Why I homeschool

My son will be five in the spring was of course I have had a lot of people asking me lately if he was excited to start kindergarten. I go on to answer that he will be home schooled and most people just leave it at that but I have had a few people that were surprised by it and tried to tell all the reasons why I should enroll my son in public school.

My husband and I decided we would home school our children before my first son was even born. My husband went to public/private school while I was in public until 6th grade when my mom pulled me out to home school me. I was not overly thrilled with the idea at first but it did not take me long to see how much better it was going to be for me. Not only was I able to have more control over what I studied, the extra classes I would take but I also was able to advance, something the public school system refused to let me do. I received a wonderful, hands on education and went on to graduate at sixteen.

Homeschooling just seemed like the natural choice, we both agreed that our children deserved to get the best education we could get them and we both agree that homeschooling was the best option for our family.

The top two reasons we are choosing to home school are the following:

1. We both believe that the current public school system is failing our children at an alarming rate. We have seen far to many children slip through the cracks, get pushed a long when they are not learning anything and other children who are very bright, get bored and not want to be in school anymore. We want to make sure that our children are able to learn in a way that best suits them. Every child learns in a different way and by homeschooling them we know that we will be able to make sure that happens.

2. We are raising our children in a certain way and want to make sure that the morals and values we are raising them with are not put down and they are not harassed for them. We believe that child hood is the most important and shortest time in your life. This said we want to make sure that our children are able to remain children for as long as possible and we want them to remain innocent to many aspects of today's world until their childhood is really over. We live in a very sex saturated world and I am choosing to protect my children from it in the ways I know I can.

I have had many people tell me that I need to place my children in the public school system so they are properly socialized and know how to interact with the outside world. I personally believe this could not be further from the truth. I believe that socialization starts at birth and I think to be truly socialized you need to be interacting with people of all ages, not just people that are the same age. Our children get plenty of interaction with other children and with other people. We attend church and they have classes there that they enjoy, we have play dates with friends, events we attend that our town and our church puts on, we will be joining a home school group and when they are old enough we will be taking part in sports. As they get older I will start having them volunteer at nursing homes and other places so they learn how to act around people of all ages, not just kids that are the same age as them.

These are just a few reasons why we are homeschooling our children. Education is a very personal choice. Whatever choice you make is the right choice for your family. Do not let anyone tell you that you are wrong as long as you are making the choice you feel is the right one for you.