Sending their kids off to public or private school when they get old enough is a rite of passage for many families. Parents often have mixed emotions about it, but some don’t even do it. They instead opt to homeschool their kids. Other families pull their kids out of organized educational systems and start to homeschool later. In either case, there are many reasons why homeschooling has become more popular.
Safety Concerns
Sending kids off to school can prove dangerous. School buses are pretty safe, but accidents can always happen. Violence among students is a risk in some districts. The biggest threat these days is of course the pandemic, which is prone to spreading rapidly in any place where there are hundreds or thousands of people spending many hours together in close quarters. Even before the pandemic, there were often seasonal concerns about cold, flu, and other illnesses that kids might spread to one another in class or on the playground while playing.
More Time With the Kids
Some parents find that after they start sending their kids off to school that they’re relieved of having to care for them 24/7, but others actually start missing them during the day. Parents who homeschool get to spend a lot more time with their children during the years they are growing up.
Homeschooling Offers Parents Control
Being able to homeschool their children gives parents a lot of influence and control over the curriculum and content their kids are learning. Parents might decide to handle the homeschool coursework on their own, but they might also hire an online service to provide the lessons and homework their kids go through.
Avoiding Politics
Unfortunately, many public school systems are becoming political battlefields. National debates over what should be taught to kids wind up boiling down all the way to the classroom level, but there are also many schools with divisive issues at the municipal level. Some even have parent-teacher organizations that feature a lot of conflict between neighbors. Teaching kids at home just bypasses all of this for more civility.
Homeschooling Is Here to Stay
The right to homeschool your family has never been in danger of going away, and it’s always your right so long as your kids meet the legal minimum standards along the way. For many reasons, however, this option is growing in popularity as more and more families are doing it.
