Pros And Cons Of Homeschooling-The "Cons"

In an earlier post, I covered some of the possible advantages of homeschooling your children. In this post, I'll go through some of the possible "cons".

Not learning social skills. If a parent is homeschooling because they don't want their kids around "bad influences", they have to be careful not to isolate them from the good influences as well. Parents who homeschool need to make sure their children have an opportunity to be around others of their age. There are ways such as church, groups of parents who homeschool and other community activities that can help with this, so a lack of social skills isn't necessarily a given.

None of the good stuff from school. There are school systems that will allow homeschoolers to do all of the things that can make school fun for some people-a prom, band, study abroad, other extracurricular activities. You would have to look for these, and they might not be available in every area. 

Sheltering. It's natural to want to shield children from the things we things we don't want them to see. However, we can't do this forever. Ultimately they will have to go out into the world (college, jobs, etc), and they need to know how to engage with others who are different from them. If they were taught that people of other religions or ethnic groups-either specific groups or in general-are "bad", they're going to get a rude awakening when they come into contact with said people. Maybe this won't happen if they go to small colleges close to home, but there isn't much of a way to avoid it in "the real world". Even if children are taught to see everyone as equal, they can still go into "culture shock" and end up getting themselves into trouble when they can't handle their sudden freedom.  Without anyone telling them what to do, it's easy to fall into the trap of partying too much and not doing the things they should be doing. Like a lack of social skills, this isn't a "given". It can happen to anyone, but being sheltered by homeschooling (as several people I knew were) may make this more likely.

Influences. Sure, your kids won't be around the “bad influences” in school but, like I said before, they won't be around the good ones either. Not only that, but they won't be able to be good influences to other people as easily as they could if they were in school. Think of it this way-most of the people who were instrumental to my getting to know Jesus were either people I met in school or their parents. If the parents hadn't sent their children to the public school system where I was, I may not be a Christian today. I'm not saying this to “wax religious” so much as to say that, by demonstrating the positive character traits you've given them, your children can have a good influence on others.

Ultimately you're the only one who can decide what is best for your children. Even so, it helps to have some food for thought.