1) We spend less time homeschooling each day than we used to. With five kids (including a newborn at home), school drop-off and pick-up took hours, on a good day. They'd get home at about 6PM and still have homework, music practice, sports, chores, dinner and bath to fit into the 4 hours before bed. Now we spend about four hours per day homeschooling.
2) Our kids are excelling academically as homeschoolers. Homeschooling allows us to enrich our children’s strengths and supplement their weaknesses. The kids’ education moves as fast or as slow as required for that particular subject area. They are not pigeon-holed and tracked as gifted, average, or special needs.
3) Our family spends our best hours of each day together. We were giving away our kids during their best hours, when they were rested and happy, and getting them back when they were tired, grumpy and hungry. I dreaded each evening, when the fighting and screaming never seemed to end, and my job was to push them through homework, extracurriculars, and music practice. Now, our kids have happy time together each day. At recess time, the kids are actually excited about playing with each other!
4) We yell at our kids less. Homeschooling forces us as parents to maintain a loving authority in the household. We stopped spanking our kids. You can’t get your kids to write essays or complete a large set of math problems if you don’t have their respect and obedience. Spanking and corporal punishment establish fear, not effective, loving obedience.
5) Our kids have time for creative play and unique interests. Once my kids entered school, they seemed to stop making up their own creative play together. They didn’t have time for creative play during their busy evenings. Now they build forts and crazy contraptions, play dance parties, and pursue their own unique interests.
6) We are able to work on the kids’ behavior and work ethic throughout the day. My son’s poor work effort at school was nearly impossible to address. The teachers didn’t have time to make my son repeat work they felt was average quality. We wouldn’t see the work until days after it was completed. Finally, we’ve been able to push him to his full potential.
7) Get rid of bad habits, fast. Dirty clothes dropped on the floor? They used to stay there all day. Now there is no recess until they are cleaned up. I never really had the time to implement most behavioral techniques when my kids were in school. I knew what I needed to do to get my kindergartner to dress herself, but it was easier to dress her myself then deal with the school complaining that she was improperly dressed or late. Now, if she takes too long to get dressed, she misses out on free play time.
8) Be the master of your own schedule. Homeschooling provides a great deal of family flexibility, which is a tremendous asset for our busy family. Zoos, children’s museums, libraries, parks, etc., are far less busy on weekdays as they are on weekends. Scheduling anything is easier—doctor’s appointments, karate lessons, vacations, etc.
9) Younger children learn from older siblings. For larger families like ours, even toddlers are learning during school time. Our four year old sits at the same table during school time as our twelve, six and eight year old. He wants to do his worksheet, too. Some of that math and phonics work rubs off on him, and he’s learning how to read. When chore time comes, he asks, “What are my chores?” And our six-year-old knows how to fix our bedroom.
10) Teach your kids practical life skills. Homeschooled kids learn parenting skills, cooking, budgeting, home maintenance, and time management every day. Time management skills are learned out of necessity. Our kids have to keep their own schedules and budget their own time. If they waste time, they have less time for play and their own special interests. We use old smart phones with alarms to help teach time management. Our kids help with younger siblings while under our direct supervision. What better way is there to learn parenting? I learned to write a fake grocery budget once as a home economics exercise. My kids write real grocery budgets and help me shop.
11) Better socialization, less unhealthy peer pressure and bullying. Our kids no longer beg for video games we don’t want them to have or clothes we don’t like, or junky snacks they saw at school. One of our children struggled socially in school, and his schoolmates were ruthlessly mean. Despite a school anti-bullying policy and our best efforts to work with the teacher, nothing changed. Our kids have plenty of time with friends, but without the unhealthy peer pressure and bullying.
Research continues to show that homeschooled kids do well socially. Our kids have no shortage of time with friends—each week they attend trainings, scouts, sports, dance, choir, piano, religious education and have plenty of time to play with friends. Add in the birthday parties and homeschool field trips, and we find ourselves having to decline activities so that we can get our homeschooling done!
12)
Sleep! A research study by
National Jewish Health released in March, 2013 showed that homeschooled students get more sleep than their peers who attend school. The result may be that homeschooled kids are better prepared to learn. Parents get more sleep, too! Now we don’t have to get up early to meet a schedule, prepare pack lunches, etc. Our mornings are great times together to snuggle with our children and talk about our plans for the day. No more “Hurry up and get your shoes on or you’ll be late for school!”
13) Teach kids your own values. According to the national center for education statistics, 36% of homeschooling families were primarily motivated by a desire to provide religious or moral instruction. Our family is not part of this 36%– we never objected to any values taught in either our public or private schools. Nevertheless, we’ve really enjoyed building our own traditions and living out our family values in a way that wasn’t possible before homeschooling.
Homeschooling isn’t right for every family or every child. I can’t even predict what the future holds for our family—will we continue homeschooling through high school? I don’t know. But for now, we’ve found a way for our family to be very happy growing and learning together.
Many people have asked me how we do it, how my husband and I both manage our business and homeschool our kids at the same time.
Every homeschooling family has their own unique time management plan to balance work, schooling, household needs, and rest time. For our family, this has been a work in progress for half a year now.
We complete our core homeschool curriculum on Monday to Thursday, and on Weekends they attend their karate training, do special activities, and complete any catch-up work.
When I sleep late and wakes up in the afternoon. My husband does the homeschooling on the mornings when I am sleeping. On the mornings when I am awake, I do the teaching. My husband and I split the teaching about 50/50. We try to make sure that at any given time one parent is employed and one is teaching/parenting/running the home/monitoring the business. The baby usually takes a nap in the afternoon while my older kids do independent reading and math, and so we can usually fit in 1-2 hours of personal time or work then. Any business work or housework that is left we do after the kids go to bed.
Now that we homeschool, everything has become a team effort in our house. Both my husband and I teach, do housework, and make money. Everyone does chores. Walking in each other’s shoes each day has made us more compassionate towards each other. We are less likely to criticize each other when things don’t go right, and we’ve learned to be better communicators. This is, perhaps, my favorite part of homeschooling, that our family is happier together.
