You may be thinking that homeschooling sounds like too much work, too much stress, too much time around your children, and too much societal pressure to follow the norms. In a way, you are right yet many people still choose to homeschool because they see it as a sacrifice and investment worth making. I won’t lie about this. Sending your child off to school and forgetting about them for a few hours every day is the easy way, it is a way to do what you want while the school babysits your child, and if your child goes astray, you have the school to use as a scapegoat.
This is far easier than making time every day to invest in your child’s education, spending time teaching them, guiding them, while praying that they turn out to be good people in an era where good people seem too few. So homeschooling requires sacrifice and time, yet we choose it any way. Why would you consider homeschooling your children? Let me give you a few reasons to think about:
“Homeschooling allows you the freedom to step off the highway of learning and take a more scenic route along a dirt road.“
— Tamara L. Chilver
So homeschooling requires sacrifice and time, yet we choose it any way. Why would you consider homeschooling your children? Let me give you a few reasons to think about:
You have control over what they learn
One of the biggest concerns for many parents is that they don’t know what their children are learning at school. Whether it is curriculums that you disagree with, teachers who are bad role models, or bad influence from joining the wrong crowd, you can’t really see what is going on and the effect it has on your children until it is too late.
Through homeschooling you maintain some level of control. It’s true that you can never have complete control and that your children will grow into individuals who live their own lives, make their own mistakes, and learn a lot of things on their own, even if they are homeschooled.
But you still have an opportunity to lay a firm foundation of good morals, good judgment, and wise choices, through a morally sound curriculum. For parents who fear that the school system is corrupting their children, homeschooling is a great alternative.
Through homeschooling you maintain some level of control. It’s true that you can never have complete control and that your children will grow into individuals who live their own lives, make their own mistakes, and learn a lot of things on their own, even if they are homeschooled.
But you still have an opportunity to lay a firm foundation of good morals, good judgment, and wise choices, through a morally sound curriculum. For parents who fear that the school system is corrupting their children, homeschooling is a great alternative.
To spend more time with your children
In many families these days, parents and children rarely spend time with each other. The children are at school, have after school activities, have homework to do, and play on their own in their rooms, while the parents are busy with work, social media, and their own lives. Too often we miss the best years of our children’s lives and they grow into strangers that we can’t relate to. With homeschooling you have an opportunity to spend more time with your children, and to be their teacher and their friend. It is an opportunity to grow together and have many great memories as you teach them new things and you learn and explore new things together. Compare the situation of your child going on his first excursion to a nature reserve with his teachers and friends to the case of him going for such an outing with his family. In the first, he will have fond memories of his teachers and friends, while the latter creates fond memories of his parents and siblings. Wouldn’t you like your children to one day reflect back at their childhood and have lots of amazing memories of their parents?
Homeschooling provides an opportunity to build such a memorable childhood.
Homeschooling provides an opportunity to build such a memorable childhood.
The school system is outdated
This is probably the most debateable reason that I will mention, but I truly believe this. The current school system was established in the late 1800s and early 1900s for the factory era, with a focus on mass producing people who follow instructions and have the necessary skills to get basic work done.
The problem is that the world has changed so much in the past fifty years that the school system is having a difficult time keeping up. Yes, they may update the curriculum every five or ten years, but even then, it is not enough to keep up with the changes in the world.
The school system still prepares people for a twentieth century lifestyle, and doesn’t take into consideration the needs of twenty-first century leaders. Furthermore, today’s schoolchildren will graduate in one and half decades time and the world would have changed so much by then that most of what they learned will become irrelevant. Through homeschooling, you have an opportunity to ignore outdated subjects and focus on contemporary subjects like online business skills, entrepreneurial skills, and other important things which aren’t covered in school, which takes me to the next point.
The problem is that the world has changed so much in the past fifty years that the school system is having a difficult time keeping up. Yes, they may update the curriculum every five or ten years, but even then, it is not enough to keep up with the changes in the world.
The school system still prepares people for a twentieth century lifestyle, and doesn’t take into consideration the needs of twenty-first century leaders. Furthermore, today’s schoolchildren will graduate in one and half decades time and the world would have changed so much by then that most of what they learned will become irrelevant. Through homeschooling, you have an opportunity to ignore outdated subjects and focus on contemporary subjects like online business skills, entrepreneurial skills, and other important things which aren’t covered in school, which takes me to the next point.
The school system is flawed
In more ways than I can list, the school system has some serious flaws which make it a less than ideal environment for anybody. The school system forces children to learn certain subjects at certain ages at a specific pace. Some children may want to learn a subject earlier, some may only be ready to learn it later. Some may want to learn it in a few weeks, others would want extra time to digest it.
Every child is unique, so having a school system that ignores uniqueness and focuses on sameness is not logical. Children need learning that is tailored to their unique skills in order to excel and grow. Homeschooling opens the doors for them to do this.
The school system is also flawed in the level of emphasis it places on tests, marks, positions, and competitions. These things create a mind-set which thinks that life is a competition, our worth is weighed compared to others, everything has a right or wrong answer, and there is only one way to do things. All of this is wrong and the opposite of the real world. Why put your child through a system which teaches them wrong values when there are alternatives?
There are many other ways in which I feel the school system is broken, but for the sake of brevity, these will suffice.
Every child is unique, so having a school system that ignores uniqueness and focuses on sameness is not logical. Children need learning that is tailored to their unique skills in order to excel and grow. Homeschooling opens the doors for them to do this.
The school system is also flawed in the level of emphasis it places on tests, marks, positions, and competitions. These things create a mind-set which thinks that life is a competition, our worth is weighed compared to others, everything has a right or wrong answer, and there is only one way to do things. All of this is wrong and the opposite of the real world. Why put your child through a system which teaches them wrong values when there are alternatives?
There are many other ways in which I feel the school system is broken, but for the sake of brevity, these will suffice.
Socialization at school is overrated
When you choose to homeschool, the first thing people react with is, “How will your child be socialized and learn to deal with other children?” I always found this question amusing because I never thought of school as a place of socialization. I thought our parents sent us there to learn.
The school socialization system is overrated. Kids are batched according to age, and forced to only make friends with people their own age, but this isn’t how it works in the real world. Kids are told to be quite and sit at their desks doing work most of the time, so is this really socialization?
The short break times are full of bullying, forming gangs, changing yourself to fit in with the cool kids, and other superficial things that don’t matter once you graduate. How is any of this beneficial for children?
Homeschooling gives children an opportunity to live outside this artificial environment, to experience the real world and meet real people from a younger age, to learn what really matters and to learn to interact with people of all ages. This is far more beneficial for them in the long run than putting them through the misery and forgery of the school social environment.
The school socialization system is overrated. Kids are batched according to age, and forced to only make friends with people their own age, but this isn’t how it works in the real world. Kids are told to be quite and sit at their desks doing work most of the time, so is this really socialization?
The short break times are full of bullying, forming gangs, changing yourself to fit in with the cool kids, and other superficial things that don’t matter once you graduate. How is any of this beneficial for children?
Homeschooling gives children an opportunity to live outside this artificial environment, to experience the real world and meet real people from a younger age, to learn what really matters and to learn to interact with people of all ages. This is far more beneficial for them in the long run than putting them through the misery and forgery of the school social environment.
You can focus on what matters
Time management, confidence, teamwork, leadership skills, entrepreneurial skills, preparing for marital life, parenting, and adulthood, these are among some of the most important things that children and teenagers should learn. Yet none of these are part of the core curriculum at schools, which would rather focus on things which they may or may not use in life, but are less relevant and important.
Through homeschooling, you have an opportunity to teach your children these important skills as part of the syllabus at the appropriate time. So that by the time they graduate and are ready to enter the adult world, they will have an edge over others by already knowing a lot more regarding the things that really matter.
Through homeschooling, you have an opportunity to teach your children these important skills as part of the syllabus at the appropriate time. So that by the time they graduate and are ready to enter the adult world, they will have an edge over others by already knowing a lot more regarding the things that really matter.
They will be able to live a more fulfilling life
To me, school is like a prison without bars. The laws are just as restrictive, recess periods are shorter, but at least you get to go home in the afternoon. Going to school means spending twelve years of life in this overbearing environment which is nothing like the real world. Homeschooled kids have more opportunity to play, explore, travel, have adventures, see the real world, enjoy life, gain a real education at a younger age, and make more memories, all while the others are stuck in a classroom.
They can study at their own pace
I find it ridiculous that all children are expected to go through school at the same pace. I remember this being a primary reason why I found school boring. I would read through a year’s history textbook in a week or two, then sit in class for the rest of the year wondering why it takes others so long to learn something that could have been learned in a few weeks. With homeschooling, each child moves at their own pace. If they find a specific section difficult, they can spend extra time on it until they master it. If they find certain concepts easy, they can fly through the entire textbook in weeks and move on to something more challenging.
A clear example of this with my children was Grade R (Kindergarten). I feel that my eldest wasted an entire year in Grade R, as I completed the same syllabus with my second child in three months. Likewise, both of older my children completed the Grade 1 syllabus in under eight months. Why waste an entire year on what can be learned in a few months?
A clear example of this with my children was Grade R (Kindergarten). I feel that my eldest wasted an entire year in Grade R, as I completed the same syllabus with my second child in three months. Likewise, both of older my children completed the Grade 1 syllabus in under eight months. Why waste an entire year on what can be learned in a few months?
Conclusion
I’ll leave this as the final reason why you should consider homeschooling, but there are many more. The world is changing rapidly and the school system is not evolving fast enough to keep up. A lot of concepts enforced in school will be outdated in the next decade or two, so instead of leaving our children to learn these concepts, we can focus on skills and ideas that can help them in an ever-changing world. This is one of the main reasons that homeschooling has picked up in our generation.
