When people choose to homeschool their kids, they do it for numerous reasons. No matter how it looks like from the outside, some parents make this decision simply because that’s what suits their family best.
A new study comes with answers. There are three main reasons why most families choose to do so. Here they are:
- Covid-19
- More flexibility and freedom to shape their kids and their learning experience
- More attention for the child
Of all the options given to the homeschoolers, when it comes to motivation, the two that came in last were “political aspects of public schools” and “wanting to provide religious instruction to my child”.
58% of parents responded that the pandemic was very important when making this decision, while 23% did it for religious instruction.
But the real question is: do parents choose to homeschool their children because of how horrible traditional schools are? One parent stated: “Distance learning gave us a chance to shadow the classroom and see what was actually going on. Some of it was quite disappointing.” 62% of other parents voted that “concerns about academic quality at other schools” for very and extremely important in taking the decision to homeschool their children.
One parent talked about the experience of her third-grader: kids were struggling to learn, grades were low, and they just didn’t want to deal with that teacher. Other stories show that teachers ask parents to homeschool their children because they cannot engage well with the other students.
Parents of kids with special needs also had a say in this, criticizing the traditional schools. 52% of parents checked that lack of accommodations for my child” was very and extremely important in homeschooling children.
So maybe homeschooling is not done, in fact, for the wrong reasons.
