Five Compelling Reasons We Chose To Home Educate Our Son
By: Alaric Linen
Tags: Parenting, Homeschooling, Family, Education, Decision Making

Five Compelling Reasons We Chose To Home Educate Our Son

And How Our Family First Lifestyle Made It That Much Easier

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Whether you refer to it as homeschooling or home education, parents are considering withdrawing their kids from school so they can educate them at home this year because of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

As the school systems reveal their plans for returning to school, parents are diligently trying to answer three daunting questions.

Do we:

Send our child back to school?

Have them remotely learn online, if available?

Home educate them?

Unfortunately, home education is not as viable of an option for a two full-time working parent household. The good news is, even if you don’t have a full-time parent at home, you can still choose to home educate.

It will just mean meticulous planning…and perhaps a couple extra pots of coffee.

Fortunately, it is a viable option for my family because we decided, over the past year, to intentionally pursue what we call a “Family First Lifestyle.”

This lifestyle choice allows us complete flexibility regarding common parenting challenges. Sick child? Got it covered. School breaks? No worries, we got this.

Unforeseen COVID-19 Pandemic, we got it covered!

In considering the home education option, we realized it would significantly reduce his chance of contracting COVID-19. However, we also realized there are a few more compelling reasons to choose this option.

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Reduced Screen Time

Fresh off our son’s remote learning during the second half of kindergarten, we were concerned with the effects of him having too much screen time.

Every lesson was facilitated online as well as video conferences. This amounted to over three hours of screen time each day to complete his assignments.

In 2020, The American Academy of Childhood and Adolescent Psychiatry stated, Too much screen time may lead to:

Sleep problems

Lower grades in school

Reading fewer books

Less time with family and friends

Not enough outdoor or physical activity

Weight problems

Mood problems

Poor self-image and body image issues

Fear of missing out

Less time learning other ways to relax and have fun

The American Academy of Pediatrics advocates for families to work with their Pediatricians to develop and adhere to a media use plan. They even offer a handy online guide to help families develop an appropriate strategy.

So when our School District announced their detailed plan for remote learning for this coming school year, we realized it would require over five hours of screen time each day.

We already knew how our son responded to three hours of screen time each day. Therefore, we knew we would not be comfortable with the additional amount of daily screen time.

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Improved Learning Environment

The school’s operational plan for on-site classroom learning revealed several areas for concern regarding the proposed learning environment.

Masks must be worn at all time

No sports or gym classes will be allowed

No contact with other students with a preferred six-foot distance

Even though these are probably better options for having on-site classroom training, they really don’t foster an environment conducive for learning. We believe that it could also associate fear with attending school, or worse, associating fear with education.

Since these are the critical years for children to be introduced and acclimated to full-time schooling, we didn’t want to risk the long term effects.

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Increased Performance

My wife and I noticed my son’s significant improvement in learning due to the individual attention I could provide during his remote learning sessions.

A 1:1 student to teacher ratio maximizes the amount of feedback, and individual attention students can receive.

We were pleasantly surprised by his exponential progress in reading, writing, and math in just a few months. He began reading at a second-grade level by the time he graduated kindergarten.

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Improved Logistical Efficiencies

Remote learning also showed us the inherent lack of proficiency in the process of attending school in person. By choosing to educate from home, we reap the benefits of:

Eliminating commute times: pick-ups and drop-offs

Reducing downtime: arrival/dismissal, class changes, lunch, & play

Taking breaks from lessons when needed

Choosing the preferred order for learning sessions

The efficiencies gained from conducting his learning from home was undeniable.

By effectively eliminating downtime, we could provide a more productive, efficient, and engaging learning experience.

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Continuity

We recently moved to North Carolina and had to rent a house because of my unexpected job loss.

Since we had to pull him out of school during his first month of kindergarten to move here, we did not want to repeat the situation again when we go to purchase our new home this year.

We believe stability and consistency are critical in our child’s overall well being. Therefore, being able to home educate this year will provide better continuity of care for our son.

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Too Good to be True?

Based on these five benefits, and let’s not forget the reduced exposure to COVID-19, our decision to home educate was surprisingly more comfortable than expected.

However, it’s not all rainbows and roses, I assure you. Honestly, the thought of the associated responsibility for educating our child is definitely stressing me out.

I mean, what do I know about home education? My degree is in Business Administration, not childhood education.

Luckily, we discovered plenty of legitimate secular and religious-based educational organizations supporting home education. These companies offer several curriculum options, including comprehensive curriculum in a box or custom individual programs for each area of study. They even offer different levels of online content if we want a multi-media approach.

So is home education for us? We will find out soon enough.

Maybe it won’t be as beneficial as we believe, and we return to traditional school next year. Or maybe, we will realize these benefits and continue pursuing home education for as long as it benefits our son.