Home Schooling - The Benefits of Learning at Home Versus Traditional Schools

If the faults of mainstream education have finally become intolerable to your family and especially to your children, then you may have looked into home schooling. But what is home schooling? Home schooling is school taught outside of a formal establishment (i.e. academies, schools, etc.), and the teachers are commonly the parents or private tutors. There are a great number of reasons why parents or guardians decided to put their children in home schooling.

Mainstream public and private education can drive children and their parents crazy. Sometimes they do not see any alternative then to put their children in a home schooling environment. There are many advantages and disadvantages to this type of schooling. All that you can do before you decide to home school is to get information about the pros and cons, and then weigh the benefits and negatives and make an informed decision.

There are numerous benefits to home schooling your children. The greatest benefit to this type of education is the freedom. With home education, you and your children can finally achieve total and ultimate educational, physical, and religious freedom. No more learning a test. No more standardized testing. Finally, you can learn for the simple purpose of learning. With home schooling, your children will be able to learn information and be able to comprehend it instead of just being taught facts and told to memorize and retain.

Home schooling also offers parents the ability to give their children more hands-on lessons with field trips and work visits. Physical freedom factors into both the parents and the pupils with home schooling. Parents feel liberated because they no longer have to revolve their lives around their children school schedule. Teaching at home can be done anywhere and many parents feel they are now able to take off-season vacations. Another freedom for home-schooled families is a freedom of religion. Since you are the teacher and your son or daughter is the pupil, then you can incorporate your family's personal religious beliefs into your education lesson.

As with everything in life there are two sides to each coin. There are a number of negative consequences in home education. Some of the downfalls to home schooling include lack of personal relationships with peers, a (possible) lack of physical education, and a sense of abnormalcy. Home schooling does not encourage and facilitate children to make peer relationships. In both public and private schools, children have the benefit of being grouped together in classes and activities, and in turn, they have an opportunity to get to know one another. Home school lacks this type of environment and can retard a child's social growth.

Sports are another thing that home schooled children have to forgo. Some parents don't have the time to take their kids outside to teach them sports, and while there are community leagues, it just isn't the same. There is no school pride and community teams all too focus on making everyone happy by making everyone a "winner". Hurtful or no, home schooled children are different then most other kids, and those children in a normal school environment will see home schooling abnormal and 'weird'. Home schooling can hurt your children's physical growth and social standing with their peers.

Home schooling has its benefits and its negatives. None really outweigh the other outright, so you must base your decision on your personal life and what you want for your children's education.