As another school year winds down, some parents are counting the days until they can bring their children home for the summer and not have to send them back into the environment that is their local school for at least a couple of months. Increasingly each year, around this time, more and more parents find themselves wondering whether it’s finally time they pull the trigger and decide to homeschool their children.
If you or someone you love is mulling this decision over, here are a few questions that might be helpful in determining if this is the right thing to do.
What’s the Influence?
School is in a unique position to have a significant influence over your children’s hearts and minds. Is the influence of your children’s school a positive or negative one? Are the inherent values and standards of the school and the community therein in line with the fundamental values of your family?What’s the Impact?
What kind of impact does school have on your family? How many hours are family members separated in favor of school? How much pressure do extracurricular activities and other school demands place on your family? Does your family have enough time to focus on what’s most important?Where’s the Spark?
If your child has lost their zest for life, their love of learning, the inherent interest and curiosity they once had, or their inner spark they had when they were younger, what role has school played in that transformation? If that spark tends to begin to re-emerge after a while each summer, might that be a clue?What’s the Lesson?
What are your children learning in school? Do you know? Is that information available to you? Can you see them steadily progressing in the very basics of reading, writing, and math? Is political messaging infused into lessons? If you were to choose what they learned and focused on, would it be very different?What’s the Benefit?
How are your children benefiting from school? How is your family benefiting from being a part of the school community?What’s the Cost?
What are the costs of being in school for your children and your family?What’s the Potential?
What might life look like if you decided as a family to become homeschoolers? What could you do? Where could you go? How might life transform for your family? How great could it possibly be?What’s the Fear?
What are you worried about? What are you afraid of? What’s the worst that could happen? Whose opinion are you valuing?Will You Regret It?
If you feel called to take your children’s education into your own hands, but you keep on going with the status quo, do you think you’ll look back someday with regret?There are many considerations to take into account when deciding whether or not to homeschool your children. Sometimes a few pointed questions can lead you to increased clarity. Best of luck.
