Is homeschooling better for your child?

Homeschooling is defined as the education or early learning of children in their house, or anywhere else other than a school. Homeschooling can be conducted by a parent, tutor, sibling or any other older experienced individual.

While this method of education may sound daunting, it is still popular amongst some of the areas of our country where either people can’t afford formal schooling or can’t send their child to school for any other reason. We need to know the pros and cons of this way of teaching, so we will break them down below:

Advantages Of Homeschooling

Academic Flexibility

Homeschooling tends to be in a more informal way as compared to schooling in actual schools and modern days with the ease of technology; people are also doing early learning online at home. We have to realize that every child we come across is different. He has different strengths, weaknesses; capabilities, etc. homeschooling does realize that fact to an extent.

That is why it’s easier to cope up with a child who is lagging at home. Moreover, there is no fixed schedule of waking up early in the morning and going to bed at 9 PM, which may be better for parents and students. Parents can decide when to take the next lesson and when to go on holiday accordingly. Parent-student freedom exists, which in turn increases the bond between the two parties.

More Emotional Freedom

Homeschoolers don’t have to go through the nasty practices of high school. They don’t have to deal with toxic friends, handle bullying, overcome drug addiction due to peer pressure, etc. They don’t have to bare insulting comments which could boost their learning capacity.

An example of this is readily available in the book “A sense of self” where the author has found that teenage girls, who are homeschooled experience higher levels of self-esteem, are happier and mature adults.

Integrated And Consistent Education

Usually, homeschooling is done by the same person throughout the period; he can set both short-term and long-term goals according to the child’s capabilities. As the parent is more actively involved in this process, he/she can understand the child better and input their thoughts in designing the child’s curriculum. Each topic is then taught in more depth and detail, and hence both the child and the parent have a better understanding of the world around them.

Low Student-Teacher Ratio

This is one of the most significant advantages involved with homeschooling. With the average student to teacher ratio being at 15:3 respectively, gaining individual attention in class is often very difficult, and there is always one time when the list of your un-answered questions piles up to a lot, and you are clueless. You don’t have to worry about this when you are homeschooled because it’s usually you with one teacher which guarantees 100% attention to you and your queries. This personal interaction can translate into better performance both on paper and in person.

Homeschoolers Turn Out To Be More Independent

Students usually never felt the need to follow the crowd, didn’t have someone to depend on when they got stuck and had to figure their way out. These soft skills, in turn, possibly will help the student in his practical life. When the time arrived to solve learning problems, they were substantially better than the crowd who was rather educated in a public or private high school.

Disadvantages of Homeschooling

Time

Parents usually have to set aside their responsibilities when they undertake the task of educating their children themselves. This is very difficult for parents who have jobs or even for single parents as they have to design curriculums, prepare lessons, teach in depths, take and correct tests, etc. For this much amount of work on hand, multi-tasking is usually difficult, which could result in the attention given to children be increased; a possible contender for a homeschooled child is lagging.

Socialization

For most of the kids, the 12 years at high school are where they make friends, hang out, have parties, study together, etc. This experience is crucial for a child’s development. As a homeschooled kid, individuals don’t have the opportunity to interact with kids of their age, and hence they may feel socially left out.

Homeschooling may not build in well-developed social skills as they are not exposed to different kinds of people. They lack interaction skills, and even the homeschooled children who have friends don’t have that strong bond because they don’t meet them every day. Although homeschooled kids have siblings to interact with, this type of interaction is usually not replicated as a strong friendship.

Quality of Education

Well-experienced and renowned professors tend to go to big high schools to teach due to a higher return on their capital investment. These highly qualified teachers have more experience to tackle every type of student; diverse behaviors etc. as compared to the tutors at home, these teachers follow a standard curriculum. For the tutor to design a perfect standard curriculum, he needs to be well-qualified, which is usually not the case.

Lack Of Motivation And Healthy Competition

Everyone reaches that point in their lives when they need someone just to push them to go through. For high school students that ‘push’ is the constant urge to be at the top of the class. This healthy competition motivates them to even study at home everyday producing better results in class.

Homeschooled children may be demotivated at times, and they don’t have any additional incentives such as ranking or percentile, to just get them going. Some children even need to be set forth with a challenge to do well in their studies which can’t possibly happen at home.

Lack Of Facilities

Families tend to lack facilities both inside and outside the classroom, which are essential for the growth of an individual. Homeschooled kids lack facilities such as swimming pools, running tracks, gyms, cafeteria, wellness rooms, and tracks. For academic science classes, it is harder to get all the equipment and chemicals that would rather be available in a science lab. Hence, education both inside and outside the classroom, maybe compromised to an extent.

Wrapping Up

While both the advantages and disadvantages are set forth for you, it is for you to decide which method suits you and your child better. Individual Cost-Benefit analysis needs to be carried out to ultimately decide which method is better: homeschooling or education at high school.

While the answer to this question remains subjective, we believe that education is a public or private school that will be better for the growth of an individual. Then again, it usually depends on household to household, and it is for you to decide!