Why I homeschool my child...

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I am on my fourth year of homeschooling my beloved daughter. I get asked time and time again why I homeschool and the answer to that question has evolved and changed so much over the years.

I thought I would share the reasons I homeschool with my readers and I do know that homeschooling is not for everyone. It is not the only way to get an education. I know that it is the right choice for my family.

Homeschooling makes my life less complicated. I know some teachers will agree that dealing with the school system and trying to get things changed can be a very long process it is just the nature of the beast since it is geared to the average child; so many changing things up isn't always easy. For me if my daughter is having problems with something I can stay on that subject longer until she gets it instead of running over it quickly and her lagging behind. I can take a day off when she is sick and she doesn't miss any school work. We can do impromptu trips to parks and museums while the places aren't as busy due to most of the children being in school. Even better my field trips do no take many meetings to plan or okays by anyone else buy me and where we are going.

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I can make our schedule to go with my husband's work schedule so we are off when he is off. Allowing us a lot of family time. Time to give back to others and volunteer my services to different organizations. If my husband works afternoons we can do activities we would normally do in the evening in the morning. Setting our homeschooling schedule ourselves allows us to accommodate different thing in our lives. If one of my older children come home from university during the week we can take the day off to spend with them and continue homeschooling when they are not home.

I can let my child work at the perfect grade level meaning she can be in grade 2 for reading, grade 3 for math and grade 1 for say science. Generally children do not fit into a neat grade level and we can work through the curriculum at her speed and not at a schools set speed. We can work this way because I homeschool. When a subject really interests my daughter I we can do research on that subject so she can find out more about it on kind of a rabbit trail if you will. I can customize our curriculum to fit my daughters needs. I like to keep school challenging and interesting but not so that it is overwhelming for her. Not all curriculum is created the same and I often make my own to suit my daughters interests at the time.

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I really appreciate that fact that my daughter is around children of various ages unlike a traditional school setting when you are grouped by age. My daughter spends time with both older and younger children as well as accompanies me and is around adults as well. We get together at least once a week with other homeschool families with a variety of ages.

Outside influences on my children is something I like to control. I can choose what children spend time with my children on a daily basis. I do believe that children need to learn to deal with bad influences but I want to make sure my daughter has the tools to assess other people's behaviour properly. I like to make sure that behaviour doesn't interfere with my child's learning.

Society wants us to grow up to quickly and homeschooling is a way I can control that and get a lot more family time and together time.

So basically I homeschool because I treasure the life it has given me.