Argument against homeschooling

by Rosie
(Canada)

I wouldn't want to put anyone off, but we tried and the biggest argument against homeschooling in my opinion is the amount of time you have to spend monitoring and trying to be the teacher.

We have two children, now aged 10 and 12 and I tried to homeschool for a year when they were 7 and 9 and it was the hardest year of my life!

We tried using homeschooling curriculum guides, and although they are really well set out and organized, you still have to do the actual physical preparation and present it all. I just found it demanded so much of me, and I worried I wasn't teaching properly and they were missing out on too much.

In actual fact, when they returned to school after we moved to a different area, they were ahead of the other children, so in retrospect, maybe I worried too much. I think if I ever did it again I would do things a bit differently.

I have since read about unschooling, and although I don't think I could cope with that, I do think there is far less pressure, and I do like a lot of the ideas of being able to go in greater depth with what the child is interested in. I think at the time I was too uptight about having to be the perfect teacher (as well as the perfect mother!) that I didn't really make the most of the time.

Don't get me wrong it wasn't that bad, we had some great times, and mostly I enjoyed the year, but just be prepared for the big commitment of it all.