“Why?” “Oh, I could never do that!” “But our public school in this town is excellent.” “What about socialization?”

These are just a few of the (nicer) responses I’ve received when I mention we are homeschooling our daughter. In today’s society, there seems to be more acceptance of homeschooling than in the past. True, there are still those that think all homeschoolers are backwoods, ultra-conservative, socially awkward families that want to isolate themselves and their children from the world, but I think a lot of those stereotypes are falling to the wayside. While it seems like many people are supportive, there are a lot of questions about WHY we do what we do. I thought it would be helpful to share some of the reasons we have decided homescholing is the best option for our family.

Before I begin, I do want to preface this list by saying these are the reasons for our individual family. The reasons other families have are completely different and homeschooling isn’t for everyone. I truly believe it is a calling from the Lord that not everyone has. If you are not certain homeschooling is the right option, you will easily abandon it when things get tough (and they will!). If you are starting out homeschooling, I strongly urge you to write down the reasons why you feel you are meant to homeschool. My husband and I sat down last year before the start of our daughter’s kindergarten year to confer on the reasons we felt God calling us to homeschool. I then took these reasons and wrote a homeschool mission statement. Having a physical, written document listing the things we discussed helped me to regroup and refocus when I was struggling. Your mission statement does not need to be lengthy or elegantly written. It simply needs to be something you can look back on to encourage you and remind you why you are doing what you’re doing. Now onto our list …

A solid spiritual foundation

One of my personal pet peeves is when people expect the church to be the primary source of discipleship for their children. While I believe church plays a vital role in a believer’s life (including children), it’s a parent’s duty to be teaching their child about Jesus. Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” [ESV] This verse isn’t talking to churches – it’s talking to parents! Our primary focus in homeschooling is to build a strong foundation for Claire. As she goes out into the world (even as a child), she encounters all kinds of things that are contrary to the morals we are trying to instill in her. She will have her entire life to combat these storms and we want to give her the answers she needs to cling to Jesus and know Him for herself when all the questions come.

Foster a love of learning

If you’ve ever been around a preschooler, you know that they are full of questions (especially “why?”). Children are automatically inquisitive, always exploring the world around them and trying to make sense of how everything works. We strive to encourage that in our daughter. We want her to love learn, to love exploring. I hate the mentality that school is drudgery and just something we have to get through to get to the “fun stuff.” Learning should BE the fun stuff! Of course, there will always be certain things that we do need to learn that isn’t necessarily easy or fun or doesn’t come naturally to us (*cough* math! *cough*), but the majority of school should not be that. So much of homeschooling can be tailored to what the child is interested in and doesn’t require a child to sit in school all day long, only to come home and do homework. School ends up so much work and children’s naturally inquisitive minds can be squashed in these settings.

Learn at our own pace and in the way that works best for us

I have great respect for public school teachers. They work so hard and really care about their students. But these two things are simply things that they are unable to do in a public school setting. They have whole classrooms to take care of and higher ups to answer to. So if one child is lagging behind in reading, one child is grades ahead in reading, but the majority of the class is right in the middle, they simply can’t cater individual lessons to the children who are outside of the majority. They don’t have the time or man power and have to stick to lesson plans. Also, most lesson plans are written to one or two learning styles, which makes learning difficult for children who simply don’t learn that way. As homeschoolers, we can accelerate through the things that we are ahead in and spend more time on the subjects that we might be struggling with. As many of you probably know, I was homeschooled from third grade through graduation. In my freshman year of high school, I was doing 10th grade science, 8th grade math and college level English. We were able to tailor lesson plans and subjects based on what I needed at that time. This is something that is such a huge benefit for us in homeschooling.

Bullying

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, I’m certain you’ve noticed that bullying is an ever increasing issue. Much of bullying takes place on school grounds. I’m sure adults do everything they can to correct bullying, but the truth is, they simply can’t catch everything. This is an aspect we don’t have to worry about at all. If our daughter is going to be bullied by anyone, we will most likely be present for it and be able to teach her how to handle that situation, instead of her trying to handle that burden alone and having anxiety about seeing a bully every day at school.

Our schedule

Since my husband is a pastor, there are plenty of late night church events and lots of busy weekends. We don’t have to worry about having a hard time getting Claire out of bed the next morning. In fact, Claire is not an early riser at all. Most days, she sleeps until 8:30 (sometimes later, like today!) and I can allow her to get as much sleep as her growing body needs. My husband’s day off is Monday and we focus on quality family time on that day – something that would be impossible if our daughter went to school (in fact, we don’t do school at all on Mondays for that very reason).

Treasuring every moment

This is probably one of the biggest pros to homeschooling and a huge driving factor behind our decision to homeschool. It took us over a year to conceive Claire and have continued to battle infertility and miscarriage since her birth. I believe that I would’ve loved and treasured my time with our child regardless, but these struggles have given me a different perspective than I might’ve had otherwise. Our daughter is a precious, wonderful gift from the Lord and she is such a blessing to us each and every day. Every moment of waiting, every negative pregnancy test was worth it. Perhaps this is a selfish reason, but after all the waiting, I don’t want to spend the majority of my time apart from her. If she were in public school, she would be away for most of the day. When she came home, we would spend our evenings doing homework, eating dinner, getting a bath and going to bed. There would be hardly any quality time. I want to soak in as much time as possible with her. Time is fleeting and childhood goes by too fast – I don’t want to miss a moment!

These are some of the reasons why homeschooling is the right choice for our family. The reasons are different for each family. If you homeschool, what are your reasons? If not, what are your reasons for choosing public school? I’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment below! Please keep your comments respectful.