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By All Homeschooling
People choose the option of homeschooling their children for a
variety of reasons.
For many years, homeschooling was the purview of those
families
who lived in rural areas and found the cost and/or time it
would
take to transport their children to school unbearable. For
these
people, homeschooling was and continues to be the only real
option when it comes to their children’s education. Many rural
families have traditionally relied on their children to help
around the house, and thus homeschooling allowed them to
pursue
their studies around the family schedule, and work and
education
could be fit into the day according to a suitable timetable.
Another traditional reason for families choosing the option of
homeschool was a fundamental disagreement with what was or is
being taught in other schooling environments. Chief among this
group are families whose religious beliefs clash with the
prevailing educational methods. Families who choose the option
of homeschooling are not subject to the rigid curriculum of
established schools, and there are many options when it comes
to homeschool resources that can offer as wide or as narrow a
field of study as far as worldviews that the parent wishes.
A more recent development in the reason people choose to
homeschool their children is that of safety. School ground
violence seems to be increasing, and that has many parents
worried. They feel that the best way to keep their children
away from harm is to keep them close.
Hand-in-hand with the safety issue is a concern for the
child’s
self esteem. Bullying is a common issue within any school
system, as any parent well remembers from their own school
days. Many parents cannot bear the thought of throwing their
children into the kind of system that breeds a pack mentality,
and are choosing instead to have them educated at home.
A very recent development in the reasons for homeschooling is
the fluidity in choices that homeschooling children allows.
This is especially apparent in Generation X, who seem to be
fairly insistent on independence and not being tied down to
any
one place or situation. Homeschooling eliminates the need to
plan all vacations around established school holidays, as the
pace is determined by the parent and child.
Finally, parents may choose to homeschool their children
because they simply feel they can do a better job than any
educational system. Parent of gifted children do not want to
see the child wasted in the hard pressed for both resources
and
qualified teachers system that public schooling represents,
and
private schools are becoming increasingly unaffordable for the
average family. Parents who believe their children need the
advantages of a more intimate education are therefore turning
to the option of homeschooling.
The rise in popularity of homeschooling has meant a
corresponding rise in the materials available to the parent
who
chooses to homeschool. There are resources available to meet
any
educational needs, and with a little bit of homework a parent
will find the curriculum they feel will best suit their
children’s needs.
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