6 Ways That Homeschooling Affects A Child’s Development

Choosing to homeschool your child can be a difficult decision due to time, money, and responsibility. But it can be beneficial to your child to grow up in an environment outside of peer pressure. Before deciding on your student’s schooling, It is essential to know the effects of homeschooling on your child’s development.

There are multiple ways that homeschooling can affect your child’s development and help your child succeed in life. Knowing all the information can help you make the best decision for you and your child. Read on for six ways that homeschooling affects a child’s development.

Above Average Academic Achievement

Some studies have shown that students who are homeschooled have a higher achievement record. They tend to have higher ACT and SAT scores to enter college, along with higher grade point averages. The individual attention and consistent focus on education in the home help students achieve more.

A child will learn better study skills and have different relationships with education due to the unique connections between home and schooling. Due to a lack of time constraints, students in homeschooled environments can learn more in their set curriculum. This helps students become higher academic achievers.

Students can also use hands-on learning opportunities more often, allowing them to achieve better, and apply learning concepts. Having the opportunity to take your child on field trips can help them utilize their skills and cement their learning. Many homeschoolers also have more opportunity to travel which can enhance cultural learning and their grasp of world history, whether it is within their own country or outside of the borders.

Homeschooled students are known to succeed in national competitions such as spelling bees and become merit scholars. Having the flexibility in your child’s schedule will allow them to learn when it is best to learn, and help them progress through school at their pace creating more considerable achievement opportunities.

Another Level of Social Interaction

Even though there is a perception that children who have been homeschooled lack social skills, it is proven that they gain skills students in public schools lack.

Public school students are more susceptible to deviant and problem behavior due to peer pressure. This can create feelings of antisocialism and damaging relationships. Their social interactions can become severely cruel and peer pressurized, leading to negative self-development.

Children who are homeschooled have firmer beliefs of self-esteem and levels of self-worth. This is because students are not susceptible to bullying, illegal activities, and violence. Instead, students spend more time with their families, and have more positive interactions with people that can teach them respect, self-confidence, and family values that students may lack in public schools.

In a homeschool environment, students learn unique skills that can help them respect others and help them stand up to peer pressure. A more family-centered homeschooling environment will help students interact better with their peers.

When students leave home, they are seen as well-adjusted due to the skills they have learned from their families. If you want to build more child-centric social interactions for your child besides family, you can have them join various after-school activities to help them make connections with other children.

Increased Independent Thinking Skills

When students are in public school, they can become less of an independent thinker due to the ideas and thoughts presented to them by their teachers and other students. Homeschooling allows students to do their own learning and pursue their own lines of inquiry.

Students are not forced to follow a timeline or be limited on their interests because of school curriculum timelines. When homeschooled, students have the opportunity to learn at their own pace, and it creates positive ownership by the success they have in their studies.

Since children are not subjected to the peer pressure that comes with being in a school classroom, they have the opportunity to become independent thinkers. With access to a  variety of cultures and diversity, they develop the critical thinking skills that help them form objective opinions. As a homeschooling  parent, it is vital to expose your children to more worldly views to help them form positive discernment when questioning  what is presented to them, at home, at work, and in their personal lives.

Peer pressure can force children to think a certain way about themselves, but homeschooling allows children to have an experience outside of that. Because they are exploring their own interests, they are also investigating who they are as a person. They are able to define themselves, and have higher levels of self-worth and self-esteem.

When homeschooled children are exposed to social pressure, they are able to be more staunchly true to themselves due to their ability to take in all sides of an issue, and have a firm standing because of their own world view and critical thinking.

Opportunities to Develop Empathy with Community Outreach

When students are homeschooled, they have more of an opportunity to complete community service. Due to the close connection of the family with school, reaching out and working with the community is something that is more easily done through homeschooling.

Parents have an opportunity to sign their kids up for community service projects because of the lack of school schedules confining the school day. Also, hands-on learning opportunities allow students to get out in their community and explore new ways to become involved.

Public school students may struggle to complete community outreach and be uninvolved in their communities due to overwhelming schedules. Homeschooling gives flexibility in schedule and learning content that allows for students to work more in their communities.

When working on real community outreach programs, students can gain collaboration and leadership skills that may be difficult for them to obtain in a public school classroom.

Establish Confidence and Outward Expression

It can be difficult in public school to share feelings and ideas with others due to the detrimental effects bullying and social pressure can have on students. This can force students to conform to everybody else’s beliefs instead of their own. Their private opinions may become fluid as they are exposed to moral issues that are outside of their core beliefs.  Without a strong foundation, ethics can be tossed aside, and the child may compromise rather than stand for what they truly believe in. But with homeschooling, you can teach your child the morality and ethics of what you want them to have. Individualized instruction and parental examples are the best teacher.

The unregulated culture that is in public schools leads students to struggle with feelings of self-worth and self-esteem. They struggle to find what interests them outside of their peers which can ultimately lead to imposter syndrome.

Homeschooled children have fewer boundaries due to less social pressure and instead can be themselves. These children have the opportunity to explore their interests and become their own people outside of social pressure.

Homeschooled children have the freedom to explore their interests in a loving, supportive environment. Because of the lack of social peer pressure, these students are more comfortable being themselves.

Homeschooled children also don’t learn deviant schemas and behaviors from their peers. They can choose the right path and inevitably lead a more responsible and healthy life.

More Interaction with Parents and Other Adults

When students are in the public school classroom, they are less monitored by their parents. Because of this, students are more susceptible to ideas and values presented to them by their peers. These can be negative to a child’s development and lead to more problems.

If a child is homeschooled, there is much more parental/familial monitoring. Family values are instituted into the curriculum, and children are continually spending time with their family members. This ensures the child’s personal development is shaped by the people closest to them outside of peer pressure.

Parents are also able to monitor student progress and ensure they are on track with their learning. This can be difficult in public schools because the teacher sets the curriculum. Students can have higher achievement rates in homeschool environments due to the parental monitoring and tracking of student progress.

Students in the home monitored environment are less likely to learn deviant behaviors and instead meet other children that are academically high achievers. This environment pushes students to do their best and explore their interests under a parent’s guidance.

Conclusion

The essential skills students can learn from homeschooling can help them throughout their life. Instead of learning detrimental behavior, students are able to become well-adjusted adults being themselves. Now that you know the effects homeschooling can have on your child’s development, you can decide for yourself!

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