Why are you homeschooling?

[my3sons]

I remember having a light bulb moment in one of my college classes I took for my master's program. The instructor simply said, "One must always know the 'why' behind the 'what' one is doing, or one can do a lot and not accomplish what one wanted at all."

This made me really stop and think. My instructor challenged us to identify the 'why' of an activity before writing the 'what' we would do. This made an incredible impact on what I did. Suddenly, every moment seemed important to me, like the gift of time must be used much more wisely than I'd been using it in the past. It changed my teaching profoundly. (By the way, this is also why you notice Carrie does an excellent job of always having a purpose to every box of plans - she always knows the 'why' of the 'what', partly because it is a God-given talent she possesses, but also because she was in this same class with me. )

You'd think after this wise advice, when I began homeschooling, I'd have asked myself quite often "why" I was doing it. Well, I did sort of know some of the 'why' I was homeschooling, but the planner in me was much more interested in the 'what' of it. Looking back, I wonder if I first began homeschooling because I was somewhat burned out at my teaching job in ps and because I still enjoyed planning and teaching but wanted to be home. Wow. That doesn't sound like a very important "why' resulting in accomplishing some very lofty goals, does it? Sure, I wanted my dc to be home, but WHY?

Anyway, I don't think this question has a set of "right" answers. But I do think it is extremely important to know our own answer, and it is very helpful if our dc know our answer too. I'll share mine later (yes, I DO actually know "why" I am homeschooling now ), but I'd rather have you ponder and share yours first.

So, what are your top 5-10 reasons "why" you are homeschooling?

In Christ,
Julie

[sharonb]

Note: These aren't in any particular order; some are WAY more important reasons than others!

1. I want every part of their day to be filled with talk about God and His Word.

2. I feel like the one-on-one attention that homeschooling provides will give a much better education than a classroom setting.

3. The children can move along at their own pace instead of either being held back or pulled ahead like they might be in school.

4. We have more free time to pursue our interests or just have fun playing outside. (We finish sooner than the public school, plus don't have homework in the evening.)

5. I am not an early riser! (The public school starts at 8 a.m., and that's generally the time we are rolling out of bed to make breakfast.)

6. When we are at the ballfields during baseball season, I hear what the other children are talking about, and I don't want my dc surrounded by that all day long.

7. I really love teaching my children. I just can't see handing them over to someone else for the better part of every day and allowing them to do my job for me.

8. I felt like God was leading us to homeschool even way back when I was just pregnant with my oldest. Until He tells us otherwise, we will continue to homeschool!

9. I want my dc to be each other's best friends. How many people are you still friends with from school? For me, the answer is ONE. I had quite a few friends while in school, but we don't keep in touch. I do, however, talk regularly with my sisters. Long after you lose touch with friends, your siblings will still be there. So, I want my children to grow up having the best possible relationship with each other. Part of building a relationship is actually spending lots of time together. Homeschooling helps us accomplish this.

[Tidbits of Learning]

My children went to school for several years before we pulled them. We pulled them after my ds8 had finished his kindergarten year. Here is my top 10 list in order of why I originally took them out and why today I continue to home school even though my children would be in a completely different district now. Originally, it was very personal reasons to home school.
9. My original reason and still an important reason...my ds8 has several deathly (anaphylaxis) food allergies. He was in public school for less than a month when another child smuggled peanut m&m's into the class and gave him one. There was no school nurse and the staff never looked at his allergy action plan! It was so scary to be sitting in a carpool lane when a teacher runs screaming hysterically at you and you leave your car in everyone's way and rip your 2 yr old out of his car seat and start running towards the building. I did not trust them to keep my son alive at that point.
8. Bullying. I had a teacher honestly tell me that it was "just a part of 3rd grade" for my dd11 (8 at the time) to be picked on and for the kids to follow her around hunched over calling her midget b/c of her size. They also allowed her best friend who had spina bifada to be harrassed daily about her "diapers". The little girl has a permanent catheter and was tortured by 8 year olds and the adults turned a blind eye. My dd's bullying started after she defended this little girl. The teacher's basically told me that my dd should mind her business and her bullying would stop.
7. You have no idea what other children have been exposed to or what they will expose your children to in school. There are some children that definitely need prayers as their life is unimaginable for a child. They know things that no child should know.
6. Our state is ranked in the bottom 5th in the nation.
5. Just because my son is wiggly and doesn't like writing at 5 does not mean that he needs to be medicated or made into a zombie. Do not ask me his diagnosis. He is a little boy.
4. My children are not defined by a test.
3. I want to raise my kids without influence from others that does not align with my beliefs.
2. Having went to private school, my own education was rich with religion intertwined in other subjects. We started the day with the pledge to the US flag and to the Christian flag. My children were missing out on learning how God is in every subject that they learn.
1. In our 3rd year, I can not imagine dropping them off at the door of a school and just hearing about their day. I honestly can say that I feel called to teach them in every way.

[mom23]

1. Strengthened family relationships-I want their most important influences to be their family, not their non-Christian friends or teachers.

2. I want for them to really see how God impacts all areas of life, not for Him to just be a separate compartment that we do on Sundays.

3. PS was changing who my children were more than it was educating them academically. Fitting in was a huge priority for my dd, and she was changing however she needed to be popular-facing things in 2nd grade that I didn't see until Jr. High years. My ds was reverting back into himself, showing huge insecurities. There were not Christian friends, or even moral ones that I could encourage them to hang out with. My son had no friends, my daughter had no good ones.

4. They needed time with their Daddy. He left for his factory job before they got home from school, not coming home until they were long in bed, and not rising until they were heading out to the bus. Saturdays were tied up with him preparing his sermons, and Sundays are not "days of rest" for a Pastor's family, either! They basically had Daddy time on Friday evenings after school (the one day my dh is off work).

5. Christian school was not a financial option for us. I now love homeschooling with HOD so much, I don't know if I'd want them in Christian school, even if it were an option!

6. They were exposed to absolutely horrendous things at PS that I knew about-who knows what went on that I'd never hear of?!?

7. We moved and our new school district was really over-stepping into the bounds of what I felt like should be the parent's role. Doing their best to take that job over for me and to shut me out of their lives. This Mama wasn't gonna sit back and let them raise my kids as they saw fit!

I've been really challenged recently in thinking about they "why's" behind the "what" of even having children. God did not bless me with these kiddos just to enhance my life (although they certainly do!). I really need to be about making them fit for His kingdom, and His service. Let's face it, there are just some days as a Mom, much less a homeschooling Mom, when it really isn't "fun" to be the Mom. It was becoming a huge temptation for me to feel that I wasn't being successful during these times. Or what about the days that my kids just don't seem to "get it"? I've tried to teach them a concept (either academic, or character, or social) and it just isn't sinking in, no matter how many months we may have worked on this particular thing. I definitely feel like I'm failing in those times. That's when God has really been asking me why I'm doing this. My job isn't to make them who I think they need to be, and my goal isn't to have them make me happy. I'm to love them for who God made them to be, and strive to be more Christ-like in my own life, influencing them as much as I'm able to be of service to God. To paraphrase my favorite Gary Thomas quote (he says it regarding marriage, but I think it applies to parenting as well), "What if God gave us [children] to make us holy, rather than to make us happy?"

I may not have been able to articulate very well what I'm trying to say, but I'd like to feel that I'm homeschooling out of obedience to God. For whatever His reasons, for this time He's called me to do this thing for my family and here I am in genuine desire to obey Him.

[LynnH]

My children were in ps until they told me they wanted to come home. My ds told me in 3rd grade I would homeschool him in 5th and that is what happened and my dd asked to come home after her 9th grade year. Here are my top 9 reasons.
1. I feel very strongly it is what God wants me to do. He has made it very clear to me and I see how He gives me a patience and love for homeschooling that I never thought I could have.
2. I want my dc to have a firm foundation in scripture and know what they believe and why they believe it.
3. My ds has mild Cerebral Palsy. His first and second grade years he was bullied and teachers were unable or unwilling to stop it.
4. I saw my ds loosing all love of learning and my sweet, gentle boy was becoming an angry sullen boy and this was even with teachers that I hand picked for his 3rd and 4th grade that were wonderful with him. He knew he couldn't keep up and was very frustrated by it. He didn't fit the ps mold.
5. I did not care for the writing program they used and how they pushed kids to write 5-6 page "books" in 1st grade, not caring about spelling or grammar.
6. My ds and dd had a horrible relationship. They fought all the time. I wanted them to grow closer and homeschooling is definitely doing this.
7. My dd had grown very distant. She would come home and just stay in her room. She was angry and defiant. I later found out even though she is very outgoing and a fantastic student that she was being verbally and even sexually harassed daily. Kids even started a hate group on facebook aimed at my dd. I was afraid I was about to loose her forever. She made the decision to come home because she knew also that she was not the person she wanted to be. She is now a totally different girl, happy, goofy and loves school again.
8. I love getting to know my dc better and spending more time with them. My dd will be gone in 2 years to college. I wouldn't trade these years with her or with my ds for anything.
9. This one sounds silly, but it has reignited a love for learning in me. I have always hated history and now I am finding that I love it and read all my ds's books before he does.

[mmschool]

1. I really feel that you cannot separate moral education from academic education. When public schools try to be value neutral, they either aren't really, or they are damaging the education process.

2. My husband is in the military. If we are homeschooling we can take vacation when he has them, move when he moves, take time off whenever we move, and never worry about where we are posted or where we live on the basis of the school system. It just takes so much stress out of our lives. So many people in the military endure even longer separations from spouses just so that they can finish or start school years when Daddy has already moved on, or they live no where near work for a decent school system, or they move across the country in shifts so they kids aren't truant. I have already endured time in the field, long days and a year with my husband in Afghanistan, why would we want to spend more time apart because of the rigidity of the school system?

3. Related to that - you want to talk about gaps in education? Try moving from state to state a couple of times! Changing school systems routinely can really mess things up.

4. I don't believe that age segregated classrooms promote anything like healthy socialization. It tempts children to take an unhealthy interest in ridiculous or damaging popular culture and fads in order to fit in. They rarely see adults interact with one another (because teachers almost never actually speak to one another in front of students). And it is simply a rather unnatural setting, as no workplace or real situation is that age dependent and randomly assigned. Plus, if your children are at all distractible, especially while they are little, they can easily get behind with all of the action in the standard elementary classroom.

5. Public schools have only so much room to be radical. There are accepted practices in educational thinking, and even when you deviate from those (often because they aren't working) you can only deviate so far. Homeschooling gives you a lot more ability to look for functional models of education and do something really different for the benefit of your children's academic development. So, they end up getting a better education.

I would say those are the big five, although I could probably add plenty more. I didn't have a great experience as a gifted student in public schools. The gifted programs were regularly awful or not supported (egalitarianism and all). Options are limited (my schools didn't offer languages other than Spanish or French.) I believe that schools almost universally have fallen into such bad theories about teaching writing that they are almost universally failing to teach students to communicate properly. Thank God that homeschooling offers us as parents such a better option!

Lena

dd3 - LHTH
ds1
ds - soon?

[KristinBeth]

I wanted my children to be educated in an environment where they could learn about the Lord. I wanted them to be taught and encouraged to pray, worship, and go to the Lord with their struggles. I wanted an education that would not undermine parental or Biblical authority. And I wanted to be with my kids, which is the reason why I chose homeschooling over private school.

ETA: though there are lots of other benefits of homeschooling, as many of you have described (and I wholeheartedly agree), really our only reasons for homeschooling are those above.

I'm new to this, and naturally short of fuse . Sometimes I question why am I doing this at all, and wouldn't we all just be better off if the kids went to school? Then I go back to my reasons above for wanting to do this, which are still clear as day and unchanged.

[Larissa]

Reason #1 -I homeschool my children because I believe that the most important reason a child needs to learn how to read is so that he can read the Bible. The reason we learn math, science, art, history, and the rest ... is so that we can become better acquainted with God and His world. I believe that teaching a child about our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ is the most important part of education.

Reason #2 -And, having spent 6 1/2 years teaching in public schools, I can say without reservation, that God is not welcome there. It isn't just that schools are a "religion free zone" ... it is more than that. There is an underlying philosophical approach to public schools that does not simply exclude God... it contradicts God. It would be quite difficult - if not impossible - to convey to my children that learning God's Word is the most important thing they will ever do in life and send them away for 6-7 hours a day of education - education devoid of the central purpose of education - in a place where God is not welcomed.

Reason #3 -As a former public school teacher I know that no amount of influence that my children may have in the public school setting, could possibly overcome or counter-act the atheistic perspective that dominates. (i.e. children being salt and light for other children who don't know Jesus . I don't particularly agree with this argument. . . Afterall, Jesus - the very soul of perfection didn't start His teaching ministry until he was 30 years old - my very imperfect child needs alot more training in the Word before he can be salt and light to other people - it is not his job right now to win souls for Jesus. It is my child's job right now to be immersed and trained in the Word of God, so that he will be prepared for that very important task of sharing Jesus) I am certainly not saying that God will not use a child to be salt and light - I just happen to know that my young children have difficulty grasping the abstract concept of the gospel - they need a great deal more training.
I don't like to paint with such a broad brush. I'm sure there are plenty of individual public schools and individual public school teachers that are more friendly to the worldview we are attempting to impart to our children. After all, I was once in a public school!(as a student and a teacher) There are certainly still others that share my values. ... but I suppose that the reason my brush is so broad is that whatever schools and teachers are out there that would "fit" with our value system exist in spite of the system, not because of it.

Reason #4 -When thinking about this particular topic the passage that comes to my mind is from Matthew 7:24-29
"Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock:
and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house: and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.
But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand:
and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was it's fall."

Our desire is to give our children a foundation built on the Rock - the Rock of our Salvation!! God gave these blessings to us to teach, love, and raise to know Him. In order to provide them with a consistent worldview(a worldview that is consistent in every aspect of our life) - one that is not compartmentalized, we must homeschool.

[pjdobro]

There are many little reasons, but here are the top 5.

1. We didn't want our dc to have to spend 7 hours a day in a classroom and so much time away from us. The reason we started homeschooling was because I didn't feel my dc were ready to spend 7 hours each day in a classroom and over 1/2 of their day away from me. As my dc have gotten older, I still don't want to have them spend 7 hours a day in a classroom and over 1/2 of their day away from me.

2. We didn't want to feel tied to the ps system's schedule. We wanted to take vacation when we wanted to and not have it dictated by someone else.

3. We wanted our dc to be able to excel in areas where they were strong without having to be bored or wait for others who were slower in these areas and be able to take the time to allow them to work on their weak areas and not feel pulled along by others. We wanted them to be able to go at their own pace and continue to love to learn.

4. We want our dc's heart to be first and foremost be turned toward God, but also turned towards us. We want to hold onto our dc's heart as they head into puberty and adulthood. We want to foster a close family environment that has our dc talking to us about difficulties they are having not talking to friends or others. I think it is awfully difficult to hold onto a child's heart when so much of their time and influences come from others.

5. This is the most important reason to me. I now feel called to homeschool. Our pastor has been talking about the great commission lately and making disciples. I feel my two most important disciples are right here in my household. If I were to send them away from me for more than 1/2 of their day, I couldn't do my job of making disciples nearly as well. Right now the way I am working on the great commission with these two dear disciples is by having them at home and using this Christ centered curriculum, HOD.

[countrymom]

1. My children need to be with us (not a stranger with 20+ other children to look after too), their parents, so we can raise them to love and serve the Lord.
2. So we can do the most important work given us - educate our children spiritually, mentally, and physically. Most important right now is character development.
3. So we can teach our children in a way that strongly encourages and promotes real learning and critical thinking.
4. So we can teach our children where they are at, at their own pace, and in a manner that will allow them to succeed.
5. So we can teach our children a curriculum we deem important that is real, accurate, and not meant for other purposes.
6. Because I love to teach my children

[Heather4Him]

I could reply, but basically I "ditto" almost everything said here! These are all my main reasons, too!!

[psreit]

1. Our spiritual values and beliefs can be taught better when they are home.
2. We are raising our children; not the school system.
3. I want to spend as much time with my children as possible. They grow up too fast.
4. I don't want them taught in a public school. I know they can go to a Christian school, but in either setting, there are influences that dd does not need.
5. DD's special needs were not being addressed.


These are not necessarily in order of importance. They are all important.

[LovingJesus]

The following are the top 5 - 10 reasons of 'why' I am home schooling, but not in the order of importance. Some of these are 'moments' that led to home schooling, that remain as insights that I look back on for the 'why'. Others are reasons that I believe in, and remind me of 'why' we home school.

1. I Love being with my children. I have always loved being around children. Mine may challenge me more than my piano students did, but I still find that I love being with them every day. I much rather be training them, and feel a much higher calling and responsibility towards my own children's training than that of other children.
2. After I had been dating my DH for 6 months I felt God put it on my heart to teach my pre-school age children myself and to keep them out of high school. At the time of this calling I thought I could teach them for pre-school, but I wasn't sure what God had in mind for high school (now I can see a few possibilities). I also at this point had never heard of home schooling. I assumed at that point that we would send them to private school for K - 8th.
3. When my third child was born my oldest was age 3. At that point God began to open doors that pointed towards home schooling. Books, a mom at a nearby coffee shop who not only home schooled but had been home schooled from 3rd grade - 12th, a Focus on the Family program, CDs, magazines, etc. One of the books gave information on public school, private school, and home schooling as 3 different school options. After reading that book I knew home schooling was for our family. I also kept feeling God calling me and pulling me more and more this direction.

Now the 7 other reasons that I think really came about from actually doing home schooling:
1. Christ is the center of our parent dart board. We want our children to know and love Jesus. We see that as the center of everything we do and the goal that we are aiming for. We fully ackowledge though that ultimately our children coming to the Lord as Savior is the work of the Holy Spirit, and not one that we can control.
2. Home is the one place that the Word of God doesn't have to be an add on subject, as it is in many private schools, but can be a subject that is integrated into the entire day and curriculum.
3. I think home schooling fits the day and age I am raising children in. For many decades the Supreme Court upheld previous decisions that prayer and religion were to be an integral part of American's public school system. In 1960, without precedence, school prayer was ended. At that point a steady decline of the public school system began. SAT scores dropped dramatically, high school pregnancy rose dramatically, drug use rose dramatically, etc. I went through the ps system and I simply would never put my children through it or in it (even though I loved school for the most part, I am appalled by the ideas and events I was exposed to as a child). My mother's senior paper for ps was titled, 'Why I Believe in God'. She graduated in 1962 from ps in a much different ps system than I ever knew as a student. Years and years later the ps system is only that much worse than what my DH and I saw as children (and I am appalled by all that I saw).
4. I want my children to know the Lord.
5. I want them to be able to work at their own speed academically.
6. My oldest 3 would be termed gifted, my youngest would be termed special needs. I don't think either label is helpful, and would only hold back all of them from whatever God has planned for their lives. Not to mention the numerous other labels the system could come up with for active boys. As children made in the image of God none of them belong in a box.
7. I want them to be able to learn about the world slowly, to learn as they are emotionally ready, to learn through out their days, to not learn to bully or be bullied, to not be caught up in secular culture as their god, to not have their teacher or peers become their new parent, and to have the opportunity to pray about God's plan for their life. The bottom line I suppose is I home school because I think it is what is best for them, even with me as the very imperfect parent that I am.

This thread was so encouraging to read, and it helped me to write out the 'whys'. Thank you for starting it Julie.

[sharonb]

Not to mention the numerous other labels the system could come up with for active boys.

That's one thing I forgot when I made my list. I have 4 boys, and I've known since the oldest was a toddler that he was an especially active one. He used to do most of his schoolwork standing up; he just couldn't sit still. I told the pediatrician that was one of the reasons we homeschool, and he said that was good, because if we put him in school, the teacher would be begging me to take him to the doctor to get a diagnosis and medication.

By the way, my very wiggly boy suddenly settled down a bit this school year; he is 8yo and in 3rd grade. He sits still and focuses on his work. Then after he is done, he goes and burns off some energy.

[mamas4bugs]

Note: These aren't in any particular order; some are WAY more important reasons than others!

1. I want every part of their day to be filled with talk about God and His Word.

2. I feel like the one-on-one attention that homeschooling provides will give a much better education than a classroom setting.

3. The children can move along at their own pace instead of either being held back or pulled ahead like they might be in school.

4. We have more free time to pursue our interests or just have fun playing outside. (We finish sooner than the public school, plus don't have homework in the evening.)

5. I am not an early riser! (The public school starts at 8 a.m., and that's generally the time we are rolling out of bed to make breakfast.)

6. When we are at the ballfields during baseball season, I hear what the other children are talking about, and I don't want my dc surrounded by that all day long.

7. I really love teaching my children. I just can't see handing them over to someone else for the better part of every day and allowing them to do my job for me.

8. I felt like God was leading us to homeschool even way back when I was just pregnant with my oldest. Until He tells us otherwise, we will continue to homeschool!

9. I want my dc to be each other's best friends. How many people are you still friends with from school? For me, the answer is ONE. I had quite a few friends while in school, but we don't keep in touch. I do, however, talk regularly with my sisters. Long after you lose touch with friends, your siblings will still be there. So, I want my children to grow up having the best possible relationship with each other. Part of building a relationship is actually spending lots of time together. Homeschooling helps us accomplish this.

Wow! Have you been hanging around in my head? I could have written this almost exactly!

We also have some learning differences and special needs here. Dh and I knew from the time our oldest son was 3 that the ps system would spend so much time trying to "contain" him that his educational needs would get overlooked or under-addressed. And now that we have our youngest, with her SPD, etc., I just can't imagine entrusting her to someone else all day. No one is going to have the time or desire to address their needs like I do. Thank God for the ability to keep them home with me!