The Benefits Of Homeschooling

Many parents are concerned about the education of their children. What are their kids learning? What is being taught? How early should our offspring enter the education system? With all these questions, another one that we may ask ourselves is whether we should homeschool our children. Lets look at the benefits of homeschooling and see whether it’s for you and your kids.

Child Led Learning

Child led learning is possibly the number one reason people choose homeschooling over sending kids to school. Learning about stuff you actually want to learn about a huge deal. It keeps your attention and you actually enjoy it. Follow your child’s learning desires and move at your child’s pace.

Flexibility

Next on our list of benefits of homeschooling is flexibility. There are no set hours of learning. If your child struggles in the morning, utilise the afternoons to learn. Visit a museum in the morning or go for a walk. Some of the best education on offer in this world is the great outdoors. You can also go on holiday out of traditional school holiday times, meaning you’ll pay less for your travels. That also means that there is no dreaded countdown to the new school year.

Ability To Travel

Homeschooling and travelling are two wonderful freedoms in life, but have you considered that you can still travel the world while homeschooling your kids? This is sometimes called world schooling or road schooling, sometimes international homeschooling.

The advantages to this are; travel adds so much more in terms of experiences, observation and exposure to a homeschool lifestyle. It puts learning into context and gives kids a sense of place and people. Also, if you homeschool you are free to travel, you are free to live your life your way.

No School Traffic

How many hours a week do you spend sitting in school traffic or standing in the playground waiting for the kids to come out. If it’s an hour a day, that’s five hours a week. That’s 20 hours a month! Imagine if you could use that time to do something else. Play chess with your kids, go for a walk, write a story. There is so much other stuff you can do with that time.

Create Your Own Timetable

Whilst you will need to hit certain subjects and follow a curriculum if you are wanting to put your children in for exams like GCSEs, you can create your own timetable around the subjects. There is so much that our education system doesn’t teach that you might want to help your children learn. How to apply for a mortgage, how to swim, how to cook a proper meal. Creating your own timetable is one of the benefits of homeschooling.

Fantastic Support

Some people, particularly grandparents with a traditional view of schooling, might use the ‘lonely’ card. They might suggest that kids who are home schooled never have any interaction with other children. There is so much support for homeschoolers. You can find online groups that share advice and offer support. There are even groups that meet regularly in different locations so friends can be made that way. Of course, making friends isn’t just a school thing. Your kids can still attend Scouts or sports clubs in the evening.

Enjoy One-to-One Learning

How much personalised teaching are kids getting in a class of 35 pupils? When you get one-to-one teaching (or whatever ratio it is with the number of kids in your family), many homeschooling parents report that a full day of teaching can be done in a couple of hours. This frees up time for kids to be kids. They can learn through play in the garden or even learn to code on their laptop – of course, you might need to seek out the best fiber internet in my area in order to make this happen, and to make sure that they are connected and able to learn whenever they wish.

Confidence Boosting

We all learn differently and have subjects that we struggle with. When kids are able to be open and honest without the worry of peer pressure, they can boost confidence by asking questions. You can also structure the learning so they are still learning the things they struggle with but are gaining confidence through excelling in other subjects.

It Doesn’t Have To Be Forever

There are many benefits of homeschooling but remember, it doesn’t have to be forever. Some parents believe the starting age of school so homeschooling in those early years helps kids have more of a childhood. They might still opt to send them to a senior school. Homeschooling allows you to choose the education journey you want for your children.

Make your home a more inviting place to be for both your child and the rest of the family; be it in the form of a gallery wall, prints, photo frames or wall murals. These can really help transform your home and add that personal touch. I have recently started building up my collection of prints for a gallery wall with thanks to Photowall and there is so much to choose from on that site. Plenty of child friendly prints too.