Why Homeschool?

There are many reasons to homeschool, and the reasons vary from family to family.  Sean and I knew we wanted to homeschool not long after I became pregnant. He was adamant about it, and I got on board after researching the answer to the socialization question. Do homeschooled kids socialize less? Not if parents put effort into connecting their kids with other kids through activities and play dates. With this in mind, Lily has had more opportunities to socialize at 7 months than most.

We have many reasons to homeschool:

1. Her potential is limitless. We can start teaching her now.   Instead of being limited by her age/grade, she is only limited by time and her interests. At 5 years old, she could have kindergarten social skills, read at a second grade level, but be at a third grade level for math. This is her program, and as long as she learns the required basics, she can explore what interests her next. 

2. We can pick up and go on vacation whenever we want.  And, we can incorporate educational elements into those trips.

3. Learning is fun and school often makes it a chore. Forget busy work. Let's go on a field trip or cuddle and read a book! 

4. Learning does not have to take place in a classroom. We can learn anywhere and everywhere. Anything has the potential to become a learning opportunity. We can visit Mount Vernon to learn about the life of George Washington.  We can visit the Museum of the American Indian to learn about Native Americans.  We can fly to France (or any country) to learn about another culture.  We can read a book to explore the Wild West.  We can go to the grocery store to learn about math.  We can watch a video to learn about the color yellow.  We can play a game to learn Spanish.  There are so many options.

5. Traditional schooling does not prepare people for adulthood. There are so many missing, poorly covered, or controversial topics that are not taught how we would like to see them taught. Finance, business, people skills, manners, self-defense, sex education, street smarts, body image, work ethic, running a household, and nutrition are just the ones off the top of my head.

6. We should be spending every day helping her with her homework anyway. Why not skip the stuff other people assign and teach her instead?  And, if she was able to do homework on her own, we could be spending that time together.

7. There is potential for kids to finish some college courses before graduating high school.  I finished a whole year of college before I graduated high school.

8. Many kids have big dreams.  And, if Lily has big dreams, we want to set her up to be successful.  What if she wants to be a dancer, a singer, a painter, a musician, or something else that is usually considered impractical?  We would rather give her the tools to be successful than to tell her to forget her dreams and be practical.   In some of these instances, you have to know how to run a business or at least know the basics of branding and marketing to be successful.  If she decides later that it's not working for her, she'll come out of it with business experience.

9. Minority religions are often SOL in traditional schooling. We don't automatically get school days off on our holidays.  In some jurisdictions, that could turn into a legal battle, especially if we wanted to plan a family trip around one of our holidays.   We might have to deal with secular prayer. We might have to deal with other kids and their families discriminating against us and not being able to just cut out contact with those people without changing schools. 

10. This layer of online social media and the danger it brings to kids is just ridiculous.  I was one of the first kids in school to be online with our computer.  I had no idea the risks of trusting people online, and it is scary to think about the danger I put myself in at times.  Now, I know the danger, and that's something I don't think the next generation is prepared to handle either.  I read a Huffington Post article about one mom's take and the balance between privacy and protection for her 13 year-old daughter online.  Children are more easily manipulated by people they think they can trust, and homeschooling will allow us to help her learn when to trust people and when to be more cautious.

11. We greatly decrease the number of situations in which a trusted adult or other kid has the opportunity to abuse our child.

12. Bullying in school is bad, and it is now worse with its migration to social media.  She will still encounter bullies outside of school, but we can identify them and help her deal with them appropriately. We can also cut ties with bullies more easily without changing an entire school, if it gets that bad.

13. We will avoid the possibility of a school shooting, though this does not lessen other dangers.  We could have very well been at Costco during the day when a crazy person threatening people with a knife was shot by police.  Or, we could be home during the day when someone tries to break in.

14. We want Lily to have as much access possible to healthy foods and snacks.  Organic, whole foods are important to us.  Food options in schools are sub par via cafeteria, vending machines, and candy sales. 

15. We don't believe the world is accurately represented in traditional schooling, and many truths about the world are not revealed until college.  On top of that, some form of critical thinking is stressed in school, but as they get older, students should be taught to think critically about everything they are taught, told, read, or hear.  We are not taught that the textbooks, teachers, government, and companies that sell us products have reasons to misrepresent information or outright lie to us.  That we cannot take all information we receive as truth, and we have to wade through all of the evidence to figure out what we feel is the most accurate story.