Paper Example on Homeschooling: An Alternative to Traditional Education for Parents

Being a parent or caregiver comes with the responsibility of taking care of our children. One responsibility is providing children with the best education. Traditionally, most parents consider the classroom environment to be ideal for their children to study as they can interact with teachers and other students freely. Nonetheless, homeschooling is also an option that parents are exploring gradually rather than sending their children to school. Homeschooling is an educational approach where parents teach their children at home. As you ponder adopting the homeschooling approach for various reasons, your main concern is, probably, how to undertake it and work or study simultaneously. The following are some tips on how to manage these tasks.

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The first thing is to plan. Here, determine your schedule, family needs, and available finances then design a homeschooling program that aligns with these factors. Identify how you spend each day, what your other responsibilities within the family are, and how much money you can afford to implement the homeschooling program. Remember, the program should be organized in a way that works best for you, that is, it should be flexible enough to fit in your daily schedule of activities and within your financial capability. The options for you are either to teach the children or hire an instructor who will be teaching them one-on-one or via online means.

Since you work and study full time, teaching the children during the day will be impractical. However, you can teach them after work. Family needs may include household chores, such as laundry and cooking, that you have to undertake before or after going to work. These two considerations will make it difficult for you to teach the children. Your finances, hence, become decisive. If you have disposable income, you can hire an instructor. However, if you are experiencing financial constraints, you have to teach the children during your free time.

Next, design a homeschooling program based on these considerations. Designing should take ass little time as possible since you need to devote most of the available time to the children. As such, select a syllabus design with a complete lesson plan and apply it for the program. A completed lesson plan is a guide that states what the children will learn, how they will learn, and how their understanding will be gauged. The lesson plan should incorporate extra-curricular activities, such as gardening and cooking, which impart children with hands-on skills. Additionally, this plan should entail a considerable amount of independent activities that will ensure the children can study while you are at work.

Once you have completed the design, hire an instructor who will implement the lesson plan, if your finances allow. The instructor will even supplement it, if necessary. You will only be checking their daily work in the evening. On the contrary, if you cannot afford an instructor, provide the children with each day’s lesson plan before leaving for work and engage them on returning home to assist them with the difficulties that they encountered. When the children learn to carry out the extra-curricular activities with minimum supervision, they will help you with some household chores. As such, you will have more time to rest and, in return, check their work after coming back home.

Even though you may get some free time in the evening, sticking to this routine will be tiring. Oprah Winfrey says people cannot do everything themselves and, thus, need one another for assistance. Therefore, if need be, ask your spouse to check the children’s work and teach them on some days, especially during the days you have loads of assignments to undertake at work or school. You can also teach the children in shifts if your work schedules do not run concurrently. When you are both working and studying full time, introduce an instructor into this arrangement, who will guide the children through the learning activities. A babysitter would also assist the children, particularly in doing the simple tasks, if you are unable to engage an instructor. Nevertheless, you will need to reassess the children once you are free.

All along, your free times have been short. At this juncture, therefore, identify distractions that allow some flexibility, such as vacations and weekends, when you can engage the children for more hours each session. These breaks enable you to focus more on the children. Considering your busy schedule and the possibility of burn out, you will most likely have one or two hours daily to check the children’s work and plan tomorrow’s activities. However, the weekends provide more time, whereby you can plan teaching sessions that last over four hours. During leave days and vacations, spend the whole day teaching and guiding the children then rest at night. Moreover, use such breaks to cover some of the daily engagements that you may have missed due to work or study commitments.

As you continue implementing the weekday and off day sessions, adjust the homeschooling program to accommodate new developments. Some of the developments you should be keen on are homeschool cooperatives and groups. An open-minded parent is aware that homeschooling is not limited to only the home setting. Homeschooling cooperatives provide opportunities for field trips and workshops to complement the children’s academics. As such, you should reprogram the children’s lesson plan progressively by introducing sessions where they attend the activities offered by these cooperatives. Also, include an assessment of the children’s experiences during these activities so that they take them seriously. After coming back from work, use these assessments to gauge what your children gained from the activities.

Conclusion

Lastly, do not stress. We are all human and, as such, following through plans and procedures sometimes proves to be difficult. Adopt the above homeschooling guidelines your way. You are not obliged to adhere strictly to each day’s activities or follow the weekly program. Sometimes, you can conduct a week’s session in two days while other times it may even take a fortnight. Thus, when you return home from work or studying and are too exhausted to assess the children meaningfully, just plan for tomorrow’s lessons and inform them on what to do. You will assess them over the weekend or during your days off. Furthermore, you do not have to organize tomorrow’s activities at night. Morning hours may be more convenient for you. As such, you will only prepare the day’s lessons before leaving for work or studying then inform the children or instructor in the form of a note. Your role in the evening will be to verify whether the children studied according to the plan and guide them on what to rectify or improve.