Growing up in the 1980’s and 1990’s I homeschooled during a time when it was less than popular, in fact, according to the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center Statistics shows that approximately 850,000 students were homeschooled in 1999, whereas in 2013 that number jumped to 1,770,000.
In fact, I have noticed in the last few years that the number of homeschool families in my area has grown. No longer is it surprising to see students and parents out in public during normal school hours. Still, I know that the question of whether to homeschool is one that plagues many families.
Homeschool is a full-time job. It requires the same effort to be successful as any job whether it is in the home or not. During school hours the teacher must devote all his or her time to the students. What this means is whoever is the designated teacher whether it is the mom or dad, they cannot clean the house, or be distracted by other things. It requires a lot of dedication and time that most people do not realize. On the other hand, school hours do not have to be traditional school hours.
The benefit of homeschooling is that each family can set their own hours. If it works better to do schooling from 9:00 am until 3:00 pm then that is when school takes place. If the afternoons are better then schooling can take place from 2:00 pm until 8:00 pm that is perfectly acceptable. And if you want to break that up with a few hours in the morning and a few hours in the afternoon that is okay too. The only thing is during the actual teaching it must be treated as a job.
Most successful people do not go to a job and spend all day playing video games or goofing off on the internet, nor do other things, and to be successful with homeschooling you should stay focused on teaching and not get distracted by other things.
While not all homeschool, families are the same the amount of time and effort they put into the education of their children should be. Some families prefer structured homeschooling, while others prefer a relaxed style of schooling, the effort and attention are all the same. You get out what you put in.
Christian education publisher Rod and Staff has a quote in the beginning of their books, “If you train your children carefully until they are seven years old, they are already three-quarters educated.” Many parents do not realize that they are already homeschooling their children. From birth parents interact with their newborns.
Singing to them, talking to them, teaching them. Homeschooling takes on that same concept past the pre-school years. As the child takes on an interest to learn how to read, the parents continue the education, teaching them first how to read and then supplying them with books that meet their growing interest in the world around them.
So, when it comes to tackling the question, of Should I Homeschool? The answer is simple. Do you have an interest in providing fully for your child’s education? Are you prepared to take on the full-time job that is educating that child? If the answer to both of those questions is yes, then you should and could homeschool.
The next steps come in researching state requirements. Not all states have the same laws governing homeschooling. By researching the requirements of your state, you should be able to make an educated decision about whether homeschooling is right for you.
Currently homeschooling is legal in all fifty states, however, the laws vary from one state to the next. The HSLDA offers a lot of information about state requirements, an alternative to the HSLDA is the Coalition for Responsible Home Education
