Is Home Schooling Good For Your Child?

According to The Homeland Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), homeschool student’s GPA is 30% higher than those in Public Schools that average 15-30% grade-wise. This promotes good communication and emotional closeness with family but has a back draw when it comes to socializing with others since they will have limited access to developing proper people skills.

“Education must not simply teach work - it must teach Life.”

-W. E. B. Du Bois

Homeschool children have a lot of attention as they get the proper one-on-one, which encourages self-independence and higher self-esteem. The public-school system can be a disaster and cause trouble that will leave valuable life lessons, good and bad, but ultimately, it’s up to the parent to keep the child on track. Homeschool life is safe, non-threatening, makes learning easier, creates a laser focus mentality on goals, and has a higher success rate for college work. Now let’s mention some of the bad because, with good, there comes the ugly. Many parents don’t like the idea of their children being around others because of influence, peer-pressure, have a need to control every aspect of their child’s life, the parent, in general, might be troubled and has a distinctive way of raising their child that works for them, but works against the child, and to some extent think they can do a better job than professional teachers. 

From one perspective, parents think the child will excel as they need to think on their feet and adjust to keep up with the workflow, therefore, making the child use their brain more. From the other perspective, children don’t have laser focus and get distracted easily. The reason why this happens is that they are comfortable at home, which discourages them from trying as they don’t see any reason to try at all. The classroom setting forces them to adjust and makes them care since they mentally prepared their mindset to learn a new topic.

1.    Homeschooling offers more family time and closeness

Pros:

A direct role in the child’s daily learning with the satisfaction of knowing the child is developing skills with the hope of maturing in the best way to your values and goals. It’s important to have a direct line of response to counter the confusion and chaos the child will come across so they will keep moving forward.

Cons:

Handle the administrative work of being the replacement teacher, which gives you less time for yourself and increases the chances for more stress and fatigue due to the pressure of dealing with so much at once. Some people excel at this and will go to any length to see the child succeed, but for the ones who are not qualified and know little about the procedures, they will need to give up and let the professionals take over.

2.    Homeschooling means more money and resource

Pros:

Working is essential to the working adults who need a consistent income, but it gets tougher when a large chunk of time is dedicated to the child who relies on you to learn more about a topic. Using vacations and other activities can be applied to the curriculum so it’s a fun way to switch up how the child learns. This is a better way as it offers the child a hands-on approach to learning about life a lot faster. They also have bundled packets for online learning and this can be effective in teaching what’s important while removing the rest that doesn’t need to be talked about.

Cons:

Tightening the budget will become a problem as dodging work can’t be avoided, but consistent income needs a priority. This means that work will take a back seat with fewer hours and jeopardize bills and lifestyle changes. This isn’t a great way to go about living if it can be avoided, however, a helping partner husband/wife to work the most to make up the loss makes this process easier to deal with.

3.    Homeschoolers get rejected from sports and after school activities

Pros:

Homeschool children will get to participate in amateur leagues, recreational leagues, local homeschool sports classes and create their own sports leagues. This sounds great and all but it’s a lot easier to stick them in a program that’s already established, which in turn takes a load of pressure off the parent in charge.

Cons:

The school district prefers children in the school system with other kids because it makes it easier for the children to transition into any activity the school offers. Nothing is wrong with homeschool children, but formal education from homeschooling is looked down upon because it’s not considered professional teaching from adults who have years of college and knowledge on the subject matter.

4.    The child’s path to socialization with others

Pros:

Social pressure is tough enough when meeting new people, but the goal here is to increase self-esteem, encourage learning, prevents bullying, adult exposure through activities and field trips, and connection to other homeschoolers of different ages and skill levels. This is a strong foundation for building real-life skills with hands-on learning which schools don’t typically promote.

Cons:

Having friends is important to the homeschool child because social interaction is natural, and self-expression is a must. Denying the child the opportunity to make friends who aren’t simply family-related makes them less interested in getting to know others. Daily interaction with the same group of friends or larger makes the child feel more secure with who they are and teaches them about their own self through mistakes and conflict learning.

5.    Freedom and flexibility in homeschool learning with better benefits

Pros:

They move quickly through work and spend more time on topics with greater challenges, perform better on a standardized test, homework is the school work, and best of all it’s a lot easier to hone in on the child’s learning style to help them achieve success faster.

Cons:

You must teach a wide range of subjects with greater freedom and flexibility on the subject matters, which means great responsibility. Also, there’s less structure when compared to public schools.

6.    Achieving recognition is limited with homeschool

Pros:

Fewer distractions from a student who doesn’t value learning and prefers to slack off. Homeschool children also find greater pride in their own achievements through self-motivation.

Cons:

There won’t be any awards to hand out nor will there be recognition from those outside the classroom.

7.    Community involvement and selfless acts of compassion

Pros:

Homeschool children get to spend more time helping others and getting the real-world experience of how life works, instead of hearing it through books or teachers who show little compassion to teach them anything. This is how to get a child used to spending time with others and learning more about themselves.

Cons:

Volunteer work is great to inspire and help with education, but it’s not paying the bills. Collaborative projects teach children about teamwork, but this is better done in a class with kids their age. This also takes away time from peers who they need to be around.

To summarize the above, homeschooling isn’t a bad idea for parents who want to see their kids learn and be the best version of themselves they can be, but it comes at a cost of time, commitment, and help that’s not always there. It’s a risk that can make the child better in the long run or ruin them in other ways. It’s all about the upbringing and the influences around them that help guide the child in the best possible future.