Homeschooling / Unschooling

8 Reasons to Homeschool Your Kids This Year

The homeschooling community is growing massively right now. So many parents are choosing a different life for their kids and it’s great to see! Have you been considering it? Feeling uncertain? It can seem like a huge decision, but there are countless reasons to make the change..

1. You value freedom

You’re tired of having your life, and your children’s lives, dictated by the school timetable. You want to be able to go on holidays whenever you want, let your children wake up when they are rested, not have precious family time taken up with homework. More than that, you want your children to feel free. Free to learn what interests them, find their passions, be who they are meant to be. A feeling of freedom is rarely found within the walls of a school.

2. You see learning as more than school can provide

You’ve realised that a standardised curriculum is not learning. Real learning looks like curious children leading the way, rather than being force-fed facts and tested on how well you can recite them.

You’ve opened your mind to the idea of learning being more than a set of subjects ranked by importance, and know that a true education is individual. There are so many ways to be educated and what is meaningful and helpful to one person’s life will not be the same for another. The world needs all types of people who are educated and skilled in different things.

You know that school cannot cater to this type of individuality and it’s time to find something that does.

3. You want to protect their spirit

Your child’s happiness, mental health, self-confidence, and spirit is as important to you as their academic education. Actually, even more so. You can’t ignore the toxic aspects of the school environment anymore. You don’t want them to fit in at the expense of being themselves, conform, be bullied, and constantly be in a high-stress environment. You know that being surrounded by love, care, understanding, connection, and respect is the best recipe for a content child who feels free to be themselves.

4. You want more time as a family

You miss your children. Childhood is short and you want to spend the time with them. You want more family time, for your immediate family and also to visit extended family and strengthen those connections. You reject the lie that it is best for your family to spend the majority of the week separate. You want different.

5. No disruptions

You’re sick of the disruptions of the last couple of years. Homeschooling will give your children more consistency and stability. Even things like moving house or holidays won’t disrupt their education now.

6. Socialization

Rather than being a reason to send your children to school, you recognise that healthy socialization is one of the biggest benefits of homeschooling. You want your children to form authentic friendships and find belonging in a supportive community. You’d rather skip the toxic socialization of school.

7. You are brave

Doing something different takes courage. Even if you truly believe in all your reasons it’s daunting to take a different path to the majority. You’re stepping out of the security of school and putting trust in yourself. You will be the one responsible instead of outsourcing this part of your children’s education. That’s huge! But you’re brave and you know the rewards are great.

8. It’s not what you imagine

If you take a peek into our life any day you may find us in the craft room surrounded by in-progress projects, children covered in paint, someone sewing, another using the glue gun, one child looking at things under the microscope. Or maybe we’ll be out with friends, knee-deep in a creek, exploring and playing for hours and hours. You might see us baking, or gathered around the table sipping tea and enjoying those baked goods over poetry teatime. Maybe instead the kids will be practicing acro in the back yard, or off on a bike ride.

Every day can look quite different.

But what it does not look like is that stereotypical view you’ve got in your head.

Modern homeschooling, and especially unschooling, rarely looks like children sitting at the kitchen table 9am-3pm being taught curriculum by their mother.

Instead, it looks like parents enjoying real life with their children. And it is so much fun.

Ready to make a change? Have a browse of the blog to learn more about homeschooling and unschooling.

Comments

Joanna Mikkelsen
July 4, 2022 at 1:17 pm

All excellent reasons. Also, I hated the idea of my child spending his childhood -his one and only childhood- stressed out.



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