These days, many people are turning to homeschooling for their children’s education. Some have started asking the question, ‘Should I homeschool my child,’ due to problems with school. Others feel they want to spend more time with their children. Still, others think they can do a better job of educating their children than a school can. 

If you’re one of the parents asking these questions, you should know that homeschooling is not as hard as you think. So long as you’re a loving parent who is willing to go out socially with your children and put a little bit of time into helping them with their education, you should do fine.

Parents Agonizing Over the Choice to Homeschool

Making the choice to homeschool is not easy. Home education is considered an alternative choice and is looked upon with some suspicion by many. The stigma is lessening as the myths referring to weird unsocialized homeschoolers dissipate, but homeschooling parents still have to contend with the critics who hold that home education has significant disadvantages.

Initially, my parents never considered home education, but like many homeschooling parents, they were forced to look at home education when school failed to prevent the corruption of their children’s morals by peers.

My parents started our education by putting us in school. Referring to this period, my father said:

‘Everybody else was enrolling their children in school, and of course, as a parent you’re told that your children won’t get a decent education outside of school. Even though our children were crying and not happy at school, we diligently kept sending them back to ‘get an education’. When we decided to homeschool we really beleived our children would be educational drop-kicks – you know, checkout chicks and ditch diggers. However, one became an architect, the other a lawyer, and the other did a year of medical school. We were certainly surprised with the outcome!’

As my parents discovered more and more problems we were having in school, they became desperate to find an alternative. One homeschooling mother in our church suggested we homeschool, at which my mother laughed at the apparently ridiculous suggestion. My mother then replied, ‘I don’t have the educational background to homeschool my children.’ (This is a common objection that is addressed and overcome in this article.)

She then went home and told my father of the conversation. He stopped for a moment, looked at my mother, and said, ‘Well, why shouldn’t we homeschool?’

And that was how my new educational journey began. For me, going from school to homeschool felt like leaving a dark tunnel and stepping out into a warm meadow full of fragrant daisies!

Top Reasons People Choose to Home Educate

Not everyone begins their homeschooling journey the same way my parents did. Many hold different philosophies that clash with traditional educational methods. There are four big categories of reasons parents choose to teach their children at home including:

The popularity of home education has exploded in the 21st century thanks to more parents realizing the moral (and religious) heritage in our schools is dying. They have given up trying to reform schools and many no longer believe (at least public) schools can pass on good values to their children.

Some of these disillusioned parents are beyond frustrated with schools and, while they don’t have complete confidence in their own ability to teach, think homeschooling couldn’t possibly be any worse than the school system is.

Why I Struggle When Someone Asks Me, ‘Should I Homeschool My Child?’

Personally, I really struggle when someone asks me, ‘Should I homeschool my child?’ The ‘old man’ within me wants to say something like, “Yes. Quite frankly, everyone, except a small minority of parents should be homeschooling because public school is a schmuck system designed to socialize, more than to educate and it’s really a socialization system dressed up to be an educational system.”

From experience, I’ve learned this generally gets awful reactions. This is because education is a hot topic. Many people are as devoted to their schools as they are to their country. If anyone tries to attack these institutions, the listener often defends them or goes into their shell and discontinues the conversation.

When I was young and impetuous I didn’t understand this and hence ruined my fair share of relationships due to my overt zeal and preference for homeschooling. But, homeschoolers are often similar to school students in defending their educational background. Many, including me when I was younger, became highly defensive and sensitive of my educational background.

But, the other day, I realized that what I really wanted to say was what Penelope Trunk said:

The biggest lie homeschoolers tell is that home education is not right for everyone. School is totally ineffective. We all know our schools are broken. We are trying to fix them. So the kids in schools are guinea pigs. The bar is very low for how much better life needs to be outside of school for it to be better than school. [Penelope Trunk Education]

While a lot of moms will say, ‘You’ve got to choose what’s right for you,’ and ‘Consider the pros and cons and weigh it all up,’ I am going to just come out and say it. Yes, you should homeschool your child. School’s not hard to beat. I know this because I wrote a book about it with plenty of statistics on all of these issues. I’ve looked at the pros and cons of home education closely and experienced these for myself. I can now say with confidence, homeschooling wins hands-down.