Negativity towards Homeschooling!

What is homeschooling and why should we look at it closer for our children?

There is so much negativity in the community towards homeschooling parents and this stems from a lack of understanding and information about homeschooling itself.

Speaking to children that were homeschooled in the community that is now adults with children themselves had me wondering why so many people were dead against it and I started to realize that it was due to the misconception and negative articles about parents who homeschooled, wanting to control their children, mold them to a socially acceptable (according to them) being and that most people felt that homeschooling restricted the child’s mental, emotional and social health.

Yet when I have spoken to both parents, teachers, and formerly homeschooled children the comments were very positive and I found that most of the children that were homeschooled, especially the ones that had been at public or private school (had a taste of each schooling form) where very grateful to their parents for taking the time to teach them at home.

This is in complete contrast to people that have a very narrow-minded view of the homeschooling system they believed that children needed socialization even though the students and former students themselves had stated that they had plenty of socialization and interaction, but missed out on having the bullying which made schooling and socialization a positive option for them.

As I sit here pondering the subject while teaching my children the art of making grapefruit and ginger marmalade that they will place down in the stall at the road and learn about, counting and concepts of financial and economical society despite their young ages of 11,10,9, and 6, I am wondering if the subject got a bad wrap due to misunderstandings or the fact that it is simple naivety towards the homeschooling community and negative articles about families that just did it differently.

Homeschooling has been on the increase for several years and I homeschooled my eldest child for many years after he struggled at mainstream school, he was then placed back into a small school and while there he did seem to progress a little in social skills, He was an autistic child so social integration could go very wrong at any time.

He is now in his twenties and fully integrated into society working two jobs, living with his girlfriend,, and quite able to conduct himself in social settings.

Having homeschooling in your home opens up so much more scope for the family, you get to be a part of your child’s upbringing, not just the sidelined parent that most of us are with the public system. You can take schooling to the next level; with you anywhere and the kids do have a blast.

The homeschooling life in our home is simple and organized chaos which is exciting, challenging but most of all enjoyable.

The school that our children are through is a distance education specialist for isolated and rural children, providing them with the options of hard-copied based, satellite lessons, half, half mix or fully artifact based.

This allows the parents that do this type of schooling the option to have more than one type to help it fit into their lifestyle. We have the satellite lessons (three times a week per child) and the rest is artifact based which is taking photos, making videos,, and sent either via Google drive or mail artwork and an assortment of activities that the curriculum needs to measure the child’s education by.

All this means is that our children get the state education that is sanctioned by the government but at the same time get the life skills that only our life has to offer which in our case is understanding cattle, sheep, goats, and bees and being able to cook and produce food for our home this leads to understanding why we grow our food and cook, preserve and enjoy what has been grown understanding the organic nature of life and how to work with the soil up.

These types of things can’t be taught in a mainstream schools as they are understaffed and have too many children in each class.

The choice to homeschool is one that you undertake to allow your child/ren to learn from life’s experience along with the regular educational standards of what is needed in today’s society. It is also a way to bring the family together as a strong family unit that relies on the communication of each member to function and thrive, this in itself is enough for me to choose and stay with homeschooling, not a chore or burden but rather a beautiful way of life…