90-Minute School Day

What if the years your child and teen spent playing, exploring, and following curiosity weren't wasted time — but exactly the preparation they needed?

Come sit down with Judy Arnall, internationally recognized child-development specialist, bestselling author of Unschooling to University, and mother of five self-directed learners. We talk about what children genuinely need to thrive, why chronic stress is shutting down learning in o...

What happens when school is not a match for a learner?

For many disabled and neurodivergent children and teens, traditional school environments create anxiety, shutdown, and loss of self-trust.

In this conversation, we sit down with Dr. Gina Riley, educational psychologist, Associate Professor of Special Education at Hunter College - School of Education (CUNY), researcher, and unschooling parent to unpack the first peer-reviewed st...

How many friends does your child actually need?

• We’ve normalized early peer immersion.
• We worry about socialization.
• We measure childhood against birthday party invites and best-friend status.

But what if we’ve absorbed a story that deserves to be questioned?

In this conversation, I sit down with Missy Willis of Let ‘Em Go Barefoot to unpack:

• Peer orientation
• Attachment theory
• Mixed-age play vs. peer culture
...

“I’m not reading, but everyone else is.”

If you’ve ever heard your child say this (or felt it echo quietly in your own head) this conversation is for you.

In this episode, I’m joined by Carrie DeFrancisco for a live conversation inside Day in the Life (DITL) community. Carrie is a longtime homeschool parent, former classroom teacher, homeschool coach, and podcaster. And she’s also an accidental homeschooler and the mother of a neur...

Winter can be a hard season for homeschooling parents...

Especially if you are raising neurodivergent kids while navigating burnout, nervous system exhaustion, and the pressure to “reset.”

In this episode, we explore how watercolor can support nervous system regulation, deschooling, and gentle self-care in real life.

Meet artist and unschooling parent Cyrielle Tignard to talk about releasing perfectionism, creating with interruptio...

Let's explore how boundaries and belonging work together to create safety, connection, and authenticity in our families. Especially for those of us parenting and home educating neurodivergent and PDA children who need spaciousness, autonomy, and felt-safety to thrive and learn.

Rachel Rainbolt is a therapist, unschooling mother, family guide, and founder of Sage Family. In this episode, Rachel shares grounded, practical tools for n...

The conclusion of the “Start Where You Are” series

Dive deep with us into the idea that conventional schools might be contributing to the very struggles many people associate with dyslexia.

This bonus episode originally aired as Episode 38, and we’re bringing it back as the perfect conclusion to our 5-part “Start Where You Are” series (Episodes 48–52). After exploring grief, the joy of slow, learning readiness, math, and writing, t...

Ever wonder why it’s hard to express yourself in writing?

Join Julie Bogart, myself, and the DITL community for a down-to-earth conversation about helping the resistant writer in all of us become brave writers.

In this episode, Julie shares her own journey from homeschool parent to national voice for authentic education, unpacking what writing really is and why so many of us, parents and kids alike, carry writing wounds. Together,...

What if math wasn’t actually the problem—just the way we’ve been taught to see it?

In this episode, we welcome longtime unschooling advocate Sue Patterson, founder of Unschooling Mom2Mom, to explore one of the biggest sources of stress for homeschooling parents: math.

Together, we unpack how our own school experiences and fears around math can shape the way we approach learning with our kids—and how shifting that mindset can open t...

Before academics, worksheets, or curriculum—there’s one foundational question: Is my child ready to learn?

Learning starts with the body.

In this conversation, we are joined by Sarah Collins, homeschool mom and occupational therapist behind Homeschool OT.

Sarah helps us step into an OT’s perspective on learning readiness by unpacking retained primitive reflexes, regulation, and how to observe our kids with new eyes.

Together, we ex...

The pressure to “do more” in homeschooling is constant—cover more subjects, check more boxes, keep up with the pace of everyone else.

But what if all that rushing is the very thing keeping kids (and parents) from real learning?

In this episode, Leslie Martino, author of The Joy of Slow, pushes back on the myths of falling behind and faster is better. She explains why slowing down is not about doing less, but about creating the spac...

This episode is the first in a brand new 5-part series on the podcast: Start Where You Are.

This series is designed to meet you wherever you are in your homeschooling journey, offering the resourcing you need to move forward with meaning and acceptance. And to begin, we’re going straight to the foundation—by naming the elephant in the room: grief.

Grief isn’t only about death. It’s about the losses, big and small, that come with pa...

In this final episode of our four-part series on technology and learning, we're tackling a topic that feels like the "Wild West": artificial intelligence + kids.

Is this a threat, a tool, or something else entirely?

Join us for a grounded and thoughtful conversation with Andrew Dugan, a former teacher and software engineer who created Aris.chat, a customizable AI designed for kids. He helps us demystify what generative AI and large...

We hear it all the time: “But what about socialization?”

Socialization for homeschooled kids isn’t just same-aged peer associations and blindly following rules. It’s about nervous system safety, real relationships, and being known and accepted for who you are. Especially for neurodivergent kids, socialization must be safe enough to be meaningful.

But that’s not the socialization we’re here to talk about today.

This episode is about...

Friend, is your homeschool driven by the fear that your child is falling behind?

Do you find yourself itching to double down on academics—despite your neurodivergent child’s resistance—because that’s what society says learning looks like?

In today’s myth-busting episode, we unpack one of the most pervasive homeschooling fears: that more academic work = more learning. We’ll examine why this belief is misleading, what it overlook...

Trying to stick to the plan? Maybe that’s the problem. In part 3 of our mini-series answering the most common homeschooling questions, you’ll hear a no-nonsense episode at what’s really underneath the question of “What should our homeschool schedule look like?”

If you’ve ever built a beautiful schedule only to abandon it two weeks later, you’ll want to tune-in.  Don’t worry, you’re definitely NOT failing—you’re just trying to mee...

You don’t need a better curriculum. You need a better question.

If you’ve been wondering which curriculum is best for your child—this episode is for you.

Homeschooling parents often carry the weight of making the “right” choice when it comes to planning, materials, and structure. But what if that whole line of thinking is leading you away from what your child actually needs?

In this second episode of our mini-series answering...

“What do I legally have to do to homeschool my child?”

In this clarity-packed mini-episode, Kelly answers one of the most common (and anxiety-inducing) questions from homeschooling parents:

Whether you're just getting started or deep into deschooling, this episode delivers no-nonsense insight into what most laws really require—and why the language is often intentionally vague. Kelly shares how to translate everyday life into va...

This is part 3 of our 4-part series on screens, technology, and learning. In today’s episode, I’m joined by my client-turned-friend and founding Day in the Life (DITL) member, Emily Biolsi.

Emily is a former public school teacher with a master's in curriculum design and instruction who now homeschools her two young children with an unschooling, interest-led approach.

Like many of us, she found herself wondering: How do I keep t...