Homeschooling has its pros and cons, but this month I have been reflecting on how grateful I am to be a homeschool mom. The benefits for our family have outweighed the cons, and I am super grateful to still be homeschooling after 13 years.

Here are some reasons homeschooling has worked for us… (and if you prefer video, check it out below).

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Table of Contents

I have freedom and flexibility as a homeschool mom

I am so grateful for the freedom homeschooling affords our family. We can:

travel whenever we want
choose whatever we want to study
heal up on sick days without taking official sick days at school
listen to our bodies’ normal sleep-wake cycles

Homeschooling offers us the opportunity to really get in sync with our true, authentic selves. That might sound a bit kooky, but we have found this statement to be true in so many ways. We have learned to embrace who we truly are as a family and individually as a result of our homeschool lifestyle.

Never fall behind (built-in sick days)

Having been enrolled in a virtual charter school in the past, my eldest daughter experienced what it felt like to fall behind in schoolwork rapidly. A few sick days here and there, and that schoolwork just began to pile up. Before she could blink she was behind by days and weeks.

Homeschooling independently has offered us freedom from ever having to worry about falling behind. There are no sick days because we simply take care of ourselves when we are with no worries about checking in with the school office or talking with the administration. Once we feel better, we keep on learning, picking up where we left off.

It’s so freeing to not have to worry about letting the higher-ups know that we’re sick and will try to make up for our schoolwork. We just simply live our lives, and if we’re sick we focus on getting better, not on making up schoolwork. Learning continues to happen after our bodies naturally heal.

As a homeschool mom, I cater to my children’s needs

I love, love, love that my homeschool is just that: mine. My kids are mine. My family is mine. I know my kids better than anyone else. My husband and I are always overwhelmed by the freedom we have to cater curriculum and learning opportunities around our children’s needs.

I have learned over the years not to get stuck on any one curriculum and to be okay with making changes, whether that means each year or right in the middle of a semester. Reevaluating our processes is important for maintaining homeschool health. 😊

If my kids need a break to change up the curriculum, or we need to change the direction of our education altogether, we have the freedom to do that.

Also, if our kids have special abilities or interests, we can hone in on those things and make our homeschool exactly the educational setting that our kids need.

Move at our own pace

This is probably one of the most cited reasons homeschoolers have chosen this lifestyle. You don’t realize how much moving at a student’s own pace is crucial until you are in an educational setting that does not allow for flexibility.

I am so grateful, as a homeschool mom, that we can slow down or speed up as necessary.

The reason we were able to finish 3/4 of a Saxon 6/5 book in less than a semester? Because we moved at my daughter’s pace. She knew the content, we moved on. Rather than lingering on the same topic for weeks or stretching out a lesson for sooo long, we simply moved on to the next, and the next, and the next.

Now we are ready to move on to the next level without having had to drag our feet. If we were in a regular classroom setting we may be limited to one lesson per day, with self-checks, homework, chapter tests, quarter tests and so forth.

As homeschoolers, we learn the skill of wrapping things up in a quick fashion: we quiz our kids regularly and sometimes use the “homework” or daily lessons as chapter tests. We ask them to verbally explain procedures. We give them random pop quizzes to compute on a marker board. We play games. We make it relevant.

Spend quality time together

I think the best thing about homeschooling is spending time together with my kids.

It’s the quality time that matters, not quantity…so there are days when our time together is mundane and routine, and that is just the realness of homeschool life. But there are more times than often that we find quality moments that just would not have happened if each child was enrolled in her separate school.

Those key moments when a child asks a pertinent question about our faith, about life, or a general question about the world are unforgettable. I have these moments as gifts to share with my kids my own faith and outlook on life. I can pour into them what I have been given. I can lead them and instill values within them. It’s a beautiful thing- to be able to truly speak into the lives of my girls.

These are reasons I love being a homeschool mom.