Why do we homeschool?
- At home, we’re able to provide the most positive and encouraging learning environment possible, for our children.
- Homeschooling affords us the flexibility we need to cater our child's education to their strengths and weaknesses.
- We get to choose the best curriculum for each child's learning styles.
- At home, our children get one-on-one attention, which means they learn the subject matter better, with fewer distractions, and often get their work done much faster.
- Our children are able to progress as fast or as slow as necessary; only advancing forward when subjects are mastered.
- Homeschooling promotes family unity. Siblings are interdependent on each other for relationships - which fosters attitudes of love, respect and instills a sense of responsibility to one another.
- We like to take a lot of trips together (family field trips). It's very disruptive to take them out of school when we want to go on family trips. By homeschooling, we just study on the road. This is important to us because we think our family trips teach them more about history, art, science and culture, than they would ever learn in a classroom. Plus, our field trips are much more fun as we can be flexible with our time and planning, and with only 3 kids verses 60, we get to experience much more.
- We want the kids to have more time for extracurricular activities, like community service, sports, and music lessons.
- Homeschooling teaches a high level of self discipline, and important values like commitment and self-sacrifice.
- We can develop in areas that are not always covered in traditional schools; like business and technology.
- Family togetherness introduces a lot more "family" learning experiences that would otherwise be missed - if they were gone all day.
- Education should be centered around the one who created everything worth learning about. Knowing the creator and including him in education, makes education more relevant and interesting for our family.
- God gave our children to us because He thought we were a perfect match to love them, teach them, and equip them for the world. That realization compels us to give them our best. Homeschooling is hard and requires unusual sacrifice. We can't think of a higher expression of love, than to offer ourselves to them as their teachers.
- We think our kiddos will enjoy their childhood more. It is increasingly difficult to raise positive, healthy kids in today's world. We want to mitigate the negative and destructive influences of pop-culture, and poor parenting, that influence and ruin so many of today's youth.
- Kids spend 50% of their conscious (awake) lives in school. Unfortunately, school is where most bad behaviors and bad attitudes are caught. Since we have a choice, we choose to remove that burden from our kids. Life is hard enough outside of school.
- Other home-school families have been a wonderful example to us. Their children are incredibly bright, with positive attitudes and great conversationalists. They are respectful, polite, always looking for ways to serve and help others. And they seem to have all the self confidence in the world. They are spiritually and mentally healthy and prepared to function in the world. These are things we want for our children.
Aren't you concerned about sheltering them? No. The word "shelter" implies "hiding the world" from our children. We do just the opposite. We tell our children the truth about the world we live in; the good and bad choices people make and the results of each. We confront pop-culture every day. Our job as parents is not to hide them from the realities of this world. Our job is to equip them with the tools and resources needed to navigate through it; to rise above it, and to use their gifts and resources to make it a better place for everyone.
What about socialization? Our kids get healthy socialization from their relationships in athletics, neighborhood friends, church and community service.
Most people asking this question are really asking, "Don't you want your kids to be like other kids - you know... fit in?" My short answer is "no - I so desperately do not want them to be like everyone else". As I observe how so-called "socialized" kids view the world and the kinds of things they value, and the way they conduct themselves, the answer to that question is, "no". If it means they're going to frown a lot, gossip, use foul language, and talk about how dumb everything is, "no," I don't want my kids to "fit in". In fact, nothing would make me feel like more of a failed parent. I want so much more for them.
My earnest desire is that they grow up to know and love Jesus, and to truly want what He wants; to live lives that are pleasing to their Heavenly Father; to be sensitive to the direction of the Holy Spirit; to love others like Jesus loves, and to be the kind of people others will want to be like.
