I love home-schooling. I’ve never looked back at my choice to de-register boys from school roll. But it doesn’t mean that it’s all rosy. It has its disadvantages which you should consider when making your decision. Just to start on a positive note most parents who decided to educate at home say that the advantages of this option far outweigh the disadvantages.
The biggest one of them is to do with the time you will be committing to your children education. This time you will not be able to spend on yourself, your career, your hobbies and ambitions. Taking your children out of school means they will be with you all day and some of you might find it very restrictive. At least at the beginning… As children will grow older the management of their study and gaining qualification or sitting exams may get more complicated.
If I’m being completely honest, for me that was a big factor against homeschooling and it was sitting somewhere in my head, unexpressed. What about my own ambitions? Work and personal development? After all, I have devoted so many years to my children, so when they are all at school, it will be the first time in many years that I will have time for myself and my own career. Probably many mothers have such dilemmas?
All of this may sound overwhelming but just think about it as a phase. A chapter in your life. Chapter called “Rising Children”. Soon you’ll start another chapter which will be more centred on your personal goals.
You will be different… although you might actually see this one as an advantage rather than disadvantage. However you should be prepared that people will ask questions. From my experience most of these questions are genuine interest in an alternative lifestyle, but some are not at all pleasant. Home education is still a fairly unrecognised way of educating children and people respond to it with shock and horror. I met a well-meaning mum who express her concern about children being taken out of school to labour cheaply…
Now I don’t want to censor this people who thinks home education is weird, it is their right to state their opinion. I just want to warn you some of this comments could be hurtful especially if they are coming from people close to you. And this is where becoming involved with the home educating community can help to support you and strengthen your position. Chatting to like-minded people will definitely keep you sane!
There will be days when you’ll have your worries that nothing goes right and maybe you are ruining your children’s future. As a matter of fact everyone would want to quit at some point during your school year. But the truth is bad days and anxieties are not exclusive to home education and they happen whether children are educated at home or at school.
Another thing that should be thought of is living on one income. Home educating being time consuming will require some sacrifices and your job might be one of them. Of course, there are parents who find ways to keep their job at least part – time or work from home and teach their children at the same time but it really depends on the personal circumstances. Can both parents share homeschooling duties? Maybe you are able to work flexible hours or integrate your business within your home ed life. Is there a way to enlist help of relatives or to pay for tutors? Some of us would be very happy to embrace home educating as a full time job!
So… how do we cope?
Personal and educational happiness and welfare of our children is our common goal, but it is important to carefully consider your own vision and clearly define the goals you want to achieve by teaching children at home. Once we understand why we do it, it will be easier for us to set priorities.
Try to answer the questions:
Is a mother with a stable career more important to us as a family, or is it downsizing and spending more time with children?
Is having a big group of school friends good for our children or do we prefer smaller one which give more intimacy.
Would you consider being all the time with your children difficult or would it be only an extension of what you already do as a parent?
And once you set your priorities it will be easier to stick to your decision.
Personally, I have the notebook where I wrote down my own reasons why I took the boys from school. I wanted to offer them the childhood they deserve – without the rat race, without topics that unnecessarily burden their minds, without school quarrels and problems with, let’s call it, “strong personalities”. I wanted them to grow up innocent, have time to develop their imagination and experience adventures, all in accordance with our family beliefs. The advantage of this notebook is that when things are not going well, I have a clear written reminder of why I am doing this!
By the way, in this notebook I also write down various interesting quotes from books on education, which serve as inspiration or simply to cheer me up in difficult moments. For example:
“Children are your most creative project”
Susan Wise-Bauer, The Well-Educated Mind
In fact, I write down interesting quotes from various books I read, not only about education. But maybe we can chat about it another time? Let me know!
