“I don’t want to go to school! I hate school! Do I have to go? Can I just stay home with you?”
These were frequently uttered phrases in my household. And by frequently uttered, I mean I chanted them every morning before being carted off to school. Over time, my mom became concerned with how much I hated school and thought a temporary change in pace might help, so she pulled me out of fourth grade to homeschool me for a year instead.
Like my mother, other parents have turned to homeschooling their children, and the choice to homeschool has become increasingly popularin recent years (Williams, 2018). The National Household Education Survey has shown that parents homeschool for different reasons, including education styles, religious purposes, or moral character development (Montes, 2006; Ray, 2015). Other factors may be concern for long hours at school, bullies, and overcrowded classrooms.
However, with the COVID-19 pandemic, parents no longer had the luxury of choosing between public and home education with schools shutting down and classes moving online. Faced with this new reality, many parents have become more active in their children’s education to help their kids become lifelong learners.
For parents thrown into the new world of distance learning, the newness has been understandably overwhelming. Because I only had one year of homeschooling experience myself, I interviewed Jennifer Hunt, a working mom with two homeschooled kids, to gain perspective on the benefits and challenges of learning from home.
Jennifer started homeschooling her kids long before the COVID-19 outbreak, and for her, the decision to homeschool came from the needs of her children, especially her concerns about their small size and emotional sensitivities. Jennifer’s background as a schoolteacher helped her feel comfortable trying this new role of teaching at home. When she eventually went back to work, her husband took on the role of homeschooling the kids by using online programs. These decisions helped Jennifer’s family grow closer together and placed her children in an already familiar and comfortable learning environment.
While homeschooling and home-centered learning are certainly different, these words of advice for homeschooling parents can also apply to parents who are teaching from home and continuing educational experiences for their children in the summer months. Here Jennifer offers five pieces of advice to help parents feel more comfortable with home-based schooling:
1. “Learning from home and public school are different. You don’t need to replicate the school experience and school activities.” Experiment to find curriculum, activities, and a pace that maximizes your child’s learning of various subjects.
2. “If homeschool doesn’t work for you, you can change your mind. Your decision to teach from home or not isn’t permanent.” As in the case of COVID-19, teaching from home is not forever! However, if you like it, it is an option.
3. “You do not have to know everything before your kid learns it. You’ve been teaching your kids their entire lives already. If you taught them their colors, sang songs, read stories, and used crayons, you’re already a teaching parent, and you can learn along with them.”
4. “You’ll almost certainly gain confidence. It will likely feel weird at first, but home-teaching is new, and anything new has an adjustment period.” Greater confidence in your teaching skills will come over time.
5. “You can always ask for help. You’re not alone in this, and homeschooling parents love to share resources and ideas. Trust yourself— your family is your own.” Whether you seek resources from friends who homeschool or fellow parents doing home-based schooling, connections are always there!
Jennifer also noted five perks she’s found in learning together from home in her own experiences with homeschooling:
1. “Students can take longer breaks from academic subjects and come back to them later. For instance, our son was having a really hard time learning how to read words that were ‘ce’ words (like nice or face). We stopped practicing those reading lessons for a few weeks, and then came back to them later when he was ready.”
2. “You can extend learning to meet the child where they’re at. Sometimes children will be very advanced in a subject, and you can move them forward at a faster pace. Other times, they may be further behind and you can take things a little slower in order to solidify their learning.”
3. “You can follow your children’s interests and design a curriculum around them. For instance, if your child finds a fascination with polar bears, you can go in-depth using polar bears to teach various subjects.” Using an integrated curriculum, you can include polar bears in teaching math, science, and reading skills, for example.
4. “You can make small adjustments to their learning environment that make a big difference. One of our children needs headphones to concentrate and needs to sit on the floor. Another child needs to work very hard in the morning and then take a long physical break before getting back to academics.” Recognizing and accommodating learning styles and needs can help children advance in their studies.
5. “You can learn so much more in a shorter amount of time. You can connect their learning to everyday life more easily, especially through field trips and hands-on learning experiences. After academics, our kids also have time to learn to cook, build, explore, and spend more time in elective-type activities.”
After several years of homeschool, Jennifer’s kids tried public school for a year, but ultimately decided to return to homeschooling. As Jennifer put it: “Your kids change and their needs change. You can keep making the same educational decisions or you can switch.” This new home-centered learning has been an interesting experimental phase for parents to discover what types of teaching best help their children, and how their children respond to both public and home education.
For me, my “gap year” out of the system proved to be critical for my personal development and growth. After a year of learning at home, I had learned to self-regulate my emotions and was prepared to brave the school system again. My new personal resources and abilities led me to enjoy my public school experience again.
This sudden shift to home-based schooling has been jarring for many, but it may help your child in unexpected ways like it did for me. Take these sensitive decisions case by case, considering each individual child’s needs and developmental level. In that way, you’ll discover much in the process, like Jennifer did with her kids, and my mother did with me.
Take one of these quizzes to learn more about either your child’s learning style or your own learning style! Understanding how your child learns will help you to make more informed decisions about what learning settings may work best for them.
Montes, G. (2006). Do Parental Reasons to Homeschool Vary by Grade? Evidence from the National Household Education Survey, 2001. Home School Researcher, 16(4), 11-17. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED573485
Take one of these quizzes to learn more about either your child’s learning style or your own learning style! Understanding how your child learns will help you to make more informed decisions about what learning settings may work best for them.
Anna Mader is an undergraduate student from Houston, Texas is a Family Studies major at Brigham Young University.