Homeschooling has become the growing trend of teaching children school at home. During the tough times of the COVID pandemic crisis and strict lockdown, parents are teaching their kids various subjects at home. Although going to school brings a lot of exposure to enhancing learning routines, there have been debates about whether homeschooling is the right approach to encourage education and teaching. It has been a long-sought debate about homeschooling pros and cons.
From someone who has experienced both extremes, I am going to unwrap the points about homeschooling pros and cons. However, you are the better judge of it. Here are the pros and cons of homeschooling compiled in one place for you to conveniently decide which is suitable to teach your child. It will help you determine if you want to homeschool your child or not.
Pros Of Homeschooling:
Let us start with the fact that your child is in a much healthier and safer environment than the school. The health benefits of homeschooling are countless. How is that? Because they get to eat food made at home! There is no danger of your kid being bullied at school!
Schedule flexibility:
Homeschool works for all types of kids, the bright ones, the dull ones, the shy ones, and the gifted ones. You guide your child at a pace they can easily follow and show productivity. Yes, homeschooled children have a strong and thorough understanding of concepts. Why is that? Firstly, the student-to-teacher ratio is so low that the student gets a complete chance to absorb and understand a point. If they fail at visualizing the concept, a parent would have to improvise over and over to find a suitable example that helps to digest.
Parents are in charge:
No one knows your child better than you. You know the best approach for your child to be optimally equipped with the concept needed for that particular age. Children who have been homeschooled are better at crafting a plan to achieve their goals.
And where do they get this? Their parents obviously, the concept of devising a plan to conquer is a skill they learn from their parents. As for you, as parents, have the liberty to teach your child what you deem fit. Search for authentic history. The unbiased reviews from historians. The actual rise and fall of an empire. Teach your child to always look for the fact themselves. Teach them the reason why these concepts exist.
Check your priority:
When homeschooling, your child’s physical, emotional, and mental health are a priority over the task of educating them. You can halt the progress to check on your child and help them through any tough times if they are struggling.
Safe environment:
Your child learns with the most optimum mindset because they have no other external factors affecting their mind. Furthermore, several factors take effect when a child is in a classroom. Yes! Your child could be feigning concentration to look smart in front of their peers and teachers without a single word getting through their minds. Your child would lose the attention span, and the teacher would not notice.
Community Service:
You can teach your child how to move through society firsthand. Take them to community services and let them choose the task they would like to do. You can instill the importance of humanity, service, and philanthropy in your kid from the start. Let them embrace the concept of compassion and thoughtfulness.
Well-structured learning:
With your full attention on your child, you know what concept your child grasps willingly and for what notion your kid has difficulty accepting. Look for better examples to let your kid absorb the idea. You can use endless resources and learning apps to help your child to teach at home.
Avoid driving all learning towards testing:
Avoid driving your kid in the corner by piling tests on them. You can test your kids’ knowledge by casually throwing questions in your day-to-day routine. Moreover, you can judge their learning by studying how to apply the concepts in their daily life. It saves time and fuel from driving to schools or child training centers. It makes one of the most benefits of saving money from paying for extra energy, especially if you live further distances.
Endless extra-curricular activities:
There is endless time for you to test different activities with your child. Hence, take your child swimming and hiking. It is in your hands to make these times the best memories of their lives.
College admissions and transcripts:
Kids who are homeschooled have twice more chances to get accepted into colleges. Moreover, homeschooled kids have exceptional results and usually ace their tests. Yes! their academic record is top-notch. I am talking about parents who put effort into their kids’ homeschooling and personality development. It makes one of the most beneficial of homeschooling where you can tutor your child to gain higher marks for better studies in the future.
Cons Of Homeschooling:
Homeschooling brings many benefits to teaching your child at home. Still, it can pose drawbacks that lead to discouraging learning at home. If you want to encourage homeschooling, here are the disadvantages for you to know.
Lifestyle Changes:
To plan homeschooling with your child requires effective time management and changes to your lifestyle to give proper attention. It is crucial for working parents who hardly have time to tutor their kids. The lifestyle change put extra pressure on financial change and too much involvement, leading to frustration. It requires changing your lifestyle to work extra hours tutoring your children.
Economically taxing:
To engage with your child, you might need to quit your job to give them enough time. Hence, ample space and resources are out of the question. For all the accessories already present at school, you’d have to restock them. Homeschooling means more expenditure on spending different resources.
Overbearing parents:
Parents who try to keep a check on their children 24/7 leave no room for the kids to grow. The authoritarian parent is the punishment parent. Parents who are abusive or yell scare their kids if they do not obey or finish the task. Parents who utilize this parenting style might be called ‘bossy,’ ‘high strung,’ or abusive.”
Lack of control over emotions:
Parents usually fail at practicing patience with their children. Any extreme emotional reaction can scar your child’s personality in the long run. Moreover, parents fail at keeping control of themselves, resulting in homeschooling being an utter disaster.
Lack of assistive technology:
Not all homes have access to technology and other approaches to digital learning. Technological tools are something that some parents cannot afford to purchase. It requires parents to use technology to assist in practical understanding. The lack of devices available makes it hard to consider homeschooling pros and cons.
Children lack social skills:
Children stay at home, and their only social interaction is usually with their parents, siblings, or neighbors. If they have kids in the neighborhood, other kids might shun their kids because they don’t attend the same public school. The more kids homeschool, the more isolated they become.
Conclusion:
Homeschooling your children is not always the best approach for effective learning. The debates on homeschooling pros and cons have unwrapped the valid points in finding the right direction to delivering lessons to your kids. How you want to tutor your child depends on your lifestyle, time management, and the problems of your child’s studies. Nothing can hold you back.
