5 Ways Homeschooling Actually Makes Your Life Easier
Homeschooling is nothing new, but in recent years, it’s launched into the mainstream conversation as a viable, and even preferable, alternative to the public education system. During the 2020 pandemic, homeschooling spiked in its numbers from 3% of students to 11%.
And while many are discovering the benefits and joys of educating at home, there are still great misconceptions and biases around it, not the least of which are the common arguments that it is simply too hard, takes too much time, and requires too much attention and energy.
While we recognize that, like any worthy act, home education can be challenging and does require a lot from parents, there are also many ways it actually makes life easier. Below are 5 significant ways that we’ve found homeschooling can make life simpler.
01 | You make your own schedule.
When you home educate, the parent is the principal, teacher, and guidance counselor — which is a lot of responsibility. But this also gives you a lot more control over class time, meetings, and your schedule in general. Parent-teacher meetings, last-minute reports, or surprise school functions aren’t a thing that will ever conflict with your life, as you get to create a schedule that works best for you and your family.
02 | You can tailor the education.
So often in the public school system, in large classrooms filled with many students, children and their specific educational needs can get lost, leaving them falling behind. That not only has a detrimental effect on the child’s self-confidence and education, but puts extra responsibility on the parent to fill in the cracks with extra classes, tutors, teachers’ meetings, and more time spent personally helping your child with their homework.
But when home educating, you have the ability to tailor your child’s education to their specific needs in the first place, rather than spending time and effort doing damage control and catching up. You can also spend more time focusing on subjects and concepts that will be more beneficial to your child, as you know their unique strengths, gifting, and abilities in ways a teacher with hundreds of students simply couldn’t.
03 | It makes time for field trips you actually want to go on.
One of the best parts of school is the field trips. Who doesn’t have wonderful memories of exploring museums, wandering through zoos, going on hikes, experiencing historic monuments, houses, and battlefields?
When home educating, you can go anywhere at any time, that not only your kids will love, but you will, too. Field trips can be done on your time and in your way. Need to go to the bank? Field trip! Have to visit the doctor? Field trip! Have to visit family out of state? Three-day road-trip-field-trip! And you can stop at all the sites on the way, making memories that will last forever.
04 | You have more say in your child’s friendships.
A rising problem in schools today are the persistent and negative effects of bullying and peer pressure, leaving parents scrambling to figure out how to help their children form healthy friendships and keep them safe.
When you educate your kids at home, your ability to curate healthy friendships for them becomes a million times easier, as you’re not just throwing them into a sea of kids and hoping for the best.
Instead, you can apply focused attention on choosing the peers your kids spend time with. In doing this, you mitigate not only the long-lasting and harmful effects of bullying or negative peer pressure, but save yourself effort from having to fix problems that could’ve been avoided in the first place.
05 | Everything is school.
For many parents, the education process is an added difficulty on top of their already full to-do list. It can be difficult to find the time to get the things you need to get done and help your child with their homework, assignments, and classes.
But when homeschooling, suddenly your to-do list and your kid’s education can be combined, saving you time and effort. Need to make bread? Have your kids help you in the process — you’ve now taught a home economics class. Need to do your taxes? Show your kids how you’re doing it — you’ve completed a math lesson. Need to chill out and watch a movie? Have a discussion afterward about the themes — you’ve just taught a story structure class. Need to catch up on reading? Read it out loud to them — you’ve just taught a literature class.
Education is simply equipping children with the necessary skills and knowledge they need to thrive as adults. What better way to teach them than through hands-on interactions that coincide with the things you’re already doing?