As I am starting this post, I can’t help but be fearful the topics it brings up. I work hard to stand out and stand up for my beliefs. But in this age of internet trolls and relative truth, it is scary to put yourself out there. Especially in writing. But here goes… One big “pro” of homeschooling is protection. Proverbs 4:23 tells us “guard your hearts, for everything you do flows from it.” The hearts of our children are slowly being infiltrated and overtaken by sin and the things of this world. One of the main places where our children are exposed to such things is in school where they spend most of their waking hours. This is a place where we as parents have no control over who they are with, what they see, or what they are even taught by authority. This is now a place where kindergarteners are being asked whether they’d like to “be a boy or a girl or something else today.”
A few years ago, I began researching homeschooling and the different reasons why people did and did not homeschool and the results. I watched a documentary called IndoctriNation. Though not much time has passed, the world has already changed substantially and warrants an Indoctrination Part II. But even then, it was so clear to me that the hearts of my children were not being protected in school. Now, 12 states have passed laws prohibiting therapists from counseling children who are struggling with gender identity. This means parents do not have access to counseling services aimed at restoring their children’s identification with their biological gender. Another 12 states have introduced bills along the same lines. Have we forgotten about the separation of church and state, and freedom of religion?
The extreme overreach of this movement and the full on intoxication of society with this nonsense is shocking. Many parents are left with no other choice than to remove their kids from the public school systems in order to protect them from this agenda. Our children are too young. Kindergarteners like to dress up like anything. Cows for instance. But that doesn’t mean that they are actually a cow. Shocking, I know. Promoting an agenda to confuse their gender identity at these ages is deplorable. As parents, we are called to guard their young hearts and teach them “when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” (Deuteronomy 6:7) This is one of many reasons why we homeschool. And of course there are also some reasons why not to homeschool which we will get to.
Another reason we homeschool is to foster sibling relationships. That’s not to say that children cannot go to public or private school and still have great sibling relationships. However, we have personally seen many examples of grade separation driving a wedge between siblings, and many examples of children who are homeschooled binding together. It pains me to say it but I experienced this as well. My brother was two years behind me in school. Though we are still close, I do feel that during many formative years, instead of banding together with my brother, I felt pressure from school mates to separate from him. I made poor choices. Not everyone will, but even now with my boys just 5, 3, and 2 years old, I watch how their attitudes toward each other change around other friends. We work on this of course and it is an opportunity for growth. However, you can imagine how much harder that is to work on when the kids at school are with your own children exponentially longer each day than you or their siblings. We believe strongly in family relationships and the positive emotional impact of their unconditional love and support.
Though these reasons led me to start my research into homeschooling, what I quickly discovered was a whole slew of other reasons why homeschooling can be best for children. Let’s not forget that education originally happened in the home. And why not? Who knows a child better than his own parents? Every child is unique and develops at a different pace and learns differently than the next. For instance, my first son is an auditory learner. Math problems on paper and even with manipulatives can be challenging for him. But when I ask him addition and multiplication word problems, he rattles off the answer without hardly having to think about it. I know this. And by homeschooling I can focus on teaching to his learning style and not just write it off as an inability to get the concepts as a teacher might have to who is handing out and grading worksheets for 20-30 kids.
Teaching our children while being mindful of their learning styles and having grace and flexibility of doing it within our homes, fosters a love of learning. So it comes as no surprise that homeschooled children score above the national average on standardized testing and do better in college. I recently found my son getting frustrated with his reading lessons that he used to love. I was able to see he was picking up on it faster than he could even complete the lessons. He is reading at a second grade level even though we have not yet “officially” begun kindergarten. I don’t want to stifle his ability to progress in that area simply by categorizing him as a certain “grade” because perhaps he isn’t as advanced yet in other subjects. With homeschooling he is more free to learn at his own pace and love the process and retain the information. I can teach him a second grade reading curriculum while still working on a lower level math program. Whatever is best for him.
There are also many parents who choose to homeschool their children because of work and/or travel schedules. Sometimes this takes one or both parents away from home frequently and homeschooling the children gives them ability to keep the family together. The statistics about family togetherness are overwhelming. A really great movie that hit home on this subject is Courageous. Of course, there are many other benefits of homeschooling your children. For the sake of time, I’ll let you chime in with any I missed in the comments below.
As to “cons”, there are actually some things that aren’t so great. For instance, my sanity! HAHA. I laugh but actually this is partially true. If I were sending my kids off to school, I’d have some time when I had one, two or three fewer kids dangling from the chandeliers and bringing homemade mud inside to foster the worms they found out back. For some of you, there are even more kids and homeschooling is even more of a sacrifice of personal time and the cleanliness of your home. I remember even before I had my third son, one day my father-in-law visited and told me it looked like a day care in my house. I of course, replied, well it basically is one! It isn’t easy that’s for sure, especially for someone like me who neurotically bounces like a ping pong ball from one mess or emergency to the next. But that is not why we do it. For me it is worth the sacrifice. Every moment I look into the sweet faces of my boys as they are learning and thriving, it is worth every painful stomp on a Lego and every half drank cup of coffee.
Another “con” is the potential/unforeseen cost. First, let me say there are a ton of programs out there where you can actually subsidize your homeschooling costs. And there are many ways to do it on the cheap. But it really depends what your homeschooling looks like. For instance, recently I was looking into the rules, regulations and options for homeschooled children to participate in school sports (a la Tim Tebow – who definitely goes under the “pro” category).
I found out that even though I pay taxes for public education and don’t utilize it, in Colorado they are able to charge homeschoolers 50% more for school sports fees than enrolled children. [Eye roll here]. So depending on what your children are involved in, from curriculum to arts to sports, it could end up costing you something and it might be harder to budget from the beginning for what that amount is. But as I recently heard someone say, homeschooling is giving my children a private education at a fraction of the cost.
The last thing I will briefly mention is certain situations in which it might not be best to homeschool your children. There are parents who desire the privacy of homeschooling for all the wrong reasons. Child abuse and neglect are obvious wrong reasons to homeschool. But if you are reading this post, I’m assuming you are trying to find out what is best for your kids. There are cases of neglect in and out of school. The way it is hidden and who is responsible for oversight in each case is a subject for another day. For now, let me know what pros and cons you have experienced or any questions you have. I would love to hear your comments.
