Elizabeth Moore - Blog 6

A few weeks ago I was having a conversation with some friends of mine about home schooling. The general consensus was that though there were some benefits, home schooled children were generally very socially awkward. This lead most of my friends to express that they would never home school their own children. For the most part I felt the same way, until reading this chapter. According to research in the area, home-schooled children “have high self-esteem and are more likely to display fewer behavioural problems then other children” (pg. 188). They also tend to “have better leadership skills” (pg. 188). Part of being a strong leader is being charismatic, therefore home schooled children are obviously getting the proper socialization opportunities. “They were also more likely to get married” (pg. 189). Usually, a person needs to fit into the accepted social norms in order to get married, which provides more evidence for the proper social training of home schooled students.

There are many other benefits to home schooling as well, “the home schooled tend to succeed when they attend university and were more likely to have at least some college education.” (pg. 188). All of these factors have made me reconsider home schooling my own future children. The only problem is, I do not think that I will have enough time to devote to it. As my boyfriend pointed out, if you are home-schooling your children then you cannot have two parents who both work day time shifts, and if I want to be a teacher, that could be tricky.

Discussion Question:
Would you home-school your children? Why or why not?