Have you considered homeschooling in recent months (or maybe even years)? Homeschooling can be a hugely beneficial alternative to traditional schooling for your family, but it IS a drastic shift from public school and it takes a lot of consideration to make the leap. As a mom who homeschools myself, I’ll wanted to share 13 real reasons to homeschool that you might not have even considered.
I’ll also debunk some common misconceptions about homeschoolers. Perhaps some items on this list will tip the scales in the direction of homeschooling for your family too! (It’s been one of the best choices we’ve ever made for our kids!)
Homeschooling Can Take Different Forms
If you haven’t homeschooled in the past or were never homeschooled yourself, you might have very limited or some seemingly strange ideas when you think of homeschooling or homeschooled kids in general.
Let’s talk about some common misconceptions about homeschooling that may have turned you off of the idea previously:
- Homeschooled kids can’t socialize. This can be true in some instances and the opposite from true in others. It is absolutely true that socialization can be difficult when homeschooling because you have to actively seek it out… but that can be part of the fun! You can join homeschool groups, join a public charter homeschool (imagine doing some days in a classroom and some days at home), join a homeschool coop, join a microschool, join a homeschool pod, get involved in church groups, or take a lot of extracurriculars with the extra free time you have. One notable socialization skill that homeschooled kids seemingly always excel at when compared to their public schooled counterparts is their ability to socialize with children and adults of any age. Instead of spending all your time with only other kids your exact age as you often do in public school, homeschooled children commonly interact with adults and children of all ages and become much better at doing so.
- Parents can’t adequately teach their own kids. For thousands of years, parents have been teaching their children at home. While it is true, that not all parents are cut out for homeschooling, you CAN teach subjects that even you don’t know very well. Plus, nowadays there are endless online resources and classes you can use to supplement your own teaching.
- There’s only one way to homeschool. When you think of homeschooling, you may envision all the kids sitting around the dining room table with bookwork out and the mom reading aloud from a book. While you can absolutely homeschool in this traditional manner with great success, it’s not for everybody. The beauty of homeschooling is that is can be individualized for each child and family. You can homeschool independently, through the state as part of an online charter school, through a microschool, with a coop, utilizing online resources like MiaAcademy or Time4Learning, you can unschool, or you can take online classes through Outschool.
- Homeschooling takes as long as public school. One fantastic thing about homeschooling is that it takes much less time than public school. Much of the time in public school is spent lining up, moving from one place to another, having recess or lunch, and refocusing all the kids. At home, you can mostly eliminate all that time. Depending on your child’s age you can expect to homeschool between 30 minutes (for pre-k) up to 4 hours.
- Homeschooling is only for very religious people. Perhaps the only people you know who homeschool are Christians. While many Christians lean toward homeschooling because they can incorporate God’s word and his influence on the world into many lessons, not all homeschoolers are Christian. You can find lots of great resources for secular homeschool groups and secular homeschool curriculum. Homeschooling is great for religious and non-religious people alike.
- Homeschooled kids are weird. Many people who haven’t known many homeschooled people oftentimes can think of one or two they knew while growing up and they were always the “weird kid.” Really this is subjective. Homeschooled kids oftentimes are given more time and the ability to pursue their own passions, sometimes that can look “weird” to others. But they also can be some of the most confident and happy kids because of that too.
Just knowing that all those misconceptions are untrue is already six reasons to homeschool right there! But let’s dive deeper into 13 more reasons to homeschool so you can truly decide if this is the right choice for your family.
13 Reasons to Homeschool That You Can’t Ignore
You can move your child ahead or behind as needed.
While it might seem ideal to keep your child at “age level” schooling in case they ever want to switch to public school, you don’t have to.
If your child reads far beyond their level, you can get a curriculum a couple of years ahead of their technical grade. If math isn’tt clicking, it’s ok if you take an extra year in one grade so that the curriculum really sticks.
Whether your child is ahead or behind the social construct of grade level does not matter nearly as much as you’d think.
You’d be surprised how well a child will learn and develop at their own pace when given a bit of freedom with their education.
You can do school at whatever time of day works best for your family.
There’s no set start time for homeschoolers. Some children work best when they begin school early and get it out of the way. (Remember, homeschooling doesn’t take as long as public school, so even if you begin at 9 AM you may be done around lunchtime.)
Some kids excel with getting their wiggles out in the morning. Spending the morning at the park, on the lake, or in the waves, and then settling down for their education in the evening.
You can even get some schoolwork done in the morning, plan an outing for the afternoon, and then finish up before bed.
Perhaps your husband works nights and you want to adjust school hours so the kids can stay up late to spend some time before dad heads off to work.
There’s no right or wrong way to choose your schedule for schooling at home!
You can do homeschool anywhere.
If your kids are getting stir crazy sitting in the house for school day after day you can mix it up. Bring a backpack with some workbooks to the park, the backyard, or anywhere else to change up the scenery and soak up the sunshine on beautiful days.
If you it’s feasible for your family, you can travel FAR more often than families of kids in traditional school.
You can vacation any time of year.
You don’t have to wait until winter break, Thanksgiving, or spring break to plan a trip when everyone else is on vacation when you homeschool. You can choose any time of year to take a vacation, visit family, or just take some time off.
You can turn experiences into lessons.
It is very easy to turn fun experiences into school lessons. Take a trip to the aquarium for instance.
After returning home you can craft a math lesson around how far you drove, how long it took, how many miles per hour that means you went on average (then you get to discuss what an average is too). You can even count how many fish are in each tank for little ones and talk about which tanks have more or less.
Have your children write a short report on their favorite animal they saw after doing a bit of further research online about it.
Then they can paint that animal as well!
OR, skip all of that and just enjoy the day at the aquarium. That’s still learning.
You can better support children with special learning needs.
If you have a child with special needs (whether they have autism, ADHD, OCD, dyslexia, or any other neurodivergence) that may require special accommodations with their education, you can support them and their needs.
If your child processes things differently than “most”, it can be very easy for them to get lost or behind in our traditional school system. While some communities have wonderful accommodations and dedicated staff for children who need special support, most do not.
Homeschool can be a great choice in this instance. Whether you choose to homeschool for a short time as your child matures, or indefinitely if they excel.
You don’t have to worry about bullying.
Bullying has always been a problem in the public school system. In recent years it’s only grown because the avenues bullies have to attack children have multiplied. They aren’t limited to just pushing you down and shoving you in a locker these days.
Children can be bullied via Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Text messages, Email… should I go on? We now have so many forms of communication that children can be bombarded with negativity – it’s a real problem.
Homeschooling helps eliminate this.
Even if you choose a homeschool option that somewhat replicates public school like an in person charter school, microschool, or homeschool pod you don’t really find bullying there.
There’s a heavy parent presence even in these forms of homeschool and often a mix of ages. Both of these almost absolve all bullying.
You don’t have to worry about school violence.
It’s saddening that this is even something we have to consider, but the fact is that it’s a reality, especially if you live in the United States.
There are school shootings elsewhere in the world, but rarely.
In the United States, they are basically constant. It’s terrifying as a parent. If that is a concern to you where you live, homeschooling might be looking pretty good.
You can incorporate religion however you want.
Unless you attend a private school run through a church, religion is not typically included within the public school curriculum at all. Private school pricing can be out of reach for many and you might want your child taught religion in school and how God intertwines into our lives and their studies.
If you wish your child could learn about God in school in addition to Sunday school and Bible study, know that there are MANY homeschool groups that are religion-based and it will be easy to find like-minded families.
There are a multitude of homeschool curriculums that are religion-based as well.
Even if you have different beliefs about God than Christians (which many homeschoolers are) and want to incorporate another religion or even broad religious studies before college, homeschooling can be a great option and really the only way to bring religion into school besides paying for private schools.
You can take breaks as often or for as long as you’d like.
While public primary school offers lots of ‘move-your-body’ breaks with recess, as you get a bit older those are reduced. Plus, children really aren’t built to be sitting in a classroom 6 hours a day. Their minds and bodies are better designed for learning through playing, exploring, and movement.
This is why there are so many behavior problems, lack of focus, and fidgety kids in public schools. When homeschooling you can provide more opportunities to learn through play, do more lessons outside, and take breaks as often as you want.
Also sometimes parents and kids just need more breaks! What if you have a new baby, or one of your kids is sick, everyone is overtired from a weekend trip, or maybe it’s a beautiful day after a week of rain and everyone feels antsy?
Then you can choose to take a break! Take a day off, or break school into lots of little chunks! You’ll still get it done and the learning is fully adaptable to your family’s needs.
Your children can pursue their passions.
Almost all child actors, children pursuing professional sports, and children of very rich people are homeschooled. This is because the time spent on school is reduced, it can be done at whatever time best fits into their schedule, they get more hands-on education, and can be tailored to their passions.
If your child is passionate about a sport, a career, etc. you can use the homeschooling opportunity to allow them to pursue those passions.
You can teach subjects in the order you choose.
A lot of the public school system is covered in an order that really doesn’t make sense. English and math are taught in chronological skills that build upon each other but science and history are not.
Which is funny, because those are subjects that actually happened in chronological order. In history for instance, in the US you will jump from learning about modern American history, then jump to the first settlers, then world history, then Native Americans, then State history. It really makes no sense and typically children don’t retain information when taught in this manner.
I wouldn’t either!
At home, you can teach lessons in an order that makes sense to you and your children, even when it comes to electives. You can begin a second language in first grade instead of waiting until high school for instance. You build a learning timeline that works!
You can teach your children real-world skills.
Due to trying tirelessly to “meet state standards” and ace testing scores to retain their funding, public schools have shifted their focus from teaching real-world skills to simply focusing on the basics in a manner that will test well.
Most schools no longer cover cursive, sewing, cooking, building, finances, economics, gardening, mental health, and even geography. These types of lessons are already up to the parents to teach outside of school now, meaning most kids reach adulthood without skills like this.
When you homeschool you can easily fit life-skills into your lesson plans and help your children be better equipt for life as a functioning adult in the world instead of simply a teenager prepared for college.
Wrapping Up 13 Reasons to Homeschool You Can’t Ignore
If you’ve ever considered homeschooling for any reason, I hope this list of reasons to homeschool as well as the list of misconceptions about homeschooling helped you make a definitive decision.
I’m not going to lie, homeschooling can be tough and tiring some days. It can also be rewarding and help you to learn and grow as much as your kids!
If you don’t feel like you have the knowledge, time, or patience to homeschool know that there are so many options and resources to help you along! Whether that comes in the form of a local homeschool group (you can always try searching on Facebook for one), joining a coop, letting your children use online resources for some or all subjects, or taking online or in-person classes.
Homeschool is so adaptable and really can be made to suit any family and schedule. Good luck!