Why Choose Homeschooling?
Wednesday, June 21st, 2006By Mimi Rothschild
Parents consider homeschooling their children for a myriad of reasons, and you might also be thinking about turning your own child into a homeschooler. Perhaps you’ve always wanted to homeschool to control the atmosphere, curriculum and teaching style; perhaps you’ve become disillusioned with the public education system. There are plenty of reasons to choose homeschooling as a positive alternative for educating your kids.
First of all, studies point to evidence that children who are tutored do better academically than their peers in traditional school settings. Socially, children in a homeschool are actually protected from the potentially negative influences in a public classroom, and homeschool parents can still take measures to ensure their children interact with others in healthy and controlled environments. Another reason to homeschool your children is to develop and strengthen family relationships. Parents who teach their children and siblings who learn side by side grow together and learn to appreciate and respect each other more because of the quality time they are spending together. In addition, choosing and creating a homeschool environment allows the parents to help their children grow spiritually. Through a homeschool environment, parents are able to teach their homeschoolers ethics, morality and biblical principles as well as character growth, and give them the chance to study the Bible directly.
However, probably the best reason for Christians to choose to homeschool their children is because homeschooling is modeled in Scripture. The Bible asks parents to commit to raising and teaching their children in all areas and at all ages. Fathers are given the primary responsibility, but mothers are also required to raise and teach their children God’s commandments. Parents, as the child’s closest and constant companions, are also meant to teach about God at each given opportunity — anywhere, anytime; not just in a classroom from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday to Friday. This is why a homeschool environment is so conducive to living, learning and teaching the way God intended — parents can create their own homeschool according to God’s design.
The first and foremost component of study in a homeschool should be the Bible, or the true Word of God — the lens through which all believers need to view the world and everything in it. The second component of study in a homeschool is everything the Lord has created, which includes subjects like mathematics, history, science, geography, art, music and languages. Many homeschool parents decide to forego the methods regular schools take and study these subjects using a “unit-study” approach, which considers the relationship between all the subjects and how God views them.
If you’re considering homeschooling your children in a Christian environment, it’s important to keep in mind that the ultimate goal of home education is not merely academic or social preparedness but also character training — for the children as students as well as for the parents as teachers –that they would all grow together from simply a homeschool family to a family that is pleasing and honoring to God.