There are lots of blog and social media posts about why families have chosen to homeschool. A lot of the reasons are the same, and some are maybe a little more unconventional. When we chose this path over 6 years ago, we had a few initial reasons for wanting to homeschool, but over the years our reasons for continuing have shifted and enlarged a bit. To go ahead and get one thing out of the way…
What Our Whys Are NOT
Disclaimer: Listing these is not meant to say that these are not valid reasons. Just stating that these reasons did not enter our decision making process.
- We are not homeschooling because of the government’s control of the educational system and curriculum.
- We are not homeschooling because of school shootings and bullying.
- We are not homeschooling because of the pandemic.
- We are not homeschooling because we must have every single subject we cover to be immersed in scripture, even though we are Christians.
- We are not homeschooling because private school is too expensive (although it is).
- We are not homeschooling because we think our kids won’t get a good education otherwise.
So, having said that let’s get down to why OUR family chooses to home educate! This is not an exhaustive list by any means.
Why #1 | Time
When our oldest was about four years old I began getting emotional about the idea of sending him to kindergarten and I looked into half-day options in our area. There were none. Those pretty much don’t exist anymore, or at least from what I’ve heard, they are very rare. Now, I worked full time from the time he was four months old until he was two when my second child was born. I had experienced being separated all day while I was at work and I HATED it. Everyone said it would get easier/better, but it never did for me. Even though he was in a great place, many mornings I would cry on the way to work. We had decided it was better financially (as we were working to pay off school loans) for me to continue working at least until we had a second child. I never wanted to be apart like that again because I could not regain that time that was lost when it was just he and I.
So, when he was getting closer to school age, I just could not imagine my eventual 5 year old first born being gone 8 hours a day, 5 days a week and having no real engagement with him for the bulk of the week. I knew that if the first 5 years passed that quickly, the next 13 would pass just as quickly and I felt like I wouldn’t be present for most of his experiences if we sent him to school outside the home (private or public). It may seem a bit controlling for this to be our number one “why”, but guys, these are MY kids and the time they spend in our care (from a childhood standpoint) is so short compared to the time they will spend outside of it! I could not bear the thought of missing out on that.
Why #2 | Feasting
One of the beauties of homeschooling is the ability to lay out the feast of a generous education. Generous in its depth and breadth, generous in its space to sit with something for as long as it takes or is desired, generous in its myriad of personal experiences to be gleaned from, and generous in its vast resources! In a homeschool setting, you have the freedom to chase the sparks, follow long paths down into a subject area, and immerse yourself in the wonder of a new idea! You aren’t trying to “keep up” or “slow down” for anyone or any specific curriculum. You aren’t learning with the end result of a generic standardized test. You are learning with the end result of the insatiable desire to continue learning!
We wanted our children to desire learning and not to dread it. By homeschooling, they have the time and space to learn about anything and everything they want. While we have curriculums and resources we use to keep us on task at times, they are not inhibited by a classroom moving on or having questions go unanswered when the question pops in their heads! However random it may be. The feast is always available and things can easily be set aside to wander down a different path for a while. We didn’t want our children to simply be taught… we wanted them to actually LEARN. To engage in a way that imprints upon them something they will never forget… the LOVE of learning!
Why #3 | Flexibility
With a traditional school setting and schedule your family is beholden to the start and end dates and holiday breaks of that institution. Your family’s plans must be planned around them, and not the other way around. This was a huge why for us when we made the decision to homeschool. We love to travel and see the world and we want our children to experience that as well. With homeschooling we can really take off anytime we want to and it’s amazing. We can school six weeks on and one week off, four days a week, Saturdays, on the road, at someone else’s home, through the summer, all done before lunch, all done after lunch, off for all of December… the possibilities are numerous.
When we started homeschooling our oldest in kindergarten, I was pregnant with our youngest and didn’t know it yet. The flexibility of homeschooling while pregnant was fantastic! I didn’t have to take him to school and pick him up while I was exhausted in the first trimester, I didn’t have to mess with the baby’s nap schedule for any of that either once he arrived. Homeschooling was just part of the day and we shifted our daily rhythms to accommodate however we needed to.
We also have dreams of traveling some with our kids one day, and this would be so much easier as a homeschooling family because of the freedom to choose our own schedule and not having to be anywhere in particular to learn. I cannot stress enough how important the flexibility of home schooling is to us!
Why #4 | Worldly-Wise
My husband and I felt it was very important that we provide a diverse, multi-worldview education for our children. While we are Christians and have a worldview of our own, we did not want that to keep us from sharing other viewpoints, experiences, and backgrounds from other rich cultures and differing belief systems around the world. Now as Christians we are rooted in the Word, and we are “to be in the world and not of it”, but this is not what that is. This is not saying that we become soft in our values and our faith. This worldly-wise that I speak of is the ability to show empathy, show compassion, and gain understanding of worldviews that are different from our own, experiences that we will never experience ourselves, and the hope of relationships with those that do not walk the paths we walk, that do not speak the language we speak, that do not look the way we look, and that do not believe the way we believe.
We are raising our children with a Christian worldview, but we want them to know why we believe what we believe. Not just to believe because Mommy and Daddy do. When they enter the world on their own, they will be faced with other worldviews one way or the other and we want them to be prepared in their understanding. To have a firm grasp on the apologetics of their faith. However, we also desire that our children would always be able to reach out to their neighbor, whoever that may be, and to show kindness, humility, and love. To listen. To listen to understand. To see the other side. If they can do that, they can be light bearers in any situation and God can do the rest.
Why #5 | Experiences
There are so many experiences to be had in this life. Moments of joy, moments of sadness, moments of excitement, grief, confusion, frustration, and the list goes on and on. The home during childhood should be a place of comfort, security, rest, and peace even amidst less than desirable circumstances happening around us. While we will all have experiences to walk through, I wanted the freedom to have those experiences together as a family unit all the time. While I think it is important and healthy for our children to be involved in extracurricular things at times, in a more traditional school setting, I find that those things (extracurriculars) are more committed to and somehow expected and then the room for shared experiences as a family is restricted and rushed while running here and there and everywhere.
I do believe that experiencing life with others outside of our family is just as important and valued and necessary. “Socialization” is such a buzzword in the homeschool debate, and I heard it in the late ’90s and early 2000s myself as a homeschooled teen. There are definitely more secluded homeschooled families out there, but that was never an issue for my family and I don’t think it is for my kids either. I wanted to experience the highs and lows with my kids ALL the time, not just in the aftermath of something that happened at school. To be present for the character building, attitude refocusing, conflict resolution, and kingdom moments.
These are the main reasons our family has chosen to home educate. There are other perks that we love like slow mornings, random field trips, taking school outside, picnics in the middle of the day, tea time, and read alouds. However, these 5 reasons are what drive us to keep going every day and every year.
I just loved to read you. We are a Spanish Polish family and I have always been afraid of taking the step to do such a valuable thing. We have 5 children and we are living in Germany where homeschooling is not allowed. I would really like to try it but my husband is not that concerned about it. Were you always the same mind about homeschooling?
Hi Ana! Yes, I have always felt the same way about homeschooling. Being homeschooled for a while myself as a young person, I saw the benefit in it and while I didn’t consider it at the time for my own future children, once my oldest was about to enter his first year, it became apparent that it was the only choice for our family!