Why I Chose To Home-School !

To some, Home-schooling can be a very controversial topic. I truly believe that to be the case because it is highly misunderstood.  My eldest son is 15 years old at this moment in time, and to his credit he is a very responsible, well behaved and a mature young man. He is currently still doing school while working a job and is also very committed to Church activities and leads worship almost weekly. I have 4 kids all of which I home-school and I could honestly continue to go on about how extraordinary they all are.

My point of mentioning Steeve however is because not only does his life show the benefits of home-schooling, but it’s a great testimony in itself.

My journey to start home-schooling began after I first enrolled Steeve into school. He was in Grade Prep and to be honest had the most beautiful sweet teacher. However the teacher wasn’t the problem (which isn’t always the case), but the students.

I began hearing such vulgar language and also discussions these children were having that sounds vile even coming from an adult let alone a 5 year old child. I was disgusted!

As well as the vulgar language and behaviour of the students, Steeve was failing academically. They were considering keeping him down a year as he was just too distracted in class and simply wasn’t learning anything.

 Over the course of that year, I know the Lord was speaking to me about home-schooling so I began to do some research.

I looked into private schools and spoke to many different parents that had their children in that type of schooling and also other public schools. Unfortunately the same feed-back kept coming. As a Christian, Christian education was important to me, but even at the Christian schools the children (not all, but some) had the same vulgar language. In-fact I was hearing different stories about children inappropriately touching other children and so forth. I realised what God was trying to get me to do, and that was to educate my children myself.

Again to mention Steeve, he was failing. He couldn’t even phonically sound out the alphabet let alone read. Within 6 months of Home-schooling using the ACE program phonics kit, he was reading a KJV Bible alone. Now that’s incredible! All my children have learnt to fluently read within their first year of school by educating at home. The distraction was gone, and they could actually learn.

Socially speaking, my children have a very active church life and we have always been a part of different home-school groups. However not everyone has that available to them. Did you know that there are children that simply live too far away from school to be able to attend? They literally live out in the middle of know where. Study after study has revealed that these children have not been hindered by that what so ever. In-fact most of these children have better behaviour then those that are regularly with other children.

A great benefit to home-schoolers is they learn to engage with all other age groups. When a child is put in an environment where they are purely only around their own age group, they tend to not reach for greater in terms of character. However when a child regularly interacts with all age groups (as in the case when home-schooling) they broaden their knowledge and their character begins to flourish.

Now I am not one of those people that believes home-schooling is the only way. I know beautiful parents that have raised amazing kids that are even very wise and mature for their age that go to conventional school. The truth is, it comes down to the family home. If a child has support and great teaching at home, they can thrive in any environment. For myself however I KNOW the Lord called me to home-school.

This would have to be my number one reason for home-schooling. Basically the call of God to do so. I have now come to realise that when God called me to home-school all those years ago, He had a greater plan to prepare me for the ministry we now run. Home-schooling is necessary for us as we now travel for ministry at times and need the children with us.

Would I recommend home-schooling to others? The short answer would be yes. It’s incredibly rewarding. However I always warn parents that they need to be prepared to literally “take up your cross daily”. It is certainly a thank-less job and I applaud all ladies that manage to stick it out. It means you need to make schooling a priority in your day, and take seriously the fact that your child is academically now dependant on you.

There is plenty of support for home-schoolers, so although that can seem daunting, there are many groups and even schooling companies you can team up with to see your child thrive whilst schooling from home.

I researched many different curriculums to use and we are now very happy with Life Pac. We also supplement with Kinetic Education which is an online program.

I would love to hear from you on your home-school journeys or if you have any questions you would like to ask, please comment. Thank you for reading and I’d love for you to click on my BIO and click follow.

Be Blessed

Carol Eddington. xx