Homeschooling: It’s about TIME.

When people find out you homeschool, they usually assume it’s ALL about shelter and wanting to keep your children away from negative influence. Some are defensive when they think we are implying your schools are bad, your teachers are bad, your children are bad, anything outside the door of MY home is bad!

Some may even realize the educational benefit and acknowledge that your children ARE receiving a wonderful education, but they too may get defensive when they think you are implying THEIR educational system is inferior because of that.

While I fully agree with the truth of Psalm 1 and I do believe that in most cases the education received is exceptional, those are not my number one reasons for being passionate about homeschooling. Why do I believe in homeschooling so much then? It’s all about TIME.

Homeschooling gives us TIME which we already have so little of as it is! Time is so precious and the years we have with our children are so few and so fleeting! The children who live next to me get on the bus a little after 7. They usually get home at 4:15. That is nine hours! If they are at school 9 hours and need 10 hours of sleep, what does that leave us? 5 hours? Which is mostly eaten up by homework, dinner, maybe ball practices, or even church? Where is the time? Oh, as long as I make these few hours and weekends and summers QUALITY time, it will all work out! No, I don’t think so.

In order to raise children according to God’s Word, we NEED the quantity time homeschooling allows us.

TIME to teach God’s Word and impress it upon their hearts “when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up”. (Deut. 6:7)

TIME to “bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord”. (Eph. 6:4)

TIME to acquire a biblical worldview, which directly contradicts the worldview learned in school. I could write a whole other article on this, so I will move on...

TIME to be together as a family, time spent learning and playing, time with siblings (which teaches so much all on it’s own). Yes, there should be a balance of family time and social time, but family should far outweigh others on that scale. Homeschooling brings that perfect balance of making our priorities first God, then family, then others. We need this time to keep our hearts connected to our children’s. That is one of the keys to raising children who will eventually make your faith, their faith. I’m so thankful for the precious memories I have with my children--all the little things that happen every day that I would have missed if they were gone.

TIME in the home, a home where God and His Word are the center and the focus of everything. The atmosphere is permeated with the Lord, every school subject is about Him, everything about LIFE is all about Him. Home is primarily where we teach our children God’s ways, where we train them, where we discipline,and yes, where we have fun. Home is the center of it all. Even a few hours out of our home is enough to make me see a decline in all these things.

TIME to learn responsibility and real life. I cannot see how public school prepares children for the “real world”. The real world is not about sitting in a classroom with 20 other people the same age as you. The real world is about responsibility, relating to people of all ages, growing in your walk with the Lord, acquiring life skills, entering the workforce, and being a godly and skilled husband/wife and mother/father. Homeschooling is the “school” for learning about life because homeschooling IS life. It’s a way of life. It’s not sitting down to do a few workbooks from 9am to 3pm and then resuming life. It is a lifestyle that is happening from sunup to sundown--a lifestyle of learning and growing in the Lord.

TIME to pursue your own interests. I cannot say enough about this because as a homeschool graduate myself, I see the importance of it; and I already see the fruit of this in my own children. Children learn best through doing the things that interest them individually. Whether it be through hobbies, the books they choose to read, music, art, even the movies they watch, the possibilities are endless. If a child has an interest or a talent, they need to be allowed the freedom to pursue them as deeply as they desire.

TIME to pursue God. This would be my number one. When I was about 13 or 14 years old, I really began to cultivate my own relationship with the Lord. From then until I graduated at the age of 17, I would spend hours upon hours reading and studying the bible, writing in a prayer journal, and just learning how to commune with Him. When did I do this? When everyone else was in school. Otherwise I would not have had the TIME. Who would I be today had I been communing with teenagers in school rather than the Most High God? I shudder to think. That is the time period of my life that I look back on that truly shaped me. Looking back, I credit who I am today to my high school years--homeschool high school years.

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to Me and don’t hold them back.” So for as long as I can, that is what I’m going to do. I will point the way and when they are ready to go, I will let them come to Him.

Homeschooling is not really home schooling. It’s TIME. It’s living, learning, growing, preparing, enjoying, and so much more

As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD's love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children's children- with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.Psalm 103:13-18

Consider everything you do in the light of eternity...