What Are The Disadvantages Of Homeschooling ?
Thursday, March 29th, 2007 by Homeschooler Subscribe To Our Feed
Homeschooling has many critics and is definitely NOT for everyone. Before deciding to homeschool your children you must be aware of the very real disadvantages of homeschooling. Weigh them against the benefits before you decide which is the best choice for YOU and YOUR family.
Disadvantages of Homeschooling
1) Lack of Contact With Other children.
Homeschooling can place children into an environment in which they spend little time with anyone other than their family. This can be very detrimental to the development of social skills, especially in primary or elementary school years. Parents can counteract this by involving their children with community organizations, such as church youth groups, Scouts, sports clubs and so on. However, this takes up more time and money than is often possible for homeschooling parents.
You will however have more control of the social contacts your child does make, but every homeschooling parent needs to be aware of how homeschooling can make your child feel isolated.
2) Drain On The Homeschooling Parents Time
Not only does the homeschooling parent have to actually teach the many subjects to their child, they may have to plan the curriculum, research the subjects, learn them themselves and then plan and prepare the lessons.In addition,they have to ensure the child has a social life.This can leave very little time for the parents to socialise outside the family.
3) Household organization is more difficult
Housework, washimg, ironing and shopping have to be done in any household, but homeschooling creates it’s own mess and clutter. If you are very house proud, you will have to be very organised.
4) Financial Burden of Homeschooling
Homeschooling usually means that the teaching parent will be a full-time educator. This means that the family must live from one income. This is an even bigger problem if you are a single parent. There are costs involved with homeschooling, especially compared with state education which is free. The curriculum can cost up to $500 per child per year, and getting involved in social activities, such as field trips or homeschooling groups also costs money.
These are the main disadvantages of homeschooling which should be considered. Homeschooling is not an easy choice, but if you are not happy with traditional schooling, it can be the perfect solution.The key is to research every aspect, look at the different educational programmes and talk to other homeschoolers.
Technorati Tags: cost of homeschooling, disadvantages of homeschooling, homeschooling problems, isolation in homeschooling
Related Tags: No Tags
Possible Related Posts
March 31st, 2007 at 1:02 am
I like that you said there are ways to counteract the lack of contact with children at school. My wife & I have been consistently questioned about the “socialization problem” of homeschooling. I’ve finally come up with a good (humorous) response I posted as “Homeschool Hostages” on my blog “Necessary Therapy”.