People new to the idea and concept of homeschooling often have a thousand of questions to raise. Here is some helpful information to guide you in weighing things out:
Some homeschooling advantages:
- Allow quality time, providing individualized attention and instruction. Homeschooling parents can better understand their children; observe how kids progress, what areas they find difficult and help them out.
- Children learn in their own pace. At homeschool, children can advance at any time, not waiting on others or if the kid is a slow learner or having difficulties in a certain subject area, she/he can remain to focus on that area without pressure that others are already moving on.
- Parents pattern their teaching style and curriculum in accordance with the child’s learning style, allowing him/her to successfully understand the subject matter, thus better results are achieved.
- No peer pressure. At a homeschool, age classification is not a factor, therefore children not only associate with children their same age level, but with children of different ages and adults as well, so they can decide on their own without the influence of peers.
- “Hands on learning”. Activities which are outside the context of books are very much essential to the child’s learning process. Trips to the park, the museum, the zoo, going fishing with mom and dad can be a great time to spend an afternoon educating your child.
Some homeschooling disadvantages:
- For the homeschool parent, much time and effort is required for preparation of teaching materials, lessons and managing the child’s opportunities in order to cultivate friendships and expand on the child’s interests.
- Parents who homeschool do not have enough time to spend for themselves when kids are constantly at home. This frequent time of being together can be at times suffocating and, therefore, can not work in certain families.
- Homeschooled children do not have a lot of opportunities to bond and develop friendships with peers. For many families, this really is not a problem and is supplemented by taking the kids out to play in the park, attend lessons in ballet, jazz, etc. However it takes a lot of effort on the part of parents to insure that their kids have these opportunities.
Whether to homeschool or not, it all depends on you, as a parent, on how much are you willing to give your child. On top of all the learning materials, the field trips, home schooling entails a lot of love, patience and encouragement.
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