A Story of Homeschooling Benefits

For me, homeschooling was the answer to giving my first son a “break” from public school. He was having regular behaviour issues, pretty much since grade one, and by the time he reached the middle of grade five I felt confident that he couldn’t learn any less with me teaching him than he would at school. At school he was unable to complete work, he would regularly defy teachers, have angry outbursts and then withdraw when he became so emotionally overwhelmed. On a couple of occasions, I had to be called to the school to coax him out from his retreat under a table or desk.

School was not an effective learning environment for him. In contrast, his behaviour outside of school was quite different. He rarely defied anyone in authority (occasionally he felt the need to test his limits with me). I was often told by his leaders in Scouts, at church or any other situation where he was learning and interacting with other kids and adults, that he was great, so polite and very well-behaved.

However, school was a setting that caused him to rebel, because the way that his brain works was not compatible with the school environment. He had a few wonderful teachers over the years that really tried to help him, but it wasn’t so much the teaching as it was the atmosphere and minimal guidance that is available with a ratio of 1 teacher to 20-30 children.

Although I only homeschooled him for 1 year and a half (he went back to school at the beginning of his grade 7 year) when I my husband and I were talking about having children, we made the decision that our whole family would be much better served by not putting our kids in a public school setting.

My husband had a very similar experience with school as my oldest son had, so it wasn’t difficult to convince him homeschooling was the way to go. Although my husband and oldest son aren’t biologically related, they are so alike in some ways!

While I had a strong reason to start homeschooling, when I’m asked why I chose to homeschool, I share many of the benefits of homeschooling that I’ve realized over the years. Here are a few of the big ones for me:

• My children get a customized education
• I get to learn much more about them through our learning time
• They have input about what and how they are learning
• There’s time to linger on an area of interest without time pressures
• More learning through games
• Interaction and socialization with other families – children of all ages and their parents
• Freedom from peer pressure and the freedom to really be themselves
• Opportunities to enjoy public facilities when others aren’t there

Whatever your reason was to start homeschooling, I’m sure you’ll also realize many other homeschooling benefits over the years by learning the family way.

Steph has been building businesses, mostly from home, for over 10 years, motivated by her strong determination that her two youngest boys would be educated at home. Now, she coaches entrepreneurs to start and grow their business from home. Her and her family are all comfortably nestled in the trees in Central Ontario. She loves being a home-body and building up her permaculture property. Learn more about Steph at www.creatingworkandplay.com