MEN'S WEEK PERSPECTIVES

Our last guest blogger for Men's Week is my hubby, Timothy. He works as an accountant and studies computer programming. Since you already know all about my family, and that we've been homeschooling for two years, I won't go into it. Take it away, Timothy!

Some Pros of Homeschooling:

• The child isn’t subjected to the adverse social influences commonly found in public schools, such as:
  Pressure to rebel against and/or express disrespect towards authority
  Pressure to explore and express their sexuality in unhealthy ways
  Pressure to experiment with substance abuse
  
• Hypothetically speaking, the child receives more attention from his teacher, which has the potential, hypothetically speaking, to make the teacher more aware of the child’s needs as a student.
  
• Since the child spends more time in the home, with his parents, than he otherwise would if he were attending public school, this gives the parent more opportunities to bond with and nurture the child.
  
• Lower child-teacher ratio creates more opportunity for the teacher to tailor the curriculum and adjust the pace of teaching to the student’s needs.
  
  

Some Cons of Homeschooling:

• 
  The child isn’t subjected to the adverse social influences commonly found in public schools. (See above.) Lack of exposure to these influences may hinder the development of the child’s ability to resist them.
  
• The care-taking parent doesn’t get as much alone time away from the child. This could create stress that might otherwise be avoided by sending the child away to school for a few hours each day.
  
• The child will not achieve the kind of understanding of social norms and mores that, as I see it, can only be gotten through interaction with his peers in an organic social setting.
  
• The homeschooling family becomes stigmatized and branded by others as weirdos.
  
• Sooner or later the child will need be capable of succeeding in a traditional educational atmosphere, for example, when he goes to college. The homeschooling environment might not adequately prepare him for this.