With every program, there are advantages and disadvantages that one needs to consider before taking it up; so in the case of distance learning homeschool. Many parents today are seriously considering distance learning homeschool for their children.
Advantages of distance learning homeschool:
Regular schools put tremendous pressure on students. This pressure is passed on to the parents. Both, parents and children are finding it increasingly difficult to cope with this pressure. Due to this pressure, family and personal lives often get disrupted. Distance learning homeschool, helps take this pressure off. It offers children an opportunity to work at their own pace.
Traditional school leaves hardly any time for kids to pursue other interests and activities. By the time they get home, they are too tired to do anything else. Moreover, they then need to focus on homework. However, with distance learning homeschool, kids are able to fit in other extracurricular activities and hobbies.
Children have different capabilities and coping abilities. All children are not the same. Their grasping levels are different. In traditional schools, all kids are taught on the same platform. Some kids are unable to cope, and get left behind. They, then begin to feel left out. Distance learning homeschool, takes care of this, in the sense, the child can study as per his or her pace. He or she does not feel as if they are lagging behind, as there is no one to compare them to.
There are many advantages of homeschooling, but it is only fair to also consider the few disadvantages that this way of teaching your children brings with it.
It goes without saying that homeschooling requires a huge amount of commitment and sacrifice by the parents, both financially and emotionally. In traditional homeschooling parents are required to devote chunks of time to learning the subject matter, plan and implement a teaching schedule and arrange outside trips for the children – such as field trips or social interactions with other children. This all adds up to a full and demanding day job. To help lessen this burden you can choose to work with an accredited distance learning school who will provide you with your curriculum and teachers to help support your student. This will help to lessen the burden on yourself to create lessons.
Although homeschooling means that parents get to spend considerably more time with their children, the flip side of this is that they may rarely get time to themselves. This can be extremely emotionally demanding as the weeks and months go by. The remedy to this would be scheduling “self” time and making sure to have time to spend time doing things that are important to you.
Unless you are careful, homeschooling may also limit the number of extra-curricular activities which the child can participate in. This includes school sports, excursions, debating and dramatics – all things which are vital to aid the development of the youngster and the improvement of their self-confidence. Sports-based activities are not just about having exercise and keeping fit – they are also about working as a team and understanding others. It will take some planning and scheduling but you can plan really fun extracurricular activities through homeschool co-ops, the local college, non school sports teams, and some distance learning schools, such as Laurel Springs School, actually have school clubs students can participate in virtually.
In conclusion, you must remember that like a coin, everything has two sides, and so in the case with distance learning homeschooling. Any of these disadvantages can be remedied with planning and support. Being a distance learning family is very rewarding and well worth putting the time into it.