This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Saturday, March 21st, 2020.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Guess what, parents? You homeschool now. So how do you get started?

Carrie McDonald is author of the new book Unschooled, raising curious well-educated

children outside the conventional classroom. She's also a Cato adjunct scholar. We spoke this week.

Well I think the first thing is to acknowledge that most of us are probably very

stressed out at this current situation. I mean we really are living in this unprecedented moment and I

think that's the first step is just to acknowledge this whirlwind of events that has

taken place and that has completely disrupted our normal everyday

routines and way of life.

And I think if we do that and take a step back and allow us to process this huge shift in norms and in society that will help us to get back to

regrouping in our homes and with our family.

And so, you know, my primary piece of advice to families who find themselves suddenly in the position of learning at home and working at home alongside their children is to avoid jumping right into trying to replicate school at home and pretend as if

nothing's really changed except the location when so much has changed both for

parents and for children and everyone is feeling that

stress. So that would be the first advice is take some time to really reflect and

process and then along those same lines as more of a routine begins to emerge in our days is again

for parents to avoid the tendency of feeling like they have to be the teacher and the curriculum enforcer because I think

that that could create some real antagonistic interrelationships with between parents and children that are unnecessary in a time that's

already again quite challenging for all of us so that if you're in this position of sort of

top down this is what you're going to learn today this is what you're going to learn today, this is what you're going to do,

it can make a tough situation that much harder, cause parents to burn out, cause frustrations to rise,

...