by Kendra Songer

Created on: May 16, 2008

While public and private schools have been around for several hundred years, homeschooling has only come to the forefront of the educational system in the last 25 years. Since it's legalization every year homeschooling has grown as parents have begun to see the benefits of home education. These benefits are academic, social and relational.

Academically speaking homeschooling has proved to have many benefits. Class size is smaller than in public or private schools and there are less disruptions. This allows for school to be done more quickly and without having to provide students with busywork. In addition homeschooling allows more individualized teaching. Students don't just memorize facts and take tests, they can take more time for other types of learning. Most education is theoretical knowledge, i.e. you may need this someday so you better learn it now. Homeschooling provides more opportunity for interactive real-life experiences. The traditional school system implies that students are failures if they cannot complete each course as directed or regurgitate information for a test, but this is not the way real life works. Those who are most successful are the ones willing to take risks and fail. In fact 2/3 of home-school graduates end up self-employed. Home-school students score high on standardized achievement tests, but more importantly they have more freedom in the direction of their education.

Nearly every home-school parent has been asked the question, "What about socialization?" If anything homeschooling is a greater benefit socially than public or private school. First off, homeschooling allows a parent to have greater choice over who their child gets to socialize with. Secondly, being in a school setting where they must learn with children their age fosters peer-dependence, and the need for peer approval. Home-school students typically have better self-esteem and related better to people of all ages. Third, home-school children do spend more time with adults, but rather than harm them this provides them with better social skills since adults model more mature skills than their same-age peers. Lastly, home-schoolers spend more time with other kids than most people think. The average home-school family is involved in several activities outside the home.

While these other reasons are certainly important I believe the most important reason for homeschooling is relationship. Home-school parents want to be able to build relationships with their kids. We want their hearts to turn towards us and ours towards them. We can get so caught up in all the busyness and noise of our culture that we end up ignoring each other. If my children are gone from me 8 hours a day 5 days a week the chances of a relationship developing are not as good as if they are with me. This is the reason homeschooling was started in the first place. Those families that home-schooled when it was illegal didn't do it because it was better academically. They chose to home-school because they wanted a different way of relating as a family.

While spending more time with your kids may sound like torture to most homeschooling parents it is the biggest reason why parents home-school. Being able to help their children academically and socially are just added benefits.

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