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Overcoming Homeschool Challenges
Making sure that learning does not stop at the learning institution is a challenging task which many parents engage in regularly. For those opting to homeschool, it is associated with many challenges. Getting the appropriate content that suites your learners, maintaining learner engagement, and trusting resources are some of the challenges that every teacher can relate to. Homeschooling aims to provide learners with flexible learning that is particularly aligned to their specific interests, personalities, styles, and learning needs. Also, parents engage in homeschooling regularly, even if they do not opt to commit to it full-time.
In this article, we explore some of the ways of overcoming homeschooling challenges that parents and learners face:
Socialization
Perhaps, the main concern for parents considering homeschooling their teenagers is that they would not get the socialization they require. Since teens are learning out of the school system does not imply that they are stuck at home the whole day. Before attaining school age, children go to daycare and preschool, they go to toddler groups, and they also go on playdates.
As they turn school age, they can participate in clubs, take music lessons, and participate in sports teams. Older children can volunteer and also mix with people that they would not meet at learning institutions.
Most homeschooled teens connect with other homeschooling families, as well as form child-sitting co-ops, field trips, and even lessons. For instance, if you have a friend who is homeschooling and is best at music and arts, but you are great with math and science, you can swap lessons within your co-op.
Homeschooling children often learn how to deal with the various demands of diverse groups of people. Older children learn how to become more helpful and nurturing, and younger children are more likely to learn and listen to their older parents.
Homeschooling day swaps and groups can enable your children to deal with various categories of individuals. Actually, people worrying that homeschooled learners do not get adequate socialization perhaps do not see how homeschooled students are socializing with various kinds of people apart from their peers. This assists in fostering a well-rounded student who can interact with various persons from a young age.
Judgment
The other greatest fear of homeschooling parents is judgment from friends and family members that they are not doing the best for their children, or their students will grow up becoming recluses will little education.
Determining what your teen will benefit from homeschooling is difficult since you usually feel that you do not have to justify yourself. However, when your judgy relatives and friends see that your children go on trips for a week, it is difficult to see how your children cannot succeed from such an interesting lifestyle.
As a parent, you should be honest and open to your judgy relatives and friend. Attempt not to defend yourself even when they make uninformed comments. In case you share interesting projects that your teens are working on, they will soon begin taking a back seat and can learn something!
Family Relationships
When you are with your children 24/7, it can take a toll on your relations. Parents may not get adequate time together, and children can be easily wounded and frustrated by their siblings when they spend a lot of time together. There are many ways of dealing with this issue.
Ensure that every homeschooling learner has a weekly out-of-home activity, music lesson, and sports club, plus a weekly play date with a colleague. In case you and your homeschooling children are struggling with cabin fever, it is important to get out daily, even if you have younger children. This is crucial to the development of homeschooled learners when they spend much of their time outdoors.
Do not forget to make time for your partner; organize a date night at least twice a week. Older children may babysit younger children, and you can do babysit swaps with other homeschooling families. A one-night date can bring out amazing differences to relationships that are deteriorating because of the day-to-day strains and stresses of typical family life, including the added pressure of homeschooling.
Responsibility
The other major reason why most homeschooling families do not proceed with homeschooling is the fear of taking their children’s learning on their hands and failing them. There are many distance learning programs that you can register for. Many states do permit parents to have full control of the education of their children. Each state has its own laws regarding homeschooling. This means that you obtain the guidance you require from knowledgeable and qualifies instructors, and your learners get the structure they require from curriculums that are well-design.
You can select a program that meets your children’s needs and adhere to government laws while others are tailored to the individual needs of your children.
Filling your day
It is certainly scary wondering how you can feel your day so that children are engaged with learning and you do not exhaust yourself. But you do not forget when your children are younger, the most crucial part of their learning is play as well as life skills. Their learning can take some hours, and learners spend the remaining portion of the day exploring and growing.
Building life skills like learning about developing emotional intelligence and staying healthy are very crucial in the current society where there is a lot of emphasis on creativity, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking.
Does homeschooling negatively affect social skills?
A question that is often raised by parents contemplating homeschooling is how can children learn social skills in a family where there are no other children around? Homeschoolers have every opportunity to interact with their families, which includes brothers and sisters as well as cousins, uncles, and aunts. In addition, it is not uncommon for homeschooling families to take part in co-ops, clubs, camps, or churches where they can interact with other families. Some homeschoolers join a sports team as well as a band or drama group. There are also many online social communities that allow children to interact and make friendships.
As far as social skills go, research shows that there is no significant difference between homeschoolers and their peers in public and private schools. In fact, the socialization experiences of schooled children are often more limited than those of homeschoolers simply because, without being exposed to difficulties that arise from differences in personality or from lack of self-motivation, they have a tendency to depend on teachers for guidance and supervision.
Learning socialization skills in a homeschool environment may actually be easier than it would otherwise be in school because of the differences between home life and school life. When children are at home, there is no pressure to conform to an outside authority figure nor to live up to expectations other people have for them or that they themselves expect from others. Furthermore, while they are at home, there is no pressure to perform well in order to avoid being chastised or even expelled from the environment. In this sense, social skills learned at home are more likely to be those that children will use throughout their lives – perhaps when they get into trouble for not conforming to themselves.
In fact, homeschooling children do not only learn social skills from their family or in co-ops and clubs. These socialization opportunities are also good for the development of other important skills, such as leadership and creativity. Children who have been homeschooled are said to be better at taking the lead when it comes to discussions because they have to initiate a lot of conversations and activities. At the same time, since they are often called upon to be the leaders in a group of peers when taking part in clubs or co-ops, they also become more comfortable with assuming leadership roles and fostering creativity among others.
Another advantage that homeschooled children have over those who go to school is that their social skills are formed within a safe and caring environment. As opposed to school, where the hierarchy is based on popularity rather than ability or character, friendships among homeschoolers tend to be more genuine because they are based not only on commonalities in interests but also on mutual respect for others’ different talents and abilities. In addition, homeschoolers are able to keep in contact with their friends even when they grow up by going on holidays together and visiting one another. Moreover, often near the end of high school or at college is an ideal time for them to get to know each other better as adults.
Socialization is important because it can help children develop many of the skills they will use in their adult lives. However, for some children, learning socialization skills is harder because of the constraints they have to face at school or because of a lack of opportunities to interact with others on a regular basis. Nevertheless, by seeing those around them and recognizing that there are other lifestyles possible beyond what they see at home, homeschooled children are said to be more open-minded and able to adapt better to different situations. In addition, their social skills are often better learned within a genuine environment where everyone is treated with respect as equal members of the group.
Learn How High School of America Supports Your Homeschooling
Even though homeschooling is challenging sometimes, High School of America is there for you in each step. Our education counselors are accessible to all enrolled families for consultations to offer you alternative learning strategies, assist you in customizing curriculum and lessons that best meet your learners’ needs, answer questions, and provide you with practical advice on how to enable your learners to stay focused.