Table of Contents
- Why do we homeschool?
- Homeschooling: Why is this important as a Christian Family?
- What are beneficial reasons to homeschool your child?
- What are Pros and Cons of homeschooling?
I was personally homeschooled growing up, and I never thought that I would homeschool my own children; however, when my daughter was about to go into 1st grade, I felt like I wasn’t ready to pass off the majority of her teaching to someone else and be away from her for the a large part of the day. Have you ever felt like that? Today, we will be diving into all of the good reasons to homeschool and some pros and cons of homeschooling.
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Why do we homeschool?
Homeschooling wasn’t always our plan for our family. When my husband and I were praying and thinking through the values that we wanted to instill in our children, the character we wanted them to develop, and the education we wanted them to learn, we slowly realized that we didn’t want to leave our children’s education in someone else’s hands.
We wanted to take a front row seat to watch our children’s brains develop, to model character traits that are found in the Bible, and to learn right alongside our children. We wanted to decide what was being taught, how it was being taught and at what pace it was being taught. We wanted to be the ones to mold, shape and direct their impressionable hearts and minds.
Homeschooling has definitely been a challenge at times, but overall, the advantageous reasons to homeschool far outweigh the reasons not to homeschool for us.
Homeschooling: Why is this important as a Christian Family?
I don’t believe that it is in God’s plan for every family to homeschool, nor do I think that you have to homeschool to be a good Christian parent. I do believe that God calls us to care about our children’s emotional, spiritual and mental growth, and I do believe that God calls us to be the major teacher or influencer in our child’s life. In Proverbs 22:6, the Bible says the following1:
This verse should help us all remember that, no matter what avenue of schooling is best for your family, being the main influence on your child’s education and growth is so important to help them walk the path the Lord has for them.
What are beneficial reasons to homeschool your child?
I personally have found that there are far more beneficial reasons to homeschooling than disadvantages of homeschooling. The list below is just a few of the many reasons my family has decided to homeschool for this season. Here are 11 good reasons to homeschool that we have found:
1. Flexibility
Homeschooling can be done anytime of day and anywhere you would like. In our family of five, we have nap schedules, work schedules and extracurricular activities schedules to work around. Our school day sometimes looks like a traditional school day, but other days it might look like the following:
- A morning at a park on a blanket learning about God’s creation.
- An afternoon in the kitchen learning about science and math concepts.
- A car ride to a doctor’s appointment completing our work pages after I have taught the lesson at home.
- A trip to a local business to learn all about that trade.
We ebb and flow with the seasons and create a flexible schedule that works for us. I have found that changing up the scenery and schedule really helps keep engagement fresh and exciting for everyone.
2. Student Led Learning
There are four main learning styles which are Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic and Reading/Writing 2. After teaching in church and at home, I learned to create lessons that include several learning styles, especially the learning style where my children learn best. You get to choose how to teach the lesson to best suit your child’s learning style.
This might look like a 2nd grade math lesson where a fun math song is sung together, a white board is used to practice Math facts and play dough rolled into balls is used to visualize groups for multiplication.
Another advantage about Student Led Learning is that you can speed up or slow down the pace of learning. If you get to a concept that your child excels at, do half the work page for that day or skip a few lessons ahead. If you uncover a concept that your child is struggling to understand, slow down and add more games and activities until things are moving more smoothly.
3. Discipleship
Discipleship is the process of helping our children become more like Christ. This is so important no matter what avenue you pick for your child’s schooling; however, when you homeschool, you have more opportunities to point your children to Christ because of all of the time you will spend with them. Use it wisely!
Here are some ideas of how to point your children to Christ while homeschooling:
- Devotions: We do devotions together first thing in the morning as a part of our Morning Basket time.
- Prayer: We pray together after devotions and whenever we feel like we need the Holy Spirit to help us (whenever we are frustrated, struggling, etc).
- Gratitude: We practice thanking God for the little blessings and big blessings throughout the day.
- Scripture Memorization: We memorize one scripture verse together each month.
- Singing: We sing worship songs or hymns together.
- Bible lessons: Each week, We have a Bible lesson that we work through like this one or this one. So easy to teach and laid out for you.
- Christ-centered lessons: We incorporate God into our lessons as often as I can. Science and History are the easiest to incorporate God into!
- Daily Conversations: I am constantly praying and looking for opportunities to talk to my children about God. That might look like sharing with them a prayer request that is appropriate or gently pointing them to Jesus whenever there is a sibling disagreement. I encourage you to pray for these moments. They are beautiful and my favorite thing about being with my children all day!
4. Closer Family Bond
In order for homeschooling to be enjoyable for everyone, it definitely requires kindness, love, respect, and grace from everyone. Sometimes there is an off day where these character traits are not practiced, but you get a beautiful opportunity to bring your little crew back to being centered on God and practice forgiveness. Being together the majority of the day, experiencing fun things together, growing in your relationship with God together and growing in knowledge together are all things that help create a close knit family bond. I love this bond and I do not take this for granted.
5. Meaningful Memories
Whenever I think about my childhood, the Welch Family Food Fight sticks out in my mind as a good memory that brings me great joy. I was young so I don’t remember much, but I do remember crawling on my hands and knees to my parents’ “side” of the fight because I thought they were winning.
Now, in my household, I don’t think I will be having a food fight, but there are meaningful rhythms and activities that we do that I hope will last in my children’s memories and bring them joy like:
- Reading a loud great classic books
- Dance Parties for fun
- Baking together yummy food
- Exploring the great outdoors
- Family dinners with fun Dinner Questions
6. Your Timing for Difficult Conversations
It is such an advantage that you get to decide when it is appropriate for your child to learn about difficult topics like sex, relationships, money, drugs and gender, and you get to teach and share about these topics from a biblical perspective. I personally don’t want my children to learn about life outside of a biblical perspective, and I feel honored that God would trust me to navigate my children through all of life’s conversations.
7. Real Life Experiences
Because my children are with me almost all day, they get to watch me and help me run our household. I am modeling to them what it looks like to be a wife and mom who pursues Jesus, who cooks and cleans, who balances budgets, who plans ahead for outings, who works the garden and so much more. I invite my children into helping with these tasks when appropriate so they get first hand experience by watching and doing.
These lessons are invaluable to our children’s future so make sure to invite them along with you as you do these tasks.
8. Children’s First
My children do not fall into a one size fits all category. God uniquely created them and gave them special gifts and talents. When homeschooling, I get to nurture and celebrate their God given gifts and talents on a daily basis. I get to encourage them to grow in the areas they enjoy, I get to incorporate their talents into the daily assignments, and I get to pursue opportunities where those gifts and talents can be grown by others as well.
For us, my daughter is very gifted in drawing. I am more of a stick figure drawing kind of gal, but I love equipping her and encouraging her each day as I watch this talent bloom within her. I also have signed her up for in person art classes and virtual art classes that can encourage her growth even more.
9. Minimize the Negatives
I don’t want to shelter my children from the world, but I do want to protect their hearts and minds from the negatives of the world while they are so young. When the day comes that they do experience these things, I can guide them through the negatives based on a biblical perspective. Here are just a few areas that I want to minimize right now:
- Comparison
- Social Media
- Bullying
- Difficult Conversations
- Undesirable Behavior
10. Sanctifying Parenting Experience
Parenting has been one of the most sanctifying experiences I have ever been through. Sanctification is the act of becoming more like God, and I know that I cannot be a Christ-centered parent without continually allowing God to do a sanctifying work in my heart. Because homeschooling has you around your child the majority of the day, I have plenty of opportunities throughout my day to turn to the Lord for strength, patience, grace, kindness and gentleness…especially when I don’t have an attitude that wants to respond to my children with a Christ-centered response. Every time I turn to the Lord for help, I am allowing Him to make me more like Him.
11. Family Learning
I love that I get an opportunity to learn right alongside my children, and I also love that my children get to teach me what they have learned in books, co-ops and classes. We all benefit from learning together to grow the minds that God has given us. I also think that this creates a lifelong love of learning, and it benefits younger siblings who are listening to us discuss the cool things that we have learned.
What are Pros and Cons of homeschooling?
I am not going to sit here and tell you that homeschooling only has beneficial reasons and no disadvantages. That is just not true. Obviously, everyone’s pros and cons are going to be different depending on family dynamics and situations, but below are the pros and cons of homeschooling for our family.
Overall, I think the biggest pros of homeschooling are:
- Flexibility
- Discipleship for everyone
- Closer Family bond
- Meaningful Memories
Overall, I think the biggest cons of homeschooling are:
- Time: it can be time consuming to prepare and teach well, but I plan one month at a time so it seems less overwhelming each day.
- Parental Burnout: Being a stay at home parent, especially one who homeschools, means there are no ten minute breaks or lunch breaks. Exhaustions and burnout are real. I encourage you to daily spend time with God, to take a small break and to do something each day that you enjoy.
- Financial: Purchasing curriculum can become very expensive, and oftentimes, a stream of income is eliminated for the parent who is doing the majority of the teaching. In our household, we budget and plan accordingly, and I try to save costs where I can.
Although homeschooling is right for my family in this season, it might not be right for us forever. We take schooling one year at a time, and I encourage you to do the same. Whatever avenue you choose for your family, remember that God gave you the privilege to be the lead teacher who trains and equips your sweet children to impact His Kingdom. I hope you don’t miss the blessings of that privilege.
I would love to hear from you. Leave a comment below to let me know why do you or don’t you homeschool?
