No one sets out to fail at anything. Failure is never intentional. Yet many families struggle with homeschooling—sometimes without even knowing why. One of the best ways to learn is from the mistakes of others. It’s much less costly than learning from our own.
Before we go further, let’s define what we mean by failure.
Failure doesn’t mean total collapse or that no learning occurred. If your child gets a 55% on an algebra test, he didn’t completely fail—he didn’t get a zero. He did some things right, just not to a level that showed adequate learning.
Here’s our working definition: failure is not accomplishing to an acceptable standard.
That begs another question: what is an acceptable standard?
At Veritas Press, we evaluate educational standards using three lenses:
Historic standards — What has traditionally been expected of educated students?
International standards — How do students elsewhere perform at similar stages?
Biblical standards — “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord.” (Col. 3:23–24)
An acceptable standard is a level of accomplishment that an informed, objective observer would consider average or better.
After more than 27 years of working with tens of thousands of homeschool families, we’ve identified the most common reasons homeschooling fails to meet that standard.
Can You Fail at Homeschooling?
Yes—but usually not because of a lack of love, effort, or good intentions.
Most homeschooling failures stem from structural and strategic mistakes, not from parents caring too little or children being unable to learn. The good news is that these mistakes are avoidable once they’re recognized.
Below are the seven most common reasons homeschooling fails and how families can prevent them.
1. Inadequate Structure and Poor Organization
What do you hope to accomplish by homeschooling your child? By when? Have you mapped out the year? Each week? Do you have a daily schedule with allotted times for each subject?
This failure is a comprehensive one, and you wouldn’t be alone in it. Even most school administrators stumble over the question, “What do you hope to produce?”
“People with goals succeed because they know where they’re going.” — Earl Nightingale
Without defined goals, it’s nearly impossible to measure progress or know whether learning is truly happening. A strong homeschool requires annual academic goals, weekly plans, and a daily schedule.
What does this look like practically? Start with the end of the year: what do you want your child to have learned or accomplished by May? Then break that down. If your goal is for your fourth grader to complete a full math curriculum, how many lessons is that? Divide by the weeks you plan to school, and now you know how many lessons per week. From there, you can slot subjects into a daily routine.
It doesn’t have to be rigid—life happens—but you need a framework. Without one, you’re not homeschooling; you’re hoping education happens by accident.
2. Not Adapting to How Your Child Learns
We don’t all learn best in the same way. According to the VARK model, developed by educational theorist Neil Fleming, learners typically lean toward one or more styles: visual, auditory, reading/writing, or kinesthetic.
If your child learns best through a hands-on, kinesthetic approach and you keep telling her to go read a literature book for two hours, you’re not teaching to her strength. If your six-year-old son learns best from hearing and you never read aloud to him, you may be holding him back.
The point is there’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. Some of the greatest failures in public education were the greatest minds of recent history—Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Walt Disney, Richard Branson, Charles Dickens, Henry Ford. They didn’t fit the narrow mold.
All children should be expected to develop in all four learning types, but we must recognize their strengths, too, and teach to them. One of the great beauties of homeschooling is your ability to cater to your student’s individual needs by default, whereas a set curriculum is far less flexible and requires a patchwork of modifications to personalize.
3. Constantly Switching Curriculum
Imagine a recipe that works well with baking flour, but now you choose to use almond flour. The change may work, but it may not—the properties are different. Or imagine you started pouring concrete for your new driveway and ran out of material. Would you finish with asphalt?
It’s like that when we constantly change curriculum. Even if two curricula are very good, switching from one to the other can prove disastrous. There may be gaps—a huge problem. There may be overlaps—an inefficiency.
Not all changes are bad. Changing from a bad curriculum (and there are many out there) to a great one is to be commended. It just has to be done carefully, thoughtfully, and as infrequently as possible. Consistency matters.
4. You Can’t Teach What You Don’t Know
You will never hear of my wife teaching Algebra. She’s not a fan of the subject, and she sometimes feels that she doesn’t bring much joy into the classroom. That doesn’t make her a bad teacher—she’s a phenomenal one. She’s just not an upper-level math teacher.
Many think we can send the student to a book to work on their own and they’ll learn fine. The problem is the curriculum can’t know if they “got it,” if they truly understand. If we don’t know our children got it, we could be setting up a future problem. It might surface much later, but if their learning is built on concepts not adequately mastered, there will be trouble.
Strong homeschooling requires either parent knowledge of the subject or trusted instruction that provides real feedback and accountability. When parents reach the limits of their own expertise, seeking outside help isn’t failure—it’s wisdom. Programs like Veritas Scholars Academy exist for exactly this reason, partnering expert teachers with homeschool parents so students can continue learning well without sacrificing rigor.
5. Relying on Incomplete Tools and Apps
A while back, we released an app called The Phonics Museum. Amazingly, there is no other app that systematically takes children from no letter recognition and not reading to being fluent readers. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on creating fun, albeit just supplemental, tools.
Many cost-conscious homeschoolers use learning tools because they’re free or inexpensive. The problem isn’t that these tools are useless—it’s that most were never designed to cover an entire subject in a well-organized, thorough way. Parents must know they can trust a product to be complete, or know the discipline well enough to fill in the gaps themselves. Very few can do the latter, and it’s a big reason for failure.
6. Expecting to Educate in Too Little Time
When our children were much younger, one of them was talking to our neighbor’s kid. The neighbor liked homeschooling because it “only took one hour each day.” Our son responded, “Not with my mom. We start at 8:00 and sometimes don’t finish until 5:00.” Maybe a child’s exaggeration, maybe not.
Education takes time. A good education will not happen in one or even two hours per day. Schools have some natural inefficiency that homeschools don’t—you can accomplish more academically in less time than a school can. But once you’ve determined your goals (see #1), you can more realistically estimate the time required.
Here’s the hard truth: teaching is a full-time job. Cleaning, cooking, and keeping a household running is another full-time job. Something has to give. Don’t kid yourself about the time needed.
7. “There’s Always Tomorrow,” Or The Procrastination Trap
This reason is a cousin to #6, and it often develops slowly and invisibly.
Our kids must have clean clothes. They need to be fed. The house needs to be kept clean. All three will be noticed immediately if they aren’t attended to. But skipping a math lesson or a writing exercise? That’s not as observable by spouses or friends.
It may take months or even years for procrastination to cause real failure. But when it does, it’s always time lost that can’t be completely recovered. The damage accumulates quietly until it becomes a serious problem.
How do you guard against this? A few practical suggestions:
Set non-negotiable school hours. Treat them like a job. If school starts at 8:30, it starts at 8:30, and not after you finish the laundry.
Build in weekly checkpoints. Every Friday, review what got done and what didn’t. If you’re consistently behind, adjust your plan or your expectations.
Find accountability. This might be a spouse or even a scheduled check-in with another homeschool parent. It’s harder to let things slide when someone else is watching.
Track progress visibly. A simple chart or checklist where your kids (and you) can see lessons completed makes falling behind obvious before it becomes a crisis.
Procrastination thrives in the dark. Shine a light on it.
How to Avoid These Common Homeschooling Mistakes
Homeschooling success doesn’t require perfection, but it does require intentionality. In nearly every case, families who avoid failure do so by addressing the same issues outlined above: structure, consistency, appropriate support, and time.
If you’re just starting out—or if you’re mid-course and feeling like things aren’t working—here’s a simple action plan:
1. Define your goals.
Write down what you want your child to know and be able to do by the end of this school year. Be specific. “Get better at math” isn’t a goal; “Complete Saxon Math 5/6” is.
2. Audit your curriculum.
Is it complete? Is it working for your child’s learning style? If you’ve been jumping around, commit to one solid curriculum and stick with it for a full year before evaluating again.
3. Be honest about time.
Look at your daily schedule. Are you actually dedicating the hours needed? If not, what needs to change? Maybe it’s waking up earlier. Maybe it’s letting some housework go. Maybe it’s getting help.
4. Know your limits.
Identify the subjects where you’re not confident teaching. Start researching your options now, whether that’s a co-op, an online class, or a program like Veritas Scholars Academy, before your child hits a wall.
5. Build in accountability.
Whether it’s a weekly check-in with your spouse, a homeschool group, or simply a visible tracking chart, create a system that makes it hard to let things slide unnoticed.
None of this is complicated. But it does require honesty and follow-through.
Final Thoughts
You may be a veteran homeschooler, or you may be just venturing in. Either way, you want to succeed. Recognizing these pitfalls is the first step.
We’ve helped thousands of families navigate these challenges over the years, and we’re always glad to help more.
