Youth Homeschooling: A Smart Parent's Guide to Successfully Homeschooling Children

The world of homeschooling is changing. It’s no longer exclusively long skirts and religious fundamentalists. Instead, it’s doctors and lawyers, soccer moms, and people who’ve decided they’ve had enough of the American education system.

According to the National Home Education Research Institute, it’s estimated that over two million kids are now homeschooled, up 75 percent since 1999, and those numbers continue to rise. Within the next five to 10 years, expect to see exponential growth as more and more people get fed up with the system and recognize the benefits homeschooling brings.

What Public School Education Is Lacking

When you think back on your own education, you probably remember a huge focus on reading, writing, and arithmetic, but you know that’s not the case with today’s youth. With Common Core, it now takes abstract thinking to understand that 7+8=15. Instead of the KISS principle (Keep It Simple Stupid) of simply adding seven and eight, our children do this: 7+3=10, 8-3=5, 5+10=15, therefore 7+8=15. Or this: 7+7=14, 7+1=8, 14+1=15, therefore 7+8=15. What happened to just teaching them 7+8=15?

What it comes down to is that the American school system is failing our children in so many ways. It’s forgotten to teach our children how to learn. When children learn how to learn, they understand how to think and problem solve. Learning becomes something fun that they naturally crave to do, not something that’s required because it’s going to be on a standardized test.

And are the school systems preparing the nation’s kids for life after high school? Heck no. Instead of detailing what they are learning, here’s a list of some of the life skills children aren’t learning in school:

• How to find a job
• How to build and manage a budget
• How to invest money
• How to buy a home or car
• How to grow food
• The voting process
• The tax system
• Proper sexual education
• Retirement planning
• First Aid or CPR

Why You Should Consider Homeschooling

People homeschool for a variety of reasons. Some want more of a say in their children’s education, and for others, homeschooling makes travel possible. And then there are those who pull their children out of public schools because of medical issues, behavioral challenges, or bullying.

But there’s even more reasons to consider homeschooling. Here are just a few:

• Better Education: It’s a fact that homeschooled students, on average, receive a better education. On standardized testing, homeschooled students scored 15 to 30 percent higher than their public school peers and have above average scores on the SAT and ACT.
• Enrich Strengths: With a homeschooling curriculum, you can work with your children’s strengths, enriching their educational experience and providing challenges not available in the public school setting.
• Strengthen Weaknesses: Every child has weaknesses when it comes to learning, and with homeschooling, you’re given the opportunity to strengthen them with one-on-one focus and attention.
• Set Your Own Pace: When you homeschool, your children may breeze through grammar and phonics, but struggle in mathematics. Instead of scraping by and settling for mediocrity, you set the pace to help your child learn and put extra time and effort where it’s needed.
• Supplement: When you homeschool, you supplement your children’s education to make it more exciting and fulfilling. From projects to YouTube videos to field trips, the homeschooled child gets to experience education outside the classroom. If your child expresses special interests, homeschooling gives you the freedom to explore them.
• Public School Perks: Just because your children are homeschooled doesn’t mean they can’t be active at school. Specialty classes like PE, art, and music, as well as school clubs, organizations, and sporting teams are available to homeschooled students within a school district.

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