Homeschooling: The Best or Worst Idea Ever

Homeschooling can be the best thing you can do for your child. Or it can be the worst. The key in helping your child succeed as a student is determining this and then having the maturity to make the right choice for them, not you.

Every time I tell someone I was home schooled until college, their follow up question is always: “Should I home school my child?”

The answer is: “It depends.”

This is an opinionated piece on my experiences with homeschooling and some of the major considerations to take into account before making this decision. My goal is not to give you the answer to your question of whether homeschooling is right for your child, but rather provide you with the tools to make this decision on your own.

It’s All or Nothing

The best home schooling I've seen didn't take traditional education methods and try to do it at home ― that never seems to work. The major reason for it constantly failing is that one, even two parents will not know everything a team of trained and certified teachers will. They can’t be experts in math, English, history, every form of natural science, shop, etc. at all grade levels. Even two parents working on this and only this full time will never achieve it.

As a student, a successful homeschooling program should give you the freedom to explore what interests you. You don’t have to sit in class, you don’t have to take a class you don’t like and you can put 100% of your time into something you’re interested in and passionate about. Your teacher isn't just your mom or dad. It’s your entire world. Everything around you is an opportunity to learn something new and exciting!

As a home school student, I used this to my advantage. One summer (I was around age 9), I started my first business (a rest home for chickens that no longer laid eggs). Later that year, I picked up programming in BASIC and built my first video game. At 14, I spent an entire year writing and repeatedly editing two 500-page fantasy novels, then sent it to no less than 50 agents and publishers (all of them, lucky for both of us, turned it down).

Every single one of these adventures has benefited my in my career already (yes, even and especially the chicken rest home). I have my own early-stage startup and still do financial modeling in spreadsheets like I did when I was 9 (just slightly more complicated ones). I’m a full stack developer and get to wake up everyday and build something new as a programmer. In college I wrote award winning, peer-reviewed research papers on neuroscience and now I regularly perform mind-dumps (like this one).

But put me in front of a calculus textbook, and even after taking Calc I and II in college, I’m probably going to need a refresher from Khan Academy.

Don’t get me wrong: threaded throughout my home education was exposure to various “traditional” topics such as math and writing. But subjects like history and natural sciences were almost non-existent in my curriculum. Even my guidance in math and writing was sub par at best.

So then how did I make it through college without ever failing a class, earning above-average (but not perfect) grades in many of the areas I received little direction in at home?

The key is the student. Some students ― I think mostly due to nature rather than nurture ― are simply self motivated learners. These are the children who should be home schooled. Because they will excel at teaching themselves what they feel they need to know to be prepared, both as a home school student and when they enter a traditional education system like college.

The job of the parent is to identify which of your children are like this, and which ones would benefit more from a traditional education. One type of learner is not better than the other ― students like myself find it incredibly difficult to focus on “gen-ed” (general education) courses and seem to usually end up with lower grades in traditional education systems on average. We shun any class that doesn't interest us 100% and (at least in my experience) do everything we can to get out of them (two words: CLEP exams!).

At the end of the day, home schooling does a below-average job of preparing students in traditional subject matters. There are only two outcomes of home schooling (in my experience, and based on what many, many others have told me they've seen): the child either emerges well beyond their peers in certain areas, making up for a lack of traditional education with specific skills that help them excel, or the child is left far behind their peers and yet still lacking some core driving factor to differentiate them and help them to succeed.

In other words, homeschooling is either the best or the worst thing that will happen to you as a student. The problem is, it’s not up to you.

Don’t be a Homeschooler to be a Homeschooler

My parents were like this, unfortunately for several of my siblings who would undoubtedly have benefited more from a traditional education environment. They reached a point where homeschooling was a way of life for them rather than the best thing they could offer their children to help them get ahead in life by way of education.

The thing many parents don’t seem to be able to come to grips with is that it’s not about them: it’s about the student. As an individual. Homeschoolers who get stuck in the “I’m a homeschooler” mentality are poised to severely damage their child’s future.

So then why don’t they send their child to school where they would benefit from a structured environment with a plethora of subjects to choose from, and qualified teachers to guide them?

There are two major reasons I saw, both in my parents case and the many homeschooling parents I grew up around: religion and pride.

Let’s talk about religion first. School is not about religion. Choosing to educate your child at home for religious reasons is one of the most absurd, selfish and un-Godly things I've ever heard or seen. I was raised Christian and I’m fairly certain no where in the Bible does it say “Thou shalt home school thy children.” Largely, religion is just used as an excuse ― a legal crutch, a times ― to facilitate the development of another detrimental factor: pride.

Here’s how it usually works. Sally, your oldest, is a real go-getter. Bubbly and full of energy and questions, you can’t picture sending her off to preschool (is that the first one?) where she’d just be another kid in the group.

So you decide to home school her. Good on you! She takes off right away, learns to read in record time and you can barely pry books out of her hands when it’s time for dinner.

And then along comes Edger. Home schooling seems to be going great for Sally, so why not keep him at home too? Unfortunately, a couple years later, it’s pretty clear that Edger doesn't fit the bill for this unstructured learning environment.

Here is the single most important thing I can tell you as a parent in this post:

Deciding to send your child to school after trying to home school them does NOT mean you are a failure as a parent. Even if your friends and family make you feel like it, you need to make the decision that is best for that child, NOT for you.

But we are mere humans, and selfish in nature, even when we don’t mean to be. So very, very rarely do I see parents able to make the decision that is best for the child, not for them. But why is that?

Once you start homeschooling, you brand yourself as a homeschooler (or others do it for you). So by sending one or more of your children to school, you lose a large part of this identity. Now you’re just the parents who weren't smart enough to teach your own children. Shame on you.

Any person who ever tries to make you feel like that can go fuck off. These are your kids, not theirs. Why would they know anything about what’s best for them?

Homeschooling is not for everyone. Neither is traditional education. As a parent, it’s up to you to gauge your child’s needs and do what’s best for them, no matter what it takes from you.

Closing Remarks

I hope this has been useful to some parents out there deciding whether or not to home school your child, or even to current students (home and traditional schooled) who are curious about home schooling.

If you've enjoyed this post and feel it’s helped you, please click “Recommend” below so it can do the same for others. If you have questions or (constructive) criticism, feel free to comment on here or message me on Twitter.

Cheers!