Читать книгу Homeschooling For Dummies - Jennifer Kaufeld - Страница 15

When your child spends her days in a home where she’s loved, cared for, and guided to knowledge, she’s in the best possible place. If you truly have her best interests at heart (and what parent doesn’t?), then you’ll ensure that she learns to read and add. Even if you miss something along the way, your child will grow to be a productive, useful adult. She can always pick up a community college course in the subject later if it proves to be extremely important to daily life. I know it’s hard to believe, but many balanced, rational people came from educational systems that offered no weekly art class. (If you and your child love art, then structure it as a course in your homeschool. Your child will survive, however, if he learns everything but art appreciation.)

With the energy and assurance that comes from knowing that you’re doing what’s best for your family, you can homeschool until and even through college. Although many parents are ready for their children to spread their wings and fly a bit after high school and encourage their fledglings to seek schooling or work outside the nest, some situations encourage you to homeschool even through college. For the 12-year-old who is ready for calculus, college at home is the best possible solution — after all, she needs to pursue some type of schooling until at least age 16. Community or online college courses meet these students’ needs while allowing them to mature.

Just because you can homeschool through high school, of course, doesn’t mean that you have to. Many families pull their children out of school for one or two years to help them over a tough academic or social spot. Then, after the problem is corrected and the student reads at grade level again or the sticky social situation irons out, they send their child back to school. The bottom line is doing what’s best for your student. If he only needs a year away from the school routine to catch up, and you’re comfortable sending him back after that year is over, send him! You may find, however, that after a year or two at home, he really doesn’t want to return, and you don’t want him to go. That’s okay, too.

Most families take teaching one year at a time even after they homeschool several years. Those who find that homeschooling enhances family life and family schedules tend to stick with it the longest. We spent several years homeschooling during a time that the kids’ dad traveled much of the time with his job. Because of our flexibility, we could periodically pack the schoolbooks in the middle of the fall, winter, or spring and go with Daddy to a conference. After we arrived in the conference city, I covered school in the hotel room during the early mornings, and we would take advantage of local museums, parks, city fountains, and pools for the rest of the day. My daughter still says she did math in every hotel she ever saw.