How Long Does Deschooling Take?

Reframing the timeline for both parents and children

For families new to homeschooling, one of the most common questions is: how long does deschooling actually take? It’s a natural question, after all, we’re used to structure, benchmarks, and predictable outcomes. But the truth is, deschooling isn’t a curriculum. It’s a process of unlearning, healing, and recalibrating how we relate to learning itself.

A General Rule of Thumb

You may have heard the guideline: one month of deschooling for every year a child was in school. It’s not an exact science, but it helps parents start thinking in terms of time and spaciousness. If your child spent five years in school, then five months might be a reasonable expectation for decompression.

During this time, you’re not trying to recreate school at home, you’re stepping back, observing, and allowing your child’s natural curiosity to re-emerge. You may see boredom, restlessness, or even pushback at first. That’s all part of the process. What looks like “nothing happening” is often deep nervous system repair and mental recalibration.

What About Parents?

Here’s the part most people don’t talk about: deschooling often takes longer for parents.

Even if you’re excited about unschooling or alternative education, you’ve likely spent decades inside systems that reward compliance, performance, and external validation. If you went to school for twelve years, and then college, grad school, or into a conventional career, you’ve internalized a framework that’s hard to shake.

You may catch yourself worrying when your child isn’t “producing” anything.
You may feel guilty if the day doesn’t look productive.
You may crave proof, outcomes, or approval from others.

And underneath all of that?
There’s often a quiet grief.

Grief for the parts of yourself that were silenced to survive school.
Grief for the creative paths you never explored.
Grief for how deeply school shaped your self-worth and worldview.

Deschooling, then, becomes about more than just your child. It’s about reclaiming something for yourself.

Signs You’re Moving Through It

So how do you know if it’s working? Deschooling isn’t marked by test scores or checklists, but by subtle shifts in awareness. You might notice:

• A new comfort with unstructured time

• Greater trust in your child’s natural interests

• Less urgency to “get back on track”

• More presence, more ease, more curiosity

• A renewed connection with your own forgotten passions

These are the real milestones. And they’re different for every family.

There Is No Finish Line

Ultimately, deschooling doesn’t have a clean endpoint. It’s less about arriving and more about continuing to question, reflect, and realign.

For some, the “active” phase of deschooling may take months. For others, especially parents, it can unfold in layers over years.

But the time invested is worth it. What you’re doing isn’t just educational, it’s generational.

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Call to Action

Thank you for walking this path with me. Your willingness to pause, reflect, and reimagine is a gift, not only to your children, but to yourself.

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Deschooling is not a step backward. It’s a return to something deeper. And you're not alone.

—Moira