To begin 4 Lousy Reasons for Not Homeschooling

let’s look at Super Sisters, a sub-section of PBS Parents online, appears akin to reality television shows, only occurring online and focusing on three sisters who are raising children. A recent post from one of the sisters features “school troubles” with her third grader. She also outlines her options to address the problems, one of which is homeschooling about which she says: “I’m realizing the root of my resistance might be deeper as it would also alter my life dramatically (insert selfish feelings here).” Hereafter, she solicits input from readers.

Nine readers have responded to date, several of whom offer good thoughts on homeschooling’s benefits and urge a second look at the practice. Some of the other responses provided the fodder to address some lousy, albeit common, reasons for not homeschooling.

Let’s allow children the joy of life during their formative years.

LOUSY REASON #1: ASSUMING THAT YOU’D BE DEALING WITH THE SAME CHILD WHO GOES TO PUBLIC SCHOOL TODAY

After the reader states she could have written the same “school troubles” post, she writes, “I can see we’re losing him and his thirst for learning, and that’s terrifying. Oh, and I thought about homeschooling too, and am about 99% certain I won’t…we’d kill each other, I’m afraid. (wink face)”

The child who returns home after a day of school has just experienced all of those incidents causing problems and, possibly, even more. Remove those stresses from a child’s life, and chances are good you’ll be dealing with an entirely different person who is a lot more fun to be around. Even if somehow he was still the same child, this is certainly better than “losing him and his thirst for learning” under the current circumstances.

LOUSY REASON #2: DONATING TIME AND EFFORT WILL FIX THE LOCAL SCHOOL

“I am very worried for the years to come. I, too, feel like I have little choice. I have 3 kids and not enough income for private schooling. I love, love, love the homeschooling idea….as an idea. But I am not a trained teacher and I worry that it would be worse. Maybe I would be really hard on them. Oh, and I have my own work to do too! It is very tough….I guess I feel like the best I can do it to work with my public, neighborhood school to try to make things better.”

Odds are great that that the neighborhood school isn’t going to get better in your child’s, grandchild’s, or great-grandchild’s lifetimes. That same time and effort you want to donate to fixing the system can much more directly benefit your child when s/he is removed from the system.

LOUSY REASON #3: HOMESCHOOLING  WOULD INTERFERE WITH MOM’S BUSINESS AND DOWNTIME

“The fly in the proverbial ointment is me. I have a home-based business and like the time alone to work on it that my girls going to school affords me. How sad is that? They are very self-sufficient and I don’t think having them at home would be all that stressful, but then again, I love my downtime and my ability to really focus on my biz. So I feel caught. Thank you for writing this awesome post. I’ll work through my mom guilt about this (after all, that’s what I do for a living–help other moms ditch the mom guilt).”

Years ago, during a Q&A after a keynote, someone asked me if there was anything I might have done differently during my homeschooling journey. After brief thought I responded, “I would have postponed so much writing until my children were even older than they were.” I’m even more convicted in that answer today, as with our life expectancy ever-increasing, I’ve seen just how much time there is after they grow up and your nest is empty.

LOUSY REASON #4: SCHOOL PROBLEMS TEACH MY CHILD HOW TO COPE WITH OTHERS…THAT’S LIFE

“He resists the structured, fast-paced, atmosphere of school because it works against his natural state of creativity and imagination. The various personalities and moral choices of other students confuse and distract him because he often processes information through emotions…

“Like you I do not want to home school. Also I have three school-age children and I don’t think it’s fair to put one child in private school and not my others (cannot afford to do all three!!). For me the right choice is keeping him right where he is and teaching him how to cope with others- students AND teachers. The important thing is that he will continue to learn how to do his best through developing a positive attitude, self-discipline and perseverance…”

“My favorite response to my children (when they complain) is that ‘you can’t do everything you want to do just because you want to do it’.’ We have to deal with things that are outside of our comfort zone- that’s life.”

Ah, yes, according to the logic of this reason, since the odds are very high that children will be involved in a car accident, we should let them experience one today. How about a good beating or intentional food poisoning so they can experience the first of likely multiple stays in a hospital throughout their lives?

Let’s allow children the joy of life during their formative years. This is certainly a more direct route to positive attitude, self-discipline, and perseverance, not to mention a lifelong love of learning. It will also provide strong character foundation that will better serve them as they “cope with others” when it really becomes necessary.

4 Lousy Reasons for Not Homeschooling

 Link to this page

 Link to this page