A number of people describe homeschooling as 'do it yourself education' and most parents immediately see themselves as the 'you' in 'yourself'. As a result, many parents with busy lives earning a living or undertaking other important activities, and particularly single parents, dismiss any ideas of schooling their children at home out of hand. But are they correct to take this course of action? Homeschooling has been with us for a very long time and involves more than one million kids in the US alone and experience demonstrates that are a wide range of options available to parents nowadays. Indeed, it is perhaps not surprising to find that parents in almost every situation you can imagine have found a solution to homeschooling their kids. We are all of course familiar with the traditional two parent family where dad goes out to work and mum stays home and this situation makes homeschooling a quite simple option. Since the 1960s our society has changed a great deal and now there are a whole spectrum of family situations including, same-sex couples, extended families, role reversal, single parents and much more. Every situation carries with it both advantages and problems for homeschooling and it is a matter of studying both and then finding ways to overcome the obstacles and enhance the advantages. As an example, a number of parents turn to their wider family or friends for assistance and invite friends or family into their home to help. This is nothing new of course and, for many years, it was not uncommon for families to offer a friend or an older family member like an grandparent accommodation in exchange for assisting with the education and care of a child. Neighbors can also frequently provide assistance. A number of 'stay-at-home' moms already provide day care for children and, with the steady rise in homeschooling numbers, babysitting services are increasingly being extended to include homeschooling. In a lot of cases families are also combining their resources to provide homeschooling on a 'group' basis. Yet another increasingly popular option is that of employing a tutor. Tutors nowadays come from a variety of different backgrounds, at all ages and include both specialists, such as those teaching music or languages, as well as of course general tutors. Indeed, it is not uncommon to find ex-public or private school teachers who have become dissatisfied with the 'system' turning to tutoring because of their basic love of teaching. The majority of parents believe that private tutoring is simply out of their reach financially but, having researched the subject carefully, they are frequently surprised to find that the cost of tutoring is not beyond their means. One other very important consideration is the children themselves. It is often surprising just how well motivated kids are by the independent nature of homeschooling and many parents find that teaching a child at home can be considerably less time consuming than you might think. Should you find yourself tempted by the advantages of homeschooling over the present poor public school system then you should avoid the common pitfall of simply dismissing the idea out-of-hand. Take the time to explore the choices open to you and you might well be surprised to discover that it is not as difficult as you think.
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