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Homeschooling: Why?

34 Why do we homeschool?

I have so many reasons, and my list grows over the years. I will share them with you, because my husband and I answer this question a LOT. This list encompasses the reasons our family has chosen homeschooling. These reasons do not necessarily represent other homeschool families.

Since some of these may need explanation, I will break them down in further posts.

We want to be the main influence in our children's lives, not the secondary influence.

We want our children to have a Christ-centered education and upbringing.

We want to keep our family relationships close by having the kids grow up 'together' instead of separated into different classrooms (or schools) all day.

We want our children to experience life as it happens, instead of experiencing 'school' and then 'after school.'

We want to be in charge of the content of our children's education.

We want to shelter our children from unnecessary influences. (Sheltering, by the way, is not a bad thing!)

We want to know who our children's friends are.

We believe schoolwork can be accomplished in 3-4 hours, instead of 7-8 hours per day, 180 days per year.

We like setting our own daily and yearly schedule.

We like planning our own field trips.

We want to give our children the opportunities to experience things that can't be done during a normal school day/year.

We believe that parents have much more interest in their own children's education and development than even the greatest school teacher could.

We want to make sure our children learn what they need, no matter how quickly or slowly they accomplish it.

We believe that parents are completely capable of educating their own children.

We believe that the public school system is set up to teach hundreds of children efficiently, not to teach them well.



Our goal is to raise good people, not just to teach them the academics. In other words, we don't want the majority of their childhood to be about school. Instead, we want school to be just a part of their childhood.

So, if you are a homeschooler, or are considering it, do you know WHY you do it? Having strong convictions about the WHY serves as a powerful reminder when your school day (or year) is not looking like you'd planned. It helps to keep you focused.


That means, in our house, if we have hard times, or difficulty learning a subject, or naughty behavior, my instinct will never be to 'just put them in school,' because that doesn't fit with any of our objectives above. Instead, it helps us to look at the actual problem and tackle it as an individual problem, instead of as a homeschooling problem.

Look for Part 2, coming soon!

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