Not sure if homeschooling will be good for your family? Believe it or not, homeschooling may actually bring your family closer together!
When I first began considering homeschooling I am ashamed to admit I worried about how it would affect the relationship between me and my kids. I mean we’d be together ALL day. Who could handle that? Years later, I am realizing that society has ingrained it in us that it is normal to send our kids off to strangers for hours at a time instead of allowing them to truly get to know and spend time with their family. We are considered the weird ones for being around our kids all day!
The truth of the matter is that homeschooling will bring your family closer together. This is one huge benefit that comes from making the choice to homeschool. The challenges of homeschooling, the fun of homeschooling, the lifestyle of homeschooling, all will help aid the relationship within the family unit.
In time, you will see that homeschooling will bring your family closer together.
You Will Be More Connected as a Family
Homeschooling means that HOME is a good part of your life. Even if you’re not actually HOME (because let’s face it, we tend to run ALL the time) the bulk of your time will be spent with your family. We are almost always together. This means family time happens more often. It means our kids spend LIFE with us. Not just a few hours in the evening. It also means that their siblings become their friends because they actually KNOW them. Older children can help their younger siblings with their assignments. Younger children can have a more playful relationship with their older siblings. Time is spent together instead of apart and based on grade/age level.
When kids are away at school all day, they spend the majority of their time connected to the people in their classroom. Homeschooling means you develop these connections to those people in your home. Your relationships with your siblings and parents strengthen because you bond with them in ways that public school time constraints didn’t allow.
You Will Have More Time
I was really nervous about the amount of time homeschooling would take when I began this journey. Now, I can’t imagine giving so much time to the public school. We have more time together and can dictate our time ourselves instead of being told what to do and when to do it.
There is no waking up, getting dressed, and dropping the kids off at school. Instead, we can sleep in, take our time eating breakfast, and start school when we want to. Also we are done SO much sooner than the public school kids. This means we have more time to get to know each other as a family.
One of our favorite things to do is activities like the zoo, museums, park days, and field trips. Homeschooling allows us to spend more time doing all of these activities and as a bonus we can experience them with our WHOLE family!
You Will Really Get to Know Your Kids
Of course, we know our children better than a public school teacher, but homeschooling allows us to know them even better. Spending every day together means we are going to really learn our child’s behavioral and emotional patterns. We will witness how our children react to situations, stress, success, and failure. We will know without a doubt what our kids are capable of doing and understanding.
Homeschooling also allows us to nurture those things our children love, and to spend time with them DOING those things. I know my middle is an animal lover, homeschooling allows us to experience this passion together by volunteering at animal shelters, training her pets, and researching veterinary science. My oldest wants to be a pastry chef, so our kitchen is regularly a sticky mess. These are passions that they may not have time to pursue in public school, so instead, they are practicing them at home, where I can experience this joy WITH them.
So, what brings homeschooling families closer together?
One common theme you will have noticed throughout so far is TIME. Without a doubt, homeschooling offers families more time together. The amount of time spent with the family is something that children who attend public school, do not experience except during the holiday and maybe summer vacation. Homeschooling IS family. It is experiences and activities. It is life lessons and values.
One of the best ways to develop a strong relationship with any person is by spending TIME with them. The more time spent together, the more you will know that person, and understand them. Homeschooling allows us to do just that, which naturally brings us all closer together.
All of this means that homeschooling will bring your family closer together. Many people cringe at the idea of spending all day with their children, but homeschoolers KNOW the value in it. They see it is a GREAT thing and something that should not be pushed aside.
And that is how homeschooling brings families closer together.
Author: Misty Bailey is a homeschool mom of three and has been homeschooling since 2009. You can read about her homeschool journey and more on her blog, Joy in the Journey.
Book Your Room Online!