Why we decided to Home School

I have been asked by several people to write a post about why I decided to home school. I was a little hesitant about answering this question because I do not want to offend anyone or come off sounding like if you don't HS you are a bad parent. This couldn't be further from the truth. I think as parents we are constantly trying to figure out what is best for our children and our family. So this is a post about what is best for MY FAMILY. It isn't meant to offend anyone. I love teachers....I guess I decided to become one:-) I think teachers work incredibly hard with very little pay and resources. So here it goes OUR reasons for choosing to HS our 5 beautiful children. So far one of the BEST decisions we have made.

1. We wanted to give our children a Christian education where God could be openly discussed and the bible could be read. Our schools today are not like when we were growing up. Today’s schools are essentially government run
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2. We wanted to be an important part of educating our children. God gave us these children to train up and to teach to be disciples for him. We also knew we would be doing HS with our public educated children anyway with homework that was sent home by their teachers. (Homework begins in kindergarten)

3. I want my children to obtain life skills. When they are old enough I want them to be able to experience many different internships etc. so they can determine what they would like to do. HS could be viewed as College Prep because they are learning how to manage every aspect of their individual lives. They won’t need to try and figure out how to take care of themselves through the feedback and modeling provided by their peers.

4. A lot of time is wasted in school. Schools waste so much of a child's day sitting, waiting, learning things that are not applicable in real-life. We thought a better senerio for our children would be spending the day learning worthwhile skills while receiving personal feedback immediately. Studies have been done were 30 minutes of actual leaning took place in a 6 hour school day. I didn't want to lose my children for 6+ hours out of the day and then lose them when they get home to homework that they had to do in the next 2 hours. Where does family time fit into that model?

5. Socialization is another reason. My husband and I really don't believe a good model for socialization is 8 year olds socializing with other 8 year olds. We believe that our children should be able to socialize with 2 year olds, 10 year olds, 20 year olds, 33 year olds and even 80 year olds. To us this is socialization.

6. I believe learning is so fun....think back to kindergarten. Schools take the fun out of learning at no fault to them. I believe if I can foster a fun learning environment at home then they will constantly be searching out learning and loving it for a lifetime.

7. We want to raise our own children. We didn't want to give our children to someone for 6-8 hours out of the day and have that person become the biggest influence in our children's lives. We want to keep our family as a strong family unit and not have other outside people be more important in our child's life. We have a strong desire to truly appreciate the daily sanctity of family.

8. Another very important reason is to shelter them. Interesting I know, since this one would probably be a big critisim to HS. This is one of my biggest reasons. Individual differences are rarely valued in the reality of school, and children in school are often abused emotionally by their peers if they possess personal characteristics that are too far from what is considered normal. An accelerated sense of sexuality and dating are a reality in school. I understand that these are also realities outside school, and my children will someday understand this reality. But not today. They will experience them once they have a firm foundation of faith, love, respect for themselves, and an unwavering relationship with God and their parents.

9. Moving at my child's pace of learning and not someone else's child.

10. Enjoying the time with my children. With home schooling we have limited our outside activities and found a simpler lifestyle. We are not forced to succumb to the modern pressures and stresses of our society with its hectic pace. Instead we are able to slow down enough to enjoy time together as a family. (Side note if you HS your child can still play sports with the public school, this was important to me.)

So these are a few of my reasons for choosing to HS. I feel like I am making better use of my child’s time and they are learning so much!!!!