There are many reasons parents choose homeschooling for their children. Understanding what the advantages are is essential. While the advantages of homeschooling are significant, these benefits are even more consequential during the COVID-19 pandemic.
If you or a family member is at high risk for complications from COVID-19, homeschooling your child or children is recommended. It is never worth putting yourself or the lives of loved ones at risk from this deadly virus.
Homeschooling Considerations
Homeschooling provides both parent and child with excellent opportunities for parental bonding and significant flexibility when it comes to the learning curriculum. Parents can steer their child’s education into areas that will best enhance their passions and gifts and utilize the staples of traditional education.
Through homeschooling opportunities, students are encouraged to become self-reliant and more involved in their own education process. This can help prepare them for higher education, where self-discipline and self-reliance are critical to higher education success.
Socialization and Homeschooling
One of the disadvantages of homeschooled children can be the lack of regular daily social interaction. School social interaction can help promote a stronger sense of self and better long term social skills. However, some school environments are unhealthy because of bullying and toxic peer pressures. This should be a consideration when weighing whether homeschooling is the right option for your child long term as well as during the COVID pandemic.
Another advantage to in-person classes is the variety of teachers and educational platforms that children are exposed to. Children in both public and private schools get a wide variety of learning settings. Their exposure to music, the arts, school activities and presentations, science programs, and sports is a significant boost to their overall development.
While many kids miss the socialization, educational platforms, and multitude of teachers in public and private school environments, there are ways to get homeschooled children this exposure. Homeschooled children can get involved in a multitude of other educational platforms, non-school sports, and peer interactions even when they do not take in-person classes.
One of the best ways during COVID to continue to allow children to get this type of exposure is through a hybrid educational platform. This educational experience allows children to have exposure to educators and their peers through an online forum, which includes real-time classroom experiences with their peers. This can help seed long term friendships with students that can become in-person friendships once the pandemic threat has passed.