Stepmother insists on homeschooling her 12-year-old stepdaughter because of her medical issues, going against her and her mom's wishes: 'We already homeschool our 6-year-old.'

Author image for Emmy Pratt
Emmy Pratt • Writer and Editor
Nov 25, 2025 8:00 AM EST

This should be a temporary fix when her stepdaughter is too sick to attend school.

People homeschool their kids for all different reasons, and one of them is because their child is too sick to attend school on a regular basis. If a kid is out of school for "too many days" because they're too sick to attend or because they have mandatory doctor's appointments, there's a good chance their parents will have to go to court for truancy, even though these absences should be excused by the school and by the state. 

Depending on the severity and length of a condition, parents might choose to homeschool their medically fragile children for any amount of time from one semester, to their entire K-12 education. There's definitely a fine line between homeschooling because it's the only way to ensure that your sick kid will be getting a consistent education, and homeschooling a kid with a minor medical condition indefinitely even when the illness has gotten better and homeschooling for medical reasons is no longer a necessity. It's totally fine to do the latter if it's what is best for the kid and that's what they want, but a lot of kids would rather be with their friends at school if they had the choice.

Add as a preferred
source on Google
Advertisement
  • Girl in a pink sweater working on an assignment sitting next to her mom in a gray shirt pointing at a laptop
    via sofatutor

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • The girl in this story doesn't seem to have much of a choice. Her stepmom wants to homeschool her, and even though she and her mom don't agree, it seems like that's what going to happen.

  • Am I the bad guy for insisting on homeschooling my step daughter?

    My husband and I have 3 girls, 3, 5, and 12. Our 12 year old is his from a previous relationship.
    via u/ChocolateInfamous129
  • Our 12 year old has an undiagnosed stomach issue. We're working with a gastroenterologist, they've done blood tests, stool tests, colonoscopies, endoscopies, biopsies down her gi tract, ultrasounds, CT scans, and MRIs.
    via u/ChocolateInfamous129
  • New medical equipment for MRI scanning with table for patient inside contemporary clinics
    via Getty Images (Unsplash+)

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • There's a few things that it might be but nothing fits so far. We're going to another hospital across the country in a few weeks to see basically a real life Dr House.
    via u/ChocolateInfamous129
  • Her mom can be problematic. She believes in natural medicine and fought her being put on meds, gave her supplements that made her worse, withheld medication, and missed appointments. We had 50/50 custody until recently.
    via u/ChocolateInfamous129
  • My step daughter was missing 3- 4 days a week of school and was falling behind so my husband and I thought it would be best to home school her. We had already made the decision to homeschool our 6 year old for other reasons and I taught elementary and middle school in that district for nearly 20 years so I'm qualified to teach her.
    via u/ChocolateInfamous129
  • A woman standing in front of a chalkboard in a classroom
    via Andrej Lišakov (Unsplash+)

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • Her mom refused to allow us to homeschool her because it would be unfair for us to see her on her moms weeks and she refused our other suggestion, which is online school through the district, because it doesn't count as real school.
    via u/ChocolateInfamous129
  • We were already taking her to court over the difficulty with meds and appointments so we added the fact that she's stopping my stepdaughter from getting an appropriate education to the list. Judge sided with us and we are able to make all medical and educational decisions and she sees her mom for 2 hours on Saturdays while being supervised.
    via u/ChocolateInfamous129
  • My family and my husbands family thinks we're being cruel to my step daughter and her mom, especially because she had gotten better about complying with her doctors orders after we threatened court but wouldn't budge on homeschooling. In their minds we took her daughter away because she didn't want her to be homeschooled.
    via u/ChocolateInfamous129
  • Now I'm wondering if I'm wrong for insisting on homeschooling and taking things this far.
    via u/ChocolateInfamous129
  • misserg What does the 12 year old want in all this?
    via u/misserg
  • Chocolatelnfamous129 OP She wanted to live with us, not be homeschooled, and see her mom closer to every other weekend unsupervised.
    via u/ChocolateInfamous129
  • FishScrumptious Given that she doesn't want to homeschool, you need to be thinking about how you are going to transition from homeschooling while you're working out medical issues that keep here out of school and get her back into school.
    via u/FishScrumptious
  • Chocolatelnfamous129 OP We've already started the transition and, while she does still complain, I'm hoping the shorter school days and freedom to travel, going on field trips, and all of the activities she'll be able to do will grow on her. Especially once we're able to fix the social aspect.
    via u/ChocolateInfamous129
  • snokensnot So not get her back to her goal, but try to make her change her mind and give up on her goal. Great.
    via u/snokensnot
  • BuHoGPaD She's 12 yo that only just started homeschooling. She may change her mind after seeing and experiencing all the ros and cons for herself.
    via u/BuHoGPaD
  • FishScrumptious This difference of opinion caused a significant rift and more than one family I know. Don't let your desire for something you think is a better education harm your relationship. The relationship comes first as the education can always be amended later.
    via u/FishScrumptious
  • Chocolatelnfamous129 OP Luckily we still have a great relationship and her dad and I told her that if she ever does want to be able to talk to us with a neutral adult there, whose only job is to help, family therapy will always be an option.
    via u/ChocolateInfamous129
  • SpecialKnown 7993 Would you be open to her going back to regular school when/if her medical issues that are preventing her from being consistent with attendance get resolved?
    via u/SpecialKnown7993
  • FishScrumptious I feel like you might have rose colored glasses on here. And I say this looking back with my own experiences and what I have heard from my friends with their own experiences of homeschooling for longer than you and for Kids older than yours.
    via u/FishScrumptious
  • Homeschooling is hard on a parent-child relationship, and yours is a parent-step-child relationship which may make it harder. Just because you have a good relationship now does not mean the two of you will work together well for schooling. Kids homeschool least cooperatively with their own parents compared to anyone else - be at a teacher in a paid for art class, a friend's homeschooling parents, a relative, or anyone else. Your plans for how the day goes are a great start, but they will fail at
    via u/FishScrumptious
  • Go in with this plan to start with, but know that this is pencil it in at best. And start thinking now about ways you can shift course, people you can ask for advice, online groups who can give you their experiences, books you can read to help you get different perspectives and ideas, and how to engage in the conversation with both of your kids about how you will plan this stuff together. Mostly, while I support this choice, you sound way too confident that it will just work great. I might be re
    via u/FishScrumptious
  • Impossible_Rain_4727 ESH: The mother absolutely should not be in charge of the child's medical decisions. That said, what your stepdaughter wanted - to live primarily with you, go to the same school with her friends, spend every other weekend with her mom - sounds like a more ideal scenario. It is a shame her wishes were not taken into consideration.
    via u/Impossible_Rain_4727

Want More? Follow Us and Add Us as a Preferred Source on Google.

Tags

stepmother school hospital stepmom parenting stepdaughter medical dad homeschooling homeschool sick daughter mom Parenting Fail Parenting FAILS
Scroll Down For The Next Article