Certainly a benefit of home schooling is the
flexibility and control it gives the parent with their
child's education; both academically and morally. One of the
biggest reasons for the constant rise in homeschooling is
the continual failure of the public schools to provide the
attention to detail in their academic studies. As a parent
you are a recipient of the benefit of homeschooling wherein
you are the parent, the teacher, and the administrator of
your child's educational track.
Once you begin to consider the benefits of homeschooling,
you should also keep in mind some of the basic challenges
and opportunities as well.
First, I can't begin to tell you the amount of time
commitment homeschooling requires. Remember you will wear
many hats in your child's educational programming... and still
have to put on your parent's hat at the end of the day and
many times work on their homework with them and enrichment
activities in the evenings. You must have a high level of
energy and endurance as a homeschooling parent. And this may
sound strange, but you really must love to be around your
kids every waking hour of the day. This is a big commitment
of your time and life. Talk together as a family about home
schooling. Talk honestly. Talk to other families that are
fully entrenched in home schooling. To put it simply the
freedom of home schooling comes with major commitment of
your time.
Home school resources and home school information:
Resources and information about homeschooling are vast. The
internet and online sources are abundant. Your local library
can be a real gem for books and videos on the subject of
home schooling. Before you commit, take the time to
research.
Home Schooling Financial Considerations:
Home schooling parents use many resources and are quite
creative with their resources. Some can be rather expensive
and some are free. Once you begin making contacts with other
homeschooling parents, many times you can borrow and even
swap homeschooling materials to help defray the actual
costs. Again, resources are vast and don't forget about your
public library. Even if you don't have internet access, your
public library probably will, so join up and visit often.
Also, in many cases, when parents decide to homeschool it
means giving up or severely cutting back on one of the two
salaries. Be sure to crunch the numbers with your spouse and
get started mapping out a family budget. The job of a
homeschooling parent can be stressful, don't add unnecessary
financial stress to your day as well.
Legal Considerations For Home Schooling:
Home schooling is legal in all 50 states. Some state's
requirements are quite simple and some are not. A good way
to get started investigating your area in to go to our web
page that has an overview of all the state's various
homeschooling
laws
and regs.
College Considerations For Home Schooling: You may be
looking down the road a bit and wondering about
homeschooling and college ramifications. I would simply
suggest that you make contact with any universities you may
be looking at, and get a head start on what their academic
and testing requirements are. Today, with the growing number
of homeschool families, colleges are becoming more and more
receptive to homeschooled kids and are offering a wide
variety of opportunities.
I can unequivocally vouch for the fact that there is a
definite benefit to home schooling. It's a wonderful
journey as long as you don't go into with blinders. Make it
a family decision and a family commitment.
