Gasp! Why We Are Trying Homeschooling

People have started hearing that we're going to try homeschooling, and they always have two questions/concerns: (1) why!? and (2) what about your kids' social development? I'd like to respond to those.

Why!?

When we lived in Cleveland, we knew we'd only live there for about 2/3 of our eldest's kindergarten year (we'd be in Thailand for the rest of it, and then moving elsewhere after that); we also heard very concerning things about the elementary school we were zoned for. These two factors led us to first consider homeschooling her for her kindergarten year. Whenever we're delving into something new, we like to be informed, so we read some books about homeschooling. Had it not been for this unique circumstance and this reading, I don't think homeschool ever would have crossed our minds. Thinking back, it strikes me as strange that I never would have thought, "My children's education is crazy important--I should understand and seriously consider all my options before I decide which one is the best." Instead, I would have continued to think that homeschooling was only chosen by parents who think their children couldn't thrive socially in public schools, as if it's the obvious worse option. But now I have found that there are tons of parents who choose to homeschool their children for a different reason: they've considered their options and decided homeschooling is the best one for their family at that time.

But why do we think it's the best option for us right now? There isn't a single, all-encompassing reason. Here are the big ones though:

• Quality of the education: Children learning at their own rate and having the freedom to spend more time on things that are of interest to them at a specific time is way more effective, not to mention that we feel strongly we can teach using methods that do a better job of fostering a love of learning and an understanding of how to learn for themselves. And, based on others' homeschooling experiences and our experience this year with public school, homeschool will only take a few hours/day, which leaves so much other time for them to read for fun, practice instruments, learn Japanese, learn how to cook and do laundry and shop for groceries, serve in the community, get to know the elderly, play outside, and even play with friends (more on that in the next section).
• Flexibility: My job will, one glorious day, become very flexible with weeks I get off and locations of where I work. Our dream is to make the most of this by living in different places, where we will learn different languages and cultures and, most importantly, get to know the people from those places.
• Home atmosphere: School days are tough--not only are they long and exhausting for our kids, but the mornings are stressful ordering them around to be ready on time, and the evenings are stressful when they generally come home tired and grumpy (but after-school snacks do help). They give the best of themselves to people at school and the worst of themselves to their family. And then when you add in weekday-night activities, there's very little quality and restful family time. Homeschool helps with that. Yes we're expecting homeschool to be stressful at times, but when those times come we'll have the freedom to do something else or send them outside to just be kids for a while. When we homeschooled our eldest for her kindergarten year, our home atmosphere was noticeably different. Our at-home time became more purposeful; it became a "there are exciting things to teach/learn and we're progressing in life" kind of atmosphere.

What about their social development?

This is something we've thought and prayed about a lot. First, since I'm into exhaustive mutually exclusive categories, I'll explain my categorization scheme of all the kids they come in contact of social interactions. Category 1 is their close friends, of which there are only a handful. Category 2 is their acquaintances, of which there are maybe a few dozen. Category 3 is strangers (kids they see but never actually meet), of which there are hundreds. Which ones are important to their social development? Close friends are by far the most important; from them your life is enriched and you learn how to maintain good and close relationships. Acquaintances are useful in that you get practice finding your place in and learning how to deal with social situations where there are groups of people you know only superficially. All the strangers at school probably don't contribute much to the development of social skills. But we do want our kids to practice the skill of meeting new people and forming new relationships (they need to be exposed to new people/strangers for that to happen).

How is this different in homeschool? They will absolutely have close friends, especially because we won't be homeschooling in a vacuum. There are tons of super cool families homeschooling these days, and it seems like there are more every year. We know a bunch already. We are also joining an organized homeschool thing where they'll actually have a weekly class with about 15 other kids. And we'll be doing lots of outings with other homeschool groups (Facebook is amazing for this), and then there will be playdates with friends from church and the neighborhood. Homeschool isn't the isolation sentence it used to be. Our kids might actually get more quality time (i.e., non-sitting-in-a-classroom-listening-to-a-teacher time) with their friends once we've made the switch to homeschool. And those other outings will allow for lots of acquaintances and new people to meet. Plus, when they're spending time in the community, they'll be meeting and forming relationships with so many different kinds of people (cultures, ages, etc.) rather than just the predominantly middle class white kids they have in their classes at the local public school.

For a long time I was concerned because homeschooling means our kids will have a smaller pool of people from which to make new friends--maybe they wouldn't meet that potential bestie out there in the public school! But I had an epiphany the other day. Even when there are lots of people in a public school, the people you almost always become close friends with are the kids who sit next to you in class. The making of best friends is not the rational test-all-the-flavors-and-choose-your-favorite-one process I'd always envisioned. It's actually an idiosyncratic and chance-based process from a very limited subset of people that chance (providence) places around you, whether that's the kid you get placed next to in class at public school or the kid who happens to live next door or the kid who happens to join the same homeschooling co-op. This is how friend-making works throughout life.

Conclusion

In discussing our decision with people, I've learned they have preconceived notions about homeschooling based on things they've seen, heard, or pictured in their minds--usually this involves images of kids sitting in their home all the time (with no outside social interaction and just becoming awkward) or kids playing all day every day ("wasting all their time") without actually learning anything. And I'm sure there are a lot of homeschools like that. But ours will not be like that.

There are lots of other things (i.e., people's concerns) that I haven't addressed in this blog post. I know that. But we're happy to hear and discuss all of them, on social media or in person!

I will add that, if you have/will have school-age kids and have never considered homeschooling, you should read a few select books about it so that you're not blindly making the default education decision for your kids. Most of you will still choose public school for various legitimate reasons, and that's awesome! It should always be a careful weighing of the costs and benefits of all the options. (Who knows, maybe a non-homeschool option will be better for our family in the future, too. We'll for sure continue thinking about all the educational options available to us in every location we live and decide all over again what's best for our children.) And even if you read about different ways to educate children and don't choose to homeschool, I promise you you'll approach education differently after that, which will improve how you contribute to their education when they're not at school. Ultimately a child's education is always the parent's responsibility, public school or otherwise.