Since this is usually the time of year when parents are on the lookout for a good school for their kids, I thought I’d share the following reasons why parents should at least consider homeschooling their kids, taken from an article written by Lynda Altman on the examiner.com website:
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1) No one has more interest in your child’s success than you do. Raising children involves teaching them on a daily basis.
2) You are qualified to teach your child. If there is a subject that you are unfamiliar with, that is what curriculum is for.
3) Homeschooled children consistently outperform their traditionally schooled peers on standardized tests. Thissuperior test performance is across all socio-economic and ethnic lines.
4) Children who are home schooled have superior social skills to their traditionally schooled peers. Traditional school children learn gang mentality and bully tactics on unsupervised or poorly supervised playgrounds. Homeschooled children are supervised. Anti-social behaviors are quickly corrected. Homeschooled children interact better with adults than traditionally schooled children do.
5) With individualized attention home school children accomplish more in a day than most traditional public schools do in a week.
6) According to the US Department of Education, 1.5 million US families home school their children. The numbers are growing as more and more families are tired of a broken public school system that is barely able to teach.
7) Special needs children receive superior support services at home. This includes needs such as speech, vision, occupational therapy, gifted, autism and other support services. I have had 4 children with various needs in the public school system in 3 different states. Not one of them ever received the services promised in their IEP or those mandated by the Federal Disabilities Act.
8) The number of affluent Americans homeschooling their children is rising. This is due to frustrations over classroom behaviors, lack of learning and the desire to teach their children as they see fit.
9) Home school offers superior educational experiences to traditional schools. Field trips and travel are just a few of the things homeschoolers offer their kids.
10) Children who are homeschooled work at their own pace. They are not bound to state mandated curriculums and can advance to higher level work when ready. The same holds true for children who need more work in some areas. Home school children work on mastery of a subject, not just passing grades.
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This comic illustration by Jim Erskine also cites some good reasons to homeschool:
Remember though, that while homeschooling is a great opportunity for BOTH parents and children, it is not for everyone. I always tell parents who contact me and ask me about homeschooling to really pray, discern and do their research.
Now, thanks to my friend and fellow homeschool-work-at-home-mom blogger Blessie of the Nanay Notebook, I can direct such parents to the blog post below to help them in their discernment and decision-making:
Is Homeschooling for Your Child? {On the Nanay Notebook}
How to Start Homeschooling ~ A Response to Mommy L’s Letter (a post I wrote on my homeschooling blog, inspired by Mommy Blessie’s post above)
Incidentally, if you want to read popular Catholic lay preacher and homeschool dad Bo Sanchez’s thoughts on homeschooling, you can click on the links below:
Will Homeschool Work For Your Kids?
We Don’t Send Our Kids to School
The people over at Homefires.com also did a GREAT job of compiling different “Top 10” lists for choosing homeschooling. You can see the links here.
Lastly, I mentioned in the title of this post that it would contain the top 25 homeschooling blogs, according to the voting contest held last year by Circle of Moms. Here’s the link to that, in case you need some homeschool help and/or ideas: http://www.circleofmoms.com/top25/homeschooling-blogs
I hope that more and more parents would consider homeschooling their kids. Admittedly though, our own homeschool is still in its “growing pains and gains” stage, but I believe that with God’s grace and anointing, He’ll equip, empower and inspire us to move forward in this journey, for as long as He calls us to! 😉 Pray for us, please!
Blog Source: Truly Rich Mom
