Learning in His Own Time: A Homeschooling Milestone I’ll Never Forget

We’ve been travelling and homeschooling our four children for the past 18 months, and it’s been quite the adventure. Our son, Ari, has spent that time surrounded by his two older sisters — soaking in learning through everyday life, play, and the rich experiences that come with life on the road, while his little brother Micah (now 2) toddled along behind him.

Ari recently turned six, which means that as of April, he’s officially considered “school age” here in Australia. While we started gently introducing some structured learning earlier in the year using IXL, it wasn’t until April that we began to incorporate it more consistently into our routine. Even then, our approach has remained relaxed and intentional.

We’ve focused on creating a rhythm that suits him — one that encourages curiosity and confidence, rather than pressure and performance.

You see, I had heard so many homeschooling parents say,

“They’ll read and write when they’re ready. You don’t need to force it.”

I wanted to believe them. But honestly? I was a little skeptical.

I mean, school has been around for a long time. Surely it’s doing something right. Surely there’s a reason they group kids by age and move them together through a system that says when they should be able to read, write, add, subtract etc…

But here’s what I’ve come to realise: the system is built for scale, not for the individual child. It works as a broad solution

because it has to — there are a lot of kids in the classroom, and something needs to keep it all moving forward.

But when you homeschool, that system isn’t needed. There’s no rush. No paddock to be herded into when you hit a certain age. No need to "keep up." There’s just your child, learning — in their own way, in their own time.

And it is beautiful.

With Ari, we’ve been working gently through letters, sounds, sight words. He’s been doing the same IXL activities as his sisters, and he’s been absorbing more than I realised.

But we never pushed writing. We didn’t drill it, or set rigid writing tasks. We trusted the process.

And then… it happened.

24 hours after a long-haul flight (of course it had to be then — because parenting is never convenient 😂), Ari had a story in his head.

And it had to come out!

He sat down and wrote. Well — copied. I wrote his story out for him, section by section, and he carefully copied each one. But the story was all his. Every idea, every sentence — it came from him.

And he wrote for 45 minutes straight. carefully writing each letter

Here he is, a few months ago, during another beautiful moment when he wanted to practise writing some of the letters he’d been learning. We helped him turn them into words.

I needed a break. He didn’t.
He begged me to keep going — so we did another 30 minutes.
I said we’d pick it up tomorrow.
But after dinner, at bedtime? He still wanted to keep writing.
So we did.

He was glowing.
“I’m doing it, Mum. I’m doing it!” he said.

And in that moment, my heart nearly burst.

Ari is a sweet, shy, sensitive boy. I couldn’t help but think — if he was in a traditional classroom, and he wasn’t ready to write on the timeline expected of him, he might have struggled. Not just with the task — but with how he saw himself. He might have felt like something was wrong. Like he was behind. Like he wasn’t keeping up, or worse still… that he wasn’t “good enough”.

And to be honest, I might have wondered the same.
Why isn’t he keeping up? What’s wrong?

But there’s nothing wrong. He just needed time.
Time and trust.
And when he was ready — truly ready — he blew me away.

Homeschooling is such a gift. For our kids, and for us as parents. It lets us take the pressure off. It gives us the freedom to follow their pace, their interests, and their hearts. And it allows learning to feel joyful, not stressful.

So if you’re in the thick of it — if your child isn’t reading or writing when others say they “should” — please know: it’s not a race. It’s not a competition.

If you gently include reading and writing into your days in fun, pressure-free ways… you might be surprised by what happens.

But it will happen when they’re ready.
Not when we say they should be.

And when that moment comes?
You’ll feel just as proud as I do right now.
And honestly — it’s the best feeling in the world.