Before academics, worksheets, or curriculum—there’s one foundational question: Is my child ready to learn?

Learning starts with the body.

In this conversation, we are joined by Sarah Collins, homeschool mom and occupational therapist behind Homeschool OT.

Sarah helps us step into an OT’s perspective on learning readiness by unpacking retained primitive reflexes, regulation, and how to observe our kids with new eyes.

Together, we explore:

• What an OT does and how they support learning at home
• What primitive reflexes are, with a focus on the Moro reflex and ATNR
• The downstream impacts of unintegrated reflexes—on attention, emotional regulation, executive functioning, and reading
• Practical first steps for parents noticing challenges with regulation, readiness, and felt-safety
• Practical starting points for parents who feel maxed out or burned out

Sarah brings both expertise and empathy, reminding parents that you don’t have to do everything—just start where you are, with what you have.

Links & Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

📌Learn more about Sarah, her classes and consulting at Homeschool OT

📌 Listen to Sarah’s podcast The Homeschool OT Is In

• Episode 21: Exploring Primitive Reflexes
• Episode 22: Play-Based Reflex Integration
• Video for Kids on Retained Reflexes

📌 Check out Day in the Life (DITL) Community.

• DITL is a community of parents who gather weekly to learn, reflect, and support one another as we homeschool with heart. Each month we welcome a guest expert like Sarah, and every day we build community through shared learning, encouragement, and friendship through our asynchronous video chats on Marco Polo.

📌 Kelly offers one-on-one coaching and a self-paced course on the 90-Minute School Day method.

📌 There is also Guide Training™, a live group learning environment, for those who prefer community learning.

📌Listen to or invite Kelly to speak about the 90-Minute School Day™.

🎧 Listen to the other episodes in the “Starting Where You Are” series:

• Part 1: What Grief Has to Teach Us with Emily Souder
• Part 2: Falling Behind is a Myth with Leslie Martino
• Part 4 and Part 5 coming soon!

The pressure to “do more” in homeschooling is constant—cover more subjects, check more boxes, keep up with the pace of everyone else.

But what if all that rushing is the very thing keeping kids (and parents) from real learning?

In this episode, Leslie Martino, author of The Joy of Slow, pushes back on the myths of falling behind and faster is better. She explains why slowing down is not about doing less, but about creating the space where values, curiosity, and connection can actually take root.

Highlights include:

• What “slow” really means—and what it doesn’t
• How descriptive inquiry shifts the focus from what’s wrong to what’s working
• Why reflection is the missing step between information and wisdom
• How routines, projects, and flexibility create homes where learning flourishes

This episode is part 2 in our 5-part Start Where You Are series, following the conversation on grief and meaning-making we began in Episode 48. Both episodes pair together to reveal the same truth: meaning is never found in speed—it’s found in slowing down enough to notice.

📌 Connect with Leslie: lesliemartino.com

📌 Join Leslie’s 30 Days of Connection 📌 Join 90-Minute School Day in the Life Community

🎧 Catch Episode 48 here: Grief, Acceptance, and Meaning-Making

This episode is the first in a brand new 5-part series on the podcast: Start Where You Are.

This series is designed to meet you wherever you are in your homeschooling journey, offering the resourcing you need to move forward with meaning and acceptance. And to begin, we’re going straight to the foundation—by naming the elephant in the room: grief.

Grief isn’t only about death. It’s about the losses, big and small, that come with parenting and homeschooling—especially for families raising neurodivergent kids. It’s the grief of unmet expectations. The invisible grief of constant adaptation. The grief of medical interventions, school refusal, autistic burnout, and family rhythms that look nothing like we imagined.

Too often, grief is dismissed, mislabeled, or buried under burnout. Grief is not an enemy to fight—it’s a friend to make room for. It’s a teacher that invites us toward healing, wholeness, and connection.

In this conversation, I’m joined by my friend and Day In The Life community member Emily Souder—therapist, author, homeschool mom, and parent of neurodivergent kids. Emily knows this territory intimately, both through her personal story and her work in the world of neonatal loss and grief.

Together, we explore what it means to befriend grief and create space for it in our families—because tending to grief is not only vital for our own healing, but for the well-being of our children.

• What grief is and how it shows up in our nervous system

• Why the 5 stages of grief are often misunderstood

• The Dual Process Model of Grief and how it helps us balance grieving and living

• What happens when we suppress or avoid grief

• Supporting our children in their own experiences of grief

• Practical ways to tend to grief in our family rhythms

• Learn more about Emily Souder on her website

• Pre-order Emily’s newest book, Your NICU Story

• Join us for the next Day In The Life Community Open House