In a day and age when a good education is more important than ever, parents want their children to attend the best schools possible. If a private institution is out of the question, the highest-rated public school is the next best thing, but most people rarely talk about home schooling.
I've worked most of my life as a freelance writer and have had the opportunity to get to know many students that are home schooled and who have gone on to achieve great things in life. When I speak to their parents about home schooling, they tell me that they opted for that route for a number of reasons.
The first and most important is the curriculum. There are many well-respected home school courses of study available that provide as much or more education than many public schools do, and the classes students take are always available. In other words, they don't have to worry about a course being filled up or canceled for lack of interest.
Another big boon I hear about home schooling is the lack of social problems students encounter. One lady told me her daughter was being bullied to the point that she felt obligated to remove her from school and have her home schooled, and said that now her daughter is flourishing.
There is definitely a trade-off in the sense that that there are not as many opportunities to interact with peers and develop the same level of social maturity as students who attend private and public schools do, but even that is changing.
I wrote a story a few years ago about a basketball team comprised entirely of players that were part of a home school association. They practiced, played games and traveled together with a group of like-minded young people in which no one is picked on or made to feel isolated.
There are other social activities that parents of home-schooled students can join that will allow their children to interact with their peers.
A good friend of mine recently told me that her son was facing some difficulties in the school to which he had just transferred and was practically begging her to be home schooled. She told me that she did not want to even talk about home schooling, because she, like so many others, feared her child wouldn't receive the same level of education or social development that he would in a traditional school.
I don't think that home school is necessarily for everyone, but I think that there are benefits, and I think if a parent feels that his or her child may do better in such an environment, it is important to at least talk about home schooling as a possible alternative.