Her daughter hated school. So she became a homeschool teacher.

In the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Lindsay Poveromo-Joly noticed her daughter was struggling with virtual school .

It was a tough time for a lot of students and families in 2021, and her friends, family members and her daughter's teachers kept reassuring Poveromo-Joly that all kids move at their own pace. But Poveromo-Joly knew in her gut something was wrong. Her daughter was starting to hate learning .

"She would be crying under her desk saying, 'I'm not doing this,'" Poveromo-Joly said of her then-6-year-old daughter. "I don't think I even realized the full scope of how that school experience was almost a traumatic experience until we took a step back from it."

Her daughter's pediatrician was the first person to take Poveromo-Joly's concerns seriously, she said. The doctor sent her daughter for a full evaluation, and found that she was profoundly dyslexic .

Parents of neurodivergent children or children with disabilities often face a long road to proper diagnosis, and even longer wait times to finding the right treatments and supports for their kids. This can cause parents − most often mothers, who tend to bear the brunt of parenting and the mental load of running a household − to suffer poor mental health , feelings of overwhelm and even career setbacks as they try their best to make things right for their kids.

Poveromo-Joly, who lives in Florida, decided to pivot to homeschooling for both of her kids. The flexibility and independence that comes with homeschooling has been good for her children, she said. But the process of finding what works for her daughter has been overwhelming.

A 2025 report from Cleo , a global family care platform, found 65% of parents of neurodivergent children are at higher risk for burnout . Other studies have found parents of neurodivergent children, especially mothers, tend to experience higher levels of stress and depression than other parents.

Jen Wirt, founder and CEO of Coral Care , a pediatric therapy marketplace, said parents of young kids who are missing milestones often receive conflicting advice. A lot of the time, parents are told to wait things out. "But six months becomes a lot when you're sitting there living something and watching your child struggle," Wirt said. Wait lists cause a lot of stress in parents who are facing the realities of their kids' tantrums on a daily basis.

"It feels pretty urgent when, like, every morning to get out of the house is a screaming match," Wirt said.

It can feel like there are little to no breaks, Wirt added. That's how it was for Poveromo-Joly.

"Every day our kids would finish Florida Virtual School and I would sit in my closet and cry and eat ice cream," Poveromo-Joly said. "It became a thing. I was scared. I didn't know what was wrong. I knew no one was listening to me. And when it's your child and no one is listening to you... it's infuriating."

This mom is 'barely holding on'

Andrea Granieri, 40, is another mother with a neurodivergent kid. Her 10-year-old son was recently diagnosed with autism after a years-long battle with school refusal and anxiety-filled outbursts.

"It was getting to the point where he wasn't able to eat," she said. "And if he did eat, he would throw up."

For many reasons, Granieri said, the pressure to figure things out for her son fell to her. Her job was more flexible than her husband's, and her kids preferred her in times of crisis: "They're going through something hard, and they want me," she said.

Granieri was pretty certain her son had ADHD, but his teachers didn't think so. Granieri eventually paid for a separate and expensive evaluation that confirmed her suspicions. That helped her get a 504 plan set up for students with disabilities, but even with accommodations at school, her son was still suffering.

At the start of the 2025-26 school year, Granieri said she was frequently taking time away from work to console her son. He often stayed home from school. Plus, she had to take him to several doctor's appointments and spend time getting on waiting lists for various specialists. There were also long phone calls with insurance providers and other paperwork that ate into her days.

Granieri said her work environment was supportive and gave her the time she needed. But when things escalated and she withdrew her son from the public school system to start homeschooling in October − something she never wanted to do − she had to step away from work completely for six weeks. She works for a small company, so the time away was unpaid.

"The world is just not set up for working parents, especially mothers," she said, adding that she's grateful her employer let her come back after that time.

Now, Granieri is working 75% of full time. This adjustment came with a pay cut, which her family hadn't prepared for. She said her parents have been helping them financially.

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"Basically what I found is that anyone who takes insurance has weeks and weeks and weeks of wait time, and if you self-pay, they're the ones with more availability," she said of finding therapy for her son, adding that she doesn't know how people without means or family support deal with these difficult situations. "We might have just, like, taken on the credit card debt because we were that desperate to help him."

While she works from home part time, Granieri's son homeschools with the help of various tutors, online classes and trips to the library. He also has regular mental health therapy and occupational therapy appointments to address his ADHD, anxiety and autism . It's not sustainable, Granieri said, but her family is taking things one day at a time. She said she sometimes feels like she's "barely holding on."

"I'm hoping we're catching a lot of all of this early enough that he still has time to find a way to live a fairly typical life," she said.

Wirt, who has a daughter who needed physical therapy as an infant, founded Coral Care because of her own frustrations with wait lists. Coral Care connects parents who have commercial insurance and Medicaid with in-home speech, occupational and physical therapy providers, often before their kids have an official diagnosis.

Wirt's other elementary-aged daughter is dealing with anxiety and she's having trouble finding mental health help. One provider quoted her $1,000 for an intake evaluation, before they would match her daughter with a therapist.

"I want to help her, but I don't have several thousand dollars on hand to get through that right now," Wirt said.

The privilege of homeschooling

Now, Poveromo-Joly's 10-year-old daughter works with a dyslexia specialist three times a week. Her son, who did well in a traditional school setting, is also thriving in homeschool.

"I feel like homeschooling has been great, because they can both work with their own built-in accommodations, needs, pace, all of that. But I do think it's a privilege," she said. "I never want to be anything but a friend to the public school system, and I will always believe in that."

Poveromo-Joly has always been a stay-at-home mom, which she knows helped in her family's transition to homeschool.

"The more enmeshed in the dyslexia communities I get, I see a lot of people that don't have the resources," she said. "Maybe they're working several jobs, maybe they don't have access wherever they live to specialized literacy instructors, or cost is an issue. So I recognize that I have a privilege to take and I do believe that all children deserve the same access."

Madeline Mitchell's role covering women and the caregiving economy at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with  Pivotal  and  Journalism Funding Partners . Funders do not provide editorial input.

Reach Madeline at  memitchell@usatoday.com  and  @maddiemitch_  on X.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Her daughter hated school, so this mom became a homeschool teacher