Why You Should Try Homeschooling NOW—Instead of Waiting for the Fall
“I plan to take my children out of public school next year and homeschool. I researching right now, but will officially start in the fall.”
Sounds great, right? Sounds like there is a real plan!
The problem is, they’ve never tried it before. Trying homeschooling the parent/teacher, gets the most learning! I think it’s helpful to get over that first big adjustment to homeschooling before starting a new academic year.
I mean, why not? You’re on your way out anyway. There isn’t much learning going on from spring break until summer break. It’s usually testing and wrapping things up.
But, honestly, here’s why:
Room for Trial and Error
You have the remaining months of the current school year plus any summer months to give homeschooling your first shot. Chances are, there will be things you will want to change! You won’t know those until you start.
While I fully believe in the flexibility of changing things, I try not to change things all the time. Consistency goes really far. Getting out some of the difficulties now can make your next school year go so much smoother.
It could be a choice of curriculum, scheduling, or just balancing the social life with academics.
By the fall, you’ll have a better idea of how homeschooling will work for your family and you can hit the ground running with a brand new grade level.
Time to Build Friendships in the Community
If you make the jump to homeschooling NOW, before the school year ends and summer begins you will meet new people. You will find out what social groups or sports or field trip groups are meeting. You might be hitting the very end of those activities, but you are still meeting people.
You’ll have some supportive friends when the actual full year of homeschooling kicks in! Plus, you’ll have the summer time to meet up!
You can use the current remaining school year for catch up.
You likely have some areas where you’d like to see your child improve. Perhaps handwriting wasn’t taught appropriately. Perhaps your child did not get to master math facts. You might have had serious learning losses over virtual schooling in 2020. Whatever the case may be, you can use the remaining school year to focus on those skills so that you can hit the ground running next school year.
You can use the current remaining school year for detox.
Perhaps your child had a toxic environment at school. It could have been over-testing. It might have been bullying. Whatever the case may be, you can use this time to heal with your child. Refocus. Build good habits and relationships within your family and in your home. You’ll need those when you are spending so much more time at home than before.
The point is, if you’ve given up on sending your child to school and have decided to homeschool, there was obviously a reason for doing so. Why is your child still going to school?
In my opinion you are losing precious time that could make your school year go so much easier! And I don’t mean that your next year will be easy…it won’t. There will be hard times when you and your child are both adjusting. Someone once said that worthwhile things can be hard. That’s true. You will see plenty of fruits and rewards with homeschooling, but you will experience challenges too. Those challenges are different for each family. Using the remaining school year and some of the summer takes off so much pressure!
If you’re absolutely new to homeschooling, check out my free guide, Survival Guide for the New Homeschool Family.
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Remember, YOU are your child’s most influential teacher.