Nowadays, most parents consider having their children attend school at home as their best alternative. The homeschooling option is mainly associated with parents’ lifestyles that may not be compatible with sending the kids to school the usual way. It could be that you are tied at work from morning to evening, and there are no safe means to drop your child to school.
If you choose this mode of study, you must be prepared to take responsibility for your child’s daily learning progress. You should also ensure that the learning experiences are drafted in such a way that meets your child’s demands and preferences. You may opt for a structured curriculum or unschooling approach depending on what you as a family decide.
Therefore, as much as home schooling offers flexibility for parents and learners, there are many other things you need to know before you start. Hence, if you choose this path, this guide will highlight all you need to know about schooling at home, how to get started, and its benefits. Read on.
Getting Started with Home Schooling
Before registering your child for home study, there are several basic things you need to have in mind or meet for it to be successful. Let’s have a look at each.
Understand the Laws and Regulations
Home schooling means your child will stay home indoors during class hours and learn as if at school. You need to do thorough homework on what the legal frameworks in your locality dictate about child education. Do the laws permit children to learn from home without a teacher physically present?
What are the accountability requirements to the government to confirm that your child is learning adequately? You may be required to complete progress reports to continue with the system regularly. As for child care, you will also need to know when the child can stay at home without you or a guardian.
Setting Educational Goals
If your child needs to be successful in schooling from home, it must be guided by predetermined goals and objectives. That includes what you want the child to achieve at the end of learning that will benefit his further education and career life. Hence, you both have to sit down and set a curriculum, specifying what learning areas take priority, guided by your child’s interests and abilities.
You may also include areas that your child isn’t very good at to improve on the same. Alternatively, you may review already existing curriculums and follow them if it meets your learning goals instead of creating one.
Creating a Learning Environment
Many distractions could interfere with learning at home, which needs to be dealt with. One of them is your child’s private learning space to ensure they are focused on studies without external influence. A study room should be dedicated to the classroom and furnished with all the basic resources, such as writing materials, workbooks, and textbooks. For instance, if you live in Nevada, the western region of the United States, and if you own a smaller unit, you may have to sell your house fast for cash in Nevada to purchase a spacious one to accommodate your child’s study room.
In addition to the physical resources at home, it is advisable to take advantage of online learning resources to provide what you may not have at home. There are community programs and libraries that offer online access to their educational content free of charge or at a fee. Children learn better when demonstrations and plays are included in the learning methodology. Hence, adding a multimedia resource will keep your child engaged.
Establishing Effective Time Management
For you and your child to achieve the set targets, time management is very important for every learning activity. Create a timetable of class subjects to be learnt, when they start and end, and allocate time for extra curriculum activities. Developing this daily schedule conditions the child to have learning days that are balanced and education-oriented. Otherwise, if you allow learning anyhow, there will be negative consequences. While following a set schedule is key, teaching your child to be self-disciplined will result in better and more effective time management skills.
Evaluating Learning and Making Adjustments
Evaluation is the only way to determine whether learning has occurred or your child has been using time at home well. That involves assessing the convergence of the learning areas in a given time and how much the child has been able to understand and practice. Regularly examining the child’s learning progress will also enable the identification of the weak and strong areas of learning.
This understanding leads to changing or modifying the vulnerable areas’ teaching strategies to improve performance. Monitoring the learning process will also give you insight into which learning resources to include or do away with. For example, your child may be good at utilising visual ads rather than hands-on activities.
Providing Support and Socialization
As a parent, you also double as the teacher, and that role has to come out clearly for the child to appreciate your efforts. Like teachers, you must master switching roles to make the learning environment friendly and positive. Offer full support to your child but without being sympathetic, or else they take advantage of the family relationship. Learn to use various teaching ways to be unique and lively. Engage the learner freely and offer instructions.
Schooling alone from home can also become boring unless you can connect the child with other children who are learning the same way. Connecting with home schooling communities and group activities provides a social platform to exchange ideas and experiences. It will also require participation in extracurricular activities such as sports, music, and drama plays with other mates to build an all-rounded individual.
Pros and Cons
The main benefit of having your child school from home is the flexibility and freedom to develop learning areas and activities that match your child’s interests, learning style, and abilities. This type of learning provides a personal approach to education, allowing children to become their best in their study areas and at their own pace.
Home schooling also provides the parents and kids with a bond while appreciating the need for education. Hence, you have children who are brought up well in terms of discipline as the parent promotes the values to the child.
Another benefit is the availability of learning resources and support groups from online local communities and forums. These platforms also allow the sharing of learning experiences and the exchange of ideas. Parent teachers also gain handy knowledge from parents who have done homeschooling before.
However, the system has its share of challenges. One is managing and keeping up with the learning processes, which requires total commitment to the underlying responsibilities. It mayn’t be difficult for a parent to multitask between academics, home duties and work. However, with good planning and time management, you can overcome the challenges for the greater benefits.
