by Linda Alter

Created on: May 20, 2008   Last Updated: February 16, 2012

There are so many good reasons to home school your children. If you ask 50 people why they decided to homeschool, you would probably get at least 35 to 40 different answers! Many people have more than one reason for homeschooling. They are all legitimately good reasons, even if they don't apply to all homeschooling families.

Most public schools are overcrowded. The teachers have too many students in the classrooms, and they don't have enough time to give individual attention to each student who needs it. This is one of the main reasons that parents give for homeschooling. The average classroom in America has about 35 children crammed into a classroom with only one teacher. How can that teacher give each child individualized attention when they are having trouble learning a concept?

The next reason given for homeschooling is the escalating violence in today's schools. The guns and knives and other weaponry brought into the schools are a major concern for today's parents. Even in the elementary schools, we see guns and knives. When we see our six-year-old children passing through a metal detector to get into their school, it is a bit disconcerting!

The next reason is also due to safety. It isn't so much the weaponry, but the escalating violence. This was around even when I was young. There are so many bullies. Stealing money, beating people up, and fighting to prove they are bigger and better. This is a major concern. The schools just don't seem to care and don't put a stop to it. The more the parents try to fight it, the more the schools seem to go downhill.

The education seems to be going downhill also. This No Child Left Behind Act is a laugh. It punishes our children. Not just the intelligent ones, but the slow ones also! The teachers are pulling their hair out by the roots, because they have no funding to back this law. They have children that can't read in their classes and can't keep up with the rest of the class, and they keep the rest of the class back as well. So, therefore, the education suffers. Public schools are going downhill all over. This is a big concern to parents. Many of us have pulled our kids out for this reason. When I approached my daughter's teacher to ask why she couldn't give my daughter extra work when she was sitting at her desk bored silly (she was about 4 grades ahead of the other children in reading), I was told that the teacher had no time to give her any extra work as she was overworked and underpaid.

More reasons for homeschooling is finances, religion and large families. Many families have large families and can't afford private schools. Some families would like to place their children in a private school but have not got the monies to do so. Therefore they homeschool instead. There are many homeschool groups that you can join online that meet locally and if you are catholic or baptist, etc. you can join a secular group, maybe even start one up in your own local church.

These are many of the reasons we all started homeschooling. There are many more reasons, and all them are deeply personal to the individual families. Every one of the reasons are good reasons. None of them are bad reasons. If you are considering homeschooling, don't ever let someone talk you out of it. Many people say that homeschoolers lack social skills, but that is not true. There are so many ways to get social skills when homeschooling that they actually get more social skills when homeschooled!

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