As we gear up for the new school year, I find myself thinking about how blessed my family is that we are able to homeschool. If you have ever considered homeschooling, or are rethinking your choices, it is always good to keep in mind why you want or need to homeschool and the benefits.
For those new to homeschooling, it can sound like a wonderful adventure or it can sound like a mountain that seems impossible to climb. Whether you are excited to homeschool or thinking it is something that is not possible for your family, you may want to consider some of the popular reasons that other families choose to homeschool and maybe these will ring true for you.
#1 – Control What Your Children Learn – One of the main reasons that many people choose to homeschool is so they can decide what their children learn and how they learn it. Whether it is learning science from a creation perspective or making certain that engineering and math have a heavy focus, making the decision on what your children learn and when is a very popular reason why many people homeschool. Religious emphasis is a very common reason that families choose to homeschool. Ensuring that character, values, and religious principals are emphasized every day is a great benefit of homeschooling.
#2 – Have More Time for Your Family on Your Schedule – Maybe your family is a military family that moves every 3 to 5 years or has a mom or dad that is on frequent deployments, making their time home limited and very valuable. Maybe your family has a mom or dad that works nighttime or weekends and is home during the day or during the weekdays. Homeschooling is great solution for these schedules. Homeschooling allows these families to have family time when the family is there. You can tailor your school days and hours to match your schedule. If dad is only home on Wednesday and Thursday then those are your off days for family time and you can school over the weekend. Or maybe dad wants to do some schooling, plan a dad school day on one of his days home and take the other for family time.
#3 – Set the Pace of Learning to Your Individual Child – If your child has some special needs or learning disabilities, homeschooling can be a wonderful option to give your child the best possible environment to succeed. Homeschooling allows the subjects and method of teaching to be tailored to your particular child. If you have a child that is slow to read, make your school accommodate them so they are not left behind as they would be in a traditional brick and mortar school. Have a child with ADD? Tailor your school to short lessons to accommodate his or her attention spans. Homeschooling can make learning fun and not a dread to many children with special needs.
#4 – Be Able to Expose Your Children to Subjects and Skills that You Feel is Valuable –Similar to #1, being able to tailor the education to your child’s interest or those you feel are important to their success is a blessing of homeschool. Have an aspiring musician, homeschooling allows extra time to work on the child’s talents? Have a chemist in the making, homeschooling allows for extra time for science experimentation? Have a budding engineer? Tailor your homeschool to more hands-on, mechanical lessons with extra time for building.
#5 – Delight in Watching Your Children Learn –A benefit that many homeschooling families find is that they are able to delight in watching their children learn. When your child is away at a traditional school, you are not always around for that “ah-ha” moment when multiplication clicks. You miss those looks of amazement when they discover something incredible about their God’s world. Teaching your children at home allows your family to learn together (and you will be shocked how much mom and dad and even your little toddlers learn when learning together).
Homeschooling can be a blessing. Remember your child’s first steps? Remember how exciting it was to be there for that first word? Homeschooling has many of these moments and you will find that, though every day is not a “first step,” each day you and your children can grow together by learning and discovering. What a blessing that can be.
I agree that homeschooling is a wonderful way to teach in today’s environment, Not only for all the reasons you mentioned, but also for the safety issue.
Being a grandma who used to teach I believe that most retired teachers would be more than happy to help with this task.. Children today aren’t taught geography and history as we were taught 30 or 40 years ago.
I used to have the class learn the continents and countries by doing a unit on fairy tales. You would be amazed at the number of fairy tales you can find around the world. Read the stories, identify and label the country on the map. Notice their clothes, land forms, rivers, cities,food, language, and many other things through geography and history. Don’t forget the Grandma resource.
Happy teaching,
Barbara K.
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Good points Barb. Grandma is giving piano lessons and shares in the reading.
You are right about Geography with Fairy Tales. We are amazed at what we find and talk about. Geography is one Avarie’s favorites.
Thanks for commenting.
I couldn’t agree more! Great post Tawnee!
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Thanks. I appreciate the comment and stopping by Jackie!
I love the idea of homeschooling for a variety of reasons, until people start talking about teaching from a religious perspective. Religion is fine, but if you don’t teach your children the other ideas that are out there, you are leaving them ill-prepared and in for a world of hurt if they decide to go to college or leave any small fundamentalist environment.
I was behind until I was in my 30’s. My THIRTIES. Once I moved across the country (and I grew up in a large city), I found myself feeling like a complete idiot because I didn’t know what people were talking about. I finally took some college-level science courses so I would at least be informed. Don’t leave your children feeling like idiots. They should at least know the ideas they will encounter elsewhere in the world.
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What a nice post. To me as a parent and educator I love #3. Group learning does not work for everyone and to be able to settle in with your child and make learning unique is wonderful.
I don’t think that there is a greater gift for a child than to help them build the foundation and confidence of knowing their skills and to be able to explore the world.
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I totally agree. The group setting isn’t for everyone. Though my daughter loves her time with friends at CC or coop, she gleans the most from times spent talking about our readings and making the connections herself, which is how I was. I think group discussions are great but they aren’t the only way to learn and for some they aren’t the best. Thanks for stopping by.
being able to adapt to the boys’ learning styles and timing what they learning and from what perspective are huge reasons for us.
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I know, learning styles is huge. I think i’m in for a big change soon with my son but for now most is adapted for an auditory learner, which seems to be my daughter case. Nevertheless, it is such a blessing that we can take the time to tailor education to the way our children learn best. Enjoy your year!
Great post! We are going into our 2nd year of homeschooling and this year I am so much more excited for it 🙂 I love that we can tailor our girls’ education to fit them and what they are interested in! For example, this year we are going to study dinosaurs, tesla coils, and race cars. {yes, I really do have girls!}
We did a lot of unit studies over the summer – dinosaurs, Olympics, rock and minerals (and yes, that was primarily a girl too:) ) I think it is great to explore those things they are interested in. My daughter loves paleontology and archeology so we add that element to a lot of our studies. Too fun. Hope you have a great year. Thanks for stopping by.
All of these reasons have been my top reason at one point or another. Right now we homeschool because it is what is best for my son at this time. I loved teaching my boys how to read, it was super gratifying when they finally caught on and couldn’t get enough of reading.
I also love spending time with my boys and love the fact that they can spend time with each other.
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Isn’t that the best? To see them learning and excited and things clicking. I love that part of homeschooling. Thanks for stopping by.