Homeschool Education - Is it a Radical Or Right Choice?

Is it really a radical choice for parents to decide to homeschool? Or should we applaud these parents for making the right choice about their children's education?

Some parents nowadays are thinking-out-of-the-box to make sure that their children don't have only the best education but possess also the right values, principles and attitude toward life. There is an apparent increase in the number of homeschooled students. According to U.S. Department of Education, there are approximately 1,096,000 students who were educated at home in spring of 2003. It is a big leap (approximately 29% increase) compared to spring of 1999 which has only an estimated 850,000 homeschoolers.

Let us delve as to why more parents are now taking the radical choice of opting for homeschool education for their children.

Away from school bullying. This is one of the primary reasons cited by parents who homeschooled their children. School bullying is very prevalent nowadays. The National Youth Violence Prevention stated that there are over 5.7 million youth who are bullied at school. It is about 30% of total youth population in the United States.

It is a disturbing situation with a negative impact to children being bullied at school. Bullied students live a stressful life as they become fearful with possible bullying incidents again. They are scared to be alone like being in the bathroom or in the hallway. Victims will have less interest in attending school also and even the task of riding a bus becomes a terrifying activity.

This results in depression, low self-esteem, physical illness, loneliness and in worst cases, suicidal thoughts.

Most bullied children also find it difficult to learn at school as they struggle coping with their fear and anxiety. They can hardly focus in the classroom.

Other Safety Concerns. Homeschooler parents are worried about the safety of their children in the traditional school. Safety concerns include drugs, negative peer pressure and accidents. Some isolated cases include children being gunned down or murdered at school. Children's safety at school is unpredictably at stake.

Some homeschooler parents perceived that homeschooled children are safer compared to children attending a regular school.

Quality Learning. Parents are the primary teacher and models of the children. A ratio of one teacher to two or three students makes a huge difference in the quality of education delivered to a teacher handling 30 to 40 children in a regular classroom.

Also, the fact that it is their children, education is more personalized and the result is far better. Schedules for homeschool are flexible also so children are not forced to wake up early to catch the school bus and options for what the children want to learn for the day are possible.

Better Person. Parents always want to instill good values to their children. It is one of their intention and hope that their children become a better person but when children attend a regular school, parents can no longer control the other factors such friends, schoolmates and school environment. These are external factors that can influence the children either positively or negatively.

Oftentimes children acquire attitudes from their friends at school. Children are vulnerable to adapting certain manners or attitudes which are relative to the kind of friends or clique they mingle and hang out with. On some occasions, they are negatively influence because of peer pressure. For the child to be part of the group or to be labeled 'cool' at school, sometimes they do things out of their way.

Parents of homeschoolers prefer to train and raise their children the way they would have wanted them to be. They believe that they are more effective in instilling moral and religious values.

24/7. This is the best advantage of homeschool. Parents are with their children 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

Experience parents always encourage new parents to spend as much time as they can with their children especially in their growing years. This is the stage where children are still dependent to their parents. Once they reach puberty, they now prefer to spend time with their peers and once they reach adulthood, they will spend more time with colleagues, friends and at work.

Strong bond. As parents and children spend more time together than the average parents whose children are attending a regular school, the opportunity to develop profound bond and strengthened relationship is inevitable.

Homeschool reinforces the value of family.

Flexibility. There are parents who are always mobile because of work related issue. Some parents find homeschool very convenient because it allows them to travel without much constraint. Travelling can be planned anytime as there are no worries of missing the classes or interrupting school activities.

It indeed gives more flexibility to parents and children to travel.

Without doubt, homeschool education offers many benefits to your children and to you as parents though critics always question the socialization life of the homeschool children. Are they really being deprived of their socialization skills?

Homeschool curriculum nowadays have supplement activities like pottery classes, museum visits, karate classes and so on. There are many institutions also that offer and organize different activities for homeschool children. If you can just do a little research and get connected with the right network or community of homeschoolers, you will be amazed with the available socialization opportunities for homeschool children.

Socialization is not limited at school only. There are so many venues that children can develop their socialization skills.

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