Christian Homeschool vs Public Schools:

Homeschool vs Public Schools

We are heading towards the school year which will be the end of my first year of online homeschooling my daughter. I wanted to take a minute to post the reasons why we traded public school for homeschooling. As I know a lot of parents are deciding whether they want to send their children back to public school this coming school year. So what do you chose homeschool vs public schools? Luckily for our family, we started online homeschooling in September 2019 and we were well into homeschooling when the coronavirus came. I would eventually like to post more in-depth blogs about homeschooling like the pros and cons, our curriculum reviews, and other topics relating to homeschooling. I heard from other homeschool moms that the first few years can be a little chaotic as your learning what works for your child, yourself, and your family. Trying different schedules and homeschool curriculums as well as learning as a parent what your strengths and weaknesses are.

Our Reasons For Online Homeschooling

Let me start off by saying that homeschool probably isn’t for everyone. I am not suggesting you must homeschool your children or that if you don’t homeschool; you are a sucky parent. I am just sharing our reasons for switching from public school to online homeschool and why it works for us. This post is about how I and my husband view homeschooling and why we took our daughter out of the public school system to receive home education. 

The most influential reasoning for choosing to homeschool would without a doubt be our beliefs. As I grow in my walk I look at more things through a biblical worldview. My daughter’s education is no different, and as a Christian mom I view my daughter’s education as being two-fold. Consisting of a general education obtained through schooling and being educated and raised up in the ways of the Lord. However, the public school system has gone above and beyond to remove God from the public school system. It wasn’t that long ago that my parents were starting their school day with the pledge of allegiance and morning prayer. This is no longer the case, and I have seen myself the shift towards new-age indoctrination in public school curriculums. 

Public School Indoctrination

How can we as believing parents expect our children to follow God’s word all awhile sending our kids to school for countless hours to be indoctrinated with lies and the constant urging to exchange the truth of the Bible in for a worldly, Luciferian worldview? Honestly, I got tired of deprogramming my daughter at the end of each day. I realized this would only result in confusion and we know that God is not the author of confusion. In the last two years of her public schooling, grades 2 and 3, I found myself writing more notes to excuse her from things because it went against our beliefs. For instance, her school started to implement yoga and meditation in Physical Education. If you know anything about the origins of yoga and meditation and the spiritual implications thereof, it’s plain to see why I did not want my daughter to take part in any of that new age junk. Her Spanish class was teaching her about Day of the Dead beliefs, likewise the over-enthusiastic celebrating of Halloween. Let’s not get started on history and the distorted versions we were all unfortunately taught. To this day I am still learning the authentic stories in history as opposed to the twisted versions taught through the public school system. These are just a few of the things that were unsettling about the public school curriculum, but I could sit here for quite some time listing many examples like; the safety and wellbeing of kids at school, the absence of substantial learning vs merely memorizing to regurgitating it for a test, and the damaging effects a one-way learning style for kids who all learn in different ways, the list goes on and on.

Lessons In Socialization

A part of growing up is the painful lessons that we learn and at no point do I believe that I can prevent my child from learning those lessons nor do I want to because it is something we all need to go through. With that being said, there is a fine line between allowing your child to learn these life lessons and allowing these lessons to alter your child and steal their innocence. That is why I am thankful for the first few years my daughter had in public school. It allowed her to learn how to socialize. She learned about friendships and meeting people who share her sense of humor. She learned about bullying, social cliques, and fitting in. She learned the unpleasant lesson that no matter what you do, you cannot make everyone happy, or like you. She learned how to stand up for herself, how to march to the beat of her own drum, and how to take the tough times to God and walk it out in faith. 

We always ended each day with her kid’s bible storybooks and prayer, likewise spending our mornings at the bus stop doing our morning devotional and prayer. I recall so many nights and mornings teaching her how to bring her troubles she was facing to the Lord and how to walk in faith as God moved in her situation. One time in particular that really boosted her faith was when she was dealing with the classic “mean girls” in her class and after months of prayer and putting on the armor of God, God revealed Himself in a big way. She was sitting at the lunch table during the last month of school with all of her friends when the group of mean girls who had been bullying her came up to her and apologized for bullying her. I don’t know about you, but that is not something you hear about every day. That day she flew off the bus with such excitement to share her testimony of answered prayers relating to this situation. 

Higher Learning

So, do I regret the first few years of public schooling? Absolutely not! I think it played a great part in teaching her how to walk in faith, how to be different from the majority when necessary, and how to stand up for what she believes in. However, now that she is reaching the higher grades where she is learning more substantial information, I could not allow her to learn in error any longer. Similarly, there comes a point when the zeal she has for learning is being snuffed out by the distractions in school. My daughter is one of those kids who loves to learn, she is one of those kids who gets frustrated when other classmates are hindering her learning time. She was already acing all of her classes and put into higher learning classes to challenge her. More often than not she felt unchallenged and like the time spent on each lesson was longer than she required, which caused disinterest and boredom. For someone like my daughter, online homeschooling allows us to customize her curriculum to be tailored to her levels of learning in each subject. She can learn at her own pace which prevents her from being held back like she was experiencing in public school.

It Works For Us

For our child and family, online homeschooling has been really wonderful for us. Even though we are just finishing up our first year we have learned a lot along the way. I will continue blogging on our homeschool journey and try to share what we have learned from our experience. I hope to go over some pros and cons of online homeschooling, as well as sharing the programs and Christian curriculums we are using right now. I know that currently much of the world has been thrown into homeschooling their children amid the coronavirus pandemic. So for the parents out there that are on the fence about whether they should continue homeschooling, hopefully, these posts will give you details to consider and overall help you to determine if homeschooling is for your family.

Christian Homeschool Resources Linked Below

Children’s Bible Recommendations

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