With my oldest going off to college in the next few months {sniff, sniff}, I have begun to think through our homeschooling years. I thought this would be a good time to talk about 10 reasons why we homeschool, so here goes…
I first must say that 18+ years ago when my oldest son was born, I never dreamed I’d be writing a post about why we homeschool. After all, I was never, ever never, never ever {you get the point} going to homeschool. But alas, God has a sense of humor. And I’m so thankful for it!
*This post contains affiliate links. I am a participant in 1- the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for me to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and 2- other affiliated sites.
10 Reasons Why We Homeschool
1. God called me to do it.
After I clearly explained to God that homeschooling wasn’t in my plans, He used several people in my life to show me He had a different plan.
When it was time for my oldest son to “go off” to Kindergarten, one friend in particular said something that completely changed everything: “Just homeschool him for one year. You don’t have to commit through high school.”
Ok. I could do one year. That seemed totally doable. So, I committed to one year, and God took care of the rest.
I began to desire to homeschool. I began to enjoy homeschooling. It wasn’t easy, mind you. But I felt God’s clear calling to it.
The rest is history.
2. I am able to use God’s Word to teach subjects and hearts.
I love that I can integrate the Bible into handwriting or into comprehension strategies like text features. This isn’t even mentioning the amazing integration you can do with science or history. I mean, God’s Word IS history.
Not only that, I can help my kids see that God’s Word has a lot to say about hard work and perseverance. The verse I have keep in the forefront of my kids’ minds is Colossians 3:23, “Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you are working for the LORD…and not for man.”
I want my kids to understand that God cares about their attitude even more than the final grade they get. I want them to grasp that everything we do, even the “mundane” like math facts and washing the dishes, is worship to the Lord if our hearts and minds are focused on Him.
3. The flexibility it affords.
There are many, many facets to flexibility. I talk about more homeschool flexibility here.
We can be flexible to go on field trips when the crowds are minimal. We can be flexible to go on family trips nearly any time of the year.
There’s flexibility in learning. I can skip lessons in the math book that are “too easy” or do the same lesson for three weeks straight, depending on what the needs are for the individual learner.
4. The extra family time we get together.
In a day and age where the family is being attacked from every angle, I absolutely love the relationship I have been able to form with my kids. Of course, homeschooling isn’t the only vehicle for this, but because we get so much time together, it has been a big factor.
To say that every kid is different is an extreme understatement. I love that I have the time to really get to know and encourage each child for who God made them to be.
5. My kids have more time to persue other interests.
So much of what I’ve come to understand over the years is that traditional schooling puts most kids in a box. And if your child doesn’t fit into that box, they are often labeled as having attention or learning problems. {Just to be clear, I believe real attention and learning problems do exist. All I’m saying is that often times, kids are labeled with these because they don’t fit the mold.}
I love that homeschooling doesn’t take nearly as long as a typical school day. I used to be a classroom taecher, so I remember those days well. Shorter time schooling has freed my kids up to persue other interests like working out, photography, music, art, homesteading, or sports. This, I believe, has helped them to be well-rounded kids.
6. I want to encouarge my kids to think critically.
I won’t get into the history behind goverment schools, but utlimately government-run schools were designed to “dumb down” our kids. If you’re interested, you can read more about the history of government schools in Alex Newman’s book, Indoctrinating Our Children to Death.
Instead of just teaching my kids WHAT to think, I want them to understand HOW to think critically about things. I want them to have the freedom to ask and mull over the hard questions and discern when they’re being fed lies or errors in logic, called fallacies.
I love what Philip E. Johnson says in his book, Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds: “The main thing Christian parents and teachers can do is to teaching young thinkers to understand the techniques of good thinking and help them tune up their baloney detectors* so they aren’t fooled by the stock answers the authorities give to the tough answers.”
Johnson defines “baloney detectors” as “simply a good grasp of logical reasoning and investigative procedure.”
7. As my kids get older, I desire that my kids learn how to learn.
I don’t just want to teach my kids WHAT to learn; I want to help them have the tools for learning itself. This will serve them well their whole life and goes hand-in-hand with my #6 reason.
This is especially true as my kids are older now. {I have two in middle school and two in high school as I write this.} I don’t want to jump in and rescue them or spoonfeed them content. I strive to teach them how to dig and find answers.
While I don’t 100% jive with the classical model of teaching, I do love what Dorothy Sayers says in her book, The Lost Tools of Learning, which I read YEARS ago: “Is it not the great defect of our education today…that although we often succeed in teaching our pupils “subjects,” we fail lamentably on the whole in teaching them how to think? They learn everything, except the art of learning.”
Yes and amen to that, Dorothy Sayers!
8. Have you seen the alternative?
I’m not going to say much here except: in a world where we’ve said to kids for years, “You can be anything you want to be,” well, we’ve arrived. And sadly, we not only have arrived, many are celebrating the arrival.
To take it a step further, those who want to call out this arrival as foolishness are seen as the bad guys. I’m simply not down with a system that would intentionally do this to my kids. No bueno.
9. We can learn about real-life things.
I don’t remember learning about things in school that really matter in life like personal finance. What I do remember is not understanding how to balance a checkbook when I got to college. I vividly remember overdrawing funds because I simply didn’t understand how a checking acount or finances worked.
While there are certain subjects my kids must take to qualify to graduate, we can study things that really matter like budgeting, balancing a checking account, giving, or saving.
My oldest is interested in college, but my second son {also in high school} seems to be more trade-focused. I love that we can use some of his school time to explore and test out what he thinks he wants to do when he graduates. He can begin to explore and learn some of those skills now that may help him all his life.
10. I get a front row seat on raising up the next generation.
The last of the ten reasons why we homeschool, although I’m sure I could list ten more, is that I get the privilege of investing in the next generation.
One of the saddest verses in all the Bible {and one of the reasons I began to persue apologetics} is Judges 2:10. It says, “That whole generation was also gathered to their ancestors. After them another generation rose up who did not know the Lord or the works he had done for Israel.”
Wow. How sad is that? The generation that passed away knew how the Lord had rescued Israel. They had heard the stories. They had experienced some pretty cool things for themselves. But they didn’t pass it on. This left a new generation who did not know the Lord or His works. Instead, they turned to idols and did what was right in their own eyes.
One of my main goals as a homeschooling mama in my little corner of the world is to impact the next generation with the truth of Jesus Christ found in the Bible. I never want that to be true of my kids because of my passivity and laziness when it comes to God’s Word and my role to pass it on to my kids.
Now that I’ve shared my top 10 reasons why we homeschool, what would you say are some of your reasons?
You May Also Like:
Emily says
Becky, You have articulated this so well. I 100% agree with everything you have said. My husband always knew I wanted to homeschool our children (for the above reasons!) but he wasn’t sold on it so he said I could teach them for the first few years (to grade 2 or 3 max) and then they needed to go to real school so they didn’t “turn out weird.” I left it in God’s hands and trusted He would allow the right thing to happen. When our oldest was part way though Kindergarten and already reading and writing quite fluently, and on seeing how quickly the world was spiralling out of control he asked me if I could please homeschool our children the whole way though, he said it is the only way they will turn out okay! We have a big responsibility shaping these little lives but thankfully we are not doing it alone, God is helping us. Keep going strong!
becky says
Amen! I loved hearing your story and seeing how God worked it all out. Thanks for sharing that! 🙂
Sheila Lane says
WOW! Becky what an enjoyable read. If you had listed 10 more I’m sure I would have enjoyed them all the more. My fav is also having a front row seat. You truly made my day with sending back to me what I had lost in memory-Colossians 3:23
becky says
Yes, the front row seat is a great one! And Colossians 3:23 is a fave of mine, too! 🙂