Homeschool: Pros and cons...

Homeschooling has become a lot more popular over the years. As someone who has first hand experience with being home schooled (only for a year) and seeing my sisters being home schooled for a large majority of their education, I can honestly say, it does have a lot of benefits.

Some of the pros I have noticed while seeing my mother home school my sisters:
Educational freedom; say you have to go to the doctor and the drive is longer, with homeschooling, a person would be able to either double up a day and take that day off, or just add that day to the end of the year (similar to how a snow day works). All holidays are off, you could chose to have spring break for the kids, or if one of your kids gets sick, there is always the option of taking the day off so he or she can recover.

Location: One can home school a child from any place in the house or otherwise. Say its a really nice day, in a typical brick and mortar school a child would have to sit in the classroom and look out the window. Homeschooling a child gives a person an option to sit outside, or go to a park, basically whatever is comfortable to the teacher and student.

Religious freedom: If your family chooses to practice Buddhism or Christianity, your child is not being peer pressured or bullied because of his/her beliefs. With new stances on bullying in schools recently, why risk your child's well being because of some kids that want to pick on them?

Family life: One of the things I noticed while seeing my sisters being home schooled was how close they became. They did everything together, and sometimes still do. Just depends on whether my sister with a car has a date, or has to work!

Kaylin after the beach!

Intelligence: I have seen a lot of smart kids in my time, but I would put my sisters education as home schooled children up against any kid who is placed into a public school. One on one education is better because the child gets the specific help they will need in whatever subject possible. It would be the same teacher for each class, so the child would not be learning at the least 7 different teachers teaching styles (I say 7 because a lot of schools have 7 periods in the day). Neither of my sisters have ever had any type of voice/art/music training before and Becky my 17 year old sister can sing and has a great ability to write. She has won contests for her writing abilities! Laurie can sing, she has recently started teaching herself how to play piano (by ear) and can draw. They didn't learn these skills from a public school.

Some of the cons:

Socialization: Unless a parent puts their children into an activity like sports or a day camp, kids have very limited ability to interact with other children their age. While some may say that socialization doesn't make much of a difference, it really does. College is a culture shock for a rural child going into a big city! The town I lived in while I was living with my mother and step father had a very limited amount of people of race/religion.

24/7 time with kids: This may not be a problem for some parents, but others do like to have their alone time away from their kids. Until the kids get a little older, there really is not a lot of free time a parent would have.

Financial issues: Typically, one parent would do the majority of the teaching so the ability to work full time would not be feasible. So, it would remove one income which for obvious reasons would make life a little more challenging.

Despite the pros and cons, homeschooling is the best education a child can receive because its one on one. My sister has a chance right now at a full ride scholarship, doesn't seem like a bad way to go right?!