Pros and Cons of Homeschooling

For one parent, homeschooling might have been something they wanted to do from before they had children. Another parent may have first considered it when their child came home and dropped an 'F bomb'. Often seeing a child unhappy in school or at odds with a teacher makes parents take time to investigate homeschooling.

Homeschooling is becoming more and more common in the United States, which is good in terms of learning more about it and hearing other people's experiences. After visitng many websites and reading many articles, these are the most common pros and cons of homeschooling.

Safety has become a real issue in schools over the last 10 years. Daily headlines leave parents afraid that they may send a child to school one day and their child won't return home. Bullying in schools have also reached epidemic proportions and parents are worried not only for their child's physical well being but their emotional health as well. Keeping your child safe is a primary concern for parents and they feel that by homeschooling they can reduce some of the dangers their child faces.

You need to keep in mind that as a parent you may lack the knowledge and skills to teach your child all the subjects necessary to give them a well rounded and solid education. In such cases you have to be very adept at finding additional resources and teachers for your child to insure the best education possible.

Homeschool coops have become increasingly popular, because of this problem. But homeschool coops bring their own set of problems, such as finding common teaching styles, finding a place to meet and organizing them.

Here's an example of a homeschool coop in action.

What's Considered Normal at Your Local High School?

Parents also worry that their child may make friends with the wrong people and these people may have a negative and destructive influence on their child's life.

Parents don't necessarily want their child surrounded by:

sexually-suggestive dressing

body piercings

tattoos

young girls using make-up

drug-use or underage-drinking

boys wearing the baggy falling-off the butt jeans that parents see at the local high school

By homeschooling parents feel they can more closely monitor their child's friendships and help them to make wiser decisions about their present and their future.

School naturally introduces both children and parents to many new faces. Without school participation, creating similar long-term friendships may require more effort. Churches, extended families, community sports teams, scouting, or other homeschoolers are some of the resources homeschoolers use to provide social opportunities for their kids. But certainly it is hard to argue that homeschoolers are exposed to as many people or as many different kinds of people as regular school.

If you are considering the pro's and con's of homeschooling, then the odds are you are considering whether you want to homeschool. Here are some great books to help you, whether you are still making the decision or have decided you are ready to take the plunge!

One benefit of home schooling is that learning does not have to be done on a set schedule. Homeschooling makes it easy to tailor a schedule to suit the night owl.

Topics that are more complex don't have to be crammed into a 50-minute period.

And if a child is excited about a particular topic, they can continue to explore it without the afternoon bell announcing the end of that class period.

Home schooling is most successful with one stay at home parent. If both parents work then the parent who does the brunt of the home schooling may find the time constraints less than ideal for giving their all to their child's education. Conversely, parents may decide that to do the proper job homeschooling their children that they need to reduce their hours worked and therefore reduce their income.

Studies suggest that children who have successfully been home schooled develop a love for life long learning which helps them in their careers and life in general. Homeschoolers grow up without the expectation of someone else handing them all the information.

The first question with homeschooling is how to find out and learn about a topic. The responsibility of finding information resting with the learner is an important concept. Homeschoolers expect to be an active participant in the learning process as opposed to passively

Being a homeschooling parent brings one more role, one more responsibility to rest on your shoulders. Depending on how full your plate was before homeschooling, this may push something else off. Often the first thing to go is meeting your own adult needs. This is especially true if a homeschooling parent feels the need to prove that homeschooling works to their family or friends.

Yes, you love them all. yes, you are glad you are homeschooling. But....... well once in a while, it's a bit much, that's all.

I call Upromise the scholarship that everyone wins. It's free to sign-up, easy to use and I've collected about $1200 without any effort at all that I've used on tuition bills. No kidding. It's that easy.

Oh, and the funds can be used for your child's education or to pay off student loans It's easy to change the recipient, as long as it goes to a recognized educational institute.

Now back to....Pros and Cons of Homeschooling

Unless you are that family with 19 kids, odds are that if you homeschool, your child-to-teacher ratio is likely to be lower than if your child is in public school. On the other hand, you might want to consider how much time each child in your homeschool has available from the teacher versus at the public school. Generally, homeschooled children get a lot more one-on-one instruction, but there are exceptions. Parents with new babies in the house, parents running a business from the home, etc. may still be hard-pressed to provide personal tutoring for their child.

If you are homeschooling you have more time to spend with your children. "They grow up so fast," says one homeschooler, "I don't want to hand over a huge chunk of those years to a stranger." "I want to be there for the 'Aha' moment" says another.

If you read this story of a mom, once reluctant to homeschool, I think you'll see what I mean:

Frustration Build Up

When too much together time isn't working, frustration can peak.

If the parent/child dynamic hits a rough patch, homeschoolers may miss the fresh perspective a new teacher brings. Or simply the time apart that any two people can benefit from when they are getting on each others nerves!

Do you feel the pro's and con's of homeschooling listed on this page are a balanced look at the topic of homeschooling. You can add a comment below if you'd like to explain why you feel this way.

Other Educational Topics to Come

If you enjoyed this page, I invite you to check out another page I created on an educational topic, such as: Homeschool Spanish Curriculum