Seventeen Reasons To Homeschool Your Kids

Homeschooling was once a rare educational method. Today it is well known and an accepted way to education your kids.

Most parents thinking of homeschooling have a difficult time deciding whether to do it or not. The following is a list 17 reasons why other parents are homeschooling their kids. And, there is one important question you must answer correctly if you expect to succeed in homeschooling. This will be given to you at the end of this article.

- Private school is to expensive
- Their children have problems learning in school or have a hard time getting along with other kids
- They have special health needs
- They are unhappy with the public school curriculum
- They want their kids to have a better education
- They enjoy homeschooling and being with their children
- They don't want their kids to be badly influenced by other kid and learn their bad behaviors
- They want their kids to learn the skills they need to succeed in life
- They want their kids to receive an education that caters to their interests, ability level and aspirations
- They move around, following husbands work, and this is a way to keep the family together
- Their kids would get the individual attention they really needed
- It gives the kids a chance to become who they really are by giving them more freedom to express themselves than public schools would allow.
- The want to see their kid grow and turn into wonderful, capable, loving person.
- They want a way of life that allows the whole family to be together
- They feel they are releasing their kids to strangers to raise them and this is not what they want to do
- Their own educational philosophy greatly differs with the public school education.

So how do you decide whether to homeschool or not. Well, you're going to need a lot of information. You need to learn about,

- academic research
- legal homeschool rulings
- homeschooling practicals
- schooling materials
- how much it will cost
- how to evaluate what you are doing

One more important thing you will need to find out. You need to know what it feels like to homeschool your kids day in and day out.

Finally, the most important question you have to answer if you are planning to homeschool your kids is:

Do you really enjoy being and spending time with your kids? The question is, if you enjoy spending a lot of time with your kids every day. You must like being with your kids most of the time and if you don't then most likely, homeschooling is not for you.

Compelling Reasons For Homeschooling

People choose the option of homeschooling their children for a variety of reasons.

For many years, homeschooling was the purview of those families who lived in rural areas and found the cost and/or time it would take to transport their children to school unbearable. For these people, homeschooling was and continues to be the only real option when it comes to their children’s education. Many rural families have traditionally relied on their children to help around the house, and thus homeschooling allowed them to pursue their studies around the family schedule, and work and education could be fit into the day according to a suitable timetable.

Another traditional reason for families choosing the option of homeschool was a fundamental disagreement with what was or is being taught in other schooling environments. Chief among this group are families whose religious beliefs clash with the prevailing educational methods. Families who choose the option of homeschooling are not subject to the rigid curriculum of established schools, and there are many options when it comes to homeschool resources that can offer as wide or as narrow a field of study as far as worldviews that the parent wishes.

A more recent development in the reason people choose to homeschool their children is that of safety. School ground violence seems to be increasing, and that has many parents worried. They feel that the best way to keep their children away from harm is to keep them close.

Hand-in-hand with the safety issue is a concern for the child’s self esteem. Bullying is a common issue within any school system, as any parent well remembers from their own school days. Many parents cannot bear the thought of throwing their children into the kind of system that breeds a pack mentality, and are choosing instead to have them educated at home.

A very recent development in the reasons for homeschooling is the fluidity in choices that homeschooling children allows. This is especially apparent in Generation X, who seem to be fairly insistent on independence and not being tied down to any one place or situation. Homeschooling eliminates the need to plan all vacations around established school holidays, as the pace is determined by the parent and child.

Finally, parents may choose to homeschool their children because they simply feel they can do a better job than any educational system. Parent of gifted children do not want to see the child wasted in the hard pressed for both resources and qualified teachers system that public schooling represents, and private schools are becoming increasingly unaffordable for the average family. Parents who believe their children need the advantages of a more intimate education are therefore turning to the option of homeschooling.

The rise in popularity of homeschooling has meant a corresponding rise in the materials available to the parent who chooses to homeschool. There are resources available to meet any educational needs, and with a little bit of homework a parent will find the curriculum they feel will best suit their children’s needs.

3 Reasons Why Homeschooling Rocks

1. It's not boring as all get out.

I spent the first 5 and a half years of my education in public schools. There were, of course, times when I enjoyed learning things and talking to my friends. On the flip side, though, there were long stretches of monotony and boredom. And that was just grade school! I can't even imagine what it would have gotten like in middle and high school. I vaguely remember a class I took in 6th grade before I began to be homeschooled. "Conflict resolution" they called it. It was an entire class we had to sit through for 50 minutes a day on how not to get in a fight. Instead of teaching us something useful like math, history or science, we had to sit and learn that getting in a fistfight wasn't good for anybody.

I think it goes without saying that homeschooling was far more interesting. I was either doing something and learning, or I was enjoying my free time. I never had to sit through extended periods of monotonous lectures or stare at a chalkboard while a teacher catered to the slowest student in the classroom. I was able to learn at my own pace and enjoy it.

2. No one gives you wedgies.

Unless, of course, you have an older sibling and then you might get more wedgies than you can handle. One of the fantastic things about being homeschooled is that there is no awkward social structure that you have to fit yourself into. Unless you live in a very complicated family, there are no bullies, no drug addicts and so forth.

Again, the advantage is more than what you don't have to deal with, but also in what you do get. Being homeschooled enabled me to develop much stronger relationships with my parents and my siblings, and I did find a variety of friends through our homeschool group and church and so forth. I found that when I got to college I was able to comfortably communicate with everyone from the older students (some who were even grandparents, coming back for their education) to the younger students and even the professors and staff. None of these people ever gave me a wedgy.

3. Odds are your teacher will probably like you.

I didn't personally ever have issues with a teacher that didn't seem to like me or treat me well, but I do know that those experiences are out there. The odds increase, I think, as you get into high school that you might run into a teacher that you either don't like or who doesn't like you for some reason. I wouldn't say that it's anything personal, just sometimes there are personality clashes.

On the other hand, I think you benefit from homeschooling because you're able to develop a much deeper relationship with your parents. Instead of coming home from school and simply telling them what you did (if you can even remember all the details) you live it with them.