I have had more and more people approach me about doing Radio interviews which quite honestly freaks me out but it’s been a good chance for me to network with other home education parents and to reevaluate my choice to homeschool. I’m not sure how I feel about this as in one email they told me to be prepared to have a critic on there and I really didn’t want to get into a debate about homeschooling versus public education. However I get why they want to have a critic on there because it offers a different point of view and let’s face it, people like debate. I get that people have different views, negative and positive on decisions we make in our life; decisions not just on raising our kids but everything else as well.
When speaking about homeschooling with others my main goal is not to “bash” public school systems or have a big come on everyone, homeschool is best sessions and try to get people to” come on over to our side.” I truly want to help people who want to homeschool their children. I want to help them figure out how it works, where to start and what you can expect. I don’t claim to be an expert about homeschooling or I do not speak for all homeschoolers. I speak for me, about my family and our experiences and why home education works for us.
I also don’t believe that it’s for every family. What works for one, doesn’t necessarily work for another. We all know that. And we all should be excited about the fact that here, in Canada, we have so many choices out there for educating our children. We have public school, private school; Religion based schools, French Immersion, Montessori, Fine Arts School and Fundamentals schools as well as Distributed Learning, Homeschooling and probably way more than I have listed. To me homeschooling is just an extension or a choice of a different type of education we can offer our children.
When asked to do these interviews they have sent me some questions they may have me answer. Over the next couple of weeks I am going to attempt to answer these questions as indepthly as possible and I will use the feedback I have received to help show all the different views and reasons for home educating families.
What are some of the reasons people choose to homeschool?
This is a great question with some many different answers. We initially chose to homeschool because my husband used to work shift work and my kids rarely got to see him. They’d be coming home from school as he’d be leaving for work and his days off were usually during the week when the kids weren’t around. I remember the exact day that I really started looking into homeschooling my daughter. She was in Kindergarten and it was my husband’s birthday. I had planned to take him out for his birthday breakfast because he had to go to work that afternoon and evening. As we were driving her to school I was asking him what he thought he wanted and she asked if she could come. We of course told her no because she had school and she started to cry. She wasn’t crying because she had school, she was crying because she missed her dad and she too wanted to celebrate his birthday. I remember pulling up and walking in to tell the teacher she wouldn’t be there that day and the teacher totally understood. Off to breakfast we went and that day was the turning point for me and how I was going to help educate my kids. 
Another reason was we moved to an area where the housing market was booming and the schools were over crowded. Although there were plans to build new ones that was some time away. So we thought let’s try home education while waiting for the new school to be built. The more I looked into what was available for support for homeschooling the more we realized it was something that I really wanted to try.
The following year I enrolled my daughter into grade one but always had the feeling that I should pull her out and start for grade one. What’s the worst that could happen? She could ALWAYS go back and the district I was in had a great Distributed Learning (see below for definition) program that looked so amazing. We had visited so many times over the previous year and my husband was sold on the idea. So we took the leap and pulled her out after the first week. Over the years our reasons have changed as his job has changed and it has become more about because it just works for our family and we enjoy it (most days). Here are some of the other reasons my readers shared with me:
1.) Freedom to travel especially if one parent travels for work. You don’t have to do the set times and can take advantage of leaving whenever it works without the worry of catching up.
2.) You get to spend more time together as a family. This is especially good for families, likes ours did, who have shift work parents or for the parents that one of them goes away for long times and is home for long stretches for work. This is happening more and more these days with husbands going off to the oil fields or are fishermen.
3.) Acting and other activities like sports that the kids are big into. My kids have worked on the movie sets before and it’s so convenient to be able to just take their work with them or let them enjoy the experience they have working on the set. If they travel and are big into sports they again can just make school fit into that schedule. Take Justin Bieber for example. He started touring so he did school in between his shows.
4.) Special Needs – some families find they can give more support having the kids at home at have workers come to them. Maybe their child gets overwhelmed in a classroom setting or the funding hasn’t made it to the school yet. My cousin recently started homeschooling her Special Needs daughter and has found that her best times to do anything is after 3pm leaving her the daytime to relax, rest and explore her other interests.
5.) Wanting a one on one education for their children. The bonus is that we tend to have less “class” sizes. Not all families are “18 and Counting” are they? At least we aren’t’. I have 4 children who all learn differently and have different interests so I can cater their learning to what helps them and what interests them.
6.) Illness – This is a sad one but another reason why people do. If a parent, child or loved one is ill it’s a chance for them to take care of each other and spend more time together. If it’s the child who is ill then they sometimes have to homeschool as they are too ill to attend another program.
7.) Freedom to do what you want and when you want. It’s nice to be able to take off for the day and go do activities and also schedule things throughout the day so you have more time. For example, our piano lessons happen on a Wednesday during the day rather than in the evening hours. It’s nice to be able to be done it all by 3 or 4 in the afternoon and spend the evenings relaxing and making dinner.
These are just some of the reasons families do and I am sure I have missed some. We all have our own stories for what gets us to this place in our child’s education. In the end, I know ALL parents, not just homeschooling ones have one goal, and that is to what we believe is best for our children. Some of those beliefs just may be different and that is what makes us all so unique.
Over the next few blog posts I will dive into some of the other questions people have had for me about homeschooling and the research I have done for that. I will also describe the different types of school because just like brick and mortar type schools there are many, MANY programs for homeschoolers.
Lee Fisher is a married homeschooling mom from British Columbia to 4 amazing children and a caregiver to an adult with Special Needs. She is the co-founder of Homeschool Canada and also a partner with The Canadian Homeschooling Society. Lee will be a monthly writer on our website here and she will talk about homeschooling subjects like How to Get Started in Homeschooling, Socialization, Top 5 Questions asked to Homeschoolers, Where to find curriculum?, and much more!
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