Is Homeschooling Actually Going to Work for Your Family? The Pro’s & Con’s 

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Deciding to homeschool is a huge step, and honestly, it’s one of those heart and head decisions to make. If you’re sitting at your kitchen table wondering if you can actually pull this off, you aren’t alone!

As someone who’s been (and still) doing it, here is my best advice on how to figure out if this path is the right fit for you and your family.

Dig deep into your ‘Why’

First, be brutally honest with yourself: why are you doing this?

Maybe you want to escape a negative public school environment, or perhaps you want a faith-based education for your kids. Maybe your child is gifted and bored, or struggling and needs to slow down.

Or maybe, like us, it’s purely to fit into your remote living lifestyle (although my husband hated school when he was young so it was a fairly easy decision!).

There isn’t a wrong answer, but you need a solid why to lean on when you have a tough Tuesday and everyone is crying over simplifying fractions 🙁

Check your ‘Togetherness’ meter

This is the part people don’t always talk about: you are going to be with your kids all the time.

Most of us love our kids to pieces, but homeschooling means you’re now the parent, the teacher, and the principal.

If you find that you get frustrated easily or really value your solo time during the day, this will be a big adjustment. You have to genuinely enjoy their company—even when they’re struggling.

Homeschooling could be a recipe for burnout. You don’t have to be a saint, but you do need to genuinely enjoy their company – mess, noise, and all. 

Thick skin is a requirement

Prepare yourself for the ‘Socialization Question.’ You know the one. Concerned relatives, neighbours, and even strangers at the grocery store will have opinions.

You’ll be asked if your kids are lonely or falling behind or if they’ll ever learn to fit in. You have to be okay with answering the same questions over and over – or better yet, learning how to let those comments roll right off your back. 

To make this work, you need a rock-solid reason for doing it. Whether it’s because your child is academically gifted and bored, needs extra support that the system isn’t providing, or you simply want a lifestyle of freedom – your why has to be stronger than the criticism.

If you’re easily rattled by other people’s opinions, the social pressure of homeschooling can feel very heavy.

Does your child’s learning style need a Custom Fit?

Take a hard look at your child. Are they thriving in a traditional classroom, or are they drowning?

• The Advanced Learner: Is the school pace holding them back?
• The Struggler: Is the ‘standardized’ approach making them feel like a failure?

If your child doesn’t fit the average mold, homeschooling is often a perfect fit because you can cater to their learning style.

But, if they love the social structure and thrive under external authority, removing them from that environment is a big shift for both of you.

Are you ready for a Support Role?

Homeschooling works best when you realize you aren’t just a teacher, but a facilitator. This means being okay with the fact that you won’t have all the answers.

You’ll need to be the type of person who is willing to go to the library, hunt down a co-op, or find a mentor when your child hits a subject you don’t know.

If you’re comfortable learning alongside your child rather than just lecturing them, you’re going to be okay.

Can your budget and schedule take the hit – Time and Money?

Homeschooling doesn’t take seven hours a day like a traditional classroom, but it does require a chunk of your time for planning and active teaching.

On the money side, it can cost as little as $100 or upwards of $1,000 a year. The good news? You don’t need a massive budget.

If you’re willing to spend time at the library and hunt for resources online, you can provide an incredible education on a shoestring. Just be realistic about what you can actually afford before you fall down the rabbit hole of shiny new curriculum catalogs.

And, does your lifestyle have the margin for this? If you’re already stretched to the breaking point with work or other commitments, adding ‘Teacher’ and ‘Principal’ to your resume might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

The Bottom Line

Homeschooling isn’t a better way to educate; it’s just a different way to live. If the idea of tailoring your child’s day to their specific needs excites you more than the thought of 24/7 togetherness scares you, then it’s probably a great fit.

Pros and Cons of Home Schooling

To help evaluate if your ‘why’ is strong enough to handle the time commitment and the social critics, the next step is looking at the specific pros and cons you’ll face on a daily basis.

Pros

1. You make the decision about what your children learn. Some parents have reservations about what is being taught in public schools, and want to protect their children from certain information they deem inappropriate. They also may see a lack in what is being taught in public schools, and want to enrich their child’s learning experience.

2. You make the decisions about how your children learn. There is no way a public school classroom can tailor its teaching style for each child. Yet each child differs. As a home schooling parent, you can teach your child in the style that best fits him or her, and you can tweak your teaching style as needed. 

3. You get to choose the curriculum. This ties in with what your children learn, listed above. You can decide how many books, worksheets, crafts, and so forth that your student does. You can reject or accept aspects of various curricula and/or design your own.

4. Your child gets one-on-one instruction and plentiful conversation. Time and again, studies have shown that children learn well with individual instruction. 

Cons

1. Homeschooling takes time. Not only do you have to commit to the actual teaching time; depending on the curriculum, you may have to research and prepare lessons, copy or print out worksheets, maps, exercises, etc., and keep careful track of your child’s progress. This all means less time to run errands, clean the house, cook meals, work at a job, and so forth.

2. Depending on the laws and regulations in your area, you may have to present a portfolio or submit your child to standardized testing. This means you have to keep careful records.

3. Homeschooling can cost money. It is not just the curriculum – while some curricula are very expensive (over $1000 a year just for the study materials), others are based on free resources like library books. So the expense is not necessarily the materials. The expense also extends into loss of income – the parent who is teaching usually ends up spending less time in paid work.

4. Criticism and even contempt from others, unfortunately, comes with the territory of home schooling. Those who tend to doubt themselves or who are overly concerned with what other people think may find this aspect of home schooling stressful.

As you can see, there are trade-offs to home schooling. There are also pros and cons to sending your child to public or private school too. So the key is to figure out what works for your family and the reasons why you want to homeschool.

Would you rather keep spiraling through the same questions, or are you ready to see a real plan come together? Don’t let another week go by going around in circles  – grab my Homeschooling Starter Checklist and planning worksheets on Etsy so you can stop researching and start doing. You’ll be so relieved to have that first step behind you!