Is Homeschooling Right for Your Family?
Reasons to Consider Homeschooling
“Dear friend, don’t let the bustling culture determine the needs of your own children. You get to choose how they grow up. You can protect their time, energy, and imagination. You are the gatekeeper of the garden of their childhood.”
Sophie, working on school while at an Airbnb in Crouay, France
“I learned about genetic disorders today,” Rachel declared at the dinner table. She proceeded to tell us about several disorders, including sickle cell anemia and cystic fibrosis. She quoted statistics of certain populations affected. She told us exactly how her DNA differs from mine and how identical twins share the exact same DNA. She went on to lead a family discussion about chromosomes and mitochondrial DNA. Clearly, she was passionate about what she had learned.
Why do I bring this up? We’ve noticed this from both of our girls in the 3 years that we have been homeschooling them. They talk about what they’re learning on a frequent basis and can eloquently and accurately articulate the subject matter. Why is this important? It displays that they are not just learning for a test, they are actually able to apply their learnings in a real world environment and have an educated discussion with adults about what they have learned. We’ve seen so much more of this since we began homeschooling!
I’m often asked by friends and family why we decided to homeschool. Despite homeschooling becoming more and more popular, it seems that it still holds a good deal of intrigue. Some people are just curious and ask a lot of questions. Others are unsure of both the effectiveness and the process. Still others tell me that they “wish” they could homeschool, admitting that they feel intimidated. It might not be as difficult as you’re imagining. For those that are curious, read on. We think you might be surprised at some of the information we have to share.
What is Homeschooling?
Homeschooling is an option for parents who wish to teach their children at home as opposed to having them attend traditional public or private school. The concept began to take root here in the U.S. during the 1970’s with the number of homeschooled students totaling a relatively low 10-15K. In those days, parents were primarily motivated by three factors - religion, political ideology, and the desire to teach their kids life skills that included how to take care of themselves, grow crops, catch food, cook, and care for animals.
Over the decades, the motivations have shifted, but that’s not all that has changed. By 2016, there were about 2.6 million children being schooled at home! Throughout the decades, religion has remained a consistent motivator but concerns for special education, family values, and safety from drugs, violence, and bullying have added to the reasons parents might consider educating their kids at home. At the same time, more technology and curriculum options have become available, making homeschooling a desirable choice for more families who may not have originally considered it.
The Covid pandemic drove numbers to the highest levels in history! Just prior to the pandemic, in 2019, an estimated 2.5 million kids were being homeschooled. That represented 3-4% of the school-aged population. With parents forced to switch their children to a virtual environment, many took the opportunity to pull their kids from traditional schools altogether and begin homeschooling.
At the height of this trend, over 3.7 million kids, grades K-12, were being homeschooled! Once things returned to normal, and schools throughout the country were back to operating in person, some of these kids went back to their local school but many of them did not. During the 2022-2023 school year, approximately 3.1 million kids were homeschooled. That represents 6% of the school-aged population!
Reasons to Consider Homeschooling
So, what are some of the major reasons to consider homeschooling? There are quite a few and their level of importance depends on what each individual family values most.
Safety and Security – Keeping children safe from physical and emotional harm is the most common reason parents choose to homeschool. In addition to the increasing risk of school shootings, parents are concerned about their children being bullied in school. In 2019, one study determined that students between the ages of 12 and 18 reported being afraid of an attack or harm at school.
In addition to violence, public school children are exposed to daily opportunities to be influenced by their peer group. This pressure could be direct, indirect, spoken, or unspoken. For adolescents, it’s really all about their desire to fit in with the crowd. It can result in risky behavior, anxiety or depression, academic distraction, substance abuse, and body image issues, all of which can have lasting effects. Parents who homeschool eliminate the vast majority of opportunities for their child to be subjected to peer pressure.
Efficiency – Fewer distractions means more efficient use of time. With only themselves and their lessons, children can be more focused. There are no disruptive students, distracted teachers, or administrative interruptions keeping them from absorbing the information. Because of this, they finish their studies in a fraction of the time it would take them in a traditional school setting. We have personally found that this stronger ability to focus has enabled our girls to retain their learnings longer and demonstrate their acquired knowledge and skills in real-world application (like the example I mentioned in the opening paragraph of this post).
Higher Academic Achievement – According to the National Home Education Research Institute, homeschoolers perform 10-30% higher than public school students on academic achievement tests. They are also 10% more likely to complete a 4 year college degree than their public school peers. Lastly, they tend to score higher on the SAT and ACT exams and are being recruited at an increasingly higher rate by colleges and universities.
Flexibility and Freedom – Parents who homeschool have the ability to determine their own schedule and curriculum. While some states may mandate specific subjects be taught, parents can incorporate their values, and even their faith into their chosen curriculum. What we love most about this benefit is that we can incorporate experiences into our girls’ learning. By being able to have school whenever, however, and wherever we want, we can allow the world to become our classroom. How much more enjoyable and impactful is a lesson on World War II when you can read books (fiction or nonfiction) about the subject, go to a WWII museum, and/or actually walk the beaches of Normandy? (This is one of the main reasons that we started looking into worldschooling which we’ll be writing about very soon.)
Personalized Learning – Public school, by virtue of the sheer volume of students, has a “one-size-fits-all” approach. Those who excel at a particular subject might be labeled “gifted” while a child who falls behind might be placed into a “special education” category. Often, these same children, if given the opportunity to learn at their own pace, can perform at the same level. They might just need to get there on a different schedule and with a different learning style.
An ability to determine our own pace is vital to the learning process. If something sparks their interest, our girls can spend more time on that concept. Often, this means doing their own research because they find something fascinating and want to do more. This not only helps cement the knowledge their lessons are teaching but also builds investigative skills. They learn how and where to seek accurate information and how to analyze and think critically about differing viewpoints, forming their own opinions.
By the same token, it means being able to slow down when a concept is challenging. They don’t have to feel pressured to “keep up with the rest of the class.” They can get individualized attention when they need it. They can even walk away when they’re not at their best (because everyone has bad days where focus and concentration are a struggle). On these days, they can carry a light load, focus on their favorite subjects, or spend time learning or honing a skill. I can also give them incentives like “if you work to finish all your goals for the week early, you can be done.” Why do school everyday when you can accomplish the same goals in fewer days?
Ability to Pursue Passions – In the homeschooling environment, a child has the opportunity to devote more time to their passions. Whether sports, arts, or hobbies, your child’s own interests can be pursued at a deeper level. Rachel loves art. Drawing is her particular passion, but she loves all forms and uses her free time to paint, learn new techniques, and hone her skills. Sophie loves to use her creativity for crafting all sorts of neat projects. She also really enjoys coding and is currently stretching her knowledge by taking a high school level Java Script coding class as a 6th grader. (There simply wasn’t a course at her grade level that was challenging enough to keep her engaged.)
What Disadvantages Should be Considered?
Nothing in life comes without some negatives. While homeschooling can mean a lot of extra family time, it also may mean that you, as the parent, have less time for yourself. Your workload will increase as you become not just mom and dad but also, teacher, tutor, record keeper, and curriculum manager. (This can be the case even if you are utilizing online curriculums which have their own instructors.)
Extra-curricular activities might look different for homeschoolers. Kids who have enjoyed participating in their school’s sports and arts programs might miss those experiences. In addition, kids might miss out on school-sponsored dances and other social events that bring their peers together, outside of academics.
You might also find that resources are harder to secure without spending extra money. Without an on-site library, science lab, and gymnasium full of equipment, it can be difficult to provide the full experience of some courses. Purchasing supplies for these classes can add up.
For many families, homeschooling can represent a huge lifestyle change. If you’ve been accustomed to two working parents and kids who go to school all day and then spend time in extracurricular activities, so much time together can be overwhelming. One parent may be stepping away from a career to provide homeschooling and that can represent a loss of income (and, potentially, a temporary loss of identity). Siblings who argue will have even more time together, presenting either an opportunity to resolve issues and grow closer or the potential for more constant fighting and, possibly, larger scale problems. In addition, there will be more meals to provide at home. Families who aren’t prepared to make adjustments might be less likely to enjoy homeschooling.
Ideas for Overcoming the Negatives
One thing we’ve learned since starting our homeschool journey is that we all have to be more creative. While things will look different, there are ways to overcome the negatives that arise. You will need to determine new sources for support. Homeschool groups are great resources! Often, parents will get together to teach a class or take turns teaching different classes. They might even pool money to buy science equipment or art materials that can be used by many different families.
Family time is precious and is one motivation for homeschooling. However, with at least one parent and child at home every day, it can also present challenges. In our household, there are 3 adults who work from home, and a teen and tween who are homeschooling. With 5 people at home full-time, we have had to address the problem of getting on each other’s nerves. That could be as simple as taking one child out on errands or for a meal. Arranging time with a friend, whether in person or virtually, is also helpful (even for the adults).
Many people cite a perceived lack of socialization opportunities for their kids as a reason for not homeschooling. While this can be a problem if you don’t reach out and find ways for your child to interact, statistics show that homeschooled kids are often more socially adept than their traditionally schooled peers. Most homeschool families join a co-op, find a club or team, or get involved in the community through church and other volunteer opportunities.
Technology can even connect kids with online communities that are safely facilitated by a trained adult. Right now, Rachel (our teen) isn’t interested in attending high school in person. She is almost done with her sophomore year and has found an online group of kids from here in the US and also the UK. She meets with them weekly via Outschool. These regular meetings help her to feel connected to kids just like her that are learning outside of the traditional school system. Currently, the promise of new adventures and experiences abroad has her more excited than the traditional activities of high school.
Modern homeschooling offers so many new ways to ensure a successful education for your child. By integrating creative strategies there are almost no obstacles that can’t be overcome.
Facts & Trends on Homeschooling
For those of you who love having statistics to make decisions, there are several resources that provide useful information on homeschooling. Some that I find particularly helpful include NCES (National Center for Education Statistics), NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) which is known as the Nation’s Report Card, and HSLDA (Homeschooling Legal Defense Association). Below, I’ve provided some homeschooling facts which also include some trend data provided by NHERI (The National Home Education Research Institute.)
Homeschooling is legal in all 50 U.S. states, but requirements are regulated at the state level and vary greatly from state to state. We’ll be going into this in more depth in next week’s post on How to Get Started Homeschooling.
Homeschooling families are surprisingly diverse. All races and religions, socioeconomic and political groups are represented with minority groups growing at a higher rate than ever in the last decade. Currently, about 41% of homeschool families identify as non-white/non-Hispanic.
Parents choosing to homeschool come from all levels of educational background, from GED to PhD. While some states may require a teaching certificate as a qualification for homeschooling, the vast majority require a parent to have only a high school diploma, or equivalent.
Public schools spend an average of over $16K per student annually, all of which comes from taxpayers. Conversely, homeschool parents spend an average of $600-900 per year, per student out of their own after-tax money.
Our Personal Experience with Homeschooling
We’ve raised two children all the way through graduation in either a private school or the public school system. Our two youngest also attended public school through 7th and 3rd grade (though the last full year was held virtually through our local public school system). Since the fall of 2021, we’ve homeschooled our Littles.
Over the last two decades, we’ve seen a number of things change. We’ve been increasingly frustrated with the emphasis on non-academic priorities in public school. We’ve also found our personal priorities have changed as we are no longer in our 30’s but in our 50’s with children still in school.
For us, the decision came down to a couple of things. We decided that we wanted to enjoy more frequent travel while we were still young enough to fully enjoy it and that meant taking our girls along for the ride. It also meant that we’d need to free ourselves from the demands of a school calendar. In addition, we wanted to be able to take our girls’ individual learning styles and interests into consideration.
We loved the idea of homeschooling but didn’t know if we were properly equipped or if we could even accomplish what we hoped by homeschooling. We needed to have some serious conversations to determine if this would be the right decision for our family.
We believe that the best way to start this process is to sit down together and determine what your goals are for your children. What is it that you want to provide them with and what do you want to make sure they accomplish before they graduate high school and possibly go out on their own? We wrote about how we approached this goal-setting process in our post Our Top 10 Goals for Our Kids.
Once you know WHAT you want for them, you need to decide if your current path will get the job done. We also wrote about 6 Steps We’re Taking to Achieve Our Goals for Our Daughters. For us, deciding to homeschool was an essential part of the overall plan to help them achieve those goals!
Reasons to start homeschooling vary depending on the goals of the individual parents and their children. For us, personally, we have found that the pros far outweigh the cons. As a matter of fact, we find ourselves often saying “and that’s why we homeschool” when we see our girls succeeding at something or when we hear about a problem at one of the local schools. The point is that these are very personal decisions and you, as parents, should feel that it is yours to make!
As you can see, there are a lot of things to consider when determining whether or not to homeschool your child. For us, it’s been one of the best parenting decisions we’ve ever made. It provided the catalyst for us being able to begin our Uncommon Family Adventures! Homeschooling enables us to travel the world with our girls and expose them to new countries, cultures, foods, languages, and experiences that we could never have with a traditional schedule and education.
We hope we’ve provided you with useful information that will have you asking if homeschooling could be right for your family. Do you have questions? Let us know in the comments below.
