Why should Tim and Rhoda learn at home instead of going to school? Well, first of all, you don’t have to wake them up before 7 am every morning, bundle them off to school with instructions and food packs, and wait anxiously until they return.

Homeschooling feels taboo for many Nigerians. Most don’t even understand what it is or what it involves. This is what this article is for.

DISCLAIMER: This is not in any way going to be an ad. I will only educate you on what you should know about the subject, and nothing more.

What is Homeschooling?

What is Homeschooling?

Homeschooling means schooling at home. Simple. When your babies who would have been in a school are at home learning, that is homeschooling. Homeschooling can be just anywhere outside a regular school.

It is usually done by a parent, or tutor. Online or offline. Homeschooling may use less formal teaching methods. It can be more personalised, so that it focuses on one child at a time. We don’t have that in schools.

There are many programs that help the progress of home-schooled children. These programs may include play-learning, visits to parks, field trips, competitions, etc.

Benefits of Homeschooling

Homeschooling gives you more control over what your child takes in. You can now watch the growth and development of your child without feeling clueless.

You, and you alone, can and should decide what your child needs to do or learn. You can ask for professional help in this regard, though. When you are homeschooling, you can create your own set of topics.

Let me explain it this way. In traditional schooling, the government decides things. They can say that children this age must all learn these set of topics in this set period. That is a curriculum.

What if your child is not up to that in pace? They will say your child is a dullard. Whereas, all children are different! Your child may walk later than your cousin’s, but it doesn’t mean your child is sick. Every child is different.

So, with homeschooling, you can decide what you want your child to learn and when.

Another benefit is individual attention. For instance, if Rhoda needs more time to learn Math, she can reduce the time for her English lessons.

Here’s another example. Some children learn by practical hands-on activities. Some children learn by taking instructions. Traditional schools download all the children with instructions all the same. When some children don’t learn, they say they are behind!

With homeschooling, you follow your child’s learning style.

There are no fixed hours of learning per subject. This means that a child can spend more hours on a topic that seems tough WITHOUT any pressure. The time needed to learn will depend on the child’s abilities, program, and interests.

The child’s education becomes an extended family activity. Parents get involved in every step of the learning process.

Field trips and experiments become family activities. Thus, the child spends more quality time with his parents. The entire family shares games, chores, and projects. Family closeness becomes the focus here. The child is also free of any negative peer pressure while making choices and decisions.

There is very little competition in homeschooling. Don’t get me wrong. Competition can be a good thing when done well. But it can become unhealthy and traumatise a child. The goal of every child-based competition should be to learn, show effort and help the child grow. Many competitions in schools focus on winners and losers. Heck, even exams and tests are competitive!

See, your child does not need to prove his ability is above other children. His confidence should be that he is getting better and learning new things. Since you understand your child, you can plan the learning program to hold their interest. You can also mix difficult tasks with fun activities. We will discuss this further later in this report.

Example: A trip to the nearest park can follow a tough hour of math.

Learning becomes personal fun. Parents can also tailor the curriculum to suit the child’s learning style. Some children learn through reading. Some need to write. Some need to see objects in action. And others need to DO.

Homeschooling allows parents to control their child’s moral and religious learning. You can add topics around your beliefs and ideologies into your child’s curriculum. You will not fear your child coming home with new foreign ideologies.

This means your child is not confused. And they can see that what they are learning is the same thing they are seeing you do at home.

Indeed, the school system is disappointing us more and more. Many parents feel that their children are being pushed too hard or too little.

Studies are showing that it is unfair to group children on the basis of their age. I could read when I was 4 and was in the same class with some children who could not even identify the letter A!

Homeschooling is the best way to teach your child. If you have the time, ability, and interest in their education, home school them.

After all, nobody can understand or appreciate your child more than you.

Public schooling actually mean general schooling. That is the traditional way to group children in classes based on their age or performance. Public schools can be private-owned or Government-funded.

Disadvantages of General Schooling

When we say ‘public schools’ in Nigeria, people think only Government-funded schools. They picture broken walls and bald children with lice and ringworm.

Well, public schooling actually means general schooling. That is the traditional way to group children in classes based on their age or performance. Public schools can be private-owned or Government-funded.

So, what are the disadvantages of sending a child (especially a toddler) to a public school?

Disadvantages

You want to get ‘quality education.’ That is why you put your child in a school. But are you getting your money’s worth?

Morestill, are the children gaining anything from this kind of learning experience? Let’s talk about some reasons people take their babies to school.

Socialization

I hear it a lot. They say public school is where the child picks up the social skills that help him survive. Is that true? Let us look at some facts.

Fact. Children learn and communicate through play. Play is the language that children speak. Does being around other children mean children get to play together? Not always the case. For example, several studies say children start Associative Play at 3-4 years.

You may say, that’s right. That is the school-age! Wrong! Teachers almost never allow children to play in the classroom.

In fact, a regular school-going child can interact with his peers or, most likely, his seatmates. That is if the teacher doesn’t catch them. This means schools frown upon play. Also means children do not actively learn.

A typical school going child may not know how to behave around an adult. This is because he interacts only with his peers in the school environment.

A homeschooling environment creates a more natural social environment. This is where you can understand what it means to fail, and try again in love, freedom, and so on. Rudiments of social interaction.

Learning Life Skills

Let’s talk about life skills. Reading, for one. This skill is an individual process. Each child is to learn it separately. Still, unless your child has after school help, they cannot do many things. Yet you pay school fees. Who are you kidding?

And another thing. It is also difficult to make a public school-going child keep silent or think in depth about any one thing.

Why?

The artificial ‘busy’ness imposed upon him by the school disallows quiet contemplation. Instead, he copies the rowdy and destructive behavior he sees.

Learning for Tests

my biggest issue with schools is that they don’t teach for long-standing knowledge. They teach for the exam. There is no correlation of facts with life.

Your child may know a lot, but he only understands very little. He cannot apply what he learns in school to real life. This is where the home schoolers beat the regular school goers. Home schoolers are usually better in the outside world.

Is Homeschooling for Poor People?

In Nigeria, a child dressing up and leaving home every morning shows how rich his parents are. If your child always stays at home, people will think you are poor. That is why people think that homeschooling is cheap. But this is far from the truth.

Homeschooling is not cheap. Let’s take an example. In Caston Vienna Tutors, our Ultimate Homeschooling Package is the biggest. The program has the tutor come to your home to help you and your child. It N250,000 per month at the time of writing. That is N750,000 every regular school term.

Many ‘standard’ private-owned public schools accept less.

When you need state-of-the-art education to raise a well-rounded adult, expenses will mount.

The actual cost of educating a child at home is high. You may need textbooks, worksheets, a library, printer, lighting, and extra furniture.

Add to this any tuition costs for specialist tutors. You may not be able to teach all subjects yourself. The total cost can be a bit mind-boggling.

If you take another important factor into consideration, homeschooling costs may triple. What is that? It’s the fact that at least one parent will is at home with the child. Meaning only one parent will work.

This is not scary because many things that rake up costs can be optional. For example, if you work with us, you don’t need so many costly things. We provide most of them. We also offer discounts for group funded events. Events like field trips, science projects, and fairs.

Whatever the cost, the benefits far outweigh them. When you can decide what, when and how your child learns. You get a lot of freedom and power.

The children and the parents enjoy this enriching experience.

Grading in homeschooling

The teacher in charge does the grading in homeschooling. In most cases, this means mom or the tutor!

In my job, we encourage parents to grade their children themselves. Grading can get tricky because it can be a little difficult to grade your child.

There is no benchmark against which you can test your child’s performance. In most cases, you also have no awareness of how well other children are doing. That’s why you cannot follow the traditional method of grading.

When grading a homeschooling child, you have to assess the child’s understanding. That means you will ask the child questions yourself, and send us the mark. We record it.

This will work in your child’s favor in two ways.

Firstly, the child knows that if they fail to catch on, you will repeat it until they master it. Secondly, the child also knows that once they master topic, they will get full credit for the hard work.

Getting a full reward for the hard work put in is great motivation, especially for children.

When assessing your child’s abilities, do not allow emotions to overcrowd your rationale. Do not yield to the cries and tears of your child if he or she resists certain topics or subjects. If mastering these skills is necessary, then you, as the teacher (and not as the parent alone), have to go over the topic over and over till it sinks in. When dealing with tougher concepts, the child may get restless and even show frustration or belligerence.

When the child is still young and unable to understand the importance of his lessons, it is your responsibility to see to it that the child develops the skill set necessary for future growth.

When grading your child, make sure that you use as many external tests as possible.

There are several websites that deal with the various age groups and allow free downloading of question papers.

The scores, therefore, will reflect his true intelligence.

This is an excellent and cost-effective method to assess your child.

If done properly, homeschooling will boost the child’s confidence because he will be studying to satisfy his natural curiosity. The scores, therefore, will reflect his true intelligence.

Homeschooling Hours

How many, how often, and when?

These are some oft-repeated questions when it comes to homeschooling hours. Flexibility is, of course, one of the key underlying principles behind homeschooling.

This flexibility applies not only to the curriculum but also to the number of hours.

It is only natural that parents, especially if they have just started homeschooling, feel that their children should always be at their books when regular schoolgoers are at school.

This is fallacious, damaging, and counterproductive.

One of the most ignored but glaring drawbacks of the public school system is the sheer waste of time and energy that it causes.

Many periods are simply wasted away, and the child effectively derives only 1–3 hours of study every day. Then, there are days when the studies become too intensive, and other days when it’s only games and no work at all. There is a lot of ‘invisible waste’ involved here.

Early on in your homeschooling practice, work out a schedule. It is advisable to stick to the same hours every day. If you work with a homeschooling agency, you will get a schedule every month.

A routine makes it easier to learn and gives structure to the learning experience.

It also tells the students that their parents are strict about their learning. A routine also allows your child to free his mind from other activities and concentrate on his studies. He knows that a particular time is strictly set aside for learning.

The actual number of hours that you need depends on the curriculum you have chosen and the learning style that suits your child. If you are dealing with a subject that seems more complex, you may need to sit with the child for a longer period.

It may be necessary to demonstrate what you are trying to teach using various techniques. For instance, a lesson in Algebra may take more time than a lesson in English.

Homeschooling does not refer to the practice of sitting in front of books and learning the printed matter. Field trips, watching documentaries, and visiting factories and libraries are important to homeschooling. It makes sense to intersperse these activities so that learning becomes fun.

You may want to finish off the few hours of textbook learning in the morning and dedicate the afternoons to these kinds of activities.

Remember that at home, he is getting a high-quality one-to-one time that is highly productive. About 1–3 hours of study is enough at the primary level.

Given the fact that too many public school hours are wasted in meaningless activities ranging from talking to extra-curricular activities, do not allow public school hours to dictate the time you should spend teaching your child at home.

Remember that he is getting high-quality, highly productive, one-to-one time at home. About 1–3 hours of study are enough at the primary level.

It is, of course, true that the more hours you put in, the more learning takes place.

This is also the reason why homeschooling children are much smarter and more balanced than regular school-going children.

Online Homeschooling

If Tim is fascinated by the blinking cursor and struggles to master the movements of the mouse, you may want to look into some of the recent online homeschooling programs.

Gone are the days when parents had to buy material from vendors and then pass it on to their children with explanations. Today, you can get the full course details, material, and test papers online.

Children love to sit at the computer. In addition to making them feel like adults, the computer also makes use of visual and sound mediums to make learning fun and easy.

Streaming video and audio show various scientific processes in great detail. The colorful pictures and the various techniques used help to bind the data to the child’s memory effectively.

If harnessed properly, a child can assimilate an astonishing amount of information from that great resource sitting right there at your table—your PC.

Disadvantages of Homeschooling

My people say everything that has advantages has disadvantages too.

It’s not all hunky-dory and smooth sailing on the homeschooling front. Like all things in life, the downside must be seriously considered when thinking about homeschooling.

Though one man’s poison may be another man’s meal, there are certain common reasons for concern with homeschooling.

Responsibility

For one, the responsibility of teaching your child rests solely on you. You may have help from tutors, but you cannot leave the entire responsibility to them.

If your child cannot do the things expected of other children in his age group, it reflects badly on you as an educator and a parent.

Time

Another critical part of homeschooling is the time that you have to spend with your children.

You may have to give up your friends, shopping, and other entertainment and dedicate all that time to your child. This can become frustrating at times. You have to learn to take the aggravation with equanimity and wait for the rewards with patience and enthusiasm.

Financial Stress

A parent who is dedicated to tutoring his or her child single-handedly does not realistically have much time left over for a career. This means that the family is robbed of an additional source of income. In turn, this may lead to stress over finances.

You will have to train yourself to live on a strictly controlled budget. While this is a matter of habit, it does take some getting used to.

No Breaks

You cannot take a break when you feel like it. Feelings of guilt will assail you if you neglect their studies just because you are feeling blue. You also fear that the child will take advantage of the situation.

Even when you have given homework, you have to be around to give a helping hand. This means that you are on duty anytime your child is around you!

For some, this may mean working every waking hour. The child studying at home also needs to get out more. This comes from staying at home all the time.

Social Interactions

You must consider their interaction with adults and other children needs to be given special attent.

Children who learn at home cannot develop in the directions open to children in schools. To achieve that kind of exposure, you either have to be a super-parent skilled in everything or enroll your child in various activities, like ballet, coding, etc.

Adjustment

Lastly, if you want to enroll your child in a public school later in life, there may be a certain period of emotional and social adjustment.

A child used to being at home for the whole day and enjoying so much uncontained freedom may have to undergo some distressing emotional upheavals before getting used to the rigors of regular school life.

How to Homeschool Your Child

Now that you have decided that homeschooling is the way to educate your child, get ready for the ecstasy and the anxiety. The road ahead is a bit bumpy, but the rewards more than make up for it.

Producing a well-adjusted and well-rounded personality is no mean achievement.

First of all, look for a community. If you live in a friendly neighbourhood, your friends will try to stop you from homeschooling.

At the very least, they may raise a lot of uneasy questions in your mind. They may start asking why your child is not going to school.

We have a community of parents and children homeschooling with us. They reinforce the drive and insulate themselves from regular schoolgoers’ criticism.

We organize fun events like visits to the zoo, museums, pleasure parks, etc.

As your children hit it off with other homeschoolers, they build lasting friendships. They don’t have to feel terrible when their friends change schools. These groups provide an important avenue for socialization.

The next important thing to do is select a curriculum. Parents who work with us skip this step. We choose a curriculum when we understand the child. This understanding of the child phase can take up to a month!

Set certain ground rules. Homeschooling requires a lot of self-discipline and hard work.

Here is a comprehensive list of the things you will need:

1) Eagerness to learn

2) Hard work and effort

3) Discipline

4) Time and patience

5) Flexibility

6) Enthusiasm

Consider why you want to opt for homeschooling. Your motives and your reasons are important. They’re pillars on which the whole idea of your child’s lessons depends.

Also, consult with your children. Ask them what they feel about

homeschooling.

Select a curriculum or custom-make a curriculum that best suits your child.

Record keeping is an important part of homeschooling.

Look into the various methods of record keeping. Set up a schedule. Your child does not have to learn for 6–7 hours a day. Allow him or her to dictate the time. Flexibility and fun are the cornerstones of homeschooling.

Do not stuff too many skills into a single term or year. Prepare a skill list. Make the child learn the skills that he is ready for.

Gentle parenting is the secret to successful homeschooling.

Children make great advances in learning and show more enthusiasm.

They also turn out to be well-balanced and well-informed when they learn at home.

Homeschooling is legal and recognized in Nigeria. Yet, it takes a lot to commit to it. Nothing good comes easy. If you need any help, you can always contact our Headteacher on Instagram. She is ever ready to help you.