Home Schooling

Home Schooling

More parents are now choosing to homeschool instead of sending their children to public or private schools. Learn more about the homeschooling movement and what's involved when parents educate their kids at home.

What Is Homeschooling?

Why do parents choose to homeschool? In what regions are homeschools most popular?

Home schooling occurs when parents take charge of their children’s education — organizing subjects, teaching lessons or arranging for tutors, evaluating progress, and supervising social contacts. Home school parents believe that one-on-one attention and individualized study produce the best education possible; most also think that peer groups are NOT the best “socializing agent” for their children. Home schooling is legal in all fifty states, and home schooled children consistently score very highly on standardized tests and other measures of academic performance. Home schooling is no longer a fringe movement; recent surveys suggest that over a million American children are currently taught at home, and the number grows every year. Although many home school families are two-parent households with one breadwinner and one stay-at-home parent, many other families arrange home schooling around dual careers, single-parent schedules, and other less traditional arrangements.

Homeschooling is a progressive movement around the country and the world, in which parents choose to educate their children at home instead of sending them to a traditional public or private school. Families choose to homeschool for a variety of reasons, including dissatisfaction with the educational options available, different religious beliefs or educational philosophies, and the belief that children are not progressing within the traditional school structure.

Homeschooling, a concept in which children instead of going to schools, are taught by the parents or other guardians at home itself, is catching the fancy of many people again. People are considering this option as there are many advantages of homeschooling. However, at the same time, there are disadvantages as well. So, should parents go in for homeschooling or should they rely on schools to educate their children, let's find it out by looking at the pros and cons of homeschooling.

Advantages

Quality Time and Family Bonding.

One of the benefits of homeschooling children is that parents get to spend a lot of quality time with the kids. When kids go to school, everything right from when to take the children to museum or a soccer game or when to take them out for holidays, has to be planned according to the school schedule. But when parents are homeschooling children, such limitations are not there. Parents can spend as much time, whenever they want to with the kids. This gives them enough time to instill good values in children and also to bond as a family.

Individual Attention and Personalized Coaching.

No two children have the same learning and understanding capacity. But in most of the schools, this factor is overlooked and all children are taught and treated the same way. This can develop an inferiority complex in some children who are unable to catch up with the other students in the class. However, when homeschooling, parents teach their children with a lot of patience and are able to give them individual attention. Parents understand if the children take time to understand things and may even use certain other methods to specifically teach their children. Thus, another advantage is personalized teaching.

Safe and Flexible

These days we see more parents opting for home schooling, who have such jobs, which ask for a change of location every few months or years. Home schooling's flexible timings suit the children as well, especially those who find it difficult to wake up early morning. Parents too need not worry about getting the children ready for school first thing in the morning. Flexibility while homeschooling extends to the subjects being taught too, in the sense that if a child is not in a mood to study a particular subject, parents can always switch to something of the child's interest.

Confidence and Personality Building

Homeschooling provides the opportunity and gives time to the children to mingle with all age groups of people, this helps in instilling confidence in them. As children who study at home, are more regular at participating in community activities, it leads to development of a better personality. Children are not under any kind of stress of assignments or exams, their studies are fun and are especially designed keeping their nature in mind, all these things make children happy and confident individuals.

Disadvantages

Ill-equipped to Face Challenges

One of the main disadvantages is that it does not instill a competitive spirit in them which is regarded as a serious negative effect of homeschooling. For example, in school, a child has to compete with so many others to get into a sports team, this makes him strong enough to face challenges, compete and even to accept rejection, in case he is not able to make the cut. The child might even find it difficult to mingle with the other children of his age, when studying at home. All these things are left untaught while homeschooling children, this being one of the main reasons why homeschooling is bad.

Financial and Emotional Problems

There are disadvantages of homeschooling for parents as well. Since homeschooling involves teaching the child at home, it means that either of the parents will give up his/her job and stay at home. This being one of the major disadvantages because, it leaves the family with lesser financial resources. Homeschooling can be very stressful for the parent who stays at home with the child, which in most cases is the mother, as it can lead to her isolation from everybody else.

As parents, looking at both the pros and cons is very important, before arriving at the final decision. Although, initially you may find the flexibility of homeschooling and other advantages very appealing, but at a later stage, it may happen that the disadvantages might bog you down completely. So, think long and hard about your individual situation, ask yourself whether you are well prepared and trained to take such a responsibility, only then think of going ahead with homeschooling your child.