain.

Right now you are probably thinking, really? I’ve got post-graduate qualifications, that you essentially teach people about psychology to laypeople, you’ve presented at international conferences, won’t that help?

Hunter, these skills, in short, will be useless in your homeschool endeavor. You just need patience, tolerance, and to charge the ipad, for godsake charge the ipad! So your child doesn’t have to use your phone for class leaving you with no link to the outside world.

Remember science experiments? They were fun at school right? They’d be ok wouldn’t they? They are, but they will require you to get odd ingredients, if you have the motivation to find hydrogen peroxide in your one hour of legally allowed shopping time you are a better man than I.

Music, art, learning a language are important and fun parts of a child’s education, but because you’ll be busy arguing about which of the 40 tasks the school uploaded to do each day - you’ll forget to do them.

The good news is that the feeling of failure you are feeling now comes in late during lockdown, and is short lived, as it is replaced by guilt once you talk to other parents who were better at homeschooling than you.

But Hunter, you and your child will survive, and by the end of the school year you’ll have new found appreciation for your child’s school and the teachers who have the patience of saints.

- Future Hunter