I Want My Kids to Have Opinions About Their Education

When my kids were little, I made almost every decision about their education. I chose what we used. I decided what we were going to work on that day, when we were finished, what needed more practice, and what could wait. Obviously they had preferences—children have never exactly been known for withholding those—but most of the responsibility belonged to me. That made sense. They were little.

One of the things I’ve noticed as we’ve homeschooled longer, though, is that their opinions have become considerably more useful. There’s a difference between a six-year-old announcing that handwriting is terrible because they would rather go play and an older kid being able to tell me, with some specificity, why something isn’t working for them. They start noticing when a curriculum feels repetitive. They know when they understand something well enough to move on. They can tell me that the way a lesson explains something makes absolutely no sense to them, even though another explanation clicked immediately.

They also develop real interests. They have subjects they want to spend more time on, things they want to learn that I never would have thought to put on the schedule, and increasingly strong opinions about how they want their days to work. And I want to hear all of that.

This is occasionally inconvenient, because sometimes the thing they have an opinion about is something I put quite a bit of effort into choosing. I researched that curriculum. I compared the options. I thought about what they needed and what would work for our family. I bought it. I made the plan. And now the person I did all of that for is sitting across from me explaining why they hate it.

There was probably a time when I would have heard that primarily as resistance. Sometimes it is resistance. Kids don’t suddenly become educational consultants just because they’ve been homeschooled for a few years. Sometimes they don’t like something because it’s difficult. Sometimes they’re tired. Sometimes they would prefer a different answer because the answer they want involves doing considerably less work. There are plenty of times when I hear the entire complaint, understand their position perfectly, and still say, “Yep. You have to do it.”

But I’ve learned not to stop there. If one of my kids consistently tells me something isn’t working, I want to understand what they mean. Not because I’ve decided they should be in charge, but because they’re the person actually experiencing the education I’m trying to build. That seems like fairly important information.

Sometimes their feedback changes something small. We move a subject to a different part of the day, I explain something another way, or we skip a section they’ve clearly mastered instead of completing it because the pages exist. Sometimes it changes something bigger. We stop using a resource I thought would work. We spend longer somewhere I thought we’d move through quickly. An interest becomes significant enough that I make room for it instead of treating it as something they can explore after the “real” schoolwork is finished. And sometimes nothing changes at all.

I think that last part matters too. Listening to my kids doesn’t mean every preference becomes policy in our house. I’m still responsible for their education. I have a perspective they don’t have yet, and there are things I know they need that they may not understand the value of for several more years. I don’t expect them to have adult judgment before they’re adults, but I do want them to start developing it while they still have me here to help.

Because eventually, I won’t be the person deciding what they need to learn. They’ll need to recognize for themselves when they don’t understand something well enough yet and find another explanation when the first one doesn’t make sense. They’ll have to decide whether something difficult is worth continuing, distinguish frustration from a genuinely bad fit, ask for help, manage their own time, and choose which interests deserve more of their attention. They’ll also have to do things they don’t particularly enjoy simply because those things need to be done. I don’t think any of those skills suddenly appear when someone graduates.

So we’re practicing them now. When I ask what part is difficult, whether they need help or more time, why they dislike something, or what they think would work better, I’m not only trying to troubleshoot today’s lesson. I’m giving them practice noticing themselves as learners. Sometimes they make a good case and I change my mind. Sometimes we find a compromise neither of us originally suggested. Sometimes I know something they don’t yet, and I make the decision anyway.

That last outcome doesn’t mean asking for their opinion was performative. Being heard doesn’t guarantee getting the answer you wanted, and that’s probably something worth learning too. I don’t want my kids to grow up believing that having an opinion means everyone else is obligated to follow it. I want them to know how to explain what they’re experiencing, listen to another perspective, advocate for what they need, and understand that someone can take them seriously without agreeing with them. Homeschooling gives us a surprisingly good place to practice all of that.

I don’t need my kids to agree with every decision I make about their education, and I definitely don’t need them to like all of it. But I do want them to notice themselves inside it. I want them to recognize what helps them learn, know when they understand something and when they don’t, develop interests worth chasing, and have enough self-awareness to recognize when something genuinely isn’t working. I want them to be able to say what they think and, eventually, have enough wisdom and experience to decide what to do about it.

Right now, I still carry most of that responsibility. I’m just not planning to carry it forever.