Homeschooling can be confronting to many people and certainly your family if you choose to homeschool your children. There are many questions that get raised such as do you have the knowledge to teach your children everything and the most common one, what about social interaction? While I know homeschooling is not for everyone here are the reasons for homeschooling.

1. They Are More Socially Advanced

When you home school, you don’t lock them in a basement and give them lots of books to read. You take them to sports, field trips and out on your everyday errands. Taking them out on your errands they interact with the day to day world of businesses and people. They learn how to interact in the world. A child that goes to school interacts with one authority figure and 30 or so other children all of the same age. How can a child learn more advanced social skills in a room full of children who all have the same basic level?

2. You Go At Your Child’s Pace

Not all children develop in all areas at the same pace. They may favor reading and writing before mathematics. You can go at your own child’s pace and not leave them behind. At school if you don’t understand something in time you get left behind. Normally this isn’t correct at all and the child falls further behind and also loses interest in it as now it’s far to complicated for them understand.

3. Keeping Education Interesting

Every child enjoys their own things. With one on one education you can tailor your teaching to their interests and make every subject keep their focus. You can also teach them in far more interesting ways. What is more fun counting airplanes at the airport or blocks on a desk in front of you.

4. Different Learning Methods

People learn in 3 different ways. Visual, Audio, Kinesthetic.

Visual people learn best by seeing things, audio people learn best by listening to things and kinesthetic people learn best by feeling things, or having a hands on approach. It is rather easy to pickup which one you child prefers. 

Have a look at http://www.trentu.ca/academic/geography/swurtele/slr/learningstyles.html for the attributes of different learners.

While we all learn through these methods we tend to prefer one. 80% of people are visual, the next being audio and the last being kinesthetic. So if your child falls into the last 2 learning methods then they will have a harder time at at school, a primarily visual learning environment.

5. You Will Have More Fun

Want to relive your childhood again Going to the zoo, airport, farm or what ever takes your fancy will certainly give you a lot of enjoyment as well. How about that a teacher that enjoys teaching everything. Imagine if we had a teacher like that a school?

6. They Benefit From Specialized Experience

There will come a point when you need to get other people in to help with teaching. This normally comes in later in their education when they are starting to learn subjects in more detail. You can take them to people actually using their knowledge in the real world who are actually up to date in their field.

7. They Are Safer

There are 2 reasons why they are safer. Firstly it is because with you they learn how to be streetwise, when being about in the city or other places. You can teach them all the things needed, so that when they actually go out with friends when they are older you know they can handle themselves.

Secondly, school is becoming a dangerous place. State schools in the US and UK are already bad and places like Australia are following closely. When I was at school there was nothing but the school buildings and teachers. Today due to many incidents in schools there are (depending on which country you are in), fences, security cameras, security guards, metal detectors and bag searches. Not only does this present a big way in which the schools are heading, are your children going to school or prison? I certainly wouldn’t like being in a classroom looking out the window and seeing huge fences surrounding me, knowing I can’t leave and must just sit down and do as I am told.

8. They Are Smarter

I am not saying they children are smart but they receive a better education. Referring to http://www.nheri.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=171&Itemid=47 and their research children home schooled will generally always outperform public or private schooled children. And to this date am yet to find research to the contrary. Children that were home schooled coming into adulthood also show better social interaction and adaptation into the “real world”.

9. More Up To Date Material

For most public or private schools, for reference material to be available to students it first must be found by staff or directors of the school, then passed for review by a board, then when funds become available they are purchased for distribution in the school. It is not uncommon that in high school it may take up to 10 years for the latest scientific research to reach the books in front of the students.

So students are 10 years behind when they leave school and I know this first hand, when entering the work force how quickly you have to get your learning up to date.

10. One On One Attention

I think we can all agree that when a child receives one-on-one attention they will receive a better education. You can find out the learning styles, interests and difficulties your child is having. You know exactly where they are up to and how well they are doing.

11. More Family Time

There will be a closer bond in the family and you will know much more about your child than if they went to school. This bond will help create many positive aspects such as knowing when your child needs help or knowing that your child can come to you to discuss anything.

Conclusion

While homeschooling can be daunting when starting out in the younger years, especially when you have younger children/baby, it will become easier as your children grow older and are more self managed. With the advantages listed above it is a win win all around.

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