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why do you homeschool?
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Alright guys,
Give me your most honest, most creative answer to the question: why do you homeschooling?
Here’s mine: because if they spent 6-8 hours a day at school and on a bus, my son might not have time to make flashlights out of walkytakies or “guitar pick retrieving electromagnetic contraptions” (which is apparently what my 11year old son was working on this afternoon!?!!) And my daughter probably wouldn’t get to do Algebra class is a cottonwood tree.
Because I love spending time with my kids. We have fun together, and I don’t want them gone for 7 hours a day, then come home grumpy, tired, hungry and still have homework to do. We’re sickeningly joyful!! 😀
I homeschool because I want to be the biggest influence in my children’s lives. I do not want strangers teaching my children their thoughts and values. I want to pass on a biblical worldview and biblical values.
Our initial reason for homeschooling was to meet the needs of my dd with special needs. I observed a teacher speaking harshly and discouragingly to my then 4yo dd. (If the teacher did this in front of me then what on earth did she do behind closed doors?) I removed her from school that day.
After my crash course on learning about homeschooling we were excited for the opportunity to be such an influence in our kids lives. Together, this is where we get to meet God daily, learn, grow, explore, and pursue our true self without the peer/culture pressure dictating who we’re supposed to be.
It’s beautiful.
Many reasons but the most important to me is because I felt God called me to do it. Many people say they could never do it, to me it is because they have not been called to homeschool, they have different callings or they do not listen!! I am very grateful for the experience. I look at all the places where people do not have the freedom and I feel blessed we can homeschool.
I sent my oldest to preschool for one week and I did not like what I saw. I could tell the teachers had their favorites and I did not think my son was one of them. And already, they were telling me things to teach him at home and work with him on. I thought that was their job to teach him. I figured I might just as well keep him home if I was told to teach him these things anyways. So we spend 3 hours on school instead of sending him off for 7 hours only to come home to do 3 hours of homework with me (6th grade now). And he gets to spend more time on his own interests and learn more life skills at home. Yes, I think God called me to it. But He first got my attention when I made the mistake of sending him to preschool. And I had recently met with an old friend who was homeschooling, which got me thinking about it at the right time. Plus, I don’t care for some of the things I hear the schools teach about and their timing. I think the kids need to know, but at the right time and by me, not someone else. I want them to know how to research and make up their own minds about what they believe and why.
Relationship. With God. With us. With each other. It’s a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful thing.
Like all of you there are “bumps in the road” so to speak and who knows just where this chapter in our lives story may lead but one thing is for sure, we are in it…..together.
Our children see us daily, warts and all, but they also get to see us maturing and growing in the Lord alongside them. We still have authority, and they respect us; however, they love us and our humanness in spite of our humanness. We began our journey thinking that we’d be teaching them, but all along God has been teaching all of us, together. That alone has knit us tighter than any home school method or curricula ever could.
All the above. But as a fun perk, we love doing school on the yucky snow days, counting snowball fights as PE and taking off on the glorious days of spring and fall when everyone else is sitting in a school building.
Our reasons have been listed by others. We want them to have a strong faith in God. I don’t want my DC indoctrinated by a public school system that encourages atheism or teaches that all religions are equal. I don’t want the Bible to be seen as cute little stories to be read on Sundays. I want them to have a personal relationship with Jesus. While some kids graduate from public schools with a strong faith, I think they are the exception rather than the norm…In fact there are studies that show how much more likely homeschooled kids are to have a strong faith as they become adults.
Another reason is that I’d observed many homeschooled children and saw a difference in how they react to the world around them and each other. They are more likely to interact with a variety of age groups…I think public school encourages this idea that you can only be friends with people your own age. Also, HS kids tend to have more curiosity and excitement about school (and life in general) than PS kids.
Finally, I like that we can learn as a family. Many of our handicrafts end up as family projects. My DH has Fridays off and I love that we can do things as a family on those days. We can also take off when he has vacation time and not worry about them missing school. I also love the relationships my DC are building with each other. While they still argue, they do spend lots of time playing and working together. I love seeing the projects they come up with!
I just wanted to spend more time with my son (the school-aged one at the time). He was/is not a very talkative person and I just felt like I had no idea what he was doing all day; that made me very sad.
Also, I noticed that the school was so caught up in academics and all of the fun stuff was in the past. I wanted my son do the fun stuff..I mean he was in 1st grade!
Choices: I absolutely love choosing our own curriculum, community classes, spending my day with my kiddos, watching them sleep in when they need to and not having to worry about them being late for school and sharing the Lord with them all day long, even when they drive me nuts!! And, being able to use their own bathroom when the need arises!!
My boys are pretty mature for their ages (especially my oldest two) and I didn’t mean for that to happen, or not happen. What I was really trying to do was to keep them as young as I could for as long as I could. Ya, that was my main MO.
Last, I did feel God urging me to just try (you can always send him back, He said). In the early years of our journey, especially on the hard days, I considered sending my kids to PS, but I stopped threatening them (and myself) with something I knew I would never do 🙂
HollyS, that is so true. My 11 yo and 8 yo like to play with other kids at the park. This has become harder to do as they get older because if the older kids do not know them from school or they are older than them, they do not want to play with them. It is mostly ages 6 and down that want to play…and still have as much imagination left for creative play with my dc. So who is more socialized do you think?
We homeschool because we want to spread a feast for our kids of excellent writers, thinkers, believers, and artists and seep them in all the wonders of God’s creation. We want them to love to learn and we can see that they can and do when it happens in a natural way guided by parents who love them and love the Lord.
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