It has become a common morning sound on the Prasad homestead: crowing roosters outside, joined by the clamour of mom of five Christina Prasad sparking up the wood stove. She fixes breakfast—wholewheat waffles—after an early morning workout. The kids hustle to the table.
All the commotion marks the start of another school day on the farm.
Nine years ago, when Christina and her husband, Nilesh, still lived in Calgary, they made the big decision to homeschool their children. In 2021 they made another big decision: to move to New Brunswick and homestead.
Moving from the relatively cosmopolitan city to a plot near Fredericton, a quaint capital with a small-town feel, the Prasads are fulfilling their dream of raising their own food to achieve self-sufficiency.
“We have hatched and cared for chickens, raised and processed meat, birds, and turkeys,” Christina Prasad, 40, told The Epoch Times. “We have also had numerous new experiences, like trying rabbit meat and fiddleheads for the first time.”
Their foray into agriculture also included growing tomatoes and learning to can, preserve, and dehydrate. Meanwhile, homeschooling their four boys and one girl fostered bonding and instilled family values, while fuelling their young minds.
Before the move to New Brunswick, homeschooling included field trips to the Calaway amusement park in Calgary and to see the world’s largest teepee in Medicine Hat.
“The children were learning, and we were making memories together,” Prasad said. “It felt like we had made the right choice.”
Deciding Factors
Transitioning from a suburban couple with degrees in social work and kids in French immersion to schooling at home was a big step, but all the right factors conspired to make it a reality. Prasad named several.Shifting school board policies on “gender identity, name usage, bathroom usage, parental rights to information regarding their school-aged children” all conflicted with their Christian values, she said, adding however that this “was just a small piece of the puzzle in our decision to homeschool.”
One child was struggling socially, she said, and often became overwhelmed. Another was bullied and left out by cliquey classmates, while yet another was so far advanced in his reading that the teachers had no books to challenge him. One child was a social butterfly who was always being hushed.
The parents also took issue with full-length PG movies being shown in class without any notice.
“There had also been some changes to legislation, and some of the rights of parents have been taken away for kids who go to public school,” Prasad said. “Kids can actually leave school property without parents’ permission, without them even knowing, in fact.”
Her husband added that freedoms have been sliding downhill lately in Canada.
“The Canadian government is too restrictive on parents and families,” he said, “including having their hands in every part of our lives.”
The last straw came after Prasad had her fourth baby in 2015. “I was making three trips to the school each day,” she said. “With no parent parking or drop-off zones, I’d have to trek blocks in the cold at times with a toddler and baby in tow.”
Then, the middle school changed its lunch hours, meaning Prasad would have to make four-plus trips to the school each day with the toddler and baby.
With the onset of her fifth pregnancy, two weeks before the school year began, she knew the burden was going to be too much.
Solutions “outside the box” were on the table. The Prasads knew families who homeschooled, and started looking into more options.
They decided to try homeschooling for a year.
“Let’s pull them out,” she said, adding with a chuckle: “If it messes them up, at least they’re young enough they can recover.”
They registered for the school board’s “blended” program, which combines parent- and teacher-directed learning, then tried homeschooling for a year.
Homeschooling Peaks and Valleys
The first months were an emotional roller coaster, Prasad admits, but somehow one year turned into nine.“My biggest ‘aha’ moment came from seeing the change in our son’s reading ability increase within the year of starting homeschooling,” Nilesh said, adding that his son could tackle big words as they read the Scriptures.
It wasn’t always smooth sailing, though. “There were the days when no one seemed to get along,” Prasad said. “There was fighting over a toy, food being spilt, the baby crying, the toddler not wanting to nap.”
Besides work, there were many fun times. Over the years, homeschooling has taken the Prasads on adventures thousands of kilometres from home.
Before moving east, they explored Bar U Ranch National Historic Site, the lakes and trails of Banff, and Dinosaur Provincial Park. On Vancouver Island, where Prasad was born, they walked through old-growth forests and surfed in Tofino.
After moving to Fredericton in 2021, they visited Fort Cumberland, where the Acadian deportations took place, and the Titanic graves in Halifax. Trips to historic sights in the Maritimes and Quebec are next, Prasad says.
“Seeing the actual place where a historical event took place means you are much more likely to remember, understand, and apply an event to your own life,” she said.
However, she admits their homesteading enterprise has been a battle. Initial attempts at growing and producing resulted in a muddy, gravelly soup and little food. Then the kids helped build raised beds, resulting in tomatoes, habanero peppers, and more, though they’re sometimes ravaged by cucumber beetles and plant diseases.
Now, Prasad says they’re considering moving on.
Speaking of homeschooling, however, she is confident.
“Education that is taught to an individual cannot be beat,” she said. “It’s just simply not possible for a class of 25 children to have each of their educational needs met when taught as one single entity.”
She and the children have discussed career goals like “nursing, mechanic, airline steward, hairdresser, and becoming an author,” Prasad said, adding that she encourages post-secondary choices like university or trade school.
Looking ahead, if classes go the way Prasad has planned, her eldest, 17-year-old Joshua, will graduate this year.
“My oldest son is currently working on a consumer math course,” she said, noting that this involves “not only budgeting but also covering topics such as insurance, investing, trip planning, and how to file his taxes.”
