Is Homeschooling Right for Your Family?

Many positive results come from conscientious home schooling. Unfortunately, negatives can also result when home schooling is begun without sufficient preparation or is conducted in a haphazard way. Below are some of the responsibilities you are taking upon yourself when you make the decision to home school. Are you ready for this exciting, but serious new challenge?

Responsibilities - You, as the parents, must plan your student’s academic program. Unless you are using a correspondence school, you will be taking on the responsibilities of the home school administrator, curriculum planner and textbook selector, teacher, and record-keeper.

This is a major time commitment. Someone will need to oversee schoolwork each day. Even a mature teen cannot be expected to work his home school program without some consistent adult supervision.

Parents must know their state’s home school laws and plan their school program to meet all legal requirements. Failure to comply with state regulations can cause the home schooler unnecessary difficulty. Home School Legal Defense Association can provide members with information and legal help when needed. State and local support groups can also be a great source of information.

In addition to fulfilling these responsibilities, you will notice other important factors while observing successful home schooling families:

1. The decision to home school is made prayerfully and carefully by the parents. Home schooling is seen as a positive choice made to enhance their child’s ability to grow in grace and succeed in life. In contrast, a hasty decision without proper planning or an angry reactionary decision based on unhappiness with the present school situation reduces the likelihood of success.
2. Both parents are in agreement that home schooling is the best academic choice for their child. Because home schooling affects the whole family unit, harmony on this decision is very important.
3. The child desires to be home schooled. This does not mean that children make the final decision concerning a change to home schooling. When a child’s behavior or friendships place him in situations that are a potential danger to himself or others, some parents will feel the need to override their child’s wishes. (Proverbs 22:15 does tell us that “foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child.”) However, the smoothest transition will occur when parents and child are in agreement.
4. Parents maintain a loving, consistent discipline and are the recognized authority in the home. Parents and children are mutually respectful of the roles God has created for them and treat each other with dignity and courtesy. (Being human, we will often fall short of such high standards, but the desire to lead God-honoring lives encourages us, with His help, to try again.) .
5. Parents enjoy educational pursuits, have the time to prepare, and are ready to learn and relearn academic skills to help their student. When something is beyond their ability they seek out the help their student needs.

Excerpted from The Starting Point, copyright 2001, Diana Johnson
All Rights Reserved

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