The TOUGH Decision With Homeschooling Pros and Cons

Deciding whether to homeschool or not can be a tough decision. This page is designed to help you examine homeschooling pros and cons,homeschool vs public school.

I wrestled with homeschooling pros and cons quite awhile myself. I really didn’t think I wanted to homeschool. I can honestly say my fears were virtually all based upon stereotypes though. I hope this page clears up some of the homeschooling pros and cons for you and it makes the decision process easier.

Since my boys were in public school, with an IEP, I have a pretty good grasp on what the homeschooling pros and cons are as well as those for public school.

There are a lot of factors to consider in the homeschooling pros and cons. Having never homeschooled before, a person often has a lot of misconceptions about homeschooling. I KNOW I DID!

What I learned through homeschooling is that my preconceived notions were totally different from the realities of homeschooling. My fears beforehand held me back from starting to homeschool initially. However, if I knew now what I knew then, I would no longer hesitate. I would dive right in.

Homeschooling was so different from what I expected, I wrote a book, Overcome Your Fear of Homeschooling. The book is all about homeschooling pros and cons. My hope is that the book will be a great tool for helping other parents decide whether homeschooling will work for them or not.

My guys started out in public school and were there for five years before we decided to homeschool. Aside from reading Overcome Your Fear of Homeschooling, and learning what homeschooling is really like, the information below may help you with your decision.

One of the first issues you face is deciding whether to homeschool. There is a decision table below on THIS page, but you might also want to go check the Decision Table for deciding whether to Homeschool I have on this other page too. (I probably ought to consolidate these tables!)

Table of Homeschooling Pros and Cons

I’ve created a table of homeschooling pros and cons. They’re important for making a decision between homeschooling, private school, public school, or tutoring services for your child. My hope is that this table may help clarify some of the issues for you to a degree. Overcome Your Fear of Homeschooling will give you a much more in-depth understanding of the homeschooling pros and cons though.

	Pros	Cons
Homeschooling Pros and Cons	Your child can learn at his own pace. Your child can learn different subjects at different grade levels. You can incorporate tutoring or special therapies into your child’s school day. Social peers are often not aware of learning difficulties because the children are not educated together, so there’s no social stigma with a Learning Disability. Your child can ask as many questions as he wants so he gains more understanding. Your child gets more opportunities for practice when there are fewer children. Your “School Day” ends without additional need for homework, tutoring, therapies, etc. because they become part of the school day. Homeschooling gives the child a chance to play and be a child!	Requires parental dedication and diligence to line up an appropriate program. Parental patience may be stressed when child struggles and parent must be able to calmly deal with learning difficulties. There is no “off” time for teaching parent during the day. Most families become single income families.
Tutoring Pros and Cons	Concentrated learning from an experienced provider. Your child can gain progress and improvement over time.	Lengthens your child’s school day. Your child may be too tired to learn effectively after school. Often Expensive cost.
Private School Pros and Cons	If serving your child’s specific disability, your child can gain excellent progress and improvement. Your child does not feel “different” from school peers.	Homework can be significant. Expensive Cost.
Public School Pros and Cons	It’s Free. Time off for parent. Your child will be with children from a variety of backgrounds making them more “worldly” wise. You may find this IEP Training of benefit.	Programs often fall short of your child’s capability level. May be an “adequate” education, but the special education standard is not designed to maximize your child’s progress. The social stigma of “special education” often damages self-esteem. Children often fall further behind in standard curriculum while spending time working on remedial subjects. May only receive a “special education” diploma, limiting future options. Stress of dealing with “Special Education” requirements, such as IEP meetings, can be significant.

If you’ve decided homeschooling might be a good option for you based upon the homeschooling pros and cons, you might want to sign up for the Learning Abled Kids’ “Getting Started Homeschooling” newsletter series. It will walk you through the steps for getting started.