Thinking About Homeschooling Your Child? Here’s What You Need To Know
Structured schooling, whether public or private, is obviously the most established form of education for children. But it doesn’t automatically make it the best option for every child. Homeschooling is becoming a growing trend, with studies indicating that homeschooling enrollment jumped to 3.1 million from 1.9 million before COVID. Besides COVID, one of the biggest driving forces in the rise of homeschooling is the growth in academic resources. But if you’re new to homeschooling and considering it, there are some important things you need to know first.
- It’s not as easy as it may seem
During school holidays, many parents can’t wait for schools to reopen, so they get their kids off their hands for a while. With homeschooling, you have to take on the teaching responsibility in addition to other duties you already have. Of course, you’ve seen those perfect pictures of smiling parents with their children studying behind the dining table. But don’t get it twisted; homeschooling is very demanding. Yes, the stats mentioned earlier show increasing popularity for homeschooling, but that’s just one side of the picture. Many parents battle stress and anxiety from coping with homeschooling pressure. That said, it is still doable, and it gets easier the longer you do it, and the older your kids get.
- Ensure you are qualified to homeschool your child
So, you don’t mind the challenge, and you feel ready to take on this special responsibility of teaching your child at home. But here’s one important question you should ask yourself. Are you qualified to homeschool your child?
To allay your fears, any parent can homeschool their kids, whether you have teaching experience or not. Thankfully, the resources are more than available, and picking the right ones will help reduce a chunk of your responsibilities. For example, you can use various digital education resources from the Age of Learning to enhance learning at home. So, if you’re worried about academic qualifications, then there’s not much to worry about. However, if your work schedule is too strict or you have a bitter relationship with your child, you need to reconsider homeschooling, at least until you sort out those issues.
- Understanding the issue of socialization
The school environment gives children the chance to socialize, make friends, and build their socialization skills. So, is that going to be a challenge for kids homeschooling? Not really.
When people think of homeschooling children, they usually imagine unsocialized little beings that lack people skills. But socialization doesn’t only happen in the school. It can happen in parks, churches, outside school clubs, travels, or even through family interactions. The trick here is to ensure that your child gets as much experience with the outside world as healthy so that they don’t end up locked up behind closed doors all the time.
- You can’t rush it
Since your child is embarking on this new educational journey, you need to give them time to learn the basics. Don’t rush it. Your child will begin to struggle the moment to start hastening through the studies, and they’ll start to lose interest in studying, which will make the homeschooling process even more difficult than it already is.